vimothy
yurp
Watch out, or I'll start talking about 4GW again!
Occupying the Moral High Ground
- Thread starter vimothy
- Start date
Watch out, or I'll start talking about 4GW again!
Yes, I thought about technological singularity. But really I was thinking of some kind of inverted truth process, a kind of inverted-Badiouian principle, a falsehood-process, a process of evil, in a way, a naming of the un-nameable to force the event, (obviously a play on his own post-Cohen set-theoretical "forcing", but with an entrely distinct meaning) which I'm unsure if it is even possible in his particular schema, but given his effective admittance of the end of revolutionary politics, (and cowering inside worthy yet constrained and conflicted contemporary single-issue micro-politics) perhaps is necessary.
Yes, in a way it is a particular part of Qutb-inspired 4GW activity- but one which I think can be used far more effectively against an IDEA, the IDEA of capital, than against any particular state. Almost functioning as a living-parody, a lived-thru satire, the irony of po-mo (the very logic of late-capital) being force-fed back into the machine, used as the very strategy by which it can be destroyed, with the vicious smile of the true believer/disbeliever...
There are also elements of economic terrorism, which I believe has been mooted as another 4GW strategy (altho usually consisting usually of co-ordinated hedge manoeuvres on the stock market with actual terrorist strikes against oil facilities to create tumbling economies in the west) one could imagine a purely economic strike- one designed to destroy the very confidence of the capitalist regimen itself-- to accelerate the abstractions, build the biggest bubble possible-- to remove the profit motive entirely, replaced with the strategy of weaponized investments, financial warheads which strike at the very system which allows their functioning.
vimothy
yurp
It's not even silly bait, it's an honest question. I've maintained my position throughout this thread (that Fascism under Mussolini developed an economic programme that was basically ahead of its time in that presently it is the typical economic programme of social democrats all over Europe). Apparently that means that I know very little about the left and/or socialism, but nobody will enlighten me as to the true differences.
vimothy
yurp
Furthermore, Mussolini developed this programme from the perspective of having been a socialist, born to a socialist, athiest working class family (and was named ofter socialist figures) and having been head of the Italian Socialist Party. He's like a totalitarian Tony Blair!
Fascist economics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Italian_fascist_corporativism
crackerjack
Well-known member
Except Blair was the posh son of a Tory!
vimothy
yurp
Well, there you go: Mussolini had better socialist credentials than Britain's all time most successful Labour Party leader.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Well, there you go: Mussolini had better socialist credentials than Britain's all time most successful Labour Party leader.
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to discover Tony Blair may not be a dyed-in-the-wool socialist.
vimothy
yurp
A fascist, so far as I can tell, is someone who believes than an unregulated free market leads to unacceptable economic instability and unfair distributions of wealth, but who also believes that socialism is variously unworkable and immoral. He therefore believes that the state should take a more active role in national life than is allowed by the liberal philosophers: it should ensure that businesses are allowed to operate without disruption, but that the fruits are more equally shared. Of course, libertarians can reject fascism on this definition, as can radical socialists. But I fail to see how anyone else can. This has been the position of just about every mainstream political party in the civilised world during the past hundred years. The only difference between Mussolini and Lloyd George was black shirts and castor oil - and, while important, these are differences that have no bearing on the validity of the underlying analysis.
- http://www.seangabb.co.uk/flcomm/flc134.htm
- http://www.seangabb.co.uk/flcomm/flc134.htm
vimothy
yurp
I take it (at least some of) you guys are into Joe Stiglitz and infomation economics?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_E._Stiglitz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_economics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_E._Stiglitz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_economics
vimothy
yurp
I have actually heard of John Gray before, but that was a really interesting article, crackerjack. Thanks for that.
Good bits:
Antiutopianism is the deep consistency in all his thought. It led him to support Thatcher in her efforts to save the British economy from the near-anarchy of the late 1970s, but mostly in her resistance to communism, that supremely lethal utopian project. Yet he also observed the agonies of liberalism in her deluded attempt to impose free-market reforms and intense social conservatism, nostalgic for the bourgeois discipline of the 1950s. “It was an impossible task. She produced a society that was almost the opposite of the one she intended. The free market dissolved the very values she espoused. I think our society is better for having escaped the tightness and oppression of the 1950s. But it left conservatism incoherent. It has still not recovered.”
This is very true. Although Conservatives might be the strongest allies of libertarians/liberals in the battle for free markets, they will probably not be very pleased with the different and radical directions that the free market takes society in. Capitalism is inherently unconservative and destructive of tradition (as gek-opel notes), hence much of the opposition to and anxiety surrounding globalisation (and inspiring what Brink Lindsey calls the "collectivist counter-revolution" - still being fought by the Islamists - against industrialisation).
That 20th-century amnesia, Gray says, led to new, faith-based utopian cults, but this time the primary one, neoconservatism, was of the right rather than the left. He shows, in Black Mass, how many of the neocon prophets were originally Trotskyists, a clear sign of the utopian linkage between Marxism and the neocons. And, most hilariously – though the comedy is very black indeed – he demonstrates the quite fantastic depths of neocon irrationality.
This is true to an extent. The link between Trots and neocons has been obsered before (e.g. Hitchens has noted it approvingly), and the name "neocon" (and its description: "a democrat mugged by reality") suggest as much: new conservatives, having previously been liberals. The neocon right is indeed more idealistic than the liberal left and the old paleocon, isolationist, "old school" nationalist right. It wants to change and is prepared to act to support that change.
However, are the necons really this century's Communists? I don't think so. Although stuff like "The Power of Nightmares" tries to portray the neocon movement as the equivalent of al Qaeda, it should be noted that they are not fighting to radically revalue society, not aiming to place all social relations under the power of their ideology and not aiming to enslave people, but to enable democracy and properity in a region sufering from a dire deficit of both. They are not a totalitarian movement and they are not waging war against liberal society.
Perhaps Gray’s most controversial point is that the roots of modern terror lie in the western Enlightenment. Before the 18th century, he argues, wars and terrorist campaigns were not conducted as if they were mechanisms of general improvement. It was the French revolution that introduced the idea of terror as a tool of progress, and we have been living with – and dying from – that legacy ever since. Al-Qaeda, he argues, is a very modern organisation, precisely because it has learnt the lessons of the West.
I agree with this as well.
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
So, Vim, would you then characterise fascism as a whole as something like: "the combination of a state-managed economy run on (somewhat) socialistic lines with totalitarian rule of law, militaristic tendencies, hardline social conservatism and extreme nationalism"?
vimothy
yurp
Yeah roughly. It would include that, but I would also want to note fascism's general collectivism (obv. parallel with socialism), populism, revolutionary class consciousness (distinguishing it from conservativism, i.e. fascist's want to overthrow the status quo, not preserve it), and its motivations (being essentially the same as all the other totalitarian movements: opposition to the liberal capitalist society that grew from the enlightenment).
vimothy
yurp
Well, there's widespread and then there's widespread. All revolutionary movements (Communist, Nazi, Fascist, Islamist) are driven by a hard core of generally educated middle class ideologues (the "vanguard") seeking to harness the power of a disatisfied populace. At least, that's how I understand them. So they all, if in any way successful (in their appeal) draw on both these sections of society. (Communism has always had middle class support). Part of the lure of the Fascists in Italy was that they represented a more moderate vision than the more extreme socialist revolutionaries (and importantly, more nationalistic), hence they were the "least bad" option.
"If the 19th century has been the century of the individual (for liberalism means individualism), it may be conjectured that this is the century of the State."
- Mussolini, Enciclopedia Italiana
crackerjack
Well-known member
Which class? I'm simply not having it that fascism was a working class movement in the same way socialism was (regardless of how many populist old Mussolini quotes you can find). And comparing it to the large numbers of mc/uc communists won't wash either, since they were always explicitly acting against their own class interests. Fascism was, to some extent, a reaction against the extension of the universal franchise and the old establishment fear that democracy was unpredictable and unworkable.
vimothy
yurp
Mussolini was a socialist who moderated the socailist economic programme and became more nationalistic and pragmatic as he moved from the Socialist Party to the Fascists. Fascism is a development of socialism, that's all, a more "realistic" (i.e. pragmatic) development. But if you are committed to your view and determined to ignore evidence to the contrary then it's going to be pretty hard for me to convince you otherwise, isn't it?
matt b
Indexing all opinion
one last reply to this circular thread:
economically, fascists and totalitarian COMMUNISTS are similar, but in terms of views of human nature, social policy etc, fascists and socialists are very, very, very different. the sources i've cited upthread, surely tell you that?
matt b
Indexing all opinion
i now blame nicotine for my continued return to this thread