Piven and Cloward, Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail
Welfare rights organizers Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward have written a compelling critique of lobbying as an ineffective strategy for social change. Unfortunately, they believe they've done something else, and this confusion weakens their impact.
The authors' four detailed case studies of 20th Century mass movements demonstrate convincingly that certain kinds of actions are effective, while others aren't. Effective actions focus mobilized force directly on immediate problems with tangible solutions: on-the-spot disbursement of unemployment relief; prevention of eviction of destitute tenants. Ineffective actions dissipate mass energy by lobbying elected officials for legislative redress.
The strongest example is organized Labor's failure to defeat the Taft-Hartley act. The authors note,
By 1945, the CIO claimed 6 million members, the AFL claimed nearly 7 million. If ever there was a time for labor to demonstrate the force of organized voting numbers in electoral politics, a force no longer constrained by the imperatives of war and the spirit of patriotism, now was the time. As it turned out, the force of organized voting numbers could not even ward off the Taft-Hartley Act.
The House overrode Truman's veto by 331 to 83. Most Democratic House members voting to override had been elected with support from labor's PAC. The authors continue,
This dismal overall record in electoral and legislative politics was accomplished by the largest issue-oriented voting bloc in the nation. In the decade between the Wagner Act that signified labor's political muscle, and the Taft-Hartley Act that signified its helplessness, the ranks of organized labor had increased until one-third of the population was union affiliated. During that decade the unions' organizational apparatus had also enlarged and become increasingly sophisticated and increasingly committed to electoral politics on all levels. But neither this vast bloc of voters nor the sophisticated machinery of their organization could muster power sufficient even to resist the erosion of the gains won earlier, in the days before the unions had organized.
And they conclude,
Industrial workers are [...] the exemplary case by which to test beliefs about the effectiveness of mass-based organization in political spheres. Through organization, labor ostensibly commanded vast resources for political influence: millions of organized voters and multimillion-dollar treasuries from dues. Still, these resources yielded them little in the electoral process.
Unfortunately the authors' theoretical introduction frames these case studies within a misleading terminology which obscures their strategic conclusions.
The confusion centers on the counterposed terms "spontaneity" and "organization". These are echo-words, resonating from the historical debates of past generations. Many activists will locate them within either of two polemical contexts: Bakunin's attempt to control the First International, or Lenin's critique of apolitical trade-unionism. When Piven and Cloward evoke these terms, they appear to be situating themselves inside the Bakuninist polemic against Marx, or to be arguing against Lenin's vision of revolutionary politics. This is not their intent.
Close reading disentangles their meaning. They use "organization" to refer to permanent, national-scale membership organizations, particularly lobbying groups such as political action committees, attempting to sway elected officials through electoral promises or pressures. "Spontaneity" refers to street-level mobilizations, often extra-legal, always extra-electoral, bringing mass pressure directly to bear. The opposition Piven and Cloward are trying to demonstrate is that between persuasion and force, legitimization of the state and opposition to it, reform and revolution. While their introductory theorizing tends to treat the state as immutable, the logic of their case studies leads away from electoralism, toward militant mass action.
-- Mark Phillips, 3/6/03
