[Marxism] Return Of The Renters

["Jeff Rubard" <jeffrubard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Message: 2
> Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 19:00:42 -0500
> From: "jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Marxism] Kovel, Greens, ultra-right/fascist danger
> To: MARXISM LIST <marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Message-ID: <BC1235DA.2E38%jacdon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1"
>
>>From Jack A. Smith
>
> There is no political need to mount a united front of left and bourgeois
> elements against fascism in the 2004 elections ? particularly one
> subordinate to the Democratic Party ? because there is no fascist threat
> at
> this time.
>
> The objective conditions simply do not exist: The capitalist ruling class
> does not fear imminent displacement by the revolutionary left, the U.S.
> economy is not on the verge of collapse, intra-capitalist rivalries are
> not
> about to overthrow Washington's leadership, and fascism has no significant
> social base in our country. All of this could happen some day, but it is
> not
> today's reality.
>
Unfortunately this is not really true (although it is a marvelous thing to
say for purposes of "legimation crises", such as the US has been in since
Bush's election "victory" -- the conditions exist for a full "return to
normalcy" vis-a-vis the legitimacy and limited purview of the US
government), but one has to travel a bit beyond a nation-oriented mindset
to see why.  The Bush administration is venal and corrupt, kicking all
kinds of bennies out to corporate friends and trying out all kinds of
authoritarian "appeals" to ordinary Americans; but a serious danger of
*fascistic social processes*, such as does exist, is posed not by them but
actually by a social formation of indeterminate-"left" political
orientation (the "New Class").

Raised outside behavioral and attitudinal constraints imposed by the
social totality, younger members of the New Class have developed attitudes
akin to Italian fascism or the *Freikorps* (a "realistic understanding" of
power politics, an indistinct but "hyper-blase" attitude to exploitation,
aesthetic modernism "in high style", hostility not to collectives but to
such discipline as permits an organization to have a truly democratic
character); and such attitudes are producing an explosive mixture when
combined with the "hyper-competitive" (i.e., metastatic) character of the
contemporary corporation's profit motive, creating dynamics perhaps not
unlike the street battles of early Weimar ("no unions" -- hah, hah) but
modulated further into social normality.  In other words, if you go
looking for fascists at top levels in the US you will never find any (Huey
Long was right), but if you "study" street corner life as an
"undifferentiated" member of the far left you'll see things you almost
can't believe are even appealing to any Americans happen.

Jeff Rubard


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