In the post-communism / post-social-democracy era

[wrote this to DSA … I’m working on them to get with the “new paradigm” re: Red to Green!]

With the founding of the Second International in 1889 came an idea that the affiliated parties might become the recognized vehicles of the socialist movement in the electoral arena. That idea was shattered after 1917 with the emergence of the socialist/communist schism. After that, in many of the advanced democracies, there were slates representing social democracy and slates ostensibly representing communism. But in the United States there were neither (of much significance).

For decades after 1920 there were attempts in this country to either transform the Democratic Party into a social democratic party or to establish an independent party “representing the interests of the working class.” But maybe the era of trying to do so … as per the paradigm of the working class (as a “class-for-itself” in Marxian terms) gaining state power … maybe that era is over.

The New Democratic Party of Canada got founded during the 1930s [as the “Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (Farmer-Labour-Socialist)”] and got traction during the 1960s. Some see that as a model of what could happen in the United States at some point. But we might want to consider the possibility that the historical moment for such will not be coming. (There is no evidence of it coming.) And we might want to consider that the Democratic Party will never be transformed into a social democratic party.

An alternative idea is this: Given that the issues of our time include social justice and extended democracy but go beyond those to include issues of pressing concern to the general populace (such as ecological sustainability, demilitarization, and communitarian revitalization, for example) it might make sense now to build the Green Party into the recognized umbrella electoral vehicle for the leftist social change movement. In the United States the Green Party has embraced an eco-socialist orientation; and there are efforts to eventually make that the norm for the almost-one-hundred parties affiliated with the international Green politics movement (which held its fifth Global Greens Congress in Korea last month; Howie Hawkins was in attendance promoting eco-socialism). If the Cornel West campaign achieves its potential to boost the Greens, by 2025 we may see a growing general sentiment on the left in favor of the idea that, in the post-communism / post-social-democracy era, the Green Party is becoming viewed as our acknowledged vehicle in the electoral arena.