Kiev Communard
13th September 2010, 13:33
I have recently downloaded from Gigapedia a book by Daniel Woodley titled Fascism and Political Theory: Critical Perspectives on Fascist Ideology ( published as part of Routledge Issues in Contemporary Political Theory), which was released just in 2009, so I find it interesting to present to you the conclusions drawn by the author on the nature of relations between Fascism and what he calls "postliberal capitalism" and "corporate liberalism". As this is quite new study I think many of you may find it useful. So here is the link to the whole book - http://ifile.it/8pbkcse/9780415473545.pdf and to its description - http://gigapedia.com/items:description?id=414700. And here is the excerpt from Chapter VI (Fascism, capitalism and the market) that I would like to present for a more thorough discussion. Note that the author seems to be a certain kind of post-Marxist or Neo-Marxist academic.
6 Fascism, capitalism and
the market
Introduction
Liberal historians traditionally reject any direct causal relation between fascism and capitalism, pointing to the totalitarian implications of fascist-type movements which are opposed to economic liberalism. Why, it is asked,would capitalists invest in fascist movements which could eventually harm their commercial interests? As we saw in Chapter 4, however, part of the answer lies in the internal contradictions within the ruling power-bloc: as a ‘least-worst option’ – a satisfactory rather than ideal strategic choice in the absence of alternatives – fascist movements appeal to capitalists not because an identity of interests exists between fascism and business, but because fascism offers a means for mobilizing intermediate strata and neutralizing contradictions between competing fractions of capital.
By appealing to nationalist sentiment, fascists facilitate a temporary alliance between sectors of industry, between industry and agriculture, and between large-scale modern industry and traditional petty bourgeois producers, whose mass support allows economic elites to extend their influence over the state and to discipline organized labour through the abolition of collective labour rights and the reduction of law to an instrument of state terror (Wahnser 1994: 29).
Yet the relationship between fascism and capitalism is more complex than this sociological model allows, and cannot be understood without a formal analysis of the political economy of postliberal capitalism following the collapse of international economic cooperation in the global slump of 1929–33. To achieve this, we need to examine the politicization of capitalism as a strategy for transferring risk from the private sector to the public sector: then as now, the shift towards economic fascism cannot be explained in terms of nationalism alone (as if the demand for protectionism, cartelization or labour market controls were just random policy initiatives advanced by irrational demagogues). Rather, we need to accept a more fundamental possibility,namely that faced with the choice between state socialism and political capitalism,the transnational corporate elite in the advanced western nations consistently opts for the latter – albeit at the price of conceding some level of state disposition over the investment of private capital.
Following the collapse of the global economy between 1929 and 1933, it is possible to see economic fascism as a postliberal regulation regime infused with residual elements of popular anti-capitalism. Economic fascism attempts to resolve the crisis of liberal capitalism through state intervention,a strategy favoured by leaders as different as Roosevelt and Mussolini, who (reluctantly or otherwise) rejected the liberal model of a ‘free economy and strong state’ as unworkable, opting instead for a form of managed capitalism based on the insulation of the national economy from market turbulence (Schivelbusch 2006). After a decade of relative stabilization, it was the crisis of 1929–33 which drove (liberal)-democratic and fascist governments alike to confront the instability of unregulated capitalism, marking the ‘end of the prewar system of multilateral trade and payments and the free movement of resources across national boundaries’ (Aldcroft 1996: 13), and the end of Europe’s dominant position in the world economy.
Of course, postliberal capitalism assumed different forms in accordance with national traditions.Notwithstanding a substantial increase in the use of emergency powers, (bourgeois - Kiev Communard)democracy prevailed in the United States, although the structural weakness of the American economy was concealed by rearmament and (after 1945) by the adoption of ‘military Keynesianism’ to manage unemployment among unionized workers (Reich 1973; Griffin et al.1982).
In Germany, on the other hand, where the interlocking structure of the economy was more advanced by 1914, fascism triumphed, linking a new political class with vested interests in industry, banking and the military. While some observers question the validity of the concept ‘state capitalism’ – Ptak (2004), for example, argues that there is a tendency to exaggerate the planned nature of the Nazi economy – there is no question that in both Germany and the United States corporate and state actors acquired major significant powers over economic resources which had previously been the exclusive right of private individuals and firms.[1]
In what follows, I assess the structural and ideological links between fascism and capitalism in three stages. First, I examine the historical sociology of fascism as a specific form of postliberal capitalism with its roots in imperialism and the collapse of the self-regulating market in the interwar period. At the heart of this debate lies the role of the fascist state in the reproduction of the conditions of economic production, which an earlier generation of critical theorists interpreted as a totalitarian form of postliberal capitalism (Pollock 1941a). Although this term remains in currency its usefulness has been challenged more recently by writers who question the formal role of the state in the fascist economy and the convergence-theoretical assumptions implicit in the term ‘state capitalism’.[2] Second, I examine fascist economic ideology as a blueprint for autarkic managed capitalism, paying close attention to the fascist theory of corporatism. Finally, I examine the structure and organization of the fascist economy, comparing fascist economic policy with ‘corporate liberalism’ in the United States. (emphasis mine - Kiev Communard)
Fascism and postliberal capitalism
From a theoretical perspective, fascism highlights the affinities between libertarianism and Marxism – two opposing critical paradigms for understanding the development of capitalism since the nineteenth century. In an economic sense, fascism can be seen as a feature of postliberal capitalist societies which cannot be described as ‘fascist’ in the usual sense of the term, which forces us to consider the distinction between postliberal capitalism in its totalitarian and (liberal- Kiev Communard)democratic forms. Despite approaching the problem from a different normative perspective (libertarians interpret fascism as a further assault on the Lockean ideal of property freedom), there are points at which the libertarian and Marxian critique of statist capitalism intersect.
Radical libertarians and Marxists both interpret the expansion of the state as a response to the changing structure of capitalism: for Marxists, the state intervenes in civil society on behalf of economic interests to reconcile tensions arising from the antagonistic contradiction between labour and capital; for libertarians,the corporatization of politics is a consequence of deliberate intervention in the market and the formation of cartels to reduce risk and competition, a process which is accelerated by the ‘ratchet effect’ of war and economic crisis on the political organization of society (Higgs 1987).
Whereas the conservative liberal critique of collectivism is let down by a failure to acknowledge the concentration of economic power in the hands of financial oligarchies, left-wing libertarians highlight the erosion of independent entrepreneurial activity by corporate business. As Kolko argues, the rise of ‘political capitalism’ is tied to the demands of business for regulated markets, based on the assumption that ‘the general welfare of the community could be best served by satisfying the concrete needs of business’ (1964: 3). In contrast with the reformist zeal of liberal progressives who wished to stem the power of corporate trusts, he argues, ‘this came about because regulatory movements were usually initiated by the dominant businesses to be regulated . . . ’(ibid.).
For Polanyi, the Hayekian assertion of an ‘anti-liberal conspiracy’ against the self-regulating market is a ‘pure invention’, for the "great variety of forms in which the ‘collectivist’ counter-movement appeared was not due to any preference for socialism or nationalism on the part of concerted interests, but exclusively to the broad range of the vital social interests affected by the expanding market mechanism".(1944: 151–52)
In this respect, the origins of economic fascism do indeed lie in the shift away from liberalism but not because fascism is a socialist ideology. Unregulated markets require regulation not just because they are hostile to wage-earners or lead to the expropriation of the rentier class, but because they harm the interests of monopolistic producers who seek protection from the state to defend their market position and maintain access to resources. If the interlocking structure of national economies cannot be controlled or at least regulated by the state, it is argued, they are likely to succumb more easily to crisis tendencies in one or more sector, with potentially disastrous consequences for the wider economy. This is especially relevant to the labour market, which requires regulation (and, in some cases, regimentation) to preserve an unstable but financially profitable system of monopolies.
************************************************** ******
.... What Lenin defined as state capitalism was in fact the bureaucratic economy created in Germany in the First World War, an exceptional type of capitalism adapted to military needs. The theoretical question remains,however, whether it is possible to distinguish fascism as a totalitarian form of state capitalism – a system based on the supersession of the economic sphere by the political system and the elimination of the distribution-oriented contradiction between the productive forces and relations of production – or whether the concept of state capitalism is too static and all-embracing to explain how complex modes of regulation underpin capitalist accumulation regimes, both democratic and non-democratic. As Aglietta argues, there is a danger that the theory of state monopoly capitalism "assumes as a starting point what might be produced as the result of a theory. The state is seen as an entity that is at once objective and subjective,devoid of internal contradiction, composing a single system together with the monopolies. This is the system’s sole contradiction. The state must therefore be freed from the grip of monopolies so that the forces of production can also be liberated and a gradual transition to socialism can ensue".(1979: 26–27)
To characterize fascism as a seamless structure of domination based on a separation of ownership and control, and the separation of prices from movements in supply and demand, we not only risk blurring the distinction between capitalism and socialism, but also risk exhuming an outdated model of totalitarianism as a neo-absolutist system based on the total annihilation of individual initiative and rationality.
Although early critical theory was correct to identify the increasing role of the state in managing the capitalist economy, and although the theory of state capitalism reflects the pessimism of the Frankfurt theorists confronted by fascism, as Postone argues Pollock interprets the shift towards postliberal capitalism ‘in terms of the constitution of a new form of social totality, one without an intrinsic structural contradiction, hence without an intrinsic historical dynamic from which the possibility of a new social formation could arise’ (1993: 86). Because Pollock assumed that state-managed capitalism can resist the crisis tendencies of self-regulating markets by eroding spontaneous exchange, his pessimism is not just contingent but necessary, making it impossible for him to grasp in an immanent sense the socially contradictory and directionally dynamic character of capitalist social relations which are unable to constitute a ‘stable unitary whole’ (ibid.: 88).
The weakness of Pollock’s argument stems from his use of ideal types,which result in a static characterization of postliberal capitalism. As Poulantzas (1974) argues, the fascist state has characteristics in common with the state under monopolistic capital: relative separation between the economy and political system combined with the relative autonomy of the
state from the hegemonic class. Unlike the capitalist state in its monopolistic
form, however, fascism intervenes in an exceptional way by defending
unprofitable corporate interests at the price of economic rationality. This
point was made by Neumann in 1942, whose analysis of economic fascism in
Germany remains surprisingly relevant today:
"In the period of monopolization, the new auxiliary guarantee of property is no longer the contract but the administrative act, the form in which the state interferes. But because this is so, it is the form and content of the interventionist measure that now assumes supreme importance. Who is to interfere and on whose behalf becomes the most important question for modern society. The possession of the state machinery is thus the pivotal position around which everything else revolves. This is the only possible meaning of primacy of politics over economics. Shall the state crush monopolistic possessions, shall it restrict them for the sake of the
masses, or shall it be used to strengthen the monopolistic position, to aid
in the complete incorporation of all business activities into the network
of industrial organizations? Shall the state become the weapon by which
the masses will be made completely subservient to the policies of the
industrial empires within it?"(1942: 260; italics added).
Although Pollock is correct to argue that regulation of the market and
restrictions on private ownership are insufficient in themselves to achieve a
transition to socialism; and, although fascism introduces a specific collectivist
dynamic in decision making, by blurring the distinction between capitalism
and socialism, he obscures the link between social structure and economic
organization. As Postone notes, by characterizing ‘state capitalism as a class
system, he considers its basic economic organization (in the broader sense) to be the same as that of socialism: central planning and the effective abolition of private property under conditions of developed industrial production.’ More importantly, this ‘implies that the difference between a class system and a classless society is not related to fundamental differences in their economic organization; rather, it is simply a function of the mode and goal of its administration’ (Postone 1993: 100). Yet it is precisely this myth of a crisis-free economy based on the primacy of politics which underpins the attempt by fascists to ‘freeze’ capitalist social relations and defend corporate power in an administratively controlled system.
The assumption that fascism creates a nationalistic form of socialism, in
which the social tensions arising from the collision of private interests are
subsumed in a harmonious order, is misleading. The opposite, in fact, is the
case: the private interests of individuals may be subsumed in the logic of
etatist control; but to assume that the profit motive is eliminated under
fascism is, as Pollock himself notes, to ‘overlook the transformation of such a
category as “profit” in modern society’ (1941a: 205). While the profit motive may be subordinated to a productivist agenda (productive activity conducive to the goals of the regime is rewarded), no ‘capitalistic government can or will dispense with the profit motive for two reasons. First, elimination of the profit motive would destroy the character of the entire system, and second, in many respects the profit motive remains an efficient incentive’ (ibid.). This was particularly true in the regimented, neo-Darwinistic Nazi economy,where price controls forced producers to seek more ruthless methods for ensuring profitability (cf. Neumann 1942: 314–15). It is also false to assume that state intervention eliminates tensions between capitalists (whose goal is profit) and state managers (whose goal is to compensate for market failure).
As Block notes, the main "consequence [of regulation] is that many of the state actions that have served to strengthen capitalism have been opposed by large sections of the capitalist class because they are seen as threats to class privilege and as steps towards the Leviathan state".(1987: 86)
As we shall see, by supporting fascism industrial and financial elites
attempted to increase their social power through the state while simultaneously preserving their functional autonomy from the state – even in Germany,where industry had to cooperate with the regime to the bitter end because it had become dependent on the state for contracts and because alternative channels of political representation had been destroyed (ibid.: 88–89).
************************************************** *******
The political economy of fascism
The relative autonomy of the state in capitalist society derives from the
capacity of state actors to respond to competing pressures and honour obligations without relinquishing overall control over their own internal operations or their commitment to strategic goals, and as Poulantzas (1974) argues there are no historical forms of capitalism in which the state does not play a role. As we saw in Chapter 4, however, the capacity of the state to achieve its aims is determined in the final analysis by the relationship between those entrusted with executive power of decision and the objective sovereign power of political society in a broader sociological sense. Ruling groups can be powerful not just in their own right but by satisfying and advancing the interests of others (Lukes 2005). When their aims correspond, as in Italy in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1940s, the stabilization of fascist rule is possible. But where the sovereign aims of rulers exceed the interests of established elites or become dysfunctional to accumulation, then – as in Germany – stabilization is impossible. As Mason argues, the primacy of politics in the Third Reich cannot be explained simply by pointing to the totalitarian nature of the Hitler state. To understand the logic of fascist political economy in Germany, we need to recognize that ''far-reaching changes must have taken place both in the economy and the society before it became possible for the National Socialist state to assume a fully independent role, for the ‘primacy of politics’ to assert itself''.(1968: 54)
The task for economic historians is to measure and compare the development
of fascist political economy in countries as distinct as Germany, Spain,
Italy and Japan without losing sight of the specificity of each particular case.
Yet as Woolf (1968) notes, the basic problem for any discussion of the ‘fascist economy’ is the applicability of the category itself: did a fascist economic system exist, and if so, what impact did it have on the existing economic structure of the society in question? The first thing to note is that fascism was successful in a range of countries at different stages of development: as the world’s third largest industrial economy in 1913, Germany cannot easily be compared with Portugal or Spain without resorting to trivialization, particularly if we compare the influence of finance capital in Germany, where the large banks played a critical role in the formation of joint-stock enterprises,with the dependence of southern European states on foreign capital.
As Giner argues, the "defeat of the industrial revolution in some parts (Portugal, Greece) and its circumscribed success in others (Italy, Spain) meant that, initially,capitalism confined itself for a long time afterwards to the commercial and the property spheres. . . . the societies of the south had ceased to be precapitalist but their new-found capitalism became stunted".(1982: 178–79)
Yet two factors unite the distinctive historical experience of Spain, Portugal,
Italy, Germany and Japan: on the one hand, industrialization created a ‘dualistic’ economy, divided between an advanced industrial sector with high
wages and high productivity and a backward traditional sector with low
wages and low productivity, which ‘tended to accentuate the crowding of
labour in the traditional industrial and commercial sectors’ (Woolf 1968:
122); on the other hand, in all cases the state played a greater role in
promoting industrialization than had been the case in England, increasing a
structural tendency towards monopolization and cartelization.
This tendency was, as we have seen, exacerbated by the war and the discrepancies which re-emerged between domestic and international prices in the 1920s as governments attempted to readjust to market discipline. As Woolf notes, the ‘greater the importance of foreign trade in the country’s economy, the more vulnerable [was] the economy to cyclical movements of world trade’. This, he argues, was particularly serious because the attempt to return to the gold standard in the 1920s diminished the ‘control of governments over the direction of the economy, by making them acutely sensitive to fluctuations in the foreign value of the national currency . . . ’ (ibid.: 125).
Examining the logic of fascist economic policy in the interwar period, a
pattern quickly emerges: as an alternative to economic liberalism, fascist
economic ideology was for all practical purposes irrelevant until the
economic crisis of 1929–31, after which point counter-cyclical policies were
adopted by democratic and non-democratic governments in Europe,
America and Asia. Despite high unemployment, both democratic and nondemocratic governments remained committed to deflationary policies in the
hope of achieving macroeconomic stability, a policy which was only abandoned after the crisis of 1929 led to a catastrophic slump in industrial production.The problem for fascist governments was the difficulty of solving
unemployment in precisely those backward sectors of the economy (small
business, artisanal production) which provided a well-spring of support for
the regime among lower-middle class strata, but where there was no scope for rationalization. This, argues Woolf, highlights a key contradiction in fascist
ideology, namely the tension between its archaic and modernizing potential...
Further information may be founded via the book download through the link at the beginning of the post.
EDIT: Sorry for the messed-up abstract structure, I've simply copy-pasted it from the PDF-file itself.
i
6 Fascism, capitalism and
the market
Introduction
Liberal historians traditionally reject any direct causal relation between fascism and capitalism, pointing to the totalitarian implications of fascist-type movements which are opposed to economic liberalism. Why, it is asked,would capitalists invest in fascist movements which could eventually harm their commercial interests? As we saw in Chapter 4, however, part of the answer lies in the internal contradictions within the ruling power-bloc: as a ‘least-worst option’ – a satisfactory rather than ideal strategic choice in the absence of alternatives – fascist movements appeal to capitalists not because an identity of interests exists between fascism and business, but because fascism offers a means for mobilizing intermediate strata and neutralizing contradictions between competing fractions of capital.
By appealing to nationalist sentiment, fascists facilitate a temporary alliance between sectors of industry, between industry and agriculture, and between large-scale modern industry and traditional petty bourgeois producers, whose mass support allows economic elites to extend their influence over the state and to discipline organized labour through the abolition of collective labour rights and the reduction of law to an instrument of state terror (Wahnser 1994: 29).
Yet the relationship between fascism and capitalism is more complex than this sociological model allows, and cannot be understood without a formal analysis of the political economy of postliberal capitalism following the collapse of international economic cooperation in the global slump of 1929–33. To achieve this, we need to examine the politicization of capitalism as a strategy for transferring risk from the private sector to the public sector: then as now, the shift towards economic fascism cannot be explained in terms of nationalism alone (as if the demand for protectionism, cartelization or labour market controls were just random policy initiatives advanced by irrational demagogues). Rather, we need to accept a more fundamental possibility,namely that faced with the choice between state socialism and political capitalism,the transnational corporate elite in the advanced western nations consistently opts for the latter – albeit at the price of conceding some level of state disposition over the investment of private capital.
Following the collapse of the global economy between 1929 and 1933, it is possible to see economic fascism as a postliberal regulation regime infused with residual elements of popular anti-capitalism. Economic fascism attempts to resolve the crisis of liberal capitalism through state intervention,a strategy favoured by leaders as different as Roosevelt and Mussolini, who (reluctantly or otherwise) rejected the liberal model of a ‘free economy and strong state’ as unworkable, opting instead for a form of managed capitalism based on the insulation of the national economy from market turbulence (Schivelbusch 2006). After a decade of relative stabilization, it was the crisis of 1929–33 which drove (liberal)-democratic and fascist governments alike to confront the instability of unregulated capitalism, marking the ‘end of the prewar system of multilateral trade and payments and the free movement of resources across national boundaries’ (Aldcroft 1996: 13), and the end of Europe’s dominant position in the world economy.
Of course, postliberal capitalism assumed different forms in accordance with national traditions.Notwithstanding a substantial increase in the use of emergency powers, (bourgeois - Kiev Communard)democracy prevailed in the United States, although the structural weakness of the American economy was concealed by rearmament and (after 1945) by the adoption of ‘military Keynesianism’ to manage unemployment among unionized workers (Reich 1973; Griffin et al.1982).
In Germany, on the other hand, where the interlocking structure of the economy was more advanced by 1914, fascism triumphed, linking a new political class with vested interests in industry, banking and the military. While some observers question the validity of the concept ‘state capitalism’ – Ptak (2004), for example, argues that there is a tendency to exaggerate the planned nature of the Nazi economy – there is no question that in both Germany and the United States corporate and state actors acquired major significant powers over economic resources which had previously been the exclusive right of private individuals and firms.[1]
In what follows, I assess the structural and ideological links between fascism and capitalism in three stages. First, I examine the historical sociology of fascism as a specific form of postliberal capitalism with its roots in imperialism and the collapse of the self-regulating market in the interwar period. At the heart of this debate lies the role of the fascist state in the reproduction of the conditions of economic production, which an earlier generation of critical theorists interpreted as a totalitarian form of postliberal capitalism (Pollock 1941a). Although this term remains in currency its usefulness has been challenged more recently by writers who question the formal role of the state in the fascist economy and the convergence-theoretical assumptions implicit in the term ‘state capitalism’.[2] Second, I examine fascist economic ideology as a blueprint for autarkic managed capitalism, paying close attention to the fascist theory of corporatism. Finally, I examine the structure and organization of the fascist economy, comparing fascist economic policy with ‘corporate liberalism’ in the United States. (emphasis mine - Kiev Communard)
Fascism and postliberal capitalism
From a theoretical perspective, fascism highlights the affinities between libertarianism and Marxism – two opposing critical paradigms for understanding the development of capitalism since the nineteenth century. In an economic sense, fascism can be seen as a feature of postliberal capitalist societies which cannot be described as ‘fascist’ in the usual sense of the term, which forces us to consider the distinction between postliberal capitalism in its totalitarian and (liberal- Kiev Communard)democratic forms. Despite approaching the problem from a different normative perspective (libertarians interpret fascism as a further assault on the Lockean ideal of property freedom), there are points at which the libertarian and Marxian critique of statist capitalism intersect.
Radical libertarians and Marxists both interpret the expansion of the state as a response to the changing structure of capitalism: for Marxists, the state intervenes in civil society on behalf of economic interests to reconcile tensions arising from the antagonistic contradiction between labour and capital; for libertarians,the corporatization of politics is a consequence of deliberate intervention in the market and the formation of cartels to reduce risk and competition, a process which is accelerated by the ‘ratchet effect’ of war and economic crisis on the political organization of society (Higgs 1987).
Whereas the conservative liberal critique of collectivism is let down by a failure to acknowledge the concentration of economic power in the hands of financial oligarchies, left-wing libertarians highlight the erosion of independent entrepreneurial activity by corporate business. As Kolko argues, the rise of ‘political capitalism’ is tied to the demands of business for regulated markets, based on the assumption that ‘the general welfare of the community could be best served by satisfying the concrete needs of business’ (1964: 3). In contrast with the reformist zeal of liberal progressives who wished to stem the power of corporate trusts, he argues, ‘this came about because regulatory movements were usually initiated by the dominant businesses to be regulated . . . ’(ibid.).
For Polanyi, the Hayekian assertion of an ‘anti-liberal conspiracy’ against the self-regulating market is a ‘pure invention’, for the "great variety of forms in which the ‘collectivist’ counter-movement appeared was not due to any preference for socialism or nationalism on the part of concerted interests, but exclusively to the broad range of the vital social interests affected by the expanding market mechanism".(1944: 151–52)
In this respect, the origins of economic fascism do indeed lie in the shift away from liberalism but not because fascism is a socialist ideology. Unregulated markets require regulation not just because they are hostile to wage-earners or lead to the expropriation of the rentier class, but because they harm the interests of monopolistic producers who seek protection from the state to defend their market position and maintain access to resources. If the interlocking structure of national economies cannot be controlled or at least regulated by the state, it is argued, they are likely to succumb more easily to crisis tendencies in one or more sector, with potentially disastrous consequences for the wider economy. This is especially relevant to the labour market, which requires regulation (and, in some cases, regimentation) to preserve an unstable but financially profitable system of monopolies.
************************************************** ******
.... What Lenin defined as state capitalism was in fact the bureaucratic economy created in Germany in the First World War, an exceptional type of capitalism adapted to military needs. The theoretical question remains,however, whether it is possible to distinguish fascism as a totalitarian form of state capitalism – a system based on the supersession of the economic sphere by the political system and the elimination of the distribution-oriented contradiction between the productive forces and relations of production – or whether the concept of state capitalism is too static and all-embracing to explain how complex modes of regulation underpin capitalist accumulation regimes, both democratic and non-democratic. As Aglietta argues, there is a danger that the theory of state monopoly capitalism "assumes as a starting point what might be produced as the result of a theory. The state is seen as an entity that is at once objective and subjective,devoid of internal contradiction, composing a single system together with the monopolies. This is the system’s sole contradiction. The state must therefore be freed from the grip of monopolies so that the forces of production can also be liberated and a gradual transition to socialism can ensue".(1979: 26–27)
To characterize fascism as a seamless structure of domination based on a separation of ownership and control, and the separation of prices from movements in supply and demand, we not only risk blurring the distinction between capitalism and socialism, but also risk exhuming an outdated model of totalitarianism as a neo-absolutist system based on the total annihilation of individual initiative and rationality.
Although early critical theory was correct to identify the increasing role of the state in managing the capitalist economy, and although the theory of state capitalism reflects the pessimism of the Frankfurt theorists confronted by fascism, as Postone argues Pollock interprets the shift towards postliberal capitalism ‘in terms of the constitution of a new form of social totality, one without an intrinsic structural contradiction, hence without an intrinsic historical dynamic from which the possibility of a new social formation could arise’ (1993: 86). Because Pollock assumed that state-managed capitalism can resist the crisis tendencies of self-regulating markets by eroding spontaneous exchange, his pessimism is not just contingent but necessary, making it impossible for him to grasp in an immanent sense the socially contradictory and directionally dynamic character of capitalist social relations which are unable to constitute a ‘stable unitary whole’ (ibid.: 88).
The weakness of Pollock’s argument stems from his use of ideal types,which result in a static characterization of postliberal capitalism. As Poulantzas (1974) argues, the fascist state has characteristics in common with the state under monopolistic capital: relative separation between the economy and political system combined with the relative autonomy of the
state from the hegemonic class. Unlike the capitalist state in its monopolistic
form, however, fascism intervenes in an exceptional way by defending
unprofitable corporate interests at the price of economic rationality. This
point was made by Neumann in 1942, whose analysis of economic fascism in
Germany remains surprisingly relevant today:
"In the period of monopolization, the new auxiliary guarantee of property is no longer the contract but the administrative act, the form in which the state interferes. But because this is so, it is the form and content of the interventionist measure that now assumes supreme importance. Who is to interfere and on whose behalf becomes the most important question for modern society. The possession of the state machinery is thus the pivotal position around which everything else revolves. This is the only possible meaning of primacy of politics over economics. Shall the state crush monopolistic possessions, shall it restrict them for the sake of the
masses, or shall it be used to strengthen the monopolistic position, to aid
in the complete incorporation of all business activities into the network
of industrial organizations? Shall the state become the weapon by which
the masses will be made completely subservient to the policies of the
industrial empires within it?"(1942: 260; italics added).
Although Pollock is correct to argue that regulation of the market and
restrictions on private ownership are insufficient in themselves to achieve a
transition to socialism; and, although fascism introduces a specific collectivist
dynamic in decision making, by blurring the distinction between capitalism
and socialism, he obscures the link between social structure and economic
organization. As Postone notes, by characterizing ‘state capitalism as a class
system, he considers its basic economic organization (in the broader sense) to be the same as that of socialism: central planning and the effective abolition of private property under conditions of developed industrial production.’ More importantly, this ‘implies that the difference between a class system and a classless society is not related to fundamental differences in their economic organization; rather, it is simply a function of the mode and goal of its administration’ (Postone 1993: 100). Yet it is precisely this myth of a crisis-free economy based on the primacy of politics which underpins the attempt by fascists to ‘freeze’ capitalist social relations and defend corporate power in an administratively controlled system.
The assumption that fascism creates a nationalistic form of socialism, in
which the social tensions arising from the collision of private interests are
subsumed in a harmonious order, is misleading. The opposite, in fact, is the
case: the private interests of individuals may be subsumed in the logic of
etatist control; but to assume that the profit motive is eliminated under
fascism is, as Pollock himself notes, to ‘overlook the transformation of such a
category as “profit” in modern society’ (1941a: 205). While the profit motive may be subordinated to a productivist agenda (productive activity conducive to the goals of the regime is rewarded), no ‘capitalistic government can or will dispense with the profit motive for two reasons. First, elimination of the profit motive would destroy the character of the entire system, and second, in many respects the profit motive remains an efficient incentive’ (ibid.). This was particularly true in the regimented, neo-Darwinistic Nazi economy,where price controls forced producers to seek more ruthless methods for ensuring profitability (cf. Neumann 1942: 314–15). It is also false to assume that state intervention eliminates tensions between capitalists (whose goal is profit) and state managers (whose goal is to compensate for market failure).
As Block notes, the main "consequence [of regulation] is that many of the state actions that have served to strengthen capitalism have been opposed by large sections of the capitalist class because they are seen as threats to class privilege and as steps towards the Leviathan state".(1987: 86)
As we shall see, by supporting fascism industrial and financial elites
attempted to increase their social power through the state while simultaneously preserving their functional autonomy from the state – even in Germany,where industry had to cooperate with the regime to the bitter end because it had become dependent on the state for contracts and because alternative channels of political representation had been destroyed (ibid.: 88–89).
************************************************** *******
The political economy of fascism
The relative autonomy of the state in capitalist society derives from the
capacity of state actors to respond to competing pressures and honour obligations without relinquishing overall control over their own internal operations or their commitment to strategic goals, and as Poulantzas (1974) argues there are no historical forms of capitalism in which the state does not play a role. As we saw in Chapter 4, however, the capacity of the state to achieve its aims is determined in the final analysis by the relationship between those entrusted with executive power of decision and the objective sovereign power of political society in a broader sociological sense. Ruling groups can be powerful not just in their own right but by satisfying and advancing the interests of others (Lukes 2005). When their aims correspond, as in Italy in the 1920s, or Spain in the 1940s, the stabilization of fascist rule is possible. But where the sovereign aims of rulers exceed the interests of established elites or become dysfunctional to accumulation, then – as in Germany – stabilization is impossible. As Mason argues, the primacy of politics in the Third Reich cannot be explained simply by pointing to the totalitarian nature of the Hitler state. To understand the logic of fascist political economy in Germany, we need to recognize that ''far-reaching changes must have taken place both in the economy and the society before it became possible for the National Socialist state to assume a fully independent role, for the ‘primacy of politics’ to assert itself''.(1968: 54)
The task for economic historians is to measure and compare the development
of fascist political economy in countries as distinct as Germany, Spain,
Italy and Japan without losing sight of the specificity of each particular case.
Yet as Woolf (1968) notes, the basic problem for any discussion of the ‘fascist economy’ is the applicability of the category itself: did a fascist economic system exist, and if so, what impact did it have on the existing economic structure of the society in question? The first thing to note is that fascism was successful in a range of countries at different stages of development: as the world’s third largest industrial economy in 1913, Germany cannot easily be compared with Portugal or Spain without resorting to trivialization, particularly if we compare the influence of finance capital in Germany, where the large banks played a critical role in the formation of joint-stock enterprises,with the dependence of southern European states on foreign capital.
As Giner argues, the "defeat of the industrial revolution in some parts (Portugal, Greece) and its circumscribed success in others (Italy, Spain) meant that, initially,capitalism confined itself for a long time afterwards to the commercial and the property spheres. . . . the societies of the south had ceased to be precapitalist but their new-found capitalism became stunted".(1982: 178–79)
Yet two factors unite the distinctive historical experience of Spain, Portugal,
Italy, Germany and Japan: on the one hand, industrialization created a ‘dualistic’ economy, divided between an advanced industrial sector with high
wages and high productivity and a backward traditional sector with low
wages and low productivity, which ‘tended to accentuate the crowding of
labour in the traditional industrial and commercial sectors’ (Woolf 1968:
122); on the other hand, in all cases the state played a greater role in
promoting industrialization than had been the case in England, increasing a
structural tendency towards monopolization and cartelization.
This tendency was, as we have seen, exacerbated by the war and the discrepancies which re-emerged between domestic and international prices in the 1920s as governments attempted to readjust to market discipline. As Woolf notes, the ‘greater the importance of foreign trade in the country’s economy, the more vulnerable [was] the economy to cyclical movements of world trade’. This, he argues, was particularly serious because the attempt to return to the gold standard in the 1920s diminished the ‘control of governments over the direction of the economy, by making them acutely sensitive to fluctuations in the foreign value of the national currency . . . ’ (ibid.: 125).
Examining the logic of fascist economic policy in the interwar period, a
pattern quickly emerges: as an alternative to economic liberalism, fascist
economic ideology was for all practical purposes irrelevant until the
economic crisis of 1929–31, after which point counter-cyclical policies were
adopted by democratic and non-democratic governments in Europe,
America and Asia. Despite high unemployment, both democratic and nondemocratic governments remained committed to deflationary policies in the
hope of achieving macroeconomic stability, a policy which was only abandoned after the crisis of 1929 led to a catastrophic slump in industrial production.The problem for fascist governments was the difficulty of solving
unemployment in precisely those backward sectors of the economy (small
business, artisanal production) which provided a well-spring of support for
the regime among lower-middle class strata, but where there was no scope for rationalization. This, argues Woolf, highlights a key contradiction in fascist
ideology, namely the tension between its archaic and modernizing potential...
Further information may be founded via the book download through the link at the beginning of the post.
EDIT: Sorry for the messed-up abstract structure, I've simply copy-pasted it from the PDF-file itself.
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