Liberal Fascism? Never heard of it, can't be true
Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism has drawn the ire of both the Crooked Timber and the Sadly, No gangs, as well as many other left-leaning reviewers. Their refutations consist mainly of calling Goldberg a stupid fascist; the general approach is to assume he's obviously wrong, beneath answer, and therefore only to be mocked. I have yet to find one who takes on Goldberg's actual arguments, much less his strongest arguments.
No matter the quality of Jonah's book, the bottom line is that there is no meaningful separation between fascism, broadly understood, and historical progressivism, broadly understood [1]. Both are rooted in the desire to use the state as the primary if not sole institution for improving the common good. How many assumptions are rolled into that worldview? A common understanding of and agreement to "the common good"; the agreement that "rugged individualists" (classical or neoclassical liberalism) are the enemy; that it is both possible and desirable to standardize production, employment, organization, goals, means, thought, and culture (a return to the security and surety of the Middle Ages, when the Church provided the centralization); a belief that the state, no matter how intrusive, is either benign or decidedly beneficial, but only when it is in the proper hands (and those are easily identified by party affiliation); that progress only comes as a result of intentional design, forcefully implemented (e.g. you don't use incentives to reduce pollution to acceptable levels, you simply ban it and introduce very harsh sentences for transgressors). There are also the non-assumptions: the means by which the state achieves these goals are non-controversial, never to be mentioned, "police state" is a term reserved for the means only when the opposition is in control.
I haven't read Goldberg's book, but I still find it remarkable that the Progressives can not reflect on their own views of how governments -- such as the present Bush Administration -- try to frame their policies and consider how the early to mid 20th century was no different. Yes, Iraq was our ally while we were fighting a proxy war against the Iranians, and likewise the Talibani and al Qaeda troops in a proxy war against the Soviet Union. When the focus of those efforts shifted, so did the rhetoric of the executive branch.
Likewise, Germany was the most socialist state in all of Europe when the Nazis started winning elections [1]. They didn't run on a "Repeal Socialism" platform because it never would have gotten off the starting line. They ran on a "Get the foreigners off our backs" platform, but retained every bit of the socialist central planning tendency that by that time was ingrained in every German. One need only look at the 1920 platform, which includes elements of land redistribution, social welfare, abolition of rent and usury, nationalization of trusts, pension expansion, and free education along with all of the anti-semitic and racist nonsense. Hitler liked to think of his theory as a third way, charting a course between English liberalism (which he called "international finance" or "Manchesterism") and bolshevik communism; he considered both to be of Jewish origin.
Prior to Hitler's ascension, Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini had come to power. The dominant view in the US at that time was not that these were evil regimes, but that they were experimenting with new forms. The real watershed moment in the 20th century came not in the Depression or WWII, but during World War I. The socialists approved war funding in Germany, causing Lenin and Mussolini to declare the International to be dead. The US started experimenting with industrial planning boards, Mussolini (one of if not the leading socialist in Italy) began to question whether the internationalist plank in the socialist platform was worth keeping, and Lenin took advantage of the chaos in Russia to assume power. A few years later, Mussolini took advantage of chaos in Italy (much of which he created) to seize power and build his variant of socialism; he and Lenin were mutual admirers. Fascism is named for the fascio, a symbol of both power and unity; in this case, unity of Italian workers, who Mussolini would lead through the necessary capitalist stage that was required to precede the socialist stage. Soon thereafter, in the wake of the post-war, reparation-fueled inflation and in the midst of the world-wide depression, Hitler came to power with promises of restoring pay and prestige to artisans and small farmers. Both of these models - Italian corporatives and German autarky - were the new way forward, along with the experience with industrial planning, which Roosevelt drew on to create the National Recovery Administration. Free markets -- "Manchesterism" -- were out, and state cartelization was in.
The exchange between the Europeans and Americans was not one way, nor was it limited to the corporative. The dominant theme in American politics at that time was Progressivism, underpinned by Taylor's Scientific Management. This was a direct offshoot of both large, finance capitalist enterprises, and the scientism of Comte. It came to infect America at large when Louis Brandeis brought Harrington Emerson to the stand in the 1910 Eastern Rate Cases. They argued that rate increases were not necessary, that more scientific planning could improve the efficiency and therefore profitability of the railroads. It touched off the Efficiency and Technocracy movements. The intellectual leaders of these movements -- Taylor, Emerson, Gilbreth, Brandeis, Croly -- became cultural as well as political icons. Gilbreth's biography even led to a popular movie, Cheaper By The Dozen. Lenin, thrashing around for an organizing principle, adopted Scientific Management as the basis for Soviet planning and control. Yes Virginia, the organizing principle behind GM was the same as the organizing principle behind the Soviet Union.
It was only in the dynamics of World War II that Italy and Germany became the enemy -- and then only after they broke the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact! It is only in the undynamic, one-dimensional model of left-right politics that they an be viewed as anti-progressivist. Yes, Hitler was against liberalism, but he was against liberalism in its classical meaning. Yes, Mussolini's Black Shirts fought against the socialists, but only because he wanted to accelerate the revolution and take their power, not to deny their ideas. It is naive to reason that since Americans were fighting against Hitler, his ideas were opposite Roosevelt's; that since Hitler was fighting Stalin, then their theories were polar opposites; that since Mussolini joined Hitler, their theories were identical and diametrically opposed to socialism. Even the Progressives today draw parallels between Bush and Husseini policies, yet they fail to recognize that political opponents in the present might not have been ideological opponents in the past [3]. The world is much more complex than that: it is said that special hatred is reserved for the heretic, not the pagan, and this is no less true for the political alignments and propaganda campaigns of World War II than it was in pre-Renaissance Europe.
But no, it's easier to say "Hitler started a war and killed Jews and is generally regarded as evil, and Hitler fought against the communists, and communists are leftists, therefore Hitler was a right-winger, and laissez faire capitalists also are against communists, therefore the more capitalist you are, the more right-wing you are, and therefore the more like Hitler you are." It's a neat syllogism that simultaneously affirms your morality and confirms the immorality of anyone who doesn't embrace your assumptions of state benevolence and planner omniscience. And it threatens the use of this syllogism to call into question its premises.
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[1] By "broadly understood", I mean that it doesn't enlighten anyone to define fascism as, "an ideology opposed to progressivism," and vice-versa. The conclusions are assumed by such a definition.
[2] I doubt anyone wants to argue that the Soviet Union was more socialist, but I will concede that point if made and would include the qualifier, "democratic", to "state".
[3] Incidentally, Saddam is popularly considered to be right wing and fascist. However, Saddam was a member of the Baathist party. Baathists are socialists who are against foreign intervention. It stems from pan-Arabism. What party had its roots in pan-Germanism, stood against foreign intervention, broadly adopted socialist principles, but fought against Marxist-bolshevist socialists?
No matter the quality of Jonah's book, the bottom line is that there is no meaningful separation between fascism, broadly understood, and historical progressivism, broadly understood [1]. Both are rooted in the desire to use the state as the primary if not sole institution for improving the common good. How many assumptions are rolled into that worldview? A common understanding of and agreement to "the common good"; the agreement that "rugged individualists" (classical or neoclassical liberalism) are the enemy; that it is both possible and desirable to standardize production, employment, organization, goals, means, thought, and culture (a return to the security and surety of the Middle Ages, when the Church provided the centralization); a belief that the state, no matter how intrusive, is either benign or decidedly beneficial, but only when it is in the proper hands (and those are easily identified by party affiliation); that progress only comes as a result of intentional design, forcefully implemented (e.g. you don't use incentives to reduce pollution to acceptable levels, you simply ban it and introduce very harsh sentences for transgressors). There are also the non-assumptions: the means by which the state achieves these goals are non-controversial, never to be mentioned, "police state" is a term reserved for the means only when the opposition is in control.
I haven't read Goldberg's book, but I still find it remarkable that the Progressives can not reflect on their own views of how governments -- such as the present Bush Administration -- try to frame their policies and consider how the early to mid 20th century was no different. Yes, Iraq was our ally while we were fighting a proxy war against the Iranians, and likewise the Talibani and al Qaeda troops in a proxy war against the Soviet Union. When the focus of those efforts shifted, so did the rhetoric of the executive branch.
Likewise, Germany was the most socialist state in all of Europe when the Nazis started winning elections [1]. They didn't run on a "Repeal Socialism" platform because it never would have gotten off the starting line. They ran on a "Get the foreigners off our backs" platform, but retained every bit of the socialist central planning tendency that by that time was ingrained in every German. One need only look at the 1920 platform, which includes elements of land redistribution, social welfare, abolition of rent and usury, nationalization of trusts, pension expansion, and free education along with all of the anti-semitic and racist nonsense. Hitler liked to think of his theory as a third way, charting a course between English liberalism (which he called "international finance" or "Manchesterism") and bolshevik communism; he considered both to be of Jewish origin.
Prior to Hitler's ascension, Lenin, Stalin, and Mussolini had come to power. The dominant view in the US at that time was not that these were evil regimes, but that they were experimenting with new forms. The real watershed moment in the 20th century came not in the Depression or WWII, but during World War I. The socialists approved war funding in Germany, causing Lenin and Mussolini to declare the International to be dead. The US started experimenting with industrial planning boards, Mussolini (one of if not the leading socialist in Italy) began to question whether the internationalist plank in the socialist platform was worth keeping, and Lenin took advantage of the chaos in Russia to assume power. A few years later, Mussolini took advantage of chaos in Italy (much of which he created) to seize power and build his variant of socialism; he and Lenin were mutual admirers. Fascism is named for the fascio, a symbol of both power and unity; in this case, unity of Italian workers, who Mussolini would lead through the necessary capitalist stage that was required to precede the socialist stage. Soon thereafter, in the wake of the post-war, reparation-fueled inflation and in the midst of the world-wide depression, Hitler came to power with promises of restoring pay and prestige to artisans and small farmers. Both of these models - Italian corporatives and German autarky - were the new way forward, along with the experience with industrial planning, which Roosevelt drew on to create the National Recovery Administration. Free markets -- "Manchesterism" -- were out, and state cartelization was in.
The exchange between the Europeans and Americans was not one way, nor was it limited to the corporative. The dominant theme in American politics at that time was Progressivism, underpinned by Taylor's Scientific Management. This was a direct offshoot of both large, finance capitalist enterprises, and the scientism of Comte. It came to infect America at large when Louis Brandeis brought Harrington Emerson to the stand in the 1910 Eastern Rate Cases. They argued that rate increases were not necessary, that more scientific planning could improve the efficiency and therefore profitability of the railroads. It touched off the Efficiency and Technocracy movements. The intellectual leaders of these movements -- Taylor, Emerson, Gilbreth, Brandeis, Croly -- became cultural as well as political icons. Gilbreth's biography even led to a popular movie, Cheaper By The Dozen. Lenin, thrashing around for an organizing principle, adopted Scientific Management as the basis for Soviet planning and control. Yes Virginia, the organizing principle behind GM was the same as the organizing principle behind the Soviet Union.
It was only in the dynamics of World War II that Italy and Germany became the enemy -- and then only after they broke the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact! It is only in the undynamic, one-dimensional model of left-right politics that they an be viewed as anti-progressivist. Yes, Hitler was against liberalism, but he was against liberalism in its classical meaning. Yes, Mussolini's Black Shirts fought against the socialists, but only because he wanted to accelerate the revolution and take their power, not to deny their ideas. It is naive to reason that since Americans were fighting against Hitler, his ideas were opposite Roosevelt's; that since Hitler was fighting Stalin, then their theories were polar opposites; that since Mussolini joined Hitler, their theories were identical and diametrically opposed to socialism. Even the Progressives today draw parallels between Bush and Husseini policies, yet they fail to recognize that political opponents in the present might not have been ideological opponents in the past [3]. The world is much more complex than that: it is said that special hatred is reserved for the heretic, not the pagan, and this is no less true for the political alignments and propaganda campaigns of World War II than it was in pre-Renaissance Europe.
But no, it's easier to say "Hitler started a war and killed Jews and is generally regarded as evil, and Hitler fought against the communists, and communists are leftists, therefore Hitler was a right-winger, and laissez faire capitalists also are against communists, therefore the more capitalist you are, the more right-wing you are, and therefore the more like Hitler you are." It's a neat syllogism that simultaneously affirms your morality and confirms the immorality of anyone who doesn't embrace your assumptions of state benevolence and planner omniscience. And it threatens the use of this syllogism to call into question its premises.
-------------------------------------------------
[1] By "broadly understood", I mean that it doesn't enlighten anyone to define fascism as, "an ideology opposed to progressivism," and vice-versa. The conclusions are assumed by such a definition.
[2] I doubt anyone wants to argue that the Soviet Union was more socialist, but I will concede that point if made and would include the qualifier, "democratic", to "state".
[3] Incidentally, Saddam is popularly considered to be right wing and fascist. However, Saddam was a member of the Baathist party. Baathists are socialists who are against foreign intervention. It stems from pan-Arabism. What party had its roots in pan-Germanism, stood against foreign intervention, broadly adopted socialist principles, but fought against Marxist-bolshevist socialists?
Labels: history, police-state, socialism
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