ALINSKY and STALIN vs. SARTRE

I appreciate John's posting, but I nevertheless think it only proves my 
point.

SAUL ALINKSKY:

"He asks of ends only whether they are achievable
and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work. To say that
corrupt means corrupt the ends is to believe in the immaculate conception of 
ends and principles. The real arena is corrupt and bloody."

REPLY:

There is a close link between the philosophy of Alinskyism and Stalinism.  
One has to look at the moment between the New Left and the post-New Left to 
understand some of these links.  Alinskyism tied to pragmatic and utilarian 
notions of the common good ultimately provide very little of a "moral 
compass," moreover they end up thwarting achieving socially useful ends 
because they compromise the necessary reflective practice and democratic 
dialogue often necessary to extend responsibility, promote participating and 
place checks on hierarchies that destroy organization, i.e. they limit 
accountability structures.

The failure of the New Left to build radical institutions made many New 
Leftists (after the end of the Movement) accept prima facie Alinsky's view 
that a power base could and should be built without (radical) ideology (or 
maybe even ethics).  Since "ideological" politics made organizing difficult, 
there was a tendency to stress organizaiton without making radical 
connections clear to the constituencies that were organized by post-New Left 
populist movements.  Many critized Alinsky's approach for being "pragmatic" 
or "economistic".  In fact,
Alinksy inspired movements led to the creation of hierarchical,
professional dominated organizations that were not very democratic because 
while engaging in formal elections, failed to cultivate a verious serious 
internal education process.  While the New Left
started out with an arachist approach suspicious of organization, Alinksy 
promised some kind of professionalization and organizational coherence. The 
problem was that Alinksyite movements never figured out how to create 
democratic organization, e.g. along the lines of electronic or economic 
democracy, e.g. along the lines of Spanish anarchists or a number of other 
models linking electronic media,
intellectuals and grassroots organizing.  Thus, his pragmatism was
not very operational and a lot of this effort was wiped out by Reaganism.  
Alinkyism therefore in part recapitulated the problems of Stalinism, 
organization independent of a debate over means.  This
organizational Stalinism did not involve the extremes of the Gulag
but did foreclose debates about the most effective organization and led to 
the organizational decline of many post-New Left organizations.
In contrast, democratic and participatory movements in the workplace and in 
various other forum that give broad ownership to local activists and 
communities, e.g. the town meeting concept, historically have proven more 
effective than Alinsky's formulations.  During the New Left, Sartre 
suggested that the principle of ends justifying means
promoted various Stalinist practices.  Is it possible to build a
Sartrean organization?  Yes, there have been examples, see Arendt's
discussion in ON REVOLUTION.  For a detailed critique of Alinsky,
see the special issue of Radical America on the topic (I have lost that
and need to track it down if someone has a reference...).

_________________________________________________________________
MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: 
http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx


------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-->
Buy Stock for $4
and no minimums.
FREE Money 2002.
http://us.click.yahoo.com/orkH0C/n97DAA/ySSFAA/B140lB/TM
---------------------------------------------------------------------~->

"[C]apital comes dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and 
dirt."
--Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, Chapter 31

Community email addresses:
  Post message: marxist@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Subscribe:    marxist-subscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  Unsubscribe:  marxist-unsubscribe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
  List owner:   jplst15+@xxxxxxxx

Shortcut URL to this page:
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist

Also take our one-question survey at
  http://groups.yahoo.com/group/marxist/polls 

Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/