Incredibly useful piece here. I think its particularly worth considering the transformation of Berger in the 1910s for how it tracks with many transformations socialists occassionally have to go through - from simple assumption that a system of socialism will rise all tides thus allowing for ignorance of race specific politics to understanding that white supremacy is part of that capitalist system we are looking to overturn.
Intersectionalism isn't just about overturning your biases as Berger did in the 1910s advocate for a color-blind socialism - we need to practice what he did after 1918 in making the direct anti-racist argument that comes with transforming our society.
I both appreciate and applaud your essay to correct the historical record of sewer socialism in Milwaukee in hygiene 1920s. It is particularly timely as Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani assumes office in New York City, following in the footsteps of sewer socialism.
While it may be true that the CP in the 1930s and 1940s had a better record on racism and a larger presence in the Black community on a national scale than the SP; your work on sewer socialism is illuminating.
Thank you for writing this incredibly well-researched article, it’s a bit of history I wasn’t familiar with. It’s also an important reminder of the importance of continually reexamining history, as well as our own current biases that one day too will appear antiquated but of their time.
Sewer Socialism is an element of infrastructure studies, which if that existed in the Academy would point out that social ownership, including consumer ownership, is the normal structure pretty much everywhere except (1) US Telecoms and (2) US power system.
US Telecoms. Under Reagan and Bush I, Jimmy Carter's trust busting (breaking up Ma Bell) was twisted into an absolute prohibition of regulation of telecoms. Those who love their trivia may remember that the architect at the FCC was the guy who Rush Limbaugh called his favorite economist, a gross pig who enjoyed taking rides up and down the Sacramento River (Sac has many sources of embarrassment;; that Limbaugh gained fame and fortune their first is notable) smoking cigars with Limbaugh. The economist pig coined the term Feminazi, which the famous pig made famous.
US Power System. The US power industry is dominated by Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) operating under Public Utilities/Public Services Commissions. Maybe because it is so close, I use the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (the regulated utility) and its PG&E Corporation parent, with their revolving doors with the cross-town California Public Utilities Commission, as the archetype of regulatory capture. I have found the smaller Southern California Edison to have a healthier, and better for consumers, relationship with the regulator,
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) may be one reason why their IOU neighbor is better behaved, I think LADWP is the biggest public power organization in the country. But there are many others. Tennessee Valley Authority and its fleet of rural electric and municipal power partners, and Bonneville Power Admin. New York Power Authority. Sacramento Municipal Utility DIstrict. Modesto Irrigation District. And of course the smallest, our own Plumas Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative, with its rural-broadband-pioneering Plumas Sierra Telecommunications.
European social democracy involves many "investor owned" utilities, traded on the Frankfurt exchanges. Their edge is that control of these companies his held by coalitions of public investors (e.g. pension funds, sovereign wealth funds) who are not in the business of extracting monopoly rents from their customer owners.
There may be opportunities, as we address the climate crisis, to rethink some of the commercial arrangements of our network systems. Not just power grids: our rail system needs major investments as we escape our addiction to rubber wheels.
Infrastructure Socialism. Coming soon to a network near you.
"Largely because of their proven track record of effectively delivering material improvements to Wisconsin workers, by the early 1920s they had forged enough political space for themselves to take up minoritarian stances on racism without automatically tanking their electoral chances."
Based on the mayoral race vote share table provided in the other article and the fact that Seidel lost the mayoral race in 1912, it seems very unlikely that this explains Berger's gradual, uneven shift on race in the 1912-1918 period.
I think it's a lot more likely that he was influenced or pulled by the efforts of the IWW to organize Black workers starting in 1912. In 1913, Ben Fletcher, whom you cite, comes onto the scene as the Wobbly organizer of Black Philadelphia dockworkers. Led by Big Bill Haywood, the IWW violated segregation laws in the south to help Black and white lumberjacks organize at a time when the Socialist Party had segregated locals in the same area. A brief summary of all this can be found here: https://files.libcom.org/files/Foner_PS_-_The_IWW_and_the_Black_Worker.pdf
The other factor that probably influenced Berger was getting elected to Congress in 1910 at a time when a rising tide of lynchings compelled the NAACP to start campaigning for anti-lynching legislation in 1916. Some 200(!) anti-lynching bills were introduced into Congress starting in 1900 and a progressive Republican from Missouri, Leonidas Dyer, introduced one such bill in 1918 that wasn't passed in the House until 1922 and then was killed in the Senate by Senate Dixiecrats. The odds seem high that Congressman Berger was exposed to and may have even voted on some of these early anti-lynching bills before he started introducing and campaigning on such bills himself.
Like anyone else, Berger was influenced by a multitude of struggles going on around him—in this case, by the likes of the IWW, the NAACP, and investigative journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett. She spent decades from the 1890s onward attacking the racist tropes surrounding lynching (which you documented Berger trafficking in). Berger's transformation from racist to anti-racist wasn't the result of electoral success/safety or some kind of 'class-first-then-race' approach but of struggle and organization by unions and African-Americans.
Incredibly useful piece here. I think its particularly worth considering the transformation of Berger in the 1910s for how it tracks with many transformations socialists occassionally have to go through - from simple assumption that a system of socialism will rise all tides thus allowing for ignorance of race specific politics to understanding that white supremacy is part of that capitalist system we are looking to overturn.
Intersectionalism isn't just about overturning your biases as Berger did in the 1910s advocate for a color-blind socialism - we need to practice what he did after 1918 in making the direct anti-racist argument that comes with transforming our society.
Actual historical research > polemics
I both appreciate and applaud your essay to correct the historical record of sewer socialism in Milwaukee in hygiene 1920s. It is particularly timely as Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani assumes office in New York City, following in the footsteps of sewer socialism.
While it may be true that the CP in the 1930s and 1940s had a better record on racism and a larger presence in the Black community on a national scale than the SP; your work on sewer socialism is illuminating.
Thank you for writing this incredibly well-researched article, it’s a bit of history I wasn’t familiar with. It’s also an important reminder of the importance of continually reexamining history, as well as our own current biases that one day too will appear antiquated but of their time.
Best researched article I’ve read this year, on one of the most important contradictions we’re wrestling with. Kudos, Eric! Sharing this one around.
Thanks Matt, really appreciate it!
Thank you. for the tale of Victor Berger.
Sewer Socialism is an element of infrastructure studies, which if that existed in the Academy would point out that social ownership, including consumer ownership, is the normal structure pretty much everywhere except (1) US Telecoms and (2) US power system.
US Telecoms. Under Reagan and Bush I, Jimmy Carter's trust busting (breaking up Ma Bell) was twisted into an absolute prohibition of regulation of telecoms. Those who love their trivia may remember that the architect at the FCC was the guy who Rush Limbaugh called his favorite economist, a gross pig who enjoyed taking rides up and down the Sacramento River (Sac has many sources of embarrassment;; that Limbaugh gained fame and fortune their first is notable) smoking cigars with Limbaugh. The economist pig coined the term Feminazi, which the famous pig made famous.
US Power System. The US power industry is dominated by Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) operating under Public Utilities/Public Services Commissions. Maybe because it is so close, I use the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (the regulated utility) and its PG&E Corporation parent, with their revolving doors with the cross-town California Public Utilities Commission, as the archetype of regulatory capture. I have found the smaller Southern California Edison to have a healthier, and better for consumers, relationship with the regulator,
The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) may be one reason why their IOU neighbor is better behaved, I think LADWP is the biggest public power organization in the country. But there are many others. Tennessee Valley Authority and its fleet of rural electric and municipal power partners, and Bonneville Power Admin. New York Power Authority. Sacramento Municipal Utility DIstrict. Modesto Irrigation District. And of course the smallest, our own Plumas Sierra Rural Electric Cooperative, with its rural-broadband-pioneering Plumas Sierra Telecommunications.
European social democracy involves many "investor owned" utilities, traded on the Frankfurt exchanges. Their edge is that control of these companies his held by coalitions of public investors (e.g. pension funds, sovereign wealth funds) who are not in the business of extracting monopoly rents from their customer owners.
There may be opportunities, as we address the climate crisis, to rethink some of the commercial arrangements of our network systems. Not just power grids: our rail system needs major investments as we escape our addiction to rubber wheels.
Infrastructure Socialism. Coming soon to a network near you.
Thanks again for the good read, Eric.
"Largely because of their proven track record of effectively delivering material improvements to Wisconsin workers, by the early 1920s they had forged enough political space for themselves to take up minoritarian stances on racism without automatically tanking their electoral chances."
Based on the mayoral race vote share table provided in the other article and the fact that Seidel lost the mayoral race in 1912, it seems very unlikely that this explains Berger's gradual, uneven shift on race in the 1912-1918 period.
I think it's a lot more likely that he was influenced or pulled by the efforts of the IWW to organize Black workers starting in 1912. In 1913, Ben Fletcher, whom you cite, comes onto the scene as the Wobbly organizer of Black Philadelphia dockworkers. Led by Big Bill Haywood, the IWW violated segregation laws in the south to help Black and white lumberjacks organize at a time when the Socialist Party had segregated locals in the same area. A brief summary of all this can be found here: https://files.libcom.org/files/Foner_PS_-_The_IWW_and_the_Black_Worker.pdf
The other factor that probably influenced Berger was getting elected to Congress in 1910 at a time when a rising tide of lynchings compelled the NAACP to start campaigning for anti-lynching legislation in 1916. Some 200(!) anti-lynching bills were introduced into Congress starting in 1900 and a progressive Republican from Missouri, Leonidas Dyer, introduced one such bill in 1918 that wasn't passed in the House until 1922 and then was killed in the Senate by Senate Dixiecrats. The odds seem high that Congressman Berger was exposed to and may have even voted on some of these early anti-lynching bills before he started introducing and campaigning on such bills himself.
Like anyone else, Berger was influenced by a multitude of struggles going on around him—in this case, by the likes of the IWW, the NAACP, and investigative journalist Ida B. Wells-Barnett. She spent decades from the 1890s onward attacking the racist tropes surrounding lynching (which you documented Berger trafficking in). Berger's transformation from racist to anti-racist wasn't the result of electoral success/safety or some kind of 'class-first-then-race' approach but of struggle and organization by unions and African-Americans.