After Seattle: Strategic Thinking About Movement Building

Monthly Review, July, 2000 by Martin Hart-Landsberg

The Political Challenges of Campaign Organizing

Our challenges extend beyond developing sound political criteria and using them to determine which campaigns have the greatest progressive potential. We also face the challenge of working within our communities to share and win support for our political criteria and choices. For example, opposing the China campaign could lead to redbaiting or charges of sectarianism. More importantly, even when there is general agreement about which campaign to pursue, there is no guarantee that the campaign will realize its potential.

Campaigns are themselves complex political processes. There is no issue so "pure" that it guarantees that the associated campaign will promote grassroots participation; a class-conscious, anticapitalist perspective; and international solidarity. There is always the danger that pressures from both inside and outside the campaign will moderate the politics and narrow the focus of the campaign, with disastrous political results.

For example, I have advocated a campaign for ratification of ILO core Conventions, seeing it as a vehicle for movement building. However, such a campaign, if dominated by reform elements, could easily fail to achieve this objective. Organizers could limit actions to postcard campaigns directed at members of Congress; people could be encouraged to see ratification of these Conventions as the ultimate answer to U.S. labor problems. The outcome would certainly be a political dead-end. An examination of conditions in Germany and France, countries that have ratified all seven core Conventions, should make clear that ratification in and of itself has limited ability to challenge and transform capitalist dynamics. Even Guatemala has ratified all seven!

Similarly, some antisweatshop campaigns come dangerously close to presenting sweatshops as an historical anomaly that can be ended by using consumer campaigns to encourage capitalists to change their behavior. As a result, many participants begin thinking in terms of good capitalists versus bad capitalists rather than developing an anticapitalist consciousness. Even campaigns against the IMF and World Bank are divided along fix it/nix it lines, leading to competing political understandings and visions of change.

In short, campaigns can differ in terms of their organization dynamics and political focus even when addressing the same "issue." And, as is true with issues, some campaigns are more likely to promote favorable political outcomes than others. Therefore, we must also give careful attention to the choices we make when organizing campaigns if we are to succeed in building on the promise of this period. Happily, there are historical experiences that can help us develop criteria for, as well as suggest approaches to, successful campaign organizing.

Learning From History: The Example of May Day

An examination of the struggle for a shorter workday, which came to be symbolized by May Day demonstrations and strike actions, has much to teach us about how to organize around "reform" issues while simultaneously building militant, national, working-class movements and revolutionary visions. More specifically, the history offers important insights into how to maximize the radical potential of our campaigns and build meaningful international solidarity. It also highlights the critical nature of the relationship between campaigns and movements.