Once again on "fascism":
Just to review some of the main material conditions, with emphasis on Germany, giving rise to fascism as ideology and practice in Germany and Italy in the 1920s and later in Spain in the 30s, I have taken a look back, way out here in the mid-Pacific with limited library and what's on the internet and hoping that I have it right, at some of the material I have recently had the good fortune to read:
First of all, the post World War I Versailles Treaty and the scheduling of draconian reparations by Britain and France, pushed by the US. Dawes and Young plans in the 1920s, and establishment by the US of a cyclical movement, whereby capital flowed from the US to Germany, then from Germany to France and Britain [unpayable German reparations,132 billion gold marks], thence to the US as repayment of war loans - 'conscious channeling of capital accumulation so as to promote interdependence' and thus to promote active financial circuits benefiting US capital (in a way an adumbration and certainly afar less successful version of the post WW2 Marshall Plan) [Robert Biel]
The existence in postwar Germany of strong social-democratic and communist forces, threatening the prospects for resumed capital accumulation in Germany, attempted communist revolutions in 1919 and 1923, in which the reformist moderate left played off against the communists to help defeat the radical left, with the Soviet Union to the East serving as emulatable model and hence a goad to the German industrialists and the middle class, and the US to the West closing off prospects for resumption of German participation in normal trading relations and export outlets.
Collapse of the Weimar Republic and the German social democrats, unable to cope through reformism and collaboration with the victors, in the midst of rampant, historically unprecedented inflation, massive unemployment and the perceived prospect of another attempt by the radical left to take power and attain overthrow of capital.
The depression - global collapse in asset values and financial institutions, with consequent contraction of output, by as much as 30% in some countries between 1929 and 1933, with a concomitant rise in unemployment ratios to 15% or more, increases in tariffs by the US, social devastation and weakening of the global order, and collapse of the delicately balanced chain of loans put in place to sustain payment of reparations and the enormous war debt, when the US felt compelled to call in, with disastrous consequences for Germany and France, its war loans, with interest, to the last penny -while in 1923 France occupied the Ruhr with its rich iron ore deposits, when Germany halted reparations payments. [Michael Hudson]. Finance Minister Rathenau repeatedly pleaded with France and Germany to allow Germany to get back on its feet, so as to generate export earnings to begin to be able to pay the demanded reparations [William Engdahl].
Hence, material conditions dictated as one of a limited range of feasible courses militarization and the attempt to capture colonial markets and resources. With Hjalmar Schacht's guidance the Nazi regime was able to restore growth and sharply reduce unemployment through a program of public works and rearmament facilitated by running budget deficits in defiance of financial orthodoxy - similar to the New Deal of FDR, which was less far-reaching due to the limits of presidential power [although fewer limits in restoring the banking structure, after the collapse of 2000 banks, in 1930 alone [Harry Shutt]
Nazi "National Socialism" thus moved to take care of the German populace's material needs, assuring loyalty to the more general fascist program. The Nazi movement delivered "order", with the growth of the Brown Shirts, against the left and gave assurance of their capability to act in the interests of German capital
In particular, the collapse of international capitalist comity, the resumption of tariffs and US isolationism, closing off the US market, the failure of laissez-faire capitalism and financial orthodoxy [Shutt] gave a significant boost to the rise of fascism, allowing Hitler space to move in an individualized international hiatus, with Germany's sense of marginalization in the developing international trade wars, and consequently militarization and the attempt to capture colonial markets and resources by repression and territorial conquest.
German ideology was manipulated by the fascist regime to smash the left, impose "discipline" and suppress dissent generally, arouse nationalist and racist sentiment to generate enthusiasm for the "thousand year Reich" and German wars of conquest throughout the Continent, Asia Minor, the Near East and North Africa.
Ideology was in turn manipulated in the US and western Europe to oppose fascism and to overcome American isolationism, whereas much of the financial and industrial community continued to trade and interact, assuming that Nazi Germany was a necessary bulwark against communism.
In practical terms - with the US consuming a preponderance of global resources with an enormous continental market, less dependent on foreign trade, more on financial penetration by its multinational corporations, the US capitalist class led the American Republic out of its hemispheric boundaries into the world at large in pursuit of assurances of acceptable returns on investment in Europe, Asia and globally.
I agree with Carrol's point that "the defining features of fascism are quite absent in the US -- but _not_ the defining features of the traditional oppressive potential of bourgeois democracy or the defining features of a foreign policy that threatens all humans", to the extent that it raises the question whether we face an ideologically positioned regime on the one hand (we obviously do) or on the other a geopolitically oriented system of expansion - or both - with the system's most influential players testing to find a proper regime or systemic format for revived, sustained and augmented accumulation. Here in what has been the wealthiest nation in history, that format at present includes fear of terrorism, racist xenophobia against Muslims and immigrants, religious fanaticism feeding into fear and loathing, and exploitation of the fear of economic deprivation in the context of mounting debt.
It's pointless to point fingers at the American people: with some reality and many illusions about a share in the wealth, induced and situational ignorance of history, geography and the true nature of current events, the perception of perpetual consumer sovereignty and privilege, pervasive mortgaged home "ownership" in the illusory "ownership society" and related reluctance concerning the risks of dissent, the general consensus against the perceived other, all within the "prison of the American dream", make any popular demand for change in direction of US policy or an alternative course at least for the present problematic, even a formidable proposition.
As to the use of the term fascist, without a definition grounded in material conditions rather than in symptomatic behavior, the term is slippery and mostly devoid of propaedeutic or analytic value. After all, the term was so rapidly diluted in the 30s and 40s that Roosevelt was called a fascist, as were many others.
Which of the factors I have enumerated as grounding fascism in the early to mid-twentieth century exists in the present context? And if not, how does a definition of fascism take into account the basic differences, and how does one benefit from such an analogy in drawing out the developing impasses and contradictions, and forces, strengths and weaknesses in our situation? The present condition of the US is an outgrowth of the period of the second World War, certainly, and imperialism and monopoly capitalism are central to that development, no doubt. But does it suffice to recite that fact, in order to connect the two periods in any way that contributes to new insight and feasible solutions? What we have now is the unprecedented support of the US dollar by an almost accidental holding of US securities by trading partners around the globe, who cannot call in their chips because of the real fear that it will cause a collapse of the vast US market and in turn the collapse of their economies and the system generally.
German, Italian and Spanish fascism was impotent imperialism. The situation in the US is plainly that of imperialism rampant and hegemonic. The US, completely unlike the fascist regimes in another time, is in the position of having little or no opposition from US labor and the left, while consuming a preponderance of the world's resources, with unprecedented military expenditures, cultural hegemony and financial preeminence. The main purpose of present policy, and in this there is some congruence, is to revive, sustain and enhance US capital accumulation, through effective control of the world's resources, control of the behavior of states, especially diverting the likelihood of a geopolitical challenge, with as little deflecting interference by national or regional opposition or conformance with international norms of behavior from past periods as possible, all to the end of thereby smoothing the terrain for at least fifty more years of US imperial rule. Germany in its heyday and the present regime of accumulation proceed from otherwise greatly different material conditions.
Why bring fascism into that mix, even as a term of mobilization, when that connection is by now so remote from people's experience, and when conditions personally impinging on the lives of Americans, especially the prospect or existence of alterations in material benefit from the failure of US actions and policies, and not some supposed hearkening to what are becoming historically obscure alarums, is what is almost exclusively going to alter mass perceptions in the US, as a forerunner to and in the absence of a significant class-based left?
As to the likely extent of repression in the US, I don't know whether I can agree with the inference conveyed by this sentiment which I pulled from somewhere: "the greatness of America has to do with radical enlightenment values, which include a commitment to genuine democracy, to equality and justice," but it's something at least to consider. We have had in the past many instances of severe domestic restriction of civil rights and liberties, in the Civil War period, the Haymarket repression, the post World War I Palmer Raids smashing labor and the left, the McCarthy period following World War 2 and the reining in of the Wagner Act provisions which accorded some rights to labor under the New Deal, rights sharply curtailed by the Taft-Hartley Act; extermination of the indigenous population, slavery, sanctioned lynching, minority persecution and civil rights repression, all through our history. What we have now may turn out to be as bad or worse, but what I draw from that, at least as permissive inference, is that material circumstance (sometimes? often? usually? always?) distorts, obscures or completely trumps traditional, historic institutions.
Domestically at the present time, it appears that the reigning neoconservatives are bent on wiping out what advances have occurred in the concept of government as guarantor of minimum standards of well-being and protection from the excesses of capital accumulation, some contending (charitably) that the New Deal was enacted in a different period under conditions which no longer threaten, that the Courts went beyond Constitutional bounds in establishing enabling precedents, and that the exigencies of the present economic plight, unsustainable deficit and the lagging rate of profit call for more rigorous responses, including a pullback to a pre-New Deal past - despite polled opinion to the contrary. They are prepared to do what is necessary, now that they have what may be a limited time period in which to act and what can colorably be characterized as a "mandate", with control of all three branches of government, to promote the increase in benefits to their support base among the affluent, the corporate and financial oligarchies, at the expense of the commonweal. That is being accomplished in part by preparing the ground for diminution of social benefits and of opportunities to protest or to counter that program of retrenchment, by narrowing civil liberties as sharply as conditions allow and for as long as they can get away with it, manipulating ideology and popular consent through their oligarchic media, corporate appointees heading federal agencies, compliant Courts and supine legislature.
Concerning the tasks of the global left, I am persuaded by much of what Tom Mertes wrote in his article on Porto Alegre in Verso's Debating Empire: one obvious difference for activists is that the repressive nature of capitalist state power is posed much more starkly in the South. After reciting recent examples of brutal repression of protest and dissent in the South, he says, "Northerners stand a better chance of getting home safely after a demonstration." May we never forget the difference.
Mertes mentions the "divergences over the economy and the environment, [which] may prove more crucial than the left's organizational forms." The "green production" laws championed in the North have "often worked as a form of protection, favoring Northern capital - and labor - while increasing poverty and unemployment in the South." Instead he cites the effort to promote a "transfer of green technology to the South, coupled with support for indigenous environmental groups." He stresses the importance to the South of agriculture. He laments that few large Northern trade unions were present at Porto Alegre to hear all this.
Also, Mertes cites that among those at Porto Alegre, there was division over the feasibility or reformability of the WTO, IMF and World Bank; and "while there was general agreement that [these institutions] were inherently linked to a system that is fundamentally unequal, corrupt and unsustainable, there was far less debate" on current issues such as the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East generally.
He also cited the difficulties in communication, with availability of computers not so much the problem as the necessary electricity, functioning phone lines, multiple-language software and technical support.
I would add as an obvious basic problem and task on the left the virtually total absence of an agenda.
As to what I termed the "more accurate literature" (none of which to my recollection emphasizes or gives more than passing mention to fascism) , which Charles says is 'problematically "scattered" by the participation of right wingers, liberals, "totalitarian theorists" and the like', I might as well respond with a fairly long list of those encountered as I have been reading around, those who have left me better informed even when I haven't fully agreed with them, among the left who are still writing and most productively doing their homework and joining the issue, which would include, in no particular order either of merit or importance, Michael Hudson, Robert Brenner, Robert Biel, William Engdahl, Harry Shutt, John Foster, Sam Gindin, Leo Panitch, Ellen Wood, others who are or have been part of the York University left community like Greg Albo and Reg Whitaker - those who occasionally pop in on Pen-L, A-List and marxmail such as Michael Perlman, Patrick Bond, Michael Lebowitz, Henry C.K. Liu, Max Sawicky, Doug Henwood, E. Ahmet Tonak, Gunder Frank, - those who have a reputation as regional specialists as well as generalists like Samir Amin, James Petras and Boris Kagarlitsky - also Peter Gowan, Tariq Ali, Vivek Chibber, Michael Lowy, Immanuel Wallerstein, Gerard Dumenil, Dominique Levy, Arghiri Emmanuel, David Harvey, Alex Callinicos, William Blum, Ursula Huys, Mahmood Mamdani, Gabriel and Joyce Kolko. I'm grateful for all of them, and I don't slight them as mere "academicians". To me, their function is a vital one. (To those I've missed I apologize in advance.)
Ralph
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Charles Brown wrote:
>* From: Ralph Johansen > >I don't know what the term "fascist" would mean to a 25-year old in >Peoria, if anything, but why use it on left lists? As it is being used >here, it is an emotive term and we're already emoted thank you. As a >term of analysis descriptive of some existing reality it has no utility. > >^^^^^^ >CB; That's the point. We better start explaining to 25-year olds what >"fascism" means. > >It is as precise an analytical term as gets used around here. We even have >the precision of legal analysis to help us here. The U.S. is in violation of >the international law that was established due to the war crimes of fascism. >Can't get much more analytically precise than that in politics. > >^^^^^ > > >Recite to yourself the factors that made up the 20s,30s and 40s actually >existing fascism and then enumerate which of those factors exist in >today's complex of developing restrictions of rights and raw coercion. > >^^^^^ > >CB: OK > > Fascism arose in the period of imperialism , state-monopoly capitalism. It >was the open terrorist rule of the most reactionary, most chauvinist,most >racist sector of finance capital. Its foreign policy was conquest by modern >industrial strength war, particularly against a socialist nation. > >We are still in the era of imperialism, state-monopoly capitalism, though it >has developed some new features. Today, the U.S. is an imperialist, >state-monopoly capitalist state. It is in a twenty-five year trend of >increasing control and dominance by the most reactionary, most chauvinist, >most racist sector of finance capital. Its foreign policy, which has been >marked for decades by anti-communist war, continues in the same vein in its >15 year genocidal war on Iraq. > >The U.S. is especially menacing because it has means of destruction which >are qualitatively worse than anything fascist nations had. Particularly >ominous is its efforts to develop "Star Wars" technology , which would take >humanity another giant step toward extinguishing itself. > > >^^^^^^ > >The literature describing more accurately the present period is growing >rapidly. A list of 14 "symptoms" won't help - such a list is just plain >flabby and applies to a great many situations where authoritarian >regimes are acting that are not by any stretch helpfully characterized >as "fascist." > >^^^^^ >CB: The "literature" is problematically "scattered" by the participation of >right wingers, liberals, "totalitarian theorists" and the like. > >^^^^ > > >It's an exercise in defining a term by prescription. This >is a different kettle of fish, and any attempt to use that concept, by >analogy or otherwise, to deal with the array of forces and factions >coming into being now, to aid comprehension so as to be able to confront >the existing threat and to mobilize factions, interests and class forces >in ways that affect the course of events at all, is going to lead up >blind alleys and unnecessarily confuse things. > >Ralph > >^^^^^^ > >CB: Your speculation on this is not supported by any evidence. > >Use of the term "fascist" today is exactly important because it will clarify >things and warn people of the gravity of what is at stake. > > >
Carrol Cox wrote
the U.S. today is _exactly_ what Germany/Japan were in the 1930s -- _the_ most serious threat today to human well-being world wide. It is therefore crucial to make it clear to more and more people that the foreign policy (and _some_ of the domestic policies) of a bourgeois democracy can not just be similar to but identical with the foreign policy of Germany in the 1930s.
and
since the defining features of fascism are quite absent in the u.s. -- but _not_ the defining features of the traditional oppressive potential of bourgeois democracy or the defining features of a foreign policy that threatens all humans.
