G'day Chris,
You differ with my take on fascism (and my take on the Frankfurters' take)
thusly:
>Pretty rigid definition for a Frankfurter?
>
>Partly true. Perhaps substantially true.
>
>But "only" true???
>
Well, I've been dwelling on this for a while now, and I'm convinced I'm
right in as far as
(a) the definition affords a name that distinguishes the (differing but also
usefully homogeneous) doctrines of the Italian fascists (who had the best
political philosophers), the Falange and the Nazis from instances of
totalitarianism outside the context of generalised commodity production.
BTW, I think the Italians were the most coherent, eg. in giving the state
logical primacy (Hitler pinched bits from his short Bolshie phase to
prioritise the people [as end] over the state [as means], but his practice
quickly and inevitably opened up a theory/praxis gap of gargantuan
incoherence - the Italian stance sat more easily with the romantic
irrationalism and charismatic leader-as-leviathan stuff that has always
attended fascism)
(b) Goran Therborn's 'The Frankfurt School' would have it that the early
Frankfurters (pre-1939) posited a classical Marxist definition (ie. 'the
replacement of competitive capitalism by monopoly capitalism and as the
seizure of power by the monopoly capitalists in order to deal with the
economic and political crisis of capitalism'). The Freudian stuff (none of
it contradicting this) came later, with stuff like 'The Authoritarian
Personality- - which I've never read, alas.
(c) Marcuse's 'The struggle against Liberalism in the Totalitarian view of
the State' would have it thus: that fascism draws from liberalism the
naturalism that explains the potency and privelege of the few and therefore
renders futile any project that envisages generalised freedom beyond this
'fact' (incidentally, this also served to besmirch the merchant whilst
glorifying the 'gifted economic leader') - and the defining of pleasure as
the opposite of 'virtue' (a self-denying affirmation that occurs only within
the individual, too - all very protestant stuff for Italians and Spaniards).
(d) Horkheimer's 'The Jews and Europe', which is the gutsiest read of all,
to wit: 'The [Marxist] theory destroyed the myth of a harmony of interests;
it presented the liberal economic process as the reproduction of relations
of domination by means of free contracts which are enforced by the
inequality of property. The mediation has now been removed. Fascism is the
truth of modern society, which this theory had grasped from the beginning'.
If that's not clear enough, how about, 'He who does not want to speak about
capitalism should also be silent about fascism'?
So, while we have liberal democratic monopoly capitalism, argue Marcuse and
Horkheimer (and Pollock and Fromm), we have a political economy ever willing
and able to flick the switch and don the black shirt if circumstances demand
it. Not, I think, 'allow it', as you imply, Chris - it's a demonstrably
expensive and uncertain road for capital to take, especially in such an
interdependent world and with so many beautifully inculcated liberals around
- but DEMAND it.
Marx argues to the satisfaction of most here assembled that such dire
circumstances are immanent in capitalism, so this is a pretty hard swallow.
But, yeah, that's my rigid mechanical take on fascism.
Incidentally, I was a serenely smug social democrat until just a couple of
years ago, and a pretty loud Habermasian at that - but it was a thought very
much like this that moved me to on to these lists, towards more
revolutionary theory - but, alas, little closer to a concomitant line on
practice - I find Marx's critique more convincing than I have found Marxist
revolutionary discourse in the context of the world I perceive around me.
But you can't stop looking once you start, eh? One's faith in the
prevailing order dissolves quickly in the face of globally retreating state
paternalism, mass retrenchments, the casual impoverishment of a billion
Asians and Latin Americans, recurrent famines and a plethora of Kosovos -
especially when you're granted the thunderous insight Marx's holistic
critique offers.
And faiths are like socks: once you've lost 'em, you never get 'em back.
Cheers,
Rob.
--- from list [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
