THE CALL FOR A NEW POPULIST ALLIANCE:
Some Initial Reflections
Philip Alade Ajofoyinbo
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[*] This most recent and final, pre-formal publication version of the essay was first printed on February 1st, 1996. It supersedes all prior versions. It was reprinted on February 26th to address some typographical and wordprocessing mishaps.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Much to my own surprise, I was rather moved by Ronnie Duggar's discussion of his recent call[1] for the revival of a Progressive populist movement (on Ian Master's `Background Briefing' program; KPFK, Los Angeles, December 17th, 1995). My surprise, which was a very pleasant one, certainly was not due to there being a dearth of proclamations and `calls to action' on the part of some self-described Progressive organizations[2] who, it seems to me, often exaggerate the extent to which they have transcended the tendencies which their biting critiques of the larger social order rightly expose, and who therefore arrogantly insist upon being exempted from remedial actions implicit in same.[3]

No, my surprise stemmed precisely from the freshness and genuinely consultative spirit that had inspired the call and was shaping the project it was meant to spawn. As I listened to Mr. Duggar's exposition of his own views and those of others who have consulted with him about what I will tag here as `The New Populism', I could not resist the hope that IT might just be the movement that will define the difference between real grassroots political organizing and what someone has aptly termed `astro-turf mobilizing.' I must also admit that my excitement about certain aspects of the idea of The New Populism derives, in part, from their coinciding with some views of my own that have been evolving over the past decade or so.

My first concrete answer to `the call' was to attend the public meeting that took place at the Southern California Library for Social Research, only an hour after Ronnie Duggar went off the air. What follow are some reactions (coherent, I hope) to what I heard from Mr. Duggar, other invited speakers at the public meeting (especially Peter Camejo of the Alameda Progressive Alliance from Northern California), and individuals in the audience. (Since I only have paraphrased recollections and not verbatim notes of what was said, I apologize in advance to any named speaker who feels that his/her views are shortchanged here.) With time running out on the official program, I attempted to make some of the points to be found below, albeit in sketchier and more oblique terms.

In this section, I want to highlight the aspects of the call for The New Populism--at least, what has come to my attention thus far--that I find most compelling. These are: (1) its organic and horizontal impulse; (2) its renewal of the focus on the antidemocratic essence of a corporatist social order; (3) the framework which that focus could provide for a transnational populism; (4) its great potential as a project in political education to expose the two-party system for the mirage of choice that it, ultimately, is; and (5) its attempt to recover and rehabilitate the history of Progressive populism as an alternative to offer the electorate. Due to a concern about the length of this piece, however, only the first two points will be elaborated upon here. In the next section, I will turn my attention to questions and issues of concern I have about The Call in particular, and about defeatist back-tracking in some sectors of the so-called Progressive front.

Organizational Demeanor

First, I already made a passing reference to the consultative demeanor of The New Populism, as envisaged by Ronnie Duggar. I call this `organic' above in order to emphasize its `thing-in-the-making' nature. All through what he had to say about the call for The New Populism, Mr. Duggar repeatedly emphasized the unfinished, input-inviting character of the project. (All too often, what masquerades as a call for `input' is merely a request to `sign on'.)

The New Populism's stance is `horizontal', it would appear, not only in structural design (decentralized and coalition-driven), but also in what I would call `organizational culture' or ethos. Ample evidence of this inclination was to be found in the many instances in which Duggar clearly demarcated HIS opinion or judgment about some programmatic matter from those of colleagues with whom he is consulting. He even went so far as to reveal (shudder, shudder, in some Progressive quarter!) that there had been mention of exploring alternative approaches to organizational procedures such as might be borrowed from groups like the Quakers![4]

I, for one, applaud this horizontal, consensus-targeted impulse, and consider those genuinely interested in nourishing it to be quite courageous, given the context of a political culture--whether right- or left-wing--in which people have absorbed the principle of `knowing their place' in the `scheme of things.' To the extent that a horizontal decision-making style interferes with a deeply-ingrained preference for hierarchical structures, any suggestion of flattening the decision-making model fills even self-styled `Progressives' with apprehension or even fear. Needless to say, this way of doing things (the contra-hierarchical one) often can be quite untidy and necessarily time-consuming. But I'm idealistic (unpragmatic?) enough to think that it can be made to work, especially when people are committed to social transformation for the long haul.

In any case, if it turns out to be possible to stave off the challenges of the technocratic mavens of industrial-grade efficiency--those who hamstring themselves by artificial deadlines, whether self-imposed or dictated by their opponents--and the horizontal model is afforded the time to take root, then I think this impulse could become a powerfully motivating and cohesive force for The New Populism. But it MUST be seen to guide the actual mode of operation, not be merely the slogan by which the led are orchestrated into passively following their leaders.

The relevance of the organizational impulse of The New Populism to the larger issue of socio-politico-economic transformation is that, once they become accustomed to being active participants within the alliance of New Populism, its members should be that much less tolerant of the grossly unfair, hierarchical status quo.

The cause of greater clarity requires me to say something about the CONTEXT in which I argue in favor of a `consensus- targeted' organizational style in this essay. That context is INTERNAL to what I have been referring to as the Progressive camp. It is not EXTERNAL to it--that is, between Progressives and their ideological opponents. This is the difference between a search for consensus that should result in a more cohesive Progressive agenda and one that would bargain too much of the defensible substance of that agenda away in return for being more easily absorbed into an all-too-narrow mainstream consensus.

Also, consensus-seeking is NOT, as far as I am concerned, synonymous with a dread of the sort of conflict which often cannot be avoided when radically differing interpretations of reality, and what to do about them, are involved. In a document I wrote two-and-a-half years ago, I wrote the following:

Focus On The Corporate Threat to Participatory Democracy

This brings me to the issue of the ever-expanding corporate control of our lives, not just in such obvious areas as the shaping or even manufacturing of our tastes as consumers of goods and information, or the determination of economic life-chances, but more ominously in the realm of democratic governance itself. (One might say that this is the fullest reach of the privatization of the public sphere.) While it is true that many authors have written extensively in this analytical genre (Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti and Howard Zinn, to mention three of my contemporary favorites), the call for The New Populism represents the first attempt I am aware of to mobilize resistance against not just one `bad corporate citizen', but the concept of the `corporate citizen' itself. This notion, which is odder than it sounds, has actually been codified into case-law through cumulative court decisions dating back to the last century. I wholeheartedly agree with Ronnie Duggar that the conferral of some Constitutional rights and privileges of civic personhood upon a legal artifice such as a corporation, combined with the superpersonal resources available to such an entity, warrants great concern for the integrity of a democratic social order. If enough people can be helped to understand this issue, it might just be possible to organize to, so to speak, make the `person' in the Constitution strictly biological again. Then, the real (biological) persons responsible for corporate decisions can more readily be held accountable. Without discounting the stark relief into which analyses grounded in political economy often succeed in putting contemporary issues (globalization of capital and the lowering of living standards for wage-earners everywhere, the class bias of the attacks against the Welfare State here and abroad, etc.), I think that the phenomenon of the personification of the corporation might just resonate with more people.

Incidentally, although it is the commercial variant of the species I have had in mind when I use the term `corporation', I am just as bothered by the personification of the `nonprofit corporation.' I am of the opinion that the wholesale superimposition of the definition of `corporation' from the private (commercial) sector on nonprofit, public-interest organizations was a milestone in the subjugation of popular governance to private, financial interests.[5] This is because, by being required to assume a legal pose, vis `a vis the public, that is almost as standoffish as that which for-profit corporations find beneficial, nonprofits are always in danger of facing the paradox that they who, ideally, can mediate between private interests and the public good, ARE De Jure private actors with corporate `interests' of their own to defend.

In addition to, or elaboration of, the problematic issues implicit in my discussion of the call for The New Populism above, the following two, broad categories of potential problems/questions will be identified in this concluding part of the essay: (1) The counterproductive potential of an albatross of a careless or disingenuous diagnosis of disunity among Progressive forces and (2) the self-defeating nature of a growing inclination among would-be Progressives to VALIDATE the ill-gotten gains of the LINGUISTIC RE-ENGINEERING by the retro-revolutionaries.

Now, it might strike some people as rather odd that there is no explicit mention of the enormous disadvantage, where material resources are concerned, that The New Populism will face. This conscious omission is meant to underscore both the obviousness of this disadvantage and the superfluousness of its mention. I mean, what greater truism can all the studies in political economy, past and present, have to offer other than the fact of the great disparity between the wealth at the disposal of the overwhelming majority of the citizens who comprise the Demos versus that actually controlled by the few to whom the capitalist social order affords dominion? If the fate of The New Populism were to be seen to depend on competition for access to material resources with those who now have most of it, then the call for it would sound rather more like a dirge mourning the internment of a noble idea than a call to action.[6] No, I emphasize these other potential problems here because I believe that coming to grips with them will enable The New Populism to harness its real strengths.

There is probably no more fitting place than at this point to raise the alarm on a quite conventional idea now being embraced by hyper-pragmatic Progressives. I would go so far as to call it an `ideological Trojan horse.' How often do you now hear the declaration "You can't quarrel with success (of the opposition)!"? Yes, Virginia, you CAN! In fact, if you are a thinking member of this or any other society, you MUST be prepared to quarrel with what often passes for `success.' If you have to fail, as far as your vision is concerned, in order to succeed regarding some end which might be considered just, I would say that there is a sense in which your success will have been a failed one!

Another Look At the Diagnosis of Disunity Among Progressives

Let me now return to the first major concern I have about the call for The New Populism--what I called a `.... potential of an albatross of .... diagnosis of disunity among Progressive forces.' As the retro-revolutionaries have gone into their high reverse gear, it has become all-too-predictable to hear many Progressives engage in hand-wringing about the absence of unity on their side of the political map. Not too surprising, then, that Ronnie Duggar emphasized this diagnosis as a major factor necessitating the call for The New Populism.

In order to make clear my views on this diagnosis, I think it is useful to distinguish between TURF UNITY and PURPOSE UNITY, as objectives worth pursuing. (While I concede the point that there is a practical interdependence between the two, I nevertheless submit that it helps to be clear about which kind of unity one finds wanting in a given situation.) When Mr. Duggar points to turf warfare and the reluctance to share membership information as hindrances to a Progressive agenda, I could not agree with him more. But I would argue that, in one sense, this is less the inevitable consequence of the content of that agenda than it is that of the unfortunate admixture of the otherwise healthy character of the vigorous debate (enlightening, it is to be hoped) that should shape it, and the corporatizing of the identities of the groups that define themselves as making up the Progressive camp. (To get a different casting of the relationship between content and cohesion of the Progressive agenda, see below .) When the maintenance of group X's `corporate' identity (and all that goes with it--credit-taking for legislative successes, visibility, fundraising ability, and who the CEO-like leader happens to be, etc.) becomes more substantive than the integrity of the issue it was supposedly formed to address, the stage is set for a turf-battle with a similarly situated group Y.

While turf-based disunity should be eschewed and condemned, `purpose unity' should not be forced down a chain of command. Rather, a Progressive unity of purpose must be worked at, through horizontal give-and-take within and between coalescing groups. In the absence of a reverence for a paternalistic authority, which I see as being more in keeping with a reactionary worldview, this consensual unity is the only kind that can set the right tone for the contrasting political disposition that The New Populism ought to want to bring about. The fact that so many self-described Progressives share with mainstream American culture an attention-span that keeps getting shorter and shorter, not to mention an intellectual laziness that prefers ideas as prepackaged as other consumer items, argues for a lot more self-reflection about how far they want social change to go. A participatory search for clarity on issues of concern DOES take time, and it dismays me greatly when many people consider such time to be wasted. "Can we just DO something?," they cry out. A great deal HAS been DONE which we now say we want UNDONE!

An important distinction that I think the diagnosis of Progressive disunity often comes close to missing altogether is that between BREADTH OF SCOPE of an agenda and its INCOHERENCE. As far as the first attribute is concerned, it is undeniable that what can be considered to be the Progressive agenda is very broad indeed. Think of all the causes and issues of concern around which groups that would describe themselves as Progressive have formed. I should hope that it is this `scope factor' which many, myself included, now and then find exasperating, if not overwhelming. But does it necessarily amount to incoherence? I think not; if it did, who will have to decide what issues should be sacrificed on the altar of the simplicity of the agenda? It seems to me that Progressives can react to the scope factor in one (or more) of three ways: They can (1) celebrate it as testifying to the far reach of their humanistic concern, (2) analyze it as providing multidimensional evidence indicting the status quo, or (3) attempt to, borrowing a metaphor from the '92 national political season, shrink their tent and, hence, the number of those that are welcome under it. I, for one, do not consider this last possibility to be tenable.

I cannot leave the matter of the diagnosis of disunity among Progressives without confronting its implications for the DIVERSITY debate. As a Black person, who refuses to be hoodwinked into believing that a color-blind society came into being with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, I have great apprehension that the cure that might be prescribed by some for the diagnosed malady of Progressive disunity is the muzzling, for the sake of political expediency, of those who do not want to lend their silence to the cause of others who have tired of the struggle for social transformation (in race and gender relations, ethnic pluralism, etc.). Worse yet, there is the danger of an ironic, practical alliance with those who seek nothing less than the undoing of what transformation has already occurred.

To illustrate how strongly I feel about the need to acknowledge diversity in any dialogical situation, I quote the following from the same document from which a passage was excerpted on page above:

The larger relevance of the point of the above passage to the question of how united the Progressive agenda should be lies precisely in how the question is raised. Rather than an approach which REQUIRES me to JETTISON a STIPULATED number of concerns in order to PROVE my commitment to a united cause, I would be much more open to one which began with a joint delineation of areas of sufficient agreement such that co-operation can proceed. The narrowing of differences on more contentious issues would have to depend on ongoing, mutually-respecting dialog. Such a process would be helped, no doubt, by reciprocating gestures of reassurance. This sort of unification seems to me to be especially essential where there are long-standing, institutionalized inequities in power-sharing.

Progressives and the Contestation of Altered Meanings

Finally, there is that cluster of issues which I enumerated above as an "... inclination among would-be Progressives to VALIDATE the ill-gotten gains of the LINGUISTIC RE-ENGINEERING by the retro-revolutionaries." There are all these words now--`liberal', `socialist',[7] `welfare', {equitable} `taxation', even `government',--which have been turned inside out or bent out of shape by the retros and their `middle-of-the-road' accomplices. There is a quite conventional wisdom these days--it's one component of what I call hyper-pragmatism--which advises Progressives to run away from such words, even if they (Progressives) think they still know what they ACTUALLY mean by them.[8] A twist on the same principle is that which forbids the utterance of a word in a less-than-flattering, truth-telling context.[9]

One illustration of the way in which succumbing to this kind of semanticide will pose problems for The New Populism came, at the public meeting at the Southern California Library for Social Research, when someone in the audience suggested that there should be less of a focus on the problem that corporations pose to democracy, because many of the people the call for The New Populism would want to reach are employed by corporations. My response to this plea is twofold--addressed to, in turn, Progressives in the bowels of corporations and The New Populism.

In the first instance, the awareness YOU should have, of the institutional intolerance of your corporate employers toward The New Populism's goal of greater democratization of the social order, DOES provide adequate support for the thesis informing that goal. You may ask for and receive empathy for the dilemma represented by the conflict between your political awareness and the survival needs that your employment situation satisfies. But it is quite another matter to ask that the social arrangements (in the broadest sense) that make such a conflict inevitable, should not be interrogated. It is even in your long-term interest that such an interrogation be accelerated, given the increasingly iffy nature of your survival agendum. (I most certainly would not be the first to point out that the often unacknowledged corollary of the `benevolent-bestower-of-a-living' characterization of the employer is the wealth-creating or service-providing worker.)

As to what I think of The New Populism actually ridding its platform of the spotlight on corporations, all I can say is that if there is a more ignominious approach to semantic self-evisceration, I would not want to know the details!

I see no reason why true Progressives should not respond to ideologically-motivated attacks against their meanings by standing firm and eloquently against the onslaught. Of course, they MUST be CLEAR in their own minds about what they mean by what. It also helps if they have conviction that they ARE on the right (no pun intended) path, at least.

This last point touches upon a suspicion I have been harboring for some time, that the most recent ascendancy of the right-wing in both national parties since the mid '70s has traumatized many a Progressive beyond the degree to which he or she is willing to admit openly. It certainly would bode well for The New Populism if study and reflection can help its participants to reinforce their shaken convictions.

Even the use of the word `populism' can be expected to be contested. At the public meeting mentioned above, one woman voiced the concern, no doubt shared by others, that the word `populism' might prove to be a liability because of the fact that some reactionary elements have appropriated it for their own use, and continue so to do. If that is the real concern, one can only recommend that every effort be made to keep the record straight about what The New Populism is about. One must wonder, however, whether discomfort in some people about `populism' is not genealogically related to the sort of elitist impulse that motivated many of the Founding Fathers. Think of the derisive impact that the phrase `Vox Populi' (as in `the rumble of the rabble') is usually meant to have.

NOTES

[1] I learned, belatedly, that the `call' had been published in the Nation magazine back in August. As a blind person, keeping up with even the most selective portion of the torrent of inkprint publications is inevitably a hitormiss proposition.

[2] I do not exempt The Pacifica Foundation and its Los Angeles station from this characterization, even if the latter does air information such as is the subject of this essay.

[3] It seems to me that a crucial aspect of a Progressive agenda is that concerning the legitimizing of what may be termed genuinely collegial critiques of facets of that agenda or of specific strategems for realizing it. All too often, I feel that I am presented with the untenable choice between a no-exceptions endorsement of all that a `Progressive' organization does or how its leadership chooses to go about doing it on the one hand, and disengaging from it altogether. Is it too idealistic to expect to find the kind of organizational maturity and wisdom that can distinguish between wantonly destructive attacks and well- considered misgivings of members of the fold? (The implications of this question for the issue of Progressive unity are all-too- obvious.)

I perceive a regrettable symmetry between the sort of confidence, borne of arrogance and Machiavellian calculation, with which both American national parties often shrug off complaints from disaffected constituencies, and what can be surmised to be the mind-set of those at the helm of some Progressive organizations. I am thinking here of the `lesser of two evils' self-description that is either openly announced or merely implied. If Progressives find this excuse for unresponsiveness to sound hollow coming from mainstream politicians, why should it have a truer ring to it when emanating from within our own ranks?

[4] I am quite well aware of the searing hostility that the very mention of alternative decisionmaking models triggers in some Leftists. An example of this rather curious phenomenon was contained in an excerpt a friend read to me some weeks ago from Alexander Cockburn's book THE GOLDEN AGE IS WITHIN US. The particular target of the author's acerbic attention was HIS understanding of what the impetus behind consensusseeking necessarily has to be. Here is obviously not the place to address the specifics of Cockburn'S assertions. However, refer to my comments on both `consensus' and `conflict', starting nearly halfway on page and ending on page . I do want to recommend an illuminating treatment of the subject to be found in Kenneth Cloke's REINVENTING SOCIALISM: From Dictatorship To Consensus. Also, it has occurred to me that there is much to think about concerning the interaction between the politicoeconomic imperatives of `the new world order' and the kind of order sanctioned and machined by ROBERT'S RULES OF ORDER, the Bible of modern hierarchical organization. The analytical framework of `sociology of knowledge' (see endnote below) suggests this much.

[5] I am certainly not suggesting that public-interest/nonprofit `corporations' deserve blame, in equal measure, for the misdeeds of their commercial counterparts. The point being made is a much subtler one.

[6] I remain very skeptical of Peter Camejo's (see reference to him at the beginning of this essay) notion of `socially responsible investing' being a way to fund The New Populism. You don't have to be stuck in the '60s, as he dismissively suggests, to feel certain that profitmaking `investing' can be `socially responsible', in the long run, only if it is everready to shortcircuit its profitmaking imperative. To the extent that it possesses that capability, it would not be able to use the yardstick of `success' favored by its irresponsible counterpart we know so well. For those who care to know, my skepticism regarding the Camejo position is informed by insights emanating from the `sociology of knowledge' field. An excellent (if now somewhat dated) overview can be found in Henrika Kuklick's The Sociology of Knowledge: Retrospect and Prospect, in Annual Review of Sociology [1983]. Of particular relevance here is the notion of the interdependence among the `organizational structure', `cognitive content of cultural products' (including ideas) and `material factors.' I have also been much influenced by some readings in hermeneuticsthe science (or is it art?) of INTERPRETATION and its application in the social sciences. These related fields can be said to be part of that body of thought ungainly labelled `postmodernism.' I AM a leftist and yet exposure to the aspects of postmodernism just mentioned has not left me with a crisis of either political identity or worldview. Editors and contributors to last summer's special issue of Monthly Review on `postmodernism', take note! There is much about the postmodernist project, I believe, that can be directed to Progressive ends, rather than the reactionary ones that its kneejerk critics often assert.

[7] I am aware of the longer history of the demonization of this word.

[8] It should be understood that I am not here arguing for a dogmatic attachment to buzz words that is unconcerned with a contextdriven utility.

[9] For those with lingering doubts about how the content of everyday, verbal communication is shaped by, or reflective of, the words we use in different contexts, the field of SOCIOLINGUISTICS has much to offer. Given the tremendous power of metaphorical language, I heartily recommend George Lakoff and Mark Johnson's METAPHORS WE LIVE BY (1980).

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