Brad answers: >You are, of course, correct. I will report to the reeducation camp at 0600 hours...<
Then you'd be 2 hours late. Don't forget to bring your copy of QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN ALAN.
>But is there a category of "fascism" divorced from "Naziism" that is still
useful?<
The three popular definitions of fascism I've seen are (1) authoritarian capitalism in general (from Pinochet to Thatcher); (2) the corporate state, where business, labor, and government meet in tripartite bodies, with labor as a subordinate in the trio, having lost its right to go on strike; and (3) a fascist or authoritarian mind-set, as in the Frankfurt school's "F scale" (which measures degrees of fascist mentality). I prefer #2, but I also feel it's best to avoid the term unless I make it clear exactly what I mean. Like Naziism, the term "fascism" has been overused, including by the New Left, which used a version of definition #3.
I wrote: >>BTW, Brad, I think you're picking up on the populist flavor of fascism. But is populism always of a fascist nature? Similarly, is nationalism always fascist? (Can't nationalism be part of a struggle against some external power that invades or dominates a nation's territory?) The idea that populism and nationalism are always fascist fits very well with the World Bank/IMF neo-liberal view that it's world financial capital that should rule, rejecting democracy, populism, national goals, etc. (Cf. Rudi Dornbusch railing against populism in his old columns in BUSINESS WEEK.)<<
Brad replies: >Touche... Well, I'm an elitist, internationalist kind of guy, who believes that we have complicated socioeconomic systems that work poorly and should be replaced by something better (as soon as we can figure out what something better might be), but that in the meantime require careful management if they're not to bring us to immediate disaster.<
The problem, of course, is that the elitist internationalists at the World Bank, IMF, and the US have been screwing things up. The IMF, for example, has been acting as more of a global collections agency, or like my cousin Vinnie, who breaks legs of those who don't pay the "vig" to my uncle Mortie.[*] They repeatedly imposed policies that depressed wages and social programs. This behavior was well rewarded by seeing a lot of economies opening their doors to international capital (in Latin America and elsewhere). This has served the main constituency of the IMF (i.e., international financial capital) very well, until recently, when it's encouraged the global melt-down we're seeing.
One of the problems is that "crony capitalism" defines the Bretton Woods institutions main way of operating. They are not held responsible in any way to the voters of any country, not to mention of the world as a whole. Their operations are not transparent at all. It's a "Father Knows Best" operation.
>And that mindset is hostile to at least some forms of "populism"--I don't
especially want people voting directly on what the IMF quota should be,
just as I don't especially want people voting on whether the state of
California should run full-immersion or parallel-track bilingual education
classes, or on how many civil rights immigrants have. I want to elect some
people who have my social-democratic and liberal preferences, and then let
them choose and listen to experts who know something about the IMF quota,
or bilingual education, or the rule of law.<
I must say I am also quite opposed to the various disgusting California-state initiatives that you list above. But I've noticed that the legislature and the Governor in Sacramento are just as likely to come out with disgusting policies as the initiative process. Also, the main problem with the iniative process is not that it's democratic but that the democracy has been corrupted by the power of money. And of course the initiative process, the legislature, _and_ the Governor all reflect, to some extent, the balance of political power in California, which in turn reflects not only the reactionary opinions of people in Orange County and similar white suburban places but also the distribution of money power (mostly that of small business).
Anyway, it's not the initiative process that's to blame. Governor Wilson would be an opportunistic and demagogic creep even if there were no initiative process; the legislature would still be filled with similar sorts. Instead of arguing for its abolition, we should be arguing to make democracy stronger by taking the money out of it. Beyond that, the initiative process allows the electorate to make mistakes and learn from them. In the end, the principle we need to keep in mind is that of popular democratic sovereignty.
BTW, I am all in favor of experts. I listen to them (or rather, read their work) all the time. However, they need to be held responsible. I don't want rule by the economist-king. Actually, given the fact of capitalist society, even these "objective technocrats" end up obeying the power of money. For example, King Alan and his Federal Reserve are "autonomous" from the elected government -- but not from the banking industry and Wall Street. (There's a revolving door between Fed officials and the banks. There's a shared ideology. As the lender of the last resort, it's the Fed's _job_ to keep the banks happy. Etc.)
This is especially true because experts often disagree; corporations and their politicians are always seeking out the experts who agree with _their_ position, saying that global warming is a myth or good, etc. It's only the ones that agree with the IMF/World Bank party line are the ones who end up working for the Bretton Woods institutions.
>But there is a kind of populism that doesn't rely on charismatic leaders
to rally the people against sinister enemies who have stolen the dream,
isn't there? Isn't there?<
"Populism" usually means a vague movement (with no conscious class affiliation) of grass-roots communities and individuals opposing the power of the "big guys" in the name of the "little guys." Usually they have leaders, like most movements. But they're not all charismatic. Maybe it's a matter of taste, but I never found Perot to be charismatic.
The populists usually have sinister enemies, but isn't that true of almost all political movements? After all, the Republican Party -- hardly a populist group -- has railed at length against the "tax-and-spend liberals of the Democrat party." Clintonians (if there are any left) rail against the vast right-wing conspiracy. Laissez-faire economists rail against those people who want to shackle the Invisible Hand. Technocratic economists like Krugman rail against those who don't like his policies and don't have sufficient respect for "smart people." Etc.
On the issue of Chomsky and the Khmer Rouge, I don't know what he said at the time. But I do remember that some leftists simply assumed that because the US government and its allies had lied about Vietnam and Cuba and lots of other things, they were lying about Pol Pot. It was simple extrapolation (the main technique of economic forecasting, BTW), but in retrospect it turned out to be wrong. Pol Pot, nominally a socialist of some sort, turned out to be as bad as the fascists, maybe worse than most of that ilk.
Of course, he was encouraged in this direction by the social chaos created by US strategic bombing and the US-encouraged coup by Lon Nol against Sihanouk. And the US ended up giving the Khmer Rouge a lot of open and tacit support, in the US war against Vietnam that continued after 1975. I don't know why the elitist internationalist technocrats at the State Department are like that, but that's what they do. And they have much more power than Noam Chomsky.
[*] both of these characters are fictional. If I have any violent relatives, they're either in the Provisional IRA or are defending Wilton, Connecticut from the unwashed masses.
Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html