Shaun Richman

November 7, 2007July 17, 2023

Debs and Bolshevism

In his famous 1918 anti-war speech in Canton, Ohio, in which he martyred himself for a prison term that would last beyond the World War and shave years off his life, Eugene V. Debs declared, “From the top of my head to the tip of my toes, I am a Bolshevik, and proud of it.” This quote is often taken out of context by some to argue that in his later years Debs was turning towards Lenin’s doctrine and perhaps would have joined the Communist Party had he lived long enough. Too many socialists attempt to freeze Debs in a particular moment and argue that because the pioneering leader of American socialism took a certain position, say, forming new industrial unions to compete with and replace the American Federation of Labor in 1907, that that is the correct position for socialists in 2007, even if Debs himself contradicted that position at another point in his life.

That’s why it’s fascinating to read in Edward Johanningsmeier’s excellent biography of William Z. Foster, “Forging American Communism,” is Debs’ response to Foster’s entreaties to join the Communist Party. In a meeting shortly after he was released from prison in 1922, Debs declared, “Some groups propose to take orders from men in Moscow who know absolutely nothing about American conditions. I know more about American psychology and conditions than all the leaders in Russia know in five years, and I will not accept my orders from a maniac like Zinoviev. Since when, I want to know, has socialism become synonymous with Communism? I am not a Communist and I don’t want to be one, and I do not believe in minority rule.”

Debs did, however, publicly endorse Foster’s Trade Union Education League and its program of encouraging radicals to bore from within AFL craft unions to promote an agenda of organizing the unskilled masses and challenging the conservative business union leaders. Debs also served as the Socialist Party’s National Chairman in his twilight years, the only time he held office in the party, or indeed even attended a convention. And he came to the conclusion that the SP should direct its electoral efforts on uniting with the AFL and other progressive groups to form a national labor party. If we are going to let WWEVDD guide us, let’s look at where he stood politically at the end of his life, in a political era that is closer to our own.

November 6, 2007July 17, 2023

Another Fake Ally for Health Care

Andy Stern continues to invite more strange fellows into his bed. The President of the Service Employees Union has drifted far astray from the rest of the labor movement and most sensible healthcare reformers by partnering with Wal-Mart, the Business Roundtable and other pro-business groups whose agenda is in direct opposition to ours. Their wet dream is to dump their insurance obligations on the public ledger, not to ensure that everyone can receive good medical treatment at “no cost” through public funds, funded in large part by a payroll tax on employers. “Medicare for all” must be our goal, and any proposal that leaves private insurance companies free to exploit and profit, or that places most of the burden for funding the program on the backs of taxpayers and workers who have already won health insurance from their employers through their unions is bound to fail.

Stern recently welcomed into his “unlikely alliance” the National Federation of Independent Business, the small business lobbying group that killed the last effort at achieving universal health care. This group’s number one objective is to fight any new payroll tax. They are an enemy of “Medicare for all.” Aside from the perversely exploitative profit motive of private insurance companies, which leads to medical inflation that prices too many people out of the system, the second biggest problem with our fractured health care system in the U.S. is the unfair competitive advantage that companies that shirk their responsibility to insure their employees gain over responsible companies that do. It’s Wal-Mart vs. Pathmark. Small businesses are the worst offenders in this regard. More than 60% of the 47 million people who have no health insurance in this country work for small businesses.

If all employers paid into the same insurance – Medicare – then companies like GM and Pathmark would benefit from the enlarged group plan and pay new payroll taxes that would be lower than their old premiums. Small businesses and companies like Wal-Mart would face a tax hike that would bring their total payroll closer to that of their competitors. Any proposal for a national health insurance plan that calls for a substantial income tax hike in lieu of a tax hike on employers is asking, in effect, for unionized employees and others who bargained for good health insurance in lieu of greater pay to take a pay cut in order to subsidize irresponsible businesses. This is not a matter of standing on principle and refusing to make pragmatic compromises. It’s a matter of being pragmatic in building the coalition we will need to win health care for all. Inviting the National Federation of Independent Business and the Business Roundtable – who have been and always will be opposed to a single payer health care system like “Medicare for all” – to take part in the “grand alliance” will cost any reform effort the support of regular taxpayers whose political pressure for such reform is essential. Whatever proposal comes from Stern’s coalition will be a political non-starter.

November 2, 2007July 17, 2023

Is It Treason to Strike Against the Government?

Is it treasonous to go on strike against your employer? Most reasonable people would say no. But, given the opportunity, most Bosses would make it illegal for their employees to strike for better wages and conditions. The government, as employer of many thousands of public sector employees, is the only employer that has the ability to outlaw strikes by its employees. Al Shanker, who led New York City’s school teachers on a number of strikes between the early 1960s and the late 1970s, grumbled that the illegality of strikes and the steep fines and penalties incurred by city unions that strike anyway were a holdover from monarchistic thinking, and that there isn’t even the slimmest pretext of arguing for public safety or welfare in making them illegal. Shanker would point out that teachers at private schools would face no penalty if they chose to strike, even though such a strike would create the same kind of disruptions for parents as a public school strike.

Shanker’s point should be made again in the case of the Transport Workers Union, who are in court trying to get their dues checkoff reinstated, after it was canceled as a part of the hefty fines and penalties that were levied against the union after its 2005 strike. Even though the MTA, the technical employer of New York’s bus and subway workers, supports the union’s efforts to return to regular operations (apparently, the union’s inability to handle a backlog of grievances is harming the Authority’s ability to run the system), the Bloomberg administration is opposing it, demanding that union leaders “once and for all time declare unequivocally that they may not, and will not, ever again engage in a strike.”

What gall! TWU was actually the first union to be recognized and sign a contract with the city of New York. That’s because the union was first organized in the 1930’s when the city’s bus and subway lines were owned and operated by private corporations. The union struck for and won greater wages and benefits back then, and the strikes were 100% legal. The New York City Transit Authority took over in the 1950’s, and the transit workers became public sector employees and lost their “right” to strike. Same workers, same job, same union, same contract. First legal, then illegal, but not because the idea of a transit strike became “unsafe” or more of a disruption, but simply because the new Boss had the ability to set the laws that made the strike illegal. Good for TWU President Roger Toussaint for refusing to submit to Mayor Bloomberg’s monarchistic thinking.

October 15, 2007July 17, 2023

Hey Radiohead! Here’s a Quid

Radiohead have fired a shot across the bow of the record industry by making their upcoming record, “In Rainbows” available for download for any price that the consumer chooses. “No really, it’s up to you,” the band’s website reassures the fan who is unsure how much to pay for the download. The band’s use of the honor system has produced a cottage industry of articles predicting the End Of The Record Industry As We Know It (EOTRIAWKI) or confessing how much one paid for the download.

Apparently, one third of listeners paid nothing for the download. If the RIAA had their way, these people would be sued for $220,000. But, on average, fans have paid about $8 for a download that – like all records – could be had for free. Me, I paid one pound, 45 pence – about three American dollars. It’s more than I’ve ever paid for Radiohead’s music (a telltale sign of EOTRIAWKI). Perhaps I’ve been too turned off by their hype as the band that will kill guitars and rock-n-roll, but my entire Radiohead collection consisted of an illegal download of the song, “Karma Police” until now.

Lost in the hubbub is the fact that “In Rainbows” is a terrific record. The usually ponderous ballads featuring Thom Yorke’s wailing sound haunting and mesmerizing spaced out in between propulsive rockers like “Bodysnatchers” and “Jigsaw Falling Into Place.” Knowing this in advance, I’d have gladly paid eight dollars for the joy of owning the record.