An unheroic left.

The Long Detour: The History and Future of the American Left By James Weinstein Westview Press. 286 pages. $26.00.

Changing the Powers That Be: How the Left Can Stop Losing and Win By G. William Domhoff Rowman and Littlefield. 142 pages. $23.95.

When two distinguished left-wing intellectuals weigh in with books on the fate of the left in the United States, it's worth taking a close look at their arguments. And by and large, they present similar cases and offer similar prescriptions. Both repudiate the vision of the left that the Soviet Union and China represented. Both scold the New Left for lapsing into inexcusable sectarian violence. And, most polemically, both take Ralph Nader to task for his third party run in 2000. Not surprisingly, then, they both urge leftists essentially to make their peace with the Democratic Party.

James Weinstein is the beloved founder of In These Times magazine, based in Chicago. A historian by trade, Weinstein is the author of such big books as The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, The Decline of Socialism in America, and Ambiguous Legacy: The Left in American Politics.

In his new one, Weinstein returns to the central question haunting his life's work: Whither the left? The Long Detour is an inaccurate title; it should be called The Long Detours, since Weinstein discusses several. First, there was the detour of American Communists, who were shamelessly beholden to Moscow. Then there was the Cold War, which he calls "a detour from history." By that, he means (and his terminology unfortunately connotes a crude Marxist determinism) a departure from the struggle to humanize American capitalism. The Cold War, he says, hyped a virtually nonexistent Soviet threat so as to afford "the American ruling class with protection from dissent and an organizing principle for its retrograde foreign and domestic policies." A third detour was the vanguardist violence of the Weathermen in the late 1960s and 1970s. Another detour, according to Weinstein, is identity politics. And the final detour is the left's love affair with third parties.

Along the way, Weinstein offers an informative history of the American left, though it's the doctrinal left. Identifying himself as "a lifelong Socialist," a "one-time Communist," and "a pathological optimist," Weinstein knows his history. But he tends to identify the left with these two traditions instead of everything from Tom Paine and radical farmers of the Shays Rebellion to Jeffersonian democrats to the populists and the progressives and suffragists all the way up to the McGovern wing of the Democratic Party. His first chapter is on early utopian socialists, and then he discusses the rise of anarchism and socialism in the latter half of the nineteenth century and early twentieth century, showing a special affection for the Socialist Party of Eugene V. Debs, as well as the Nonpartisan League of North Dakota.

At this point, Weinstein takes a long detour of his own, providing two chapters spanning fifty-four pages on the failures of the Soviet Union. Like Marx himself, Weinstein says that the "potential for democracy, much less socialism, did not exist in tsarist Russia" because of its backward, feudal economy. "My view is that the Russian Revolution and all that followed stood socialism on its head," he writes. What's more, the Soviet Union "totally distorted the intellectual and political development of socialists in the West." He's right about this, of course, as was Oscar Wilde, whom Weinstein quotes: "If Socialism is Authoritarian; if there are Governments armed with economic power as they are now with political power; if, in a word, we have Industrial Tyrannies, then the last state of man will be worse than the first."

Weinstein shows how the Socialist and Communist parties were ill equipped when the Great Depression came. They both had suffered from the repression following U.S. entry into World War I, and while the Communists played an important, if masked, role during the Popular Front of the 1930s, "neither party had any significant ideas about transcending corporate capitalism or any strategies that might alter the system's underlying priorities." On top of that, by the end of the New Deal, "many of the old Socialist Party's proposals had been internalized by corporate liberal reformers." Then came the Cold War and McCarthyism, which "was a device to quash the left," he argues.

Weinstein sympathizes with the New Left in its early period. He admires its "understanding of the Soviet system's weakness and the emptiness of its ostensible threat to the West." He appreciates the Port Huron Statement's recognition that the productivity of capitalism made possible a search, as it argued, for the "human potential for self-cultivation, self-direction, self-understanding, and creativity." He lauds its stress on decentralization and participatory democracy, and its "public radicalism."

But he faults the New Left on a number of counts. First, for assuming that "single-issue movements were inherently revolutionary." For instance, black civil rights, while a laudable goal, was nonthreatening to capitalism, he argues tendentiously. "Civil rights were a necessary part of integrating a mostly rural, semi-feudal workforce into the highly industrialized, consumer-oriented marketplace," he writes, slighting the victory for formal equality that is fundamental to our politics. (Not everything is about "humanizing" the market.) He says the New Left failed, especially in its later years, in espousing "universal principles"--an imperative for Weinstein. He faults the New Left for excluding and disdaining the working class, and he's on target here. And finally, he properly excoriates the New Left for indulging in "illusions of popular revolution." By the end, ever more radical-than-thou sects became foolishly infatuated with violence. "The only thing they succeeded in destroying was the hope of a democratic left in America," he writes.

Weinstein's discussion of leftwing politics in the years that followed is more abbreviated (whereas he chronicles, in sometimes numbing detail, the sectarian battles in the first six decades of the twentieth century) and less impassioned. "In the absence of a left based on universal principles, many little lefts for which the New Left had acted as a catalyst survived and went their own ways," he writes. "Of these, the women's movement and the gay and lesbian movements were the most significant." But he chides feminists for using such slogans as "smash monogamy," for vowing to "destroy the nuclear family," and for displaying "their insensitivity to the many traumas of abortion." These positions "helped create a large working class constituency of 'Reagan Democrats,'" he writes. Weinstein's analysis here--especially his gibe at the pro-choice movement--is certain to alienate many feminists.

By the time he gets to his closing chapters, Weinstein appears to be running out of gas. He can't seem to summon the ideas or the energy to galvanize the left that means so much to him. "The social basis for a viable left politics exists, but it is diffuse, directionless, and leaderless," he writes. "Bringing it into focus and translating underlying principles into a coherent political practice will be a long and arduous task." As a start--and hold on to your seats here--he says, "Groups of interested people with some experience in politics and a commitment to the long haul might form a loose organization to engage in electoral initiatives at the national level." Alternatively, he suggests "the formation of an institute committed to the development of political programs and strategies that embody social utility as their first principle." Those are hardly rousing ideas. And from there, all he can do is recite a litany of issues: a demilitarized foreign policy, free public education through college, universal health care, free air time for political candidates, a federal arts program, public ownership of mass transit and utilities, and an end to the war on drugs. The most concrete tactical advice he gives is to organize like the Christian Coalition so as to win three or four Congressional seats for leftwing Democrats over time.

When I reached the end, I couldn't help asking, that's it?

This oh-so-gradual approach is one thing that impels some on the left to hold out hope for a third party. But Weinstein cautions caution here. "The left has had a continuing love affair with the idea of having its own political party, and this has created a serious impediment to the creation of a coherent and effective movement to humanize our society," he writes. He minces no words about the Nader campaign. "Nader divided an already existing constituency, and by so doing did a terrible disservice to progressives," he writes. "Nader not only minimized the left's influence in mainstream politics, but also confounded and demoralized many progressively oriented citizens .... He succeeded only in leading his forces into a blind alley. In short, it was a bad idea."

Weinstein's advice: "going with the flow of our electoral system." That means working within the Democratic Party.

Sociologist G. William Domhoff picks up this theme with gusto in his Changing the Powers That Be. Domhoff--author most famously of Who Rules America?--sees the world in much the same way as Weinstein, who mentions Domhoff in his preface. Domhoff, who helpfully defines leftwingers as egalitarians, denounces third parties as "proven failures that waste needed energy." Because of the U.S. winner-take-all electoral system, third parties are doomed and divisive, he argues.

"A vote for a third party of the left ignores the short-run concerns of the average citizens who believe that their lives are at least a little better on one or another seemingly small issue when the Democrats are in power," he writes. "So Democrat voters end up disliking those who voted for a third party of the left, and the liberals and egalitarians are at each others' throats right from the start.... Until this dilemma is resolved, there is no hope whatsoever of creating a majority for progressive social change."

Domhoff spends considerable energy dissecting Nader's own rationale for his run, and he offers the "dark possibility that Nader was out to destroy Gore, not build a third party"--a harsh charge that is only thinly substantiated.

On substance, Domhoff disputes Nader's chief claim that the Democrats have forsaken their progressive past and become more conservative during the Clinton-Gore years. "It is not accurate to assert that the two parties are becoming more and more similar," he writes. "They actually have become increasingly different over the past thirty-five years." Domhoff argues that the Voting Rights Act of 1965 pushed the racist Southern white Democrats into the Republican Party, leaving the Democratic Party a more hospitable home to leftwingers. "Democrats are now the party of those who believe in fairness and equality," he writes.

This is hard to square with Clinton's repudiation of welfare, his support for capital punishment, his harsh crime policies, his fervent advocacy of free trade, and his maintaining the cruel sanctions on the people of Iraq. Of these, the Clinton-Gore welfare destruction was such an affront to egalitarians that many could simply not stomach voting for Gore on that issue alone. Domhoff, however, criticizes this impulse, which he calls self-righteous and out of tune with the pragmatic realities of being a pol.

But where does this lead? How much compromise is too much?

To my view, the one unassailable point of the Nader campaign was that so long as progressives automatically vote Democratic no matter how far to the right the party moves, we and our issues will continue to be slighted. Even Barney Frank, as snarly a Democratic sheep dog as there was in 2000, told The Progressive's Ruth Conniff that he would not endorse a Democratic candidate, such as Sam Nunn, who was anti-gay.

Domhoff is on firmer ground when he points out the bitter splits that the Nader campaign engendered, and when he cites Nader's assertion in his campaign memoir that the Republicans weren't as scary as Democrats made them out to be. Domhoff produces a roundhouse when he quotes Nader as saying George W. Bush is not exactly "Genghis Khan." In his policies from the USA Patriot Act to the Iraq War, all that Bush is missing is the goatee.

In Nader's defense, he did raise issues that no Democratic candidate for President was coming close to: issues of corporate power, poverty in America, the IMF and the World Bank, empire. And he did energize and inspire a couple of million people who longed to work for something more in line with their views than Al Gore's vow to increase Pentagon spending further than Bush promised to.

And while the Nader campaign unfortunately--and, in hindsight, perhaps recklessly--tipped the balance to Bush, his views have largely been taken up by Dennis Kucinich, and some of the Naderite energy has flowed to Howard Dean. In this respect, the Nader campaign may turn out to have some of the same effects that the earlier Socialist Party had: to popularize ideas and ignite activism that may yet bear fruit. And I maintain that there is still a noble role to play for leftwingers who vote their conscience, who cast their ballot for the candidate that most represents their views, whether that be a Ralph Nader or a David McReynolds on the old Socialist Party line. As a movement strategy, this may be unwise, but there's nothing wrong with individuals who proudly want to declare where they stand in the voting both.

For Domhoff, however, the answer is clear: Work within the Democratic Party, which he calls a shell. Leftists should occupy it by forming what he calls "egalitarian Democratic clubs"--a nationwide effort to formulate issues and pick candidates. There is some movement already in this direction, with the formation of a group called Progressive Majority. But the Democratic Party isn't really an empty shell. Corporate and conservative influences, like the Democratic Leadership Council, occupy a lot of space in that shell. And it won't be easy to dislodge them.

Domhoff has other ideas for how the left can win. He says that leftists should accept the market system and only try to regulate it, that we should stop blaming the media, that we should not talk so much in class terms about "the rich" but embrace those in the upper class who share our egalitarian views, that we should be open to a U.S. foreign policy that intervenes abroad in favor of human rights, that we should be more accepting of religiosity in America, and that we should commit ourselves to nonviolence. I strongly disagree with him on some of these (especially on the media and on class rhetoric), and the only one of his ideas that I can unreservedly embrace is the point about nonviolence.

To his credit, Domhoff recognizes that his reformist agenda "may not seem heroic or pure enough to the dedicated activists whose energy would be necessary to carry them through." He notes, especially, that young people may be left nonplussed.

No kidding. The sermon from Domhoff and Weinstein to just suck it up and go along with the Democrats will be hard to swallow for many activists, it's laughable to imagine, back in 2000, that campuses would be ablaze with signs that said, "Anti-Sweatshop Activists for Gore," "Anti-Globalizationists for Gore," or "End Sanctions: Vote Gore."

Domhoff and Weinstein may be forcing activists into a box they won't fit into--and don't need to fit into. The authors recognize the need for social action in the street. And, as Howard Zinn teaches, grassroots, mass-based activism has had a greater effect on humanizing our society than electoral politics, as hard as that may be to accept in these dungeon days of George Bush.

That doesn't mean that unseating Bush is an unworthy or unnecessary task. But it does mean that we can do things other than eat our spinach.

Matthew Rothschild is Editor of The Progressive.