America's Foremost Socialist

Michael Harrington, a political scientist, author and co-chairman of the Democratic Socialists of America. His 1962 book, The Other America, caught the attention of President John Kennedy and became the handbook for Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. Harrington's central theme is that poverty is growing, not shrinking, and that the free market has proven inadequate to the task of reducing it. His more recent works include The New American Poverty and The Next Left. His latest work, The Long-Distance Runner, is his autobiography.

Activist Michael Harrington has been a leader of the American left for the last thirty years. In the 1950s, he was the associate editor of The Catholic Worker, a socialist, Catholic newspaper. In the 1960s, he worked with the Civil Rights movement, including joining Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Advisory Committee. He was also active in the labor movement and worked against the war in Vietnam. Harrington chaired the Socialist Party from 1968-1972, and has been the National Chair of the Democratic National Socialists of America since 1973.

Michael Harrington is the Chair of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), the "left" portion of the Democratic Party. The group's goals include national healthcare, full employment, and more control of corporate policies. Harrington has been an activist his entire career, and his book "The Other America," was essential in pushing Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in creating anti-poverty agendas. His new book is "Decade of Decision."