Michael Harrington

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For other people named Michael Harrington, see Michael Harrington (disambiguation).

Michael Harrington

Chairman of Democratic Socialists of America

In office
19821989

Personal details

Born

Edward Michael Harrington

February 24, 1928
St. Louis, Missouri

Died

July 31, 1989 (aged 61)

Spouse(s)

Stephanie Gervis

Children

Alexander Harrington,
Edward Michael "Ted" Harrington III

Occupation

Politician
Author

Edward Michael "Mike" Harrington (February 24, 1928 July 31, 1989) was an Americandemocratic socialist,
writer, political activist, political theorist, professor of political science, radio commentator and initiator of
the Democratic Socialists of America. During the 1970s he invented the term neoconservatism.[1]

Contents
[hide]

1 Biography

1.1 Personal life

1.2 Religious beliefs

1.3 Becoming a socialist

1.4 Socialist leader

1.5 Academician and public intellectual

2 Media appearances

3 Bibliography

4 Books about Michael Harrington

5 See also

6 Footnotes

7 External links

Biography[edit]
Personal life[edit]
Michael Harrington was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on February 24, 1928, to an Irish-American family. He
attended St. Roch Catholic School and Saint Louis University High School, where he was a classmate (class of
1944) of Thomas Anthony Dooley III. He later attended the College of the Holy Cross, the University of
Chicago (MA in English Literature), and Yale Law School. As a young man, he was interested in both leftist politics
and Roman Catholicism. He joined Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker Movement, a communal movement that
stressed social justice and nonviolence. Harrington enjoyed arguing about culture and politics, and his Jesuit
education had made him a good debater and rhetorician. [citation needed]
On May 30, 1963, Harrington married Stephanie Gervis, a free-lance writer and staff writer for the Village Voice.
[2]
He died on July 31, 1989, of cancer.[3]

Religious beliefs[edit]
Harrington was an editor of the newspaper The Catholic Worker from 1951 to 1953. However, he became
disillusioned with religion and, although he would always retain a certain affection for Catholic culture, he ultimately
became an atheist.[4]
In 1978 the periodical Christian Century quoted him thus: "I am a pious apostate, an atheist shocked by the
faithlessness of the believers, a fellow traveler of moderate Catholicism who has been out of the church for 20
years."

Becoming a socialist[edit]
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His estrangement from religion was accompanied by an increasing interest in Marxism and secular socialism. After
leaving The Catholic Worker, Harrington became a member of the Independent Socialist League, a small
organization associated with the former Trotskyistactivist Max Shachtman. Harrington and Shachtman believed
that socialism, which in their opinion implied a just and fully democratic society, could not be realized by
authoritarian Communism, and they were both fiercely critical of the "bureaucratic collectivist" states in Eastern
Europe and elsewhere.
After Norman Thomas's Socialist Party absorbed Shachtman's organization, Harrington endorsed the
Shachtmanite strategy of working as part of the Democratic Party, rather than sponsoring candidates as Socialists.
[5]

Socialist leader[edit]
Harrington served as the first editor of New America, the official weekly newspaper of the Socialist Party-Social
Democratic Federation, initiated in October 1960.
During this period Harrington wrote The Other America: Poverty in the United States, a book that had an effect on
President Kennedy's administration, and on President Lyndon B. Johnson's subsequent so-called War on Poverty.
Harrington became a widely read intellectual and political writer. He would frequently debate noted conservatives
but would also argue with younger "New Left" radicals. He was present at the 1962 SDS conference that resulted
in the creation of the Port Huron Statement, concerning which he argued that the final draft was insufficiently antiCommunist. Arthur M. Schlesinger, Sr. referred to Harrington as the "only responsible radical" in America. His
relative fame caused him to be added to the master list of Nixon political opponents.[6]
By the early 1970s, the governing faction of the Socialist Party continued to endorse a negotiated peace to end the
Vietnam War, an opinion that Harrington increasingly believed was no longer viable. The majority changed the
organization's name to Social Democrats, USA. After losing at the convention, Harrington resigned and, with his
former caucus, formed the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. (A smaller faction associated with peace
activist David McReynolds formed the Socialist Party USA).

During the early 1980s The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee merged with the New American
Movement, an organization of New Left activists, forming the Democratic Socialists of America. This organization
remains the principal U.S. affiliate of the Socialist International, which includes socialist parties as diverse as
the Swedish and German Social Democrats, Nicaragua's FSLN, and the British Labour Party.[7] Harrington was the
Chairman of DSA from its inception until his death.

Academician and public intellectual[edit]

Harrington was appointed a professor of political science at Queens College in Flushing, Queens, New York City, in
1972, and was named a distinguished professor in 1988. During the 1980s he contributed commentaries to
National Public Radio.[8] He was also an occasional writer for The New York Review of Books.
Harrington was the best-known socialist in the United States during his lifetime, [9] in recognition of which the City
University of New Yorkestablished "The Michael Harrington Center for Democratic Values and Social Change" at
Queens College.[10]

Media appearances[edit]

Harrington was a guest speaker on the television series Free to Choose, where he argued against some
of Milton Friedman's theories of the free market.

In 1966 he appeared on William F. Buckley, Jr.'s television program Firing Line. He explained his opinions
on poverty, and debated Buckley regarding government attempts to address poverty and its consequences.

Bibliography[edit]

The Other America: Poverty in the United States. New York: Macmillan, 1962.

The Accidental Century. New York: Macmillan, 1965.

The Social-Industrial Complex. New York: League for Industrial Democracy, 1968.

Toward a Democratic Left: A Radical Program for a New Majority. New York: Macmillan, 1968.

Socialism. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972.

Fragments of the Century: A Social Autobiography. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1973.

Twilight of Capitalism. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977.

The Vast Majority. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1977.

The Retail Clerks. New York: John Wiley, 1962.

Tax Policy and the Economy: A Debate between Michael Harrington and Representative Jack Kemp,
April 25, 1979., with Jack Kemp, New York: Institute for Democratic Socialism, 1979.

James H. Cone, "The Black Church and Marxism: what do they have to say to each other", with
comments by Michael Harrington, New York: Institute for Democratic Socialism, 1980.

Decade of Decision: The Crisis of the American System. New York: Touchstone, 1981.

The Next America: The Decline and Rise of the United States. New York: Touchstone, 1981.

The Politics at God's Funeral: The Spiritual Crisis of Western Civilization. New York: Henry Holt, 1983.

The New American Poverty. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1984.

Taking Sides: The Education of a Militant Mind. New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1985.

The Next Left: The History of a Future. New York: Henry Holt, 1986.

The Long Distance Runner: An Autobiography. New York: Henry Holt, 1988.

Socialism: Past & Future. New York: Arcade Publishing, 1989.

Books about Michael Harrington[edit]

Isserman, Maurice The Other American: The Life of Michael Harrington. New York: Perseus Books 2001

See also[edit]