Informed Comment
_Top Five Signs of Capitalist Dictatorship in the Romney Campaign_
(http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/juancole/ymbn/~3/7cJ8JPP1XsE/top-five-signs-of-capit
alist-dictatorship-in-the-romney-campaign.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_med
ium=email)
Posted: 31 Oct 2012 10:42 AM PDT
The mainstream media and even Democrats have been slow to call Mitt Romney’
s deliberate falsehoods “lies.” But after just calling them what they are,
it is also important to analyze their meaning. Lies on Romney’s scale do
not simply show contempt for the intelligence of American voters. They show
contempt for democracy, and display some of the features of capitalist
dictatorship of a sort that was common in the late twentieth century. Mohammad
Reza Pahlevi in Iran, Alfredo Stroessner in Paraguay, Park Hung Chee in
South Korea and P.W. Boetha in South Africa are examples of this form of
government. Capitalist dictatorship has declined around the world in favor of
capitalist parliamentarism, in part because of the rising power of middle and
working classes in the global South.
Capitalist dictatorship has many similarities to fascism, but differs from
it in lionizing not the workers of the nation but the entrepreneurs of the
nation. Fascism seeks a mixed economy, whereas capitalist dictatorship
privileges the corporate sector and attacks the non-military public sector.
But
both try to subsume class conflict under a hyper-nationalism. Both glorify
military strength and pick fights with other countries to whip up
nationalist fervor. Both disallow unions, collective bargaining and workers’
strikes. Both typically privilege one ethnic group within the nation, marking
it
as superior and setting up a racial hierarchy.
One big difference between capitalist democracy (as in contemporary Germany
and France) and capitalist dictatorship is the willingness of the business
classes to play by the rules of democratic elections, to allow a free,
fair and transparent contest, to acknowledge the rights of unions, and to
respect the universal franchise. Businessmen in such a society share a civic
ethic that sees these goods as necessary for a well ordered society, and
therefore as ultimately good for business. They may also be afraid of the
social disruptions (as in France) that would attend any attempt to whittle
away
workers’ rights. Attempts to limit the franchise, to ban unions, and to
manipulate the electorate with bald-faced lies are all signs of a barracuda
business class that secretly seeks its class interests above all others in
society, and which is not afraid of workers and middle classes because the
latter are apolitical, apathetic and disorganized.
Sound familiar?
1. Romney’s contempt for the democratic process is demonstrated in his
preference for the Big Lie. In order to scare workers in Toledo, Ohio, into
voting for him, he alleged that President Obama was arranging for Chrysler’s
Jeep production to be shifted to China. _Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne_
(http://www.mlive.com/auto/index.ssf/2012/10/full_text_chrysler_ceo_sergio.html
) sent an email to all employees refuting Romney: “I feel obliged to
unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the
United States to China…” He pointed out that Jeep production in the US has
tripled since 2009. Romney’s political ad containing this sheer falsehood,
is blanketing Ohio.
2. Romney backs Koch-brother-funded attempts to bust public unions, as in
Wisconsin, _even though that effort has run into trouble with Wisconsin
courts._
(http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-wires/20121022/us-wisconsin-unions/)
3. Romney supports Koch-brother-funded attempts to suppress voting,
typically through state legislatures requiring voter identification documents
at
polling booths. Such identification often costs money, so that it is a
stealth poll tax. It also requires, for non-drivers, a trip to a state office
and bureaucratic runarounds. Voter i.d. requirements hit the poor, Latinos,
African-Americans and urban people who use public transit hardest, i.e.,
mostly voters for the Democratic Party. In some states, _the courts are
questioning the laws_
(http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/31/1112101/11-court-decisions-in-8-states-blocked-or-weakened-new-voter-suppression-laws/?mobi
le=nc) . But in many states they are now entrenched. Limiting the
franchise was a key tactic for Apartheid South Africa’s government under
Boetha,
which was run as a capitalist dictatorship on behalf of the white Cape Town
business classes.
4. Romney’s devotion to increasing military spending and his rattling of
sabers at Russia, China, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (aren’t we up
to about half the world now?) are typical of the militarism of capitalist
dictatorship. His repeated pledges to defer to the wishes of the officer
corps with regard to whether to end the Afghanistan war suggests a certain
amount of Bonapartism, where the business classes bring in the generals to
make key decisions. The problem for small authoritarian business classes is
that they are in competition for resources with the much larger middle and
working classes and in a parliamentary system they risk being outvoted. In
order to suppress the latter’s claims on resources and deflect any tendency
to vote along class interests, the business classes in this system pose as
defenders of the nation, thus hiding class conflict and legitimating the
diversion of resources to arms manufacturers and other corporations.
Nationalism, militarism and war, along with voter suppression, can even the
playing
field for the rich.
5. The Romney campaign’s _remarks about “Anglo-Saxons” better
understanding_
(http://www.juancole.com/2012/07/romneyand-aryan-racial-theory-as-a-basis-for-foreign-policy.html)
allies like Britain, and its support for the
_racist Arizona immigration and profiling law_
(http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/article/Author-says-Arizona-s-extremist-views-come-3979083.php
) show a preference for racial hierarchy, with “Anglo-Saxons” at the
top. Again, many capitalist dictatorships privilege a dominant ethnicity, as
with Apartheid South Africa or discrimination against native Chileans by the
Pinochet regime in Chile. Fostering racism is a way of dividing and ruling
the middle and working classes, of binding a segment of them to the
dominant business classes.
Obviously, the Romney version is capitalist dictatorship lite. But its
strong resemblance to the full form of that sort of polity is highly
disturbing. While these tendencies have existed on the Republican Right for
some
time, the sheer level of contempt for democracy as demonstrated in the Big
Lies, the exaltation of war, the racial profiling, and the new extent of
attempts at voter suppression and union-busting all indicate a sharp veering
toward authoritarianism.
--
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