Michael Harrington

Edward Michael Harrington (February 24, 1928 – July 31, 1989) was an American socialist.

Related Topics:
February 24 - 1928 - July 31 - 1989 - American - Socialist

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Harrington was born in St. Louis, Missouri. He attended St. Louis University High School, College of the Holy Cross, University of Chicago (MA in English Literature), and Yale Law School. As a young man, he was interested in both leftwing politics and Catholicism. Appropriately he joined Dorothy Day's Catholic Worker movement, a pacifist group that advocated a radical interpretation of the Gospel. Above all else, Harrington was an intellectual. He loved arguing about culture and politics, preferably over beer, and his Jesuit education made him a fine debater and rhetorician. Harrington was an editor of The Catholic Worker from 1951 to 1953. However, Harrington became disillusioned with religion and, although he would always retain a certain affection for Catholic culture, he ultimately became an atheist.

Related Topics:
St. Louis, Missouri - St. Louis University High School - College of the Holy Cross - University of Chicago - Yale Law School - Catholicism - Dorothy Day - Catholic Worker

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This estrangement from religion was accompanied by an growing interest in Marxism and a drift toward secular socialism. After leaving The Catholic Worker Harrington became a member of the Independent Socialist League, a small organization associated with the former Trotskyist leader Max Shachtman. Harrington and Shachtman believed that socialism, the promise of a just society fully democratic society, could not be realized under authoritarian Communism and they were both fiercely critical the "bureaucratic collectivist" states in Eastern Europe and elsewhere.

Related Topics:
Trotskyist - Max Shachtman - Bureaucratic collectivist

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Harrington became a member of Norman Thomas' Socialist Party when Shachtman and Thomas agreed to merge their organizations. Harrington backed the Shachtmanite realignment strategy of working within the Democratic Party rather than running candidates on a Socialist ticket.

Related Topics:
Norman Thomas - Socialist Party - Democratic Party

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During this period Harrington wrote The Other America: Poverty in the United States, a book that had an impact on the Kennedy administration, and on Lyndon B. Johnson's subsequent War on Poverty. Harrington became a widely read intellectual and political writer. He would frequently debate noted conservatives but would also clash with the younger radicals in the New Left movements. Arthur Schlesinger referred to Harrington as the "only responsible radical" in America, a somewhat dubious distinction within the political left.

Related Topics:
The Other America - Kennedy - Lyndon B. Johnson - War on Poverty - New Left - Arthur Schlesinger

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By early 1970s Shachtman's anti-Communism had become a hawkish Cold War liberalism. Shachtman and the governing faction of the Socialist Party effectively supported the Vietnam War and changed the organization's name to Social Democrats, USA. In protest Harrington led a number of Norman Thomas-era Socialists, younger activists and ex-Shactmanites into the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee. A smaller faction associated with peace activist David McReynolds formed the Socialist Party, USA.

Related Topics:
Cold War - Social Democrats, USA - Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee - David McReynolds - Socialist Party, USA

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In the early 1980s The Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee merged with the New American Movement, an organization of New Left veterans, forming 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.

Related Topics:
New American Movement - Democratic Socialists of America. - Socialist International

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Harrington died in 1989 of cancer. He was the most well-known socialist in the United States during his lifetime, a status William F. Buckley once compared to being "the tallest building in Topeka, Kansas."

Related Topics:
William F. Buckley - Topeka, Kansas

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