Hoax or Scoop?
Yesterday, conservative website RedState apparently got a hold of a thesis that the President’s Supreme Court nominee, Elena Kagan, wrote while at Princeton. The site administrators were subsequently contacted by a Princeton University representative and told to immediately cease distribution of the document, citing copyright law.
Through comments in the follow-up, I found what appears to be the document in question, on another site. I can’t vouch for its authenticity, and in a post-Killian memo world you would be a fool to accept anything politically charged without a degree of skepticism.
The Document Itself
With that in mind, I started skimming the document I discovered, entitled “To The Final Conflict: Socialism In New York City, 1900-1933″, dated April 15, 1981. To avoid running afoul of any copyright issues, I will simply print a few excerpts I found interesting, which falls within “fair use” under U.S. copyright law.
Make of these excerpts what you will.
From the acknowledgment:
Finally, I would like to thank my brother Marc,
whose involvement in radical causes led me to explore the
history of American radicalism in the hope of clarifying my
own political ideas.
From p.21-22:
More likely, however, Italians did not participate in party
life because their Old World traditions and experiences had not
prepared them to do so. Unlike the Jewish artisans, the
Italians came to the U.S. from backward agrarian areas. Their
education was scanty, their organizational experience limited,
their social traditions land- and village-oriented. These
former peasants found stability in the New World not through
political organizations or trade unions or workmen’s circles –
all of which seemed alien institutions — but through family
and village ties. The Southern Italians, then, were less than
likely Socialists.
P. 45:
New York’s leaders often stated that trade unionism
could contribute to the socialist cause. By developing
among workingmen a sense of class consciousness — a belief
that their interests necessarily conflicted with those of
their employers — trade unions had the potential to turn
the politically unaware into committed socialists. Despite
this assertion, however, the New York leaders adamantly
refused to involve themselves in the internal workings of
trade organizations that had yet to proclaim their socialism.
From p.66:
World War I itself did not overly astonish the socialists.
Most accepted, after all, the premise that the competitive
struggles of capitalism bred armed conflict. “The capitalists
of each country,” [Morris] Hillquit wrote in 1912,strive not only to preserve and extend their own
markets, but also to invade those of the rival
nations and to conquer new markets … the
specter of war is thus ever hovering among
them.
From the conclusion, p. 127:
In our own times, a coherent socialist movement is
nowhere to be found in the United States. Americans are
more likely to speak of a golden past than of a golden future,
of capitalism’s glories than of socialism’s greatness. Conformity
overrides dissent; the desire to conserve has overwhelmed
the urge to alter. Such a state of affairs cries out for explanation.
Why, in a society by no means perfect, has a radical party
never attained the status of a major political force? Why, in
particular, did the socialism movement never become an
alternative to the nation’s established parties?
Conclusion, p. 129-130:
Through its own internal feuding, then, the SP
exhausted itself forever and further reduced labor radicalism
in New York to the position of marginality and insignificance
from which it has never recovered. The story is a sad but
also a chastening one for those who, more than half a century
after socialism’s decline, still wish to change America.
Radicals have often succumbed to the devastating bane of
sectarianism; it is easier, after all, to fight one’s
fellows than it is to battle an entrenched and powerful
foe. Yet if the history of Local New York shows anything,
it is that American radicals cannot afford to become their
own worst enemies. In unity lies their only hope.
My Thoughts
This thesis, if it is authentic, is no smoking gun or damning piece of evidence that would by itself jeopardize Elena Kagan’s prospects to become the next Supreme Court Justice. One could argue that an undergraduate thesis hardly equals support of the topic at hand, and that was the point used by Kagan’s advisor at the time, Sean Wilentz, when questioned by the New York Times about it. Even if Kagan considered herself a socialist in 1981, her political views may have changed in the years since — not that unlikely a scenario, I grant, considering how my own worldview has changed since I was 21.
That said, I still question Kagan’s motivations. The topic of her thesis seems so specific — and so boring, at least to me – that I can only assume that she was interested (if not passionate) about the topic. As she was perusing a history degree, it strikes me that there were a million other topics she could have chosen.
Also, given the leftist/socialist bent that the Obama Administration has demonstrated in both its policies and staffing, this strikes me as just another dot to connect that would indicate that Kagan is cut from the same cloth.
Does it matter? Ultimately, yes: socialism is inherently flawed. For all the faults of capitalism, it still provides individuals with the opportunity to excel and enjoy the fruits of their labor. For socialism to truly work, you need to change human nature: spreading the wealth is merely a disincentive for excellence. After all, why should I work harder than the laziest person in the factory if we’re going to be paid the same?
Unfortunately, I believe we won’t know her actual philosophy until long after she’s been appointed to the Supreme Court: the media is currently a-twitter about her sexual orientation, and with a Democratic majority in Congress I doubt any serious investigation into her judicial fitness will take place. As with Sonia Sotomayor, a review of Kagan’s actual experience (or lack thereof) will take a back seat to sound bite questions asked by bureaucratic idiots more concerned about November than the impact of their actions in the years to come.
