Democratic Movements, Self-Education, and Economic Democracy: Chartists, Populists, and Wobblies

Abstract

This essay reconstructs the role of education -as consciousness raising, as political communication, and as a form of institutionalized schooling -in the democratic theories of three radical historical experiments: the British Chartists, the American Populist farmers, and the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the Wobblies. Each of these movements in their own way confronted the hierarchies of nineteenth-and early twentieth-century industrial society, providing radical democratic solutions to real historical problems. Educational practices in these movements not only constituted a means to movement building but also proved integral to the kind of democratic society they envisioned. Such movements are called prefigurative movements in that their practices are reflective of their visions. 1 Educational activities in the Chartist, Populist, and Wobbly movements continue to inform our understanding of the political role of education in a hierarchical society today. Whereas traditionally education has aimed at reifying the existing society by imparting an ideology that would provide legitimation, movement education is aimed both at understanding the hierarchy of existing structures and at envisioning more egalitarian alternatives. Hence a critical pedagogy is informed by radical democratic movements because they are prefigurative; they demonstrate an organic relationship between movement education and their democratic visions.