Recording of a panel hosted by the Houston Chapter of the Platypus Affiliated Society at the University of Houston, May 24, 2017.
Audio Recording
Panelists
Michael Leone (Communist Party, USA)
Brian Harrison (Socialist Alternative)
George Reiter (Green Party)
Description
Perhaps the most significant question informing the Left today is the issue of the political party. In the aftermath of Brexit, the election of Donald Trump, and the increasing proliferation of right-wing nationalist movements across Europe—such as La Pen’s Front National in France, Wilder’s Partij voor de Vrijheid in the Netherlands, and Alternative für Deutschland in Germany–, various left unity initiatives have sprung up across the world. Efforts to organize and resist against the shifting political tides have resulted in expanding membership and interest in groups in socialist groups around the world.
Such political developments parallel the historical question of Marx’s dispute with the anarchists in the First International: What would it mean for the Left to take political action today? As the global political order undergoes transformation, this quandary is thrust to the fore. However, the issue of the political party seems to generate more problems for the Left than it solves. Formal political organizations appear indispensable for building a long-term perspective beyond the ebb and flow of movements. Yet the role of a party in sustaining activity and discontents over time in the process of building towards a revolution has had, at best, an ambivalent legacy, often leading to the rationalization and institutionalization of politically ineffective strategies and giving cover for various forms of opportunism (e.g., reformism, careerism, and so on). Today, the idea that political parties could serve, not as an end in itself, but as a means for the Left, through which the necessity for social transformation could be developed within society, is difficult to envision both theoretically and practically. And yet, the current default—politics without parties—seems unable to do more than give sanction to the vicissitudes through which capitalism changes, but invariably persists. Worse still, without parties of its own, the Left is forced either passively or actively to place its hopes in other parties. It appears there is no way for the Left to escape the question of the political party.
In 2017, what would it mean to have a political party for Socialism? How has the question been altered in response to the changing global political order and how has it remained the same? What have we learned about socialist parties and what questions still remain?