Sam Smith, 2006 - One needs to separate Hitler, Nazism and
fascism. Conflating these leads the unwary to assume easily that all
three are inevitably characterized by anti-Semitism, when in fact only
the first two are. By avoiding this distinction we don't have to face
the fact that America is closer to fascism than it has ever been in its
history.
To understand why, one needs to look not at Hitler but
at the founder of fascism, Mussolini. What Mussolini founded was the
estato corporativo - the corporative state or corporatism. Writing in
Economic Affairs in the mid 1970s, R.E. Pahl and J. T. Winkler described
corporatism as a system under which government guides privately owned
businesses towards order, unity, nationalism and success. They were
quite clear as to what this system amounted to: "Let us not mince words.
Corporatism is fascism with a human face. . . An acceptable face of
fascism, indeed, a masked version of it, because so far the more
repugnant political and social aspects of the German and Italian regimes
are absent or only present in diluted forms."
Thus, although
the model generally cited in defense of organized capitalism is that of
the contemporary Japanese, the most effective original practitioners of a
corporative economy were the Italians. Unlike today's Japanese, but
like contemporary America, their economy was a war economy.
Adrian
Lyttelton, describing the rise of Italian fascism in The Seizure of
Power, writes: "A good example of Mussolini's new views is provided by
his inaugural speech to the National Exports Institute on 8 July 1926. .
. Industry was ordered to form 'a common front' in dealing with
foreigners, to avoid 'ruinous competition,' and to eliminate inefficient
enterprises. . . The values of competition were to be replaced by those
of organization: Italian industry would be reshaped and modernized by
the cartel and trust. . .There was a new philosophy here of state
intervention for the technical modernization of the economy serving the
ultimate political objectives of military strength and self-sufficiency;
it was a return to the authoritarian and interventionist war economy."
Lyttelton
writes that "fascism can be viewed as a product of the transition from
the market capitalism of the independent producer to the organized
capitalism of the oligopoly." It was a point that Orwell had noted when
he described fascism as being but an extension of capitalism. Lyttelton
quoted Nationalist theorist Affredo Rocco: "The Fascist economy is. . .
an organized economy. It is organized by the producers themselves, under
the supreme direction and control of the State."
The Germans
had their own word for it: wehrwirtschaft. It was not an entirely new
idea there. As William Shirer points out in the Rise and the Fall of the
Third Reich, 18th and 19th century Prussia had devoted some
five-sevenths of its revenue on the Army and "that nation's whole
economy was always regarded as primarily an instrument not of the
people's welfare but of military policy."
Has "civil discourse"
been harmed by knowing the foregoing and the uncomfortable similarities
it bears with what is happening to our country today?
Another more complex example is Adolph Hitler. On many grounds, the analogy does not serve us well:
Germany's
willingness to accept Hitler was the product of many cultural
characteristics specific to that country, to the anger and frustrations
in the wake of the World War I defeat, to extraordinary inflation and
particular dumb reactions to it, and, of course, to the appeal of
anti-Semitism. Still, consideration of the Weimar Republic that preceded
Hitler does us no harm. Bearing in mind all the foregoing, there was
also:
- A collapse of conventional liberal and conservative
politics that bears uncomfortable similarities to what we are now
experiencing.
- The gross mismanagement of the economy and of
such key worker concerns as wages, inflation, pensions, layoffs, and
rising property taxes. Many of the actions were taken in the name of
efficiency, an improved economy and the "rationalization of production."
There were also bankruptcies, negative trade balance, major decline in
national production, large national debt rise compensated for by foreign
investment. In other words, a hyped version of what America and its
workers are experiencing today.
- The Nazis as the first modern
political party. As University of Pennsylvania professor Thomas Childers
explains, the Nazis discovered the importance of campaigning not just
during campaigns but between elections when the other parties folded
their tents. With this "perpetual campaigning" they spread themselves
like a virus, considering the public reaction to everything right down
to the colors used for posters and rally backgrounds. Knowing this, one
can not watch the manic manipulations of public moments by the Bush
regime without a sense of déjà vu.
- The use of negative
campaigning, a contribution to modern politics by Joseph Goebbels. The
Nazi campaigns argued what was wrong with their opponents and ignored
stating their own policies.
- The Nazis as the inventors of
modern political propaganda. Every modern American political campaign
and the types of arguments used to support them owes much to the ideas
of the Nazis.
- The suddenness of the Nazi rise. The party went
from less than 3% of the vote to being the largest party in the country
in four years.
- The collapse of the country's self image.
Childers points out that Germany had had been a world leader in
education, industry, science, and literacy. Much of the madness that we
see today stems from attempts to compensate for our battered self-image.
So while many of the behaviors that would come to be associated
with Nazis and Hitler - from physical attacks on political opponents to
the death camps - seem far removed from our present concerns, there is
still much to learn from their history.
We are clearly in a
post-constitutional era; the end of the First American Republic.
Depending on what day it is we think of its replacement variously -
ranging from an adhocracy to proto-fascism. But one does not need to
know the end of the story to know that we headed at a rapid pace away
from the extraordinary principles of American democracy towards the dark
hole of power with impunity, to the sort of world in which, as Rudolph
Giuliani has calmly asserted, "freedom is about authority."
If we describe present differences only in contemporary terms then we have nothing to guide us but what happened yesterday.
George
Bush and his capos have capitalized on this disinterest in history to
rewrite the Constitution and other things. He's not the first.
For
example, Article 48 of the constitution of the Weimar Republic stated,
"In case public safety is seriously threatened or disturbed, the Reich
President may take the measures necessary to reestablish law and order,
if necessary using armed force. In the pursuit of this aim, he may
suspend the civil rights described in articles 114, 115, 117, 118, 123,
124 and 153, partially or entirely. The Reich President must inform the
Reichstag immediately about all measures undertaken . . . The measures
must be suspended immediately if the Reichstag so demands."
It
was this article that Hitler used to peacefully establish his
dictatorship. And why was it so peaceful and easy? Because, according to
Childers, the 'democratic" Weimar Republic had already used it 57 times
prior to Hitler's ascendancy.
There are eerie similarities
between Article 48 and George Bush's approach. When you add to this the
remarkable incompetence of the current regime, the collapse of both
traditional liberal and conservative politics, and the economic crises,
it feels like a new Weimar Republic setting the stage for awful things
we can not at this point even imagine. It may be that history has
something to tell us after all. -
