Well, now that all the ass-kissing and ego-stroking above seems to be over, I'll make some comments in reply.
Let me begin, though, by making clear that the League generally uses the term "corporatist" to refer to the Bush regime, precisely because the term "fascist" is rather loaded and, among leftists like Severian, invoking of only the most narrow and wooden of theoretical postulates.
Originally posted by Severian+November 08, 2006 05:34 pm--> (Severian @ November 08, 2006 05:34 pm)Who ever heard of a fascist regime losing an election? Who ever heard of a two-party fascist regime, with the two parties contesting power through elections and public debate? No, sorry, those things are characteristics of bourgeois democracy.[/b]
Uh, I have. But then, my understanding of fascism extends beyond Germany. Both Italy and Poland had multiparty fascist regimes throughout the 1920s (and, in the case of Poland, 1930s). And what is worth noting is that, in the case of Poland, more than one party was drawn into the Pilsudski regime. In fact, the Sanacja, which ran the Polish government under Pilsudski was a coalition of several parties, including the PPS, the National Democrats and Camp of National Unity.
But there is a deeper theoretical issue here, and it has to do with the relationship between "democracy" and fascism. Antonio Gramsci had a point when he talked about the relationship between the two. From Gramsci's perspective, "democracy" and fascism operate as "two aspects of a single reality, two different forms of a single activity: the activity which the bourgeois class carries out to halt the proletarian class on its path".
For Gramsci, the resorting to fascist rule by the bourgeoisie did carry out fundamental changes, and it was done without changing the forms of capitalist rule or the "rights" which the Italian Constitution guaranteed on paper. It was the fundamental destruction of the organizations of the working class as expressions of organic class unity -- its reduction "to a disconnected, fragmented, scattered mass".
And where are we after five years of the Bush regime?
The anti-globalization movement ... FORGOTTEN
The antiwar movement ... CO-OPTED
The organized labor movement ... INEFFECTIVE
Independent working-class economic organization ... ATOMIZED
Independent working-class political organization ... MARGINALIZED
Working people's social and cultural organizations ... VIRTUALLY NON-EXISTENT
Actually, looking at the above, I realize that each of the adjectives can be used to describe any of them.
So, having succeeded in putting down the working class, the bourgeoisie realizes it can now afford a little more "democracy" for itself and the petty bourgeoisie. (Forgive the long quote, but I figure it's better than trying to "re-invent the wheel", so to speak.)
(Antonio Gramsci @ "Democracy and Fascism", 1924)When the working class is reduced to such conditions, the political situation is "democratic". In such conditions, in fact, so-called liberal bourgeois groups can, without fear of fatal repercussions on the internal cohesion of State and society: 1. separate their responsibilities from those of the fascism which they armed, encouraged and incited to struggle against the workers; 2, restore "the rule of law", i.e. a state of affairs in which the possibility for a workers' organization to exist is not denied. They can do the first of these two things because the workers, dispersed and disorganized, are not in any position to insert their strength into the bourgeois contradiction deeply enough to transform it into a general crisis of society, prelude to revolution. The second thing is possible for them because fascism has created the conditions for it, by destroying the results of thirty years' organizational work. The freedom to organize is only conceded to the workers by the bourgeois when they are certain that the workers have been reduced to a point where they can no longer make use of it, except to resume elementary organizing work - work which they hope will not have political consequences other than in the very long term.
In short, "democracy" organized fascism when it felt it could no longer resist the pressure of the working class in conditions even of only formal freedom. Fascism, by shattering the working class, has restored to "democracy" the possibility of existing. In the intentions of the bourgeoisie, the division of labour should operate perfectly: the alternation of fascism and democracy should serve to exclude for ever any possibility of working-class resurgence. But not only the bourgeois see things in this way. The same point of view is shared by the reformists, by the maximalists, by all those who say that present conditions for the workers of Italy are analogous to those of thirty years ago, those of 1890 and before, when the working-class movement was taking its first steps among us -- by all those who believe that the resurgence should take place with the same slogans and in the same forms as at that time -- by all those, therefore, who view the conflict between "democratic" bourgeoisie and fascism in the same way that they then viewed the conflicts between radical and conservative bourgeois -- by all those who speak of "constitutional freedoms" or of "freedom of work" in the same way that one could speak of these at the outset of the workers' movement.[/b][/quote]
I would argue an analogous position today. The rise of the Bush regime was necessary to suppress a growing working-class opposition to "globalization" and corporatism. Now that this process has passed a point of quality, and the working class is once again "disconnected, fragmented, scattered" as a political or economic force, the bourgeoisie can afford to restore "the rule of law" for itself and its petty-bourgeois adjutants.
But this is done in order to more effectively manage the same corporatist regime that came into power in 2000. What we saw on Tuesday is, as one comrade and friend of mine put it two years ago, a "vapor of democracy", not bourgeois democracy itself.
Now, I know that you adhere to a Trotskyist conception of fascism. While I see what Trotsky wrote on fascism to be a valuable contribution to communist theory, it is only valuable as far as it went. And I would argue that the advantage Gramsci had was the ability to analyze the internal dynamics of a fascist regime in power, the contradictions it contained and the motions of it as it developed.
Nevertheless, Trotsky did implicitly see the importance of what Gramsci emphasized in his pre-prison writings. For example, Trotsky did understand that a fascist regime had different dynamics than a fascist movement. Moreover, near the end of his life, Trotsky also began to flirt with the theory of the organic tendency of bourgeois rule to develop "in the direction of fascism" -- i.e., into fascism.
Originally posted by
[email protected] 08, 2006 05:34 pm
I'm pretty sure that Mussolini left office hanging upside down - not when his constitutional term was up.
And I'm just as sure that's how Bush is leaving - and now it looks very possible his successor might even be from the other party.
It is true that Mussolini "left office" hanging upside-down, but that is not the same as saying that this is the only course by which a fascist leader "leaves office".
Originally posted by
[email protected] 08, 2006 05:34 pm
One thing's for sure: nobody on "the left" is going to claim the Democrats are running a fascist regime.....
There have been other times in history that some leftists have claimed Republican presidents were "fascist" - Nixon for example - in order to justify veiled support to the Democrats. The reverse has never happened.
Uh, I will -- sort of. I would argue that the electoral victory of the Democrats last Tuesday has led to a corporatist regime that has the support of both capitalist parties. Running? No. Full partners in the corporatist order? Absolutely.
We've already begun to see this, with the extension of a "second honeymoon" to Bush by the Democratic Party officials. The "Big 'I's" -- impeachment (of Bush and Cheney), investigation (at least, anything meaningful), intervention and Iraq (as in, "ending the occupation of") -- are "off the table". This is because the corporatists in and around the Democratic Party are calling the shots in Congress -- the "National Security Democrats": Rahm Emanuel, Joe Lieberman (though he is technically an independent), Evan Bayh, Joe Biden, etc.
It is a capital mistake to see the Democratic Party as a singular unit. Will Rogers' axiom about the Democratic Party is still true. Over the last 15 to 20 years, we've seen the reorganization and growth of what used to be called the "Dixiecrats" -- though to call them such today would be a mistake, since they are no longer confined to "Dixie". Yes, there are social democrats in the Democratic Party, but there are also corporatists, Bonapartists/neoliberals and liberals.
So, to have both sides of the Janusian face of American capitalism saying the same thing should not be surprising, and should certainly not be out of the question.
[email protected] 08, 2006 05:34 pm
So why do you call it the "Bush agenda" and not the bipartisan agenda, then? Why did you claim he headed a fascist regime, not a two-party bourgeois-democratic regime? Why did you call for "Drive out the Bush regime" instead of opposing both parties equally?
I cannot speak for the RCP, and will not venture to on this question. This is one of many areas where we and the RCP part company. If they want to be soft on the Democrats, which is what it increasingly sounds like, then they are free to walk that road. We will not follow.
We continue to call it the Bush regime because Bush is still the head of state. Moreover, the "anti-terrorist" laws adopted over the last five years (due to the work of both parties in Congress) have given the executive almost unlimited, unchallenged power.
We continue to characterize the regime as corporatist. The difference now is that the Democrats are no longer junior partners, but full partners. Let me make this clear: the appearance of "democracy" is not the same as the reality of democracy.
The PATRIOT Acts and Military Commissions Act still exist are will not be repealed; the occupation of Iraq and phony "war on terror" will continue, but will be jointly managed; the corporate welfare state will continue, but the benefits will be better "targeted" to benefit the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie.
Now, it may be the case that one or two crumbs will be tossed to the population by the corporatists. It does appear that nationalized health care is on the agenda, but this is only because it would relieve the bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie of the burden of keeping up with increasing costs. That, and perhaps an incremental raise in the minimum wage, will may be what the corporatists throw to "the masses" in order to keep them from organizing.
But the need to drive out the Bush regime -- which means Bush and his partners -- remains, and, as we have always argued, this can only be done by the working class.
Miles