4 August 2019 –
Democrat-Republican. Left-right. Liberal-conservative. If you listen to the mainstream media, these are the lines which divide our society and are reinforced every day on many news channels. You are also probably sick to death of hearing about the polarizing arguments that dominate the major media stations. Turn on any particular news network and you would think that half of the US is at war with the other half. However, these arbitrary divisions often examine only superficial differences and heedlessly (or purposefully) ignore the true source of many of our societal struggles. Although this essay is written with a focus on American politics, the lessons can be applied universally.
One way to view the source of societal divisions was expounded by social scientist Karl Polanyi in his 1944 book The Great Transformation. In this seminal work in the field of political economy, Polanyi talks about the idea of the “Double movement,” where the interests of ordinary workers are pitted against the wishes of the captains of industry.
This idea provided a broad way to examine societal dynamics as a dialectical struggle between forces that champion laissez-faire economics and marketization and those who demand increased social protections from these processes. On one hand, business leaders will seek to expand the commodification of many aspects of life. Workers of society seek to protect themselves from this process in any way possible, such as lobbying for tariffs and labor protection laws. In Polanyi’s theory, the state acts as the stage in which this struggle takes place; government sets up the rules under which the struggles between proponents and opponents of a laissez-faire market occur.
The theories within The Great Transformation were developed in wake of The Great Depression, at a time when a unified labor movement was able to push the government towards the creation of federal jobs programs and populist policies, instead of the more austere principles enacted during the Great Recession in the beginning of 2008. In the 1930s, we saw major legislation protecting labor rights and putting people to work building infrastructure or ecosystems. After the market crashed in 2008, however, the federal response to aid ordinary people was incredibly weak by comparison. In the 75 years in between the two economic downturns, there had been major changes in societal dynamics.
Critical theorist Nancy Fraser has developed a framework through which to view the fracturing of the American left in the latter half of the 20th century. Fraser has modified the concept of the Double Movement in order for it to reflect the realties of the 21st century. In her essay “A Triple Movement? Parsing the Politics of Crisis After Polanyi,” Fraser argues that the dichotomy between business and labor interests is no longer sufficient to explain the major conflict in modern society. Instead, multiple groups who felt disenfranchised by the original New Deal legislation emerged in the 1960s. These factions included feminists, Civil Rights groups, LGBT movements, and environmentalists. The advent of these groups created what Fraser has coined a “Triple Movement,” where emancipatory movements fluctuate from serving business and labor interests in turn. These groups often switch allegiances unknowingly, instead of as the result of a conscious effort or an overarching organizational strategy.
That’s a lot of jargon-laden sentences in a row. Here’s a way to visualize the Triple Movement. Suppose you have two teams engaged in tug-of-war on a rope. On one end you have Team Business Leaders, and on the other you have Team Ordinary Workers. The two teams are each trying to win the game. This is a particularly nasty game of tug-of-war. On the sidelines, you have more people waiting to join in the game, and they are free to choose which side they like to join. These people are part of various social movements that form the third arm of the Triple Movement. Sometimes these people will join Team Business Leader’s side and cause a loss for the Ordinary People. At other times, the Ordinary Workers get a bunch of reinforcements and drag Team Business Leaders down into the mud in a decisive victory. If that analogy was not helpful, feel free to discard it from your mind.
The reason that feminists, Civil Rights groups, LGBT movements, and environmentalists switch from aligning with business and labor interests in turn is that in the post-WWII era, these groups have often been more concerned with recognition and emancipation than redistribution. They criticized New Deal programs and protective laws as being callous towards or purposefully exclusionary of their interests, and they had a strong basis for these claims. Nevertheless, as a result, the forces championing increased social protection were diminished. Thus, social groups sometimes are supportive of policies that increase the commodification of individual life, and at other times will back ideas that protect the individual from market forces. Too often, they support neoliberal ideals as they criticize social protections deemed exclusionary or oppressive.
The emergence of the Triple Movement was accelerated by the divisive strategies created by public interest law firms (PILFs). These industry-backed organizations proliferated during the 1970s in response to the progressive environmental legislation passed during this decade. Certain industries realized that opposition to the unifying force of the day’s environmental movement would require the creation of an entity that had the semblance of a grassroots movement. By no means are PILF-type entities limited to the environmental movement. Industry-backed organizations that pretend to champion the causes of a social movement while infringing upon and violating the rights of workers are quite common.
Corporations (business interests, a wing of the Triple movement) do what they can to attract the support of the Social Movement wing. They may expound their support of diversity and multiculturalism to hide their anti-labor and pro-marketization agenda. They may greenwash their images or sneakily pretend to be progressive and forward-thinking. These campaigns contribute to the fracturing of the Left and draw much-needed Social Movement support from the side of Labor.
The Triple Movement is not a perfect way to view all dynamics of modern societal struggles, but it is an interesting place to start. It shows us how we craft policies that are not exclusionary to any group in society but also don’t fall prey to championing neoliberalism. Once you understand the interactions between the three facets of this movement, you may start to recognize them in the news. You may come to recognize issues were the divide is not Republican-Democrat at all, as many mainstream news outlets would like you to believe. Overall, understanding the dynamics of special interests and social movements is the first step in figuring out where we go from here, and how we form alliances to change society for the better.
Green Humanist 