Progressive Roots and Silent Tigers

When I was little I would sometimes ask my Grandma to tell me a story about "the olden days". She was born in 1892 and she was a Grandma straight out of central casting; short, plump, with wavy gray hair and enough wrinkles to make a prune jealous. She would always start with "Things were very different when I was a little girl". She'd then go on to tell me about Christmas Day supper - no presents, block ice delivered by horse drawn wagons, and all the things one could buy with 2 cents. She had seen many wondrous inventions like airplanes, washing machines and deodorant for men, but she never said a word about politics. That, apparently, was Grandpa's realm.

He had grown up in the mines, and was a solid pro-union Democrat all his life. I learned later, much later, that he had also been a bit of a drinker and a "brawler" before Grandma made a church-goin' family man out of him. That would explain why Grandpa didn't like to tell stories to little boys about "the olden days". Too bad. I'm sure he must have had some classics.

So now I'm reading Jonah Goldberg's Liberal Fascism as part of the Voxiversity group. For the record, I went 9-1 on the first quiz. Vox seems to be taking his time with this one, so I've been able to read ahead. The first 3 chapters cover the early years of Mussolini and Hitler, and a thumbnail sketch of the life and times of Woodrow Wilson. What is most striking about this time in our history is the popularity of fascist/socialist ideals.

Democratic Capitalism was seen as having run its course. It was too messy, too chaotic, with too much wealth and power concentrated in too few hands. Liberty and individualism would need to be replaced. It would be easy to demonize the early fascists/socialists, call them misguided, put them in a nice, neat little box and label them as damaged goods. Easy, except for the fact that they had no foreknowledge of what would transpire in the coming decades, and for me personally, the case of Grandpa's tigers.

In my mother's house are two pictures of tigers. They are finely woven with silk thread in the oriental style. Grandpa received them as a gift from a group of Japanese miners for his efforts in improving their working conditions. The exact details of what he did are unknown. Did he risk his next promotion? Did he risk his job; his life? Did he get what he wanted, or settle for what he could get? Nobody knows. Grandma did most of the talking. We only know that he helped them somehow, and they were grateful. Which brings us back to the importance of individual liberty.

No matter the system, it is the individual that senses injustice, judges right from wrong, decides on action or non-action, and ultimately learns to live with his own conscience. When the meetings are over, the arguments made, the deals cut, the doors close and we have only ourselves to combat. Collectivism can do none of these things without appealing to and convincing the individual. The lone conscience, searching itself, will always have the final word.

Fascism 101

Voxiversity 3 is starting this week with Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism". Before any of my lefty friends out there roll their eyes, Vox says there's plenty in there about Republicans too. Just having read the introduction (the first assignment) Goldberg has already identified Compassionate Conservatism as fascist and says that No Child Left Behind would have been a good fit with Mussolini's school reform policies.

But, this will mostly be about the roots of the American Left. Up until World War 2 fascism was pretty popular in the U.S., and many of it's ideas are still with us. The turn of the 20th Century ushered in many changes in the relationships between government, business and the military in our country. It's an important time to study.

There are 2 big problems with the study of fascism. 1) There is no consensus as to what fascism is. A lot depends on the culture it arises in and the personality of the leader. It is not necessarily racist. 2) The Holocaust tends to overshadow any debates on the subject. The anti-semitism in Germany was not matched by the Italians. Two surprising facts are that there were several Jewish fascists serving in Mussolini's government up until the Nazi invasion in 1943. Fewer Italian Jews died in WW2 than in any other European country except Denmark. Not all fascists were/are Nazi's.

If anyone is interested, you don't have to sign up for anything; just get the book (available in paperback) and be ready for the first quiz on Saturday. Having watched the first 2 voxiversities go by, I'll warn you; Vox keeps a pretty brisk pace, so it will take a serious effort to keep up. Assuming I'm not culled from the herd, I'll be posting some updates as I go along. It should be fun and enlightening.

Economic Fascism?

I'd been thinking about this subject for a while now, and this morning Michael Ledeen had an article on it. Is what's going on in Washington socialistic, fascistic, or just plain bad policy?

It has always been easy to tell the difference between capitalism and communism. They are divided by property rights and the means of production; capitalists have them and individual communists don't. But economically speaking, there are no clear lines of demarcation between capitalism and socialism, or capitalism and fascism. These three "isms" all allow some degree of property rights and some degree of government intervention, but are largely social constructs with no clear economic distinctions.

Hitler's Germany is a good example of the lack of distinctions, as the NAZIs never gave much thought to economics. There was no NAZI economic policy that I've ever found. They tended to do whatever worked best in supporting the military machine and left it at that. Mussolini's Italy is a little better, but even there they were heavily militaristic with no clear economic philosophy. Industry was directed to the betterment of the state, whether nationalized or left in private hands.

Wikipedia may not be the best source, but I did find this:

Historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."[26]

Sound familiar? I don't know what we are heading towards, but whatever it is, it makes unbridled capitalism look pretty good by comparison.