The Trap of Localism
Riessman, Frank
PROGRESSIVE PROGRAMS today have difficulty in finding a constituency that will demand basic redistribution of resources in the society. Progressive forces have demanded, of course, that the...
...Would guaranteed income help them overcome poverty...
...The old argument for integration has always been that an integrated school system will be a better school system and will lead black students to greater equality in our society...
...union rights in the public sector, welfare-client rights, and critiques of the credential system...
...Progressive movements will be coopted by small pay-offs, and the presumed escalated backlash will not even be necessary...
...Would the new rights lead to a better way of life, more income, more appropriate services—or are such rights largely sociotherapeutic...
...These precedents may have important significance in the future, when the issues of local control are converted into issues of national, public control and the new income is appropriately redistributed so that large numbers of people have useful, relevant services and rights...
...new approaches to training, manpower development, and demands for guaranteed income...
...A voice without income will result in a new participatory sociotherapy—or in a political democracy without economic democracy...
...PROGRESSIVE PROGRAMS today have difficulty in finding a constituency that will demand basic redistribution of resources in the society...
...In essence, the new progressive groups are demanding changes in the secondary targets, the secondary institutions—the educational system, the welfare system, local turf control —while leaving the primary institutions and targets intact...
...A swift end to the Vietnam war would be a victory for liberal and radical intellectuals, students, and a great number of silent Americans...
...On the contrary, no such large demands are being made by any major group, and this failure is occurring at a point when it is likely that there will be a decline in the war atmosphere and perhaps a consequent possibility for a turn toward an authentic welfare society...
...However, unless the larger picture is kept in mind, and unless the connections are made between the new-agenda radical politics and the persisting radical agenda of major resources, direction, and control in the society, COMMENTS AND OPINIONS an enormous, distractive delay can take place in the building of a new, significant progressive politics...
...black capitalism, accompanied by the decline in demands for integration...
...This theory ought to be carefully tested to see whether the new school system can lead to greater equality and whether educational gains will help blacks become an integral part of our society...
...For the most part, however, liberal and radical forces seem to accept rather apathetically that no such turn will take place...
...If not, would rights be replacing services and income, rather than serving to win both...
...Unless the new radicals pay attention to the importance of allocating resources, their highly significant new concern for participation and rights will not result in an improved life for their constituencies in the sense of greater resources, services, and amenities...
...Progressive forces have demanded, of course, that the war in Vietnam be ended, and have hoped that this will lead to increased investment and greater public control in the socialwelfare sector of the society...
...Because integration was difficult to achieve, however, a new alliance has arisen which argues that a desegregated, but separate, communitycontrolled school system will be a better school system for black youngsters...
...We are likely to experience a period in which the conservatives will consolidate their major control and the progressive forces will fight among themselves for division of much smaller turfs—although establishing precedents in the minds of people...
...Would greater local public control of the health system lead to improved and expanded health services for large segments of the population...
...Similar questions must be raised about the new plans to achieve control of the welfare system, and to separate social services from income maintenance...
...Will then welfare recipients receive better services...
...they are in the forefront of people's attention, thus aiding in the building of constituencies, programs, and support...
...they raise the issues of new income and new rights which in turn will set precedents for the major national issues of public control of resources on a large scale and the concern about welfare-service issues on a national agenda in contrast to military, privatesector interest and control...
...The issues of secondary targets must be attacked for a number of reasons: they protect the primary institutions...
...We need an integration of the two, of the old radicalism and the new radicalism, of rights and resources...
...Basic change is most unlikely in light of the new conservative power in America and the disunity among progressive forces who have shifted their attention to local agendas...
...Their energies are now thrown almost entirely into local demands: battles of decentralization and local control, particularly in the educational system...
...Tn NEW PxoGRESSivES must carefully develop criteria of social accountability...
...A new temporary stability will be achieved by the Nixon administration...
...the major-power forces will remain in power: the middle-class group will like the quiescent period and the progressive forces will be due for small gains that will appear highly militant and radical on the surface— until people wise up...
...But it will be only a partial victory if there is no major shift in resources, if the missile race continues and the concern about phony "gaps" remains central to the country's economy...
...Without such a combination we will have empty political victories, with major establishment groups making minor concessions in order to maintain their overall power...
...The criterion is correct but the thesis has not been significantly tested...
...Thus, for example, the goal of winning local control of the schools has to shift to gaining an improved educational program that will lead black youngsters to equality...
...Consequently, no significant effort is made to bring about a major alliance between old and new progressive forces that would focus on shifting the war economy to a social-welfare, public-controlled economy...
Vol. 16 • September 1969 • No. 5
