Fascism Is a Current Political and Economic System
Monday, December 09, 2013
by David Gordon
Fascism vs. Capitalism. By Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. Auburn, Ala.: Mises Institute, 2013. 170 pages.
Lew Rockwell offers us in Fascism vs. Capitalism a provocative and insightful diagnosis of the political and economic ills of our time. The situation that we face, he says, is dire; but, fortunately, he does not leave us without remedy. To the contrary, the wisdom of Mises, Rothbard, and their colleagues in the Austrian School offers the means to rescue us, and the inspiring leadership of Ron Paul shows us the way to put their ideas into practice.
As the book’s title suggests, Rockwell finds “fascism” to be the key concept needed to analyze the modern American era. He is quick to deflect an objection:
- “Fascism” has become a term of general derision and rebuke. It is
tossed casually in the direction of anything a critic happens to dislike.
... But fascism is a real concept, not a stick with which to beat
opponents arbitrarily. The abuse of this important word undermines its
true value as a term referring to a very real phenomenon, and one whose
spirit lives on even now.
- The state, for the fascist, is the instrument by which the people’s
common destiny is realized, and in which the potential for greatness is
to be found. Individual rights, and the individual himself, are strictly
subordinate to the state’s great and glorious goals for the nation. In
foreign affairs, the fascist attitude is reflected in a belligerent
chauvinism, a contempt for other peoples, and a society-wide reverence
for soldiers and the martial virtues.
When the ordinary person thinks of fascism, he probably identifies it with the cult of the Leader, in the style of Hitler and Mussolini.
- I [Rockwell] wouldn’t say that we truly have a dictatorship of one
man in this country, but we do have a form of dictatorship of one sector
of government over the entire country. The executive branch has spread so
dramatically over the last century that it has become a joke to speak of
checks and balances. What the kids learn in civics class has nothing to
do with reality. ... As for the leadership principle, there is no greater
lie in American public life than the propaganda we hear every four years
about how the new president/messiah is going to usher in the great
dispensation of peace, equality, liberty, and global human happiness. The
idea here is that the whole of society is really shaped and controlled by
a single will a point that requires a leap of faith so vast that you
have to disregard everything you know about reality to believe it.
- Ronald Reagan used to claim that his military buildup was essential
to keeping the peace. The history of US foreign policy just since the
1980s has shown that this is wrong. We’ve had one war after another, wars
waged by the United States against noncompliant countries, and the
creation of even more client states and colonies.
- US military strength has led not to peace but the opposite. It has caused most people in the world to regard the United States as a threat, and it has led to unconscionable wars on many countries. Wars of aggression were defined at Nuremberg as crimes against humanity.
- US military strength has led not to peace but the opposite. It has caused most people in the world to regard the United States as a threat, and it has led to unconscionable wars on many countries. Wars of aggression were defined at Nuremberg as crimes against humanity.
- The reality of bureaucratic administration has been with us at least
since the New Deal, which was modeled on the planning bureaucracy that
lived in World War I. The planned economy whether in Mussolini’s time
or ours requires bureaucracy. Bureaucracy is the heart, lungs, and
veins of the planning state. And yet to regulate an economy as thoroughly
as this one is today is to kill prosperity with a billion tiny cuts.
- The fascist style emphasized inspiration, magnificence, industrial
progress, grandeur, all headed by a valiant leader making smart decisions
about all things. This style of American rule lasted from the New Deal
through the end of the Cold War. ... Fascism, like socialism, cannot
achieve its aims. So there is a way in which it makes sense to speak of a
stage of history: We are in the stage of late fascism. The grandeur is
gone, and all we are left with is a gun pointed at our heads. The system
was created to be great, but it is reduced in our time to being crude.
Valor is now violence. Majesty is now malice.
- must go against the grain. They must say the things that others do
not want to hear. They must be willing to be unpopular, socially and
politically. I’m thinking here of people like Benjamin Anderson, Garet
Garrett, Henry Hazlitt, and, on the Continent, L. Albert Hahn, F.A.
Hayek, and, above all, Ludwig von Mises. They gave up career and fame to
stick with the truth and say what had to be said.
- We all do well to emulate this master when we go about our work. When
Rothbard would take on a subject, his very first stop was not to sit in
an easy chair and think off the top of his head; instead, he went to the
literature and sought to master it. He read everything he could from all
points of view. He sought to become as much an expert in the topic as the
other experts in the field. ... There is another respect in which we can
all emulate Murray. He was fearless in speaking the truth. He never let
fear of colleagues, fear of the profession, fear of editors or political
cultures, stand in the way of his desire to say what was true. This is
why he turned to the Austrian tradition even though most economists at
the time considered it a dead paradigm. This is why he embraced liberty,
and worked to shore up its theoretical and practice rationale at a time
when the rest of the academic world was going the other way.
- knew that the philosophy of liberty, when explained persuasively and
with conviction, had a universal appeal. Every group he spoke to heard a
slightly different presentation of that message, as Ron showed how their
particular concerns were addressed most effectively by a policy of
freedom.
David Gordon is a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is author of Resurrecting Marx and An Introduction to Economic Reasoning and editor of numerous books including The Essential Rothbard, available in the Mises Store.
http://www.mises.org/daily/6603/Fascism-Is-a-Current-Political-and-Economic-System --
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