More Friendly Fascism

In late 1970, Bertram Gross published a paper with the ominous title “Friendly Fascism: Model for America”, which he later expanded into a book called Friendly Fascism: The new face of power in America (Evans, 1980). In 1975, in an (as far as I can tell) independent analysis, Joseph Holland also predicted that the US would see the rise of a new and “friendly” form of fascism. Nancy Bancroft took up the idea again in 1982, calling for Marxist scholars to keep an eye on things.

Holland's forecast specified downward social mobility for most Americans; high unemployment; decreased purchasing power; economic scarcity; bitter geographic and racial tensions; social unrest leading to repression of labor and leftist movements; limited, if any, electoral choice; and the orientation of the economy toward global management and defense production. In the seven years since Holland described American fascism, part of his prediction has become reality. The rest does not look out of the question. (Bancroft 1982, p. 155)

That’s more or less Gross’s point as well. While he is by no means a Marxist himself, he would agree with Bancroft’s way of putting it:

Marxist interpretations of fascism differ from non-Marxist ones chiefly by suggesting that fascism is a form of capitalist class rule. In the Marxist view, fascists do not take over or subvert a democratic government. Rather, the existing democratic government itself becomes fascist, to meet new needs of the dominant class. Prior to fascism, democratic forms and ideology partially hide capitalist rule. With fascism, democratic restraints disappear and the class rule of a small elite becomes vastly more exploitative. (Bancroft 1982, p. 155, my emphasis)

The essence of fascism, as Gross puts it, is close ties between big government and big business, through which all real decision-making takes place, under the cover of the meaningless spectacle of popular politics.

The prospect of fascism is actually a perennial theme among commentators on American democracy. Tocqueville intuited the threat of “a new physiognomy of servitude” in the power of the majority. Much of Norman Mailer’s work, starting with The Naked and the Dead in 1948 and intensifying in the 1960s railed against what Simone de Beauvoir (in The Mandarins) had called the “nascent fascism” of American politics, foreign and domestic. Indeed, in his commentary on 9/11 and the War in Iraq, Mailer suggested that fascism is “the natural government for most people” and that the “spreading democracy” might easily “encourage more fascism at home and abroad”. Noam Chomsky, speaking before 9/11, said that “the United States has been in a sort of pre-fascist mood for years … Now, we haven’t had the right person yet … but sooner or later somebody’s going to fill that position.” Bancroft, similarly, talked of “proto-fascism”. All of these people are careful to point out that an “American version of fascism” will differ from the despotism of a Hitler or a Mussolini.

Sources (very rough)

Bancroft, Nancy. "American Fascism: Analysis and Call for Research". Phylon (1960-), Vol. 43, No. 2. (2nd Qtr., 1982), pp. 155-166.

Chomsky, Noam. Understanding Power.

Holland, Joseph. "Marxist Class Analysis in American Society Today" in Sergio Torres and John Eagleson, eds., Theology in the Americas. Maryknoll, N.Y.: brbis Books, 1976)

Mailer, Norm. Why Are We at War.

Friendly Fascism

While Bertram Gross's Friendly Fascism: The new face of power in America (M. Evans, 1980) leaves a lot to be desired as piece of writing, its vaguely flarfy title concept is worth thinking about. Here's my version of it.

Fascism (on this view) has four essential components: it encourages violent action, it glorifies personal leadership, it dissolves the difference between business and government, and it denigrates the distinction between private and public affairs. The first two, the cult of violence and the cult of personality, may be considered, precisely, the "cultural" aspect of fascism or simply "cultural fascism". The third and fourth constitute its "organizational" aspect, which, in turn, have a social mode (business = government) and a subjective mode (private = public).

Friendly fascism is organizational fascism, i.e., fascism without the cultural characteristics it is commonly associated with. Now, a friendly fascist society will, of course, have to retain some of the cultish elements; it will still cultivate violence and leadership throughout the social order. But it will not do so "officially", as it were.

In fact, the most workable way of doing it is probably to cultivate these things as entertainment rather than policy. Thus, the friendly fascist state produces imagery that activates our desire for violence and greatness, but it does not openly propose itself as the model of such images.

A rigorously non-fascist society would tolerate no collusion among business people and government officials; it would maintain a clear distinction between private and public concerns; it would acknowledge the strength of the people over that of the leader; and it would pursue peaceful solutions over the use of force. We don't, obviously, live in such a society.

If kulchural studies is a science to support what Wyndham Lewis called "the art of being ruled" then it must take seriously "the spectre of friendly fascism".

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Like many another vain, empty, bullying body of our time, I have been running for president these last ten years in the privacy of my mind, and it occurs to me that I am less close now than when I began. Defeat has left my nature divided, my sense of timing is eccentric, and I contain within myself the bitter exhaustions of an old man, and the cocky arguments of a bright boy. So I am everything but my proper age of thirty-six, and anger has brought me to the edge of the brutal.

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Our Poor Nationalism (part 2)

I'm a poor pundit because I rarely keep up with the news. But I finally got around to looking at the facts surrounding the recent reprinting of an already controversial Muhammad cartoon by Danish Newspapers. I am, frankly, stunned by what this is all about. I am genuinely concerned about the state my country is in (no pun intended).

On Febuary 12, three men were arrested for conspiring to murder one of the cartoonists involved in the original crisis (he had depicted the prophet with a bomb in his turban). One of the them was a Danish citizen; two were foreign nationals living legally in Denmark. It has been decided that the latter will be deported. This was done as a purely "adminstrative" action, with no trial and no presentation of evidence against them.

Such deportations without trial are possible because of anti-terror legislation that was implemented after 9/11. It gives the Security and Intelligence Service (PET, in Danish) the authority to deport foreigners it deems to be a threat to the state.

On February 13, most major Danish newspapers reprinted the cartoons as a gesture of support for free speech.

So the plot to murder the cartoonist has been construed both as a threat to freedom of speech and a threat to the state. It's difficult to even begin to say how wrongheaded this is but let me give it a shot.

First, freedom of speech is threatened when the state prevents people from speaking freely. When your neighbour punches you in the mouth for saying something he finds offensive your freedom of speech has not been threatened.

Second, the power of the state does not hinge on its ability to control what its citizens to do each other. When three men plan to murder a fourth man, even in the name of a foreign deity, the power of the state is not threatened.

There are many people in Denmark who are bound by their faith to consider avenging their prophet or at least defending his honour. (They are not bound to do anything as radical as commit a murder.) Their private thoughts and conversations about this topic have now been all but criminalized, without even the suggestion that they might have their day in court.

More importantly, there are many people in Denmark who find the cartoons offensive in a non-violent sort of pissed-off way. When three men (allegedly) take their offense to the extreme, the Danish national media takes the opportunity to offend (again) the lot of them. That is, the preference not to see such drawings in the public sphere has been explicitly conflated with the desire to kill their authors.

At this point, I think, Pound would point out what a hopelessly weak state-media complex would result to this sort of pettiness. Three men are accused of planning to commit a crime and the nation is in a state (pun now intended). That is, the "intelligence" of the nation (the media the police) pull out all the stops. Frightful.

Our Poor Nationalism (part 1)

In August 1942, the following elucidatory statement was heard on the Berlin radio: the power of the state, whether it be Nazi, Fascist, or Democratic, is always the same, that is—absolute; the different forms of administration are merely a matter of the different activities which one agrees not to allow.

Ezra Pound
"A Visiting Card"
(1942, SP, p. 276)

In the last election, I voted for the Socialist People's Party. I don't hold any party membership for the usual reasons. In any case, Villy Søvndal, the leader of that party, recently devoted a blog post to the idea that Hizb-ut-Tahrir, a legal political organization in (what some think is a too liberal) Denmark, "is in the wrong country": "They have no business in Denmark and they will not achieve what they are striving for."

The reason, says Søvndal, is (to take one example) that they don't share his views on the equality of men and women. Here's the argument: many Muslim men discriminate against women. Sharia, which I am led to understand is the program that Hizb-ut-Tahrir pursues, justitifies such discrimination and would, of course, institutionalize it. Thus: Hizb-ut-Tahrir does not belong in Denmark, says Søvndal, because it is somehow (I take it) un-Danish to think women are different than men (especially lower on one or another social hierarchy.)

Now, I obviously agree with all the normal Western views on women. But I think Sharia is a legitimate political alternative. And if you believe in that sort of thing, and reside in Denmark, you are entitled, by your democratic rights (in this case), to push for the reassessment of the utility of women in various social positions.

The idea that certain opinions don't belong in certain countries (but might "go somewhere else", like Saudi Arabia ... ferfucksakes!) is ludicrous. It is precisely the sense in which nationalism is the opposite of democracy. So we have the disturbing (and somewhat bombastic) conclusion. Søvndal has declared the end of the party's "folksy" (i.e., "people's") socialism and inaugurated the era of its, well, yes, no getting around it, national soci........

Please don't understand me too quickly.