Reviving the American Left in the 1960s: The Economic Research and Action Project and the LID-SDS Conflict

When the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was founded in 1960, it was still part of the old leftist League for Industrial Democracy (LID). The LID had been founded in the early 1900s and was concerned with educating people on social-democratic issues as well as supporting labor unions and socialist causes. After the SDS expressed its views in The Port Huron Statement in 1962, ideological and strategic differences between the New Left and Old Left became apparent. The LID wanted to focus on an educative strategy in the postwar anticommunist era, while the SDS supported an activist approach regarding foreign policy, civil rights, and income inequality. However, the SDS remained under the authority of the LID for the time being. In 1963, the SDS’s activist anti-poverty program, the Economic Research and Action Project (ERAP), demonstrated the Old Left and New Left differences. As shown in the activities of ERAP which receives special attention in this essay, these differences led to the separation of the LID and SDS by 1965. As a result of this separation, the SDS was free to develop and revive the American Left as an active force in American politics and society.