Unlike the industrialized nations in Europe, the United States has never had a viable labor party. But why is that?
Karl Marx modeled his economic theory on what he perceived to be class-consciousness among U.S. workers, and envisioned an advanced industrial nation like the United States as the leader in a class revolution, one that would eventually transform the world.
As socialism failed to take hold in the 19th century, Marx and later philosophers began wondering what was holding the U.S. workers back. They had theories explaining this. Labor conditions were too easy. Workers had too many conveniences at home, such as running water and electricity. There was no painful tradition of feudal class divisions. Bosses kept workers too racially divided for them to unite, and U.S. citizens were too fervently religious. But it still isn’t clear why socialism didn’t happen here.
This weekend is the Labor Arts Festival at Portland State, where anyone can come and see a little bit of what we’ve missed out on, and possibly find some of the answers to why so little of what Marx hoped for the United States has come true.
PSU History Professor David Horowitz and Michael Munk, author of Portland Red Guide, will lead panel discussions. There will be screenings of Modern Times and Smoke Signals–the late-1990s independent film written by Sherman Alexie, that many missed because the overwhelmingly positive-looking lead characters on the movie posters seemed unreal, but which is nevertheless a good example of creative ownership over stereotype.
Displays to watch for at the all-day event include street art by the Asamblea de Artistas Revolutionarios de Oaxaca (ASARO), an artist movement formed during the Popular uprising in 2006, when citizens developed the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca in support of a teacher’s strike. Helping the teachers barricade themselves in the city center and shield police from entering the protest zone, the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca encouraged city residents to form associations to promote and protect their rights, and artists took to the streets to contribute graffiti and stencil art that would raise awareness about the movement.
ASARO has been displaying woodblock prints, photography, videos, cartoons, graffiti and stencil art associated with the Popular movement in Oaxaca and internationally, with the intention of creating a space for conversation between artists and viewers and unifying citizens under the principles of democracy, sustainability and critical assembly.
The images are graphically appealing pieces that include minimalist text and surprisingly frequent candy pastels along with bold black and red. While many are single-color prints or simplified spray-painted figures, others are overlaid with multiple colors as well as painted over by multiple artists and standby participants who added their own touches, making the public work an evolving communal effort.
Last spring ASARO held an exhibition at ABC No Rio, an all-ages radical community center in New York that has long been a resource for activist artists and hardcore music. Last February, Portland’s Liberty Hall hosted a huge art exhibit demonstrating Oaxaca-Oregon solidarity within the Popular street-art movement.
Works by Oregon artists will be on display as well. The works will come from the Museum of People’s Art, a single-room showcase of mostly Works Progress Administration (WPA) period art located in ArtSpace, a gallery and café owned and run by a couple in Bay City, which Professor Horowitz has been committed to developing. The People’s Art collection includes memorabilia, paintings and woodblock prints of the proudly unified workers of the 1930s and ’40s, with a particular emphasis on uniquely American landscape and Native American culture.
Portland is undeniably different from other cities; people talk about bills and measures to vote on in the days before the election, attend town meetings and join in large and small protests on a weekly basis. The Oregon State government has bothered to make minimum wage among the highest in the nation (still below Washington), which is amazing considering how many states don’t seem to care. Kansas is still at $2.65, which is useless, since employers have to at least meet the federal standard of $5.85. Of course, even Washington’s minimum wage places full-time workers not far above the poverty line, signaling, perhaps, that anyone relying on such holdovers from the 1930s isn’t going to make it anyway.
Saturday may be a chance to see how some have made labor rights a viable cause.
The Pacific Northwest Labor Arts Festival will be on campus Saturday, Nov. 10. Events will take place in the Multicultural Center in Smith Memorial Student Union, the Native American Student Center and in Cramer and Neuberger Halls. More info on festival listings is available at www.nwlabrarts.org. The events are free and open to all-ages.