View 588 September 14 - 20, 2009 (original) (raw)
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Fascism, Socialism, and Freedom
Thomas Frank's weekly "Tilting Yard" column in the Wall Street Journal is said to present the most persuasive arguments the liberal opposition can make to the Wall Street Journal's generally conservative/libertarian editorial views. Alas, the arguments are often shallow, and there is no historical perspective at all. I show you as an example, today's essay "The Left Should Reclaim 'Freedom'".
As an example, Frank quotes with approval George Wolfskill in 1962 in "The Revolt of the Conservatives" regarding conservative opinions about Franklin D. Roosevelt. "Some thought he was a fascist, others believed him a socialist or Communist, while others, to be absolutely sure, said he was both." This amusing quote demonstrates that neither Wolfskill nor Frank has the foggiest notion of what Fascism, Socialism, or Communism were or are. This ignorance is more than unfortunate, because all three of these essentially Marxist notions remain important in social debate, and have a great deal of influence over our social policies.
The Marxist view of history postulated that great social systems contained within themselves the seeds of their own destruction, and that history was the record of how a social order -- "thesis" -- was confronted by opposition movements that inevitably came forth from within it -- "antithesis" -- to produce a new social order that destroyed the old and took its place. This thesis, antithesis, synthesis was the engine of history, and its working out was considered "progress." After the turn of the century in 1900 Marxist analysis spawned a number of intellectual movements and several great social/political movements. These included (with examples):
Socialism: Generally accepted Marx's historical analysis, but rejected violent revolution.
The British Labor Party with its roots in Fabian Socialism.
The Socialist Party of the United States which under Norman Thomas never won a national election but accomplished many of its goals through alliances with other political movements.
Communism: Marxist party that believed in the necessity of Revolution
The Bolshevik party originally led by Lenin. Believed that the only way to end class warfare was to eliminate all social classes except the proletariat. Lenin developed the idea of a temporary "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." This evolved into Stalinism and the Soviet System that came to an end after 1990.
The Menshevik party which became the "Trotskyites" and the "left deviationist" Socialist Workers Party, some of whose members evolved into Neo-Conservatism. The Mensheviks accepted the inevitability of revolution, but believed that Russia was the wrong place: the world needed revolutions in the highly industrialized states. Trotsky served Lenin and worked to implement "Socialism in one country (the USSR)" but did not accept the permanent dictatorship. Fled to Mexico where he was assassinated by Stalinist agents.
Fascism: Accepted Marx's history but believed the State could impose class cooperation.
Originally a branch of the Socialist International movement. In 1923 Benito Mussolini, a socialist, took control of Italy and began a program of industrialization and modernization that attracted the approval of many intellectuals. Mussolini insisted to the day he died that his was the true Socialist Movement. Fascism was considered "right deviationism" in much of the Marxist International literature.
The National German Socialist Workers Party (NDSAP, commonly called Nazi) was a Marxist socialist party. Hitler was not a founder but became an early member. It had accepted most of the principles of Italian Fascism, and Hitler was an admirer of Mussolini until Mussolini opposed the German Anschluss of Austria. Hitler's rabid anti-Semitism was not part of Fascist doctrine (there were Jewish officials of high rank in Italy prior to the German alliance) and Mussolini never personally accepted Hitler's racial views. The NDSAP won a plurality in a German national election, and Hitler became Chancellor (Prime Minister). When President Hindenburg died, the office of Chancellor and President were merged.
Progressivism
The Progressive Movement has a number of descendents. One of its early members was Theodore Roosevelt, who was originally opposed by American conservatives but is now often claimed as a conservative.
Another descendent of the Progressive Movement was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who claimed with some justice that he was a pragmatist and had no ideology, but a strong desire to save the United States from the Depression by using anything that worked.
In Roosevelt's first two terms there were a number of intellectually respectable members of every one of those movements. As the stories of Stalin's purges and general nastiness leaked out more and more intellectuals fell away from Stalinism. Many defected to Trotskyism. Many others became Progressives. Of course many became Socialists, but fewer than one might expect. Instead, many communists and socialists became Progressives and joined the New Deal.
Note that Communism, Fascism, and Nazi's were in alliance during part of the 1930's, and this endured until the German invasion of the USSR. When Paris fell to German troops in 1940, American Communists invited their members, friends, fellow travelers, and other associates to toast the victory of the people over the bourgeois. (See Fred Pohl's highly readable and informative autobiography The Way The Future Was for details including how Fred felt about being invited to drink that toast by his communist friend. Fred Pohl, of course, has been liberal for most of his life, but has never been a communist.
Much of the story of Progressivism and its relationships with Communism and Fascism is well told with meticulous documentation in The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes, (available on Kindle or in print edition). Ms. Schlaes does not hide her views in this book, but this is not a polemic. It's a very good history of a time we need to know a lot more about. Roosevelt's pragmatic Progressivism caused a great deal of floundering. Many things were tried, and Roosevelt didn't care where the ideas came from. Some worked. Some didn't. It would be well to remember those we tried that didn't work.
Lack of understanding of these matters is not the only problem with Thomas Frank's essay. He has accepted without debate the Progressive notion of freedom. The traditional American view of freedom is that one will be left alone to do what one wants to do even if everyone else disapproves. (If that disapproval is because what you want to do restricts someone else's freedom then there is something to discuss: e.g. your freedom to swing your fist ends at my nose.) If you want to slaughter and cook a goat in your front yard, I have to show that this does me some real harm before I can forbid you to do it. John Adams summed this up when he said that we in America believe that each man is the best judge of his own interest. The fact that you can show that some habits -- smoking cigarettes, riding a motorcycle without a helmet, eating too much and becoming obese, swearing oaths to Odin and Thor, putting out bowls of milk for the night elves, denouncing my neighbor as a witch (but not building a bonfire to throw the neighbor in), not buying health insurance, not wearing socks, getting drunk in my own house and staying there, taking the Name of God in vain, myriads of consenting sexual practices, buying gold, buying stocks, giving my money to Bernie Madoff to invest, using Ubuntu rather than Windows, Firefox rather than Internet Explorer -- well, you get the idea -- may be bad for the user, and you know this, doesn't give you an automatic right to prevent me from doing them. (And of course many including me might dispute the harm from the choice made.)
You have to show that my doing the above harms you. And therein lies the rub. You may think that my swearing oaths to Thor and Odin and leaving gifts for the elves will bring down the wrath of the True God on the country, and thus I must be prevented lest I kill the lot of us. Perhaps I can win that case, but if you even have the right to force a trial you have very much interfered with my freedom. The case of smoking is more complex: the argument about second hand smoke can be debated, but hardly applies to smoking outdoors. The argument that smoking damages health and we will all have to pay when you go to the Emergency Room has more merit, but leads us to wonder why we have to pay for your trip. And of course the motorcycle helmet argument has been made a settled issue now. You have to wear a helmet lest you injure yourself and we have to pay. (One solution to that one is a law that makes it legal to harvest organs of helmetless motorcycle accident victims, and boy does that one open a can of worms.)
But the traditional idea of freedom is in fact negative.
Roosevelt withhis "four freedoms" speech turned that on its head. Two of his freedoms are pretty traditional and negative, but Roosevelt postulated a "Freedom from Want" that basically mandated that someone has the obligation to assuage other people's wants; while freedom from fear can mean anything you like, and certainly would justify US invasion of any country whose government terrorizes US citizens, and possibly terrorizes anyone at all.
Thomas takes this political speech seriously. He takes adoption of various statements of rights and privileges seriously, as do most liberals. This is exactly the opposite of what went on in the Convention of 1787, where a group of well educated political leaders tried to come up with a Constitution that would actually deliver what it promised. They did pretty well, and we lived with those "negative rights" for two hundred years.
All of the great ideologies promise great things. Communism and Fascism were thoroughly tried. Of course they got caught up in World War II. Stalin chose to make common cause with Hitler, but then was betrayed, so Communism ended up on the correct side of that war; while Mussolini originally opposed Hitler's designs on Austria and tried to join the Allies, but was rebuffed and ended up in alliance with Hitler. Hitler was a National Socialist and publicly espoused the Socialist view of the world, but he added his own anti-Semitic and other irrational views to the Socialist/Fascist model. Fascism ended up on the wrong side of the war, and became intellectually disrespectful. Communism remains respectable despite its results.
Communism, Socialism and Fascism all promise "positive freedoms," as opposed to the boring old notion of the right to be left alone to be our own potty little selves and leaving gifts to charity.
Over time we have accepted some of the pragmatism of Roosevelt. We have Social Security and Medicare, and these are firmly established as part of the American System. We also have the Drug Enforcement Agency, Transportation Safety Agency, and the myriad of federal regulations including minimum wages, OSHA, Americans with Disabilities, FDA, some contradictory and all expensive. Perhaps all this is just as well, and perhaps it's a healthy trend; but surely there is room in the discussion for counter arguments? That leaving many of these matters to the states so they can experiment while allowing the freedom to go elsewhere (as was intended in the Constitution) may yet be a good idea? That we are headed in the wrong direction?
What the Left says it will give us as a freedom also gives others the obligations to pay for them; and with the new "freedom" comes the requirement to submit to the inevitable regulations that those who pay insist is part of the price of the freedom. Motorcycle helmets instantly come to mind. Prohibition of smoking is another. Restrictions on obesity is yet another logical condition of the gift of health care. Perhaps a good thing. I certainly wore a helmet when I had a motorcycle, this before California adopted a helmet law.
These are matters worth discussion, but they generally aren't discussed. Instead people shout out labels without the foggiest notion of what they mean. Huey Long said long ago that Fascism would come to the United States as an anti-fascist movement. He may have been prescient.
Meanwhile the rumor is that there is now a Health Care Bill before the Senate. We don't yet know what is in it. It's unlikely to be the "plan" Obama proposed; but perhaps so.
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Do you want your child to learn to read?
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A Malware Warning
The New York Times is making light of the scamware that got distributed in a Times ad, and their story doesn't mention the fact that the ad for anti-virus software not only isn't anti-virus software but may well be a program that zombifies your machine. This may not be the end of this story.
If you see an uninvited scan of your system or anything that purports to be anti-virus software to fix some compromise of your system, think carefully. Don't panic. CLOSE THE BROWSER ITSELF. Do not attempt to close the ad window; if you click anywhere in that ad window including in the little red x up at the upper right in the ad you are inviting the ad to send stuff to your computer. Depending on your OS and the level of your login user, you may well be bringing in spyware, malware, keystroke loggers, and zombification of your computer. Close the thing by closing the BROWSER entirely, and do so without clicking in the browser itself. Use Task Manager or close it from the tray. If you don't know how to do that, it's BIG RED SWITCH time: turn off your computer.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10353402-245.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/15/technology/internet/15adco.html?_r=2
Ain't we got fun?