Essays
What Do Political Parties Believe?
By John Clay
A political party believes nothing. It is an empty vessel waiting to be filled. It has no inclinations, ideals, or identity of its own.
Americans who hold progressive or liberal ideals remember just enough of the Democratic Party's heritage in the New Deal economics of the 1930s and 40s and the civil rights movement of the 1960s to think of the Democratic Party as the party of prosperity and justice for all, the party of good government for the common good. And they know well, as they should, that the Republican Party of today is an aggressive enemy of prosperity and justice for all, a party that actively promotes consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few while using racial and class hatred to scapegoat anyone who opposes them.
So progressive Americans, when not voting for a third party, often vote Democrat and then, almost inevitably, recoil in dismay and indignation at their elected heroes' failure to make—or failure even to attempt—any major changes in how the nation is run. Why do we endure this endless cycle of "hope for change" followed by disappointment?
I think that progressive Americans have been laboring under a misconception—that political parties have identities of their own, like people have personalities. But they don't. Political parties are simply reservoirs for existing power. Their identity is that of the political-economic communities, the powerbases, that operate in the society at large. As the powerbases shift, the parties follow.
To constitute a powerbase, a community of people have to be well-organized together, share a sense of who they are and what kind of world they want, and hold considerable economic power. A few examples of historical powerbases in American society are shareholders of major corporations (often including top management), small business owners, labor unions, farmers, and licensed professionals such as doctors or lawyers.
Today one of these communities—major corporate shareholders—vastly outweighs the rest. As a result, when today's political parties look for power, they find the bulk of their power in one common source, big business. This is why the parties adopt contrasting policy platforms at their conventions but end up looking about the same when the election is over and the dealmaking is done.
This view of parties as followers of society's powerbases, whether novel or obvious to the reader, demands a radical change in progressive strategy. It means that in today's world, where the corporate powerbase has fully consumed the Republican Party, dominates the Democratic Party, and buys off or massively outguns any other party that might arise, the job of progressives first and foremost is to build our power in society at large and only second is to support political parties for election.
Our first responsibility as progressives is to organize out here in the real world and to build our fellow progressives' economic power out here in the real world. That means talking together and arguing principles together. It means hiring each other when we can, and purchasing from progressive independent businesses and cooperatives before multinational corporations, and from union multinationals before non-union. It means forging new unions and cooperatives and associations to leverage joint purchasing power and joint bargaining power. It means building a shared progressive sense of who we are and what kind of world we want, anchored in a real economic interdependence upon each other. And it even means donating money to each other's progressive nonprofit organizations first before donating to a political party campaign.
We will remain engaged in the political arena. We will vote for the best candidates we can. But in order to build our own power, we will invest in ourselves first before investing in a political party. Then as our power grows—and to grow under present circumstances is an awful challenge—the political parties can come to us to be filled. Only then will there be parties whose power, identity, and acts of government are our own.
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