Re: A highly critical take on Fitch
Carrol Cox wrote:
Marvin Gandall wrote: >
Certainly, the indictment of his critics is that he has drawn a one-sided and misleading picture of US labour - one resembling the caricature of it by the right. If this is so, in Fitch’s case would be unintentional, but it would flow from the same questionable starting point where much of the left begins its analysis: that all contemporary problems are reducible to deficient leaders in the unions and the mass parties who are seen as somehow at odds with their members, when, in fact, it is conditions which produce leaders who, for the most part, reflect the consciousness and values of their base.
This emphasis on leadership tends to characterize many followers of Trotsky, as well as those who worry about who the DP will nominate in 2008, but is it really widespread enough to justify your phrase, “much of the left”? I don’t think so.
But it doesn’t even apply to Fitch, who constantly emphasizes structural issues that make even the best leaders go bad. He never questioned the good intentions of TDU - he’s known Ken Paff for more than 30 years. I wish people would read the damned book before commenting on it.
Doug