Arguing with Stupid Leftists

[chequita guevara]

Speech at the Graveside of Karl Marx
“Just as Darwin discovered the law of development of organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of development of human history: the simple fact, hitherto concealed by an overgrowth of ideology, that mankind must first of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing, before it can pursue politics, science, art, religion, etc.; that therefore the production of the immediate material means, and consequently the degree of economic development attained by a given people or during a given epoch, form the foundation upon which the state institutions, the legal conceptions, art, and even the ideas on religion, of the people concerned have been evolved, and in the light of which they must, therefore, be explained, instead of vice versa, as had hitherto been the case. [Engels, 1883]

[GePap]

Originally posted by techumseh
Wycoff:

Whether or not your claim that "the majority of academics agree with Imran and myself", is true or not, it's not a valid argument.

Let's take a few of the characteristics you use to define fascism:

the promise of a utopian future,

the goal of creating an idealized "new man,"

emphazizing the collective above the individual,

And let's ask how this might affect someone's actual conditions of life. They might be fooled into believing some or all of these, thereby giving some support to the regime. Placing the collective above the individual will only apply to the lower classes, in actual practice the very rich get even wealthier under fascist regimes. None of these things really tell us much about how someone's life will be affected, in a practical way, by fascism.

The thing these things have in common is that they are idealogical. They merely serve to legitimize what is going on under the regime. They don't explain what is actually going on.

On the other hand, if we define a type of government by the following things:

elimination of trade unions and left wing parties by force,

using state control of the economy to benefit big business,

taking direct control of media and educational systems in order to propagandize the population,

resorting to systematic terror in order to silence critics and persecute scapegoats,

- we get a very good idea what's going on in the society and how people might be affected by it.

Actually, we don't, because a variety of conservative regimes will do that.

Wycoff is right about fascism. Read the works of the Fascistys themselves, read the works of Mussolini and Mein Kampf and you see a real radicalism at work.

Business is a component of making the nation strong, but the fact was that big business never had a real say in overall national policy. Yes, big business could benefit from working with the Fascist state, and made handsome profits as these regimes armed for war or expanded, and exploited other resources, or saw comptetitors removed, but these are incidental benefits, not the point of policy.

Just look at the radical breaks in families in germany under the Nazi regime. Systsme like the HItler youth were there to indoctrinate children into a party ideology- one that might very well contrast with the wishes of parents. The Nazi's sought to break the family and institute party loyalty instead. That is a radical action that real conservatives don;t take. You never see right wing dictatorships do such things. Fascists compete with religion, conservatives use it for ther own ends. That is one place were the radicalism comes out.

Old time conservatives might ally themselves with landowners and other statist parties to keep the system as is. Fasicsts seek economic expansion and modernism in order to strenghten the nation vs. its competitors-therefore they seek more radical economic plans. Large industry here is definitelly and ally, but increasing business is not the point, greater wealth is not the point, only a tool towards greater power.

[GePap]

A little more on fascists. Fascism is a modern ideology, and therefore shares a lot of the baggage of modernity, post enlightenment, even if fascism rejects much of the enlightenment.

In my understanding, fascism, like Communism, believes there is a singular force that drives human history. BUt whereas Marx views a materialistic base, the Fascists view a cultural base. Communists would argue (as Che does here) that culture does not exists free of the material basis for life and how man meets those basic needs. And certainly, the culture of an agrarian settled community is very different from that of a nomadic or semi-nomadic one.

But how then does one explain the power and persistance of differences in culture? Why shouldn;t all societies under the same material conditions have different cultures, languages, religions? What was the significant material difference between say Egypt and Summeria that allowed to very distinct cultures to come into existance?

Lots of fascists began as socialists, but then they saw WW1. Why didn't men in Europe come together as classes, but instead willingly fought each other? Socialist parties in France and Germany and Austria and Russia and Italy could not and did not place their common bonds as laborers over what should have been seen as the artificial bonds of nationality and culture supported by the rulling classes. Yes, a few socialists tried to, but they failed. This failure of the working classes to come to see each other as borthers and sisters, this massive failure of the notiont that people's station in life is defined primarily by their mode of production, as opposed to the superstructure, is I think one of the major factors for the rise of fascism. The myth of eocnomic man was shattered by the Great War, since millions were willing to die for the MOtherland and Fatherland, even if they got little or no benefit. And outside of Russia, which was backwards compared to the rest of Europe, the left failed to gain control even after the old regimes fell-the elft lost in Germany and HUngary.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by techumseh
Wycoff:

Whether or not your claim that "the majority of academics agree with Imran and myself", is true or not, it's not a valid argument.

Let's take a few of the characteristics you use to define fascism:

the promise of a utopian future,

the goal of creating an idealized "new man,"

emphasizing the collective above the individual,

And let's ask how this might affect someone's actual conditions of life. They might be fooled into believing some or all of these, thereby giving some support to the regime. Placing the collective above the individual will only apply to the lower classes, in actual practice the very rich get even wealthier under fascist regimes. None of these things really tell us much about how someone's life will be affected, in a practical way, by fascism.

Ways that these things affected daily life:

For the Nazi regime, they provided the fundamental justification not only for the Holocaust, but also for the war and the quest for Lebensraum in the east. I'm sure that you'll say that it was simply to enrich the war profiteers, but that doesn't hold up. What capitalists profits by having his entire production base destroyed? What profiteer profits by having his country occupied by foreign armies? The war in the East was integral to Nazi philosopy. It was one of the main reasons people supported the regime. Germany was going to be self-sufficient. German citizens would never again be starved by a blockade (as the British had done long after WW1 had technically ended). The land to the east rightly belong to the Germans because they were the superior people, etc. etc. The ideology was important, as it resonated with the desires of the German people, and it lead the country down the road to a destruction that no government controlled by sane business interests would have followed.

Creating the "new man" was important in numerous ways. The Nazis imposed a cult of physical fitness, introduced efforts to keep the environment clean, eradicated the retarded and other physical / mental defectives, engaged in radical medical experimentation to find ways to keep the Aryan race pure and healthy, frowned upon smoking, and emphasized vegetarianism. See Proctor's The Nazi War on Cancer None of these goals fit within the normal conservative framework. The Nazis wanted to fundamentally reshape life and society. That is not conservatism.

Empahsizing the collective over the individual:

They took nationalism to the extreme. All groups were organized around the Nazi ideal. One labor union. One youth group, etc.. High empahsis on full employment and using public funds to create massive public works projects. Encouragement of militarism. Creation of generous social programs designed to eliminate starvation and homelessness.

The thing these things have in common is that they are idealogical. They merely serve to legitimize what is going on under the regime. They don't explain what is actually going on.

You gloss over important distinctions between conservative and Fascist by saying they're merely ideological. You're missing the big picture: the ideology explains why things happened the way they did. The ideology explains the war, it explains the Holocaust, it explains the creation of the Autobahn and the like, it explains the HJ, Nuremberg, everything. None of these things make sense if your trying to explain them simply with "oh, the Capitalists just wanted things to happen that way"

People were used to regular old authoritarian conservative states back in the 20s and 30s. They recognized that Fascism was something else entirely. Again, do a little research. Examine the differences between the DNVP and the KVP and the NSDAP. The KVP were conservatives, and the DNVP were authoritarian conservatives. The NSDAP were Fascists. If there is no distinction, then why were there two parties? Remember, the DNVP was an important party while the Nazis still languished in obscurity. When the Nazis took over, they quickly removed any DNVP elements from the government, much to the chagrin of the wealthy.

On the other hand, if we define a type of government by the following things:

elimination of trade unions and left wing parties by force,

This would apply to many states, even Republics like the U.S. Examine U.S. history from the 1870s - 1930s. Hardly something that can be used as a chief indicator of Fascism.

using state control of the economy to benefit big business,

This is where we disagree. You say the Nazis took power just to benefit big business. I say that big business got more than it bargained for when it supported Hitler, and in the end was another cog in the Nazi war machine. The DNVP was the party of big business, not the NSDAP. When they threw their support behind Hitler, they made a deal with the devil to control the government and lost.

You're also conveniently neglecting the fact that the German quality of life increased dramatically before the war, that much German capital was used on public works projects, that the government made attempts to help the working class through robust social programs, through the subsidized vacations program (I forget the name of the program). Some companies benefitted because the government was putting large amounts of money into the economy, but the people and workers also benefitted from the way that the country was using the capital.

Another reason that some business benefitted from the Nazi regime was because a goal of the Nazi party was to create an autarkic German state, where the German people could be totally self sufficient and never again defeated by a blockade. This policy of autarky necessitated strong German firms, but it wasn't done solely for the benefit of the large industrial leaders. Autarky was another plank in the Nazi platform. Some companies benefitted, but this was not a policy for the sake of big business.

Remember, groups can benefit from government policy without necessarily controlling the government. That's what I mean when I say a "side-effect;" it happened because of policy, but it wasn't the reason for the policy.

taking direct control of media and educational systems in order to propagandize the population,

Again, a common feature of the period, even in the US. Part of the public school system's job was to indoctrinate children into being Americans. You must look more deeply into the content of the propaganda. Propaganda alone doesn't make Fascism. After all, this indoctrination was just as much of a key element of Communism as it was of Fascism.

resorting to systematic terror in order to silence critics and persecute scapegoats

Again, used by every authoritarian and totalitarian regime, so not a very useful indicator of Fascism.

- we get a very good idea what's going on in the society and how people might be affected by it.

I'd say that these aren't useful indicators as to what makes Fascism Fascism.

This just strikes me as incredibly naive. Such a huge transfer of wealth to the rich and powerful - a side effect, an unintended consequence. Really.

"Huge transfer of wealth?" Because the German people were so economically well off in 1930-32? Again, you're forgetting that many common Germans benefitted from the early years of the Reich. The Fascist movements weren't simply and exclusively the tools of big business. At least in Germany, its easier to make an argument that big business was a toll of the Fascists. (If you're looking for a situation in which the government really is a tool of the big business, the current presidential administration is a far better example.)

You seem to want to boil the entire Nazi experience into "Some companies got rich during the Third Reich. Since some companies got rich, that must mean that the companies controlled the country. Therefore, Fascism is any authoritarian regime in which corporations get rich and thus control the company. Everything else is just ideological fluff." That's a fine way to expand the use of the term "Fascist", but its not a very meaningful way to examine history. The ideology and goals of Fascism are distinct from the run of the mill authoritarian. To deny / mitigate this seems to me to be disingenuous.

[Wycoff]

Good posts Gepap!

[Cort Haus]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara


They weren't encouraged by Marxists not to ignore war and imperialism. Economism was actually a tendency that Marxists argued againt.

Did you mean to type "They weren't encouraged by Marxists to ignore war and imperialism."?

If so then yes, that is my point. Marxists may have argued against economism, but the leaders of the labour movement persued it. With the labour movement focused on direct pay & conditions, the working class was not mobilised as an agent for change. No agency, no socialism. Thus, economism was a hindrance to Marxism.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Wycoff
No, we're using the definition that's accepted by most historians/ politcal philosophers. While there's not 100% consensus, the majority of academics agree with Imran and myself.

That doesn't make it necessarily valid. A lot of historians and poli sci types are right-wingers who strongly avoid issues of class and related issues. I prefer contempory political activists who struggled against fascism. They had a vested interest in understanding what they were dealing with.

... most of them were also Communists who had a vested interest in defining terms in the way that most benefitted their cause. They had an incentive to define Fascism in the broadest possible sense, thus allowing them to apply the label to the widest array of enemies. Fascism is as abhorrent to Conservatives as it is the Communists, and getting stuck with the label "Fascist" carries a powerful stygma. It's a good weapon to use against enemies, and, if people start believing that the people are Fascists, can discredit them far easier than rational argument .

[Sandman]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
Yes, he means that the way people get food, shelter, and make the next generation is the real basis of society. Only a great idiot would ignore that. That this foundation is what ultimately underlies everything else in society. As in the example of the Aztecs, a culture which undermines its economic basis fails.

Anthropology also shows us that the way peoples think about the world has a great deal to do with the way they produce their means of life. Ancient religion was organized around hunting and agriculture. It's no accident that all of the major religions in the Northern hemisphere have holidays at almost the exact same time. For example, Easter / Passover / etc. is the planting holiday. Nearly all the ancient religions structures were developed in order to chart the stars and sun.

If you wished, but in order to understand capitalism you wouldn't do that. It would be like saying, well you can classify dogs by color when someone says that there are certain catagories of dogs defined by their functions. Why terriers, hounds, etc. when we can say yellow, black, etc. It's a meaningless distinction for a particular conversation.

Well, I'm not questionning historical materialism in this instance (this thread is busy already), just you and Spiffor's claim that Marx held more nuanced views regarding culture that I had believed.

It was in a private letter to a follower, Franz Mehring. Engels wouldn't need to backtrack for him. There are more letters which say the same thing, but I can't find them yet, because it's been over a decade since I'm had to drag them out. I think I've likely read substantially more Marx & Engels than you, so it's a lot easier for me to understand his overall body of work, while you just look for choice quotes to support your theory.

The Manifesto was a political tract produced on the eve of a continent wide coming revolution. You need to learn to distinguish between Marx's political rhetoric and his acutal scientific and philosophical writings.

Yes, well, that's why I asked for a quote from Marx's main body of work in which he treats culture as more than just the icing on the cake of production.

No, he doesn't do that. In the full text, Marx is saying that where the state is not fully developed, America, England, etc., i.e., it might be possible for workers to take power be electoral means. At that time, these countries had no secret police, no large standing armies, etc. There was no means by which an electoral victory could be suppressed. That day passed long ago.

I don't get that message from his speech at all. He made the speech in 1872, when typical working class people in Britain didn't even have the vote. No electoral victory was possible.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sandman
Well, I'm not questionning historical materialism in this instance (this thread is busy already), just you and Spiffor's claim that Marx held more nuanced views regarding culture that I had believed.

From The German Ideology

The production of ideas, of conceptions, of consciousness, is at first directly interwoven with the material activity and the material intercourse of men, the language of real life. Conceiving, thinking, the mental intercourse of men, appear at this stage as the direct efflux of their material behaviour. The same applies to mental production as expressed in the language of politics, laws, morality, religion, metaphysics, etc., of a people. Men are the producers of their conceptions, ideas, etc. – real, active men, as they are conditioned by a definite development of their productive forces and of the intercourse corresponding to these, up to its furthest forms. Consciousness can never be anything else than conscious existence, and the existence of men is their actual life-process. If in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon arises just as much from their historical life-process as the inversion of objects on the retina does from their physical life-process.

From Ludwig Feuerbach

As all the driving forces of the actions of any individual person must pass through his brain, and transform themselves into motives of his will in order to set him into action, so also all the needs of civil society -- no matter which class happens to be the ruling one -- must pass through the will of the state in order to secure general validity in the form of laws. That is the formal aspect of the matter -- the one which is self-evident. The question arises, however, what is the content of this merely formal will -- of the individual as well as of the state -- and whence is this content derived? Why is just this willed and not something else? If we enquire into this, we discover that in modern history the will of the state is, on the whole, determined by the changing needs of civil society, but the supremacy of this or that class, in the last resort, by the development of the productive forces and relations of exchange.

I don't get that message from his speech at all. He made the speech in 1872, when typical working class people in Britain didn't even have the vote. No electoral victory was possible.

You forget the history of the 19th Century. The working class in Great Britain was making great strides in pushing its political agenda. Of course, no one knew it would take another 40 years for the working class to get the vote, but they'd managed to lower the working day, get better prices on grain, etc. One can forgive Marx for thinking that the working class would likely soon get the vote and bring about socialism peacefully in Great Britain.

[Sandman]

Orwell on fascism (early 1941):

But what then is Fascism?

Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes. Internally, Germany has a good deal in common with a Socialist state. Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and—this is the important point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathise with Fascism—generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything. It controls investment, raw materials, rates of interest, working hours, wages. The factory owner still owns his factory, but he is for practical purposes reduced to the status of a manager. Everyone is in effect a State employee, though the salaries vary very greatly. The mere efficiency of such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious. In seven years it has built up the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen.

But the idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite. The driving force behind the Nazi movement is the belief in human inequality, the superiority of Germans to all other races, the right of Germany to rule the world. Outside the German Reich it does not recognise any obligations. Eminent Nazi professors have “proved” over and over again that only nordic man is fully human, have even mooted the idea that non-nordic peoples (such as ourselves) can interbreed with gorillas! Therefore, while a species of war-Socialism exists within the German state, its attitude towards conquered nations is frankly that of an exploiter. The function of the Czechs, Poles, French, etc is simply to produce such goods as Germany may need, and get in return just as little as will keep them from open rebellion. If we are conquered, our job will probably be to manufacture weapons for Hitler’s forthcoming wars with Russia and America. The Nazis aim, in effect, at setting up a kind of caste system, with four main castes corresponding rather closely to those of the Hindu religion. At the top comes the Nazi party, second come the mass of the German people, third come the conquered European populations. Fourth and last are to come the coloured peoples, the “semi-apes” as Hitler calls them, who are to be reduced quite openly to slavery.

However horrible this system may seem to us, it works. It works because it is a planned system geared to a definite purpose, world-conquest, and not allowing any private interest, either of capitalist or worker, to stand in its way. British capitalism does not work, because it is a competitive system in which private profit is and must be the main objective. It is a system in which all the forces are pulling in opposite directions and the interests of the individual are as often as not totally opposed to those of the State.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Tecumseh, you have the most ridiculous notion of facism. Though many socialists try to define it that way to define a vast swatch of right leaning governments as fascist (which, of course, has become a slur since WW2).

Your definition is so overly broad to be laughable. As GePap and Wycoff (and Orwell as shown by Sandman) have shown fascism is very different than authoritarian conservatism.

The ideology matters, to say it does makes no sense. And as GePap has shown, it has impact, such as on the family. The family and the church were rendered subservient to the state, while any conservative regime would embrace them (such as Latin American conservative dictators who embraced the family and the Catholic Church).

[Ecthy]

Typologies are always a weird matter. Among political scientists, some categorise fascism in the Italian manner as an authoritarian form of government while German national socialism to them is a form of totalitarianism and thus in the ame group as Stalinism. For others though fascism and natioanl socialism go both as totalitarianism, with authoritarianism being left merely to military juntas. The social sciences should get their act together and find proper, commonly used definitions. They're helpful, not simplifying, and not hindering free research. They just make things easier.

[techumseh]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Tecumseh, you have the most ridiculous notion of facism. Though many socialists try to define it that way to define a vast swatch of right leaning governments as fascist (which, of course, has become a slur since WW2).

Ridiculous it's not, it's concrete and specific and practical, unlike the subjective and superficial definition you and your liberal and conservative pals have come up with. Like so many abstract professors, you've come up with a definition that excuses big business and the super rich from the most basic responsibility for fascism. If the truth be known, that's why you and your friends object so strongly to my definition, because it puts the responsibility squarely where it belongs - on big business.

Your definition is so overly broad to be laughable. As GePap and Wycoff (and Orwell as shown by Sandman) have shown fascism is very different than authoritarian conservatism.

Again, utter nonsense. GePap the liberal and Wycoff the conservative haven't shown anything but a shaky argument. Orwell writes about "Fascism, at any rate the German version ..." This shows clearly the error you and your OT comrades have fallen into. You define "fascism" in terms of the historical versons of Hitler and Mussolini. Specific manifestations of these historical models are taken as the defining characteristics of fascism itself, instead of undertaking an analysis of the real basis and content of fascism. This prevents us from understanding modern forms of fascism, such as the Pinochet regime in Chile, dismissing them as "authoritarian conservatives".

The ideology matters, to say it does makes no sense. And as GePap has shown, it has impact, such as on the family. The family and the church were rendered subservient to the state, while any conservative regime would embrace them (such as Latin American conservative dictators who embraced the family and the Catholic Church).

Ideology matters, indeed. Except that it is the rationalization for things rather than the cause of them. Take for example the ideology of the "new man" . The fitness, the discipline, the focus on family and reproduction, were ideas perpetrated for a specific purpose. They were designed to increase the population of fit and obedient citizens and to build a stronger base for the army and the economy, in order to allow the aggression needed to expand markets and secure access to labour and raw materials. The ideas did not create the economic and military objectives; they served them.

[techumseh]

dp

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by techumseh If the truth be known, that's why you and your friends object so strongly to my definition, because it puts the responsibility squarely where it belongs - on big business.

No. I object because your explanation doesn't make sense. If Big Business was such an omnipotent figure in history, then the crazy radical NSDAP wouldn't have came into power, the DNVP would have. Big business wasn't behind the NSDAP until the writing was on the wall.

This shows clearly the error you and your OT comrades have fallen into. You define "fascism" in terms of the historical versons of Hitler and Mussolini. Specific manifestations of these historical models are taken as the defining characteristics of fascism itself, instead of undertaking an analysis of the real basis and content of fascism. This prevents us from understanding modern forms of fascism, such as the Pinochet regime in Chile, dismissing them as "authoritarian conservatives".

This shows your biases. The most illuminating part is you feel the need to condemn the people with whom you disaggre as "Fascist." What's the big deal? If you hate Pinochet, what does it matter if he was authoritarian Conservative (which he was) or a "Fascist" (which he wasn't)? If you think he was bad, point to his policies, not to his labels. You simply want to apply Fascism as broadly as possible, as you only care about it in the pejorative sense. You complain that we are basing it on historical models. I ask you: what in the world should we base our observations on? Should we ignore historical models because they don't fit your agenda? I really don't see your point here.

Ideology matters, indeed. Except that it is the rationalization for things rather than the cause of them. Take for example the ideology of the "new man" . The fitness, the discipline, the focus on family and reproduction, were ideas perpetrated for a specific purpose. They were designed to increase the population of fit and obedient citizens and to build a stronger base for the army and the economy, in order to allow the aggression needed to expand markets and secure access to labour and raw materials. The ideas did not create the economic and military objectives; they served them.

Right. It served the Nazis in creating settlers for their new Lebensraum, allowing for the future conquest of Earth and the eternal domination of the Aryan race. It served explicitly Fascist purposes, not big business purposes. What does big business care who buys their services? Globalization proves that it doesn't. You're refusing to look beyond the narrow scope that your ideology forces you to adopt.