Activism
Dan Sullivan
[Reprinted from a Land-Theory online
discussion, December 1999]
A frequently recurring theme among Georgists is that we need to be
a "movement" of Georgist "activists." While the
sentiment is valid in a general sort of way, we have never succeeded
in having a Georgist activist organization, and I think we never
will, because Georgism is a philosoply, not an agenda.
Furthermore, when an organization definds itself as having a "Georgist
agenda," people who are not Georgists, but who are nonetheless
essential to achieving the objective, will be reluctant to support
the direct agenda for fear of supporting a not-so-hidden agenda with
which they might not agree.
Hanno noted that we are often a solution in search of a problem. I
think that is correct, but it might be more precise to say that we
are a solution to an underlying problem, and that most people are
focused on more superficial problems. We naturally want these people
to stop dwelling on the superficial problems and to take on the
underlying problems, but that is not what *they* want to do, and
organizing is primarily about bringing those people who already
agree on something into an effective unit, not persuading people to
change their minds. The mind-changing might (or might not) be a
long-range tactic of the organization once it is up and running, but
it is not "organizing" per se.
With that in mind, an activist organization defines itself in
terms of a specific agenda. The new organization will either win a
substantive victory during its first six months or it will probably
wither and die. As a result, its initial agenda should be a highly
winnable issue, and not a deep, fundamental issue.
When it accomplishes its initial agenda it either disbands or
redefines itself to take on a new agenda. If the organization
acquired strength and power in the process of winning its first
agenda, it will be able to redifine itself to take on a more
ambitious agenda, which is ideally an expansion of the first agenda.
That way, the supporters of the first agenda will be more likely to
stay on board for the second agenda.
Participants in the organization might bring with them a variety
of individual agendas. While these individual agendas must be
compatable with the organization's agenda, they do not have to be
compatable with each other or with the long-term Georgist agendas.
For example, a hot issue in Pittsburgh is opposition to various
corporate-welfare development schemes, which mostly involve
subsidies to selected corporations so they will come into the city
and develop, on the one hand, or to keep them from leaving on the
other. An activist organization with Georgist influences, but having
a primary agenda of opposing corporate welfare, would flat-out
oppose these subsidies, period. It would offer land value tax as a
mechanism that would accomplish the same ends without the evils of
corporate welfare, but people would be attracted by their opposition
to the subsidies, and not by a fascination with land value tax. They
would accept the tax, not as a great good unto itself, but only as
an effective alternative to the proposal they already oppose.
At every step, there is an assessing of the political climate. So,
even as one chooses corporate welfare as an issue, one does so not
just because one is fond of that issue, but because the public is
ready to take on that issue, and because we can organize people from
across the political spectrum, while the existing left and right
organizations are hamstrung by previous alliances. In this case, for
example, the right has alliances with the corporations involved, and
he left has alliances with construction unions that want jobs
building the subsidized projects.
Now, before we go out preaching about the issue, we must ask, who
will we be helping and who can best help us? And before that, we
must ask, what do we need to win? Our presentations, therefore, will
be only part of a sales pitch, and not the most important part. The
most important part is to close the sale, and if we do not know what
we want from the people we talk to, and what we intend to give them
for helping us, there is nothing to close.
To elaborate, our first objective must be to win a substantive
issue within six months. A substantive issue is one that is seen to
make a meaningful difference in people's lives, and it must be seen
that way by the people themselves. If our internal objectives
include building an organization for future issues, we must also
have an objective of leaving the organization bigger, stronger,
richer and more cohesive at the end of the campaign than it was at
the beginning.
What we will be asking for, I think, falls into three categories:
money, talent, and influence. We need money to keep the organization
funded, which is to say, to pay for the talent and the overhead. As
for talent, we need not just advocates, but researchers,
fundraisers, negotiators, publicists, administrators, and a talented
organizer to keep everything in sync. Influence is about people who
might do very little work, but who have the ears of other people
whose support we need, or, most importantly, of the people who will
make the decision that gives us our victories. So, while the support
of a Nobel Laureate is valuable to influence academia and the news
media, the support of a strong political organization will perhaps
have more direct impact on the decision-making politicians.
Because we are ideological, our first instinct is to go to other
ideological or semi-ideological organizations, and some of these
will indeed be willing and able to help us. For example, in fighting
Pittsburgh's stadium tax referendum, we got support from the
Libertarian Party, because the proposal was anti-free-market, and
from various semi-socialist organizations like Just Harvest, who saw
the increase in corporate welfare as related to the drying up of
welfare for poor people.
Yet, although both of these camps opposed the stadium tax, their
organizational agendas competed with our own, as they also wanted to
get credit for working on this very public issue, and they both
wanted to protect their own organizational strength. As a result,
they were unable to make much of a contribution financially, and
after we won the referendum battle, they had to go back to tend
their seperate agendas. This left us with little energy to combat
the ongoing lobby, and so the stadiums are being built with public
money anyhow.
The lesson is valuable as I look a the next hot issue, which is a
heavily subsidized renovation of a section of the Golden Triangle,
downtown, and with a variety of neighborhood projects of the same
ilk. I see that the same ideological groups would be opposed to
fighting this battle, but that they are less than eager to do so,
having been depleted from winning the stadium battle and then losing
the war anyhow.
And so, I am now looking at groups who have not been tapped. In
the case of the stadiums, there were no easily identifiable
businesses who would be victimized by diversion of consumer dollars
to the stadiums, but that is not the case with these other
developments. Private city businesses, who have been paying higher
business taxes (and higher land taxes) than suburban businesses pay,
are furious that tax money is being taken from them and given to
giant corporate competitors who willl drive them out of business.
For example, a the city's decision ot subsidize a new Home Depot
(and another one in the planning stages) has infuriated owners of
lumber yards, hardware stores, nurseries, construction tool
suppliers, etc. While they are being overtaxed, the city is giving
money to companies that will drive them out of business. Similarly,
independent grocers are outraged by subsidizies to Giant Eagle, and
independent jewelers and clothiers are not to happy that the city
plans to subsidize a new Tiffanys and Nordstroms.
The core of support, then, could come, not from the ideological
organizations, but from these merchants who are being doubly wronged
by the whole corporate welfare process. We would ask the ideological
people to give us their talent and experience, but we would get
money and power from these merchants.
So far, I have said nothing about structure, because, in a
successful organization, form follows function. While I do not have
a precise formula for the campaign I have listed above, clearly the
structure here would be radically different from an attempt, for
example, to organize Hispanic farm workers in New Mexico. The whole
question of membership, dues and structure depends on the nature of
the campaign, and this in turn depends on the political landscape.
I stress this because people have tried to create a network of
Georgist activist organizations from the top down, setting goals of
having so many chapters in various locations across the country,
without regard to what campaign a particular chapter would undertake
and, therefore, without analysis of what the best structure for such
a chapter would be. Rather, it was simply noted that many successful
organization have chapters, and that we must therefore have
chapters. To me, this is like saying that successful armies have
tanks, and that we must also have tanks, without regard to whether
we will be attacking across a desert or through a swamp.
In any case, once we decide who we are going to approach for
support, we will need a core group, a structure, a strategy, and,
last of all, a name. The core group for a task like the one
described above should include some expert Georgists, but also some
publicly notable figures, some energetic volunteers (probably from
the same sources as fought the stadium tax) and one or two leaders
from the business community. The structure should be one that keeps
a balance, especially between left and right, that has very little
overhead, and that is very action-oriented. Strategies should be
thought out beforehand (I have some in mind.), but the actual
strategy must be acceptable to the major players involved. For
example, if merchants are uncomfortable with a go-for-the-throat
attack strategy, the group will have to decide whether the support
of these merchants dictates a milder strategy that is more
acceptable to them, or whether to keep the hard-ball strategy and
lose the support of some merchants.
Finally, the name is very important, because it will tell the
public who we are and what we are about. In fighting the stadium
tax, we picked "Good Sports" to illustrate that we were
not anti-sports at all, and to stand behind the charge that the
subsidy was not only bad for the economy, but bad for sports. The
name was very successful in both regards.
For a general campaign against corporate welfare, with an
underlying Georgist alternative, I like the name "Productive
Taxpayers." It not only suggests the theme that productivity is
overtaxed, but identifies the group as a coaltion of highly
productive people, who have always produced wealth with their own
resources, as opposed to to people who are less productive, in that
they will only produce wealth if subsidized.
The name "Common Ground," which is quite popular with
Georgists, and would be acceptable to most of the left, would be a
horrific obstacle for reaching merchants and for involving
conservatives and libertarians. While it is a fine name for
organizing Georgists, we are already organized enough that we don't
rely on a mere name to inspire us. To less ideological people we
would like to organize, "Common Ground" not only suggests
an agenda well beyond the agenda of the actual campaign, but raises
all sorts of questions. Time spent answering of these questions
would kill our ability to organize support, especially at meetings
where our goal is to introduce ourselves, present our campaign, and
close with a commitment of support.
Finally, the most difficult stage of an organization is the
initial stage, where it must reach critical mass to become
effective. It is a lot like getting a kite in the air, becasue the
winds are much stronger higher above the ground, and will keep the
kite aloft if you just tend it. But, one must expend a great deal of
energy runing with the kite to get it up in the first place. What
American Georgists did was try to get chapters started in many
cities at once, which is like trying to run many kites into the air
at the same time.
When we started having successes in Pennsylvania, our failure was
to pick one of these cities and build a self-sustaining activist
organization there. It is my failure, particularly, as I live in
Pittsburgh, which has perhaps been the ideal choice. I have been
learning activism (which is much trickier than learning Georgism),
and I think I now have a good handle on what it takes. However, I am
by temperment still more of an advocate than an organizer, and the
solution would probably be to fund a crackerjack organizer who is
not necessarily a Georgist to work with me or someone else in a
single city.
Pittsburgh would be ideal location for fighting on the issues I
have outlined, but Allentown, 250 miles east of here, might also be
an excellent choice, since it has beaten a referendum to rescind
land value tax and is about to fight another.
In any case, the key is not to "have an activist
organization." Rather, it is to pick a battle and win. If the
activist organization is viewed as an end rather than a means to a
clearly defined end, it will problably be just another tank stuck in
the swamp.