The Measures Taken Episode: The World According to Jane McAlevey
Date: August 29, 2024
Hosts: Stephan, Matthew, and Nathan

Episode Overview

The hosts gather days after the passing of influential labor organizer Jane McAlevey to reflect on her legacy and the enduring impact of her work on the American left. They focus on her key theoretical contributions—organizing, power, and structure—drawn from her memoir Raising Expectations (and Raising Hell) and her strategic treatise No Shortcuts. The conversation explores both the strengths and silences within McAlevey’s approach to labor organizing, drawing connections to Marxist tradition, and discussing the organizational and political implications for the contemporary left.

Key Discussion Points

Jane McAlevey’s Standing in the American Left

• Immediate context: The recording takes place just after McAlevey’s death, prompting personal and political reflection (00:00-00:35).

  • Matt: “She deserves a memorial podcast from us… The best way to do it is to take her intellectual contribution seriously, to talk about the concepts that were at the heart of what she took her major innovation or intervention to be.” [00:35]

• Influence: McAlevey’s concepts are described as bordering on canonical among organizers and contemporary leftists (03:47-04:29).

  • Nathan: “It’s as close, as damn near close to canonical a figure as exists right now in the contemporary American left.” [04:07]

Core Concepts: Organizing, Power, Structure

1. Organizing vs. Mobilizing vs. Advocacy

• McAlevey’s framework distinguishes “organizing” from “mobilizing” and “advocacy,” positioning organizing as central and innovative.

  • Matt: “…Organizing, which she opposes to mobilizing, which she opposes to advocacy… these are part of the Bible of the contemporary left.” [00:35-03:47]

• Key distinction:

  • Organizing: Oriented towards the unorganized; aims to transform those indifferent or hostile into active participants, creating lasting organizations.
    • Matt: "Organizing is primarily oriented to the unorganized… to convince them that in fact a union is in their best interests." [09:24]
  • Mobilizing: Targets already committed individuals; seen as insufficiently transformative.
    • Matt: “…Orientation toward the self-selecting leftist ultimately undercuts the endeavor strategically.” [09:24]
  • Advocacy: Focuses on external allies or experts intervening on behalf of workers, rather than self-activity.

• Whole Worker Organizing: McAlevey expands organizing beyond narrow workplace issues to broader communal concerns, emphasizing workers as social beings.

  • Ethan: “Organizing can’t solely be concerned with a narrow set of interests… workers also are concerned with clean drinking water in their communities, their kids getting to school…” [08:05]

2. Power

• McAlevey insists on power as both analytic and practical necessity for organizing.
  • Matt: “Her concept of power is essential in strategizing because you have to make a power structure analysis… not only who the major players are within the firm, but also their own role within the community…” [12:54-14:53]
• Critiques:
  • Her use of ‘power’ is flagged as potentially vague (“blousy”) and insufficiently theorized beyond the immediate realm of labor relations.
    • Matt: “…Power isn’t to be found in capital; it’s too blousy of a concept to be ultimately useful, even if her recommendations are salubrious.” [16:30]
  • The hosts question what the realized “maximal exercise of power by organized workers” would entail—raising the issue of political horizons beyond bargaining or strikes.

3. Structure / Structure Tests

• McAlevey focuses on mapping and leveraging existing and latent structures within workplaces and communities, including leader identification (who actually holds influence, as opposed to who is most vocal).
  • Ethan: “Part of building these structures is also properly evaluating and formalizing the structures that exist… it’s about identifying and mapping the structures that exist and then formalizing those in a way that they can grow.” [14:53]
• The durability and reproducibility of these structures are stressed as conditions for lasting gains.

Political Gaps and Marxist Critique

Relationship to Marxist Tradition and Communism

• McAlevey as a Communist “Gateway Drug”:

  • Matt floats the idea that McAlevey’s frameworks are a possible “gateway drug” to more explicit communist politics.
    • Matt: “No Shortcuts is just a kind of gateway drug for people who don't know that they're Communists yet.” [22:39]

• Silence on the Party Question:

  • The absence of the party form in McAlevey’s work is noted repeatedly.
    • Nathan: “She doesn't talk about the party. And that may be our transition… once they understand… what it means to organize… the labor movement must have a political wing.” [20:59]

• Economism & Syndicalism:

  • The hosts debate whether McAlevey’s approach amounts to “economism” (narrow focus on economic struggles) or “syndicalism” (trade-union-centered radicalism).
    • Nathan: “It is economism in the classical sense.” [28:48]
    • Matt: “There’s a capitalist realism that haunts this book…” [36:35]

• Relationship to Historical Communist Practice:

  • Despite recognizing McAlevey’s inheritance of strategies from CPUSA/CIO-era Communists, the hosts note her ambivalence towards ideological commitments.
    • Ethan: “It's interesting that that's the case where there's this span of time that just kind of isn't addressed… she never addresses it, despite talking… about inheriting these lessons from explicit Communists…” [23:52]

Permanence, Power, and Political Horizon

• Limits of “Winning”:

  • The hosts argue that power and victory, as McAlevey defines them, lack a broader political or transformative horizon—raising the concern that such victories are ultimately vulnerable to changing contexts (state repression, rightward shifts, etc.).
    • Matt: “…if McCarthyism… was able to defeat not only those specific organizations but the whole strategy that underwrote all their gains, then don’t you just have to be by her own lights now… concerned with the political context…” [37:25]

• Desire for Political Vision:

  • There’s a consensus that effective labor organizing requires a complementary political project—an explicit horizon for class struggle.
    • Nathan: “To what extent we are owed by our leaders a political vision that allows us to orient ourselves in concrete struggles…?” [35:35]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“She deserves a memorial podcast from us… The best way to do it is to take her intellectual contribution seriously, to talk about the concepts that were at the heart of what she took her major innovation or intervention to be.”
— Matt (00:35)

“It’s as close, as damn near close to canonical a figure as exists right now in the contemporary American left.”
— Nathan (04:07)

“Organizing is primarily oriented to the unorganized… to convince them that a union is in their best interests.”
— Matt (09:24)

“One feels owed the actual way to bring down Wall Street, which she does not say anything about.”
— Matt (32:46)

“No Shortcuts is just a kind of gateway drug for people who don't know that they're Communists yet.”
— Matt (22:39)

“It is economism in the classical sense.”
— Nathan (28:50)

“There’s a capitalist realism that haunts this book, which is unfortunate…”
— Matt (36:35)

“Let me just say one last thing… She never intellectually subordinates herself.”
— Matt (40:30)

“Anyway, cheers. We're going to pour one out for our good comrade Jane, who. Who never dies. Because one can never kill an idea.”
— Matt (42:06)

Important Timestamps & Segments

• [00:00-04:29] — Introduction & McAlevey’s place in contemporary labor organizing
• [04:29-09:24] — Organizing vs. Mobilizing & “Whole Worker” organizing explained
• [09:24-12:54] — Organizing as an orientation to the unorganized; permanence and transformative potential
• [12:54-17:36] — Analytical notion of power, comparison to sociology, critique of theoretical fuzziness
• [17:36-22:39] — Structure tests, organizational mapping, and the possibility of a political horizon
• [22:39-26:36] — McAlevey as “gateway” to communism, silences concerning the Party, historical context
• [28:27-32:46] — Economism debate, how her approach relates to historical Marxism
• [32:46-38:30] — Political limitations, need for vision, the risk of losing past gains without a “party” orientation
• [38:30-42:14] — Reflections on McAlevey’s legacy, her academic turn, and the value of her interventions

Conclusion

The episode offers a rich, critical appreciation of Jane McAlevey’s methods and legacy. The hosts affirm the enduring value of her organizing model and practical toolkit, while also identifying the “political gap” in her analysis—a lack of explicit engagement with the theory and organizational models of Marxism and communism. They urge listeners to supplement her contributions with a broader political vision, seeing McAlevey’s work not as an endpoint, but as opening the door to renewed struggles for working-class power, both in the workplace and beyond.

Final Toast:

“Anyway, cheers. We're going to pour one out for our good comrade Jane, who. Who never dies. Because one can never kill an idea.”
— Matt (42:06)

“To Jane.”
— Ethan (42:14)