[PEN-L:11529] Re: Re: overblown rhetoric

[Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim:

Thanks for your response.  OK, some of my arguments were put rather hastily,
but I think we differ on substantive issues as well.  I'll try to address
them by referring to the specific points you made (rather than quiting them
verbatim) for the sake of bervity.

1.  Nazism.

I think we have different ideas of what the Nazi movement was.  I do not
think that grassroots populism was an essence or even an important part of
it.  I understand that some writers try to make an argument for the populist
character of the Nazi movement -- this can be tracked down, as you correctly
pointed out, to the collective Freudian psychology (cf. _The Authoritarian
Personality_ by Adorno et al.), but there are more recent versions.  While
the Adorno study of the psychological aspects of Nazism that gave birth to
the F-scale points out to an important aspect of the phenomonos -- namely it
explains why certain people are susceptible to Nazi-style (right-wing in
general) propaganda -- it misses altogether the social, political and
economic roots of Nazi regimes.

A good analysis of the class origins of the Nazi regimes can be found in
Barrington Moore, _The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy_ and
more recently in Rueschemeyer, Stephens & Stephens, _Capitalist Development
and Democracy_ -- both sources argue that fascism originated in the alliance
of industrial bourgeoisie and agrarian aristocracy against the challnege
form the working class, and that alliance being able to control the state
apparatus to suppres the growing labour movement.

Clearly, we have a similar situation in the US with one important
difference, the level of centralisation (much lower in the US) -- which I
will address in a moment.  The crucial role of the state apparatus in
implementing the Nazi "social engineering" programs (i.e. the "final
solution" would not be possible without a highly efficient buraucratic
machine, just think about the logistic of assembling 6 million people across
Europe, transporting them by rail to places like Auschwitz, Treblinka, or
Sobibor (remember that most of those places were in Eastern Europe that had
a very poorly developed rail system and one had to be built to accomplish
the task), building the effcient killing devices (such as gas chambers, both
mobile using diesel fumes directed inside a truck used to transport the
prisoners, so they arrived to their destination already gassed, and
stationary that resembled bathrooms, except that pipes delivered Zyklon B
instead of water, then is the problem of disposing of the bodies, they do
not burn by themselves, a special high-turnover furnace must be built to
that end.

The bottom line is that all those engineering "marvels" cannot be thought of
as the work of a right-wing mob with shotguns a la militias.  These guys
could smash some windows or beat up or kill a few bystanders -- but not to
organize an efficent extermination apparatus.  That requires a state or a
corporate bureaucracy (that point is made quite effectively by Richard
Rubenstein in his short book _The Cunning of History_).

In your posting, you also comment that the efficiency of the Nazi machine
was coming largely from its ability to dump externalities on someone else.
I always thought that this is a dirty secret of capitalist "efficiency" in
general -- sweeping the costs under the rug, dumping them on the public
sector (i.e taxpayers), the poor, or Third World countries. Are you trying
to tell me that it ain't so?

2. The centralisation of the state.

I admit that this argument was not very clearly stated in my previous
posting, and apologize for that.  In essence what I am arguing here is that
bigotry intolereance, pogroms, ethnic cleansing and kindred _acts_ of
suppression or extermination of some minority groups are not natural
phenomena (please distinguish them from mere stereotyping). They are
'socially constructed' (pardon my sociological jargon) meaning that they
depned on: (i) the existence of socialization mechanisms that instill the
set of values conducive to such actions and, more importantly (ii) the
xistence of mobilisation mechanims that make the collective action in
question possible.  Withour the latter, no pogrom, no ethnic cleansing is
possible.

The mobilisation fuch such actions (at least in the Occidental context) was
ususally accomplished through organised religion and its appendages --
membership assciations.. They both instilled the "right" set of values (the
hatred of the 'infidels') and the mobilisation mechanism for action, when
such action became 'necessary' (e.g. to divert popular discontent form the
elite to a 'safe' scapegoat).

What I am arguing is that because of different trajectiories of nation
building in Europe and the US, that involved different
state-religion-(not-so)civil-society relations, the bigotry, intolerance and
pogroms were promoted by different agents in Eurpe than in the US.

The nation-building in Europe usually involved a conflict between the Church
and the State, and during the consolidation of the state power, numerous
Church erected institutions (from monsatic orders to membership
associations) were dissolved suppressed, or expropriated. In addtion,
education had to be wrestled out the hands of the church before it could be
trasfered to the state.  This, I argue, prevented the religious and
membership associations from acting as conduits for mobilising for action --
be it resistance to the state authority or or an ethnic cleansing campaign.

The situation was much different in the US however, where the federal
government was relatively weak, and where religion, religion-based
associations, and membership associations played a major role in both
socialising and mobilising for action (there is tons of literature showing
that, starting from the famous _Democracy in America_ by Alexis de
Tocqueville; more recently, Theda Skocpol in her _Protecting Soldiers and
Mothers_ and _Social Policy in the United States_ argues that the early
social welfare policy that emerged immediately the Civil War resuolted from
two factors, the dectral character of the US political ionstitutions, and
the political clout of special intersts groups and their associations.

In that context, organised religion could play its usual role of promoting
bigotry and serving as a conduit for organising people for action
(incidentally religion also played the opposite role, cf. in organising the
undergorund railroad, or for Black political mobilisation during the Civil
Rights movement, the most recent example include Black churches in baltimore
organising campaign to force that New Democrat Glendening to signs, agains
vehement business oppostion, an executive order prohibiting th edisplacement
of workers by workfare recipients -- to date the only regulation of that
sort in the Union).

The point I'm arguing here is that bigotry, racism and xenophobia could
survive in the US largely thanks to informal or semi-formal organizations,
such as Churches or membership associations (from church groups, to college
fraternities, to  KKK, the militias, and local sheriff departments).  AS a
result, the federal authorities had to ouse force to suppress those local
vigilante and centrifugal tendencies to preserve the national unity.  In
Europe, by contrast, these agents of bigotry and ethnic cleansing were
substantially weakened in the state-church struggle for power.
Consequently, teh state, that ultimately won, had also provide the vehicle
for racist/xenophobic mobilisation in the times of 'need.'

This, btw, explains a very peculiar phenomenon in the American politics.  On
the one hand, the popular hatred of the "gummint" (meaning federal
government) in the US is legendary, onthe other hand, th eincumbent
re-election rates are very high.  This paradox can be explained when we
realize that the "guumint" is simply the code word for the integrating and
anti-discriminatory role the federal government played in this society.
People love their local politicians and re-elect them, they simply hate
federal bureaucrats and judges telling them that they have to send their
children to school togerther with "them" (Blacks, Jews, Latinos, immigrants,
gays, etc.), accepting "them as neighnours, and sharing with "them" "our" jobs.

This, of course, does not mean that racism, xenophobia etc. do not exist in
Europe.  They do, but there are also different (much more restricted)
structural opportunity to express them.  In that context, the Republican
Party is much more modern and European in their organizing strategy that
involves ideological mobilisation (prevalent in Europe, but mostly absent
form Democrat organising) and using the state apparatus to suppress
minorities.  Tradionally, the state apparatus in the US was used to the
opposite end, incidents like Cointelpro notwithstanding (you have to also
undertand that the state is hardly a unified body, esp. in the US, what one
agency wants or does may go against the wishes and policies of another agency).

As to your comment that the recent Republican electoral victory was
accomplished mainly through nonvoting of those who otherwise might vote
agains them -- that view is not supported by the studies.  True, Cloward &
Piven argued along those line, and that belief was behind the effort to
promote the Motor Voter legislation by the Democrats (and behind the
opposition to that bll by the Republicans).  However, an analysis of the new
registrants under the provisions of that bill (published last year by the
WSJ) shows the Republicans in the firm lead.  A few years ago Ruy Teixeira
__Why Americans Do not Vote?_) used some sophisticated number crunching to
show that there is no reason to belive that the non-voting part of
population is more "progressive" than the voting part.

The bottom line is this: this is a very conservative society, and it shows.
The usual explnation of the Left that what is happening today politically
resulots from some "subversion" of the political process by special
interests groups is simply wishful thinking.  I do not see any even
nominally progressive changes (such as electing a nominally social
democratic government) in the foreseeable future -- this country will
continue moving to the right.

Regards,

wojtek sokolowski
institute for policy studies
johns hopkins university
baltimore, md 21218
sokol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
voice: (410) 516-4056
fax:   (410) 516-8233

POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS
IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE.
- John Dewey