Dialectic, Cosmos, and Society
Issue Number One
Introduction
Maggie Vosburg Mansueto: Feminist Approaches to Leadership and
Organization: A Critique of Egalitarianism and Ultraliberalism
Sergey V. Deriugin: The Christian Parties and Movements of the
USSR
Anthony E. Mansueto: The Industrial Areas Foundation: A
preliminary analysis of its social base and political valence
INTRODUCTION
For much of the past two decades progressive forces in North America have struggled unsuccessfully
with the question of organization. How do we build an organization which promotes the all sided
development of its members, tapping into their diverse talents and giving them the room to develop
independent bearings, while at the same time focusing their energies on the implementation of a
common strategy based on an accurate reading of economic, political, and cultural conditions? Leninist
organizations have often erred in the direction of authoritarianism, substituting a narrowly defined
ideological unity for a common highly developed theoretical perspective. They have often had a rather
linear understanding of power, confusing discipline with mere obedience, and the penetration and
reorganization of institutions with positioning and control. By far the greater danger,however, has come
from liberal and social democratic forces, and especially from the "new social movements" (feminism,
pacifism, ecologism) which negate the importance of theoretical, organizational, and political leadership
entirely. Mary Margaret Mansueto's article represents a major contribution to the debate around
organization. She demonstrates the essentially regressive character of feminist liberalism,
egalitarianism, and ultrademocracy, while defining the task of leadership in a way which avoids the
dangers of dogmatism and authoritarianism. The task of leaders, she demonstrates, is to advance our
understanding of the "line of march, conditions, and ultimate general result" of the process of human
social development, to identify, train, and organize other leaders, and to develop and direct the
implementation of a common strategy. The test of a good leader is the ability of that leader to attract,
identify, recruit, and develop other leaders. We expect that many of our readers will find this article
challenging. We invite your comments. We hope that this will be the beginning of an ongoing exchange
around the question of organization.
Sergei Deriugin brings us a report on the development of Christian social movements and political
parties in the former Soviet Union. It seems almost impossible to bring to press a truly current analysis
of the situation in the former Soviet bloc. Events seem to overtake even the most acute analysis in a
matter of weeks. We believe, however, that at least one of the principal theses of Deriugin's article
remains valid. Authoritarian religious tendencies are growing at an alarming pace in the former Soviet
Union. Indeed, it is becoming increasingly clear that the events of the past three years in the former
Soviet bloc amount to little more than a right-wing counter-revolution, in which the left opposition and
the authentic forces for perestroika and glasnost were unwitting pawns.
Congregation based organizing represents one of the most important forms of mass political activity in
the present period. Indeed, congregation based organizations are probably the only broadly progressive
organizations in the United States for which the past decade has been a period of organizational growth
and political offensive. Our own collaboration with the most important of the organizing networks,
however, the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF), has raised some serious concerns about both the social
basis and the political valence of this important political tendency. My own article on the IAF reports
on our ongoing research regarding this movement, and presents some cautionary suggestions regarding
the nature and degree of collaboration with them.
The pages of Dialectic, Cosmos, and Society are open to a variety of perspectives. We especially look
forward to publishing focused critiques of the articles which appear in this issue.
FEMINIST APPROACHES TO ORGANIZATION AND LEADERSHIP:
A Critique of Egalitarianism and Ultrademocracy
Maggie Vosburg Mansueto
Contemporary feminist discourse contends that woman-inclusive social structures will be centerless and
egalitarian, thereby overcoming the need for institutional leadership, which is perceived to be inherently
patriarchal and oppressive. I believe it is precisely this attitude which holds back not only feminists,
but also progressives in general, from really being effective in building the just social order they seek.
In this essay, I will argue that egalitarianism and the myth of a centerless organization blocks its
adherents from perceiving and being challenged by reality, reduces or eliminates the incentive for true
self-development and therefore for the development of the organization and the society as a whole, and
roots progressive discourse in a self-defeating dogmatism that stifles its effectiveness in striking at the
root of the injustice that pervades our society.
It is entirely understandable that women in particular would seek to strike out at the institutions that
have so consistently denied us our rights as human beings. We have usually had leadership exercised
against us: institutional authority based on hierarchy has almost always been used to keep us down--
even (or especially) when some women are allowed to make it into the hierarchy. Hierarchy by its very
nature is used to fit the individual into the status quo, to homogenize talent and creativity so that real
change is impossible. Those who participate in a traditional institution often have their larger
commitments co-opted by the very fact that radical change will cost them something--they have a self-
interest in maintaining the system that has rewarded them with position and privilege. I know the
deceptive temptation to protect one's status as "the only woman at this level." It is not an accidental
experience. That system is designed to set the powerless against each other, so that the real centers of
power are never threatened. There is little or nothing about that way of doing business that should be
preserved by organizations seeking a better way. We should understand, however, that it is precisely
in these conditions that most people will be forced to live and work for the foreseeable future.
Whatever kind of strategy we adopt must take these kind of pressures into account, and serve as a kind
of antidote to the poisons of this kind of status-oriented individualism.
A structure with little or no centralized authority might seem like the perfect cure. After all, status and
privilege have been replaced by cooperation and equality. Feminist literature is filled with references
to this kind of system, where personal experience has replaced theoretical understanding, where one is
valued for who one is and not for what one can produce. This kind of ultraliberalism, which is endemic
to the current situation, is dangerous precisely because it takes an important truth from one sphere and
imports it into another. Of course people are accorded dignity and respect as human beings--that is one
of the core values of a just social system. But egalitarians confuse the notion of equal dignity with
equal ability. Some people have dedicated themselves to studying reality and analyzing strategies.
Their views are worth more than the opinions of the casual observer. What is more, and here I break
decisively with most recent progressive formulations, their insights are worth more than anyone's
articulated personal experience. Simply being oppressed does not confer special wisdom on anyone.
One of the main reasons why we are fighting to change the current social system is because we
understand (or are supposed to understand) that oppression grinds people down and blocks them from
developing their full potential. That does not mean that theory ought to be allowed to be out of touch
with what's really happening to people. On the contrary, theory must make sense of personal
experience by putting it in a larger perspective. Without that perspective, individual suffering remains
exactly that--individual, isolated, powerless. But when we allow theory to take the lead, to enlighten
us and enlarge us and tie our personal frustrations into the birthing process of the cosmos as a whole,
we discover new allies, new sources of strength--as well as new obstacles within ourselves.
Egalitarianism, on the other hand, encourages us to be blind to reality, to pretend that all vantage points
are equal. In order to maintain this fiction, we have to cover over all the really essential differences
between us. We are reduced to the lowest common denominator, where all really are equal--simply the
fact that we are all human beings. As important as that equality is, it is not the sum total of the human
experience. The essence of being human is developing and expanding our capabilities, our
relationships, the whole network of our social capacities. In order to do that, we must be willing to
learn from those who are more developed than we are, and to teach those who have not reached our
level. But post-modern egalitarianism rejects the whole concept of "higher" and "lower" development,
indeed the very notion of progress itself. All perceptions are relative, and the only imperative is to find
what is true "for me." In trying to avoid authoritarianism, such perspectives throw out the very
concepts of truth and justice without which there can be no effective critique of the status quo.
Without a rational basis for understanding the differences in ability between us, we are at a loss as to
what constitutes developing our own abilities and the potentials of the organization as a whole. Witness
the seemingly eternal and fruitless debate among feminists about the nature of the "liberated" or
actualized woman. Is a woman essentially nurturing and relationship-oriented? Is the woman's
movement designed "merely" to open up opportunities for woman in traditionally male sectors? Or is
a woman who participates in any of the "patriarchal" disciplines (i.e., objective scholarship, assertive
leadership, medicine, psychoanalysis, etc.) merely a sell-out to the cause of feminism? Each of these
positions has intelligent and articulate proponents, and all of them miss the point. Feminism carries a
radical critique of the current social structure precisely in its demystification of the relationship between
dominance and gender roles. It cannot then replace one mystification (men are aggressive and women
are nurturing) with another (nurturing is better). As long as leadership is based on any criterion that
is not rationally based--as long as superiority remains mystified--all oppression retains legitimacy. We
can not wipe away realities like the superiority of some individuals merely by fiat. When we try to do
so, we eliminate our basis for challenging the fiats of oppression. And if we pretend that equality of
ability already exists, we hand the right-wing a ready-made example of our inability to deal with reality.
What we can do is to understand the process that develops people's capacities and then build a society
that extends that process to everyone. That is the nature of true leadership: the ability to develop those
whom one leads. This concept is the only true basis for effective opposition to authoritarianism. The
right-wing plays on people's experience that without leadership, commitment and discipline, most
groups are thoroughly ineffective and sooner or later drift into self-indulgence. The proper response
is not to build a defense of ineffectiveness and self-indulgence, as progressives have been shamefully
wont to do, or worse, falling into authoritarian forms ourselves. Rather, we should be developing and
promulgating a vision of leadership that is itself progressive, based on a scientific understanding of the
requirements of the current situation, and aimed toward the transcendence of all obstacles to further
human development. But we cannot offer a credible alternative until we begin to accept and exercise
(which is often harder, especially for women) leadership ourselves. Commitment to a leadership
organization is valuable for more than just the concrete results it can produce on issues or theory. It
is the laboratory in which future social structures will be created.
A true leadership organization would first and foremost develop its members to their fullest potential
relationally, intellectually, and politically. This separates it from an egalitarian, leaderless group which
must rely on adherence to dogma to keep itself together in the absence of a commitment to accept and
exercise leadership. Relationally, a true leadership organization would help people to understand the
importance, and to develop the skills, of cultivating public relationships based on mutual accountability,
an honest assessment of common interests and differences, and an ability to struggle in productive and
effective ways. Organizations based on egalitarianism, on the other hand, tend to encourage
relationships built solely on trust, which requires them to play down or ignore differences and to see
struggle as a threat. Such practices invariably lead to frustration and stagnation, with the best people
becoming bored with the endless platitudes which replace real discussion. Honest, above-board struggle
actually allows people the space they need to make their own judgements and retain their independent
bearings, since absolute agreement is not a prerequisite for productive collaboration. It also takes
people seriously, by letting them know that their ideas are not a matter of indifference. And it
guarantees that all participants will continually be challenged by different views, especially those who
exercise more leadership (i.e., those who are best at developing people), since they will be constantly
engaged in the struggle.
Intellectually, since a true leadership organization would avoid the dogmatism inherent in more
egalitarian forms, it would develop the very best theoretical insights by engaging its members in
theoretical investigation at the very highest level at which they are capable of operating. The criterion
for accepting a new concept would no longer be its agreement with previous theory; rather, the cadre
would be open to any theoretical insight which increased their ability to understand reality and enhanced
their ability to act effectively (which is another way of saying "to exercise power"). Since the
organization would no longer be mired in the anti-intellectual faddishness that has seemed to grip
progressives so completely, theoretical development would properly be the responsibility (and the
prerogative) of every member. Imagine the advances that could be made!
Finally, a true leadership organization, in order to be effective, must develop its members politically.
It is time to break decisively with the liberal fascination symbolic protest. There is a time and a place
for symbol, but our job is to see that we don't let things get so bad that that's all we can do. In order
to be effective, we must be committed to a clear, coordinated strategy. That does not mean that we
give up our autonomy. Quite the contrary, it means that whole new worlds of possibility open up, as
our efforts are finally focused in a rational way specifically toward opening up new opportunities for
growth and development. A good political strategy is continually evolving, responsive to the constantly
changing needs of the situation and to the continually growing abilities of the cadre. Being committed
to a strategy is the best antidote for the difficulties of operating under the current system. It allows us,
isolated as we are in this alienated and alienating society, to see our individual efforts, our individual
decisions, our individual relationships and abilities, in the larger context of our vision for the future.
Commitment to a political strategy, and the to the other members of the organization who share that
commitment, gives us the support we need to stand against the tide of individualism which so erodes
our capacity to be human. Egalitarian organizations, with their aversion to strategy, do nothing to
challenge that underlying alienation--except perhaps to offer slogans and platitudes that are supposed
to make us feel better. I don't want to feel better--I want to make it better. And being committed to
a strategy and an organization lets me assess our progress realistically and verifiably.
Although I can sympathize with the aversion to authoritarianism that produces egalitarianism, I believe
that egalitarianism, since it is really only the flipside of patriarchy, represents a serious obstacle to the
success of progressive movements. Egalitarianism alienates us from the true sources of power--
relationality, theory, and strategy. It keeps us spinning our wheels in feel-good ideologies and
superficial analysis. There comes a time when each of us must decide if we're serious about change,
about developing ourselves, about accepting and exercising leadership. It will cost us everything we
have--and give us the opportunity to invent the future.
THE CHRISTIAN PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS OF THE USSR
Sergey V. Deriugin
Today the process of formation of a multi-party political system is developing in the USSR. The
foundation of political parties of various orientation has taken place: social-democratic, socialist,
republican, liberal-democratic, anarchist, and many others. These groups have programme documents,
rules, central and affiliated bodies; they publish bulletins, newspapers and magazines. We shall
therefore consider many of them political organizations-parties, in spite of the fact that they haven't
been registered officially yet. (N.B. - According to the law adopted in the USSR, it is necessary to
have 3,000 members to register a party.) About 95 percent of the new parties can not be registered
because of lack of members. There are now 150 organizations which call themselves parties. Some
of them are clearly religious in character, representing various confessions. This paper will focus
specifically on Christian religious parties, though there are non-Christian organizations also at work in
the USSR.
By analyzing the programme documents of the Christian parties and movements, as well as press
accounts of various orientation, we conclude that the so-called "independent Christian world" in the
USSR is developing an increasingly political character and has a great influence on life within the party
and on the political atmosphere of all of society. Believer intellectuals and students from the main
social base of the "independent Christian world." At this time, several political movements, unions and
associations have appeared among them.
These movements and unions can be divided conditionally into two groups: one supports dictatorship
of different forms, often defending the monarchical idea; and the other who adhere to representative
democracy, usually calling themselves "Democratic Christians," Christians with a liberal-democratic
orientation. We will consider each in turn.
The so-called People's Orthodox Movement (POM), set up in March of 1990, is a typical example of
a group with an extreme political character which seeks to establish dictatorship and which stands under
the banners of Orthodoxy. It includes some off-shoots of "Pamiat" ("Memory")--the Orthodox
National-Patriotic Front Pamiat, and the Association for National-Proportional Representation Pamiat--as
well as the Russian Popular Party, the Russian Liberation Union, and the most conservative-
monarchistic and antisemitic elements of other orthodox unions (including the Christian Patriotic Union
and others.)
POM is fighting for the "unity of monarch and people", for union with the European neofascists
(National Front of Le Pen in France, Republic party in Germany and others). At the same time POM
extols Stalin, considering him the greatest fighter against Zionism. The movement's members hate
liberalism, humanism, communism, and democracy. They worship the "strong power" and they dream
about "an iron hand", admiring both monarchy and repressive dictatorship. At the meetings held by
POM, one can see young men wearing from head to toe crosses and badges with the portrait of George
the Carry of Victory, holding in their arms, strange as it may appear, double placards with the portraits
of both Nikolai II, the last Russian tsar, and Stalin. What is more, the inscription "The Great Fighter
Against Zionism" often appears under the second portrait.
POM does not hide its hatred of perestroika, which it considers a policy designed to destroy Russia,
carried out by "Zionism and Judaism." The movement puts forward the slogan of rallying around the
Church, the army, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the KGB, and the CPSU (Communist Party--Soviet
Union). An Orthodox monarchy is the final aim of this movement. Its members embrace the use of
violent methods of struggle, including the use of commandos.
The leaders and active members of this movement are on the whole people who lack professional skill,
and therefore opportunity, under the new system. People of this kind see the reasons for all their
failures in Jewish freemason intrigue. It is interesting to note that they criticize Hitler for his failure
in the struggle against the Jews. They believe that Jews provoked Hitler to start the war and therefore
they reproach him for not solving the Jewish question definitively.
The devotion to dictatorship, antisemitism, nationalism and chauvinism are hidden in POM's statements
under such code words as "national character", "Orthodoxy", and "patriotism." Rarely are the political
aims of such parties expressed in clear and definite form. In most cases, the real programme directions
are camouflaged by florid discourses about Orthodoxy, ecclesiastic spirit and cathedral unity, and the
like. One Christian publicist, Dmitry Khanov, noted correctly: "It is a pity that some people who call
themselves "Russian patriots" or "Orthodox Christians" are infected, in a spiritual sense, with the
nationalistic disease--sometimes in a grave form. That is why is it very important not only to
differentiate the pogrom makers with their false references to Orthodoxy from genuine Orthodoxy, but
also to find the boundary between Russian nationalism in all of its forms, and Russian patriotic
awakening, based not on the blind love of one's own, but on unblind, real, visible love."
We can suppose that the leaders of POM are on the whole pseudo-intellectuals--strictly speaking they
are semi-intellectuals. They are not well-prepared for a successful professional career, but they college-
educated and ambitious. They must explain their lack of success on the intrigues of Jews, or the
character of the social system. People of this type perceive democratization as a threat to their own
interests because they are not ready for normal professional and political activity in the conditions of
representative democracy. It is not mere chance that the adherents of various forms of dictatorship have
been recruited from among the ranks of the semi-intellectuals.
The most sinister propaganda of nationalism and chauvinism is heard in these circles. In spite of the
fact that their propaganda is full of pietistic devotion to the "special historical road" of Russia--the
messianic enthusiasm of hope for a national renaissance, which, like a magic wand in fairy tales, can
cure all wounds and diseases, their feelings of patriotism--of pain for the sufferings of Mother Russia--
are stirred up with blind hatred to all "aliens", ideological intolerance, a commitment to violence, and
the suppression of all opponents.
There is some difference between POM and the Orthodox Constitutional Monarchist Party (OCMP).
OCMP expresses the attitude of mind of respectable monarchists, who are far from extremism and
chauvinism. Its Organization Committee was founded in 1989, and the Constituent Congress took place
on 19 May 1990. The OCMP of Russia rejects violence in pursuit of its goal of re-establishing the
monarchical power of the Romanovs and the restoration of pre-revolutionary estates. To join the party,
it is necessary to swear an oath to the Grand Duke Vladimir Kirilovitch, the present head of the House
of Romanov.
The OCMP supports Vladimir Kirilovitch unconditionally, and condemns those monarchists who favor
the convocation of an elective district council to elect a tsar.
The party supports non-violent methods of struggle. Its members set their hopes on the over-lapping
interests of this new/old ideology with those of the military, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the
KGB. The OCMP plans to bring in a new nobility, by granting land for faithful service to "Tsar and
Motherland."
The party is active among young people. It has founded a Youth Committee. This Committee is an
amalgamation of monarchist orthodox students from such institutions as the Moscow Institute of
Historical Archives and Moscow State University.
The constitutional monarchists have three main goals: to restore Russian Orthodoxy, to reinaugurate
the Orthodox Russian reign of the Orthodox Russian tsar, and to re-establish a united and indivisible
Russian Empire.
Actually, they interpret the rebirth of Russian Orthodoxy in an original way. The party's Manifesto
contains direct insults toward the administration of the Moscow Patriarch, which they consider to have
submitted to "the communist-anarchists" and to have fallen "into heresy." They view their immediate
task to be the opening in Russia of cathedrals which are to be under the jurisdiction of the Foreign
Russian Orthodox Church, of which they regard themselves as "spiritual children." It is very easy to
explain why the Constitutional Monarchists sympathize with the Foreign Russian Orthodox Church.
Its synod is based on monarchist positions. It is more difficult to explain how those who call their party
Orthodox, and themselves the faithful, can directly insult the Russian Orthodox Church in their
declarations. Of course, I should add that they criticize not only the Moscow Patriarch, but also "the
democratic Christian world" and its leaders.
Thus, the Russian Orthodox constitutional monarchist party is a respectable branch of monarchism.
This organization seeks to have nothing in common with those who embrace extremism, with its
propaganda of violence and hatred between nations. The sincere, fervent convictions of groups like
OCMP have nothing to do with violence. They deserve respect, even from those who hold very
different points of view.
Appeals to non-violence, penitence, peace, and forgiveness of enemies are the most important part of
the propaganda of constitutional monarchism. The USSR is in need of such attitudes--these appeals are
worth supporting. Only the rejection of revenge, hatred and animosity toward other nations will allow
the creation of normal conditions for normal living in the developing society of the USSR, since people
with very different convictions--at times polar opposite convictions--strive to live in peace.
We cannot forget that a dogmatic education based on Marxist-Leninist theory has formed, to a certain
extent, the type of personality most susceptible to authoritarian thinking--disappointed with the ideals
of Communism, without trust in the authority of the CPSU. People of this type retain their internal
need for blind obedience to supreme authorities. They rebel against the old system of administration
which is in profound crisis. But they gravitate not towards democracy, but toward some ideal
hierarchical pyramid where it is enough to obey the orders of a superior.
This type of "intellectual infantilism" is one of the roots even of respectable monarchism. Constitutional
monarchy party members have great erudition, inner culture, and a high level of education. But we can
see another side to this party. Its members devoted to the concept that the development of Russia
represents a unique historical process, unlike both the occidental and the oriental modes of development.
This way is completely original--it represents the messianic hope for a special Russian way to a bright
future.
Many different political forces and ideological trends look for this path to a radiant future. Some of
them seek the restoration of "Holy Mother Russia", while others consider it necessary to reform the
socialist path. The advocated of the socialist perspective are sometimes reproached for not being
sufficiently concrete in their vision of the future. The monarchists, on the other hand, see that future
very clearly: it is an idealized projection of the best features of pre-revolutionary Russia (or Holy
Mother Russia, the Orthodox kingdom). In this romantic utopia, the tsar is a guarantee of the unique
historical path and messianic destiny of Russia.
Let us turn now to the second path of Christian political movement--"Christian Democracy." Among
the advocates of this approach, the most consistent ideas and slogans are suggested by those who share
the ideas of the Russian Christian Democratic Union (RCDU). Their name can be misleading to
Westerners--they are closer to Western Social Democrats than to the Christian Democrats of Western
Europe.
There is no unity among the members of the Christian Democratic Union. One of its branches is
headed by the Orthodox priest Alexander Ogorodnikov, leader of the party since May of 1990. Yet
various regional associations (especially the Moscow and Leningrad sections of the Christian Democratic
Union), as well as ecological groups, philosophical societies, charity groups, and the editorial staff of
some newspapers (such as the Christian-Democracy Bulletin, Cathedral," and "Resurrection") oppose
Ogorodnikov.
In contrast to the right-wing "national-democratic movements", which are composed only of members
of the Orthodox Church, the RCDU integrates Christians of all confessions: Orthodox, Protestant, and
Catholic.
The RCDU, set up in 1990, exercises great influence on the "independent Christian world." It is the
only officially registered Christian party at this time. It is based on centrist positions. It defends the
idea of calling an elective council to determine the future political system of Russia--either republic or
monarchy. The leaders of the movement would allow a system of presidential governance under the
condition of separation of legislative, executive, and juridical authority, and the development of local
self-government. The president would have to be elected by universal ballot. The RCDU supports
gradual reforms and rejects all forms of violence.
There are People's Deputies among the leaders of the movement--for example, Victor Aksiutchits,
Viacheslav Polosin, and Gleb Yakunin (the last two of whom are priests). The Council (Duma) of the
movement is represented by members from Moscow, Leningrad, Riga, Obninsk, and other cities and
towns. The structure of the RCDU is not homogeneous. Thus, Gleb Yakunin supports the bloc of
"Democratic Russia" and speaks in support of union with democratic forces in the CPSU and the State
machinery. The writer Karpets, member of the Council (Duma) is known as a staunch supporter of
monarchy.
Victor Aksiutchits is one of the co-chairmen of the movement. His political convictions are close to
those of the constitutional democrats. The political diversity of convictions among the leaders of the
movement, combined with their own arrogance, augment the possibility of cleavage in the movement.
A sharp inner struggle is one of the characteristic features of the religious movements, parties and
unions with political character. There are two main tendencies among the "independent Christian
world": "traditional" and "modernist".
The supporters of "traditional" tendencies are often oriented to the Foreign Russian Orthodox Church,
which they consider genuine Orthodoxy. They are animated by monarchist "national-patriotic"
sentiment. They are against innovations in the liturgy. Within this general category, there are apolitical
traditional unions, for example the "Society of Ignatij Brianchaninov" (Leningrad). Sometimes such
traditional orientation towards "genuine Orthodoxy" is combined with support for political
democratization (e.g., Priest Gregory Edelstein, Deacon Oleg Steniaev, and other members of the
association "Church and Perestroika").
The adherents of the "modernist" tendency call for the simplification of the liturgical rites, the
introduction of the vernacular into worship, and the modernization of theology.
But the differences run to the level of political conviction and orientation as well. The struggle between
the advocates of various forms of dictatorship, on the one hand (defended by monarchists for the most
part) and supporters of representative democracy on the other (which are divided by contradictions
between traditionalists and modernists in every group) weaken the political-religious movements. They
lack solidity and run the danger of ruinous division.
At the same time, these branches do express the spiritual and political interests of the religious
intellectuals, the best educated strata of believers. They will influence the life of all believers, as well
as the general political situation.
THE INDUSTRIAL AREAS FOUNDATION
A Preliminary Analysis of its Social Base and Political Valence
Anthony Mansueto
The past decade has witnessed an unprecedented crisis of the international workers movement. Both
the mass organizations of the working class, and the social democratic and communist leadership of the
workers movement have suffered organizational disintegration, political defeat, and ideological
disorientation. Much the same can be said of the national liberation movements based in the peasantry
and the national bourgeoisie, which provided the workers movement with its most important strategic
reserve. As these movements have declined, new social movements have emerged, many of which are
rooted in religious institutions. Among the most important of these is the growing network of
congregation based community organizations affiliated with the Industrial Areas Foundation and other
organizing institutes and funded generously by the official organs of the Roman Catholic Church and
the principal Protestant denominations in the United States.
These congregation based organizations present progressive forces with complex social-analytic and
strategic problems. On the one hand they are, perhaps, the only organizations involving large numbers
of working class people in substantive and broadly progressive political organizing and education. They
have accumulated a series of public policy victories over the course of the past ten years which
demonstrates that progressive organizations can be politically effective even during a reactionary period.
They claim to be carrying out a real transformation of the religious institutions they organize, the
purpose of which is to "make Judeo-Christian values effective in the public arena" ÄÄa goal
reminiscent of the "intellectual and moral reform" which Gramsci argued could make popular religion
a bridge to the formation of socialist consciousness.
At the same time, these organizations are not unambiguously progressive. They explicitly deny the
possibility of a scientific analysis of human social reality, and of a social ethics, political line, and
strategy based on such an analysis. They show real signs of internal authoritarianism, their emphasis
on democracy and empowerment notwithstanding. And their economic dependence on religious
institutions and progressive bourgeoisie generally, and on the Catholic Bishops in particular raises real
questions about their long term political loyalties. Their have been some accusations, to my mind
credible but not yet adequately documented, of ties to the counterinsurgency efforts in the third world.
Most important, I will argue, certain aspects of their ideology, internal organization, and strategy, make
them inadequate to the task of resisting the rising tide of authoritarianism in the present period.
It is thus vitally important that progressive forces understand the social character of congregation based
community organizations generally, and of the Industrial Areas Foundation in particular, and that they
develop appropriate strategic, tactical, and organizational responses to this movement.
This paper is an attempt to provide a preliminary analysis of the congregation based organizing
movement, with special emphasis on the Industrial Areas Foundation. It will attempt to look behind
the developing pool of data regarding the movement's history, ideology, finances, organization, and
political strategy to assess the underlying social basis and political valence of the movement.
Specifically, I will argue that congregation based organizing is a politically ambivalent phenomenon
similar to other trends which grew up on the right wing of the communist movement during the 1930's
and 1940's, and which has very real links to the counterrevolutionary strategy of the liberal bourgeoisie,
the religious institutions, etc., but which, due to the peculiar way in which North American capitalism
has developed during the past decade, nonetheless retains very real progressive characteristics.
This analysis draws not only on secondary sources and internal IAF documents, but on intelligence
gathered while working inside the IAF organization in Texas, and from ongoing field reports from
persons still working inside the organization. Between June 1988 and May 1991 I served as Diocesan
Director of the Justice and Peace Commission and the Campaign for Human Development for the
Roman Catholic Diocese of Dallas. During this time I played the leading role in building the
sponsoring committee for the IAF's new Dallas organization, raising over $125,000 and recruiting over
50 congregations. I attended IAF national training, served on the Dallas strategy committee, and was
included in IAF organizer seminars and strategy sessions.
This collaboration was initiated because of the IAF's importance in building the leading mass
organization in Texas, and probably the most rapidly growing progressive mass organizations in the
country. We were by no means unaware of the reactionary elements in the IAF's ideology, political
line, etc. The IAF leadership was broadly aware of my own ideological and political commitments.
Throughout this period of collaboration I was also actively engaged in relationship building and political
education work with advanced leaders designed to build a local leadership core which would eventually
be able to exercise leadership over the mass organization. In this sense the collaboration was conceived,
broadly speaking, on a popular front model, and was not simply an intelligence activity. By November
of 1990 struggles around the issues discussed in this paper, coupled with the appointment of a new and
more conservative Catholic bishop in Dallas, had developed to a point where it became necessary for
me to resign from the Dallas strategy committee, and eventually from my position as Director of the
Justice and Peace Commission. We retain strong relationships both with the Dallas leadership core and
a periphery of intellectuals and mass leaders who remain active in the IAF's Dallas organization.
I will begin with a discussion of the history of the Industrial Areas Foundation and the various
organizations which grew out of schisms within the organizing movement. I will then explore the IAF's
ideological and political line, its internal organization, and its principal political operations. I will
conclude with an analysis of the class character of the organization, and strategic and tactical
recommendations.
I. History and Perspectives
The roots of congregation based organizing go back to the work of Saul Alinsky in the Back of the
Yards district in Chicago in the late 1930s. Hired to organize neighborhood youth programs of a more
or less traditional settlement house variety, Alinsky was caught up in the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO) organizing drive in the packing houses, and after apprenticing himself to the CIO
organizers, began to organize in some of the neighborhood churches, initially with the intent of
overcoming clerical opposition to the CIO (Finks 1984: 16ff). It was out of this experience that the
Back of the Yards Neighborhood Council first emerged. The next year, with the support of Bishop
Bernard Sheil, founder of the Catholic Youth Organization, Chicago publisher Marshall Field, Kathryn
Lewis, (daughter of CIO leader John Lewis) and State Department official Howland Shaw, Alinsky
founded the Industrial Areas Foundation, to carry out similar work in other communities.
The composition of the IAF's initial Board of Directors tells us a great deal about the social forces
which are behind congregation based organizing. The IAF has its roots in the anticommunist trend
within the workers movement, in the Christian Democratic wing of the Roman Catholic Church, and
in the liberal bourgeoisie. In order to understand the IAF, it is necessary to examine the influence of
each of these sectors in some detail.
John Lewis played a critical role in the subordination of the emerging industrial union movement to the
New Deal and the Democratic Party, and successfully restricted Communist influence within the CIO
while making systematic use of Communist organizing talent (Davis 1985: 52-102).
The goal of the ... bureaucrats led by Lewis and Hillman was to dam [the] torrent of
mass militancy and to rechannel it into pacific tributaries under their command. Their
model of industrial unionism was Lewis' own United Mine Workers, which banned
radicals and whose constitution provided for `tight central control, limited local
autonomy, and minimized rank and file participation.' ... Both the Steel and the
Packinghouse Workers Organizing Committees (SWOC and PWOC) were strictly
top-down operations, headed by hand picked lieutenants of Lewis from the UMW who
supplanted existing local leadership (61).
It should be noted that the Communist Party accepted this arrangement more or less passively. During
this period its most important single priority was the formation of a broad popular front with the
Democratic party--an end for which it was willing to sacrifice the ideological development of working
class leaders.
It was a cold blooded marriage of convenience: the bureaucratic integration of the CIO
was an incomparably easier matter with Communist complicity, and Lewis also needed
the kind of superb organizing talent which they seemed to possess in abundance. On the
other side, the CP's turn to Lewis, under the rising star of Earl Browder, was a logical
part of a broader maneuver to legitimize the Communists as the left wing of the New
Deal Coalition In time they would have to pay a terrible price at the hands of their
erstwhile allies for this `center-left coalition.' Meanwhile, the Party's work in the unions
began to take on a totally new character as the exigencies of intra-bureaucratic struggle
assumed priority over the .... creation of a mass socialist current in the unions.
Communist criticism of Lewis ... ceased, the call for an independent labor party was
muted and by 1938 the party's factory cells and plant papers were abolished (63-64).
From the standpoint of the CIO organizers who trained him, and at least initially from Alinsky's point
of view as well, the congregation based organization he built in the Back of the Yards community was
conceived as a support organization for the packing house workers union, on the model of the popular
front organizations then being built by the Communist Party. Religious institutions served as an adjunct
or strategic reserve to the workers movement, which was very much the senior partner in the alliance.
At the same time ideological struggleÄÄthe task of developing working class leaders who could think
dialectically and act relationallyÄÄwas more or less completely neglected, or to be more precise,
scrupulously avoided.
As the trade unions abandoned the broad based vision of the CIO and began to focus on narrowly
economistic concerns (Finks 1984: 73), the IAF moved way from active engagement with the workers
movement, and looked increasingly to the churches generally, and the Catholic Church in particular,
as its principal base of support. During this period, Alinsky came under the influence of Christian
Democratic theorist Jacques Maritain (Finks 1984: 30), and began to cultivate a cadre of organizer
priests, the best known of whom was Msgr. John Egan. Indeed, someÄÄincluding Bishop
SheilÄÄaccused Alinsky, who remained an agnostic, of selling out to the Catholic Church, and of
plotting a Catholic take over of Chicago (Finks 1984: 119ff). There have even been reports that
Alinsky "accepted an offer from Milan's Cardinal Montini (the future Pope Paul VI) to organize Italian
workers in order to undercut the influence of the Italian Communist party (Speer 1987:31)."
The role of European Christian Democracy in the U.S. anticommunist strategy for postwar Europe is
well documented (Davis 1985: 186-188). On the one hand Christian Democrats carried out a series of
preemptive reforms, particularly in the agrarian sphere, which undermined the rural reserves of the
Communist movement, especially in Southern Europe, and built a whole network of parallel unions,
which competed with the Communists and Socialists for the support of the working class. On the other
hand, Christian Democracy mobilized the cultural conservatism of the peasantry, newly proletarianized
workers, and the traditional petty bourgeoisie, and channeled it into an emerging anticommunist
consensus, disarming what might otherwise have been a powerful movement of resistance to economic
modernization.
Confessional political parties were out of the question in the religiously pluralistic United States, but
the Industrial Areas Foundation played a role similar to that of Christian Democracy by organizing the
Catholic working class in ways that restricted development of independent class consciousness while,
at the same time, preventing the emergence of a mass traditionalist trend which opposed trade unions,
economic modernization, etc.
Alinsky himself, however, always maintained that he was neither a Communist nor a Social Christian,
but rather a radical democrat in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, and
Alexis de Tocqueville (Finks 1984: 30-32). This is ingenuous to say the least, given the fact that
Jefferson, Henry, Adams and de Tocqueville all represent divergent and even incompatible types of
democratic theory and practice. The claim does, however, point to the third key relationship that has
shaped the theory and practice of the Industrial Areas Foundation: i.e. the relationship with the
progressive sector of the bourgeoisieÄÄwith that sector based in advanced industries and willing to
support investment in the public sector and to be accountable to an organized body of citizens. This
relationship has been particularly important as it has provided the IAF with its only other source of
funding outside the religious institutions. And it is this relationship which provides the key to
understanding the peculiar complex of political forces which came together in the establishment of the
IAF.
By the end of the 1920's North American capitalism had reached a point of crisis. On the one hand,
the tendency for the rate of profit to fall as the organic composition of capital increased had set in
motion a whole series of investments in relatively low wage, labor intensive sectors. This in turn had
led to a chronic tendency towards underconsumption, which was holding back the all sided economic
development of the country. Exploitation of a whole series of technological developments: the
automobile, the radio, the refrigerator, the airplane, etc. was being delayed by low wage levels which
prevented formation of demand for these products. Beginning in the 1930's therefore, the more
progressive sectors of the bourgeoisie began to promote structural reforms designed to increase real
wages and thus create sufficient effective demand to unleash once again the productive forces. Thus
the phenomenon of capitalist support for collective bargaining and income support programs, and for
the Democratic and liberal Republican tendencies which promoted these policies (Davis 1985:52-102
passim).
Large sectors of the bourgeoisie opposed this strategy. It was necessary for the progressive bourgeoisie
to build a mass base within the working class, while at the same containing Communist influence which
grew rapidly, especially after 1935. Reformist mass leaders such as Lewis and Alinksy played a critical
role in this regard. They were able to tap into an already growing mass movement, discipline it,
immunize it against Communist influence, and deploy it in the struggle for structural reforms which the
progressive bourgeoisie regarded as not only acceptable but in fact necessary for the development of
its own long term interests.
Two points are in order here, which are of critical importance for assessing the political valence of
Alinsky's heritage. On the one hand, it is clear that Alinsky absorbed and extended the organizing
method developed by the communist leadership of the trade union movement, and adapted it to work
in religious institutions and neighborhood communities. In this sense he deepened considerably the
communist understanding of the mass organization and the popular front by tapping the latent
progressive political valence of the religious institutions and by developing an understanding of power
and of the organizing process which made possible both struggle and alliance across class lines. At the
same time, Alinksy insulated the organizations which he established from both institutional relationships
with trade unions, and from the kind of ideological leadership which the Communist Party attempted,
at least, to provide. Congregation based organizing, by organizing workers on an interclass basis can
undermine the emergence of autonomous working class identity. The IAF, meanwhile, provided
powerful organizational training, but minimized the importance of an in-depth dialectical analysis of
social realities. Indeed, it is possible to see the Industrial Areas Foundation as an attempt to provide
organizational leadership and discipline for congregation based organizations, of the kind provided to
the workers movement by the Communist Party, without involving leaders in the kind of critique of
capitalism which always guided Communist work. If this is so, then financial and institutional support
for the effort on the part of the Catholic Church, the State Department, the anticommunist CIO, and
a key Chicago capitalist like Marshall Field should come as no surprise.
In both his profound understanding of the nature and importance of popular front work, and his
collaboration with the religious institutions and the liberal bourgeoisie, Alinksy's career is similar to
that of certain leaders of the "right opposition" within the communist movement, which was home to
some of the most creative communists of the period (Gramsci, Silone, Bukharin) as well as a
headquarters for class collaborationists (Lovestone). It is not possible at this point to demonstrate that
Alinsky had formal relationships with the right opposition, but there is ample evidence to suggest that
"right wing communism" and the IAF represent politically parallel phenomena.
During the 1950's and 1960's Alinsky recruited and trained a core of professional organizers, including
Fred Ross, Ed Chambers, Cesar Chavez, and Tom Gaudette, and built organizations throughout the
country, the best known of which are the Community Service Organizations in California, The
Woodlawn Organization and the Organization of the Southwest Community in Chicago, and FIGHT in
Rochester, New York. But by the late 1960's certain weaknesses had emerged in the strategy. Most
IAF organizations tended gradually to degenerate into social service agencies. Some, such as the Back
of the Yards Neighborhood Council became openly racist. It was unclear how the IAF should relate
to the new social movements which had developed during the 1960'sÄÄto movements for civil rights
and economic justice for ethnic minorities, for peace and international solidarity, for the liberation of
women, etc. to which the Catholic Church, the trade unions, and the liberal bourgeoisie were offering
very limited support at best. Should organizers rely on relationships with established leaders of key
institutions, or should they go directly to their working class and ethnic minority constituencies, many
of whom increasingly had no ties to established institutions? Should the IAF participate directly in the
electoral arena or should it concentrate on direct action?
These questions were the occasion of several broad schisms within the movement. Fred Ross and his
protege Cesar Chavez found the Catholic hierarchy hostile or indifferent to their efforts to organize
Mexican American farmworkers, and focused instead on building direct membership organizations
(drawing, to be sure on significant support from the lower clergy, sisters, etc.). They have been
followed in this by Wade Rathke's Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN)
and by Gary Delgado's Center for Third World Organizing. These organizations have generally had
closer relationships with the new left than have the other trends within the organizing movement, and
most of the very limited basebuilding work carried out by the peace movement and international
solidarity organizations has been inspired by this model.
Tom Gaudette, on the other hand shared Alinsky's suspicion of the new left and maintained strong ties
to workers in both Euro-American and oppressed nationality communities, developing a kind of urban
populism that had particular appeal in the Midwest. Gaudette's organizations were characterized by a
penchant for rather militant direct action. Gaudette's own Mid-America Institute, as well as National
Peoples Action and its National Training and Information Center led by former Carter Assistant
Secretary for Housing and Urban Development Gail Cincotta continue in this tradition.
Others sought to apply some of the techniques developed by Alinsky to building a mass electoral
movement that would take up some of the new issues which emerged during the 1960's and 1970's:
utility regulation, consumer and environmental protection, health care, etc. Heather Booth and Steve
Max founded the Midwest Academy, which became the national organizing institute for an emerging
network of organizations known as Citizen Action. These organizations rely on young, relatively
untrained canvassers to circulate petitions and collect dues from "members" who are mobilized for
electoral campaigns and grass roots lobbying efforts, but who, unlike the leaders of organizations
associated with the other networks, play relatively little role in shaping the organizations' policy,
strategy, etc. Citizen Action sees itself as the core of a "Progressive Populist" movement which will
ultimately come to power through electoral means. Along with Harry Boyte, who has served as
theoretician for this trend, Max and Booth have historic ties to the social democratic New American
Movement, which merged with the Democratic Socialist organizing Committee during the early 1980's
to form the Democratic Socialists of America. Max is currently a DSA Vice-Chair.
In 1971 Alinsky died, and Ed Chambers emerged triumphant from the power struggle which ensued.
Ed Chambers, a former seminarian and disciple of Dorothy Day, stressed the need for organizations
to have an ongoing relationship with the Industrial Areas Foundation if they were not to degenerate into
social service centers or take on an objectively racist character. This meant training more organizers,
and at least a core of clergy and lay leaders who really understood the organizing processÄÄfor whom
building power was more important than winning victories around particular issues. He also argued that
it was possible to tap more effectively the democratic and religious traditions which made the churches
the IAF organized such a dynamic force in the first place. In 1969 he set up the IAF training center
in Chicago, and set to work training organizers. He began to recruit some creative young organizers,
among them Ernesto Cortes, who together with him have shaped the "modern IAF."
At the same time, North American society underwent some profound changes. As the market for mass
consumer durable goods in North America became saturated towards the end of the 1960's, capital
began increasingly to invest in low wage, labor intensive industries in the Third World, while gradually
transforming the U.S. into a military-administrative center for global empire, where growth is driven
primarily by high levels of military spending and luxury consumption. These economic changes had
a profound impact on the class structure of North American society. The progressive bourgeoisie and
the skilled working class have shrunk, while the numbers of nouveaux riches entrepreneurs centered in
unproductive sectors, on the one hand, and the masses of the unemployed and underemployed have
increased dramatically.
As commodity relations have penetrated every sphere of life, transforming all activity into simply a
means of individual survival, the social fabric itself has begun to disintegrate, so undermining political
life. At the mercy of forces beyond their comprehension or control the masses became increasingly
vulnerable to irrationalist cultural trends of both the fundamentalist and nihilistic variety.
These trends undermined the international workers movement, with its historic base among skilled
workers in heavy industry, and led to serious disorientation among progressive intellectuals, who
increasingly lost faith in the historic project of the "Enlightenment." New social movements emerged
which rooted themselves not in the historic project of rationalizing human social relations which had
historically guided liberalism, socialism, and communism, but rather in national, gender, or religious
identities. Some of these, such as national liberation movements in the Third World, the movement for
the liberation of women, or the popular church in Latin America reflected broadly progressive
aspirations. Others (and these were the movements which gained power after 1980) showed frankly
authoritarian and even protofascistic tendencies.
Typical of this trend, and of particular importance for any analysis of the social basis and political
valence of the IAF, is the emergence of a new rightist consensus in the Roman Catholic hierarchy.
Historically Catholic theology has been dominated by a Thomistic paradigm which accords broad scope
to human reason and human virtue. According to this paradigm, there is an eternal law which exists
as an exemplar for the cosmos in the mind of God. Human reason can grasp a part of this law (the
natural law) and human virtue can fulfill its requirements, unaided by sanctifying grace, so that it is
possible even for "natural humanity" to build a just social order.
Since the present pope came to power in 1978, however, the Vatican has been promoting a theology
associated with the international theological journal Communio. According to this theology any attempt
to understand rationally the love of God transforms that love into something necessary, merited, and
therefore no longer truly gracious. The task of the church is to mediate to the believer the love of God
made manifest in the vicarious sacrifice of Christ on the cross. It is only on the basis of a trusting
acceptance of this loveÄÄonly on the basis of personal conversionÄÄthat authentic social progress
is possible (von Balthasar 1968).
Working out of this new problematic, the Vatican has mounted a vigorous polemic against all theologies
characterized by a "rationalist hermeneutic," and has not hesitated to use organizational means to repress
those forms of pastoral practice guided by such rationalizing theologies.
During the 1980's, as both North American society and the Vatican turned sharply to the right, the
North American church, still guided for the most part by the old Thomistic paradigm in which most
bishops had been trained, took firm stands for economic justice and international solidarity. The church
also began to invest heavily in congregation based organizing, through the medium of its Campaign for
Human Development. By the middle of 1991 there were at least 25 organizations affiliated with the
Industrial Areas FoundationÄÄ12 of which are located in Texas, 4 each in the New York and Los
Angeles metropolitan areas, 2 each in Arizona and Maryland and one in Memphis, Tennessee. During
the past decade several other networks have emerged which also focus on congregation based
organizing: Gamaliel, based in Chicago, the Pacific Institute for Community Organizing, the Organize
Training Center, and several small, regional efforts. Now, at the beginning of a new decade, these
organizations are increasingly beholden to new Bishops who reflect the influence of the Vatican's
reactionary political-theological agenda.
Before we can understand the likely impact of this development on the political valence of the IAF, we
need to examine in more detail that organization's ideology, organization, and political strategy.
II. Ideology, Organization, and Political Strategy
A. Ideology
The Alinskyite tradition has a carefully cultivated reputation for pragmatism and disdain for "ideology."
In fact however, the political strategy developed and implemented by the Industrial Areas Foundation
is rooted in a highly developed, systematic, if somewhat eclectic ideology, which draws heavily on the
work of Hannah Arendt, and on Catholic Social thinkers such as Jacques Maritain.
Human beings, the IAF argues are essentially social beings, driven by self-interest. Self-interest, they
point out, is not the same as selfishness. The term interest derives from the Latin inter esse ÄÄto be
between. Our real self interest is the complex of relationships in which we are involved, in which we
invest our time and effort. Some people have a very narrow conception of their self interest; others
understand that we all really do depend on, and are thus responsible for, each other (oral testimony).
A person's capacity for leadership depends largely on the breadth and depth of his/her interests.
Someone interested only in immediate gratification will find it difficult to find the common ground with
others that is the prerequisite for real power. The wider our interests the more complex our
relationships, the greater our potential for exercising power.
Now some relationshipsÄÄparticularly those centered in the familyÄÄare essentially private in
character, and are formed primarily for the sake of intimacy, to rear children, etc. These relationships
are based on common sentiments, shared feelings, etc. Others relationships are public, and are formed
to build power, in order to govern, or to promote certain values.
The IAF distinguishes between linear and relational power. A person exercising linear power asks
himself "What do I want?" "What stands in the way of my objectives? " and "How can I overcome
these obstacles?" Someone exercising relational power, on the other hand, asks "What is my interest?
What is the complex of relationships in which I am involved, and the range and depth of values that
move me?" and "Who else is involved in this situation, and what are their interests?" A mature leader,
according to the IAF, is interested less in achieving particular policy goals than in expanding their
network of relationships. Power in this sense is "not a substance but an exaction" (oral testimony), not
something an individual can possess, but something exercised between two persons.
Because of this the IAF (drawing on Paul Tillich) constantly points out that power and love are
"conjugal concepts" rooted in the twin capacities which make us humanÄÄthe ability to do, and the
ability to be related. These capacities are rooted in turn in the God in whose image we are created.
The God of the Judeo-Christian tradition, they point out is essentially a relational God, and the Christian
doctrine of the trinity goes so far as to make God a community.
Thus far the IAF's perspective seems progressive and even implicitly dialectical. It is necessary,
however, to examine more closely the distinction which the IAF makes between the private and public
realms, and its implications for their understanding of politics and of human social existence in general.
The IAF draws explicitly in this regard on the work of Hannah Arendt.
The distinctive trait of the household sphere was that in it men lived together because
they were driven by their wants and needs. The driving force was life itself. Natural
community in the household therefore was born of necessity, and necessity ruled over
all activities performed in it.
The realm of the polis, on the contrary, was the sphere of freedom and if there was a
relationship between these two spheres, it was matter of course that the mastering of the
necessities of life in the household was the condition for freedom of the polis. Under no
circumstances could politics be only a means to protect society,--a society of the
faithful... or a society of property owners... or a society relentlessly engaged in a process
of acquisition .. or a society of producers ... or a society of jobholders ... or a society
of laborers ... (Arendt 1958:30-31)
Implicit in this analysis is a claim that only those who have freed themselves at least partially from the
struggle to provide for the necessities of life can participate fully in public life. For the Greeks who
Arendt so admired this meant chattel slavery. For the IAF, as we sill see, it means that only the higher
echelon leaders of major institutions who can leverage large sums of money or mobilize large numbers
of people can really participate in politics at the highest level.
... freedom is exclusively located in the political realm ... necessity is primarily a
prepolitical phenomenon, characteristic of the private household organization ... force
and violence are justified in this sphere because they are the only means to master
necessity--for instance, by ruling over slaves--and become free. Because all human
beings are subject to necessity, they are entitled to violence toward others; violence is
the prepolitical act of liberating oneself from the necessity of life for the freedom of the
world (31).
Closely related to this distinction between private and public realms, is the distinction Arendt makes
between labor, work and action. By labor she means the physical, biological, and economic processes
which are necessary to sustain life. Labor leaves nothing behind except life itself, and perhaps the
freedom of another (the master) to engage in work or action. By work she means the process of
producing objects which possess some permanence, serve some purpose beyond themselves, and which
are executed in accord with some pre-conceived plan. Work is an intrinsically teleological process.
By action she means the disclosure of the subject in relationship with other subjectsÄÄa process which
unlike labor or work directly presupposes the presence of others, which, consequently has a
characteristic frailty, and the outcome of which is always uncertain (Ardent 1958).
Arendt criticizes sharply the entire tradition of Western political philosophy from Plato though Marx,
which, she says, understands politics as a form of fabrication or work rather than as the quintessential
form of action.
Plato and Aristotle elevated lawmaking and city building to the highest rank in political
life ... because they wished to turn against politics and against action. To them,
legislating and the execution of decisions by vote are the most legitimate political
activities because in them men "act like craftsmen:" the results of their action is a
tangible product, and its process has a clearly recognizable end. This is no longer, or
rather, not yet action (praxis) properly speaking, but making (poiesis) which they prefer
because of its greater reliability. It is as though they had said that if men only renounce
their capacity for action, with its futility, boundlessness, and uncertainty of outcome,
there could be a remedy for the frailty of human affairs (195).
This tradition reaches is consummation, of course in the work of Marx and Lenin, for whom the
transformation of the working class from mere makers of physical objects, into the conscious makers
of history, constitutes the highest possible level of human development. For Arendt on the other hand,
and for the IAF, politics is an end in itself, a form of human activity which serves no higher purpose
than the disclosure of the human subject in community with one's peers. Politics and thus human
history have no telos, no purpose or direction, and thus cannot be made.
The difficulty with Arendt's understanding of politics is that it more or less arbitrarily excludes politics
from scientific social analysis. Arendt fails to see behind the appearance of freely interacting subjects
to the complex network of social relationships by which those subjects are constituted (made), and
which dissolves the apparent "futility, boundlessness and uncertainty" of political life into an intelligible
historical process. To put the matter somewhat differently, Arendt fails to understand the determination
of power by, and its role in determining (thus its interdependence with) other forms of human activity,
and is thus unable to see human social life as a meaningful totality, with a definite location in the larger
totality of the cosmos. This excludes not only scientific social analysis, but also the elaboration of a
rationally grounded teleological ethics. In this sense the IAF's perspective should be regarded as a form
of postmodernism, close to the communitarian perspectives of Walzer, MacIntyre, and Lasch.
The practical result of this orientation, for the work of the IAF, is an obligation to accept as given the
diverse ideologies which leaders bring to the political process. The IAF recognizes no objective,
extra-political standard by which these ideologies can be judged. They all constitute "interests" around
which power relations can be constructed. There is thus no basis on which to carry out a critique of
commodity relations, of the alienated form of religious consciousness, or of authoritarian ideologies.
These limitations become apparent when we examine the IAF's analysis of contemporary North
American society. According to the IAF, power is constitutive of, and is exercised through,
institutions. Relational power is exercised primarily through what de Tocqueville called the voluntary
intermediate institutions, which stand between the individual on the one hand and the large corporation,
the state, and the mass media on the other handÄÄi.e. the trade union, the political party, the civic
organization, the school, and particularly the religious institutions. It is through these institutions that
families organize to realize their self interestÄÄunderstood in the broad sense to include the full range
of values which are important to them (oral testimony, Industrial Areas Foundation 1979: 9-19).
The large corporation is organized primarily or even exclusively to make money. The state and the
mass media, the IAF argues, are essentially servants of the large corporations and define the public
agenda in a way which serves their interests. The family and the local congregation, on the other hand,
are organized on the basis of reciprocity. At home, at church, or in the synagogue, community is an
end in itself, and ethical conduct is important for its own sake (oral testimony, Industrial Areas
Foundation 1979: 9-19).
The difficulty is that most families and congregations are not organized in such a way as to make their
values effective in the public realmÄÄto negotiate effectively with corporations, government, and the
mass media, and are thus always in danger of losing the ongoing struggle over values. This is true in
part because of the superior power of the large corporationsÄÄpower which is based on organized
wealthÄÄand in part because of internal contradictions in the intermediate institutions themselves. The
Industrial Areas Foundation sees itself essentially as an organization dedicated to reorganizing and
uniting local congregations in order to make their values an effective force in public life (oral testimony,
Industrial Areas Foundation 1979: 9-19).
Once again this analysis, is, within limits, an accurate description of power relations within the U.S.
Rejecting, as it does, however, a dialectical analysis of the underlying structures of social life, the IAF
fails to see behind the power of the large corporations, the state, and the mass media, and the
consumerism which they promote, to the complex web of commodity relations which regulates every
aspect of life in a capitalist society, and which makes all activity simply a means of realizing narrowly
individual ends, hiding from people the social character of human life. The IAF's analysis thus
obscures the underlying obstacle to the realization of human relationality. At the same time, the IAF
elaborates no critique of the pre-capitalist structures of the family and religious institution, which, while
conserving social relations based on reciprocity, also reproduce sexual oppression and religious
alienation. Because of this, the IAF is unable to see beyond the contradiction between market relations
and reciprocity, linear and relational power, to a new social order which would make possible the full
development of human relationality.
B. Organization
We need now to examine in some detail the internal organization of the IAF network.
The Sponsoring Committee: The first step in building a congregation based organization is the
formation of a local sponsoring committee: a group of local congregations, and perhaps some civic and
professional organizations, trade unions, and business groups, which take on the responsibility of
credentialing the organizing effort, raising the money for the project, incorporating and securing
tax-exempt status, retaining the organizing staff and signing a technical assistance contract with the
Industrial Areas Foundation. The sponsoring committee elects, on recommendation of the IAF regional
supervisor, a strategy committee of 7-12 primary leaders who are responsible for recruitment and
fundraising within their denominations and/or geographic and ethnic networks.
The sponsoring committee is the IAF's link to local institutions. By securing financial and institutional
support from the leaders of local religious, and sometimes business, labor and civic organizations, the
IAF is able to neutralize resistance to the organizing effort, and indeed to position itself as a leading
force within the more progressive sectors of the local ruling classes. When asked "who sent you here?'
the organizer is able to answer that the Catholic Bishop, the Rabbi of the largest synagogue in the city,
the President of the Council of Churches, and perhaps even the president of a local high technology firm
are all behind the organizing effort. And when the local organization begins to take on controversial
issues, it is able to count on political support from powerful member institutions. This puts IAF
organizations in a position to build and exercise power in a way that makes direct constituency based
organizations such as ACORN chapters look insignificant by comparison.
At the same time, financial and institutional support from the religious institutions, business, etc. has
costs. An organization which depends for support on the Catholic Bishop and key Protestant clergy,
and on the local progressive bourgeoisie cannot be an organic institution of the working class. As we
will see, this is reflected less in limitations on the kind of issues the network can tackle than it is in the
kind of research, education, and institutional organizing activities it undertakes. Indeed, there is a
growing tension within the IAF network between mobilizing a working class constituency for broadly
progressive policy goals: education reform, health care, housing, etc., and in-depth reorganization of
local congregations, and the advanced training of working class leaders.
Because of this, any attempt to analyze the social base of IAF organizations must focus not on the
predominantly working class constituency present at IAF actions, or even the membership of strategy
committees, which, in mature organizations, often contain a working class majority, but rather on the
institutional membership of the sponsoring committee, the nature of the organization's key allies and
financial supporters, and its ideological and political line and strategy.
Historically the strongest support for the IAF's organizing efforts has come from working class Catholic
parishes, and to a lesser extent from African American Baptist congregations. In recent years, however,
partly for financial reasons, and partly in order to build a broader base of political support, the IAF has
devoted increased attention to the task of recruiting Protestant and middle class congregations. The
Dallas Area Interfaith Sponsoring Committee, one of the largest in the IAF network, includes over 50
congregations, of which 15 are low income, 22 middle income, and 13 upper income; 22 are
predominantly Euro-American, 11 Hispanic, 7 African American, 9 multiethnic and 1 Jewish; 27 are
Roman Catholic, 7 Lutheran, 7 Methodist, 4 missionary Baptist, 2 Unitarian, and 1 each Jewish,
Southern Baptist, and Disciples of Christ. The organization counts among its capitalist allies insurance
executive Tom Downing and high tech entrepreneur Ross Perot. But even in areas where there is
significant support from Protestant churches and the liberal bourgeoisie, "the support of the Catholic
ordinary" as Ernesto Cortes says, "is absolutely critical for this kind of effort (oral testimony)."
The Industrial Areas Foundation insists on a budget sufficient to support a highly trained professional
staffÄÄand sufficient to demonstrate local institutional support. According to official IAF sources the
budget for an organizing effort in a large metropolitan area will probably run between $200,000 and
$250,000 for each of the first three years. Initially two thirds of this comes from national church
sourcesÄÄthe Campaign for Human Development, and comparable programs of the Methodist,
Lutheran, Presbyterian, Congregational, Disciples, Unitarian, and Episcopal Churches, the Jewish Fund
for Justice, etc. The remainder comes from local congregations, which make contributions based on
their ability to pay: $1000-2000 for a low budget church, $2000-$4000 for a middle budget church,
$4000-6000 for a wealthy congregation. Gradually the proportion of local money should increase, so
that the organization can eventually achieve self-sufficiency (Industrial Areas Foundation 1979: 19).
In fact the IAF will begin organizing with as little as $80,000 to $125,000 in the bank, and most
organizations continue to rely on ongoing grant support from the Campaign for Human Development
and other church funding sources. Until recently most IAF projects could count on grant support from
CHD nearly every year. The growing number of IAF projects, however, together with competition
from other organizing networks is placing a strain on CHD resources, and IAF projects are increasingly
refused funding.
The IAF and the Organizing Core: This money is used primarily to hire full time professional
organizers, and to support intensive leadership training under the supervision of the Industrial Areas
Foundation. Organizers are recruited from among the ranks of experienced professionals in the fields
of ministry, education, policy analysis and organizing. Most prospective organizers are in their late
20's and have at least five years experience in their fields before the IAF will even talk to them.
Increasingly the IAF is recruiting experienced union organizers, principals of elementary and high
schools, and others in the middle grades of their professions. Salaries range from $28,000 for a junior
organizer, through $35,000 for a lead organizer in charger of small project, to $55,000 - $60,000 for
members of the IAF Cabinet who supervise several projects.
Although all organizer trainees attend IAF National Training along with key leaders, most of the
training takes place on an apprenticeship basis. Trainees accompanied more experienced organizers as
they make their rounds, conduct individual meetings and training sessions, which are critiqued by the
lead organizer and the IAF regional supervisor, etc. and sometimes by groups of other organizers and
key leaders. Often this criticism is brutal and it sometimes degenerates into public ridicule.
Organizers also participate in seminars on key political questions. The Texas IAF Network has recently
received a series of grants from the Ford Foundation to bring together its organizers, a few key leaders,
and academics from a variety of fields to explore such issues as industrialization and the development
of market economies, the question of "equality" as a value, the struggle for African American liberation
from Reconstruction through the Civil Rights Movement, Populism, the Federal Reserve Crisis, etc.
Organizers read and report on works relating to the topic under discussion, and then hear reactions from
academic consultants such as James Galbraith, Michael Walzer, and others.
A few points are in order about these seminars. On the one hand they provide a unique opportunity
for organizers to read serious scholarship from a political standpointÄÄi.e. from the standpoint of its
usefulness in understanding society in order to change it. There are few other places in the United
States where theory and practice are brought together in this way. On the other hand the approach is
eclectic and empirical. Organizers are not exposed to, and are not encouraged to develop a systematic
critique of capitalist society or social ethics which encompasses a vision of a new social order. As we
noted above in our discussion of the IAF's ideology this stems not so much from a specific aversion
to Marxism, as it does from a rejection of the notion that we can grasp the underlying structure and
dynamic of human history. Knowledge, for the IAF, is part of an ongoing conversation that builds
relationships and thus power, not a means to developing a vision and a strategy which guides the
political process.
Conformity to this ideology is rigorously enforced, not by focused critique of specific theses, but rather
by more or less intense ridicule of the entire enterprise of systematic, scientific, structural analysis of
human society, and of a rational ethics based on such an analysis. The net result is a core of organizers
who may come from a variety of religious or political tendencies, but who have been forged into a
coherent body sharing a common stand, viewpoint and methodÄÄwhat the Marxist-Leninist tradition
always meant by ideology, as opposed to political line.
A word is in order regarding the internal organization of the IAF itself. Incorporated in the State of
New York as a non-profit educational foundation, the IAF is under the legal jurisdiction of a board of
directors which includes Marvin Worth, of Fidelity Software, who serves as President, Msgr. Jack Egan
of De Paul University, who serves as Treasurer, Episcopal Church Officer Barry Menuez, attorney Sid
Perlast, a carry over from the Alinsky days, The Most Rev. John Adams, Bishop of the Sixth Episcopal
District of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, and The Most Rev. Patricio Flores, Roman
Catholic Archbishop of San Antonio. We should note that the current composition of the IAF board
reflects a shift in the organization's key institutional relationships. The religious institutions and the
progressive bourgeoisie remain central; the labor movement and the state are absent. This reflects
primarily the relative decline of the labor movement and the fact that the progressive bourgeoisie is no
longer in power, and is thus not represented through state institutions.
The real leadership of the IAF is vested in the Cabinet, composed of Ed Chambers, who serves as
(Executive Director), and the principal regional supervisors: Mike Gecan and Jim Drake in the
Northeast, Arnie Graf in the Baltimore/D.C. metropolitan area, Gerald Taylor in Tennessee, Ernesto
Cortes and Sr. Christine Stephens in the Southwest, and Larry McNeil in Southern California. This
Cabinet serves as the "think tank" which develops the long term analysis, policy, and strategy for the
organization. Each of the regional supervisors is responsible for several local organizations. It is
interesting to note in this regard a rather substantial imbalance between the number of organizations
supervised by each cabinet member. Ernesto Cortes and Christine Stephens together supervise 14
organizations in the Southwest, while other Cabinet members are responsible for, at most, 4
organizations. Cabinet members supervise the lead organizer for each project, and seem to make most
of the long range strategy decisions within their regions.
Lead organizers have generally had at least five years experience with the IAF, though the Phoenix
organization recently hired Peter Feers, an experienced labor organizer, at lead level. While lead
organizers are formally accountable to their local organizations, they are hired on the recommendation
of the IAF regional supervisor who presents one candidate to the strategy committee, which has right
of refusal, but not the right to conduct an independent search. The IAF regional supervisor also
supervises the lead organizer. Lead organizers are responsible for analyzing local conditions, recruiting
and training leaders, and for leading issue campaigns. They have, in effect, tactical leadership of the
local organization.
Junior organizers assist with research, recruitment and training, and execution of issue campaigns.
Organizers meet as a group with the IAF regional supervisor to discuss strategy and tactics, receive
assignments, etc. Often junior organizers will be asked to leave during more sensitive strategy
discussions. Organizers are expected to keep confidential the content of these discussions, and to refrain
from any public criticism of the organization.
The IAF's annual budget of $700,000 comes largely from consulting contracts with local organizations,
which range from $20,000 to $35,000 annually, and covers salaries of IAF Cabinet members and a very
small support staff, as well as headquarters expenses. Only recently has the IAF begun to employ a
staff of research assistants and policy analysts. Most of these positions are funded by grants from
private foundations.
The Organizing Process: Once a sponsoring committee has been established and a contract signed with
the IAF, the organizing process itself can begin. The organizers begin their work by conducting, in
conjunction with the pastor and a core of lay leaders, between thirty and one hundred individual
meetings in each participating congregation. The purpose of the interview is to identify potential leaders
and to begin to catalyze their participation in the organizing process. IAF organizers are trained to
"map" the self interest, motivations, and key relationships of everyone they interview, in order to locate
people with a broad understanding of their self interest, and in order to identify existing networks and
facilitate the formation of new ones. As the IAF organizing manual puts it
The single most important element in the interview is the interviewer's capacity to listen.
Listening is an art, requiring discipline and training, the art of asking the right questions
about children, about the neighborhood, about work, encouraging the person to speak
about what he or she feels is important. Often the person is making clear for the first
time just what moves or concerns him. These interviews also humble and energize the
organizing team, and help it gain a sense of the common nature of the pressures,
tensions, and frustrations facing families in the congregation. After about thirty minutes,
the organizer leaves, without asking for anythingÄÄonly asking if the person would be
interested in getting the results from other individual meetings (Industrial Areas
Foundation 1979: 25).
Ernesto Cortes says that "The individual meeting is the most radical thing we have to teach (oral
testimony)." It is not too much to say that for the IAF the individual meeting is the lifeblood of the
organizing process.
The "best people" as the IAF puts it, are invited to participate in leadership training sessions, which
introduce participants to the principal elements of the IAF's theoretical perspectiveÄÄpower,
selfÄinterest, the formation of public relationships, etc. They also involve practical training in
conducting individual meetings, small group meetings, research actions, negotiations, and in planning
and implementing a complete issue campaign, as well as focused discussion regarding the purpose of
religious institutions, styles of ministry, etc.
Out of this process of leadership training there should emerge a collective leadership of between 50 and
200 people representing local congregations. The IAF has a very specific understanding of leadership.
By leaders, we mean men and women who have a following which they can deliver on
a more or less consistent basis. Most so-called leaders are isolated individuals, either
self-appointed or fronts promoted by politicians, the media, or outside economic
interests. Responsible elected leadership maintains its quality and reliability through a
disciplined system of mutual accountability. The system is simple: if you can't deliver
either people or dollars to the organization, you are not a leader of that organization.
If you are not committed to an internal training process in which the central value is to
teach primary leaders how to find and in turn teach other leaders, you don't belong.
Leadership is not by nature a form of individual self-aggrandizement, but rather a means
to continually expand the number of their fellow leaders in the interest of collective
power (Industrial Areas Foundation 1979: 20).
The IAF distinguishes between primary, secondary, and tertiary leaders. Tertiary leaders have a very
narrow understanding of their self-interest. They are concerned about very specific problems: discipline
at the local elementary school, an abandoned building, or the cancellation of a local bus line. They can
generally turn out 3-12 followers who also care about their issue, but who lack the initiative to identify
others who also care.
Secondary leaders care about issues: school discipline or education reform, city services, toxic wastes,
etc. They see the patterns which connect individual injustices into complex social problems. More
advanced secondary leaders understand the connections between issues and may even understand the
need to build an organization in order to address their concerns. They generally have a network of
several tertiary leaders and, drawing on these contacts, can turn out between 12 and 50 people to a
meeting or action.
Primary leaders are interested in organizing as such. They understand that struggle around issues, while
it may lead to important policy goals, is valuable first and foremost because it builds power for the
organization and identifies, trains, and tests out leaders. Primary leaders will devote long periods to
building institutional and financial support, researching problems, developing strategy, etc. and
generally have networks of 7-12 secondary leaders, and can turn out between 50 to 250 people to mass
meetings or actions.
There are real limits to the IAF's capacity to identify and train effective leaders. The IAF understands
that those who hold offices within institutions may not be real leaders. Indeed, ineffective institutions
often marginalize real leaders, who put their energies elsewhere. Depending as it does, however, on
the religious institutions and the progressive bourgeoisie for financial and institutional support, its often
has to include within its strategy committees leading clergy, even if they are not primary leaders, and
lay leaders who are acceptable (and ultimately accountable) to them.
Those who threaten the political and ideological structure of the religious institutions--women, lay
intellectuals within religious institutions, and others who have not traditionally occupied positions of
leadership--are seldom recognized as key leaders, even if they are turning out large numbers of people
and leveraging thousands of dollars. At issue here is not so much an inability on the part of the IAF
to recognize talent. On the contrary, such people are often courted as "organizer candidates," and
invited to accept positions within the organization that are ultimately subordinate to the IAF cabinet and
the leaders of member institutions. Rather, it is a question of being concerned not to offend traditional
leaders who are often threatened by power based on skill rather than money or office.
The IAF's understanding of leadership is narrowly political. While the IAF talks a great deal about the
importance of "vision and values" there is, in fact, no place in its leading organs for people whose
principal skills are artistic, religious, or theoretical. As a result the people who form the top leadership
of most IAF organizations are generally a mixture of clergy and lay leaders who are bright and
thoughtful, intelligent enough to assimilate what the IAF has to each, but ultimately more or less content
with the values and structures of the institutions in which they operate. They have the ability to
understand and tap into the self-interest of members of their congregations, and thus mobilize large
numbers of people for action. They are rarely capable of independent social analysis, strategic thinking,
etc., for which they rely on the professional organizing staff.
According to IAF manuals, the collective leadership is constantly engaged in a process of research
regarding the current situation. Members of this emerging leadership hold small group meetings to
discuss the problems the organizing team has discovered so far. Participants in these meetings identify
problems to research.
Small groups or task forces will begin to go downtown to interview a bureaucrat or look
up the title or tax records on a piece of vacant land, or to get the name of the decision
maker responsible for a particular problem. This research focuses on two elements: who
gets the money and who makes the decisions. The results of these research trips are
brought back to the congregation and are evaluated (Industrial Areas Foundation 1979:
26-27).
Out of this research comes a power analysis. Leaders put together a chart identifying the economic and
political forces which are shaping the life of their community. This analysis, in turn, forms the basis
for strategic decisions regarding public policy positions, campaigns, alliances, and opponents.
In reality, much of this research is carried out by the organizer, with secondary leaders serving, in
effect as research assistants who gather information or interview public officials. Furthermore, the IAF
does not encourage a deeper analysis of the underlying structures of capitalist society.
The emerging leadership also engages in a study on the social teachings of their particular religious
community, and reflects on the emerging picture of the current situation in the light of these values and
traditions. Sometimes the IAF will engage in parish development work, encouraging discussion and
analysis not only of problems in the community but of the whole life of the local congregation, and
leading to thoroughgoing reorganization of the local congregation in accord with a renewed sense of
mission, clarified priorities, and a keen sense that the church and synagogue must above all be dedicated
to the transformation of the world in accord with the values of their traditions. Most of this study and
reorganization is fairly superficial, however, and it does not and indeed cannot, given the IAF's
financial dependence on church hierarchies, involve any real analysis of the theological obstacles to
effective political action, or on religious alienation as itself an obstacle to the full development of human
relationality, much less any challenge to the juridical structure or the religious hierarchy.
Out of this research, and out of reflection on the values which the member congregations uphold, the
leadership develops a multi-issue program. Initially, the organization chooses battles that can be won
fairly easily. This means dealing at first with several small issues. The new organization in Dallas,
for example, is looking into the poor condition of grocery stores in low income communities.
Gradually, as the leadership develops and its analysis and public skill become more advanced, the
organization will go on to tackle some of the larger problems facing the metropolitan region: education
reform, toxic waste disposal, library bond issues, etc. At this point the organization will hold a founding
convention, where three, four or five thousand people will meet, elect officers, and announce major
issue campaigns.
State and National Networks: IAF organizations are increasingly coming together to establish formal
state networks, and to lay the foundation for the creation of a national network. This process is most
advanced in Texas, where the IAF has the largest number of organizations, and where it has become
one of the most powerful forces in state politics.
The state networks are organized in much the same way as a local organization. The regional
supervisor, lead organizers, and key leaders carry out a series of individual meetings with leaders from
the local organizations to test out their receptiveness to the idea, and to identify leaders who can operate
effectively at the state level. Leaders from local organization are involved in research, strategic
planning, and action around several issues, leading to the formation of informal working groups, and
creating a statewide political presence for the network. Eventually the IAF calls a series of leaders'
meetings, and a founding convention of several thousand. This process was recently completed in
Texas, where over 10,000 people gathered to ratify the formation of the state network, approve an issue
agenda including proposals relating to education, health care, housing, toxic wastes, economic
development, and other issues.
It should be noted that the process leading up to the founding convention led to serious conflicts with
at least two local organizations. Leaders from Fort Worth, particularly African American clergy, felt
that the process of building a state network was taking too much energy away from work around local
issues which more directly affected their members.
The struggle in Dallas was more complex. Absorbed in building the state network, the IAF neglected
development of the Dallas sponsoring committee, while asking the Dallas organization to send 250-500
delegates to the founding convention of the state network --a rather large delegation given the fact that
no real organizing work had thus far taken place in Dallas. The tasks of building the sponsoring
committee, and of mobilizing for the state convention were delegated to the diocesan Justice and Peace
Commission, which functioned as a de facto local headquarters for the IAF, in the absence of an IAF
organizer. The question remained at the bottom of the agenda at strategy committee meetings for three
full months, during which mobilization for the convention was taking place without the full knowledge,
sanction, or collaboration of the strategy committee.
Several Catholic lay leaders in Dallas felt that the process of building a state network drew attention
way from really in-depth parish development work, and led to a narrow focus on public policy goals.
These contradictions were exacerbated by the appointment of a new Catholic Bishop in Dallas with
longstanding ties to the IAFÄÄand to Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, a situation which raised serious
questions about the IAF's willingness to engage in any real in-depth reorganization of parishes,
theological reflection, etc., for fear of jeopardizing their relationship with the Bishop.
When confronted about its failure to meet its responsibilities to the local organization in Dallas, one IAF
regional supervisor responded by threatening to break off the IAF's contract with the Dallas
organization, a move which would under the circumstances, have effectively ended the organizing
process there. Similar threats were made against the Fort Worth organization. The other regional
supervisor initiated a red-baiting campaign which was continued by members of the Dallas strategy
committee allied with the IAF. It was apparent at this point that the IAF had the political resources
necessary to marginalize us, and that the struggle could be carried on more constructively from outside
the organization. I thus decided to resign from the strategy committee, and to withdraw from
participation in IAF seminars and organizer meetings.
In order to avoid open discussion of the struggles in Dallas and Fort Worth, the IAF had to postpone
plans to establish a formal state organization with the right to levy dues and set policy for its locals, and
to sign a separate a contract with the IAF regional supervisor. At this point the Texas IAF Network
remains a loose federation of autonomous organizations which each contracts separately with the
Industrial Areas Foundation.
C. Political Action
Action: The principal political tactic historically deployed by the IAF and other organizations working
out of the Alinskyite tradition is direct action. Action, according to the IAF, has two purposes. First
of all, it is action which produces concrete victories. But action also helps the leadership to growÄÄto
learn more about themselves, their values, and about how to build and exercise power. It "separates
the talkers from the doers. New sides of current leaders emerge. Opponents react in ways that require
flexibility and sophistication." Action is, in this sense an integral part of the leadership training process
(Industrial Areas Foundation 1979: 22-23).
In reality, most IAF actions are like plays, an analogy which the IAF itself favors. The regional
director plays the role of producer, the lead organizer the role of director, the junior organizers,
assistant directors. Primary leadersÄÄand the organization's adversary--play the lead roles and
secondary leaders have supporting roles. Members of congregations mobilized for the action serve as
extras.
This approach has a number of limitations. First of all, the organization can only put on plays (tackle
issues) which its financial backers will support. Second, although leaders get good training as actors,
they never really learn how to directÄÄa task reserved to the organizers. And in so far as the IAF
denies the possibility of a scientific grasp of politics an history, and thus the possibility of consciously
"making history," no one, not even the IAF Cabinet, is in the position of writing new scripts.
Issue Campaigns: The power the IAF has been able to build over the past decade has permitted it to
move beyond the complex of neighborhood and municipal concerns which occupy most community
organizations, to take on issues of statewide significance. Since 1983 the Texas Interfaith Network has
been involved in a series of struggles related to school finance equalizationÄÄa struggle which has
broadened in recent years to include discussion of fundamental education reform. The Texas network
also waged an ultimately successful campaign to win state financing for water and sewer projects for
the colonias along the Mexican border. One struggle in particular, however, illustrates particularly well
how the IAF approaches issue campaigns.
In 1987 and 1988 the Southern California Industrial Areas Foundation Network, an alliance of four IAF
organizations, (United Neighborhood Organization, South Central Organizing Committee, East Valleys
Organization, and Valley Organized in Community Efforts) in the Los Angeles metropolitan area,
carried out a successful struggle to increase the California minimum wage from $3.35 to
$4.25/hourÄÄthe first increase in the minimum wage anywhere in the United States since 1981.
The IAF approached this problem cautiously. No one had conducted a successful minimum wage
campaign for seven years. The struggle also threatened to undercut their effort to build an alliance with
progressive sectors of the business community. Their research focused predominantly on documenting
the economic effects of the low level of the minimum wage, on what they call a "power analysis" of
the problemÄÄi.e. an analysis of the self interest of their adversaries, their allies, and of the center
forces in the struggle, and on a study of the relevant social teachings of their member religious
institutions.
In California, the state minimum wage is set by an Industrial Welfare Commission of five members,
appointed by various state officials. Of these five, two favored an increase in the minimum wage, and
two were adamantly opposed. One was undecided. The IAF noted with particular interest that the
undecided member, Commissioner Morse, had a close relationship with her church, and thus seemed
susceptible to moral and religious arguments, particularly when these were made by church officials.
Based on this analysis they decided to define the issue as one of a "Moral Minimum Wage," so as to
draw effectively on religious sentiment for an increase. They set an initial goal of increasing the
minimum wage to $5.01/hourÄÄa rate which would give a full time minimum wage worker an income
of just over $10,000 annually, roughly the poverty level at that time for a family of four.
Commissioner MorseÄÄthe swing vote on the IWCÄÄwas to be the target of the IAF campaign.
Before the network could carry out an issue campaign of this kind, however, it was necessary to prepare
the organization. The IAF teaches that "all organizing is constant reorganizing." Even before they
began to research the problem, organizers and key leaders did hundreds of individual meetings to
expand the leadership core of the organization, brought together small groups of leaders interested in
the problem and involved them in the preliminary research. At each stage in the process, leaders met
to discuss the developing power analysis, assess strategic options, and make decisions. The way in
which the issue was ultimately defined, the selection of the target in the campaign, and the other broad
outlines of the strategy were approved by delegates assemblies representing the congregations which
belong to the organizations in the alliance.
The first step in the campaign itself was the struggle to credential the organizationÄÄto demonstrate
that the network had to be taken seriously in the public arena. The track record of the network's
member organizations created a basis for credibility, but two other factors were vitally important. First,
the network was able to demonstrate that it was either doing, or had access to, the very best research
in the region relating to the minimum wage. Second, very early on in the struggle, the network was
able to turn out 500 leaders for a statewide IWC hearing held in San FranciscoÄÄnearly 500 miles
from the IAF's power base in Southern California.
The decision to target Commissioner Morse was not a decision to enter into a confrontation with her.
On the contrary, as the campaign heated up and the state began to polarize politically around the
question, the network entered into a dialogue with her around the issue. They arranged for her to go
on a tour of Los Angeles area families who were dependent on a single worker earning minimum wage
for their income, and arranged for her bishop and other religious leaders to discuss the issue with her.
The IAF unleashed harsh criticism of the two Commissioners who opposed an increase, and gave
recognition to the two who favored an increase, creating an atmosphere of profound political tension
for Commissioner Morse, without entering into confrontation.
In the summer of 1987, they rallied 7000 people in the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles in support
of the measure, and collected endorsements from key allies, including Senator Edward Kennedy,
Congressman Rudy Torres, and the Los Angeles Times.
Eventually it became apparent that Morse was not going to support an increase in the minimum wage
to $5.01. After carefully assessing its options, the network offered a compromise which Morse could
acceptÄÄan increase to $4.25. The IWC voted to accept the measure.
The vote represented the first increase in the minimum wage anywhere in the country since 1981.
Perhaps more important, it strengthened the network, and involved thousands of leaders in a politically
complex struggle at the statewide level. The victory helped the IAF to build a new organization in the
San Fernando Valley, and to recruit hundreds of new leaders. Many of the business leaders who
opposed the IAF during the course of the minimum wage campaign grew to respect the organization,
and are now allies in a struggle for education reform. Far from deepening contradictions with the
business community, the struggle helped lay the groundwork for what may become a lasting alliance.
There were, however, some real limitations to the campaign. The most serious of these concerns the
kind of social analysis, theological reflection, and strategic thinking which the IAF carried out. While
the IAF has demonstrated an extraordinary ability to analyze power relationships, and to transform a
power analysis into a sophisticated political strategy, the organization has made little effort to engage
in real economic analysis, or to expose leaders to a critique of the economic structures which lie behind
low wage levels. Indeed, they failed to analyze even the broad economic development strategy which
has been hegemonic over the past decade, and which has led real wages to decline in nearly every year
since 1973. Similarly, they did little to challenge the individualistic pro-market ideology which
obstructs efforts at more profound social transformation.
Reorganizing Institutions: The second political tactic currently being deployed by the IAF is systematic
institutional reorganization. This tactic is an expression of the IAF's commitment to strengthening local
intermediate institutions, and is, in this sense, simply an extension of the organizing process from the
religious sector into other institutions.
The principal expression of this strategy to date is the IAF "parental empowerment program" piloted
by the Allied Communities of Tarrant, (ACT) an IAF affiliate in Fort Worth. Residents of most
low-income communities don't trust school officials, have bad memories of school themselves, and are
likely to resist school reform initiatives coming from this direction. But they do trust their pastors and
the lay leaders of their parishes and congregations.
Morningside Middle School was clearly one of the most troubled schools in Forth Worth. It had the
lowest test scores and the highest truancy, drug use and police visitation rates of any middle school in
the district. At the same time, the school was located in a community in which the IAF had been
organizing for several years, and had a principal who was willing to try something new.
ACT drew on the core of leaders it had recruited from its member congregations, and then used this
core of leaders to do individual meetings with nearly every parent in the school. They listened to
parents' concerns, identified and trained new leaders, and eventually organized a school governance
team composed of the principal, the school social worker, teachers, and parents, which addressed
campus level concerns such as discipline, the need for tutoring, etc., and which now had access to an
organized network of parent leaders anxious to do something about conditions in the school. After three
years Morningside now has test scores ranking third out of 20 middle schools in the city. Its discipline
problems are under control, and the Fort Worth business community, long hostile to the IAF, is putting
up money to replicate the program in other schools around the city.
This kind of work in reorganizing local schools has been accompanied by research and planning around
longer range education reform. It is precisely at this level, however, that the IAF gets bogged down.
Despite broad declarations about the importance of public education in the life of democracy, most of
the IAF's concrete proposals seem designed to improve the effectiveness of schools as technical training
centers and as vehicles for the upward mobility of their working class members. There are a number
of reasons for this. First of all, in so far as the IAF denies the possibility of a rational, scientific
understanding of human social reality, and rejects any attempt to demystify social relations, and
transcend commodity alienation and its religious reflex, it is unable to theorize fully the task of the
school as a liberating institution. Furthermore, the organization's financial backers would undoubtedly
look on such a project with considerable ambivalence. Most of the bourgeois strategies for school
reform advanced over the past decade have focused on increasing worker productivity in a
technologically developing economy. And the IAF faces some real dilemmas as the Catholic Church
presses its demand for public financing of parochial schools, a demand which runs counter to the IAF's
historic support for public education, opposition to vouchers, etc.
Electoral Work: Historically the IAF has insisted that it is rigorously non-partisan, and even its "action
organizations" refrain from endorsing political candidates. Recently however, the New York city
organizations held training sessions for several hundred prospective candidates for the new, expanded
city council. The outcome of this activity is as yet unclear, though we do know that leaders of the
Texas organization are "skeptical about the New York organizations' forays into electoral politics (oral
testimony, Ernesto Cortes)." This is a new area for the IAF and it is not yet clear just how the debate
will develop within the organization.
III. Analysis and Recommendations
We need now to look behind this mass of data regarding the IAF Network, and make some effort to
assess the social base and political valence of the organization, and to make recommendations regarding
our relationship to it.
Some words of definition are in order. By the social base of an organization we mean not its empirical
composition, i.e. the class, ethnicity, gender, and religion of its members, but rather the key
relationships which shape its identity and self-interest, and thus its ideology, political line, strategy, etc.
By political valence of an organization we mean the direction, and ultimate impact its activities are
likely to have on the basic structures of society, i.e. forces and relations of production, power relations,
ideology, etc.
The social base of the IAF is fairly clear. The organization grew out of the effort of the progressive
bourgeoisie to organize working class support for structural reform of capitalism during the Great
Depression, while systematically restricting Communist influence. To this end they have drawn on the
active collaboration of the clergy and of secular political intellectuals.
The clergy is a residual social stratum left over from feudalism, which has an ambiguous relationship
with the capitalist mode of production. On the one hand the clergy depends for part of its revenues on
tithes and donations paid by workers, and promotes solidaristic values which are in contradiction with
capitalism. On the other hand, the clergy also draws a substantial portion of its revenue from
investment incomeÄÄit is a rentier stratum, and the solidaristic values it promotes are embedded in
a theological problematic marked by alienation and mystification. Indeed, it depends for its very
existence on the persistence of religious alienation and mystification. This ambiguity is reflected in
official social teachings which argue for state intervention to provide for the common good, but which
leave underlying structures of commodity production, etc., opaque and thus invulnerable to critique.
Throughout most of this century the Roman Catholic hierarchy in the United States played a progressive
role, supporting the efforts of the progressive bourgeoisie to rationalize capitalism by mobilizing
resources for investment in the public sector, and by promoting the development of workers, etc. As
we noted above, this has begun to change over the course of the past few years, as the influence of the
rightist party dominant in the Vatican makes its influence felt in the appointment of bishops, the exercise
of the magisterium, etc.
The organizers also occupy an ambiguous social position. In so far as they are paid a wage in order
to perform skilled laborÄÄthe reorganization of social relationshipsÄÄorganizers should be regarded
as members of the working class. As we have noted above, IAF organizers are highly trained, highly
disciplined, and highly effective, and they play a leading role in developing the social analysis and
strategy which guides the IAF. At the same time, they operate within ideological and political
constraints which prevent them from developing analyses that penetrate to underlying structures, or
strategies directed at fundamental structural social transformation. Rather their work contains the
development of workers organizations within the constraints fixed ultimately by the principal funders.
In this sense they should be regarded in the same light as other types of political intellectuals employed
by capital ÄÄmanagers, lawyers, politicians, diplomats, intelligence officers, military officers, etc.
Much the same is true of the key leaders who, to the extent that they play any role whatsoever in
shaping the agenda of the organization, operate under even more stringent constraints than the
organizers.
Throughout the postwar period organizations like the IAF have played an ambiguous role. On the one
hand, they have made a tremendous contribution to rebuilding public life in the United States, to forging
and promoting an agenda centered on investment in development of human capital, and to rationalizing
and renewing the life of religious institutions. The IAF's understanding of power is more complex than
that of any major political force in the country. In short the IAF has undertaken precisely the tasks
which the left has traditionally assigned to broad, popular front organizations, carrying them out in a
way that shows unusual depth and sophistication in identifying, training, and developing leaders,
building complex alliances, designing and winning issue campaigns, and using victories to build the long
term power of the organization.
At the same time, the IAF not only stops short of structural analysis and organizing for fundamental
structural change; it has found a way to immunize organizers and leaders against this kind thought and
action. We have noted above the ideological and political methods the IAF employs for this purpose:
the ideology inculcated during leadership and organizer training sessions, intimidation of organizers and
key leaders during training and criticism sessions, and the fact that organizers who stray too far from
the line can, unlike cadre in communist organizations, simply be fired. It is precisely this pattern of
activity actively opposing the emergence of a fully communist level of consciousness, using highly
sophisticated methods, some of which were themselves borrowed from the communist movement, which
defines the IAF as a counter-revolutionary organization.
This problem is particularly serious in the light of the new social conditions which have emerged during
the last decade. On the one hand the IAF has ceased to be merely a means for the progressive
bourgeoisie to mobilize support for structural reform while restricting communist influence, and has
become instead an organ for defending and rebuilding a social fabric ruptured by generalized commodity
production. At the same time, certain aspects of the IAF's ideology, internal organization, and political
strategy in fact reflect the larger postmodern consensus and yield considerable ground to religious
populist and protofascist tendencies. The IAF's rejection of a fully dialectical rationality raises serious
questions about the adequacy of its strategy in a period of rising authoritarianism. If knowledge is
simply an ongoing conversation which builds relationships and thus power, then we have no objective
basis on which to criticize the prevailing irrationalism.
This problem is compounded by the IAF's economic dependence on the Catholic hierarchy at a time
when the Vatican is moving sharply to the right. There is a real possibility that the IAF is, however
inadvertently, helping a rightward looking Catholic hierarchy to organize a mass base for itself in the
United States.
How should progressive forces relate to the Industrial Areas Foundation? Our first task is to engage
the IAF in principled struggle around the ideological, organizational and political questions raised in
this paper. The lines of this struggle must be drawn in such a way that debate develops around the
growing dangers of authoritarianism on the one hand, and the adequacy of congregation based
organizing as an antiauthoritarian strategy on the other hand. Can an essentially postmodern ideology
which rejects rationalist sociology and ethics mount an effective critique of the right wing religious
populism which is gaining strength among the IAF's own constituency? Can an organization which is
ultimately accountable to the Catholic Bishops struggle effectively against authoritarian trends which
have established a headquarters in the Catholic church? Is it more important to pursue populist public
policy goals which make the church appear in the eyes of the masses to be a defender of the common
good, or recruit and train working class leaders who are immune to the rising tide of irrationalism and
developing toward a fully dialectical standpoint?
Ultimately this debate points towards the limitations of any bourgeois antiauthoritarian strategy.
Effective resistance to authoritarianism depends ultimately on understanding the real social basis of
authoritarianism. This means understanding the disintegrating effect of generalized commodity
production on the social fabric and the complex ways in which family structure and religious institutions
function to preserve social order in the face of growing social disorganization. Such analysis, one of
the historical contributions of the international workers movement, is rejected by the bourgeoisie and
the IAF. By encouraging advanced leaders to measure the adequacy of the IAF as an antiauthoritarian
strategy, we can ultimately catalyze a process of study which will lead them towards an appreciation
of the power of the dialectic.
In the meantime, it is vitally important that we continue to gather intelligence regarding the IAF and
its operations. It is particularly important for us to get a better handle on
1) its relationships with capital,
2) its ties if any to intelligence organizations, and
3) the eclectic and elusive ideology which the organization has developed.
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