[Peace-discuss] Trains of thought running on time

[C. G. Estabrook]

Anent recent discussions of fascism on this list,

[1] A definition of fascism may be chimerical -- postmodernism (remember that?) 
cautioned us against essentialism in social matters -- but there's no harm in 
trying to use words consistently when discussing history and politics.  It might 
be fair to say that we're talking about similarities among institutions, where 
an institution is a patterned way of thinking or acting.  The set of 
institutions that made up fascism in Mussolini's Italy, where the term was 
coined, may bear some "family resemblances" (as Wittgenstein suggested we think 
of them) to other institutions elsewhere.

[2] Perhaps the first thing to say about fascism is that it's a product of the 
break-down of capitalism (another set of institutions), something in the sense 
that thorium is a break-down product of uranium.  Capitalism is a system of 
production that provides profit for the ruling class and subsistence for the 
working class.  But it's notoriously unstable -- orderly production and 
reproduction both suffer -- and it came apart in the midst of the Thirty Years' 
War of the 20th century -- the "Great Depression."

[3] The answer to the Depression was thought to be (a) the intrusion of state 
power into the economy to guarantee the profits of the owners and the survival 
of the workers, and (b) the summoning of extra-economic elements -- belligerent 
national traditions ("imagined communities") and active charismatic leadership 
("Fuehrerprinzip") -- to justify the intrusion. Fascism is finally a summoning 
of art and theater to shore up a decaying productive order.

[4] The manner in which the three leading world economies of the 1930s dealt 
with the Depression was remarkably similar: a fatherly leader (Hitler, 
Roosevelt, Stalin) and his party took over the direction of production (the 
government had formerly been only an "executive committee of the owners," 
primarily concerned with regulating relations among them) in the name of the 
regeneration of the community (National Socialism, New Deal, Third International 
Communism) and provided for the safety of the nation, both economically and 
militarily.

"My greatest responsibility is the security and safety of our people. As I've 
said before, that is the first thing I think about when I wake up in the 
morning. It's the last thing that I think about when I go to sleep at night. And 
I will not hesitate to use force to protect our people or our vital interests." 
(Obama to the VFW, 17 August 2009)  --CGE