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5 Contemp. Crises 1 (1981)

handle is hein.journals/crmlsc5 and id is 1 raw text is: Contemporary Crises 5 (1981) 1-13 1 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company, Amsterdam - Printed in the Netherlands ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY: DEALING CAPITAL IN OR OUT IN THE EIGHTIES? JERRY LEMBCKE and MARTIN HART-LANDSBERG The U.S. economy, never having fully recovered from the 1973-75 recession, is heading for another and deeper slide. While not yet as severe as the Great Depression of the 1930s, the current crisis deserves to be considered in a similar light for several reasons: 1) the crisis is long-term - conditions have worsened over good times as well as bad; 2) the crisis is widespread, encompassing almost the entire economy; 3) the crisis is of such a nature that the normal operation of current institutions and structures seems incapable of reversing downward trends; and 4) the crisis appears universal with all capitalist countries in a similar position. Not surprisingly, millions of Americans are becoming increasingly motivated to reverse these downward trends. For those on the left, the revival of a progressive movement centering on demands for economic democracy has been an especially encouraging development. The past decade, for example, has witnessed growing demands for consumer rights, workers' control, and a revitalized rank and file trade union movement. One result has been the formation of organizations like the Progressive Alliance arid the Citizens-Labor Energy Coalition. Many on the left are trying to offer support and assistance to these developments, hoping to show that the goals of stable employment, clean and decent cities, a reasonable standard of living, and an end to racial and sexual discrimination can only be achieved through the establishment of socialism. Convinced that the current crisis is comparable to the last Great Depression, the left is also correctly looking back to the 1930s to learn from the successes and failures of the progressive movement in that period. The objective is to avoid the mistakes that led to the New Deal, aspects of which helped lay a basis for a capitalist recovery. The concern that a new reform package could again rescue capitalism is made real by the fact that current trade union leadership, instead of trying to avoid the eventual one-sided nature of the earlier New Deal, has begun an uncritical call for a new one. The Progressive Alliance, for example, has called for a new agenda - a program as far-sighted for the 1980s as the New Deal was to become in the 1930s. The Progressive Alliance calls its reform package a post-New Deal program. Insurgent Sociologist, Eugene, Oregon, U.S.A. Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon, U.S.A. 0378-100/81/0000-0000/$02.50 @ 1981 Elsevier Scientific Publishing Company

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