Class character of racist organizations (was: Forwarded from Anthony (on Peron))

["Workers World, Chicago Bureau" <wwchi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

-----Original Message-----
From: red-rebel <red-rebel@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Forwarded from Anthony (on Peron)
>
>
>> Hi Lou
>> Fascism - and all of its varieties - are mass
>> movements of the petty bourgesoisie mobilized against
>> the working class.

>This is WAY too simplistic. Modern (post-war), European fascism has been a
>very much working-class affair. For example, in the UK the BNP are getting
>nearly ALL their support in working-class areas. ...  It is,
>sad to say, the Left that has become a "movement of the petty-bourgoisie".
>
>James Tait


Now wait a minute!  The business of determining the 'class character' of an
institution or movement is not merely a matter of counting voters,
participants, etc., and determining what class they individually belong to
or come from.

By that standard, the Democratic Party in the U.S. would be a working-class
party.  And for that matter the United States Army would be a working-class
institution - it recruits from the working class, after all.

"Class character" is a much more complex and dialectically determined
concept.  It has to do with not just who it tries to recruit (since the vast
majority of the population is working-class in a modern industrial country,
it follows that ANY movement is likely to try to recruit among the working
class).  It has to do with the ends of the movement, and its leadership, and
also - if this doesn't sound too obscure - with the "way" in which it tries
to organize, the general philosophy that it tries to use, the emotions that
it tries to arouse.

Here is what I mean by that, more or less.  A trade union is a working-class
organization.   It organizes workers "as distinct" from the capitalist.  It
organizes them to engage in conflict with the capitalist, to assert their
rights against the capitalist, and to obtain more of the product of their
own labor.  It has a philosophy of unity; it arouses emotions of unity, of
fellow-feeling against the more powerful, more privileged, wealthier enemy;
the sense is, "we have little; let us try and obtain more from those who
have more."  It arouses defiance toward the strong.  These are the things
that make it a working-class organization, not just the mere fact that all
of its members happen to be automobile workers or farm workers or restaurant
workers (as if it were a bowling or football league).

Now, it's true that racist and fascist organizations (I am not going to get
into the question of whether there are non-fascist racist organizations)
organize among workers.  But they organize among privileged strata of the
workers.  They organize them to combat, not the capitalist, but more
oppressed workers.  They have a philosophy of unity and fellow-feeling
against the LESS powerful and the poorer, who are portrayed as contemptible.
They arouse disgust, fear, and hatred towards the weak.  Their sense is, "we
have something; let us keep those who have nothing from taking it away from
us."  Now, THIS is an attitude which is typically petty-bourgeois!  So what
I am saying is: racist and fascist organizations can organize workers, but
when they do, they organize them on petty-bourgeois principles.  They use
all those attitudes by which workers from privileged groups are encouraged
to think of themselves the same way that petty-bourgeois think of
themselves.  Where the small shopkeeper says, "I have my shop, and I will
defend it," the racist white worker is encouraged to say, "I have the
privileges of my white skin, and I will defend them."  It is essentially
human capital theory!

For several years I worked for a railroad; there were a great many very
senior white male workers who were extremely racist.  And interestingly
enough, they were also petty-bourgeois!  I don't mean just that they had
petty-bourgeois attitudes.  I mean that they had used their savings to buy
shops!  This, to them, was the American dream.  These were people who
thought of themselves as little "bourgeois born into workers' bodies."
Perhaps it's not coincidence (going to the realm of culture) that Archie
Bunker, the "racist worker" on the U.S. television show "All in the Family",
eventually fulfilled his version of the American dream by quitting his job
on the loading dock, mortgaging his house, and buying a saloon.

But going back to fascism: for years we have talked about fascism as being a
movement which mobilizes the petty-bourgeoisie to crush the workers.  I
personally think it's more accurate to say that it's a movement of
petty-bourgeois class character which mobilizes from among the masses to
crush the workers.  Fascists don't refuse to recruit workers; they will
recruit as many as they can get.  If, however, the working-class parties are
strong, they will be less successful among the working-class and will have
to concentrate on the petty-bourgeoisie.  But where working-class
organization is weak, as in the U.S., AND in England (I don't think that
Tony Blair's vote totals make him an example of 'working-class
organization' ), fascists are free to graze among the working class elements
which are sick with the infection of bourgeois ideology.

Lou Paulsen