More on Civil Disobedience
Zinn, Howard
MICHAEL WALZER * JUSTIFIABLY WANTS to loosen up the traditional definition of civil disobedience to include the kinds of mildly coercive acts and limited resistance to police that he found...
...Therefore Walzer wants to distinguish civil disobedience from revolutionary action...
...Does not the United States today neatly fit Walzer's prescription for the corporation "where there can be no binding commitment until the best possible democratic procedure for establishing rules has been adopted...
...I am astonished again to read that "the history of liberal government is a history of retreat...
...Why must civilly disobedient persons recognize "the moral value of the state...
...But there may be a grievance connected with the university that is just as severe, even if it is not as direct: for instance, the university's functioning as an adjunct of a cruelly aggressive war, whether by military-connected research or by ROTC programs...
...Walzer recognizes this problem for the corporation, where he is willing to go beyond civility in the face of an oppressive situation, but not in dealing with the state...
...It gives time, and "Time is the best test of the support the strikers actually have among the passive majority...
...Governor Frank Murphy's approach is hardly a typical example of state action...
...But why are the two mutually exclusive...
...He doesn't expressly say this because he speaks always of "a democratic state" in the abstract, rather than of this state, here, now...
...The whole notion of obligation—so dear to traditional political theory—is based on a static view of the state...
...he is mixing a specific situation with a theoretical one...
...True, a term should have some specific meaning of its own...
...I don't read American history that way at all...
...But we are using this opportunity badly if we stick too closely to the circumstances of the historical event we are looking at and fail to let the event suggest larger possibilities...
...Can't the state afford to look "democratic" precisely because the real power and wealth rest with the corporations—even after they are unionized...
...He leaves us in the position of being more open to civil disobedience—but only if the student actions could resemble the situation in Chevrolet plant # 4. By narrowing the criteria (for instance, that the oppressiveness of the corporation can be specified "in some rational way") he is conveniently leaving the students without a cause because the university is clearly not like GM...
...It is this or that, democratic or authoritarian, and so you decide whether you are obligated or not...
...Minorities may need to break through this manufactured majority will, testing its thickness, giving it a chance to be recreated behind another way of thinking, by forcing people to make choices they did not anticipate...
...MICHAEL WALZER * JUSTIFIABLY WANTS to loosen up the traditional definition of civil disobedience to include the kinds of mildly coercive acts and limited resistance to police that he found in the sit-down strike of 193637...
...it evokes situations that test rigidified principles and so opens us to new possibilities, to better principles...
...Our problem is how to get from an uncivil social system to a civil one, knowing that an insistence on totally civil (noncoercive, nonviolent) tactics may not work in many situations, and yet not wanting that fact to diminish our scrupulous concern to maintain our humanity as far as possible while seeking change...
...I find two such limitations of vision in this essay...
...Why is Walzer so concerned for "the bounds * "Corporate Authority and Civil Disobedience," by Michael Walzer, DISSENT, September–October 1969...
...If we can expand the definition of civil disobedience in the way he suggests in this essay, why can't we expand it further to include acts that are not accompanied by any general feeling of obligation to the state (as opposed to specific feelings of obligation on certain occasions...
...what if the two-party system only gives you one more choice than the one-party system—and a poor one...
...what if the judicial procedures operate on behalf of the privileged...
...Very few corporate bodies, Walzer says, "reproduce the democratic politics of the state," meaning electoral systems, parties, judicial procedures, channels for rank-and-file participation...
...But what if the electoral system is controlled by wealth and power...
...of industrial magnates, and so on...
...This implies that he believes all these elements in the American system make for a "democratic politics...
...What if the FBI plays the same role in the nation as Ford's secret police played for him...
...Was Walzer not willing to condone action against the state when the state (however democratic) represented the interests of the oppressive corporation...
...To ME, THE MOST VALUABLE POINT in the essay is the one on majority rule...
...Again, I assume that his "democratic state" is the United States, and I am astonished that he gives this description so easily...
...We develop fixations about certain concepts...
...Walzer distinguishes between the corporation where "there can be no binding commitment until the best possible democratic procedure for establishing rules has been adopted" and the "democratic state" where there is "a prima facie obligation to obey the laws of that state...
...I see a clear line from Hamilton's fiscal program in the 18th century, to the Railroad Acts of the 19th Century, to the Oil Industry's power in the 20th century...
...The tactical aspect of this is that occupation of buildings is particularly suited to minority action...
...Of course, we want not only to have some day a nonviolent society of kindly relationships, but we would like to approach that model even in our tactics...
...And while an ununionized GM can keep you poor, a "democratic" but controlled government can render you dead...
...Isn't there a stronger connection between the corporations and the state than is suggested by Walzer's essay...
...of civility" where the state is concerned, and not where the corporation is concerned...
...Surely the COMMUNICATIONS national government mustn't show exactly the same characteristics as General Motors to be just as oppressive...
...FIRST, WHY does Walzer insistently stop short of a challenge to "the legitimacy of the legal or political system...
...from the total support...
...Walzer points out that "Majority rule does not operate very well in the early stages of the struggle for democracy, when the majority is likely to be both passive and frightened...
...You may think that revolutionary changes are needed in society, yet you are not ready to engage in a revolutionary act now— indeed, you are not sure what acts would result in revolutionary changes...
...The control of government by wealth today is more complex, more disguised, more pluralistic than before (of course, not "total"—it doesn't have to be), but probably more entrenched than ever in our history...
...So you engage in limited acts of civil disobedience, but without any commitment to stop there if those acts should open up the situation...
...His distinction between how to act toward General Motors and how to act toward "a democratic state" is therefore unreal...
...Surely this is one of the advantages of history...
...But states are much more complex, more shifty, and so must be obligation...
...what if the "channels" for rank-and-file participation are either blind tunnels or mazes...
...THE SECOND LIMITATION of vision is in Michael Walzer's application of the General Motors events to the student movement today...
...We probably need to examine all traditional concepts—"obligation," "democracy," "elections," etc.—with a similarly creative approach to help us deal with the intricate problem of how to change modem, industrial, totalitarian, liberal society...
...This is important because we face the problem today of changing society in a situation where the majority has been socialized, from kindergarten on, to accept God and country, the white man and Western civilization, the sanctity of property, money as the measure of worth...
...Has he already prejudged the issue, deciding that General Motors in 1937 was oppressive, but the United States government in 1969 is "democratic...
...Neither Thoreau nor Tolstoyboth believers in civil disobedience—did...
...It is, no doubt, a much happier and freer place...
...Surely I am stating the obvious—but can political theories ignore the obvious...
...one of them is majority rule...
...Why not action against a university (however free) when it represents the interests of an oppressive state...
...And does this not immediately rule out the "prima facie obligation to obey the laws of that state...
Vol. 17 • March 1970 • No. 2
