Michael Harrington

For other people named Michael Harrington, see Michael Harrington (disambiguation).

Michael Harrington
File:Michael Harrington.jpg
Chairman of Democratic Socialists of America
In office 1982–1989
Personal details
Born	February 24, 1928 St. Louis, Missouri
Died	July 31, 1989(1989-07-31) (aged 61)
Spouse	Stephanie Gervis
Children	Alexander Harrington, Edward Michael "Ted" Harrington III
Occupation	Politician Author

Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington (February 24, 1928  — July 31, 1989) was an American democratic socialist, writer, political activist, professor of political science, radio commentator and founder of the Democratic Socialists of America.

Biography

Personal life

Michael Harrington was born in St. Louis, Missouri on February 24, 1928. He attended St. Roch Catholic School and Saint Louis University High School, where he was a classmate (class of 1944) of Thomas Anthony Dooley III. He later attended the College of the Holy Cross, the University of Chicago (MA in English Literature), and Yale Law School. As a young man, he was interested in both leftwing politics and Catholicism. Fittingly, he joined Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement, a pacifist group that advocated a radical interpretation of the Gospel. Above all else, Harrington was an intellectual. He loved arguing about culture and politics, preferably over beer, and his Jesuit education made him a fine debater and rhetorician.

Harrington married Stephanie Gervis, a free lance writer and staff writer for the Village Voice, on May 30, 1963. He died on July 31, 1989 of cancer.

Religious beliefs

Harrington was an editor of The Catholic Worker from 1951 to 1953. However, Harrington became disillusioned with religion and, although he would always retain a certain affection for Catholic culture, he ultimately became an atheist.

In 1978 the Christian Century quoted him thus: "I am a pious apostate, an atheist shocked by the faithlessness of the believers, a fellow traveler of moderate Catholicism who has been out of the church for 20 years."

Becoming a socialist

This estrangement from religion was accompanied by a growing interest in Marxism and a drift toward secular socialism. After leaving The Catholic Worker Harrington became a member of the Independent Socialist League, a small organization associated with the former Trotskyist leader Max Shachtman. Harrington and Shachtman believed that socialism, which in their view promised a just and fully democratic society, could not be realized under authoritarian Communism and they were both fiercely critical of the "bureaucratic collectivist" states in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Harrington became a member of Norman Thomas's Socialist Party when the SP agreed to absorb Shachtman's organization. Harrington backed the Shachtmanite realignment strategy of working within the Democratic Party rather than running candidates on a Socialist ticket.

Socialist leader

Harrington served as the first editor of New America, the official weekly newspaper of the Socialist Party-Social Democratic Federation launched in October 1960.

During this period Harrington wrote The Other America: Poverty in the United States, a book that had an impact on the Kennedy administration, and on Lyndon B. Johnson's subsequent War on Poverty. Harrington became a widely read intellectual and political writer. He would frequently debate noted conservatives but would also clash with the younger radicals in the New Left movements. He was present at the 1962 SDS conference that led to the creation of the Port Huron Statement, where he argued that the final draft was insufficiently anti-Communist. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. referred to Harrington as the "only responsible radical" in America. His high profile landed him on the master list of Nixon political opponents.

By early 1970s Shachtman's anti-Communism had become a hawkish Cold War liberalism. Shachtman and the governing faction of the Socialist Party effectively supported the Vietnam War and changed the organization's name to Social Democrats, USA. In protest Harrington led a number of Norman Thomas-era Socialists, younger activists and ex-Shachtmanites into the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. A smaller faction associated with peace activist David McReynolds formed the Socialist Party USA.

In the early 1980s The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee merged with the New American Movement, an organization of New Left veterans, forming Democratic Socialists of America. This organization remains the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, which includes socialist parties as diverse as the Swedish and German Social Democrats, Nicaragua's FSLN, and the British Labour Party.

Academician and public intellectual

Harrington was appointed a professor of political science at Queens College in 1972 and was designated a distinguished professor in 1988. During the 1980s he contributed commentaries to National Public Radio. He was the most well-known socialist in the United States during his lifetime. In the 1970s he coined the term neoconservatism.

Legacy

The City University of New York has established "The Michael Harrington Center for Democratic Values and Social Change".

Media appearances

• Michael Harrington was an occasional writer for The New York Review of Books.
• He appeared as a guest speaker on the series Free to Choose. He sought to rebut some of Milton Friedman's theories of free market.
• In 1966 he appeared on William Frank Buckley, Jr.'s Firing Line, where he explained his views on poverty, while also engaging Buckley in debate regarding government attempts to address poverty and its consequences.

Bibliography

• The Other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1962.
• The Retail Clerks. New York: John Wiley, 1962.
• The Accidental Century. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
• The Social-Industrial Complex. New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1968.
• Toward a Democratic Left: A Radical Program for a New Majority. New York: Macmillan, 1968.
• Socialism. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972.
• Fragments of the Century: A Social Autobiography. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1973.
• Twilight of Capitalism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977.
• The Vast Majority. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977.
• Tax Policy and the Economy: A Debate between Michael Harrington and Representative Jack Kemp, April 25, 1979. New York: Institute for Democratic Socialism, 1979.
• Decade of Decision: The Crisis of the American System. New York: Touchstone, 1981.
• The Next America: The Decline and Rise of the United States. New York: Touchstone, 1981.
• The Politics at God's Funeral: The Spiritual Crisis of Western Civilization. New York: Henry Holt, 1983.
• The New American Poverty. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1984.
• Taking Sides: The Education of a Militant Mind. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1985.
• The Next Left: The History of a Future. New York: Henry Holt, 1986.
• The Long Distance Runner: An Autobiography. New York: Henry Holt, 1988.
• Socialism: Past & Future. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1989.

Books about Michael Harrington

• Isserman, Maurice (2001) The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington. New York: Perseus Books.

See also

• Bernt Carlsson
• Democratic Socialists of America
• Socialist Youth League

External links

• 2009 essay symposium on Harrington
• Michael Harrington Center at Queens College, NYC
• Audio recording of Michael Harrington
• "Marxism and Democracy" essay by Michael Harrington