“John Barleycorn” is an English folk song that dates back to at least the 16th century. Depending on one’s inclination, it can be seen as an allegory of death and rebirth, a disguised or subliminal collective memory of the ancient druidic sacrifice of the Corn God, or a temperance tract.
The lyrics read rather like a lengthy version of a traditional riddle, except that the answer to the riddle is revealed immediately by the name of the main character.
Below is one of the innumerable versions of the song that have come down to us:
John Barleycorn
There were three men came out of the west,
Their fortunes for to try,
And these three men made a solemn vow,
John Barleycorn should die.
They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in,
Threw clods upon his head,
And these three man made a solemn vow,
John Barleycorn was dead.Then they let him lie for a very long time
Till the rain from heaven did fall,
Then little Sir John sprung up his head,
And soon amazed them all.
They let him stand till midsummer
Till he looked both pale and wan,
And little Sir John grew a long beard
And so became a man.They hired men with the scythes so sharp
To cut him off at the knee,
They rolled him and tied him by the waist,
And served him most barbarously.
They hired men with the sharp pitchforks
Who pricked him to the heart,
And the loader he served him worse than that,
For he bound him to the cart.They wheeled him round and round the field
Till they came unto a barn,
And there they made a solemn mow
Of poor John Barleycorn.
They hired men with the crab-tree sticks
To cut him skin from bone,
And the miller he served him worse than that,
For he ground him between two stones.Here’s little Sir John in a nut-brown bowl,
And brandy in a glass;
And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl
Proved the stronger man at last.
And the huntsman he can’t hunt the fox,
Nor so loudly blow his horn,
And the tinker he can’t mend kettles or pots
Without a little of Barleycorn.
They have worked their will on John Barleycorn, but he lived to tell the tale…
And so it is with Communism.
The collapse of the Soviet Empire came not with a bang, but with a whimper. If the Cold War had destroyed the Communist monster in the same way that Nazism was destroyed — with U.S. tanks in Red Square, the suicide of Gorbachev, and the hanging of the Politburo — we might have gotten some kind of closure on Marxism. Russia would have been fully de-Sovietized, and the barbarism of Communist ideology would have been fully exposed and universally reviled. But as it is, Marxist ideology just faded away into background noise without ever having its day of reckoning.
The Soviet Union was the full fruit of Marxist ideology, the realization of the great Utopian dream.
– – – – – – – – –
Unrepentant Leftists who repeat the old chestnut that “true Communism has never really been attempted” are blowing smoke. The USSR was the purest form of Socialism that is ever likely to be constructed. It took every single tenet of Marxism — the abolition of private property, the elimination of commerce, the dictatorship of the proletariat — and implemented it, extending it to its logical extreme. Since human nature proved not to be as malleable as Marx had envisioned, and Homo Sovieticus remained elusive, the dictatorship of the proletariat was simply prolonged indefinitely, right up until the end of the regime.
In the process, a country, a culture, a civilization, and an entire way of life were deliberately and systematically destroyed. To make this meager and foul-tasting omelet, every single egg in Russia was broken, and nothing could put them together again.
But it wasn’t only Russia and the “near abroad” where the drama played out. Socialism was, since it first appeared as a twinkle in Karl Marx’s eye, an international creed. World Communism knew no borders, and when the revolution came, it was prophesied to engulf the entire industrial world. Even though it didn’t work out that way — even though Communism emerged in only one marginally industrialized country and failed to spread any farther except through military conquest — the chimera of Socialism remained an international fantasy, the enduring dream of the intellectual classes throughout the West.
Long before the Bolshevik Revolution the various strands of Socialism were quite international. Centered in Western Europe, but with branches throughout the European diaspora and beyond, the Socialist Revolution was the coming thing for progressive-minded people. The Fabians in Britain, the Anarchists in Russia, Italy, and Germany, the Socialist Revolutionaries of various stripes in many different countries — all of them were quite cosmopolitan and looked ahead eagerly to the end of nations and the advent of World Socialism.
The Bolshevik Revolution turbo-charged this process in Europe and the United States. Germany and Hungary came close to joining the Bolshevik tide, and Britain seemed ominously near revolution when the General Strike occurred in 1926.
Then, after the Crash and the onset of the Great Depression, Socialism did come to Western Europe; it just happened to be the nationalist variety. The rise of the Great Dictators allowed for widespread experimentation with Socialism in its various forms. Communism remained the purest form, but the corporatist variants in Italy and Germany entrenched Socialist dogma across most of the continent.
The soft varieties of Socialism — the democratically-enacted programs which formed what came to be known as the “welfare state” — became ascendant during the same period. By the time Hitler crossed over into Poland in September 1939, there was virtually no country in the Western world that was not under the spell of some kind of Socialism.
Thus, when the Allies stood victorious over the ashes of Berlin in 1945, Hard Socialism and Soft Socialism had banded together to defeat National Socialism. When the dust settled, there was still nothing left standing but Socialism. No other significant ideology had any intellectual credibility.
From 1917 until the demise of Communism, various organs of the Soviet State worked clandestinely to undermine the Western democracies and hasten the revolutionary millennium. Propaganda, disinformation, infiltration, and the funding of ideological allies were some of weapons employed by Soviet intelligence.
All of this elaborate clandestine infrastructure did not simply disappear when the Soviet Union died. Most of it was at least nominally independent of Soviet patronage by that time, and much of Western Marxism was indigenous in origin, home-grown in the salons and universities and lovingly maintained by the infusion of KGB money and ideas.
Back in the 1960s the idea that the Soviets were behind much of the Leftist ferment in Western universities was considered right-wing paranoia. Yet when the USSR fell apart and the archives were opened, it turned out that almost everything asserted by the anti-Communists was true. Alger Hiss and the Rosenbergs were guilty. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s administration had been infiltrated at all levels by Communists. Universities really were hotbeds of card-carrying party members. Left-wing magazines were indeed funded by the KGB through chains of surrogates.
By the time the momentous year 1991 drew to a close, the West had already experienced three generations of Communist and Socialist ideologies in their various forms. We had all been drenched in it. Virtually anybody who attended university between 1921 and 1991 had come into contact with it.
When the USSR fell, only the Soviet model was discredited — and not even that, really, since Trotsky and Lenin were exonerated, and only the big bad Stalin bogeyman was to blame. Socialism is still the preferred ideological template for idealistic intellectuals.
Socialism didn’t die. It’s with us to this day.
Yes indeed, little Sir John proved the stronger man at last.
So what are the remnants of Socialism in 21st-century Western society?
First, obviously, are the official aspects of the modern Socialist welfare state, which include:
- Unemployment benefits
- Government old age pensions
- Disability benefits
- Nationalized industries of various types
- Government-controlled media
- The minimum wage
- Rent control
- The progressive income tax
- Government-controlled monetary policy
- State intervention in the economy
All of these are a legacy of the progressive ideals of the early 20th century and were eagerly adopted in the West without any necessity for Soviet infiltration.
The peace movements, disarmament initiatives, and anti-globalization activists are obvious children of the Socialist Age. But some of the other leftovers are more subtle, and are the long-term fruit of the persistent Leftist propaganda that most of us have been bombarded with since birth.
For example, a general uneasiness with income inequality is a legacy of Socialist thinking. Mere envy can’t account for it, since most people who adhere to this ideological position come from the privileged classes.
Another remnant of Socialism is an almost instinctive expectation that the State will be the instrument that solves all social problems. Not just crime, illiteracy, or sanitation, but poverty, mental illness, anti-social behavior, and general misfortune: government is the preferred solution to all these problems. Europeans in particular are accustomed to being funded, guided, corrected, and taken care of by their governments. Any evidence that the State does an inferior job when performing these tasks is ignored. Socialist orthodoxy has put almost all human activity under the care of the State, and there it will stay.
Even more subtle are the long-term results of the Left’s long march through our institutions. The Gramscian project has been underway now for more than eighty years, and the corrosive solvent it released into Western civilization is still eating away at the core structures of our culture.
This enterprise was not specifically a Soviet task, since it was eagerly adopted by Western Europe’s own native socialists. However, seventy years of Soviet aid and encouragement have contributed to its notable successes.
The Frankfurt School aimed to undermine, erode, weaken, and subvert the age-old structures of Western society so that it might be more easily overthrown, and thus immanentize the Communist eschaton. Everything that European civilization considered right and good and true had to be broken apart and discarded so that Utopia could be constructed upon the ruins.
The axe had to be laid to the roots of Western institutions, which were ancient and deep. Family, church, neighborhood, nation, corporations, voluntary associations — all must be uprooted to ensure the success of Communism.
To this end, people schooled in Gramscian ideology became teachers, professors, public administrators, and political office-holders throughout the West. Groups espousing this kind of ideology either formed or were subverted, and in the name of human rights attempted to impose new social forms on the general public. The “false consciousness” of the old culture needed to be overcome and replaced with revolutionary consciousness, but the enterprise had to proceed covertly.
The fruits of the Left’s labor are now so routine and commonplace that we wouldn’t think of them in association with Communism. Women’s rights, sexual liberation, recreational use of drugs, the debased aspects of modern pop culture, Multiculturalism, Political Correctness: all bear the marks of the Frankfurt school.
The mind-forms that have evolved from Gramscian beginnings over the last eighty years are so pervasive that it is all but impossible to think without them.
Whenever someone begins a sentence by saying, “I’m not a racist, but…”, he or she is unconsciously recapitulating Socialist indoctrination.
The widespread feeling that there is something inherently wrong with taking a profit in a transaction is a Socialist legacy.
The barely conscious political self-censorship that everyone engages in before speaking to non-intimates is a gift from Gramsci and the Communists.
The general assumption that the poor and unfortunate are the responsibility of the State is a Socialist idea. Before you jump all over me for talking about this, cast your mind back to the time before the New Deal, before Social Security.
How likely was it for an old person to fall into destitution before the modern welfare state?
Even though the per-capita productivity in the United States was far below its present level, it was very rare for the elderly to become completely destitute. Families, churches, communities, and local civic organizations carried out the functions that now routinely belong to the federal government.
Hard to imagine, isn’t it? The government does all these things, and it has always been this way, or so it seems. And yet it has been less than a century since these new forms were instituted. You can thank Socialism for your near inability to conceive of any alternative.
The Federal Reserve, minimum wage laws, no-fault divorce, prayer-free schools, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, gay marriage, “No Child Left Behind”, OSHA, the Department of Health and Human Services, sex ed, WIC, the demonization of religion of all kinds, Head Start, campaigns against nuclear power, a national ID card, food stamps…
Socialism. Every single one of them.
The fact that conservatives can and do make arguments supporting some of the above does not make them any less Socialistic. Every policy or project that requires massive state bureaucracy to implement and enforce is a Socialist initiative, no matter who proposes it or favors it, and no matter who benefits from it.
It may owe its origins to Wilsonian social fascism, or Mussolini’s fascist Socialism, or Roosevelt’s New Deal Socialism, or any one of dozens of flavors of collectivist ideology.
But it’s still Socialism, and it’s still the reigning ideology. It’s the air we breathe and the food we eat.
It holds sway in your local Social Services Department, or in FSLIC. It reigns in the National Council of Churches and the American Civil Liberties Union. It thrives in the civil service of every Western nation.
Socialism didn’t die when the Berlin Wall came down and the statues of Lenin were toppled. Socialism is alive and well.
And the tinker he can’t mend kettles or pots
Without a little of Barleycorn.
…and if The Patient ( Western societies ) is on life support ( the Welfare State ), how does one gradually detach The Patient without causing he/she/its destruction?
In medicine, while treating life-threatening pathological conditions, there is a ‘point of no return’ where the patient is essentially condemned to remain permanently attached to a kidney dialysis machine, a ‘heart-lung’ device, or even the classic Iron Lung
If Western societies have reached this point, it is no longer possible to detach them from what they have become dependent on: socialism, soft or otherwise
The more optimistic view is that The Patient has a lot of tubes stuck into him, but over time ( in the proper order ) the needles can be taken out and the tubes banished
How bad off is The Patient, Baron?
Simon —
That’s a good question, one to which I don’t have an answer.
I’m not an expert on such things; that’s why I rely on the distributed network for my information. If enough people contribute to the conversation, eventually an accurate picture will emerge.
El Ingles has some material in the pipeline, so let’s wait and see what he has to say…
That was amazing. It reminded me a lot of Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism. Have you read that by any chance, Baron?
It’s time that we recognised the continuing influence of Socialism and hopefully do away with it.
Question: Is there a difference between Communism and Socialism? What is it? I’ve read loads of stuff about Communism and Socialism, but I’m not sure I understand what the difference is (if it exists).
if socialists disagree with you, Natalie, they will propagandize you, manipulate you, browbeat you, talk endlessly at you, connive to misdirect you, lie to you, hide the truth from you, etc, etc
if communists disagree with you, they will kill you
Natalie,
Question: Is there a difference between Communism and Socialism? What is it? I’ve read loads of stuff about Communism and Socialism, but I’m not sure I understand what the difference is (if it exists).
There is no official definition. The answer will depend on who you ask, and at what time in history you’d ask them. But the simplest and most useful rule of thumb is to say that if you take Socialism and add Lenin, then you get Communism.
And the following rule of thumb just popped up in my mind: if you take Liberalism and add the working class, then you get Socialism. Socialism and Liberalism are really the same ideological paradigm, just applied to different classes of the society.
PS. Simon’s rule of thumb was a funny one too.
PS. Simon’s rule of thumb was a funny one too.
What I meant to say is that there’s a lot of truth in it.
Natalie —
Socialism + AK47 = Communism
I just thought it was a song about making beer.
Wonderful essay. I love both the scope of the vision and the detailed specifics of the results.
However, it’s unlikely for everyone to become socialist and agree with it, if there is no truth to it or merit to its positions. Socialism is simply a means (by your definition massive state intervention and bureaucracy led programs), it depends on what end it is directed to, whether it is a force for good or evil.
Socialism has done a lot of good in its time as well. It’s not socialism, but socialism combined with an ignorance of human nature and unwillingness to admit the hard truths about life and reality, that is really poisoning the west.
There are plenty of libertarians who are just as hopelessly deluded about race, religion, sex, etc. There are also socialists who are well aware of the truth and see no contradiction with still remaining socialist afterwards. I would say this is a x,y axis and not just a straight left-to-right line of ideologies. Four squares of ‘ignorant, socialist,’ ‘ignorant, libertarian,’ ‘aware, socialist,’ ‘aware, libertarian’ would better describe the various possible combinations of ideology.
Since every government is currently ‘ignorant, socialist’ it is hard to say how well or poorly the other models would do.
There are three things in youre list of welfare state benefits that I can hang with as they apply to me personally. But I guess that is part of the problem when it comes to picking and choosing certain nanny state programs. How do they affect me and my loved ones?
Unemployment benefits – Lord knows I couldnt have gotten by without those on numerous occasions.
Government old age pensions -Grandfolks couldnt get by without them.
Disability benefits – Once again a family member would be destitute without it. However there are many fakers.
Let me add a little caveat to that. In my fantasy world those three programs would be in private hands. Funded through charitable programs from American dollars. Of course that could only happen if Bill Gates and his ilk kept their donations in America for Americans,
Socialism has done a lot of good in its time as well. It’s not socialism, but socialism combined with an ignorance of human nature and unwillingness to admit the hard truths about life and reality, that is really poisoning the west.
Diamed, what you say is true.
Unfortunately, once the mechanism for a beneficent socialism has been created — once a huge state apparatus and an all-powerful bureaucracy has been put in place — we are dependent solely on the good character and benign intentions of those who wield the power.
If a megalomaniac or evil despot happens to appear, then our gooses are cooked. All the insttitutions that have hitherto restrained the assertion of tyrannical power have been systematically weakened or destroyed.
When you bet on a “good” form of socialism, you’re betting that there are no Stalins waiting in the wings. That’s not a bet I’d like to take.
Well-structured essay Baron indeed, and I can vouch for its content as well, however I do have an objection. One of the nefarious manifestations of socialism that you mentioned was the recreational use of drugs, which puzzled me. You see, I always thought the omnipresent regulation and institutionalization of the distribution of drugs, particularly in America, began with the advent of socialism hundred years ago or so. The regulation and criminalization of almost all drug use reguires a behemoth beauracracy, which is a vital sign of the socialist engine. But the main reason that the regulation of pharmaceuticals is a clear sign of socialism is that it implies governmental dominance over our own bodies and minds. It also creates a pernicious attitude so prevalent in many western countries today that the State must protect us agaist ourselves, which is not in harmony with a free society. A free country
requires temperance, self-responsibility and moral stamina which today`s infantile politics do not encourage. So to conclude we could say that a society envious of its freedom and sure of the rightness of its values should cherish the free distribution of drugs.
Spackle —
Disability benefits – Once again a family member would be destitute without it.
That’s the issue that I take issue with: the idea that destitution is the only alternative to government payments for old people without other means.
It’s true now, in the sense that our societies have been significantly eroded and atomized. It is no longer considered the responsibility of families, churches, and communities to care for the elderly. In fact, communities as we knew them even a hundred years ago don’t really exist anymore.
But these changes are due in large part to the Socialist program, which deliberately destroyed the other structures in our cultures, so that we would have no other recourse but the State.
We have been reduced to a condition where only the State can care for us, and this was a deliberate end on the part of those who wanted to build Socialism.
It wasn’t a massive conspiracy, with Stalin and Mao directing it. It was an ideology that infected thousands upon thousands of arrogant intellectuals who went on to attain positions of influence so that they could implement their destructive ideas
We were gulled, and our societies were ruined, all in the name of an impossible Utopian dream.
In 1908 it would have been rarer for an elderly person to starve than it is for a old person to die of neglect or mismanagement in one of today’s state-run nursing homes.
Grandescam —
I’m a libertarian, and I believe that drugs should be legal, but licensed (with sever penalties for violation), as would any other dangerous substances.
But I’m referring to the promotion of the drug culture in the 60s and 70s, which was heavily influenced by the Soviets. The KGD subsidized any form of activity in the West that might weakene the social fabric. In other words, the promotion and glamorization of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll was was at least partially a KGB operation.
I’m an old hippie, and I remember how often the local radical was also a dope dealer. Now I understand who helped capitalize him and keep him supplied.
I think I see your point pretty clearly, Baron, how that the promotion of sexual promiscuity and intemperate drug use have severely weakened family ties and caused wide-spread social difficulties. I also understand, of which I was hitherto ignorant but which makes perfect sense, that the Soviets played a part in the scheme. Nevertheless, I am of the opinion that the societal problems we face today with reference to drugs and sex can be explained in part by the eroding of institutions which encourage temperance and instill shame pluss the criminalization of drugs producing gangs dealing narcotics.
All of this you stated in your article. If we had the institutions that we had a hundred years ago, the demise of which we both bemoan, don`t you think the licensing of drugs would be redundant if not pernicious? Or am I missing something vital?
Please feel free to enlighten.
Baron-
I disagree with nothing you said. But unfotunatley to survive today one has to deal with the cards they have been dealt. My family member is essentially alone (both parents gone) no brothers or sisters and those that are alive cant take on the financial burden of taking on another mouth to feed and medical bills.
I must say one of the things I have admired about Italians, Chinese, Greeks, Jews and yes even Muslims is that they take care of their own. If there is a business you can bet that it is family run. Is someone down and out? They will have a place to stay. Something that seems lacking among most Europeans and Americans. Why? Is it Socialism or cultural or some combination of the two.
Spackle —
I agree. But the first step towards curing any disease is to diagnose it accurately. Later we may be able to take up our bed and walk, but not yet.
A hard look at the truth is absolutely necessary. It took 3 generations to get us addicted to Socialism, and it will take at least as long to go cold turkey.
For such reasons as dependency on Social Security and similar programs, there will be no intentional retreat from the socialistic welfare state in America and a return to Emersonian self-reliance. The beast will have to fall eventually from its own “contradictions.” I suspect that, such as in places like Britain, the jihadis are giving this dialectic a little push.
When Marx stood Hegel on his head, he put his own head in the clouds, teaching that there was some kind of end point to the dialectic. Had he kept his head, he would have realized that as long as the earth abides, heaven remains beyond it and the dialectic never rests.
Grandescam —
I agree with you completely.
A hundred years ago marijuana, cocaine, and heroin were legal. There is no evidence that crime, addiction, and other social pathologies were greater under those circumstances.
The behavioral sink that we have entered today is a byproduct of Socialism, and of the destruction of our culture that was necessary to implement the Socialist ideal.
Anybody care for a mess of pottage?
Diamed,
Socialism has done a lot of good in its time as well.
“A lot of good”? What’s your problem. man? I could possibly agree about “some good”, that’s arguable, But where the heck do you get “a lot of good”? Do you have piles of socialist pamphlets at home that you are reading from? According to Chinese people, Communism did a lot of good for China, like building universities…
That been said, I should add that I definitely prefer a socialist paradise, such as Sweden, before a libertarian paradise, such as Somalia.
Thanks for the explanations about Socialism vs Communism. I definitely agree with Conservative Swede about the similarities between Socialism and Liberalism.
Liberalism seeks to abolish existence itself.
What is Liberalism, and why is it inherently totalitarian and destructive?
Take, for instance, the slogan “Freedom of the Individual.” The ontological question is “freedom from what?” From society says the Ayn Rand fed Libertarian. But what if society is oppressive oweing to it’s structure? Then immediately, just like that, we have Socialism, the highest expression of which is Marxism.
See? Liberalism immediately leads to Marxism.
(Libertarianism is also a structure and order; capitalist, which Marx believed was oppressive and eventually illiberal)
Liberalism is at heart an existentialist malaise.
Existence preceding essence is seen in Kierkegaard’s Repetition, where his literary character Young Man laments:
“How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it and why was I not informed of the rules and regulations but just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought by a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in this big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn’t it a matter of choice? And if I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager—I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint?”
Existentialist’s deny there is a structure to reality, and they write books about this called “Nausea” or “Fear and Trembling.”
In the book “Nausea” we see the purest Liberalism, a desire a Liberate one’s self from the fabric of existence:
“The Kafka-influenced novel concerns a dejected historian in a town similar to Le Havre who becomes convinced that inanimate objects and situations encroach on his ability to define himself, on his intellectual and spiritual freedom, evoking in the protagonist a sense of nausea.”
Oweing to the presumed non-structure of reality it is believed that individual existence’s must be made free from anybody who says there is a structure to reality – and finally reality itself as the moral insanity catalogued here at GoV makes very clear.
Egalitarianism–Bolshevism–is end result of this denial of order and structure: the denial of order which is inherent to Liberalism. If one believes in a transcendent order one is probably religious and probably not a liberal.
The compromise between Liberalism and Order has been long and painful. In the 19th century the monarchies compromised with liberalism by becoming constitutional monarchies. In the 20th century many of the monarchies were overthrown, some by Communism. Lenin himself believed that Communism would give way to Anarchism – the complete absence of order. In this absence of order, this satanic incoherence, humanity would rise to its “full height” and would be conscious “for itself” and not “in itself.” This is the gnostic component of liberalism and Communism, that when one is finally liberated, one will become/grow into “One” with the infinite.
Finally, this gnostic desire for The Infinite through infinite “growth” or “progress” or “change” (something that is logically absurd but wont stop gnostics from believing it) is what dovetails nicely with pseudo Christianity, as Conswede is troubled by.
RE communism vs. Socialism, the only thing I can see is that Socialism has two main branches. International socialism which we call Communism, and National Socialism which we call Fascism. I have not found a better way to distinguish, what with the left so solidly in control of the media, education, and wordsmithing in general.
This is an excellent article. If it could be followed up with a nailing of the communists who survived McCarthy to take over the Democratic party, the picture would be pretty complete.
I like what Simon wrote as well, but you have to remember that good little socialists aspire to be Communists. That is why they support gun control.
Regarding the “good” of socialism.
I am out of work right now, and unemployment is paying the mortgage. If I could have lived the last two years with my taxes reduced by about 75%, but have to go without UI right now, I would agree in a heartbeat. I would have a nest egg of about $24,000. I bet my house would be almost paid for, since I have had it for about 10 years now.
Mr. Smarterthanme,
RE communism vs. Socialism, the only thing I can see is that Socialism has two main branches. International socialism which we call Communism, and National Socialism which we call Fascism.
First of all, Nazism and Fascism were significantly different in nature. And you cannot call anything at your whim for big-F Fascism. Big-F Fascism is something very specific, and if Mussolini is not part of it, you are plainly wrong to call it that. Small-F fascism is a different thing. Stalin made it a popular smear. But who are “we” here? (as in “what we call Fascism”). You and the lizards?
Secondly, there is as well a significant difference between Communism and Social Democracy. (But I guess you are not too interested since then you couldn’t dumb it down to something one-dimensional.)
Interestingly enough, there has not developed a corresponding distinction between Fascism and “Fascial Democracy”. Fascism was nipped in the bud, since it ended up on the same side as Hitler in WWII (although Mussolini initially intended differently); ended up on the losing side of the war, and that was kind of the end of the story–the ideology became thoroughly discredited.
But on second though, what about Peron in Argentina? Kind of a “Fascial Democrat”. Well, actually he rather blurred the whole distinction between Socialism and Fascism.
Conservative Swede,
Have you read the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg? I’d highly recommend it, as it deals with some of the issues discussed on this thread.
Nazism and Fascism (with a capital “F”) were different, but I wouldn’t say significantly. Nazism was quite similar to Mussolini’s Fascism (and yes, Mussolini played a huge role in Fascism) but with that odd racist twist to it. Overall, I definitely would say that they were related phenomena. After all, it is important to remember that before Mussolini invented Fascism, he was heavily involved in the Communist left wing in Italy. Fascism has many similarities to Communism because of this. Likewise, Hitler was inspired by Mussolini’s Fascism (though Hitler did NOT invent Nazism).
Fascism (but with a small “f”) is a more broad term that is often used as a smear by the left against the right (even though it is a leftist phenomenon as well). I would say that Nazi Germany, Italy under Mussolini, and the Soviet Union were all fascist states.
Finally, I would say that if Nazism is National Socialism, then Communism is International Socialism.
Natalie,
Have you read the book Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg?
I’m not so fond of these sort of word games. And Jonah Goldberg is a 20th century opinion-maker, and he’s not timeless, so there’s really no reason to read him today.
Anyway, here’s an interesting discussion about his book:
http://www.amnation.com/vfr/archives/009717.html
Nazism and Fascism (with a capital “F”) were different, but I wouldn’t say significantly. Nazism was quite similar to Mussolini’s Fascism
Well, from the perspective of a Liberal or a Communist it will appear so. But I hope that is not your perspective.
Fascism and Nazism were vastly different in nature. While Fascism could actually serve as a defence of our civilization, Nazism was the first taste of Jihadism, an Islamoid poison in the midst of Europe. Different like black and white. Nazism was based on the idea of a master race. Fascism put the strong state as the highest thing. Completely different.
These are all just word games. We can play any sort of word game. “Fascism is like Nazism”. Or as Jonah Goldberg, “Liberalism is like Fascism”, “Fascism is like Liberalism”. Can you see how meaningless it is now?
Yes, Fascism and Nazism has in common to be in stark opposition to the Liberal/Communist establishment. But so does any true anti-Jihadism! Think about that. Does that make us similar to Fascists, and by consequence similar to Nazis? (And subsequently, according to Jonah Goldberg, similar to Liberals?)
If we want to describe something as bad we will have to make a more intellectual effort than just sloppily labeling it as “fascist”; as Jonah Goldberg does with liberalism, as Charles Johnson does with the anti-Jihad movement, etc. And we should always remember that this is a smear invented by Stalin. Calling someone a fascist does not make him a fascist, but it makes the one who said it continuing the legacy of Stalin.
Fascism is like Islam in the sense that everybody’s an expert on it without ever having read the sources (but only the so-called “scholars”). I encourage all readers here to educate themselves about Fascism. This is a good start:
THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM
Natalie,
Finally, I would say that if Nazism is National Socialism, then Communism is International Socialism.
Nationalism vs. Internationalism is the only significant ideological difference today. Today only Internationalist ideologies are accepted (without heavy-weight ostracism), such as Communism and Capitalism; and in this context it has become abundantly clear how similar they are. Any sort of Nationalism became discredited as a result of the outcome of WWII.
National Socialism; if you think of the concept as such, there is more good to it than bad. And this is also how the movement started in the Czech Republic, in the end of the 19th century. Anyway, to make a long story short, the movement ended up being hijacked by a race-obsessed Islamophile maniac called Hitler. And since then National Socialists cannot mean anything else then “Hitler bitches”. And he even managed to discredit any sort of Nationalism or Civilizationism for 60 years ahead.
Anyway, suicidal Internationalism (such as Communism and ideological Capitalism) is on its way out, and Nationalism/Civilizationism on its way back in. But quite as then (when Fasicsm was compared with Nazism) we will be compared with Nazism today.
What has happened in our Capitalist/Communist/Internationalist world order is that any non-suicidal defence of our civilization is compared with Hitler. This is the essence of the current world order, and why it must fall and will fall.
Swede, while communism encompasses economics and governance, Capitalism only covers economics. We would have to couple it with Republicanism or Democracy or something else for it to be complete. I’ve always liked to call the US system “Capitalism + Individual Liberty”, except we have been losing the latter for decades.
From your suggested reading:
“Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State” and “Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts”
So this sounds a lot like communism so far, only very much not Internationalist. The only thing is I don’t understand how the Fascist state intends to meet its goals without delving into the hallmark of socialism: the abolition of private property rights. How else can it coerce the people to the Fascist purpose?
Mr. Smarterthanme,
Swede, while communism encompasses economics and governance, Capitalism only covers economics.
So, it’s Internationalism even more bereft of content, and thusly even more suicidal. Yes Communism was/is a better defence against Islam. Capitalism is what fed the Arabs will all the oil money for their Third Jihad. Aramco did it all for tax reasons. That’s how nihilistic and suicidal Capitalism is.
So this sounds a lot like communism so far
Because there is a content and a ground for defense against Islam? Does everything that is not nihilism sound like Communism to you?
Let’s repeat what it says: “stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State”.
Well, wouldn’t it have been wonderful if we had had such a policy in the West the last half century? No invasion of Muslims in our lands, or other multi-culti criminals and parasites. No crazy Liberal schemes attacking our families and cultural values. No need to pondering upon El Ingles scenarios of a coming genocide, or the prospect of the perish of our civilization. I can only say that that would have been a vastly superior situation. Anyone against?
The only thing is I don’t understand how the Fascist state intends to meet its goals without delving into the hallmark of socialism: the abolition of private property rights.
If you cannot understand how a strong state and order can be kept in place, and how the individuals are aligned in the interest of the common good (class co-operation instead of class war), without the abolition of private property rights. Well, then I suggest that you study some history. This is namely the most common situation in the history of the West. I’m surprised you didn’t know that.
How else can it coerce the people to the Fascist purpose?
What is it that you fantasize that the Fascists wanted to do to the people? Are you sure you haven’t over-indulged in Liberal propaganda?
Regulation of private capital by the state to the point of control by the state, without actual ownership by the state, would bring about a sufficiently similar situation. Fascist Italy wasn’t around long enough to reach this point but it would have eventually, once the goals of the state began to diverge from the goals of the people it was “uniting”. I think, like war production, you can have Fascism for a short time without having to resort to the heavy hand of state control but you’ll have to resort to it eventually, or you’ll lose your head.
Ciao Homophobic Horse,
Brilliant post to the Baron’s stimulating article. Today I was happy about having sent in my twenty bucks to help save GOV from Freedom of Speech.
In all this, in my very humble and uneducated opinion, I don’t think enough attention is being paid to the contribution of the scientific method in reshaping our minds. Though they were surely influential we are perhaps giving too much importance to the scatterbrain Sardinian and the baggy-panted Jews of the Frankfurt school.. who anyway were in the throes of the scientific method, seen as the most productive and bountiful “thought” system ever devised. This lopsided view can be defended, but only if one drops morality and also includes “destruction” in this great bounty and productivity.
It is natural that “reality” whatever the heck it is, seems oppressive, when distances can be shortened, life spans lengthened, dull moments filled with entertainment, loves that would have normally been lost forever kept alive with a push of a button, drudgery left to machines, the stupidity of the next door neighbor replaced with the brilliance of strangers in China.
There is much palpable, inescapable, truth in this “rebellion” against “what is.” The problem lies entirely within the realm of broken orthodoxies… of elevating a detached and amoral (blessedly amoral) methodology to the status of world view and morality.
Communism or rather, “Marxism” was “science”… Science 101. The real challenge is to disprove that updated Science, (Science 666) is just as foolhardy and that Morality must trump knowledge for the very sake of knowledge and not the other way around… that there can be no freedom no matter how advanced and liberating the new “gizmos” without orthodoxy.
It’s a Don Camillo and Peppone struggle at all levels, not just that of social organization
Graham,
Regulation of private capital by the state to the point of control by the state, without actual ownership by the state, would bring about a sufficiently similar situation.
Well, Graham Graham. Let’s have a look at the West of today, shall we. Private capital is heavily regulated all over the West, including in the so-called free United States. First of all, all those taxes–that’s what I call regulation of capital! Then private ownership is strictly regulated in all aspects regarding the oppressive centralized anti-discrimination rule we live under (a tyranny we imported from the “free” America). If you own a hotel, try to set up a sign saying “No Muslims allowed”. No, there you see. You are not in control of your private property in this society. The state control goes straight into under your skin. And there are numerous other examples, e.g. how the state can just go in and say that now your land is a nature reserve. Then you lose all revenues from your land (since you will no longer be allowed to use it) but you get no compensation for it (and it’s useless to sell too).
For you and Mr Smartypants to describe our society as one that respects private property, while the Fascist Italy as one who took regulation of private property to the point of essentially abolishing private property rights, is completely disingenuous.
Fascist Italy wasn’t around long enough to reach this point
Fascist Italy was around longer than the European Union has been so far, and did much less in regulating private capital and in oppressive tyranny against the people.
but it would have eventually, once the goals of the state began to diverge from the goals of the people it was “uniting”.
I will have to ask you the same question as I asked Mr Smartypants: What is it that you are fantasizing that the Fascist Party wanted to do to Italy? With the European Union we all know what goals they have that diverge from the people they are “uniting”. They are stating it clearly and they act accordingly. In the same period of time the Fascists didn’t state any of the kind, and didn’t do anything of the kind. (The Fascist party ruled Italy from 1921 to 1943).
I must say Graham, I get the impression that you are prejudiced against Fascism, and that’s the sole ground for you to invent the idea of an unnamed evil for which there is no evidence, which never happened, but which you fantasize that the Fascist would have done if they just had gotten a few more years in addition to the 20+ years they already ruled.
Where was even a tendency for the Fascist state to diverge from the interests of the people, in the light of what we know today about what the alternative scenario have done to us? I’m not saying that Fascism is the best sort of regime, but at least it definitely didn’t go against to long term interests of the people (the same can be said about many historical Western regimes).
So also this argument is disingenuous. The EU tyranny and shamnesty America strongly diverge from the goals of the people they rule (to the point of threatening their very existence). Fascism never did anything comparable.
While other regimes/ideologies are judged based on what they say and do, Fascist Italy is judged based on an fantasy about some unnamed evil they didn’t say and didn’t do; a fantasy that is not even stated but only implied.
Should be 1922, of course.
Well, Graham Graham. Let’s have a look at the West of today, shall we.
If you’re trying to convince me that the west today is a nightmare of over-regulation and state interference, don’t bother. I already know it is.
Fascist Italy was around longer than the European Union has been so far, and did much less in regulating private capital and in oppressive tyranny against the people.
I didn’t put a time limit on it, did I? The EU moves a lot faster and against the will of the people it claims rule over so of course it would have to implement a great deal of oppressive regulation in order to keep them in line. In fact, Nazi Germany was much closer to the model I described before, where much national industry wasn’t nationalised but simply regulated to the point where it might as well have been. Now as you’ve already pointed out, the Italian government under Mussolini was around longer and operating with the approval of the Italian people, who presumably liked the fact that their trains ran on time… yes, the old joke. And the fact that Italy was being made secure and prosperous again probably helped their opinions as well. I’m not arguing against that, there’s no point in denying historical reality. It was largely benign but, being based on the idea of the State as the highest power, and on the idea of the people and capital being subservient to the state it would, eventually, have reached a point where the state’s aims clashed with the aims of the people. At that point it would either have to capitulate and alter its goals, and become subservient to the people, or it would have to impose it’s will through increased regulation.
So, it would have got there eventually.
I’m not fantasising anything. The Fascists wanted to strengthen Italy and make it secure again, rather like Pinochet stepped in to protect Chile from a communist coup. At some point the Fascist government would have come up against a divergence between itself and the people and would face the choice outlined above. Human nature being what it is, I reckon the people in charge at that point would fear change more than they’d fear the reaction of the people to their attempts to retain power.
It comes down to the age-old argument over the position of the state. The Fascist government, by it’s nature, on the very words of Mussolini himself, placed itself superior to the people. They served it and not the other way around. A state that neglects its position as a servant of the people will eventually run up against this divergence of aims between the people and the state.
The intervention of world war 2 means we don’t actually know how the Italian government would have handled that moment. Maybe it would have reacted like Pinochet and handed over a rich and successful nation to an elected government. Or maybe like Castro, shooting everyone who disagreed with them. Who knows? But that wasn’t my point. My point was that it would have reached that moment, sooner or later. That’s it really.
swede, as your normal ally, I ask you to stop being an ass towards me.
I read the entire link that you gave, and while there was much chaff to separate from the wheat, The fascist ideal subordinates the people to the state. You cannot do that with private property rights. But the Facist manifesto doesn’t explain HOW it intends to do that. How did Mussolini get the Italians to turn themselves into the mere cogs of the state machine that the document said they were supposed to be?
Thanks for your answer, Graham. Obviously I disagree. But the discussion has become interesting now. And now I can see where the catch is, so that I will be able to make it explicit and address it.
I’ll be back later this evening.
Mr. Sm…
swede, as your normal ally, I ask you to stop being an ass towards me.
I’m sorry. I just find your moniker so silly that I cannot make myself write it straight-forwardly, without feeling very silly myself. I guess that’s disrespectful, but maybe also there ought to be some limit to what people call themselves.
The fascist ideal subordinates the people to the state.
Yes, that’s arguably a way to describe their method. But what about that “Fascist purpose” that to put such weight on before. What was that?
You cannot do that with private property rights.
You have an idealized idea about a fairy-tale society with absolute, metaphysically unlimited, property rights. But no such society has ever existed in history. It’s a fantasy. As Graham pointed out, the ideology that claims to stand for such absolute property rights–Liberalism–has proven worse than Fascism in practice in curbing property rights, and is even worse in protecting them.
The idea that the ideal is absolute freedom and that a strong state stands in the way of that is taken farthest by Libertarianism. However, all these theorist are nothing but eager to saw of the branch that they are sitting on. If the state is not strong enough, then goes the freedoms too. The state is in fact the guarantor and protector of our freedoms. The Libertarian ideal is the state-less society (same ideal as the Communists!). You can see it in practice in Somalia. Take away the strong state and the power vacuum will be filled with something else, in these days Jihadists.
But the theorists do not want imperfect real-world freedoms, they want the metaphysically unlimited freedoms (the sort of dreams that came from the slogans of the French Revolution). So they rather cut off the branch they are sitting on, and destroy all the freedoms we actually have. This is exactly like the Feminists, who can only accept metaphysically unlimited sexual equality. And in the process of striving for that they happily saw off the branch on which all women’s rights of our civilization rests upon. So now we have a society even without basic protection for women, where they face the risk of brutal gang rapes, and with no rehabilitation of their honour afterwards.
CS —
I agree with you here.
I describe myself as a “libertarian”, but define that term roughly as follows: “One who supports personal liberty, as defined and guaranteed by the United States Constitution, as limited by laws enacted under the consent of the governed, and as protected by the armed power of individual citizens.”
Or something like that.
As you say, pure liberty, like an absolute vacuum, does not exist. It is a chimaera.
Someone always has power, and coercive power (or the threat of it) always limits liberty. The trick is to aggregate individuals in such a way that their collective power guarantees their individual liberty, and yet somehow prevents the resulting state from metamorphosing into a tyranny.
It’s a fine line to walk, and no nation has ever managed it with complete success.
Baron wrote
…take up (y)our bed and walk….
But that was a miracle. And a command.
It is my fervent hope that there many closeted but true patriots in our nations armed services, that they have the wisdom to remain under the PC radar and advance in rank, and growing both their distributed and heirarchical networks for the time when they will be so desperately be needed.
My name is intended to tick off liberals, It makes me think of how Limbaugh’s over the top cockiness ticks them off (which is why he does it).
I am personally a social conservative and economic libertarian. In many ways I am a libertarian who refuses to saw that branch off as you put it so well. I see the idealized society as being one where the power is in the people, who are armed and onery enough that the gov’t has a healthy fear of them.
It is interesting how the left turned the word “liberal” into something that describes socialism, and even now they are stepping away from that. I am starting to think we need capital punishment for screwing with the language, and the first hanging should be for whomever decided to show US election results with GOP=Red and Democrat=Blue.
“…It is my fervent hope that there many closeted but true patriots in our nations armed services, that they have the wisdom to remain under the PC radar and advance in rank, and growing both their distributed and heirarchical networks for the time when they will be so desperately be needed.”
I can guarantee it. The oath is to the constitution first, officers second. We clearly understood it 20 years ago, and the young men who join now are the same guys.
Mr S.
I already mentioned it to Bela. I have been unnecessarily hard on some people today, and that includes you. You were right about that, and I’m sorry for that. From now on I will be Mr Nicerthanyou.
A democracy creates a tragedy of the commons. No one owns anything, it all belongs to the majority vote, up for sale as it were. Instead of private property, voters simply vote themselves whatever they want. The idea that democracy is somehow freer than a monarchy or dictatorship really has no historical basis. Never have taxes been so high, speech so regulated, regulations so totalitarian, or the fundamental right of self-preservation so trampled upon.
A democracy can’t have constitutional limits because those can also just be voted out. The US constitution started with strong checks on the government and thus the voters but the entire history of the US has been the dismantling of those checks and the aggrandizing of the power of the people. The constitution is now a dead, gutted document with virtually every section repealed somehow or other. There is no check on the power of the people, once they have it history shows they will expand it indefinitely to include everything. The problem was power was put into the hands of one group, the people. Just because the executive, legislative, and judicial branches are nominally separate, if the people elect all three there isn’t in fact any division of power. And people are only zealous in restricting government power when it is someone else gaining the power, they are always for themselves getting more powerful. A separation of powers into king, nobility, church, burghers, etc worked FAR better to balance powers and prevent tyranny.
The people are too dumb to want the good. They prefer bread and circuses. This simple observation should have been enough to prevent democracy from ever forming.
There is no proof whatsoever that democracy is better at protecting private property than monarchy, dictatorship, fascism, etc. Democracies in Europe routinely take 70% of your income while in biblical times a king was considered tyrannical who took 10%.
There is ample proof that the most important property of all, our homeland, is better guarded by communism, much less fascism or monarchy, than democracy. This means democracy is in fact the least free, worst system on earth, with the shortest possible lifespan among all governmental models. In less than 200 years we have gutted all our safeguards, forgotten all our ancient wisdom, put down all the patriots, and abandoned the nation to alien invaders. You could not have a worse track record, and yet, simply because we got rich while doing so, democracy is spoken of in glowing terms as the ‘final solution’ to all the world’s ills by our president.
People were already getting rich in monarchical England and Germany from the scientific/industrial revolution before democracy struck Europe. Nazi Germany of course was richer and had a higher standard of living, than democratic 1800’s America. The progress was not government models, but simply scientific knowledge. And Germany under the Kaisers and even Hitler was extremely good at contributing to this growth of science and invention, so democracy can’t be credited for that either. Because democracy existed at more or less the same time as the scientific/industrial revolution, they’ve claimed credit for it, but in fact they never had a thing to do with it.
If democracies have caused peace well we’re so much the worse for it. We desperately are in need of more wars that could save us from our coming extinction, but the torpid body-politic, too ignorant to know a thing about the world, keeps voting for peace because they heard some rock song on the radio telling them to give it a chance.
In sum a lot of things will have to go to reverse the train-wreck that has been gathering momentum for centuries and has delivered us here to this 11th hour. When you’re on the wrong course, the only way forward is to turn around and go back to where you started from.
Diamed,
Congratulations to a brilliant post!
A democracy creates a tragedy of the commons. No one owns anything, it all belongs to the majority vote, up for sale as it were. Instead of private property, voters simply vote themselves whatever they want.
A very good point. I wonder what Graham and Mr Smrt has to say about it.
There’s no system that has made private property as over-regulated and over-taxed as democracy (and when we say over-taxed it means ten-fold more than in previous systems!). Private property has never been as unprotected against the greed of the needy and the intervention by haughty moralists.
The idea that democracy is somehow freer than a monarchy or dictatorship really has no historical basis.
Yes, this is true. At least when compared to the old monarchies. Regarding dictatorships it can be worse or better depending on it’s nature. But I do not like the term “dictatorship”. It has become democracy-newspeak to imply that any other system means that the power has been stolen. There’s a huge difference between a tyrant and an benevolent despot. So we should stick to such terms and not fall into the degenerated language of democratism.
Never have taxes been so high, speech so regulated, regulations so totalitarian, or the fundamental right of self-preservation so trampled upon.
But according to Graham this is exactly what the people want. And if they do not get this, any system where the state is not “the servant of the people” in this sense, will eventually have to be run like Fidel Castro is running Cuba, which means shooting everybody that disagrees with the regime.
A democracy can’t have constitutional limits because those can also just be voted out.
Another excellent point. Democracy is bound evolve into tyranny, since the politicians put themselves above the law (the old kings didn’t do that), and eventually above the people.
The problem was power was put into the hands of one group, the people.
And an ensuing problem is that the people has no voice (in an ordinary peaceful political climate). So all this power ends up among the representatives of the people, and the voices in media. And since there are no other elite to challange them (all power is with the people, remember) they develop into a nomenklatura that is all omnipotent.
Just because the executive, legislative, and judicial branches are nominally separate, if the people elect all three there isn’t in fact any division of power.
Correct.
A separation of powers into king, nobility, church, burghers, etc worked FAR better to balance powers and prevent tyranny.
Yes, that was the true system of checks and balances. The best guarantee against tyranny is to have many competing elites in a society. The problem with democracy is that the people as such is not an agent in political affairs. However, a good system should have a strong democratic component; in a mixed constitution as the old British or Roman one. That would actually give people real power. Not as in the current system, where everyone can see that the people are powerless.
This means democracy is in fact the least free, worst system on earth, with the shortest possible lifespan among all governmental models.
Yes this is true. Modern democracy will be seen as a very short historical parenthesis. This is my perspective all of the time. But I can see how the people that I discuss with cannot see that.
Because democracy existed at more or less the same time as the scientific/industrial revolution, they’ve claimed credit for it, but in fact they never had a thing to do with it.
I’m not sure about the “never”, but otherwise this is all correct. Hey, what thinkers are you reading? Your post is so good, that I could almost have written it myself (in some respect better than I would). Have you been reading Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn?
Btw, above is paralleled by how the Social Democrats take the credit for all the wealth and goodies to the people in Sweden. But the wealth in Sweden was built in the golden era 1870-1930. The Social Democrats only distributed it. And if you just continue to distribute, and stifle the production, well this is what you get…
Graham,
The Fascist government, by it’s nature, on the very words of Mussolini himself, placed itself superior to the people. They served it and not the other way around.
In any sustainable society the people need something that is higher than themselves. It used to be the God, the King and what was commonly perceived as “the law”. But that has all gone out of fashion. To put the state as the entity higher then the people in the society is rather prosaic, but it fits the formula. But what would you suggest in the Industrial Age? The God and the King are not convincing entities any more in the eyes of modern people.
When the Spaniards drove out the Muslims from the Iberic peninsula, their strength came from that they were a society where there were entities higher than themselves, the God and the King. They could strive for purposes higher than their personal lives, and aiming for the future. It’s only in such a society that the human nature comes into its full expression. To not have something that is higher than us is unnatural and depressing for us. This is encoded into our genes. A society where Man is made the God becomes atomized and without direction, and will eventually fall apart (once again look at the world we live in).
A state that neglects its position as a servant of the people will eventually run up against this divergence of aims between the people and the state.
Your reasoning is upside-down (this is the catch I mentioned before). You stipulate a different interest of the people, that is in opposition to the common interests organized as the state. This is a liberal/socialist idea. The idea of the sum of all the individual wills as an interest disparate from the common good. This is the motivation behind mass democracy, and what it leads to, Diamed lined out very well in his recent post. And it leads to an atomized society that will fall apart.
You seem to assume the democracy is the natural order of things. And that any system that is not obeying to these rules must either fall down or turn into a murderous tyranny. But it’s nothing of the kind, Democracy is not at all natural, and it’s just going to be a short historical parenthesis. People will laugh by the end of this century to the idea that democracy is a natural state of things.
A final note. Socialists are also associated with the idea of a strong state (and liberals since the eventually converge toward the same welfare-statism). But this is not a strong state for building the wealth and protection of the country, but to loot it. And it’s bound to evolve into institutionalized weakness. The stronger the state the weaker and poorer and less protected we are under socialism/liberalism/mass-democracy.
The problem with what Diamed wrote is that the US is not a Democracy. We are a Republic. We are slipping down the slope, because the communists among us know that the closer we get to Democracy, the quicker they can turn it into socialism and then communism.
All the US needs to set back that destruction of the US political fiber is a repeal of the 17th amendment, that would spur subtle changes that would be a disaster for the Democrats and Communists.
Will we see it? I don’t know. But in the meanwhile, you should see the guns that us American citizens own, and the internet has done a lot to undo the stranglehold that the Democrats had on political speech. We still have hope. AND the US REPUBLIC is the longest running govt on earth today.
And Swede, we need to distinguish between classic liberalism and the modern, which is socialism. And we must distinguish between the Democratic govt and the Republic.
I do agree that we need more wars, but only in that the internationalist socialists have been at least partly successful in getting soft-headed westerners to believe that war is to be avoided at all costs, including our souls, morals and treasure.
CS, if I were to answer all your points I’d be here all night and then I’d probably be asked to go away and do it on my own blog.
I’m not the sort to believe that democracy is all you need for a free state but I do believe it has a role, alongside strong institutions.
I’m probably getting into semantics now but my understanding of “above” and yours seem to be different. The state can be something aspirational without being something that is all-powerful. your example of the socialist looting state is what I had in mind when I was talking about the state as something that places itself above the people. Now if the fascist state is serving its people rather than controlling them, then great. I have no argument with it. My understanding of fascism, though, is that it becomes the very point of existence for its citizens, which I find to be a little bit… worrying. A state that believes the citizens should be serving it is dangerous.
I think I’m in a similar frame of mind to the Baron on this. The state should be limited but strong where it holds power. Collective defence and so on. The idea of the state taking the pace of God… well, I have a god already, perhaps that’s why I don’t like the idea. 🙂
I shan’t try any more of this. You’re too clever for me to argue against. Let me just say it’s been a pleasure, and I think I’m going to have to read up on Italy a little more.
Graham,
Nazi Germany was much closer to the model I described before, where much national industry wasn’t nationalised but simply regulated to the point where it might as well have been.
Yes. That’s true about Nazi Germany. But can we please agree that this implies nothing about Fascist Italy. Just because they were both anti-Liberal and both ended up on the same side of the war doesn’t make them the same. Quite as FDR and Stalin were not the same by both being on the same side of the war and both representing egalitarianist systems.
Yes, Nazism definitely had a purpose that went against the interests of the German people (among others). Hitler had a mad-man agenda of world dominance, and torn his country apart by his hyper-excessive warfare (there’s never been a commander in chief in history acting so insanely irresponsibly). The whole things was his personal ego trip. And by the end, before he died, he said that the German people deserved the destruction and humiliation that was coming for them, since they hadn’t met up to his expectations. And then we have the obsession about the master race, the gassing of the Jews, the flirting with Islam, and it goes on and on. Hitler’s Nazism was the sickest thing we ever saw in Europe.
Mr. Smrt,
The problem with what Diamed wrote is that the US is not a Democracy. We are a Republic.
The US started as a republic but degenerated into a democracy. Since the days of FDR it has definitely been as democracy. Have you missed how all the presidents since FDR have always been talking how to spread democracy in the world?
The initial checks and balances have degenerated, by the 17th amendment e.g., and the Supreme Court is today a force against checks and balances, and against the original constitution.
And Swede, we need to distinguish between classic liberalism and the modern, which is socialism.
Classic liberalism held the seeds for all the destruction described by me and Diamed. Atomism, nihilism, etc. They view of society as the sum of all individual wills.
And we must distinguish between the Democratic govt and the Republic.
The Republic is a fine system. But since the invention of Liberalism I cannot see how it can be protected against degenerating into democracy.
Swede, I’m with you. The Republic is gone.
The Civil War wounded it severely, and Wilson and FDR finished it off. The direct election of Senators and the President, plus the unconstitutional usurpation of powers by the federal government, have done the job.
It’s gone, and nothin’s gonna bring it back.
Graham,
A state that believes the citizens should be serving it is dangerous.
My point is that the opposite is the real danger. If the state is a servant to the people. Then you get the horrible outcome, described so well by Diamed in his post.
Now if the fascist state is serving its people rather than controlling them, then great.
There you go again – eeek! The state serving the people… This idea of yours, is exactly democracy, Graham.
There are of course more sorts of relations that can exist between the state and its people, except for one serving the other. But the people will always need something that is higher than themselves. And they must be able to serve their country in case of a war.
But the idea that the state should serve the people is dangerous and will make the society fall apart. Let’s make the following comparison. At the place where you work. Do you expect our boss to serve you? Is that the sort of relation that is in your best common interest and for the best of the common good of the company?
Baron,
plus the unconstitutional usurpation of powers by the federal government, have done the job.
Yes, thanks, I forgot that one.
Yeah, typical of modern democracy is how super-centralized it is.
Which reminds me of my three paradoxes of democracy:
1. Democracy is the only system that makes the people completely powerless.
2. Democracy is the only system that puts an end to all sorts of self-government.
3. Democracy is the only system where you can never change the way the country is governed.
And finally, regarding democracy in America. Toqueville wrote a book with that name in the 1830s. And while the system was still a republic back then, the spirit of democracy was among the population already then. The history of America is very interesting and here is an interesting parallel to Sweden in how the two countries are unique in how they are naturally (traditionally) egalitarian (due to the lack of aristocracy). Herein we also find reason why America and Sweden are two of the model countries of the West in this Egalitarian Age (the third one is France).
I have nothing against traditional/natural egalitarianism. It is when it is ideologized that it becomes horrid, including in the original countries.
At the place where you work. Do you expect our boss to serve you? Is that the sort of relation that is in your best common interest and for the best of the common good of the company?
The idea that the state should serve the people, is a slogan from the French Revolution. And as illustrated in the example above, it goes against any sort of sober Confucianism.
Baron,
It’s gone, and nothin’s gonna bring it back.
Gee, that’s such a depressing thing to say. I have often been thinking what the future might be for America. For Europe it’s easy. First we will be balkanized as a chessboard and then we will fight back. Some countries will be lost, but I expect most will recover. And we will go back to some sort of 19th century ways. And mass democracy will be a thing of the past.
Don’t you think America will find its way back to the past too? Or is it that you mean that a balkanized America will be split up in pieces. That when you find the way back, the United States does not exist anymore. But instead there is the WASP union in the north. And Norther Latin America in the south? Or something of the kind.
Many times when we discussed I have had a rather dark picture of the future of America. The crux as I saw it was “what is your identity?” Today the identity is forever expanding, “nation of immigrants”, multicultural expansionism. When the point of retraction comes (which is bound to come) we Europeans know who we are, but who are you? If the state of Sweden collapses, we are still Swedes. If the United States collapses, who are you?
You have a more difficult journey in this respect as far as I can see. But I’m more positive about it now than in the past. Already the historical settler mentality and the 2nd amendments are a good base to build on. And the way Americans are able to think imperialistically (compared to Europeans) is also a very good sign. The BNP sort of people often disappoint me with their idea of just putting up fences and then being nice to any neighbour thugs. To me this is like being a neighbour to someone genitally mutilating his daughter and saying “Oh, but that’s all OK with me”. Americans have more guts (among ordinary people).
Let me make a small amendment to me three paradoxes of democracy. When I wrote “the only system”, I had in mind only the comparison with the classical political systems: monarchy, aristocracy, oligarchy, republic. Then I thought of the rule of a tyrant as something not being a system. But even a society of power grabbing can be seen as a system, where the way its governed can be changed etc.
What I didn’t think of though were the modern totalitarian systems, of the same generation as modern democracy, e.g. Communism and Nazism. I’m not sure Nazism was really a system (it was more of Hitler’s brain child), but Communism definitely is. And both have the three points in common with democracy. So democracy ends up in the same totalitarian category (not at all in all respects obviously, but regarding those three points).
Now I want to cry. Almost.
Instead I will probably buy some more ammunition. Plus, I don’t really have a good sniper rifle yet, I better get one.
Oh yeah, I will raise me some sons (I hope) and teach them the spirit of the Revolution.
Even restricting the vote (and the vote receivers) to people of IQ 120+ would immediately benefit our country by simply weeding out the welfare addicts, the criminals, the ignorant and the deluded from the voting rolls. The natural aristocracy would then become the true aristocracy.
Intelligence, foresight, morals, and self-sufficiency usually go hand in hand, but we could add further meritocratic restrictions like ‘never done a crime, never had a bastard, never divorced,’ as we saw fit.
Then there would be a third filter I would press for, which is loyalty to western civilization and the white race who gave it birth, and love for it and a willingness to sacrifice other, peripheral goods for it. We could test children at age 5 or so and if they are of the natural aristocracy of IQ, I would put them in schools of their aristocratic peers dedicated to teaching them love of country, culture, morality, honor, our race and our race’s history and future. It would be full of classical literature, art, philosophers, and the norms and mores of the past rather than the present, in addition to the normal math, science, english, economics, history, etc.
In twenty years or so these people, taught in the best schools, fermented with the best competition and friendship from their peers and the best teachers, marrying among each other and creating a tradition of excellence generation after generation, would be fit to rule the nation. Since it is merit-based, anyone could join this fold, and anyone could also be tossed out of it, corruption would be minimal.
In a case like this, pandering to minorities or immigrants or women or gays would not win any politician votes. Only showing through logic and argument to a sophisticated audience why your policy is best for the country as a whole would get you anywhere. What an improvement over Obama vs. McCain! Currently Obama is trying to get former felons to register to vote because there are millions of them in tipping point states all over the country. Can anyone imagine why felons should be determining the future president of the United States, instead of our brightest, most virtuous, and most public spirited our nation can find and cultivate?
Gee, Diamed, who dropped you in the Aristotle bottle and put in the stopper?
Personally, I want minorities and a few crazies and bums. Limiting life to IQ is so deadly boring.
Some of the smartest people I know aren’t smart and I want them in my world. We are something beyond our intelligence.
Not only are you Aristotelian, you sound like some of the Leftists who talk about how the conservatives ought to be marginalized and certainly should not be granted suffrage, just based on their weird John Birch Society ideas.
Come on…next you’ll be spouting eugenics. Ugh.
I’m so late to this party, it’s over but in case anyone slips back to check, I’ll throw in my two cents.
Another definition for Natalie that I didn’t see while skimming through the comments was that “communism is merely socialism in a hurry”.
Also, I would prefer to see the terms “collectivism” vs individualism used to designate the basic principle underlying the other “isms”.
Those who favor collective rights over the individual inevitably degenerate to tyranny which escalates through confiscating most of a striving individual’s income, censoring him, shackling or killing him “for the greater good”.
Democratic nations have a poison pill placed within them by enlarging voter eligibility and starting socialist policies that create blocs who vote for handouts. A democratic nation is doomed at the point that a majority find they can vote themselves other people’s money. In a country with a generous welfare policy and steeply raked graduated tax rate (from each according to ability to each according to need – the communist manifesto) the bottom half of the population can pay 4% or less of the total taxes. This half makes more in government handouts than it pays. Guess which politicians it votes for…not the ones lowering taxes. Many in the top half of incomes are also tempted by specific programs designed to seduce the middle class voter by returning a few of his tax dollars to him.
And so we are doomed by creating entitlement groups who vote politicians in to enhance their benefits, both idling at other people’s expense. Eventually the payers are overwhelmed by the takers.
Incidentally, the pursuit of equal outcomes for all regardless of ability and work ethic invariably ends up with a very low standard of living for all as there is no reward for working hard. This fits in with yet another agenda of socialists/communists,any all totalitarians really including Islamists which is to re-primitivize life for the masses while retaining the high life for a small elite. You know, serfs toiling for subsistence for themselves and gold toilets for their “betters”.
is a slogan from the French Revolution
… I’m quoting something FRENCH?? Oh noes!
I suspect my idea of service is different from yours and Robespierre’s idea of service. A servant state doesn’t have to be elected and it definitely doesn’t have to make itself vulnerable to every whim of the nation. My idea of a servant state is one that creates an environment free from external threats – wars, threatening ideologies and so on – and then butts out and lets people run their own affairs. When the state has so little power over the individual it becomes a servant of the people without elections or democracy, simply because the people within it’s borders don’t need to try and influence the state in their favour. I’d hardly call that French.
And I wasn’t trying to compare Nazi Germany to Italy. I know they were different. I was pointing out that my brief model was structurally closer to Nazi Germany.
Con Swede-
“If the state of Sweden collapses, we are still Swedes. If the United States collapses, who are you?”
Dont worry. Some Ad executives on Madison Avenue will re-package it, give us a groovy new name and market it to us on TV. ; )
PS: I am only half joking.
Graham,
First of all, I fail to see why everyone only thinks about Robespierre when I mention the French Revolution. He’s not at all central to the revolution, and it took several years before his Reign of Terror came. It’s like I mention a movie, but people never remember the plot but only the gory parts.
But since you bring up Robespierre. I think his Reign of Terror illustrates well why there’s nothing natural with utopian eglitarianism (such as in liberalism, socialism, democracy). And that’s in fact this that has to be defended in Castro style, with killing everyone that disagrees (and some more). Can we agree that Robespierre is a much better comparison to Castro, than Mussolini is?
In fact, the “Castro people” will kill anyone who disagrees with them even if they are not yet in power. So any system that is not sufficiently socialist will be violently attacked by murderous communists. What you said a few steps above, Graham, was essentially that if we are in power and fight them back, then we become like the “Castro people” ourselves. Which you consider illegitimate and evil, so our only option is surrender (following your thinking).
Also the communists will, in the propaganda theater, describe themselves as concerned citizens fighting an oppressive regime. They are experts in sweet talking about their goals, of how their goal is a state that is the servant of the people, etc. They have loads of lawyer types on their side, that are able to black-paint any other regime as a brutal tyranny. Will you buy their propaganda, Graham? You are definitely in the risk zone. Keep in mind that they won’t be calling themselves communists, and they will be saying all the things you like to hear. And that the theatrical image of how they are just the ordinary good people fighting the oppression of an evil state, has been made painstakingly clear. In the theatrical image it will have been made abundantly clear that it’s a fight against a fascist state (something you are reflexively against).
The only reason we have democracy is that the communists consider it sufficiently socialist not to go berserk over. Democracy is socialism applied at the highest political level of a society, in how it’s governed. If we would take it away, our streets would be filled with violent and murderous communists in revolt, and this is the real reason why we are keeping such a flawed system. We are keeping it out of fear. The state has been bullied into surrender. No wonder that it continues to surrender to bullying, when Muslims came in the next wave. This is what has become characteristic of our states of today, to surrender to bullying. It’s the only thing they know how to do.
My idea of a servant state is one that creates an environment free from external threats – wars, threatening ideologies and so on – and then butts out and lets people run their own affairs.
So is this something that ever existed in history, or is it just a utopian dream? I cannot think of any examples, can you?
Even if it didn’t exist, could it have existed? Let’s try the idea.
So the state should be as a good butler. A butler with a large arsenal of weapons and a personal intelligence bureau. Now the butler has identified an external threat, and he comes up to you:
Butler: “Sir, I see a problem coming up, it’s about…”
People: “Yeah yeah, do what you need. Just stay out of our affairs.”
…
Butler: “Since we didn’t deal with the threat when we could, we now have Jihadists all over the garden. If we do not take action right now, we will have to take very extreme measures and curb people’s freedom. Possibly evacuate…”
People: “Look! You are just supposed to take action when there’s really a threat, and we cannot see any threat going on right now. And we are having enough trouble as it is, since business is not going so well. So don’t come to us with this. It really looks like you are just trying to abuse your power. You are supposed to stay put, until there is a real threat coming up. Thank you, you may go back to your room now.”
Laine,
Also, I would prefer to see the terms “collectivism” vs individualism used to designate the basic principle underlying the other “isms”.
That’s not helpful since collectivism and individualism are just two sides of the very same thing. They are as similar as socialism and liberalism. The liberal/socialist/democratic paradigm has created a society where there’s only the state and the citizens and nothing in between. All the social fabric of the many intermediate layers that had existed all through history have been purged. There used to be many lawyers: village community, church community. nobility, guilds, etc., which had political significance and where you belonged. It’s all gone except for some relics.
Individualism and collectivism are the very same mindset, a paradigm where only the state and the individuals are seen and acknowledged. This can only lead to either an atomized or a super-centralized society. And as we have seen it leads to both at the same time.
It’s like with Wilson and Lenin. For a person without historical perspective they will appear as enemies (well actually arch-enemies). But in fact they were on the same side against they real enemy, the old monarchies. Wilson and Lenin are better described as rivals; rivals regarding the correct interpretation of egalitarianism. But once the old monarchies were gone, the Wilson side and the Lenin side appeared to be opposites.
Quite as the proponents of the naked society, the individualists and collectivists, appeared to be opposites, once the society had been deprived of its original content.
Diamed,
Intelligence, foresight, morals, and self-sufficiency usually go hand in hand, but we could add further meritocratic restrictions like ‘never done a crime, never had a bastard, never divorced,’ as we saw fit.
This is the part where I agree with you. the election system of our current democracy must be calibrated in this sort of way, otherwise an (El Ingles) discontinuity is unavoidable.
However, your idea with IQ is not a good one, and wouldn’t work in practice. In fact the suggestion resembles Plato’s dream. There are so many problems with this suggestion, mainly that it’s so artificial. People wouldn’t see it as legitimate (any system must be based on public consent). Also the measure of IQ is not reliable enough. And by breeding a class of “philosophers”, won’t you be breeding an upper class of brats. Where is the military and the wealth represented in your system? No, it just wouldn’t work.
If I would suggest a calibration, my first step would be to introduce a tax criterion. Only people contributing to the society should have the right to vote. If you do not pay tax (sufficient amount of tax?) then you won’t be allowed to vote. Prisoners and people living on welfare money won’t be allowed to vote. And of course not non-citizens. That should tip the scale away from abuse by the greed of the needy. And in case it doesn’t it can be calibrated some more. In the 19th century many European electoral systems had tax criteria. And before land owning criteria were used, also in America.
This sort of system also introduces the right sort of incentives. Nobody’s excluded from the right to vote since birth. Everybody could earn themselves the right to vote. It’s a system that could be seen as legitimate by the people (compared to the IQ system), and it has been tried out in practice before in history.
Spackle,
Dont worry. Some Ad executives on Madison Avenue will re-package it, give us a groovy new name and market it to us on TV. ; )
That’s a very funny comment.
CS —
For voting restrictions, a couple of things come to mind. First there’s the Heinlein standard from “Starship Troopers”: only military veterans can vote.
Another one, which I thought of, is that no one taking government money — and this would include pensioners, the unemployed, and the disabled as well as civil servants — would be allowed to vote.
The problem in this case is that even in the USA there would be almost no voters left.
Baron,
For voting restrictions, a couple of things come to mind. First there’s the Heinlein standard from “Starship Troopers”: only military veterans can vote.
Yes, Heinlein’s book really applies to this discussion, and I recommend reading it. And this targets what I mentioned, that the military needs to be represented (and also embodies the idea that the right to vote should be earned). However, the problem with the standard of “Starship Troopers” is that only the military is represented. Where is e.g. the wealth and the intelligence represented? Heinlein’s idea is a bit too close to democracy for my taste.
The concept of Republic has been mentioned and the model for this is the Roman Republic. Look at this chart of its constitution: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Roman_Constitution.jpg
Everything is represented: military, people, aristocracy, wealth and intelligence. It’s perfectly balanced and worked very well in practice. Note that this was never a written constitution. It was a set of guidelines and principles passed down mainly through precedent. It evolved naturally out of real needs.
This is what I speak of when I speak of a mixed constitution. The old British constitution was also a good mix.
In Sweden in the 19th century we have a graded scale for votes based on how much you payed in tax. It was possible to have as much as 5000 votes. It’s really strange that the United States is brought forward as the example of a Republic, if we by republic mean a balanced and mixed constitution. America had universal suffrage with one man one vote from its very inception. It was already from the start a system rather close to a democracy (the founding fathers understood the problems of democracy, but didn’t do enough to stop it). The main safety guards were different delays in the system, such as the delays regarding appointment of the Senate and the Supreme Court. But in Sweden we had two chambers and the same sort of delays too. A constitution does not have checks and balances just because the chart looks complicated. The point with the Roman chart above is what is behind it! America had universal suffrage as the basis, the source of the feed into the flow chart, and this is the main point! In Sweden we had a graded system, where one guy could earn 5000 votes more than the other.
I guess the confusion is due to the fact that Republic is associated with not having a Monarch, and that’s why America of 1787 is put forward as an ideal of a modern Republic. But Britain and Sweden of the 19th century were much more of Republics in the sense of mixed constitutions of checks and balances.
I’m also suspicious about constitutions that are written. I’m believe much more in evolution than in intelligent design.
Baron,
Another one, which I thought of, is that no one taking government money — and this would include pensioners, the unemployed, and the disabled as well as civil servants — would be allowed to vote.
The problem in this case is that even in the USA there would be almost no voters left.
Well, a change of the system will change the incentives, and thereby this picture would also transform. So I don’t see a problem with this.
However, pensioners in a system when they have payed pension money all their life to the state, should not be deprived of the right to vote. The government money they get is actually theirs. But of course, we could and should question such a system as such.
Swede-Boy —
America had universal suffrage with one man one vote from its very inception.
You’re wrong on that one. Check your history. We originally had property-owning requirements (basically a recapitulation of the English “yeoman freeholders” system) for the franchise.
Admittedly it didn’t last very long — I can’t remember when it was abandoned; it’s been too long since I studied it. But that was the initial system in New England.
CS —
You’d be right about pensioners in a system where the contributions are held and invested by a fiduciary and then returned with interest after retirement.
But in the USA the Social Security system is a Ponzi scam which is paid out of current revenues, not out of invested contributions. No individuals “own” their contributions or have a right to them, any more than they own or have a right to their income taxes.
The fact that Congress can tinker with the benefits (and also that your heirs and assigns will receive nothing if your contributions remain unused at the time of your death) indicates that Social Security money is not yours.
Baron,
We originally had property-owning requirements (basically a recapitulation of the English “yeoman freeholders” system) for the franchise.
Yes, you are right. I was a bit too fast there. Even though the promises of equality was already written into the constitution, the universal suffrage for men didn’t have it’s breakthrough until the 1830s under Andrew Jackson. And after the civil war it was extended to blacks, and later on to women (although at state level many of these steps happened much earlier).
But I do not think this changes my point. Yes, America had the same property-owning requirements as Britain since the 17th century. But now bring up a map and compare the land area of America to Britain. How much land was it possible to acquire for an ordinary man in America and Britain, respectively? In America most ordinary adult men where able to fulfill the voting criteria, and this created a very different perception of what was the natural order of things, a very democratic sort of perception. This is the mentality observed by Tocqueville, and this is the mentality reflecting in the promises of equality in the constitution.
And you never had graded votes. In Sweden we had that until 1918.
I think our current constitution is just fine; we just need to go Pinochet on those who have been and who are working to subvert it. A couple of years of good, solid purge and we would be good for another 200 years.
First of all, I fail to see why everyone only thinks about Robespierre when I mention the French Revolution.
Memorable names stick in the mind. 🙂
Can we agree that Robespierre is a much better comparison to Castro, than Mussolini is?
Oh, absolutely.
So is this something that ever existed in history, or is it just a utopian dream? I cannot think of any examples, can you?
No, but the United States did come quite close, and we in the UK did have something like that for a fairly long time.
And to this:
All the social fabric of the many intermediate layers that had existed all through history have been purged. There used to be many lawyers: village community, church community. nobility, guilds, etc., which had political significance and where you belonged. It’s all gone except for some relics.
I agree. I really do, don’t look so surprised.
The unfortunate problem with my ideas is that they are nowhere, they rest on the assumption of no actual external threat so, in the real world, they’re about as useful as a climate model that doesn’t account for the sun. Or as useful as marxism. It’s because I’m a software developer, I tend to see things in idealisations and abstracts, as you may have noticed.
Incidentally I think this also explains the nice Mr Charles… I think I’ve mentioned that idea before but, no more of him.
I like the fact that you keep mentioning 19th century England as a good model for a republic. Makes me all warm and fuzzy. It wasn’t ideal – what is? – but it did work remarkably well and I think, given a few modern amenities, I’d quite like to live in a society like that.
Incidentally, have you ever read the Flashman books?
Actually, “Pinochet” could be seen as part of the dynamism of the democratic system. A system that goes so out of bounds that it at times needs to be severely corrected (in Rome the dictator was appointed due to an external threat, in democracies due to internal collapse). The history of South America provides this sort of impression, and also give the insight of how democracy and dictatorship can go hand in hand. And when I talk about directorship here I mean autocracy! The democracy-generated autocrat can be good (Pinochet) or bad (Hitler), but his power is total in a way that rarely happened before in history.
A fourth paradox of democracy, that would be then. How democracy claims to be the opposite of dictatorship, but is in fact the system that causes dictatorship like no other system. It’s almost like a symbiosis relation, at least looking at South America. Looking at Europe, the situation is different since WWII. Does that disprove the thesis or does it just show how much the Americans cared about i) protecting “daddy”, and ii) keeping him from doing mischiefs? Does it just show the effectiveness of the presence of American troops in Europe?
Swede, I think you’re onto something here. Dictatorship, as realized in the modern world, arises only out of democracy. If you are right (and the jury’s still out; we may not know for sure within my lifetime) democracy leads inevitably to dictatorship, sooner or later.
In a sense, dictatorship could be seen as the natural fulfillment of democracy, part of the life cycle of a political system, the way the leaves falling from the trees in November are the natural fulfillment of the tree’s annual cycle.
The spring blossoms, the summer greenery, the bare ruined choirs where late the sweet birds sang…
An interesting notion — I need to mull on this one…
Graham,
Old-time Britain you say? Let’s once again have a look at what you said before:
My idea of a servant state is one that creates an environment free from external threats – wars, threatening ideologies and so on – and then butts out and lets people run their own affairs.
You talk about the state serving the people. You cannot seriously say that the British state of 19th century and before was a servant of the people. What it had was i) the ideal of liberty, and ii) a consensus about the limits of the state power. But that’s a very different thing, the state was never a “butler” for the people. The state was more of institution for the interest of the common good of the people. But so was Fascist Italy. It’s the liberal/socialist/democratic idea of the state as a servant, and the sum of wills of all individuals as an interest disparate from the state, that is the poison.
But yes, Fascism described its state as all-encompassing. That’s a contrast to the British tradition of the limits of the state power. But old Britain had the God and the King/Queen as symbolic entities higher than the people, the state focused on administration. But remember again what we discussed before. The God and the King had gone out of fashion in the 20th century. It was not realistic for Mussolini to put them back into the equation for the creation of a strong country. So let the state represent also the higher symbolic entity. This made his construction less of a checked and balanced mix, and that an important weakness of it. But it was realistic, and it does not at all imply what you suggested first about it going against the natural order of things, and against the long-term common interests of people, and that it would necessarily degenerate into something that eventually would have to be protected Castro-style (except for that fact that you will always have to be prepared to shoot down some communists to protect your land and property).
Another problem of your quote above is that it’s a repetition of the BNP attitude that I have expressed concern about before. The idea of creating a small bubble of peace and put fences around it. This simply does not work in the world we live in today. We must have a state that is prepared to go to war (not just avoiding them). In this I’m with the Americans.
Baron,
In a sense, dictatorship could be seen as the natural fulfillment of democracy, part of the life cycle of a political system
And it might be more than just an unintended consequence. In the days when I was discussing at FFI, there was a Danish guy (who’s commenting here at times), when we were discussing how our societies were collapsing, that didn’t like my criticism of democracy and suggestions for other systems. He could only accept democracy. So his suggestion was to have dictatorship until the things were fixed, and then go back to democracy again.
If we talked to people in South America in the 20th century I guess we would have heard the same thing many times. Most Europeans have not been triggered to ponder upon this thing, but once they do (which will come soon), let’s see how many of them that will reason in the same sort of way.
For a democratist, anything but democracy is considered completely illegitimate. So you might as well have autocratic dictatorship once the democracy has collapsed. Probably a change to a system that could be legitimized is even more scary in the eyes of a democratist (then he can no longer think “and the we’ll go back to democracy”).
An interesting question is: Could America turn into a dictatorship? And what would that do to the geopolitical stage?
Could America turn into a dictatorship?
The short answer: yes, but only sectionally.
To foreigners Americans seem fairly homogeneous, but we’re not really. The red-blue divisions are a gross simplification of our divisions, but the divisions are real.
The country would split up before it would allow dictatorship. An authoritarian state would be centered in either the Boston-NYC-DC axis (aka “BosWash”) or the LA-SF axis (or a combination of the two coasts), but Texas in particular would never tolerate that, and Texas is too ornery and well-armed to be governed by New Yorkers without Texan consent.
Another way to look at it is the makeup of the military, most of whom come from the “red” areas. Any dictatorial regime would have to be acceptable to the Texans, Georgians, Virginians, etc. in the armed forces.
A military coup — especially against someone like the Omessiah — is also a possibility, but a very distant one.
After the Social Security/Medicare Ponzi scheme collapses and gas goes over $10 a gallon, though, some kind of radical change is likely.
The system is a chaotic one, and hence inherently unpredictable. A dirty bomb in a major downtown area could change everything, so making any definite predictions is a fool’s game.
Could America turn to a dictatorship? Of course it can, it already did under president-for-life with rubber-stamp congress FDR. All it takes is a great depression or a great war and America turns to dictatorship. Lincoln was hardly following the Constitution while he prosecuted the civil war, but no one complained then either, or if they did, they were put in jail.
A dictatorship seems acceptable where an aristocracy doesn’t because, perversely, we’re all still equal if we’re all slaves to a tyrant. Americans are okay so long as we’re equally free or equally serfs but God forbid some people become better off than others.
Will America turn into a dictatorship? Probably that will be tried, among a few other things, in its death throes as it thrashes about trying to fix the unfixable. It won’t stick though. America will burst at the seams and become a plethora of different models like an overripe fruit, and that will be the opportunity (Schumpter’s ‘creative destruction’) to introduce a real competitor to democracy.
I think most people don’t want to bother with politics, over half don’t vote and over half are completely ignorant of the issues. I think they’d be relieved to have it taken care of for them. Consider the cultish following of celebrities and sports stars, and it’s obvious people naturally want to subordinate themselves to a leader and look up to their betters in wealth, prestige, manners, etc. The aristocracy exists all around us, it only needs to be legally codified, and then groomed to be actually decent people instead of Michael Jackson or Brittney Spears.
If people truly think the aristocracy is better than them and can be trusted more than the people to handle matters of state, I don’t think they will mind losing power. How many women take marching orders from Oprah every afternoon? How many people obey their bosses, or guild leaders in world of warcraft? I think you’re wrong about IQ being unreliable, but it’s easy enough to substitute it with ‘high achievement’ as measured by leaders of the military, business, church, local government, sciences and arts. The idea would still work, especially if each body formed a branch of congress and held various veto powers over the others, with a king elected from and by the nobility with extra powers to wage war etc. I’m just brainstorming here but like I say, anything at this point beats democracy, which has perverse incentives to import voters, bribe voters with welfare, and never look past the next election cycle. Democracy has had its chance and produces the same disastrous results all around the world, it’s time to escape the burning building!
Baron,
A military coup — especially against someone like the Omessiah — is also a possibility, but a very distant one.
Yes, you would need at least a second term of Hussein Obama before any military coup 🙂
I think your analysis is a good as it gets. And no, it doesn’t seem to be anything that would happen anytime soon. But historical changes can also happen very fast, like if you are nuked.
And even if it’s not an outright military coup, an American dictatorship would need the military firmly on its side (the Texans etc.). (That’s what you said too, if I understand you correctly.)
The interesting aspect is, if it would happen, what it would mean geopolitically. I expect that I would trust a dictatorial America much more. That I would see it as less of a threat in giving a European country the “Serbian” treatment. That I would have more trust in any war she starts around the world.
PS. A second term of Obama is not as unlikely as it seems. The Republicans will probably nominate McCain’s crazy cousin the next time…
Ahh, now CS, I think we hit the meat of our misunderstanding. My idea of the servant state isn’t one that simply makes a fence and sits humming kum by ah quietly to itself inside. It’s necessary to defend and maintain a fence once you’ve built it. If I’ve made a mistake it’s in articulating badly and being more idealistic than you seem able to tolerate.
I think it comes down to what I mean by a servant state. I didn’t quite key into your mention of the butler before an I should have, because it miss-characterises what I mean. In my mind the servant state isn’t one who that what it’s told. It’s the christian ideal of servanthood, the one who does what is right, whatever the cost to its own self, that I’m thinking about. I should have made that clear.
By that measure the British state was a servant of the nations of Britain.
Diamed,
Lincoln is the true example of “democratic” dictatorship here. Very good. I didn’t think of that. But FDR was instead a Roman sort of dictator.
And what you say about how people could be made into following an aristocracy, is also true. But what you said about IQ isn’t. You cannot replace Oprah with some guy having IQ 120+. People won’t buy it. You have to appeal to the myths they hold dear.
I think most people don’t want to bother with politics, over half don’t vote and over half are completely ignorant of the issues.
Do the two halves at all overlap 🙂
Graham,
It’s the christian ideal of servanthood, the one who does what is right, whatever the cost to its own self, that I’m thinking about.
So why can’t the people be good Christians in relation to the state?
CS —
Yes, you understood me correctly about the military. The Left, with its utter public contempt for the military, is just begging for a coup. They’re putting on a red miniskirt, fishnet tights, stiletto heels, and saying, “Come on, guys! I dare you to do it! Are you man enough?”
But seriously — a full dictatorship is less likely than a sectional split. Right now it’s Wall Street vs. Main Street, and it’s an uneasy balance.
But Wall Street will eventually lose — the national assets are capitalized via a real estate bubble, which has to deflate someday.
The Social Security/Medicare scam is a check issued by the government which it will not be able to cash, and when it bounces, the people who were counting on it are going to be unhappy. At that point the economy will go into the toilet for quite a while, and more of those government-dependent people live in Wall Street’s territory — the coastal corridors — than live on Main Street.
Main Street will be better off when the time comes, and may not want to carry the ruins of Wall Street any longer.
Whether the divorce will be amicable or not, I can’t say. But Main Street dislikes Wall Street as much as vice versa.
I’ve lived on both streets, so I have a foot in either camp.
They’re putting on a red miniskirt, fishnet tights, stiletto heels, and saying, “Come on, guys! I dare you to do it! Are you man enough?”
And they don’t even put some lipstick on it? 🙂
A sectional split, you say. Very interesting. There is also the aspect of the south getting Mexified, depending on the timing we’ll have to see how that plays into it.
Also here the question is what it would mean geopolitically. A split would mean the end of the United States. America would turn inwards and be less involved in world affairs. Quite the opposite from what I would expect from a dictatorship, which I would expect to reinforce its presence are the world stage and play it tougher.
A split America will be busy with internal affairs. Its heavily reduced presence at the world stage would mean a big change there. For the worse. But the good part of it is that people will be able to see what the world is really like. Which will make them prepare; force them to take care of themselves. A split America won’t bother any more with troops in Europe. Yes, altogether this would change the situation and attitude in Europe.And what would happen to all the strong ties, all trade relations, that America has with Saudi Arabia? Would the coasts join with Canada?
Of course the mass immigration from Mexico (and every Third World country) will be stopped. There’s no room for liberal aggrandizement when there’s real business to take care of.
But even in this context, if there is a big bomb or something of the kind, I expect that the Americans will react. Or what will happen? The Wall Steet is the world government types, and the Main Street the tough fighter types. But if these two qualities are no longer combined, what would happen?
Graham,
My idea of the servant state isn’t one that simply makes a fence and sits humming kum by ah quietly to itself inside. It’s necessary to defend and maintain a fence once you’ve built it.
Well, the BNP people completely share this idea with you, that the fence should be maintained and defended. The problem is how they are against offensive warfare and dealing with thugs and Islamocrap around the world. And you express the same idea here.
Baron,
I’m a libertarian
No, you are not. You are just grasping for words in trying to explain the concept of a hippie-turned-conservative.
I have a friend who is half-American and half-French. The human brain works in funny ways, because some people, when trying to reconcile this perceived contradiction, they end up referring to him as a Canadian. And there surely is a poetic congruence to that, but it’s not true. The same when you’re calling yourself a libertarian.
Who will rid me of this troublesome Swede?
I defined earlier what I meant by “libertarian”: “One who supports personal liberty, as defined and guaranteed by the United States Constitution, as limited by laws enacted under the consent of the governed, and as protected by the armed power of individual citizens.”
That’s what I meant by the word, and that’s what I stand for.
A word means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.
Humpty Dumpty,
Oh, this is fun! Can we take just about any word and give it the definition we like?
Btw, could you help me finding a word that would reconcile the perceived contradiction in “Conservative” and “Swede”? I’d like to know what’s my poetic congruence.
Who will rid me of this troublesome Swede?
I have a bottle of Svensk lake vättern that’ll keep him quiet for a few hours. I know it’s from Ikea but it’s the only decent vodka I can find that isn’t russian.
CS, I truly suspect we’re speaking different languages now. I know all the words but what you mean with them and what I get from the is obviously very different. Perhaps it’s cultural. I’m bowing out, I need a drink.
Swede —
Btw, could you help me finding a word that would reconcile the perceived contradiction in “Conservative” and “Swede”?
Sorry. Not possible.
It’s like “Irish sobriety” or “liberal thought”: sometimes the contradiction is simply built into the words, and there’s no way around it.
Perhaps you could fudge your identity and become “Reactionary Sami” instead.
Graham,
I truly suspect we’re speaking different languages now.
I’m really trying to adapt to your language.
I’m bowing out, I need a drink.
OK, so I’ll let you off the hook then.
Cheers!
I have a bottle of Svensk lake vättern that’ll keep him quiet for a few hours.
Actually, vodka is rather the way to make Swedes talk.
Cheers again! Btw, I think I manisched to merge it: Conschwervatweeed.. hick!
Baron: Wall Street vs. Main Street
There is a timely and exceptionally cogent article with that title just screaming to get published.
Wall Street’s unflagging demand that American corporations continue to show growth EVERY SINGLE DAMNED FINANCIAL QUARTER is a driving force behind CEO over-compensation, the crushing of small business and outsourcing of industries vital to America’s national security.
Between the foregoing and large-scale business’ increasing trend towards entirely conscienceless global operations without allegiance to their own nations of origin, there soon will be HELL to pay for it.
The mercantile spawn of American free market capitalism has turned upon its progenitors and proven wholly unworthy of any loyalty from the consumers or workers whose blood they suck.
Zenster —
I wrote computer code in the insurance indistry for seven years and picked up a little information about the trade while I was there. There are stringent federal rules about the maintenance of assets as hedges against risk, and the banks are heavily involved. Behind it all is a lot of that inflated real estate as capital assets.
The amount of capital required to be held in reserve is determined by actuarial calculations against the perceived risk.
I was working in that job on 9-11 and in the period afterwards. Can you imagine what that did to the reinsurance insudstry?
The skinny at the time was that Warren Buffet’s companies (e.g. GenRe) held much of the reinsurance on the WTC, and their reserve capital assets disappeared virtually overnight.
That’s why a terrorist attack at about the same time as the bursting of the real estate bubble will be so dangerous. All the imaginary liquidity that props the system up will disappear, and where will we be then?
I admit that this is a very amateur view of the situation. I welcome correction by people who know more about finance.
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