I think it's a major mistake to focus solely on ideology (as Brad seems to
do), ignoring the objective conditions which encourage such ideologies to
become popular. There have been fascist-minded folks around for centuries.
Why do their ideas fall on fertile ground in some circumstances and not
others? Malthus, for example, once said something along the lines of that
it was a mistake to drain the swamps, because preventing malaria would
encourage the poor to breed like rabbits, in which case they'd simply die
like flies. Why do such horrible ideas become attractive in some eras
(England in the 19th century) but not others? Why is it that Mrs.
Thatcher's neoliberal assertion that There Is No Alternative became popular
in the late 20th century but would have been laughed at in the 1960s?
>As you know, the similarities [between Naziism and Stalinism] go much,
>much deeper than simply calling both regimes "murderous". I don't think
>anyone can understand the history of the twentieth century without
>recognizing and thinking about the obvious--but extraordinary--parallels,
>including:
>
> --the extraordinary dimension reached by the cult of personality
In countries under severe socio-economic stress, with loyalty in doubt, the
"charisma" of the Leader is often used as a touchstone for proving
individuals' loyalty to the state. BTW, it doesn't surprise me that the
cult of personality around FDR was much milder, since the US was a much
richer country, with less social stress, and far fewer problems with
foreign domination than Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia.
> --the common desire for the "coordination" of all forms of what
> we are now supposed to call "civil society"
In the period between 1914 and 1945, one of the major problems was that the
lack of coordination of the world market economy encouraged both World War
I (and its aftermaths, like the hyperinflations that hit much of Europe
afterwards) and the Great Depression. So ideologists from FDR to Keynes to
Mussolini to Hitler to Stalin thought that more coordination was needed.
Obviously, Reagan was wrong to equate FDR and Mussolini, but the former's
NRA was very much a modern-liberal coordination scheme aimed at solving the
failures of the market economy. Laissez-faire (now called neoliberalism)
had been given its chance in the 1920s. Rightly or wrongly, the powers that
were saw that experiment as a failure. In poorer countries from Italy to
Germany to Russia, the failure was perceived to be larger, so the move
toward centralized coordination was stronger. It's only in a big country
that's not highly exposed to the international economy (as with the US
between 1945 and 1980 or so) that weaker forms of coordination such as
Keynesianism are popular.
Peter Temin, in his _Lessons from the Great Depression_ (1989), is
conscious of this. He points to to a cycle between laissez-faire and
"socialism" (by which he means statism): when the first fails, the latter
rises, while when the second fails, the former rises. (Of course, the
question of who defines "failure" is important: it mostly depends on the
capitalists and their elites, but sometimes the working class can have a
say when well organized.)
BTW, _all_ economists believe that we need "coordination" of society. It's
just that some have faith that the Invisible Hand will do it for us. More
sophisticated NC ones see the need for technocratic (i.e., non-democratic)
agencies such as the Federal Reserve to lend a Helping Hand to the
coordination process.
Of course, there wasn't simply the "horizontal" dimension to the
coordination issue. There was also the "vertical" dimension of class
antagonism. The end of World War I unleashed all sorts of class antagonisms
in the capitalist world, including abortive revolutions in Germany and
strike waves in the US. The perceived failure of laissez-faire in the US in
the 1920s and elsewhere (often earlier) threatened to unleash these forces
again, and in many cases did so. (Remember General MacArthur chasing the
veterans out of Washington, DC, with machine guns?) Liberal "benevolent"
coordination such as the NRA was seen as needed to present an alternative
to socialism and class struggle in the US. In places where the class
struggle was more intense -- e.g., Germany -- fascist coordination (and
worse) was seen by those in power as needed to preserve capitalism.
The class struggle in the USSR was different, involving a three-cornered
conflict between the rising state-party bureaucratic class, the external
and internal capitalists, and the peasantry. To a lesser extent, the state
was in conflict with urban workers, too. The hope was that administrative
coordination would solve these problems. Unite for the Construction of
Socialism! (and later for Mother Russia!) and similar slogans were used to
try to paper over class conflicts. The cult of personality fits here, too.
> --the common use of the purge as the preferred method of elite
> politics
When a society is poorly established, there are blood purges. They occurred
during the French Revolution (which helped finalize the establishment of
capitalism there), too. They probably would have happened in the US war of
independence if it hadn't been so easy for dissidents to leave for Canada
or the frontier. In any event, a big chunk of the dissidents (which seems
to have been about 1/3 of the population) did emigrate. Of course, a lot of
the conflicts in the US Revolution could be externalized, i.e., solved at
the expense of the Indians. One of the big reasons that the Colonists
revolted against the Brits was that the latter didn't want the former to
move across the Appalachians into Indian territory.
> --the common fear of elections
You'll note that elections didn't establish the US political system.
Instead, there was a bloody revolt against the Brits and bloody attacks
against the Indians, the Spaniards, the Mexicans, etc. Elections also
didn't cement the establishment of capitalism in France (the 1789
Revolution did). The British had to have a bloody Civil War and a
"Glorious" Revolution to end the King's absolutism. Elections -- however
worthwhile they are in the abstract -- don't solve severe societal problems.
When severe societal problems are prevailing, when there's tremendous class
conflict, civil war, or foreign invasion, elections are not used. FDR
didn't say that the problem of Hitler in Europe could be solved by having
an election. Rather, he went to war. Both the Nazis and the Stalinists
faced severe societal problems which ruled out elections as a solution.
After taking power, they added some of their own problems to the mix, which
then ruled out elections: if you're in power and you've forced your
solutions on the people, you fear elections because they might lead to your
ouster.
It's important to keep this in perspective. The IMF and the Federal Reserve
don't want elections either (though they may have to live with them while
limiting the scope of elections so that they don't threaten their
technocratic power). No-one elected the Federal Reserve and its
constituents (the bankers, financial speculators, and the rentiers) to rule
the US economy. The Fed resists any kind of democratic control (backed by
most economists, who also don't like elections unless highly constrained to
dealing with a limited part of the society). Further, the capitalist class
in general don't want elections, except within safe limits. They don't want
their social power threatened. They don't want to be held responsible.
Similar things can be said about the IMF, but I'm sure that Brad is tired
of my ragging on that institution.
> --the common hatred of parliamentary politics
There are good reasons to dislike parliamentary politics. After all, here
in the US, the system works according to "one dollar/one vote" rather than
"one person/one vote" and is dominated by the Dem/GOP duopoly, which
severely limits choice. It's a big mistake to refer to "parliamentary
politics" as if it were some sort of magic talisman that had no problems,
so that anyone who "hates" parliamentary politics is an officially-defined
Bad Guy. BTW, I'd bet that a lot of _politicians_ hate parliamentary
politics. Every once and awhile, I hear of idealistic politicians who give
up in disgust.
But there are two ways to oppose parliamentary politics. One is to go in
the direction of _less_ democracy (as with the fascists, the Stalinists,
the capitalists, the Fed). This is the path for those in power who want to
stay in power -- or those who want to replace the current people in power
with themselves.
The other direction is to have stronger and more profound democracy, with
more control over elected representatives by the people and no exemption of
capitalists, technocrats, and the like from democratic control. This is the
path of grass-roots rebellion against those in power, including the
fascists, the Stalinists, the capitalists, the IMF, and the Fed.
> --the common rejection of the ideas of an independent judicary
> and that citizens might have rights vis-a-vis the state
To what extent is the US judiciary independent? It's appointed by the same
corrupt political establishment that runs Congress and the Executive -- or
elected in the same kind of corrupt elections. Remember how big money was
mobilized to purge the liberals out of the California Supreme Court? In any
event, the judiciary is subordinated to the capitalist system. If any judge
starts going against the rules of the game, conflict will result and he or
she will quickly be quashed. The fact is that the vast majority of the
judges don't do so, since they've been well-trained and well-screened ahead
of time. The established law is pro-capitalist and it's the job a judge to
enforce and interpret that law. Instead of being independent, I'd say that
the judiciary is "relatively autonomous." Note that the US judiciary is
less autonomous than say, Italy's, which was willing to go against its
corrupt political establishment.
The issue of citizen rights is important. It's not just the fascists and
the Stalinists who opposed individual rights, however. It was also the US
Founding Fathers (a.k.a., the Federalists), who opposed democracy to a man.
It's only via popular struggle that such institutions as the Bill of Rights
were established. It's only via popular struggle that the franchise was
extended beyond white male property-owners. It's only via such popular
struggle as the Civil Rights movement that a lot of the racist content of
the US system was erased. None of this sprung full grown from the head of
the Founding Fathers.
Also, when the chips are down, even the US rulers are willing to violate
individual rights _en masse_. Look what happened to the Japanese-Americans
during World War II. Look at how the FBI was unleashed against the anti-war
movement during the 1960s. Nixon wanted to set up camps for that movement
(and if I'm not mistaken, the plan to do so is still being held in
reserve). Look at the way the cops treat those who protest the GOP/Dem
political duopoly or the neoliberal revolution (a.k.a., corporate
globalization).
> --the common desire (not always accomplished) to say "no" to the
> market economy (on this, Peter Temin has a quite nice
> essay on Nazi and Soviet economic planning in the 1930s)
this was dealt with above.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
