BY FRANK FORRESTAL
PITTSBURGH - With less than one month left in the campaign
to sell 1,500 copies of Capitalism's World Disorder: Working-
Class Politics at the Millennium, a special effort involving
the entire socialist movement is needed to make the
international goal. As of May 18, socialists had sold 507
copies of the recently published book by Socialist Workers
Party national secretary Jack Barnes. Of this total, 169 have
been sold by socialist workers through their work in the
industrial unions.
"It's not just a question of making numerical goals," said Nan Bailey, a leader of the Socialist Workers Party's trade union work, in a May 16 phone conference with organizers of the steering committees of socialist workers and youth in the trade unions. "The campaign goes to the heart of our ability to follow-up on the openings we see in world politics and in the labor and farm movements."
Bailey noted that so far "this effort has not been led as a party-wide campaign." Socialists workers who are reading the book, bringing it to their workplaces, and talking about it to their co-workers are making progress on selling it, she said. "The main thing we need to change is to get everyone into the campaign. We need an all-out, 100 percent effort."
Over the coming weeks, leaders of the SWP's trade union work will spend substantially more time campaigning to sell Capitalism's World Disorder and subscriptions to the Militant. Bailey described how she held up the book after a recent meeting on Yugoslavia at the University of Washington. Within minutes a young Black woman who studies at another campus bought a copy.
Read and discuss on the job
Joe Swanson, a member of United Auto Workers Local 1672 in
Des Moines, Iowa, has sold four copies through his work on
the job. "I began by showing and explaining to co-workers the
detailed handiwork that went into producing Capitalism's World
Disorder. Then over breaks, lunch, and down time I would read
sections of the book or show the photos in the book to my
immediate co-workers," he said.
Swanson said he points to a section in the chapter entitled, "So Far from God, So Close to Orange County." On page 144, Barnes says, "The radical right trades in demagogy. They seek to tap into fears and anxieties.... But the one thing they do not do is urge those to whom they are appealing to read books - to really read books. They want you to scapegoat two or three layers in society - immigrants, welfare mothers, labor unions, the `femi-nazis,' whatever - and blame them for all the problems created by capitalism."
When workers read this it has a big impact, Swanson said. "Considering that many of my co-workers are immigrants and single mothers, and union members, it helps them to see a little more clearly why we should take the rightists more seriously." Swanson's most recent sale was to a worker on strike against Titan Tire who now works at his plant.
Nearly every day there are explosive political developments in the world that Capitalism's World Disorder helps to shed light on. Beginning in this issue, the Militant will run weekly selections from the book that do exactly that (see page 13).
Sales to commercial stores count
Sales of Capitalism's World Disorder to commercial stores
will now also be counted toward the goal of selling 1,500.
This will increase the possibility for working people to buy
the book. "The owner of a Black-oriented bookstore in southern
New Jersey called Pathfinder in Philadelphia in early May to
find out how he could get Capitalism's World Disorder,"
reports Pathfinder editor Michael Baumann. "A customer had
come with a flier and asked for the book, he explained, but he
couldn't find a local wholesaler who had it in stock. He
ordered six copies."
"We'll be meeting with supporters of the Socialist Workers Party who want to help get this book into commercial stores next Monday to map out a plan," said Salm Kolis in Pittsburgh. "A lot of stores have `millennium' displays right now, full of books whose purpose is to mystify and obscure reality. Workers should be able to buy Capitalism's World Disorder, which helps clarify what is happening in the world today and what we can do to change it."
Books, subs go hand-in-hand
Lea Sherman reports from Houston that a contingent of 250
locked-out Steelworkers from five Kaiser Aluminum plants and
their supporters joined environmentalists in a May 17-19
series of forums and actions against Kaiser parent Maxxam
Corp. and its major stockholder, Charles Hurwitz. Participants
bought eight
copies of Capitalism's World Disorder and six Militant
subscriptions in the course of the events - look for a full
report next week.
In the past few weeks, members of the Paper, Allied- Industrial, Chemical and Energy Workers Union (PACE) in Houston, Texas, have sold 10 copies of Capitalism's World Disorder out of a goal of 15 (see article below).
Supporters of the campaign to sell the book should reach out to farmers and working people in rural areas in their region. Recently, Linn Hamilton, a retired dairy farmer from Pennsylvania, reported that he sold a copy of Capitalism's World Disorder to a office worker who had been laid off from the Farm Services Administration.
Another dairy farmer from Washington County, Pennsylvania, also bought a copy of the book. "He had many questions about events in the Balkans," said Hamilton. "He was visibly suspicious of the motives of the U.S. government and its NATO allies."
In their first two days selling to miners and other workers in West Virginia, 32 miners bought copies of the Militant newspaper, reported Danny Booher, a Steelworker from Pittsburgh. In addition, teams members met with a former miner and longtime supporter of the Militant for a couple of hours. She bought a copy of the book, a pamphlet on the coal miners strike in the 1970s, and a one-year subscription.
The West Virginia and southern Ohio coal team will continue through the week. Militant supporters in Minnesota and Iowa are organizing a week-long team to reach out to meatpackers and other workers in their region beginning May 22. In addition to factory gates, they plan to go door-to-door and visit individuals who have already expressed interest in the Militant and socialist literature. To join this team, or another, see the listing on page 12.
HOUSTON - Members of PACE (formerly the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers union) here took a while to start selling Capitalism's World Disorder, but once we took the first steps, it was easier than we thought.
Workers bought the book for many reasons. One locked-out Crown worker bought his copy at the picket line after carefully examining all the pictures and captions. Even though he thought that NATO was helping the Kosovars by bombing Serbia and Kosova, he wanted to find out more about why the U.S. government was so interested in Yugoslavia.
Big Mac, a co-worker of mine at Lyondell-Citgo Refinery, liked the international perspectives the book presented. The picture section "makes you want to read more about what the captions present." He was especially interested in the old pictures from World War II. "You see the same old thing today that existed then -the racism, the colonialism - and the need to stand up and fight," he commented.
Steelworkers locked out by Kaiser Aluminum have also bought the book. One of them got it at a Militant Labor Forum. "I wasn't in the habit of reading much that was serious before the lockout," he said. "But I'm finding that I really need to read books like this to understand what's happening to me and in the world."
Another Kaiser Aluminum worker, Dave Locklin, said he bought Capitalism's World Disorder because "I thought it would benefit both me and the strike to read about how working people can organize together to build a new society that's not based on corporate greed."
Tom Boots, a PACE member locked out at the Crown Central Petroleum refinery, said three weeks after buying the book, "Well, I started reading, but it's rough going." He was happy to hear that the Houston SWP branch is planning a summer school series on the book. "I'm writing down all my questions to bring to the discussion and looking forward to talking about these ideas with other people."