Fascism by any other name …
First let us state our definition of fascism. It is,
put briefly, a system of social organization in which the political state is a
dictatorship supported by a political elite and in which the economic society
is an autarchic capitalism, enclosed and planned, in which the government
assumes responsibility for creating adequate purchasing power through the
instrumentality of national debt and in which militarism is adopted as a great
economic project for creating work as well as a great romantic project in the
service of the imperialist state.
Broken down, it includes these devices:
1. A government
whose powers are unrestrained.
2. A leader who is
a dictator, absolute in power but responsible to the party which is a preferred
elite.
3. An economic
system in which production and distribution are carried on by private owners but
in accordance with plans made by the state directly or under its immediate
supervision.
4. These plans
involve control of all the instruments of production and distribution through
great government bureaus which have the power to make regulations or directives
with the force of law.
5. They involve
also the comprehensive integration of government and private finances, under
which investment is directed and regimented by the government, so that while
ownership is private and production is carried on by private owners there is a
type of socialization of investment, of the financial aspects of production. By
this means the state, which by law and by regulation can exercise a powerful
control over industry, can enormously expand and complete that control by assuming
the role of banker and partner.
6. They involve
also the device of creating streams of purchasing power by federal government
borrowing and spending as a permanent institution.
7. As a necessary
consequence of all this, militarism becomes an inevitable part of the system
since it provides the easiest means of draining great numbers annually from the
labor market and of creating a tremendous industry for the production of arms
for defense, which industry is supported wholly by government borrowing and
spending.
8. Imperialism
becomes an essential element of such a system where that is possible —
particularly in the strong states, since the whole fascist system, despite its
promises of abundance, necessitates great financial and personal sacrifices,
which people cannot be induced to make in the interest of the ordinary
objectives of civil life and which they will submit to only when they are
presented with some national crusade or adventure on the heroic model touching
deeply the springs of chauvinistic pride, interest, and feeling.
In the light of all this we can see how far afield we
can be led by those who seek for the roots of fascism by snooping around among
those futile crackpot or deliberately subversive groups which flourish feebly
under the leadership of various small-bore führers. Some of these groups are
outright anti-American like the Bundists. Such an organization had nothing to
do and can have nothing to do with introducing a new system of society into
America. Its object was to assist Hitler in so far as it could in his war aims
here. It was an enemy organization — and an incredibly foolish one.
Then there are various groups that are just
anticommunist or anticommunist and anti-Semitic, confusing two things as one,
like the Christian Fronters, numbering a few hundred nonentities. There are
others that are little different from those old exclusion movements — the Know
Nothings, the A.P.A., the Klan — directing their fire against some racial or
religious group. They are thoroughly evil things, but they have little and in
most cases nothing to do with the introduction of fascism in America. Most of
them have no more notion of the content of fascism than the gentlemen who write
books about them.
It is assumed that because the Nazi movement in
Germany and the fascist movement in Italy began with small groups of nobodies
led by unimportant people, fascism will come in the same way here. It is, of
course, possible that the great American fascism may rise thus. We have but to
see the flowering of the Ham and Eggs crusade in California[1] and the Townsend movement everywhere[2] to realize the possibilities of a powerful
movement organized by unimportant leaders.
But when fascism comes it will not be in the form of
an anti-American movement or pro-Hitler bund, practicing disloyalty. Nor will
it come in the form of a crusade against war. It will appear rather in the
luminous robes of flaming patriotism; it will take some genuinely indigenous
shape and color, and it will spread only because its leaders, who are not yet
visible, will know how to locate the great springs of public opinion and desire
and the streams of thought that flow from them and will know how to attract to
their banners leaders who can command the support of the controlling minorities
in American public life. The danger lies not so much in the would-be führers
who may arise, but in the presence in our midst of certain deeply running
currents of hope and appetite and opinion. The war upon fascism must be begun
there.
There is one other phenomenon that has appeared which
seems to contain some danger of infection. The war has brought us allies. One
of them is Russia. And already we have seen how our friendly collaboration in
the war enterprise has led to a good deal of nonsense about the Russian
government. We are willing to believe that it is no longer antireligious. There
is a notable mitigation of the severity with which we appraised communism and
the tolerance with which we have forgiven the purges and brutalities of the
Soviet regime.
But we also have fascist allies. And not only do we
look with indulgence upon their policies because they are our allies but also
because instead of being aggressors they are victims of bigger and more
powerful fascists. Thus we had a fascist regime in Austria under Dollfuss and
later under Schuschnigg. The dictator Dollfuss[3] was pursued by the dictator Hitler but he was
the close friend and collaborator of the dictator Mussolini. He had his own
record of suppressions, notably that dreadful cannonading of the workers' homes
in Vienna. But all this is forgiven and overlooked when Hitler's assassins
murder him.
Similarly we overlook the fascist structure of
Schuschnigg[4] because Schuschnigg was a profoundly religious
man and because he, too, was kidnapped and spirited away by the irreligious
Hitler. But Austria was a fascist country. There is no doubt about the fact
that Schuschnigg was an honest man, a true patriot prepared to sacrifice
himself for Austria, and that he was, in addition, a man of deep and genuine
religious nature. All of which warns us once again that we must not make the
mistake of supposing that the several ingredients of fascism, taken separately,
are evil, and that only evil men espouse this new order.
The same can be said for Portugal where the dictator,
Salazar,[5] is a man utterly without the offensive personal
characteristics of either Mussolini or Hitler; no ranting, posturing, saber
rattling, no pageantry. On the contrary, he is an aesthete, living a life of
frugality, a devout Catholic, his office wall adorned with but a single
ornament, the crucifix of Christ, at whose feet he is a humble worshiper. The
fascist regime of Portugal is a curiosity among the fascist orders of Europe.
Its admirers, of which there are great numbers in this country and Europe, like
to call it a "Christian Corporativism." This it is, modeled on the
old medieval guild form of government so much admired and earnestly urged upon
Britain and America by some of her most devout socialist and other leaders,
such as Hobson and Cole. The case of Portugal is, however, a very special one,
molded by peculiar conditions and saved now by the war and Portugal's alliance
with England.
Greece conformed more nearly to the standard pattern
of fascist countries, yet because Greece was so cruelly assaulted by Mussolini
and made so glorious a defense and because she is now our ally, we do not think
of her as essentially wicked because she is fascist. Metaxas,[6] warrior and admirer of the German military
system, mounted his cannon in the streets of Athens, liquidated the parliament
and the constitution, banished his opponents, branded all opposition as
communist, and set himself up as dictator. He put an end to freedom of the
press, told editors they "must follow him like soldiers in battle, never
consulting, criticizing, or exchanging opinions with him." He instituted a
ruthless regimentation of ideas in the schools and told university professors:
"I cannot allow any one of you to have ideas different from those of the
state."
He went into power without any program. He made vague
promises of the good life, told the Greeks he was "the first peasant and
the first artisan" of Greece, went through all the standard welfare
measures, minimum wages, eight-hour laws, pensions, free medical services,
etc., accompanied by all the well-known fascist techniques of regimentation.
And of course he spent money that he borrowed and made the army the greatest
project of all, telling the people that "their turn will come
someday."
Many of these dictators had their purges — Kemal
Pasha,[7] for instance, to whom we now refer with
admiration as "that great man," yet who, when his old colleagues
seemed to be getting a little out of hand, had them strung up by the dozens and
gave a great ball the night they were being bumped off.
What I am driving at is that we are in a way of doing
for fascism what we began to do for the trusts in the early 1900s. We began to
talk about "bad trusts" and "good trusts." Now we are
coming around to recognizing "bad fascism" and "good
fascism." A bad fascism is a fascist regime that is against us in the war.
A good fascist regime is one that is on our side. Or to repeat what I have
already said, a bad fascist regime is one that makes war upon its neighbors and
persecutes the Jews; a good fascist regime is one that is jumped on by some
stronger fascism and does not alter the long-standing attitude of the country
toward either Jews or Christians. And from this beginning there are plenty of
Americans who have descanted at length upon the magnificent achievements of
Mussolini and the better side of the German regime.[8] And so we flirt a little with the idea that
perhaps fascism might be set up without these degrading features, that even if
there is to be totalitarian government it is to be just a teeny-weeny bit
totalitarian and only a teeny bit militarist and imperialist only on the side
of God and democracy.
Editor's Notes
The
deteriorating economic conditions of the Great Depression and the concentration
of frustrated elderly voters in Southern California were the fuel for an array
of political movements pushing for increased pensions. The most exotic of these
was probably the Ham and Eggs movement. [...] The Ham and Eggers collected
enough signatures to put their plan on the California ballot as Proposition 25
in November 1938. Under the plan, based on an idea of Irving Fisher, anyone
qualified to vote in California and aged fifty or older without a job would
receive $30 of "warrants" every week. Each $1 warrant would require a
two-cent tax paid weekly to keep the note valid until redeemed. The warrants
would be legal tender for payment of state taxes. The idea was that to avoid
paying the weekly tax on the money, people would spend it immediately, thus
boosting the economy.
[2] According to Wikipedia: "Dr.
Francis Everett Townsend (January 13, 1867–September 1, 1960) was an American
physician who was best known for his revolving old-age pension proposal during
the Great Depression. Known as the 'Townsend Plan,' this proposal influenced
the establishment of the Roosevelt administration's Social Security
system."
[3] In "The Meaning of the Mises
Papers," Hans-Hermann Hoppe writes, "During this
period Mises was chief economist for the Austrian Chamber of Commerce. Before
Dollfuss was murdered for his politics, Mises was one of his closest
advisers."
Why was Austria's eminent free-market liberal advising
a militant interventionist? In "The Cultural Background of Ludwig von
Mises" (PDF), Erik Ritter
von Kuehnelt-Leddihn offers this explanation:
Given the
opposition Mises encountered at the university, he looked for steady employment
in the Handelskammer, the semi-official Chamber of Commerce.
After 1920, the Austrian government was mostly in the hands of the Christian
Social Party, a Clerical–Conservative party, which eventually fathered the
dictatorship of Dollfuss and his Patriotic Front. This party had to fight the
international socialists, and, later, the National Socialists. Mises, as an
agnostic and a genuine Liberal, had no innate enthusiasm for the Christian
Socials, but, judging Austria's precarious situation dispassionately, knew that
a decent, responsible man had to collaborate with that government.
[4] "Kurt von Schuschnigg became Chancellor
following Dollfuss' death, continuing to rule in the same authoritarian manner
as his deceased predecessor." Richard M. Ebeling, "The Economist as
the Historian of Decline: Ludwig von Mises and Austria Between the Two World
Wars" (PDF).
[5] From Wikipedia: "António
de Oliveira Salazar (April 28, 1889—July 27, 1970) was the President of the
Council of Ministers of Portugal (Prime Minister) and the de facto dictator of
the Portuguese Republic from 1932 to 1968. He was the founder and leader of the
Estado Novo (literally, New State), the authoritarian right-wing regime that
presided and controlled Portugal's social, economic, cultural and political
life from 1933 to 1974."
[6] From Wikipedia: "Ioannis
Metaxas (Greek Ιωαννης Μεταξας, April 12, 1871–January 29, 1941) was a Greek General
and the Prime Minister of Greece from 1936 until his death in 1941."
[7] Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (1881–1938) was the
founder and the first President of the Republic of Turkey. SeeWikipedia.
No comments:
Post a Comment