On Elena Kagan’s Senior Thesis: Sound anti-Communist Labor History
Kagan’s discussion has a personal dimension to me. My late mother was a member of the ILGWU Local 25, active in their strikes, and at the time, one of the rank-and-file that took the communists’ advice. Later, when the party shifted its position overnight, and ordered their followers to shift ground, abandon the old strategy, and move en masse into the ILGWU, she quickly learned how she and her friends had been chess pieces in the party’s strategy to take over American labor.
The final result of the internecine warfare was what Kagan describes as the collapse of radical politics, the end of socialism in the union, and the resorting by both sides to the use of thugs and gangsters to force workers into one or another faction. The story she relates is hardly a pretty one. She puts it this way:
Those formerly militant trade unionists who remained within-the ILGWU had lost much of their passion for radical politics. These members had watched as the Communist Party subordinated their battle to a seemingly irrelevant connection to the Bolsheviks. They had watched as the socialists resorted to unconstitutional suspensions and overt alliances with the capitalist class in order to remove the left-wing threat. They had watched as communists and socialists alike hired gangsters and thugs to keep straying members in line and pull defecting ones back into it. In the process, these workers had seen their fondest radical hopes and dreams utterly destroyed.
She notes that the end result was that the union formally broke with even the moderate socialists, whose leader was Norman Thomas, and became an ardent supporter of FDR and the New Deal, working as its left-wing but clearly operating within the confines of the American political system.
In her concluding observations, Kagan returns to the question of why, in an imperfect society, a radical party never became a major force. She notes in her acknowledgments that one of her motivations to explore this subject was her brother, whose “involvement in radical politics” inspired her to explore this subject. Her answer is that in New York City, the movement developed “internal decay,” as “sectarianism and dissension ate away at its core.” She calls the story “a sad but also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.” American radicals, she writes, “had become their own worst enemies.”
We can observe, then, that as a college senior, Kagan wanted like so many others of that generation, to “change America.” She decries the radicals for fighting themselves instead of unifying in a practical manner. She wrote as one sympathetic to their goals and dreams. Her thesis is good history, something she has a right to still be proud of. Indeed, it is clear had she continued, Kagan probably would have become a first rate historian. I imagine, however, that some senators might wish to question her on her views on judicial restraint vs. activism. Do any of her views as reflected in her approach to history in a thirty-year-old thesis make her a proponent of using the law to promote social change? That is a fair question. One must realize, of course, that people change their views after so many years. Had Kagan been writing on this question now, perhaps she would have taken a different approach to the subject.
Her thesis — written from the perspective of an anti-communist scholar who was not in sync with the pro-communist leftism of what by then was a declining New Left — does not reveal that she was an advocate of radical social change. It does reveal an individual who, like the socialists and unionists she was writing about, also wanted to “change America.” It is clear that she found their struggles inspirational and that she empathized with their fight. If she has not changed her views on these issues, it puts her right in the mainstream of what is today’s left-of -center Democratic Party. Her views, however, were far removed from those Obama appointments like the short-lived one of Van Jones, who openly espoused communist and revolutionary ideas, which once exposed, forced him to offer his resignation.
Some may disagree with the political sympathies that led her to write on this topic, but I believe the thesis itself should serve as no grounds to deny her appointment to the Supreme Court.
UPDATE: May 22, 8:30 est.
In Slate, historians David Greenberg of Rutgers Univ. and Tony Michels of Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison have written their own take on Kagan’s thesis. You can read it here. You will surprisingly find that their points are quite similar to mine. Good history should be informative to all, despite one’s politics. And for my critics who are conservative, I believe that there is solid good history that is being written by historians of the Left, just as there is good history written by people who are conservatives. And writers and historians of any political view can write poor and misleading history as well.
“We can observe, then, that as a college senior, Kagan wanted like so many others of that generation, to “change America.”
Elena Kagan is an ego-tripping Progressive who believes that her elite university credentials and benevolent moral sensibilities give her the right to tell the unwashed masses what to do. She wants to “nudge” us to do the right thing. Kagan’s education is likely lacking in certain areas. She probably couldn’t explain the economic principles of tacit or dispersed knowledge if her life depended on it.
Norman Thomas was a moderate socialist who strongly opposed totalitarianism. He firmly believed in the democratic system. It is very fair to describe him as anti-Marxist. Thomas also didn’t have a clue on how wealth is created. There is a decent argument to be made on behalf of a union for the first generation of workers. The problems, however, start to get out of hand by the second and third generations when the union workers only care about scamming the system. Unions today are largely a destructive force in American life.
I disagree that there was ever a decent argument for unionization. There was just a group of people who demanded to be paid more than their labor was worth. Rising productivity allowed companies to handle this cancer for awhile, but the cancer is finally killing the host.
I disagree that there was ever a decent argument for unionization.
And I disagree with you on that, but only in broad generic terms. One of the most critical phenomena that led to the creation of what eventually would be known as the “middle class” and the notion of self-governance was the rise of tradesmen and craftsmen’s guilds in the Middle Ages and beyond. Freedom of Association is in our First Amendment. American industrialists would not have developed an enlightened attitude about their workforces had they not had to deal with organized labor.
The problem isn’t self-organizing, the problem is corruption brought on by power. Unions are what they are because they’ve lost their original purpose, and are now the personal property of union bosses. Attendant to that fact is this: the American union movement stupidly signed on to political power that also let them help make unfunded labor mandates possible. As a result most of America’s workforce can get a lot of, or even all of, the benefits of union workers without having to have union representation. Union membership shrank dramatically because most workers no longer needed unions.
I agree. Unions, insofar as they are voluntary organizations used for purposes of collective bargaining, insurance and the like, are innocuous, perhaps even beneficial; but, insofar as they coerce employers, by threat of violence or government fiat, there they become pernicious.
Clearly you’ve never been a 10-year-old kid working in a coal mine. My grandfather was. Tell you what, when you get your first job, check back.
I agree with Mark, only more so. There is certainly NO decent argument to be made for unionization when the scales are tipped in favor of the unions by legislation.
If a group of employees and a particular company choose to commit suicide by unionizing that’s their right. No one has a right to ask the government to put a knife to management’s throat.
Repeal the Wagner Act and all subsequent similar legislation. Illegal, immoral, and a violation of the Constitution.
The Wagner Act did an enormous amount of damage. One is indeed being very fair to describe it as allowing the union to put the proverbial knife to the employer’s throat. The damage caused to the auto industry alone is mind boggling. Unions like the UAW force prices up and make it more difficult for poorer members of society to purchase the goods and services of their respective companies.
Elena Kagan hypothetically could have written an objective and dispassionate thesis that does not reflect her personal economic thinking. The odds of this being the case, however, are very low. Kagan is a Democrat and that most assuredly means she possesses a very socialist perspective on economic activity. John Kenneth Galbraith and Paul Krugman are her likely heroes. It will be a very bad thing if she becomes a U.S. Supreme Court Justice.
Got any more ignorant, ad hominem right wing drivel you want to add, to illuminate the vacancy between your ears a bit.
Very interesting article. I remember reading in Harvey Klehr’s “The Heyday of American Communism” that the Communists resorted to strong-arm tactics against the Socialists.
I’d never seen any indication that the Socialists also used intimidation in what must have been more than the occasional scuffle.
(Actually, I have a feeling that I might have seen some passing mention of it in a book by Jenna Weissman Joselit’s called “Our Gang, Jewish Crime and the New York Jewish Community, 1900-1940)
It sounds as though Ms. Kagan was coming to grips with the contradictions in her philosophy the same way that George Orwell was coming to his. From the way that Mr. Radosh argues here on her behalf, Ms. Kagan might have believed at one point in her life that socialism, if handled correctly, could lead to great improvement in the lives of individuals and bring about a greater equality, however, after researching the topic she found that both the communists and socialists became consumed with wanting power and using any mean to achieve. Indeed, it sounds as though the template for her thesis can be laid right on top of the trajectory found in “Animal Farm”: the communists and socialists started out wanting to address perceived inequities, but over time devolved into parties that began warring with one another as they gained influence among their respective cliques. I haven’t read her thesis, but now I am interested to find out more from her.
“I’d never seen any indication that the Socialists also used intimidation in what must have been more than the occasional scuffle.”
This is why Karl Marx held them in utter contempt. Socialists like Norman Thomas believe they must adhere to the wishes of the voters. They are loyal to the principles of democracy. Marx thought such folks naïve idiots. The voters have been alienated and deceived by the capitalists and simply don’t realize what is good for them. Communists are therefore obligated to save them from their childish selves. Thomas was a well-meaning thinker. He failed to realize, however, that the powers of the state should be severely limited and it must stay out of the way of the citizenry as much as possible. Economies grow only when the gale winds of creative destruction are released to do their thing. Also, a supposedly benign socialist government managed by “benevolent” elites will inevitably turn dictatorial. It’s only a question of time.
If we have a liberal President and a liberal Congress, we will get a liberal Supreme Court pick. They might as well be the best liberal available.
I don’t think Elena Kagan is that person, but we could do a lot worse. The last pick certainly was.
Policy-wise, I think Kargan is terrible on most issues I care about. As to whether she’d be a thoughtful and prudent justice, I think she would. I think she has the ability for the job. Not the best person, but good enough.
We don’t have a President McCain because the voters didn’t choose that. We’re going to have liberal appointees. I’m happy this one isn’t an anti-American grievance specialist.
I agree. Elections have consequences as we have all sadly come to realize. This is all the more reason for those of us that still believe in the Constitution and the rule of law over the rule of the elites must get out and vote in November and throw a bunch of the incumbents out.
The elections have consequences dictum is cover for appeasement to the opposition. I hate the sound of it; when Bush2 won, Howard Dean told his party there would be no going along with the winner — no, no, no — he rallied the Left’s troops to fight every single Bush agenda item, not give one inch, fight like crazy to resist and defeat Bush’s goals. Terry McCaulife sent out the same directive to dems.
Now we have the One, and everyone talks about consequences of elections. I’ll tell you what the consequences of the election are: We’re going to be England’s Churchill to Germany’s Hitler. How do you like them apples? We’re going to fight back against the EVIL machinations of O and his henchmen; FILIBUSTER KAGAN! And I’m sick of so-called realists telling us not to even try (I’m talking to you, Jon Kyl). Make a stand, for Pete’s sake. Be the opposition YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE, you timid, pitiful excuses for men.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2010/05/24/sessions_to_kagan_what_were_you_thinking_when_you_punished_our_men_and_women_in_uniform.html
Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, and member of the Judicial Committee, has it right! Moreover, he’s probably the most honorable man in the Senate; his take on Kagan reflects his wisdom, legal experience, and patriotism. He’s way too good for the America that voted for the man in the White House. Pity us that we’re not worthy of men like Jeff Sessions. We’d rather have someone UN-vetted who can con an audience with his teleprompter skills, shallow bunch of boobs that we are — who are stupid enough to believe the Leftist talking-head liars and sycophants on TV and traitors over at the NYT.
I’m not a historian, so I won’t try to judge the quality of Kagan’s scholarship. But Kagan’s hypothesis seems pretty weak to me. Internal conflict killed socialism? Don’t all serious politcal movements endure bitter internal conflict?
I think a much stronger argument could be made for the following:
1. The winner-take-all system for presidential elections and the single-seat plurality voting system for Congressional elections have over time created the two-party system. Until and unless the GOP or the Democratic Party goes extinct, there will never be room for a socialist party in the U.S.
2. The Democratic Party as co-opted as much of the socialist agenda as the voters in the country have the appetite for.
I’m more concerned about Kagan’s cheerleading for radical activist socialism than about the quality of her scholarship or the validity of her analysis. Will she be a radical activist judge?
validity of her analysis.
Interesting perspective…
I’m not a historian, so I won’t try to judge the quality of Kagan’s scholarship. But Kagan’s hypothesis seems pretty weak to me. Internal conflict killed socialism? Don’t all serious politcal movements endure bitter internal conflict?
I think a much stronger argument could be made for the following:
1. The winner-take-all system for presidential elections and the single-seat plurality voting system for Congressional elections have over time created the two-party system. Until and unless the GOP or the Democratic Party goes extinct, there will never be room for a socialist party in the U.S.
2. The Democratic Party has co-opted as much of the socialist agenda as the voters in the country have the appetite for.
I’m more concerned about Kagan’s cheerleading for radical activist socialism than about the quality of her scholarship or the validity of her analysis. Will she be a radical activist judge?
More of my thoughts here: http://www.rightklik.net/2010/05/if-elena-kagan-isnt-radical-socialist.html
Come on Radosh. What planet or rather country do you live on? Since when has Labor Socialism really explained Obama, or MultiCulturalism ..or any of the things
that changed America seemingly overnight? Look at reality. Obama’s doesnt come from the militant fighting front of anything. He has never held a job of any kind.
He isnt John Lewis of the coal mines, or Walter Reuther of the Detroit Assembly Lines He is nobody concocted out of sound bytes and media imagery.
Soft, vague, waffling. Dedicated to the feel good buzz, the spin, the Perfect Media Moment. Bolshevism vs Socialism? The evil eminience behind the destruction of the USA isnt Stalin or Lenin..its Oprah Winfrey. MultiCulturalism is destroying the country by believing in nothing and letting open borders do the rest. Massive demographic change has overturned America such as no intentional revolution could ever do. And this explains the menace of Kagan. Its not what she believes or doesnt believe that will cause the damage..its her inveterate liberal nothingness that will do the trick. For Kagan everything is soft, pliable, and can be redefined at will. Like her sexuality. Like the Constitution.
The duly elected president gets to nominate. The Senate has a kind of veto over the choice. A nomination fight may be useful to illuminate the constitutional issues, but can have no other purpose. If Kagan’s nomination is withdrawn, the O will be in a strong position to submit a more radical nominee—arguing that renewed GOP opposition is partisan obstruction.
Kagan may be the best choice available. Constitutional procedure dictates liberal dictation of the choice. An intelligent leftist capable of making an argument and responding to one is preferable to a robotic ideologue.
What Kagan failed to see was what the founding fathers saw: a government that over reaches and attempts to usher in a utopia is bound to fail. (Men are not “angels.”) That is the inherent weakness of utopian theories. Most people as they mature come to recognize limitations–not only for individuals, but for institutions. The solution is a check on power, per the Constitution. But has Kagan come to recognize this truth or is she still in a delusional adolescent mode?
The odds are that Elena Kagan remains a delusional adolescent. After all, she is a member in good standing in the Democratic Party. That alone provides evidence that Kagan is an economic illiterate. I am convinced that Kagan could not hold her only in a discussion regarding economics if her very life depended on it. This may even be typical of most Ivy League graduates.
Bingo Dave.
I was on campus at a liberal college and it seemed more like a giant playpen of overaged teenagers than a place of serious thought.
Funny, I had the same reaction a couple months ago when I was dragged by a friend to a Tea Party rally. No thinking required in that venue; in fact, any evidence of intellectual thought was viewed as a threat.
Go figure.
I’m not aware of the role of the Supreme Court in determining economic policy in the United States; therefore Kagan’s ability to discuss economics seems irrelevant. Her ability to do her job will be based on her knowledge of the law and the Constitution as well as her mental capacity and dispassionate judgment. In these areas she is extraordinarily well equipped.
No her writing a thesis on the conflict of socialism versus communism in America should not disqualify her from the SCOTUS, but that her sympathies which lay with socialism do.
Socialism/progressivism are antithetical to our Constitution, economy, values and way of life. That we now know she sees things that way does disqualify her.
She and her ilk wish to obviate the Constitution or like her master, see the Constitution as negative rights. She will like the rest of the left who are on the court and have been there in the past have all sought to change that document to fit what they see is their version of America.
Has anyone really argued that the thesis proves or implies that Kagan is a Bolshevik? One might respond that Marxism-Leninism is actually the most practical variety of what purport to be various and distinct interpretations of socialism: or are we to presume that the class relations of society can be altered to the extent required by socialist doctrine without a fight? I highly doubt it, and no socialist could prove that he was correct. More worrying, the socialist theory and project throws the gates wide open for infiltration by opportunists of the Marxist-Leninist type, who have usually proven that, with a little help, the socialists are a bunch of mostly-capitalist bourgeois opportunists themselves.
Because ultimately the point is socialism is BULLSH-T. The central conceit is that they, the manifestation of a kinder economic order, are nicer and more more moral than the capitalists, and should get to design things their way. Actually, there is more than one central conceit, but who has time for this crap? It is idiocy, and it is a tragedy that after the 20th century we should have to sit around debating whether a socialist transvestite should get anywhere near the United States Supreme Court.
I hope you at realize this is purely academic. Remember the beef with her is not that she is an intellectual light weight. It is that Ms. Kagan doesn’t honor the constitution and will jump at the chance to pervert it. Maybe she is a wonderful historian good for her, I don’t care. Our movement cannot beat Alinsky’s crew bending over to give these radicals the benifit of the doubt.
All very interesting, but like a warm bath; at least some comments make it seem almost substantive.
However, with continuing deterioration of respect for the law in the face of pervasive hebephrenia, it will soon not matter at all who or what sits in or on the courts at any level.
But not to worry, self-inflcted wounds do not heal like any other and the good news is things are different in the dark in the jungle they are making.
Anti-Communist? Yes
Pro-socialist? Again, clearly, yes.
Sad that one who claims to be so learned, spins the work of pointing out past errors of the class struggle to improve current thinking, is a form of anticommunism.
by that mode of thinking, any learning from mistakes is against the object of that learning.
so if someone operated a car in a way that was not good.
and then they analyzed their mistakes to improve the future.
Radosh would say they were being anti-good driver because they examined mistakes.
its a sad thing to see a smart person abuse their brain by taking advantage of what they think of as little people.
if such were parents in care of child, they would be sadists abusing their charge the whole way because it was not born whole, and as smart as they…
he inverts the whole idea of those who have better taking care of those that have less.
Radosh would throw them in jail for not meeting his level while completely ignoring the fact that there are lots of people smarter than him that choose not to bother with someone who is a mid level hack philosopher at best who tends to be celebrity with masochistic dull thinkers (he looks down on).
Sound anti-communist labor history, not the second coming of Van Jones, and something Kagan has a right to still be proud of.
OK, that’s nice, but is she qualified to be on the Supreme Court?
I feel sorry for Mr. Radosh. It is clear that his sympathies lie with Kagan’s thesis, as do mine. I think that Kagan learned a lot from pursuing the study. I think that Obama’s experiences in Chicago politics in some ways resemble the scene in the ILGWU and softened him up to see politics as an ideological struggle in which there are no holds barred in the struggle to get your way. This was the way in which the Bolsheviks viewed history, it is the way in which Chicago politics works, except that the activists are intertested only in power for its own sake and as the means to self-enrichment. The Chicago political machine has no ideology–itsw just a struggle in George Orwell’s barnyard.The way in which the health bill was passed shows that admirably. A person committed to democratic practice does not go along with bribery, blackmail hidden meetings and the like unless he is convinced that this sort of behavior is normal politics, which it is and was in the Chicago barnyard.Human nature? Original sin?
Man.
First you spew all over Claire Berlinski and now this?
Adios, Radosh. Into /dev/null with you from now on.
I don’t see what’s sad about the socialists’ agenda being stymied. The communists should have paid for their thug tactics to which it sounds like the socialist thug tactics were a defensive reaction. Maybe so, maybe not.
Even moderate socialists seek to use the coercive power of the state to attain their goals and it troubles me that a person who found socialism something admirable would be a candidate now for the Court. That was then, of course, but, until there is a lot of explaining done by Ms. Kagan about how she moved light years away from her earlier view, I say she’s still a socialist and no friend to liberty. She’s compromised on the issue of fealty to the Constitution. Art. I, Sect. 8, contains no authority for government to own or control the means of production to advance the general welfare as conceived of by socialists.
The idea of a candidate for the Court having the view that the law should be a means of effecting social change is bizarre. On this ground alone she should be rejected. Congress (and the vast unelected bureaucracy, of course) decide what changes should be made and the court interprets the laws enacted as a result.
The author declares that Kagan wrote her thesis “from the perspective of an anti-communist scholar.” I wonder at the author’s failure to point out what is far more important, to wit, that Kagan is, like the man who nominated her, a dedicated cultural Marxist, not an old-line economic Communist. Why in the world should the United States have a cultural Marxist on the Supreme Court? And, for that matter, why in the world would Mr. Radosh ignore that central, and incredibly important, issue? Cultural Marxists are dedicated to the “deconstruction” of the United States and the destruction of its traditional values, including personal freedom derived from the God-gift of Free Will. Kagan cannot uphold a Constitution that she does believe in; indeed, she cannot even take the oath of office in good conscience.
If her SYMPATHIES led her to write this thesis, that alone disqualifies her. Normally I agree with your logic and reasoning but this is a mind blower. Do we need someone with those SYMPATHIES on the court since they are at ODDS WITH THE LETTER AND INTENT OF THE CONSTITUTION??? Your conclusion left me gobsmacked.
scythe: I don’t see the confusion in my statement. It seems simple to me. Her writing is not a disqualifyer. It is her “sympathies” with socialism that should. I don’t think it is a stretch to think she will legislate from the bench; since we know that progressives have used the bench to enact many if not most of their agenda. Try this analogy: Would you want someone on the bench whose sympathies lie with, say, Nazism or the KKK?
My statement says…”if her sympathies led her to write this thesis…that (the sympathies) should disqualify her.” Seems we both agree, after all. She wrote on the topic and yes, the writing of it does not disqualify her. But it appears her animation for the topic is more than a detached scholarly endeavor, and that is the disqualifier. You attempt to separate the two and they are inseparable. As far as your other remarks..KKK..Nazi… since you and I both essentially agree, I think you have your answer.
it at least sounds like she can think things a little further thru.
commies are like pigs they will eat each other just to prove a point.(Barry Sadler)
the why, i don’t like socialist, is because i prefer to do it myself.
The Commies and Socialists couldn’t overthrow our goverment directly. So now they have chosen to infiltrate it and bring it down from within. Kagan on the Court will be more like them than not.
We continualy get our noses rubbed in it. Everything this administration does and I mean everything is meant to shove us into Socialism !!
Ron,
Lose the high and mighty analysis of the thesis. It is good in how it is written and well presented of the facts. What is so disturbing is her sympathy towards the communist party of America. She should not be a Supreme Court Justice. Go to http://www.ithewe.com to read her conclusion and decide for yourself. Don’t take my word or Ron’s decide for yourself.
The Gruesome Commitment of Elena Kagan
Not that it makes any difference at this point since Solicitor General Elena Kagan will certainly be confirmed next week by the Democrat-controlled Senate as the next associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, but Americans should fully comprehend who and what they’re getting in the person of Ms. Kagan.
I don’t just mean that she’s liberal to her core and I don’t refer to her antipathy toward the military nor to the rumors that she’s a lesbian. I refer to her commitment to murdering defenseless babies.
Now I know that such a damning statement raises the hackles of “progressives,” (liberals, leftists, and most Democrats), who tend to rise up en masse to defend a woman’s “right to choose” and deny en masse that aborting “the product of conception” is tantamount to killing babies.
However, when a fetus is 20 or more weeks old, is viable outside the womb, and possesses all of the God-given human features of an infant, when it looks like a baby, sucks its thumb like a baby, reacts to external stimuli, has a fully-formed brain, heart, lungs, and all the other organs of a tiny human being, only those deeply committed to eradicating its life at all costs can deny it is a living person.
Elena Kagan is such an individual and a female individual at that, a member of the female gender which is specially engineered to be emotional, caring, nurturing as opposed to dispassionate, detached, and murderous. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1805)