The Dissenters; 5; Irving Howe

Domestic social and economic problems, but I do believe that politically and psychologically national education on television presents the dissenters conversation with the editors and publishers of political opinion magazines. This week, Irving Howe, professor of English at Hunter College, New York City, and editor of dissent, a democratic socialist by-monthly founded 14 years ago, interviewed by Donald Salzer. Now, tell us, let's talk about first your vision as a democratic socialist of what the goals of this country should be in the next decade. I think in the next decade, the country has two or three fundamental problems, but the prerequisite for even approaching those problems, let alone solving them is, of course, to end the war in Vietnam. I don't agree with those people who think that there is some economic incapacity or some economic limitation which prevents us from both conducting the war in Vietnam and from

solving domestic social and economic problems, but I do believe that politically and psychologically, as long as the country is oriented toward that ghastly war, then nothing very much is likely to be done domestically, though we should continue to try. But assuming that in the next little while, there will be some kind of solution to the war in Vietnam, then the country ought to turn its major attention, obviously, toward the problems of the city. Now the problems of the city can't be put in one rack. They are very numerous and very complex, but they have to do most significantly, of course, with the rise of the Negro ghetto on the one hand, and then with other matters which affect both Negroes and whites, like education, transportation, that is the problem of quality of life. On the first of these, and the question of the Negro ghetto and the Negro revolution, as it's called, I would say that our view is that what

we need in America is some equivalent to the martial plan of the fifties, where the country mobilized an enormous amount of resources in order to rescue the economy and society of Western Europe and did it pretty successfully. There's no one here at reason why this could not be done in America as well. A close friend and colleague of mine, Biod Rustin, has been pushing for something known as the Randolph budget. The Randolph budget, named after A. Philip Randolph, the famous Negro labor leader. The Randolph budget is simply a scheme by which a larger portion of American social allocation is devoted to the cities, to the Negro communities. We face a very, very difficult problem here. It hopes were roused among the Negroes in the last 10 or 12 years. Some very significant gains were made, but naturally people when they begin to win some

gains have their expectations raised. Once those expectations are raised, you either have to fulfill them or you're going to have more trouble than before the expectations were raised at all. Now there is really no inherent reason, for example, why in a country as rich and as large as this, we couldn't proceed with a whole battery of plans, some of the things that are in the Randolph budget, some of the things that Daniel Moynihan proposes. For example, a simple idea that Moynihan suggests that we now have two male deliveries a day in the United States, something which every civilized country has, that you didn't have in Cape Cod, and thereby the government would be required to hire a great many additional people, largely unskilled, and instead of the pathology and demoralization which is accompanied by relief and welfare, this would be a significant step toward rebuilding the social fabric and

the economic morale of people in the cities. That's just a simple notion and obviously there had to be many more complex ones, but that seems to me the essential thing in the coming period. There was an article by a man named Reagan in the St. magazine not too long ago, which dealt with just this problem, and he suggested that there should be a priority given to integration when it conflicts with other social goals of the country now, do you feel that way? That's a complex and it's a tricky problem and it's one on which I think it's desperately necessary that we try to be clear. My own view is that by and large, integration and economic social progress go hand in hand. I think that at the very point where the impulse toward integration was stopped, say two or three years ago, at that point also the impulse toward significant socio-economic reforms

in the cities was also stopped. There are people who say, let's just improve the Negro ghettos, let them have everything they want. Well, let them have 5% of what they want, what they really mean, as long as they stay put and keep out of our suburbs. I don't think that's going to work psychologically or politically. I don't think it's going to work economically. My own very strong view of it is that really to root out the economic deprivation and the social pathology of the ghettos, this requires the extension of integrated housing, the improvement of job opportunities for Negroes, the availability of special kinds of training, the opening of union apprenticeship programs, a whole range of things of that sort. These are relatively modest goals, they are what I call the first level of goals and

there is no reason whatever economically or socially why they can't be achieved. It's only a question of whether we have the moral clarity and political will at this moment right now, I don't think the country does, but I think we'd better wake up to the need for it. Now all of that costs money. Do you propose that this be done by government through increased government subsidies of public housing through a government business cooperation, how do you propose this? Buying large I think is the responsibility of the federal government. So far as I can see the cities themselves cannot solve these problems. They can't solve them because they don't have the resources and they can't solve them because more and more of the affluent white middle class is moving away into the suburbs and the cities are in a bankrupt state. The states by and large also tend to be under the control of rural legislatures, extremely backward and timid and conservative.

The problems also are of such an enormous extent and so deeply rooted socially that they can be attacked I think only on a national basis. Now by now we've gotten over the balance, the budget mythology. We recognize that deficit spending and that an unbalanced budget can actually be a way toward economic growth. I'd say this that if the vast sums of money which are being poured into a war in Vietnam, which we cannot win in which is I think morally an unjustified war, if even half of that money were used for the improvement of the American cities, for our own people, then tremendous steps could be made, even without raising the tax base. The significant disputes in the country in the next 10 years will be what I'd call between the right Keynesians and the left Keynesians. Everyone's going to agree upon the need for social allocation. Everyone's going to agree upon the need for government spending, only a few 19th century

antiquarians like Reagan pretends to be against it though I guess he probably really isn't. But the real problem will be I think toward what end will the spending be put? Will it be put, for example, toward building up a large so-called screen against Chinese missile penetration which it is announced in advance as an effective, or will it be put toward the social reconstruction of the country? In a sense, the United States right now is like a highly advanced industrial plant which has begun to run down, because we were ahead two or three decades ago, and now various countries have leapfrogged over us, but the resources are there if we want to engage in this kind of thing. And I'm interested also in what has been referred to by Mr. Reagan again in that article about the proletarian status of migrant farm workers, and that sort of thing.

Is there or do you believe there should be more legislation? Absolutely. That I think can be covered simply by a rise on the minimum wage and a more rigorous application of the minimum wage laws. I would say right now, for example, that if the minimum wage were raised to $1.80 or $2.00 an hour, this would do more good for the poor, which means to a large extent in the cities, the Negro poor, than all kinds of programs of local autonomy and all sorts of social work schemes and all kinds of anti-poverty boards. Much of the trouble with the poverty programs and with certain kinds of young people who are getting involved in organizing the poor is that they tend to assume the permanent existence of the poor. My idea about the poor is that the best thing to do with them is to abolish them as the poor and that they should be allowed there by and encouraged and help to enter the society at large.

We're talking about here about a redistribution of income there. Yes, that's a very essential point. The redistribution of income. Yes. Speak to that subject. The redistribution of income is something which can be to a large extent achieved first through social subsidies and social allocations by the federal government and second through a progressive tax policy. I believe the tax policy at the present time has become more and more retrogressive in that it doesn't change with changing circumstances. And do you believe circumstances have changed? Of course they have changed very sharply. Yes, there's obviously a great need. That is the whole social struggle that goes on in this country within the limits of the welfare state, it's a social struggle in which the contending forces don't take at issue, don't put at issue the survival of the society itself, but they are struggling for power within the society, for the allocation of resources, for the allocation of funds and wealth. This social struggle takes the form of two things at least, first, how will the government

money be spent, secondly, upon whom will the tax burden be placed. And this is a sort of modernized version of a traditional class struggle idea. That is to say, who will get help and who will pay for the help. Our view tends to be by and large that it's the, that there is an enormous need for what Kenneth Galebrith had called a revival or a reconstruction of the welfare state. As far as Galebrith goes, we are very much with him, we don't believe he finally does go far enough, but as far as he goes, we are very much with him for the reconstruction of the welfare state by everything from fixing up parks to hospitalism. The whole plant has been allowed to get shabby and run down and neglected. How do you propose to sell this, this obviously means more taxes for this big squashing middle class. How can you sell that to this middle class in this country?

Well, it means for one thing more taxes on the corporations. As far as it means more taxes for the middle class, I think what is needed is a sustained educational campaign along these lines, first, that bringing in millions of people who are now a burden on the society through welfare, pathology and the rest, bringing them into the society and making them more productive or enabling them to become more productive, this is really a way of enriching the society with the gross national product, with grow as a consequence of that. That's one thing. Secondly, that's the positive argument. The negative argument is what the devil is going to happen if this isn't done, because these people are no longer going to take it at the bottom of the heap. As we've seen in the series. As we've seen, right? Now you mentioned again the corporations. One way to raise the money is to raise it to corporations. Corporations, it seems to me in the United States, are becoming increasingly involved in

all aspects of our lives. They're even moving now into education, as well as the proposal to have them move into housing. Yes, that's true. They are moving into various aspects of the society, but there is no social control over them. That is, there is a certain amount of what I would consider moral gilding of what is the corporation's main purpose, still, namely the accumulation and magnification of profit. But this is one of the main long-range problems, not on the immediate one, but one of the main long-range problems. That is to say, what control will the man who works for General Motors have over the policy of the corporation? We believe that he should have control, that it shouldn't be simply in the hands of a small number of stockholders and shareholders and managers. What control will the teacher have? How much control, as much control as management and the people who own the stock? That depends at which stage of the game you're at.

Obviously in the immediate future, the long-range socialist program in America is not, though I think it's very important, educationally, very important to press it, it's not on the immediate option. And so our view, for example, that the major industries ought to be socially owned, which is to say, not merely unnecessarily by the government, but by complexes and cooperatives of the people involved in the industries themselves, that isn't an immediate option. But it certainly isn't an immediate option, for example, that the automobile workers should be in a position to determine various things about government policy. We're not terribly respectful toward what is known as ownership prerogatives. The notion of ownership prerogatives changes with time. There was a time when ownership prerogative meant no recognition of trade unions. They got over that. And I think with sufficient social pressure, they'll get over other notions of the same sort. You also started to mention teachers. Yeah. Well, I think teachers, and I was an ardent supporter of the recent teacher strike in New York City, I think teachers should have some importance, say, in the determination of

educational policy, not merely the people who are sitting in the offices, not merely the board of education, et cetera. This is a complex matter because there are conflicting interests, different constituencies, teachers, parents, even the children should have some say, supervisors, and then the community as a whole. There are dangerous aspects in this. The notion, for example, of local community control of schools in certain parts of the city is, I think, an idea which certain people on the left and certain liberals are supporting, but haven't thought out completely. Is it really true, for example, that if there's a Negro principle in a school in Harlem, that there'll be better education? I'm not at all sure that's true. Are some of the people who are claiming to represent the community, are they really representative of the community, or just a small activist fringe? And if you allow local school determination in a place where you want it, how will you oppose it in a neighborhood where you know the consequence would be, that segregationists

and reactionaries and scissors bills and red necks would then control the schools? What you're talking about here, both in terms of the corporations and in terms of teaching, just as an indication of what you would have happen in society, is a great diffusion that seems to me of decision-making. A diffusion of decision-making and what I would call the penetration of democracy into economic life, that is, taking democracy out of merely the formal political area, which I'm very much for and ardently support, and extending it to the whole of socio-economic life. This is not going to happen overnight, but I think there are signs that it is slowly on the way. A lot of people would say hurrah to that, but a lot of people would also say that what you're doing is suggesting that we undermine the so-called profit system. That's exactly right. That's exactly what we want to do. And they feel that this would rob people of the motivation to work, to succeed, to strive, to imagine and build.

I don't think that's true at all. For one thing, the overwhelming majority of Americans don't work under a profit motive. Most of us work for a salary, often in inadequate salary. And for example, in my profession, in college teaching, my impression is that those who are creative and those who really have something to offer only rarely is the economic incentive the major one there. Secondly, there is no reason why economic incentive, or socio-economic incentive, couldn't be present and shouldn't be present, under a society in which the profit motive would no longer be the dominant one. This of course is a fairly esoteric matter at the moment in America because it foresees a gradual socialization, a gradual trend toward democratic socialism, whether that is really going to happen. I don't know. There are plenty of powerful counterchecks and there are plenty of dangers along the way. Tell me, Mr. Howe, as editor of Decent Magazine and a not-so-old democratic socialist, of

the old left or the not-so-old left? Let's say the middle-aged left. The middle-aged left. What do you feel about the new left in this country? There really isn't any one thing called the new left. And so I'll try to be synoptic and summarize what I think are some of the main tendencies. When it first began, I was extremely favorable and enthusiastic. For example, when the kids started piling into Mississippi and the whole program of helping out there, I thought that was great. Some of the protests about the diffusion of power and freedom on the campus, I'm four. Some of them are mindless, but some of them are good. The protests against the Vietnam War, by and large, I agree with that, though I don't agree with some of the forms of it, but I agree with the motivation and principle. But there are elements of the new left outlook, which seem to me very, very dubious.

For example, the notion they have that liberalism is the main enemy in the United States. I think that's sheer nonsense, thoughtlessness. Liberals are often inadequate. They often fail to fulfill liberal goals and value. They sometimes betray the aims and goals of liberalism. When that happens, then I think the obligation of people like myself is to press them and to say, do what you claim you want to do. But I don't believe that in a country where Barry Goldwater got how many 24 million votes and where the far right is still a very powerful force and where there is no really organized left to speak of, I think it's insanity to say that liberalism is the main enemy. A second point concerns the attitude towards communism. As a democratic socialist, I believe that any kind of progress, political, economic, cultural has for its indispensable premise, the existence of democratic rights, democratic society.

We've learned from the last 50 years in the experience of the communist countries how empty all their talk of equality and freedom is. When you can't say the premier or the boss of the country is what I couldn't even mention some of the things that people do freely say about Lyndon Johnson in this country. When you can't organize an opposition party, when you can't put out a paper saying the government stinks, then it's no good, no matter what it's called. And we believe that democracy is the indispensable premise for individual life, for oppositional activity, etc. It's not that there is much pro-communist feeling in the new left. There isn't very much of that really. There is a little Maoist fringe, which thinks China is great, but that's pretty far out. It's that there is some sense that it isn't fashionable, that it isn't proper to speak out freely against communism. I am against capitalism and I'm against communism for failing much of the same reasons.

There are other things I could say along the same lines in regard to the new left, but these would be some of the main grounds of opposition. One other thing I should add is that there are notions that they don't want to get involved in American politics. They're afraid of being co-opted. You know, most of them are middle-class boys and girls who have had it pretty well in the last 15, 20 years who don't remember the depression, who don't have any clear idea of what a tremendous contribution trade unions made to this country. They never had to work under a Ford motor company, a foreman before the union came in. They never knew that they were garment workers in New York City working for $12 a week before the union came in. They look down their nose at the unions. That's because they lack a sense of history and a sense of what the unions still do in this country, even if it isn't enough. But they're afraid of being co-opted, that is to say, they're concerned with their own purity.

As a consequence, though they have a clear idea that power corrupts, what they don't understand is I think that sometimes powerlessness also corrupts or can corrupt. Now there are people in office who don't detract me in any way, but if I were living, say, in South Dakota, I'd vote for George McGovern and I'd work for him because of the standings taking on the war. And I'd do the same thing in other places for other people. And just to say, I think that a radical in America today cannot stand off and say that he is above the battle or that everything that's going on is a mere masquerade, that it's only tweedle D and tweedle dumb because it isn't only tweedle D and tweedle dumb. There's a tremendous difference between the dub and the hawk. I want to go into the electoral process, support the hawk, the, excuse me, support the dub against the hawk. Not the violence that we find so much in New York today. A lot of that violence is just verbal, it's irresponsible talk. Very few of them really are revolutionists. And that's, I think, for my point of view, a hopeful sign.

I think they'll get over some of that talk. But just because it is talk, I mean, the SDS said at one point they were going to organize guerrillas in the cities, but they won't, they're much too nice, so to speak, and they much too middle class, and they don't have the power to organize guerrillas. The violence that is really serious, of course, is the rioting of the past summer, where I shortly disagree with and where I shortly condemn the new left, is the indiscriminate approval of this violence, which was expressed at the Chicago Conference, that big fiasco they had recently, in which riots are identified with revolutions, rebellions, and uprising. My own strong conviction is that those riots, one may understand the social origins of them and sympathize, therefore. But the effects are almost certain to militate against the Negro community. It's their own people that get killed, it's the Negro's, Thor, they get burned down. It sets up a severe counter sentiment backlash among the whites.

It leads to a false polarization. Now the new left thinks it wants that polarization, that's because it has no historical sense of what that polarization would mean, it would probably mean fascism in America. I don't want fascism in America. I believe it's necessary to try to organize large portions of the population in the direction of progress. That means not to confine oneself to a few half-baked ideologues, but to try to involve large numbers of people, liberals, labor unions, churches, et cetera, in the effort to extend the limits of the welfare state, to improve the conditions that exist, and then that makes possible a step further beyond. They seem to create their heroes in not out of the large countries, not out of the Soviet Union, which they think has become organizationally controlled, not out of China where they feel there's one godlike leader and a bunch of slaves, but out of people like Castro, not

out of Titoism. No, no, Titoism, they feel that's close to social democrats like me, as in some sense maybe it is. No, their image of the revolutionary leader tends to be the romantic figure, or what they think is a romantic figure, with the beard, with the guerrillas. That is, they've lost faith in the Marxist idea of the working class. They don't have much belief in democratic majorities. They really have a version of the anarchist or poochist idea, a small insurrection led by heroic guerrillas. Now there may be a few countries in the world in Latin America where that makes sense, though it doesn't mean that one likes it, but where at least has some relevance. But if you look through the heroes of the third world with whom the new left identified, a miserable character like Sakano, a wretched one like Nasir, a half forgotten one like Ben Bella, and Krumah, you know, the eternal Redeemer, this doesn't seem to me really very much substance in the way of social and political idealism.

I think they are thoroughly deluded in that score. Do you find any great cleavage between the white new left and the black new left? Well, I feel that what is going on among certain young Negroes now, though I don't agree with it, is something that I can at least understand with that is the desperation there seems to me authentic. I think Rap Brown does himself and his own people are terrible to service when he talks about burn baby burn. But I can understand why some kid in the streets of Harlem responds to that. There are good emotional and historical reasons for that response. As I say, I don't approve of it, but I understand it. But when some kid out of Harvard University, you know, indulges in this, if there's going to be any burning, he's not going to pay for it. He's going to be off somewhere else. In other words, what you have here is a kind of vicarious and thereby irresponsible adventurism.

The corporations it seems to me and the United States are becoming increasingly involved in all aspects of our lives. They're even moving now into education as well as the proposal to have them move into housing. Yes, that's true. They are moving into various aspects of the society, but there is no social control over them. That is, there's a certain amount of what I would consider. This is NET, the National Educational Television Network.