On Incremental Change

I'm currently a little in love with this quote from Senator Cory Booker: "We allow our inability to do everything to undermine our determination to do something." It strikes me as particularly relevant. Between the American election cycle and the EU referendum in the UK, there have been massive calls for "changes" to systems. Not just changes, but the dismantling of whole institutions. Overturning the status quo so completely, though, would lead to fall-out that would be almost entirely unpredictable. I do not propose to know what lies ahead for the UK. I do not propose to know how the outcome of the US presidential election will affect our society.

What I do propose to know is that incremental change is, in many ways, the best way to affect change. Sometimes it is necessary to work within the current system to create the new order. I have two examples in support of my point. The first is abortion access in the United States in the 1970s, but continuing today. The second is the family policies of Bolshevik Russia in the early 1920s.

It has been argued that Roe v. Wade was a massive triumph for abortion rights. Indeed, Roe v. Wade is still a significant topic in modern politics, but, in ruling its that abortion is constitutional, the Supreme Court created a platform but built with no supporting structure. Ruth Bader Ginsburg has criticized the Roe decision. And, honestly, I agree. According to this Washington Post article, the "wholesale repudiation of state abortion restrictions went too far, too fast." In addition to being too far, too fast, the decision galvanized the pro-life movement. Further, the Roe decision has been incredibly easy to undermine: between 2010 and 2014, 231 new laws were passed restricting access to abortion. Ginsburg has said Roe was centered on "the doctor's freedom to practice" rather than the ability of women to make the best choices regarding their lives.

So there are two problems here: the equal rights of women to make their own decisions about their lives and the erosion of access to safe, legal abortion. The consequence of both of these has become, over the 46 years since the Supreme Court decision, a lack of access women have to health care--especially women of color, economically disadvantaged women, and women living in rural areas.

New restrictions to abortion access are more difficult to contest. This is not a new problem--systematic oppression is more difficult to combat than overt racism, sexism, heterosexsim, or cisism. Access to safe, legal abortion is important, but the Roe declaration that abortion is constitutional did nothing to provide for the maintenance of that right.

My second example is almost a hundred years old and comes from Bolshevik Russia. I've done a bit of reading on Alexandra Kollontai and her ideas about the family in post-revolution Russia. The capitalist understanding of the family rests on the exploitation of women, and to some extent children. Kollantai wanted the institution of the family to be revolutionized--women would no longer be solely responsible for domestic work or childcare. How this would work in reality is never quite clear. Perhaps Kollantai herself wasn't sure what the new family would look like. In reality, Bolshevik leadership did not rate the family or women's equality as equal in importance to economic matters. (Sure, women were valued members of the proletariat, but they were still expected to do unpaid domestic labor, including childcare.)

The family policies of Revolutionary/Leninist Russia attempted to make life better for women. They relaxed divorce restrictions, legalized abortion, and provided for child support for divorced mothers. In reality, none of these policies worked. Early Soviet Russia had a myriad of problems. This is just one. But it highlights the problems of socialism and communism (and Bolshevism). Do you legislate for the world you believe will come into being through the revolution or do you legislate for the world you have in an effort to accomplish the revolution through governmental change?

Do you legislate for the world you have or the world you want to have?

Why not both?

The challenges facing the United States are indeed many: entrenched racism and sexism, the military-industrial complex, xenophobia and isolationist tendencies, and others. But they are not insurmountable. The first principle that we must agree on is that there is no "Us" and no "Them"--that creating an Other is a danger to us everyone. Advocating for a revolution in the form of a complete governmental overhaul, neglects the stability provided by government and the benefits that come from the system.

Some of you may argue that changing laws does not always work. I agree. But without changing the government from within, any other changes will not last. Changing hearts and minds will not matter if those changes are not in tandem with changing laws.

Some of you may argue that laws and those who enforce them are corrupt. Maybe they are. But getting rid of everything in bulk does no one good for long.

In conclusion, while my ideas and beliefs have become more radical, my understanding of how change is accomplished has become more complicated. Change is like an argument: to work, it must be constructed step by step, so the conclusion is built on a solid foundation. From that foundation we can build a better future.