In a December article published in the Freedom Socialist, Jed Holtz argues that the crucial task for socialists in the United States is to demand the formation of a Labor Party that can unite workers behind a single political platform and fight the right.[1] This party would be “kickstarted” by the trade union movement and unite broad working class layers behind a reform program. The article paints a rosy picture of such a party, arguing that a working class party would be able to bring the fight to the right and the Trump government. However, in reality, a call for a Labor Party is nothing more than a centrist fudge of the real issue.
By calling for a Labor Party, and not an explicitly socialist party (socialism is not mentioned once!), Holtz is calling for a political party rooted in the leadership and structures of the trade unions. This form of party, which exists in several countries, from British and Australian Labour parties to the Canadian New Democratic Party, is not a revolutionary party, but rather a bourgeois (liberal) workers party. If a Labor Party was to form in the United States today, its leadership would likely include anti-immigrant stooges like Sean O’Brien of the Teamsters. It would include rightist trends in the trade union movement. These questions are not addressed at all. We cannot fudge the most vital task in the development of the socialist movement: the formation of a revolutionary party!
Then there is the question of program. While a full proposed program is not sketched out, the article does not mention once the minimum democratic tasks of a socialist program in the United States–tearing up the Slaveholder’s Constitution, and establishing a maximally democratic republic. To call for a Labor Party instead of a Socialist Party is a dangerous fudge. Working class independence can only be guaranteed by a socialist program. Holtz, who is a member of a Trotskyist political organisation, should know better.
-Edith Fischer
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- Jed Holtz, "A labor party could be key in the fight against the right," Socialism.com, December, 2024, https://socialism.com/fs-article/the-potential-of-a-labor-party-in-the-fight-against-the-right/. ↩