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 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.
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. 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
allies like Britain, and its support for the racist
Arizona immigration and profiling law
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.
