Time for a Change in Tactics?

As the economy continues to plunge and as big businesses (i.e. General Motors, Citibank, Ford, Circuit City, etc.) continue to shed thousands of jobs or go out of business altogether, is it time for community organizers to assess their tactics?

Many community organizers follow some variation of Saul Alinsky organizing philosophy. This philosophy seeks to identify and isolate an "enemy" and then to combat that enemy until it concedes defeat by giving in to your demands. This way of doing things has served organizers well for decades, but with the changing times these tactics may soon be rendered obsolete.

Firstly, Alinsky theory assumes that the isolated "enemy" has the ability to give you what you want. In the case of General Motors, for example, labor organizers seeking to maintain current hourly wages and other benefits by targeting and attacking GM's top management are very misguided. In this economic environment, there is no way GM's top brass could concede these demands even if they wanted to. The company is losing billions of dollars in the face of rapidly declining sales. Therefore, GM's executives do not have the power to give in without risking the entire company going under, which would be bad for everybody.

Secondly, in an increasingly globalized and interconnected world, local actions such as strikes, protests, sit ins, etc. on big businesses are not only losing their desired effect, but may even backfire. Nowadays, a company can quickly shut down a factory or retail outlet if management deems that the costs of dealing with disgruntled workers outweighs the benefits (profits). Community organizations are not fit to respond to such a move because we lack the agile global reach of mega corporations and the needed capital to force a company's hand through their public shares.

I suggest community organizers carve out a new path for a new century. I believe our focus should be less on "struggle" issues (issues where we struggle to extract something from some authority) and more on building common value. If labor organizers focus were to help GM build value over the decades, then GM could've been in a much more competitive position (like Honda or Toyota) although the economy tanked. That would've helped everyone. Secondly, I suggest that community organizations begin to take business and entreprenurship as a primary community building strategy seriously. I believe that if community organizations can become the engines to creating jobs by helping to launch small businesses, then the community's collective power will rise since we wouldn't always have to beg some employer to stay in town. Finally, I think it is time that the community organizing networks of the world unite by creating an organization dedicated to building wealth for community organizations all over the world. This would give us the tools needed to challenge the big boys on their playing field while increasing organizing's worldwide promience.