New Organizing Starting in 2000

from Unity Boston
2000

Organizing today faces great challenges. Obstacles are great not simply because forces opposing progressive activity have consolidated and forces supporting it have declined. Organizing is also much more complex today.

Uncertainty
Organizing faces more uncertainty; it is a different, emerging world. Fundamental changes are evident in globalized economies, changing relations to production for more educated production workers and contingent skilled workers, new means of production such as biotechnology and software, the evolving nature of corporations which have become less hierarchical and more networked, and new limits to production defined by environmental and global issues. There is theoretical uncertainty. While there is much in Marxism's critique of capitalism, Marxism in its present form is not adequate to explain the world. We also have to ask whether we are facing a new post-capitalist evolution in social history. We face organizational uncertainty. The organized forms of the '60s and '70s have given way to diverse and more localized bodies. Not only are they different, but these forms can not be mobilized by past methods.

Demand and Potential
On the other hand, there is a growing need for organizing. The changes in society create many new levels of inequality and injustice on a national and global scale. The social disruption in the lives of working people, the poor, and the less educated calls for organizing to answer their needs, many of which are subject to irresistible forces. People, though they don't describe it as such, yearn for direction, to be organized,. In reaction to this new world, diverse, uncoordinated activism has arisen. In the communities, campuses, and most noticeably in labor, new energy has developed to grapple with these problems. However, the activism is scattered, often inexperienced, and takes many different forms.

Requirements for organizational forms

Under these circumstances, organizations must meet the following requirements. First, they must prioritize the long-term work of theoretical clarification. Second, they must be flexible and adaptable, to respond to changing conditions. Third they must be rooted in helping people fight existing injustices and exploitation. Like everyone else, we must develop an understanding of how society is changing are unable to do so fully. Some of the certainty must necessarily wait for the new social ordersÕ features to unfold. But in order to grasp it and understand how to affect events to build a more just, equal, and peaceful society, we must constantly work at it. Such "theoretical work" should be coordinated and centralized. We need to be rooted in work around current issues. As activists, we have an obligation to try to better the world. During the next few decades, the issues that are now evident (environmental issues, declining living standards, unemployment, social disorganization, etc.) will sharpen. We also need to develop our clarity in connection with the real world. Because we are not sure how we should be doing our grassroots organizing, because organizations are so diverse and fragmented, we need to develop a flexible and decentralized structure for practical work. We need the flexibility to be able to move in different directions in the future, when things are clearer. We need to accommodate different forms and types of work. But flexibility and decentralization does not mean formlessness. We need to have established means of communications, the development of resources, and protocols for possible coordination on larger issues such as immigration or welfare reform. Most of all this diverse work should be seen as a transitional phase. They should be centrally analyzed and summed up to build for a more developed organizing structure.

Building on our history
While recognizing that this is a new period with new demands, we also need to build on the many positive aspects of our heritage from the Marxist and revolutionary national movements of the '60s and '70s. Much of what our members have stood for in the past remains relevant today, including an emphasis on the oppressed nationality movements and working people, the need for multiracial unity based on full equality and mutual respect, the interconnection between theory and practice, a non-dogmatic approach to class analysis, and a strategy based on building a broad majority movement for social change. It is also important that we connect older activists from the '60s and '70s with younger activists, so that every generation does not need to reinvent the wheel. We continue to believe in the need for organization to effect social change. But at this point, the Unity Organizing Committee will be primarily a network while we experiment with different approaches to organizing and build our capacity.