From: marotenb@sdcc13.ucsd.edu (Mark Rotenberg)
Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc,alt.politics.elections
Subject: An American Labor Party would never succeed
Date: 23 Jul 92 19:48:13 GMT
Followup-To: talk.politics.misc
Distribution: usa
Organization: University of California, San Diego

In article <1992Jul23.173937.19021@news.ysu.edu> ae547@yfn.ysu.edu (Ronda Hauben) writes:

> None of the candidates are talking about doing such and won't
> under the one party with two wings system of governmeent in the U.S.-
> There is a need for a labor party - but one that will oppose the 
> trade union leaders who are part of the current Democratic-Republican
> one party in the U.S. at the present moment.

There are a handful of people around UCSD who have suggested over and over
at Jerry Brown rallies and at International Socialists' Club "mobilizations"
that an American Labor Party be formed.  I guess it would be intended to
turn Washington on its head and abolish the two-party chokehold on the
country -- both good things.  The problem is that it would never succeed.

America is a middle-class society.  The "working class" people are not the
same factory workers which established powerful unions in the last century,
and with good reason.  They're voting Demopublican, and that's unlikely to
change.

The portion of people working in non-high-tech factory jobs is shrinking as
we become a society of technology.  This trend will never reverse.  Manual
tasks in fields such as agriculture continue to be taken over by more
efficient machinery, leaving workers the opportunity to reeducate themselves
for higher-paying, middle-class work.  This trend will never reverse.

So in, say, 2050, who will be the constituents of this "Labor" party???
People who refused to take the education bait and became the permanent
unemployed in a society where knowledge is king.  "Labor" would be a party
of people who don't work, yet fight back for the days of old when there
were plenty of factory jobs to go around.  What a pathetic party!

Also, if a third party managed to assimilate a large enough portion of
the electorate into their relatively narrow platform (the "Greens" or the
"Labors") to make a difference in Washington, then one or the other
Republicrats would simply assimilate enough planks of the smaller platform
into their larger platforms to destabilize the smaller party.  Sure they'd
win a few local elections, but so what?  They'll be ignored be their
colleagues and wouldn't accomplish much.

Finally, planks of a labor party platform won't be accepted in the U.S. --
Jerry Brown's amendments to the Democratic Platform were thoroughly laughed
at by Democratic delegates who were much farther left than the average
Democrat.  They don't predict economics correctly -- read any Marx lately?
And they don't win elections -- just look at Neil Kinnock of Britain's
Labour party.

> Ronda Hauben                    email address:ae547@yfn.ysu.edu
> Amateur Computerist Newsletter              or
> P.O. Box 4344                   rhauben@heartland.bradley.edu
> Dearborn, MI 48126
								Mark Rotenberg
								mrote@ucsd.edu
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