[PEN-L:7727] Re: Re: Re: Re: "social fascism"

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> 06/04/99 12:12PM >>>
Charles writes: >I don't agree that "fascism" has lost value from overuse.
I would say it is underused and misapplied.<

I guess we have to agree to disagree on that, but I'll summarize my
position: using the word "fascism" too much can be like referring to a
man's disrespectful and unwanted touching of a woman on a date as a form of
"rape." It devalues the word.

Charles: Or like the little boy who cried wolf. Yes, this is a pretty much a common sense idea. It just doesn't apply to "fascism".

I wrote: >>What does calling the Governor of Michigan (Engler?) a "fascist"
say except that we don't like him?<<

Charles: >That's "social fascist". You are using "fascist" loosely and not
the way I use it (  I specifically all Engler a "social fascist" because he
is not a full fascist) . Then you use your loose usage ("rhetoric" ?) as a
basis for saying all usage of these words is loose and so we shouldn't use
them.<

I don't see how "social fascist" is somehow less full, somehow milder than
"fascist." To make it milder, why not call the bastard a "semi-fascist"?
(Going down this road, we could use Gore Vidal's insult of William F.
Buckley Jr., "pro crypto-Nazi." But that would be worse, since Nazism is
even worse than fascism and overuse of the term devalues it, as with the
US/NATO comparison of Milosevic to Hitler.)

Charles: I think I mentioned earlier in this thread the difference between Engler and Hitler is that the former is not carrying out open , direct and holocaustic terrorist rule.  The cuts in social programs and racist policies are the form of his assault on the working class, not direct death camps and actual war. It is a "war" on the poor not with guns, but social policty. This is aptly captured by SOCIAL fascist. And it has the value of continuing the tradition from the 20's and 30's , which I prefer to connect to rather than differentiate from. In other words, I see the communist historical movement as something that the next generation of revolutionaries should draw more from than is the trend right now, in this extreme revolutionary slump.

The fact that some people inflate the meaning of fascism by conflating political critique with insult does not stop me from using the word precisely. As I said, otherwise, Gore Vidal will determine what words I can use, Can't have that. We must have semantic self-determination in the movement.

(((((((((((

Actually, my impression (which could be wrong) is that Engler is a
standard, garden variety, neo-liberal. Wouldn't it be great if
"neo-liberal" attained the negative connotations of "fascist" in peoples'
minds? I think that's where we should go. Even better, since "neo-liberal"
is jargon that few outside of the left use, we need to convince people that
whatever Engler calls himself ("Republican"? "Democrat"?) should have
really bad connotations.

Charles: I agree that we need to convince people that whatever Engler calls himself should have bad connotations, but we should have our own names for him too. We  don't have to JUST call him a  social fascist. The proposal isn't that people be restricted to that term. To describe him would actually take a number of paragraphs, not just two words, but you know, soundbitism. People need to be shocked out of their complacency and comfort with the "Englers" of today, and "social fascist" has some potential for that. "Neo-liberal" helps with analysis. Actually, I am not sure that Engler is exactly a neo-liberal. His constituency is largely the isolationist/anti-free trade/militia crowd.


I wrote: >>(b) Do you think that the "financial oligarchy" (which I think
could be described in less hackneyed terms) <<

Charles: >If we start calling terms hackneyed, the impliedly fresh
vocabulary that gets substituted for terms like "financial oligarchy" will
win the hackneyed prize over "imperialism", "monopoly capital" , "financial
oligarchy".  All of Doug Henwood's work that I have seen confirms that
there is a huge financial oligarchy running the global economy.
"Wallstreet" is a financial oligarchy. Debt is the leash system of the
whole thing. Financial  Oligarchy is so fresh and unhackneyed it isn't even
funny. A hedge fund is a  form of the financial oligarchy's organization.
What a perfect description of it.<

Jim D.
The problem with "financial oligarchy" is not that it's hackneyed as much
as it suggests a conspiracy. It ignores a central problem of the rule of
finance capital these days, i.e., competition and "invisible hand"
automatic operations.

Charles: This is not different from the time that Lenin used the term. Lenin was an originator of the critique of conspiracy analysis of capitalism. He analyzes state-monopoly capitalism as a system, not a conspiracy. Thus, the term "financial oligarchy" orignates in a systematic ,not a conspiracy analysis. An oligarchy is a ruling CLASS. Or the leading elements of the class. The bougeoisie has leading elements.

Jim D.
There doesn't have to be a conspiracy: speculators
suddenly begin to believe a country's finance minister might do something
mild that goes against the ruling financial orthodoxy (like a mild Tobin
Tax). So they all panic, like a herd of cattle, pulling their funds out of
the country, imposing a financial crisis. Or they impose a crisis on Brazil
because of things that happen in Russia.

Now there are oligarchic elements to finance capital: the Federal Reserve,
the IMF, the big banks, Hedge Funds, etc. all are pretty clubby, sharing a
common culture and a common ideology (the financial orthodoxy referred to
above). But to simply refer to the oligarchy without the competition/market
dimension of it is to provide an incomplete picture.

Charles: See above. Lenin's use of "financial oligarchy" is part of a classic systematic , not conspiratorial, analysis of state-monopoly capitalism. The financial oligarchy is a ruling class , not a conspiratorial cabal, although there are cartels within the oligarchy.

I have not here given the overall description of finance capital and the financial oligarchy, because this is an e-mail post. I am using the term "financial oligarchy" as a syntagmatic ( or is it metanomyic) reference for the whole system of fianance capital. This is a standard Leninist analysis of imperialism. This fianancial oligarchy is just one part of that.


Jim D.
I asked if the "financial orthodoxy" >>is likely to become desperate in the
near future? <<

Charles: >The periodic crisis is a permanent feature of capitalism. Despite
the hype, the business cycle has not been "cured". Eventually, there will
be economic crisis in the U.S. too. That would be a potential time of
desparation for the U.S. ruling class. They prepare for it. The prison
system is being expanded in case they have to go to full concentration
camps. The storm troopers are in PROTO form in the various and sundry
rightwing fascistic fringe groups and militias.<

Jim D.
I agree that economic crises are inevitable under capitalism. But an
economic crisis isn't a social crisis for capitalism unless there's a big
opposition. Without the social crisis, there's no need for concentration
camps. Mussolini was responding to a social crisis in Italy, while Hitler
responded to one in Germany. If people are instead sucking opiates and
watching TV, there's no social crisis of the sort that threatens capital's
rule.

Charles: Yes, there must be opposition for it to be a crisis for capital. I agree with that. Yes , there is some possibility that there will be working class opposition to the ruling class at the next economic crisis and that this will contribute to the ruling class' desparation.

Jim:
The above (and Charles' previous message) seems a bit paranoid, too. It
makes it sound as if the "financial orthodoxy" cultivated the militias etc.
(though my impression might be wrong). I would say instead that the failure
of US capitalist growth to give to many white male younger workers the same
standard of living that their fathers had received encouraged a bitterness
and resentment (along with their bitterness that women and "minorities" are
getting any respect at all) that spawned the militias and the like. In
other words, it's the "economic crisis" (another overused phrase) that
spawned the militia, rather than their genesis being orchestrated from above.

Charles: I prefer to think that you are somewhat opiated against worry about the real danger of the open terrorist methods of the bourgeoisie the next time they feel desparate. It is easy to look at the proto-fascist groups and pols in strict isolation from the overall class picture with the ruling class, and say well ,the bourgeoisie didn't exactly put these proto-fascist groups together directly. Sure ,socio-economic factors make potential storm troopers.  This is a partial picture , not dialectical , in the sense of not thinking holistically. The bourgeoisie are opportunist enough and ruthless enough to use the materials at hand when the time comes. The political "material" they use does not have to be created by them anymore than the computer technology wealth they steal has to be originated by them. What I would say the bourgeoisie impact in the U.S. is preventing the outlawing of the fascistic groups. They use their influence to keep them hanging around as fringe groups !
in case they become necessary. Unfortuntely , there is no premature anti-fascism and calling that paranoia is lulling yourself to sleep in the face of danger.

Charles: >The word "fascist" is like the word "imperialism" or the term
"military-industrial complex" . It comes from "them".  The bourgeoisie's
boy Mussolini invented the term "fascism".  Who is it , Hobson, from whom
Lenin got "imperialism". The "military-industrial complex" was a concept
from the inside given us by an insider Eisenhower.  They know their own
system better than we do.<


Jim D.
Of course there does exist an elite, or competing elites, that are most
powerful decision-makers in the imperialist system and the
military-industrial complex. But to focus on elites alone is to miss the
organization structures of these two institutions, missing the fact that
the elites "make history, but not exactly as they please." These are social
institutions with internal contradictions.

Charles: "Elite" is your concept here. My focus is on economic classes , about as social institutionalist in analysis as you can get. The term "elites" is not precise in describing what I am referring to. Notice how often I speak of the "ruling CLASS" or "financial oligarchy" .  I can't understand how you would think I am not analyzing internal contradictions. This is dialectical materialism.  The internal ruling class contradictions are discussed at length in my analysis. You have heard of interimperialist rivalry.  You aren't seriously saying that Lenin doesn't do analysis of the internal contradictions of social institutions, but only looks at "elites" ?


Jim D.
One of Lenin's big theoretical contributions (and I'm not a Leninist) is
that he argued that imperialism is a system rather than merely a policy.
That's an insight to think about.


Charles: Exactly. See above. Why would you say that the standard Leninist analysis I am giving here treats imperialism as a conspiracy and not a system  ?

>"Fasces" are the bundle of rods in the SPQR Roman symbol that Brad D
quoted (Senatus Populisque Romanus; The enate and the Roman People).  The
Roman culture is an ancestor of all Western culture. So "fascism" is a good
general statement of the tendency of the modern West to go to a
barbarically cruel state as the Romans had.<

Jim D.
I think that illuminating the similarities between the Roman empire and the
US empire would be more useful than labelling either "fascist."

Charles: I know you do, but I gotta use words when I talk to you. "Labelling" has become an overused .vague criticism for words people don't like. Email would come to an end without "labelling" at this level. What word would you use to describe them ?


CB