Another World Is Possible
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Some who have sensed the far-reaching character of these system-wide changes have despaired of any hope for the future. Perhaps the end of one set of structural relationships–the ones we have come to take for granted in our own lifetimes–spells the end of all potentially positive systemic possibilities. Perhaps.
But I am a political economist and a historian, one for whom the best way to understand current events is to think of them as an ongoing movie, not a snapshot. What is interesting is not simply the current reel, but the previous one, and above all what both suggest about the next one. Even though I think times are likely to get worse before they get better, let me explain why I am a prudent optimist about the long haul -- even allowing for the profound changes taking place (and in some ways because of them).
There have been other times when change seemed impossible. During the McCarthy era of the mid-1950s, for instance, they shot anything that moved politically, especially in my (and Joseph McCarthy's) home state of Wisconsin. Fear erased any suggestion of progressive ideas, and anyone who dared to even say as much was obviously a fool. What came next, of course, were the multiple–and totally unpredicted -- political explosions of the 1960s. Clearly, those who viewed the 1950s simply as a depressing snapshot were missing something very important.
Similarly, we tend to recall Martin Luther King Jr. and the great civil rights moment of the 1960s as if they'd arisen easily, almost naturally. We forget that for many decades prior, there was very little to suggest the possibility of momentous change. Those who thought otherwise, who did attempt to organize in the South, risked their lives. The challenge of George Bush pales in comparison with the challenge of Mississippi in the 1940s and 1950s.
The idea that environmental concern might one day become important also seemed far-fetched only a few decades ago. When I directed legislative work for Senator Gaylord Nelson, the founder of Earth Day, everyone knew environmentalism was a political non-starter–until, seemingly out of nowhere, a powerful movement forced Richard Nixon to create the EPA and sign the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts. We also tend to forget that the feminist movement produced what became the most important cultural revolution in modern history after decades of seeming quietude once the franchise was achieved in 1920.
Even more broadly: The Soviet Union collapsed, apartheid retreated abruptly, the French Revolution overthrew the monarchy, a handful of minor American colonies defeated the great British Empire -- all against huge odds, and all unexpected by the experts.
Such reminders of historical possibility do not guarantee that a future progressive revival is building up beneath today's surface calm. They simply suggest that the pessimists may -- or may not -- be right, and that those with their noses glued to the window glass of the immediate present commonly miss the changing weather patterns in the distance.
It is the nature of a systemic crisis to create pain -- from loss of jobs and lack of health care to trouble paying for college or even secure housing -- especially (as Katrina revealed) at the state and local levels. Which also means that this -- not national politics, where progressives so often feel impotent -- is the place to look for longer-term hope of change. In almost every era of American history, the ideas, experiments, programs, and organizing that ultimately fueled major societywide reform were developed first at the state and local levels -- and they were usually developed, we might add, out of pain.
Moreover, in almost every instance, ordinary people -- not saints, not national leaders -- were central to the process. Poor farmers in Mississippi slept with shotguns next to their beds during the civil rights era. Nineteenth-century women organized to demand the right to vote at a time when the mere idea seemed laughable -- and slowly, agonizingly succeeded in state after state until they built up enough momentum to enact constitutional changes. The workers and farmers who laid the groundwork for the populist and progressive eras faced organized violence, Pinkerton goons, armed troops deployed against strikers, but in the end they, too, achieved system-wide reforms. And during the hysteria of the McCarthy era, ordinary people in Wisconsin -- teachers, college students, factory workers -- quietly laid the foundation for an ultimately successful "Joe Must Go" effort. I vividly remember one of my high school English teachers stuffing pamphlets into mailboxes at night. He would have lost his job had he been discovered -- not for participating in politics, which at least in theory was his right, but for daring to defy a senator who brooked no challenge.
Illustration: Philippe Weisbecker
