Unacceptable compromises: A clarification

Commentary No. 493, March 15, 2019

Two of my regular readers sent me indications that I was not clear in my explanation of what I was talking about when I spoke of unacceptable compromises.

I shall attempt to answer their queries and objections. Let me start by reproducing what they sent me.

The first was a query from Alan Maki who had one concern which was the word: “compromise.” I reproduce it here: “What are you talking about compromising on?”

The second email was from Mike Miller whose query was much longer.

Let me respond to each of them. I know that the author of this query was an activist in the Ontario Labour Party and devoted much energy to obtaining the victory of the Labour Party, which he saw as a rejection of the parties of no change. They rotated between the Center Left and a Center Right version of changeless policies. Analytically my correspondent interpreted the electoral victory of the Labour Party as a demand for significant change.

Mike Miller said that the successful creation of a strong union called The International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU) over the past twenty or fifty years, despite all the attempts to crush it, is evidence that change is possible.

The victory of the Ontario Labour Party and the ability of the ILWU to beat back all attempts to crush it are evidence that change is possible and cannot be called unacceptable.

Both objections miss the point. I do not deny that the electoral victory of the Labour Party was a great achievement. I salute it and do so publicly as a wonderful achievement. I do not deny that the ability of the ILWU to resist all the many attempts to crush it is a great achievement. I salute it.

This is precisely the point why these are compromises are unacceptable. Not everybody who lives in Ontario, Canada, will benefit by the achievement of the electoral victory of the Labour Party. There will be losers. There are those who are outside this party’s structure in Ontario or outside any party structure whatsoever. They gain nothing and may lose something by the victory of the Ontario Labour Party.

I do not deny that the ability of the ILWU to beat back all the many attempts to crush it was a great achievement. Nonetheless it is unacceptable because persons who are not members of the ILWU are excluded from its benefits and therefore are not included in the favorable results of the ILWU.

So, I repeat, every achievement involves militancy, but also short-run compromises as can be seen by reading the history of the ILWU (see in the network for the item entitled The ILWU Story).

The achievements in both cases were enormous. The benefits were and will be enormous. But precisely for this reason benefits have to be assessed against the balance of the exclusions that the benefits brought.

Following the situation in each case shows that to achieve what they did achieve involved compromises. This may be the benefit of the struggle, but the necessary compromises that are unacceptable because they exclude others were part of the achievement and those necessary compromises made possible the achievements.