Workington, Harrington & Moss Bay Through Time

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This estrangement from religion was accompanied by a growing interest in Marxism and a drift toward secular socialism. After leaving The Catholic Worker Harrington became a member of the Independent Socialist League, a small organization associated with the former Trotskyist leader Max Shachtman. Harrington and Shachtman believed that socialism, the promise of a just and fully democratic society, could not be realized under authoritarian Communism and they were both fiercely critical of the "bureaucratic collectivist" states in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. On learning his cancer was inoperable, renowned intellectual Michael Harrington simply asked the doctors to keep him alive long enough “to complete a summary statement of the themes I had thought of throughout an activist life.” And they did. The question remains: what is the role of the state, if any, in the achievement of the goals of democratic socialism? During much of the 2016 US Democratic Party presidential primaries, I was confused by Bernie Sanders’ claim that he was a Democratic Socialist.

I can’t say I came away from this book with a clear understanding of the issues. However, I think the solution is in here, if you read it closely and spend some time digesting what you’ve read. Harrington starts with a dictionary definition: “socialism is the public ownership of the means of production and distribution”. There is no express discussion of the meaning of “public” in this context. However, it is implicit that it could be some variation of society or the state. I can’t necessarily fault Harrington for the second assumption because most of the examples showing outright regression and abandonment of reforms occurred after his death. The sole exception I’ve brought up that he would have known about was the Spanish Socialist Party abandoning its Marxist roots in 1979. This ought to have been a warning sign although Harrington was by no means attached to a Marxist analysis or a Marxist direction as he explains in later chapters. Socialisation’ describes two very different ways in which society can become more social: under capitalism, there is a trend toward a growing centralisation and planning that is eventually global, but it takes place from the top down; under socialism, that process is subjected to democratic control from below by the people and their communities.” (9) It might be noted that Harrington’s book was published in 1992, now more than 25 years past. Based on that, it might be said that his account is hardly appropriate to today’s political climate. I don’t think that’s the case, though. For one thing, many of his propositions seem to hold true. More important than arguments (generally) standing the test of time, it’s still a valuable book despite its age because many of the negative associations being drawn with socialism today predate publication, so Harrington is giving a historical and cultural context that is still necessary.

Stylistically, some might find Harrington a bit dry; it took me entirely too long to finish reading this book, although some of that might have just been because it was an absurdly busy three weeks and I was too burned out to focus. I tend to rather like Harrington's authorial "voice"; it's occasionally got a bit of dry humor, but mostly I find it sort of... soothing, in a way? It's certainly less grandstandy than a lot of other well-known socialist writers, and noticeably less pompous than, say, Irving Howe, though Harrington and Howe were good friends and seem to be on a similar ideological wavelength. At any rate, I'm interested enough to have started reading another Harrington book, Toward a Democratic Left, written in 1968, some of which is distressingly relevant, but that's for another review.

Socialism: Past and Future is prominent thinker Michael Harrington’s final contribution: a thoughtful, intelligent, and compassionate treatise on the role of socialism both past and present in modern society. He is convincing in his application of classic socialist theory to current economic situations and modern political systems, and he examines the validity of the idea of “visionary gradualism” in bringing about a socialist agenda. He believes that if freedom and justice are to survive into the next century, the socialist movement will be a critical factor. Ink ownership inscriptions on front endpapers dated 1902 (one crossed out, the other decorated with a large floral sketch). Faint marks to otherwise bright cloth, endpapers foxed, contents clean. A very good copy indeed. He then discusses “utopian socialism”. He quotes Martin Buber: “the goal of Utopian socialism is to substitute society for State to the greatest degree possible, moreover a society that is genuine and not a State in disguise.” (29) At various stages, Harrington mentions social democracy. He doesn’t use any one particular definition of social democracy. Readers must extrapolate it from the context: It’s time to return to the concept of public ownership and what Harrington refers to as “socialisation”.

The social democrats came up with transitional programs that made capitalism more humane - even if it remained quite capitalist.” This work "demonstrated - what all the succeeding poetry volumes would amply confirm - the exceptional number of different stanza forms and metres, whether inherited or invented, that Hardy was able to deploy... Hardy always disclaimed possession of a consistent philosophy, and in the preface to Poems of the Past and the Present described his poems as 'a series of feelings and fancies written down in widely differing moods and circumstances' - adding, perhaps with The Dynasts already in mind, 'Unadjusted impressions have their value, and the road to a true philosophy of life seems to lie in humbly recording diverse readings of its phenomena as they are forced upon us by chance and change'" (ODNB). Description First edition, first impression, one of 500 copies printed, of Hardy's second volume of verse, following Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898). English: habitational name from any of the three places called Harrington (Cumberland Lincolnshire Northamptonshire). The Cumberland placename derives from the Old English personal name Hæfer + Old English connective -ing- + tūn ‘farmstead estate’. The Lincolnshire placename derives from the Old English personal name Hearra + Old English connective -ing- + tūn. The Northamptonshire derives from an Old English personal name Hǣthhere + Old English connective -ing- + tūn ‘farmstead estate’. Compare Herendeen . Irish: adopted as an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hArrachtáin ‘descendant of Arrachtán’ a personal name from a diminutive of arrachtach ‘mighty powerful’. Irish: in Kerry this name was adopted as an Anglicized form of Gaelic Ó hIongardail later Ó hUrdáil ‘descendant of Iongardal’ a personal name of uncertain origin. Irish: sometimes a variant of Harrity . Harrington discusses Stalin in terms of War Communism, where the Soviet state was under internal threat from a civil war and an external threat from foreign capital and military intervention.

It’s this very sense of socialisation that requires socialism to be democratic. Democratic socialism is a direct consequence and precondition of the goal of democratic socialisation. During the primaries, I resolved to read (or re-read) some of my books about American socialism by authors such as Michael Harrington and Irving Howe, both of whom had greatly influenced my own political and cultural views. However, as a non-American, it was quite unusual to see the term “socialism” being embraced to describe what I have traditionally regarded as “social democracy”.During this period Harrington wrote The Other America: Poverty in the United States, a book that had an impact on the Kennedy administration, and on Lyndon B. Johnson's subsequent War on Poverty. Harrington became a widely read intellectual and political writer. He would frequently debate noted conservatives but would also clash with the younger radicals in the New Left movements. He was present at the 1962 SDS conference that led to the creation of the Port Huron Statement, where he argued that the final draft was insufficiently anti-Communist. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. referred to Harrington as the "only responsible radical" in America, a somewhat dubious distinction among those on the political left. His high profile landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents. This is the definitive text on the role of socialism throughout history which Publishers Weekly calls “succinct, readable” and the New York Times says “has a lively air of optimism and boldly challenges traditional ideas.” Harrington refers to “socialisation” as “a democratic, bottom-up control by the majority”. He also explains: One of the problems in reading Harrington is that his vast knowledge presumes some corresponding width and breadth of his readers as well, for many of his references assume some pre-knowledge. Moreover, his reasoning is often dense, followed by equally remarkable connecting leaps that even I -- as a fairly educated and seasoned reader -- often found difficult to follow without a rereading. Harrington was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended St. Louis University High School, College of the Holy Cross, University of Chicago (MA in English Literature), and Yale Law School. As a young man, he was interested in both leftwing politics and Catholicism. Fittingly, he joined Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement, a pacifist group that advocated a radical interpretation of the Gospel. Above all else, Harrington was an intellectual. He loved arguing about culture and politics, preferably over beer, and his Jesuit education made him a fine debater and rhetorician. Harrington was an editor of The Catholic Worker from 1951 to 1953. However, Harrington became disillusioned with religion and, although he would always retain a certain affection for Catholic culture, he ultimately became an atheist.