====================================================================== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. ======================================================================
My review of this excellent movie, which was based on Arno Mayer's "Persistence of the Old Regime", was crossposted to the House Next Door (http://www.slantmagazine.com/), a movie review/discussion blog of supreme taste and intelligence, where a review of the movie by Ben Livant appeared. Ben just posted this comment on my blog: New comment on your post #2811 "The White Ribbon" Author : Ben Livant Hello Louis Proyect. I thank you again for your recent post in response to my discussion of The White Ribbon, with Dan Jardine, at The House Next Door. I am responding exclusively to the review here and not to any of the commentary that has so far followed it, which I have not read. I speak not to the review's treatment of The White Ribbon, with which I fundamentally concur, nor with the review's analogous treatment of present US society and Nazi Germany, which I could only take along with a grain of salt. Precisely then, I am attending to the modernization theory underpinning the review. As I mentioned over at The House, I have not read Mayer so I am only able to address your presentation of the thesis that German fascism is to be explained in terms of the persistence of the old regime. I find your handling of the matter to be grounded in an historical materialist perspective that holds to a dichotomy between the feudal and the capitalist modes of production with corresponding polities just as clearly demarcated. Hence, as I understand it, the argument assumes that the development of liberalism is supposed to attend the emergence of capitalist relations of production; and what is but the inverted version of the same thesis, the "atrophy" of liberalism is necessarily a result of feudal vestiges adopted by the bourgeoisie, the very class that should be implementing liberalism. Now, I might object, in keeping with the tradition of E.P. Thompson, that this argument obliterates the agency of the working class, be it peasant or proletarian. But my intention here is instead to object to the assumption of liberalism necessarily attending capitalist relations of production in the first place. No doubt, there is something of a Whiggish strain in Marxism that might seem to lend credence to this notion. But this is a false lead in my estimation, based on an a priori development model rather than the history of actually existing capitalism. In my view, fascism needs to be explained less in terms of modernization theory and more in terms of the the systemic imperatives of capital accumulation grasped on a world scale. The necessity for uneven development exacted by way of monopoly capitalist imperialist international relations is itself at least partly and perhaps fundamentally explained as the necessity for variegated labour markets distinguished by gross wage differentials. As with any markets, these do not spring up naturally. They have to be politically forged. And relatively liberal and relatively illiberal or authoritarian forging corresponds to concrete historical and geographic circumstances. As a rule of thumb, though, fascism should be categorized as the "highest stage" response to accumulation rates in decline, or perceived to be in decline by the ruling strata of the bourgeoisie. On this score, it is not the persistence of the old regime. It is the prerogative of the new one. Having offered this, I wish to acknowledge that my approach is formulated on a different plane of abstraction than that of the historian focused on particularities down on the ground, in this case, those of Germany. On the other hand, Marxism demands that these specifics be brought into and informed by the critique of political economy conducted at a higher level of generality. This is to propose - again without having actually read Mayer - his thesis may be more of a culturalist description than a structural explanation, his class analytical priority notwithstanding. Or I could be full of shit. I wish you well Louis Proyect. I am encouraged by your unrepentant stance. I am a red diaper baby who took my late father's unrepentant Marxism for granted. Now that he's gone, well, I am pleased to meet you sir. Then - Ben You can see all comments on this post here: http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/the-white-ribbon/#comments ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
