How Ordinary People Become Nazis: A Review of Robert Gellately's 'Hitler's True Believers'

By Charles Wofford

Imagine a political speech so venomous, so hate filled, so threatening, that at times it is impossible to understand the speaker. He rages against enemies foreign and domestic, against capitalism, against communism, against ethnic and political minorities, against disabled people, and insists on the superiority of his own nation. Thousands of torch-bearing zealots respond with orgasmic delirium. Is it not obvious who this image is supposed to evoke?

The image of German fascism as an overwhelming, cult-like madness is common and is re enforced by the Hollywoodization of the Nazis. In popular media Nazis might as well be demons who merely appear as human. As a result the protagonist may kill them without any guilty conscience. Ironically, this same mechanism of spectacle-induced failure of conscience found extensive use in German fascism. The radical Othering of the Nazis is comforting; it ensures us that it couldn’t happen here, it couldn’t happen to us, because the Nazis are not us, they are the radical Other.

In Hitler’s True Believers: How Ordinary People Became Nazis, Robert Gellately shows that the German fascists were far more rational and normal than we often imagine. This is not his endorsement, of course. Gellately’s real accomplishment is in showing how normal the Nazis were without “normalizing” them, showing how rational they were without “rationalizing” their atrocities. The Nazis were not the radical Other; most of them were not very different from us. They went to work, followed the law, and loved their families. The lesson is how easily it all happened to the German people, how every step along the way made sense at the time, and by implication how easily the same thing could happen to us. Perhaps it already has.

The German people were aware of the regime’s crimes; indeed, they were in many cases active participants. If it were not for mass grassroots initiative the Nazis would not have been as successful as they were. Gellately writes of racial persecution, “It was all so public and impossible to overlook. […] The public did more than stand idly by, because numerous individuals cooperated in the enforcement of racial policy, before and after the milestone reached with the Nuremburg Laws in 1935” (263).

The most difficult lesson for those of us on the Left is recognizing that the “socialism” in “National Socialism” is not just a moniker but had real content. German fascism was a broth of nationalism, socialism, and antisemitism. The nationalist angle put it in opposition to the international socialism of Marxism, and the socialism positioned it as a foe to the bourgeois democracies of France, Britain, and the United States. Though the Nazis were hostile to the idea of abolishing all private property, they did seriously attempt to abolish finance capital (which, of course, they linked with Jewish influence), and they did attempt to nationalize several industries to wield them in the name of the German people. The antisemitic conspiracy mongering enabled the fusion, as the German fascists cast their capitalist foes and their Marxist foes as two sides of the same Jewish-led effort at world domination. The negative manifestation of this worldview culminated in the Holocaust. The positive vision was the Volksgemeinschaft.

Volksgemeinschaft is the National Socialist utopia; a futuristic vision of a society living in harmony with nature. “Nature” here is conceptualized in terms of a bogus blood-and-soil theory, but that was not an invention of the Nazis. Similar forms of racism were widely entertained throughout the global scientific community. “Volk” literally means “people,” but refers to a racialized concept of it as in the Völkisch Movement of late 19th century Germany. “Gemeinschaft” may be translated as “community,” but refers more to tight-knit communities of people who know each other personally (contrast Gesellschaft, a more rationalist conception of society as defined through social contracts, rational self-interest, etc.) Volksgemeinschaft is what emerged from the blending of nationalism and socialism. Its racism makes it repugnant to an internationalist or humanist perspective championed by the Left, while its community-oriented nature is repellant to today’s neoliberal individualism. The point here is that the Nazis were anti-humanist and reactionary, but they were also futurist and modern. They were not conservative.

But that recognition puts us in a difficult spot. Today’s popular left discourse has committed itself to an outright denial of any authentically socialist character to German fascism. So acknowledging that National Socialism is one of the infinite conceivable varieties of socialism leaves the Left rhetorically exposed. One of the foundational premises of socialism is that society is what we make it. We can therefore arrange society however we wish. But our time and place is so hyper capitalistic, and its ideology so individualist, that any and all socialisms are seen as equivalent. Yet the figures who became major Nazi leaders had, in Gellately’s words, “an obsession about socialism. Indeed, thanks to the creation of a welfare state from 1881 onward, reinforced by the social impact of the war, a degree of socialism engrained itself in German society and was enshrined in the Weimar Republic’s constitution” (41).

The place of socialism in the Nazi vision was not unambiguous, and there were internal debates. Gellately relates a debate between the Nazi Left represented by Gregor Strasser and the Nazi Right represented by Alfred Rosenberg.

If Gregor Strasser bowed to Hitler’s authority or at least his political abilities, he still advocated a more socialistic line. As might be expected, Alfred Rosenberg, as one of the party’s self-styled ideological experts and a die-hard anti-Bolshevist, pushed back in a newspaper article in early 1927. Nationalism in its purest form, he said, united with socialism and, if stripped of any internationalism, represented the nation’s spirit of liberation. Hence, emphasizing the socialism in the Party’s name (as Strasser and his comrades wanted) was wrong, because the main point of their activity was to rescue the nation. Strasser replied quickly that socialism meant more than merely using the state to protect the people from capitalist greed, as Rosenberg would have it. Instead, it aimed to create another form of economic life and implied the participation of workers in ownership, profit, and management. This socialism accepted that private property was the basis of all culture and because capitalism was an immoral system that stole the nation’s goods, the state had to step in to restore fairness (77).

These debates abated as the Right wing of the party took greater control. Eventually the Strassers were marginalized, and the working class elements of the party leadership liquidated in a series of purges. But their socialist contributions were still a part of Nazi doctrine, and if they did not represent a powerful wing of the party there would have been no need to purge them in the first place.

Another difficult lesson: many devoted Nazis in the 1930s had been equally devoted communists and socialists in the 1920s. The Nazis did not come to power primarily through violence; they persuaded the vast majority of Germans (and Austrians, and many others across Europe) that they really were the way forward. A big part of that was refuting of the Treaty of Versailles. The humiliations it imposed on Germany were despised by the entire population, so that anything done to escape its terms was met with enormous praise, and even foreigners were in admiration of Germany’s unwillingness to stay down.

Hitler’s True Believers belongs to a genre of “How the Nazis Came to Power.” It is not a strictly historical genre, and it includes such varied titles as Max Horkheimer’s The Eclipse of Reason and William Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. No matter the angle, the point is generally the same: this movement of German National Socialism, which culminated in mass murder on an industrial scale and the self-immolation of European civilization, emerged from beliefs and social structures that had been present in Europe for centuries, and every step of its development made sense at the time. National Socialism was not an aberration or explosion of barbarism in the midst of an otherwise civilized world. It was the culmination of particular processes of civilization which contained these murderous possibilities from early on. The hideous racism of the Nazis was well-supported by the scientific establishments of the time. Hitler’s survival-of-the-fittest mentality was derived from theories in the natural sciences (particularly Darwin) applied to the social realm. The Nazis saw Bolshevism as the death of civilization and the Western democracies as its decay. Thus they were (in their own minds) the sentinels of civilization, driven by science, united in their desire for progress toward a newly unified society, the Volksgemeinschaft.

One clear parallel to our own predicament is in the rhetoric employed to defend American military presence around the world. Neuroscientist and public commentator Sam Harris, for instance, is known for arguing that American-committed atrocities just aren’t as morally bad as those committed by official enemies, since we are “well-intentioned,” while they are not. But that merely brings us back to the issue of a failure of conscience. For the Nazis it was that they were Das Herrenrasse (the master race) while their victims were Die Untermenschen (sub-humans). For the French it was the cultural appeal: they were “civilized” and on a “civilizing mission” (Mission Civilisatrice), while the colonized were primitive. Whether we appeal to the Nazi blood theory, the French cultural theory, or Harris’s intention theory, the end is to facilitate that same failure of recognition, that same failure of conscience, which we also inflict on ourselves through our representations of the Nazis in popular media.

Hitler’s True Believers will remind leftists of the importance of internationalism. Yet even this concept is too limiting. In an era of mass anthropogenic environmental destruction and mass extinction, not even humanism is sufficiently broad. After National Socialism there is no excuse for blindly trusting humanism, enlightenment, science, rationality, technology, “the People,” “the Proletariat,” or any other idealized construct to save us from ourselves. These ideas must be engaged critically, their limits registered, and their employment must be razor-sharp. If we fail this challenge, then we may already have one foot in the jackboot.

My copy of Hitler’s True Believers shows on its cover a crowd of bright-eyed Germans giving the Roman salute, presumably to their Führer off camera. The focus of the photo is a young woman, flanked by several soldiers and many children. The exuberance on their faces is beautiful. It is hard to see anything political inspiring such admiration in 21st century America. Consider how defeated, how humiliated, how despairing many Germans were after World War I; is it so hard to understand why they would want to believe in something that could inspire that sort of joy? Our contemporary situation is also marked by widespread depression, anxiety, and despair about the future. How easy would it be for a Hitleresque figure to bring us all, by dint of our own reason, to the brink?

Charles Wofford is a Ph.D. candidate in historical musicology and critical theory at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Revolution in an Age of Resurgent Fascism

By Atlee McFellin

The late sociologist Erik Olin Wright used the phrase “ruptural transformation” as stand-in for revolution, inaccurately summarizing this as “Smash first, build second.” [1]  His immensely popular and useful work also unfortunately erased historical European anti-fascist strategy whose approach to revolution differed from the caricature he presented.  To move beyond Wright’s important, yet misleading framework, one can even turn to DSA-founder Michael Harrington’s last book, Socialism: Past and Future.

Published in 1989, Harrington expanded upon his own earlier critique of the German social democratic party, specifically the electoral path to socialism as strategy against Hitler and the Nazis. [2] Harrington would ultimately look to a leading member of that same party at the end of this book as the basis for what he referred to as a “new middle class” on the march of “visionary gradualism.”  That “new middle class” is not the “irreversible feature of the system” he thought it would be though.  Despite his misplaced optimism, rather than an electoral path to socialism, Harrington argued for the proliferation of “little republics” across the so-called USA, looking to Antonio Gramsci on a cross-class “historic bloc” and the Paris Commune of 1871. [3]

This Paris Commune was catalyzed in defense against an outside force invading the city to restore the power of a monarch, a dictator supposedly appointed by god.  The commune in Paris sprung from socialist clubs that had formed throughout the city, and where feminists had been building internal systems of mutual aid for decades. [4] They learned from a similar experience during the decline and fall of the republic twenty years earlier.  Marx referred to those socialist clubs in 1851 as “constituent assemblies” constituting a “proletarian commune” to sustain general strikes as a systemic alternative during that republic’s fall to dictatorship. [5] Back then though, the left remained dependent on electoral approaches until it was too late.  Twenty years would pass before that dictator was overthrown and the Paris Commune of 1871 was born.

When it came to the German left against Hitler and the Nazis, Harrington criticized socialist strategy that solely relied on the republic and its supposed capacity for managed capitalist development.  Throughout Germany there were also autonomous councils in communities and workplaces, formed by people in both the socialist and communist parties who rejected orthodoxy in recognition of the threat posed by fascism.  Though these councils were identical to the socialist clubs in France, they also looked to the successful 1917 revolution in Russia, similarly catalyzed in defense against violent forces who sought to restore the power of a monarch. 

 Against the Nazis and using the Russian word for council, this approach was best described as a “Soviet Congress for a Soviet Germany,” socialist clubs as dual power with inherent mutual aid to sustain general strikes as another republic declined and fell. [6] Harrington never wrote on this particular commune against Nazi fascism, but whether it is a little republic, soviet, assembly, council, or socialist club, they were all meant as systemic alternative, dual power in the midst of crisis.  

But this is just European history.  No matter how important it is to learn from these past struggles, our fight against resurgent fascism is taking place in the settler colony known as the USA.  However, we can relate these European movements to historical forms of Black abolitionist mutual aid, communes, and the solidarity economy along with contemporary queer, feminist, Indigenous perspectives on communal resistance.  

Going back to at least 1780, Black communities in both the north and south pooled resources, financial and otherwise, democratically deciding how to sustain the movement for abolition, most often led by women.  In some cases, this resulted in the formation of rural communes for raids on slave plantations.  Over time and up to the first decades of the twentieth century, “mutual aid societies” spread across the country.  These democratic organizations operated their own internal solidarity funds so members could support one another and from which the nation’s first Black church, first Black labor union, and first movement for Black reparations were born. [7]  They were like European socialist clubs, but far more sophisticated.

This important yet still largely hidden history informed Ella Baker’s work running the Young Negroes’ Cooperative League from 1930-1933.  As a chapter-based organization, each would first form a council made up of young Black leaders.  These councils sought to identify what critical infrastructure was needed in the community to then learn enough about cooperative development and solidarity economics to turn those ideas into reality. [8] Importantly, many of these chapters were located in the Jim Crow south.  The YNCL practiced a socialist strategy meant to help communities survive conditions of racial segregation and white supremacist violence, conditions that inspired Hitler himself. [9]

Hitler was also inspired by the genocidal origins of the USA, the “cult of the covenant” at the core of our settler colonialism. [10]  As such, Nazi fascism sought Lebensraum or “living space” in pursuit of their own version of the American Dream as “summons to empire” for war and holocaust. [11]  Though fighting for bread and butter issues is imperative, especially in these times of profound crisis, the dream of universal middle classes masks a genocidal settler nightmare.  The actual alternative to resurgent fascism is not a more inclusive settler colony, but the proliferation of communal societies like what has repeatedly emerged from within sites of Indigenous resistance like Standing Rock, i.e. “caretaking relations, not American dreaming.” [12]

Constant warnings of constitutional crisis means that defeating fascism at the ballot box is essential, but also fundamentally insufficient for the cause of multi-racial democracy and socialism.  The elections of 2022 and 2024 could lead us down the path of a possible quasi-constitutional fascist coup.  Without our own systemic alternative as dual power rooted in mutual aid and the solidarity economy, including to sustain an uprising, we could again be dependent upon the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the military to supposedly save democracy in a “color revolution” inspired by the CIA. [13]  Instead of repeating the mistakes made as other republics declined and fell, we have the chance to build an alternative as communes of resistance in process of formation from the midst of crisis. 

References

Erik Olin Wright, Envisioning Real Utopias, (New York: Verso Press, 2010). P. 303 ; Ibid, How to Be an Anti-Capitalist in the Twenty-First Century, (New York: Verso Press, 2019).

Michael Harrington, The Twilight of Capitalism, (New York: Macmillan Press LTD, 1976). P. 208-215 ; Ibid, Socialism: Past and Future, (New York: Arcade Publishing, Inc., 1989). P. 53-59.

 Ibid, 275-277.

Carolyn J. Eichner, Surmounting the Barricades, (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 2004). 24-26 and 130.

Karl Marx, Class Struggles in France 1848-1850, (New York: International Publishers, 2018). P. 83 and 98-99.

Clara Zetkin, “Fascism Must be Defeated,” in Clara Zetkin: Selected Writings, (New York: International Publishers, 1984). P. 175.

Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, (University Park, Pennsylvania State University Press, 2014). P. 27-47.

Ibid, 112-125.

Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement, (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2003). P. 86-88.

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, (Boston: Beacon Press, 2014). P. 45-51.

Timothy Snyder, Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning, (New York: Tim Duggan Books, 2016). P. 13-14, 28, and 325.

Marcella Gilbert, “A Lesson in Natural Law,” in Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement, edited by Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon. (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2019). P. 281-289. ; Kim TallBear, “Caretaking Relations, Not American Dreaming,” Kalfou, Volume 6, Issue 1 (Spring 2019). P. 24-38.

Frances Fox Piven, Deepak Bhargava, “What If Trump Won’t Leave?” The Intercept, August 11th, 2020. https://theintercept.com/2020/08/11/trump-november-2020-election/

American Fascism: The Men, the Money, and the Myth

By J. Richard Marra

On May Day 2016, well before the election of Donald J. Trump, the Boston Globe published, "'Never forget,' the world said of the Holocaust. But the world is forgetting."[1] In it, Jeff Jacoby worries about its implications for a world experiencing a resurgence of violent right wing political extremism. For American Marxists, the timing may seem ironic. On the day of global celebration for the working class, they are reminded of both the horrors of fascism and their duty to unceasingly oppose it.

Marxist and other commentators appreciate the toxicity of fascism. However, their explanations regarding its features, organization, and operations differ. Each has enriched our understanding, while also introducing a disconcerting complexity and diversity. Accordingly, anti-fascists should aim at simplicity when considering historical fascism and Trump's 'neofascism."

The libertarian commentator George Will understands:[2]

So many excitable Americans are hurling accusations of fascism, there might be more definitions of "fascism" than there are actual fascists. Fascism, one of the 20th century’s fighting faiths, has only faint echoes in 21st-century America’s political regression.

Furthermore, there are problems regarding recognizing fascism and justifying claims about specific political regimes. James P. Cannon recognized this in 1954 with reference to Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy: [3]

Those who would judge specific American forms of fascism too formalistically by the European pattern, arbitrarily limit capitalist aggression against the workers’ movement in two forms:

They see the democratic form by which the workers are suppressed through strictly legal measures in accordance with the law and the Constitution—such as the Taft-Hartley Law, formal indictments and prosecutions for specific violations of existing statutes, etc....

On the other side they see the illegal, unofficial forms of violence practiced by “stormtroopers” and similar shirted hooligans outside the forms of law, as in Italy and Germany. This is characterised as fascist.

This kind of illegal violence under the outward forms of law has a distinctive American flavour; and it is especially favoured by a section of the ruling class which has very little respect for its own laws....This is, in fact, an important element of the specific form which American fascism will take....

Depending on one's perspective, contemporary fascism might appear nowhere, or anywhere. It is nowhere in the sense that Hitler and Mussolini are dead; and America's immigrant detention camps aren't as horrific as Auschwitz. Yet, it can emerge anywhere because capitalism is everywhere, and capitalism is its necessary and structural accomplice.[4] Given the right theorizing, many current capitalist regimes can exhibit fascist characteristics. For Will, fascism can occur anywhere because truculence toward liberal institutions and manners is common in social climates of political polarization and arrogance.

Three methodological problems contribute to the confusion. Consider, first, Lawrence Britt's[5] list of the identifying characteristics of fascism. Its items accurately capture salient features and establish a domain of likely candidate governments. Unfortunately, they don't supply an explanation regarding how any of these, or all of these, characteristics structurally realize the fascist form of governance. Lacking context, lists of attributes can become scattered and unwieldy, and fail to account for time-sensitive social and political contingencies, as Cannon anticipates. In addition, methodologies, and the theories supporting them, evolve over time. Although their theoretical "hard core" remains resistant, subordinate features may change. This may lead to reevaluations of the fascist-ness of political regimes. Finally, although Marxism, unlike capitalism, is fundamentally opposed to fascism, both are nevertheless liable to analytical bias. Will's commitment to capitalism prevents him from even mentioning it. He strips contemporary fascism of its theoretical and historical significance, dismissing it as merely a problem regarding hostile personalities.

To avoid these problems, this account will keep largely to operational matters, focusing on structures and functions. Parsimony is exercised in establishing necessary and sufficient characteristics, and explaining such features will help us introduce context. To do so, it proposes three fundamental structural components: Governance, economy, and ideology. Following Brecht and Lund, it suggests that capitalism plays a central role in the emergence and operations of fascism. However, unlike some Marxists, this analysis stops short of characterizing fascism as an extreme form of capitalism. Accumulation remains the prime purpose of the capitalist modes of production employed within fascism. Nevertheless, capitalists must routinely acquiesce to state requirements, which conveniently include protecting and advancing profitability. Both capitalists and fascists are keenly aware that workers, unions, and communists can negatively affect accumulation and the capitalist state. This mutual need is addressed by managing unprofitable class conflict through the establishment of state-run "corporations."

The Three Characteristics of Historical Fascism

When taken together, the following three necessary characteristics, involving both structural and ideological (especially nationalistic and religious) components, sufficiently define fascism.

1. Governance: Unitary and authoritarian national state controlled by a despotic "Leader."

2. Economy: State control of the economy through a system of sector-based corporations comprised of capitalist enterprises and labor.

3. Ideology: Traditionalist mythology justifying an exclusive moral exceptionalism in governmental affairs imported from 20th-century Futurism.

The key to recognizing fascism lies in appreciating how these characteristics synergize into a unique system of governance. With this in mind, let us now examine each more deeply.

Governance: The Leader Principle

The fascist state functions according to the "Leader Principle."[6] The "Leader" (aka Der Fuhrer, Il Duce) is the single sovereign authority over the state and its people. He/she stands atop a hierarchy of sub-leaders that govern the state's political and bureaucratic organizations. All sub-leaders pledge total obedience to all superiors, but always and primarily to the Leader. The fascist leader is not merely a person, but the ultimate manifestation of a state dynamically driven by its moral "will." In this way, the leader and the state are structurally and functionally identified. Mussolini writes, "the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State...." For Mussolini and Hitler, those consciousnesses, wills, personalities, and morality are theirs.

Economy: The "Third Way"

The leader dictates the structure and operations of the second necessary feature of fascism, an economic system called the "The Third Way." To understand the Third Way, let's compare how capitalists, communists, and fascists manage the class struggle that Mussolini denies.

Capitalists are attentive to class struggle, especially when it interferes with profits. They know that profit comes from their private ownership of the means of production and exploitation of labor. They understand that class struggle between owners and workers is a fact of capitalist social life. Capitalists understand that every rise in workers’ standards of living — living wages, pensions, healthful working conditions — are not only costly, but are costs that directly subtract from their profits. Thus, since workers will naturally demand such benefits, capitalists work continuously to weaken the political power of workers and unions.

For communists, class struggle is a symptom of capitalist social relations; yet they recognize that it is also a tool for working-class liberation. Their aim is to eliminate private control of the forces of production, while relocating ownership across the entire society. "Come the revolution," society will become classless. With the end of class struggle, a democratic economy is established that serves collective economic planning, and the physical and psychological well-being of workers.

Fascists place the needs of the state over all other national constituencies, including both capitalists and workers. This requires minimizing conflict between these two classes. To do this, fascists merge capitalist enterprises and unions into corporations, pairing them according to distinct economic sectors. Each corporation represents a sector of the economy wherein capitalists and labor are collectively bureaucratized, with all power vested in a state governed by an authoritarian leader.

The fascist leader principle is a relatively simple structural and operational conception, which any authoritarian state, fascist or otherwise, can implement. However, fascism couches the principle within a worldview that rejects the ideological foundations of both impotent liberal democracy and Marx's materialist sociology. [7]

...the liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results...the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....

...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production...if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....

To summarize, the ultimate aim of capitalism is to end class struggle by subjugating the working class. The ultimate aim of communism is to end class struggle by eliminating the capitalist class. The ultimate aim of fascism is to corporatize the capitalist class and eliminate a collectivized working class through the formation of an absolutely supreme leader and state.

Ideology: The Nasty Superman

Fascism has three ideological pillars. The first concerns mythology. Mussolini's fascism is nothing without a myth:

We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, it is passion. It is not necessary that it shall be a reality. It is a reality by the fact that it is a good, a hope, a faith, that it is courage. Our myth is the Nation, our myth is the greatness of the Nation! And to this myth, to this grandeur, that we wish to translate into a complete reality, we subordinate all the rest.[8]

The existential conception of fascism lies in an identification of a heroic people with its leader and national mythology. Consider the two fascist "philosophers" Alfred Rosenberg and Julius Evola. Rosenberg served as the Nazi Party's Commissar for the Supervision of Intellectual and Ideological Education between1933 to 1945. Among his "scholarly" accomplishments is "The Myth of the Twentieth Century,"[9] a uniquely turgid and mind-numbing justification of Nazi anti-Semitism and Aryanism. Julius Evola, one of the founders of 20th-century traditionalism, enjoyed a continuing relationship with Hitler, high-ranking Nazis, and Mussolini. He took Rosenberg's work seriously enough to critique it his "The Racist Conception of History."[10] With Mussolini, myth and tradition join: "Tradition certainly is one of the greatest spiritual forces of a people, inasmuch as it is a successive and constant creation of their soul."[11]

The second foundation of fascism involves not bigotry but nastiness, its truculence finding its roots early 20th-century futurism. Evola enjoyed a brief artistic and philosophical relationship with Filippo Marinetti's Futurist Movement. This connection is important because it exposes the second, and little remembered, ideological foundation of fascism.

Futurism speaks: [12]

...we shall extol aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double-quick step, the somersault, the box on the ear, the fisticuff.

We wish to destroy the museum, the libraries, to fight against moralism, feminism and all opportunistic and utilitarian malignancy.

We wish to glorify War - the only health giver of the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the Anarchist, the beautiful ideas that kill, and contempt for woman.

This political grandiloquence finds translation in five of Britt's characteristics: distain for human rights, scapegoating, hostility toward intellectuals and artists, militarism, and sexism. These attitudes and behaviors are not Trump's alone. These come from Marinetti's Futurist Aristocracy (1923), edited by the Italian Futurist Nanni Leone Castelli. Marinetti influenced Mussolini, a person many worldwide view as the epitome of the aggressive and spontaneous futurist hero.

Mussolini the futurist:[13]

The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest....

[Fascism]... repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism....war [sic] alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it.

Fascism wants man to be active and to engage in action with all his energies....[14]

For fascists, traditionalism and futurism are tools for cultural atonement, redemption, and political power. The cultural historian Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke[15] appreciates Evola's and Trump's ideological poison. Fascism:

 ...speaks directly to those who reject absolutely the leveling world of democracy, capitalism, multi-racialism and technology...[Traditionalists] acute sense of cultural chaos can find powerful relief in his ideal of total renewal.

It is not surprising that Steve Bannon, an Evola enthusiast and Trump's past political advisor, boasts, "I’m a Leninist. Lenin wanted to destroy the state, and that’s my goal too. I want to bring everything crashing down, and destroy all of today’s establishment."[16] Bannon's Lenin isn't a Marxist, but he is a futurist.

Fascism's third necessary ideological feature is a moral "exclusive exceptionalism" in public policy and international relations, particularly justified by its traditionalist mythology. The fascist state claims the exclusive moral right to do what it wishes: no individual, group, or other nation can assert the same right.[17] Antonio Salazar, a former Portuguese prime minister and authoritarian corporatist, explains: [18]

The fascist dictatorship tends towards a pagan Caesarism, towards a state that knows no limits of a legal or moral order, which marches towards its goal without meeting complications or obstacles.

And for Adolph Hitler: [19]

It's a matter of indifference to me what a weak western European civilization will say about me. I have issued the command - and I'll have anybody who utters but one word of criticism executed by a firing squad....

The Three Characteristics of American Fascism

Governance: The Fascist Presidency

Since the Civil War, America has enjoyed reasonably stable governance. It's democratic republic, separation of powers, and presidential term limits constrain the rise of tyranny. Capitalism is thoroughly imbedded in its politics, ideology, culture, and religion. It's culture celebrates freedom, democracy, multiculturalism, personal individualism, and egalitarianism; suitably framed in a comforting mythology. It's religious doctrines profess kindness, compassion, and equality among persons.

Taken together, these blessings provide Americans with a deep sense of self-identity and exceptionalism. They also offer few prospects for the rise of a hell bent authoritarian Fuhrer. Yet, for opportunists like Donald Trump, the 2016 election provided just the right circumstances for a heroic self-actualization.

Trump's fascist handler Steve Bannon has a plan. It begins by peddling a well-known TV reality superstar and billionaire entrepreneur as a national hero for the 21st century. He is marketed as a blessed, unconventional, and unrelenting savior. His operatives then inject him into a rapaciously neoliberal capitalist party. That party seizes the opportunity to both deflect growing criticism from disgruntled workers still suffering from the 2008 capitalist crisis and a ballooning wealth gap, while simultaneously safeguarding capitalist profits. Republican spin masters publicly celebrate him in their corporate media, offering him a shot at the Presidency.

Once this leader controls the executive branch, and the Republican Party takes control of the Senate and the Supreme Court, an American fascism will command absolute political authority. It can control national production and labor policy, thus removing class struggle from the political equation. This tactic takes advantage of an increasing centralization of power in the executive branch.[20] This situation is significantly different from the weak power structure at the top of the unstable Weimar Republic in 1930s Germany. Trump will exercise his authority, claiming the exclusive right to do what he wishes, and remain unaccountable. Since this impulsive and aggressive fascist leader is the incarnation of the state, all governmental policy and functions obediently follow suit. Anything or anyone getting in the way will be eliminated.

Trump is a worthy inheritor of Mussolini's political persona. His distain for human rights, scapegoating, sexism, hostility toward intellectuals, and militarism is indisputable. His immigration policy, islamophobia and racism, glorification of sexual molestation, anti-science rhetoric, and massive defense spending all herald a potential American Fuhrer.

Economy and Ideology: Steve Bannon’s 'Third-Way'[21]

Steve Bannon's fascism maximizes the operational efficiency of its governance, and coincidently the profitability of capitalism, through their fusion with the ideology of White-supremacist Christianity. The leader commands a Third Way that subjugates capitalist enterprises and labor under his control through corporations, in order to ameliorate class conflict. Capitalists in this new theo-economic state[22] will enjoy growing profits as before, as workers endure neoliberal social and labor policy that reduces their political presence. Workers will live insecure existences living on subsistence wages, fearing illness, and defaulting on their college loans. They will work more hours, save little, and receive fewer benefits.

In contrast to historical fascism, the American form benefits from an enduring capitalist program to weaken labor. Trump is elected on a day when worker participation in unions is historically low.[23] The Taft-Hartley Act, and the damage done through its original anti-communist provision, continues to block mass revolutionary efforts by workers. There are few mass demonstrations and street battles like those in Germany and Italy during the early decades of the 20th century.[24] More recently, the Supreme Court Citizen's United and "right to work" rulings impair union fund raising and organizing. Trump's truculence toward both organized labor and Wall Street is consistent with a politic that abhors class struggle.

All of this comes with Bannon's traditionalism and Judeo-Christian ethos: [25]

...look at the leaders of capitalism at that time [late 19th- through the 20th-centuries], when capitalism was I believe at its highest flower and spreading its benefits to most of mankind, almost all of those capitalists were strong believers in the Judeo-Christian West. They were either active participants in the [their] faith,...the underpinnings of their beliefs was manifested in the work they did. And I think that’s incredibly important and something that would really become unmoored....I don’t believe that our forefathers had that same belief.

...[S]hould we put a cap on wealth creation and distribution? It’s something that should be at the heart of every Christian that is a capitalist — “What is the purpose of whatever I’m doing with this wealth? What is the purpose of what I’m doing with the ability that God has given us, that divine providence has given us to actually be a creator of jobs and a creator of wealth?"

Bannon imagines America as a restored Judeo-Christian and capitalist nation with Trump as its leader. He revives and consecrates Americans as a new saintly and capitalist volk. The leader leads, and capitalists and workers reap the benefits. Value added: Everyone achieves salvation and immortality, as they are actualized in the form of the fascist state. For Bannon, "What Trump represents is a restoration — a restoration of true American capitalism and a revolution against state-sponsored socialism.[26] This restoration carries the Cross, is wrapped in the American flag, and struts to the tune of a uniquely garish form of exclusive exceptionalism. MAGA emerges as a pathologically narcissistic demon in the form of Trump's exclusive exceptionalism:

They say I have the most loyal people — did you ever see that? Where I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters. It’s like incredible.[27]

Conclusion

George Will places the intersection of futurism and fascism within the broader context of European Enlightenment:[28]

Fascism fancied itself as modernity armed — science translated into machines, especially airplanes, and pure energy restlessly seeking things to smash. Actually, it was a recoil against Enlightenment individualism: the idea that good societies allow reasoning, rights-bearing people to define for themselves the worthy life.

George Will correctly distinguishes "Trumpism" as a populist fad from communism as a political doctrine:[29]

Communism had a revolutionary doctrine; fascism was more a mood than a doctrine. It was a stance of undifferentiated truculence toward the institutions and manners of liberal democracy.

Trumpism...is a mood masquerading as a doctrine, an entertainment genre based on contempt for its bellowing audiences. Fascism was and is more interesting.

Fascism is interesting precisely because it offers a compelling doctrine, a powerful system of governance, and is doggedly persistent over time and space. But, it's also rare. Unfortunately, small samples resist generalization. Cultural, geographic, and historical variables make comparisons difficult. While Marxists understand that the boom-and-bust cycles of capitalism can lead to fascism, they don't often synchronize with other potent proto-fascist interventions. Fascism requires a unique convergence of causes and conditions. Economically, a major crisis of capitalism, significant economic distress among workers, a burgeoning wealth gap, and strong anti-union sentiments and policies prevails. There is a social climate of fear and hostility regarding vivid internal and external threats; citizens distrust distant and detached governance. They are mesmerized by a nativist and nationalist mythology energized by mythic traditions and beliefs. The spark that ignites the inferno of fascism comes as a uniquely clever and hell-bent futurist demagogue.

It is astonishing that an otherwise intelligent species would establish such profligate stupidity, wastefulness, and destructiveness as a system of governance. But it is here and continues to threaten humanity. History begs that we never forget what fascism represents, what it does, and what it takes to remove it from our presence.

Notes

[1] Jeff Jacoby, "'Never Forget,' the world said of the Holocaust. But the world is forgetting," Boston Globe, May 1, 2016, https://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/04/30/never-forget-world-said-holocaust-but-world-forgetting/59cUqLNFxylkW7BDuRPgNK/story.html (accessed June 5, 2021).

[2] George Will, "The difference between Trumpism and fascism," The Washington Post, July 10, 2020, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-difference-between-trumpism-and-fascism/2020/07/09/377ae76e-c208-11ea-9fdd-b7ac6b051dc8_story.html (accessed June 8, 2021).

[3] James P. Cannon, "Fascism and the Workers' Movement," Marxist Internet Archive, Original publication March - April, 1954, The Militant, https://www.marxists.org/archive/cannon/works/1954/mar/15.htm. (accessed June 23, 2021).

[4] See Bertholt Brecht, "Fascism is the True Face of Capitalism," Off Guardian, Original publication 1935, https://off-guardian.org/2018/12/01/fascism-is-the-true-face-of-capitalism/. (accessed June 23, 2021). Ernest Lund, "Fascism Is a Product of Capitalism," Marxist Internet Archive, Original publication Labor Action September 27, 1943. https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/writers/erber/1943/09/fascism.htm. (accessed June 23, 2021).

[5] Lawrence Britt, "The 14 Characteristics of Fascism," Free Inquiry Magazine, 2003, https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.pdf (accessed June 5, 2021). See also umair, "Are Americans (Really) So Dumb They Don't Know Fascism When They See It?," Eudiamonia, April 6, 2019. https://eand.co/are-americans-really-so-dumb-they-dont-know-fascism-when-they-see-it-34cae64efa72 (accessed May 29, 2021).

[6]  "Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression," A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust, Florida Center for Instructional Technology, 2005, http://fcit.usf.edu/HOLOCAUST/resource/document/DOCNAC3.htm.

[7] Benito Mussolini, "What is Fascism?," Marxist Internet Archive, Reference Archive, Original publication 1932, Italian Encyclopedia, https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mussolini/works/fascism.htm. (accessed September 4, 2021).

[8] Franklin Le Van Baumer, ed., Main Currents of Western Thought (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978), 748.

[9] Alfred Rosenberg, "The Myth of the Twentieth Century," Internet Archive, Original publication 1930,  https://archive.org/details/the-myth-of-the-20th-century-alfred-rosenberg/mode/2up (accessed September 4, 2021).

[10] Andrew Joyce, "Review: Julius Evola's 'Myth of the Blood: The Genesis of Racialism,'" Occidental Observer, September 18, 2018, https://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2018/09/18/review-the-myth-of-the-blood-the-genesis-of-racialism/ (accessed June 9, 2021).

[11] Benito Mussolini, "The Doctrine of Fascism (1932)," World Future Fund, http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm (accessed September 10, 2021).

[12] N. L. Castelli, ed., Futurist Aristocracy (Rome: Prampolini, 1923).

[13] Le Van Baumer, op. cit.

[14] Mussolini, "The Doctrine of Fascism (1932)."

[15] Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2001).

[16] Seth Millstein, "13 Quotes From Steve Bannon That Show The Toxic Worldview He Took To The White House," Bustle, August 18, 2017,

https://www.bustle.com/p/13-steve-bannon-quotes-that-paint-a-diabolical-worldview-he-took-to-the-white-house-77612  (accessed May 24. 2021).

[17] Charles L. Stevenson, "Value-Judgments: Their Implicit Generality," in Ethical Theory in the last quarter of the twentieth century, ed. Norman E. Bowie (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1983), 13 - 37.

[18] "Corporatism," Wikipedia, Wikipedia Foundation, August 30, 2021, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism.

[19] Louis Paul Lochner, What About Germany? (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1943), 11–12.

[20] "The Concept of the Imperial Presidency," UKEssays, May 16, 2017,  https://www.ukessays.com/essays/politics/the-concept-of-the-imperial-presidency-politics-essay.php (accessed September 6, 2021).

[21] Here, I allude to the fascist self-branding of being fundamentally opposed to both capitalism and socialism, offering a third way of social organization. See Roger Eatwell, "The Oxford Dictionary of Political Ideologies," Oxford Handbooks Online, edited by Michael Freeden and Marc Stears, December 2013,

https://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199585977.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780199585977-e-009 (accessed September 6, 2021).

[22] Jennifer A. Quigley, Divine Accounting: Theo-Economics in Early Christianity (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2021).

[23] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2016 Union Membership In The United States, https://www.bls.gov/spotlight/2016/union-membership-in-the-united-states/pdf/union-membership-in-the-united-states.pdf. (accessed September 6, 2021).

[24] Mack Harden, "What is Taft-Hartley and Why Is It Bad?," Emergency Workplace Organizing, April 5, 2021, https://workerorganizing.org/what-is-taft-hartley-and-why-is-it-bad-1291/. (accessed September 6, 2021).

[25] J. Lester Feder, "This Is How Steve Bannon Sees The Entire World," November 16, 2016, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/lesterfeder/this-is-how-steve-bannon-sees-the-entire-world (accessed June 8, 2021).

[26] James Hohmann, "The Daily 202: Bannon will be the id, Priebus the super-ego in Trump’s White House," The Washington Post, November 14, 2016,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/daily-202/2016/11/14/daily-202-bannon-will-be-the-id-priebus-the-super-ego-in-trump-s-white-house/58292237e9b69b6085905df2/ (accessed May 31, 2021).

[27] Katie Reilly, "Donald Trump Says He 'Could Shoot Somebody' and Not Lose Voters," Time, January 23, 2016,

https://time.com/4191598/donald-trump-says-he-could-shoot-somebody-and-not-lose-voters/ (accessed May 21, 2021).

[28] Will, op. cit.

[29] Ibid.

Hitler Is Not Dead: On Bourgeois Electoralism, Liberalism as the Left Wing of Fascism, and the Politics of Exceptionalizing Donald Trump

By Joshua Briond

“At the end of capitalism, which is eager to outlive its day, there is Hitler. at the end of formal humanism and philosophic renunciation, there is Hitler.”

—Aimé Césaire, Discourses on Colonialism

We are in a sociopolitical moment where it is arguably more crucial than ever to challenge widespread, and often deliberate, misapprehensions regarding historical precedents, to avoid remaking past mistakes and repeating history when so much is at stake. Fascism is a socio-economic and political project and system of governing that began the moment Europeans first made contact with West African shores. The process continued when the Euro-American bourgeoisie further invaded Indigenous territory in conquest for expanding markets and sources of capital, and marked the creation of what we know today as America—the most powerful and technologically advanced hyper-militarized carceral-police state and exporter of capitalist, imperialist, and colonial violence and domination that the world has ever seen. The consequential violence and contradictions that have been exposed the last four years, which by many have been attributed solely to Donald Trump and co., are simply the demands and material consequences of capital and white supremacy (which go hand-in-hand, and are essentially inseparable). The exceptionalizing of Trump or his administration is short-sighted and dangerous. In reality, any US president would be tasked with such a role and responsibility.

Yet, what the liberal media apparatus and ruling class has spent the last four years doing to Trump—much like the West has historically done to Hitler—making him out to be an ‘exceptional’ evil, unlike anything we’ve ever seen before, as a means of separating themselves from (what is largely described as exclusively Trumpian or Hitlerian) political crimes, represents an incredibly grotesque and ahistorical deliberation on the part of the elite. In other words, Hitler was not the first Hitler and Trump is not the first Trump. And they certainly won’t be the last. Trump, just as Hitler was, is not the exception but the rule of what white-supremacist-patriarchal capitalism is capable of, and what this system is willing to do (or produce) to maintain its naturalized order and rule. And if we allow them to continue to exceptionalize what Trump is doing, or has done up until this point—even if he’s doing it in unorthodox ways—we will be bamboozled yet again as yet another, more effective, less blatant Trump will inevitably rise.

What Hitler did, and what Trump is currently doing—as in their (racialized) political, economic, and war crimes—are not exclusive or unique to either of them as individuals, despite what Western (revisionist) history and the professional liberal media class would like to have us believe. But instead, racial terror, violence, and genocide, is and always has been the point of the Western (and American) project. It is built into the fabric of the of the West—it is all Euro-American’s have ever known, culturally and politically. And they will, as we have seen, continue their terror and violence because the political economy is sustained on such; until the entire project is brought to a halt. The global capitalist political economy is predicated on and sustained through racialized violence, and cannot be attributed solely to any one individual leader or figurehead. When I say that Hitler, or Trump in this case, are not exceptional evils, despite both being individually evil and worthy of our condemnation: it is to say that every western leader—namely in the context of US presidents—has blood on their hands. And all have, both individually and collectively, terrorized and massacred countless people, as their policies and upholding of US hegemony, by means of imperialism, [neo]colonialism, and global capitalism, has directly and indirectly led to such deadly consequences.

“When I switch on my radio and hear that black men are being lynched in America, I say that they have lied to us: Hitler isn’t dead. When I switch on my radio and hear that Jews are being insulted, persecuted, and massacred, I say that they have lied to us: Hitler isn’t dead. And finally when I switch on my radio and hear that in Africa forced labor has been introduced and legalized, I say that truly they have lied to us: Hitler isn’t dead.”

— Aime Cesaire

I would like to preface the rest of this by stating that when I speak of Hitler, it is not just in the context of the individual—but an idea, as Aimé Césaire would describe it, both abstract and material, that is innate to western civilization and the maintenance of the regime which has global implications. Hitler was, quite literally on record, inspired by the United States’ treatment of Black and Indigenous people in America. But, the US, and the West at-large, has exceptionalized him, as if they are morally and politically above his crimes. How is what Hitler, and now Trump, did and are actively doing so unspeakable to the professional liberal apparatus, when such crimes have always been committed against racialized people on a global scale? How can we take seriously the largely performative outrage and condemnation that the Hitlers or Trumps of our world have incited in liberals when similar crimes have been enacted on racialized persons on a global scale by political leaders such as Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama, all of whom they admire? What is Hitler to the African, whose enslavement, rape, theft, dispossession, and exploitation served as a template for what would be exported to other colonized nations and peoples for the purposes and demands of Western capital? What is Hitler to the Palestinian whose terror and ongoing genocide is being supported and funded by the US (and every single one of our politicians)? What is Hitler to the Iranian, Korean, or Chinese whose subjugated positionality is that of the result of US imperialism and global capitalism? What is Hitler to any racialized, imperialized, or colonized nation or peoples who have reaped the consequences of Euro-American capital and rule?

“During the Second World War the country became incensed against the Japanese—not against the Germans. The Germans were never incarcerated, the Japanese were. And now the Iranians and other people like that. Europe had nothing against Hitler and neither did [America] until he turned his guns against them.”

— James Baldwin

Fascism is not something that can be simply born or defeated via electoralism—in countries that are capitalist, colonialist, and/or imperialist from their inception, as was such in the case of the US and Germany. An able and willing fascist participant can absolutely run for office, uphold such an order, and maybe even advance it in a wide variety of ways. But there has not been a case in which fascism begins or ends with said individual or political act of simply voting. So while yes, the ruling class technically “allows” its subjects the illusive option to vote for and “elect” (with conditions, of course) whomever will be the upholder of said system, it is the system itself — that makes way for the empowerment and upholding of individuals, ideologies, and violence—that needs undoing, not just the figurehead representing it. Which, again, is what makes it ncessary to expose the liberal exceptionalizing of Trump’s regime of violence—because the capitalist ruling class will easily relieve Trump of his duties of upholding the white-supremacist fascist order and replace him with someone who will effectively maintain the white power structure with grace and class, just as liberals like it, in a way that is socially acceptable to the vast majority of American people (and the West at large). Because the vast majority of Americans are simply unaware of the extent to which political violence is exported globally. And the amount of violence, terror, and death that elected leaders—from the self-proclaimed progressives to the unabashed neo-conservatives—are directly responsible for.

To reiterate, the inevitable ascension into the fascist order began when Europeans set foot on the shores of West Africa—not the 2016 general election in the US. Germany, for example, alongside the Euro-Americas, enslaved and massacred Africans with impunity centuries prior to the unfortunate birth of Hitler, the individual, and yet we are to believe fascism began with Hitler? Or, in the American sense, with Trump in 2016? Despite the incessant crimes of capital, which as we know, as Marx taught us, “[came] dripping from head to foot, from every pore, with blood and dirt” throughout history, including such crimes that birthed the bastard child of Europe now known as America? If it took multi-country war and an immeasurable amount of bloodshed led by the USSR to defeat the fascist beast in Germany—never mind the reluctance on the part of the US to get involved until Germany threatened US hegemony with its prospects of expanding its rule on a global scale—how are we supposed to believe that fascism is something to be defeated by merely checking off a box?

America was born as a nation, as an ideological extension of a European bourgeois political, cultural, and libidinal desire to expand new markets to generate more capital—even if it meant resorting to the utmost diabolical means. Hitler is not dead. As the US's values, institutions, global legitimacy, and grip on the world—namely the colonized world—is in decay, there is far too much evidence of just this fact. And everything we are seeing that the professional liberal class has duplicitously yet meticulously attributed solely to Trump and his ilk, whether in reference to the political repression happening across the country on the part of the carceral police state, the neglect of millions of citizens in a midst of a global pandemic and economic turmoil, or the hypervisibility of armed white militia groups, is simply a product of white-supremacist capitalism and its reaction to, and delaying, its inevitable demise.

The state at-large, and its upholders—whether in the form of the institutionalized agents or vigilantes—is reacting to the desires and needs of capital and whiteness. And regardless of who is president, these contradictions will continue to rise in these times because the needs of capital and whiteness largely come at the expense of the non-white and super-exploited, rendering it unsustainable and almost always in a constant state of flux and turmoil, and constantly in need of protection and adaptation. Hitler is not dead.

“We must resign ourselves to the inevitable and say to ourselves, once and for all, that the bourgeoisie is condemned to become every day more snarling, more openly ferocious, more shameless, more summarily barbarous; that it is an implacable law that every decadent class finds itself turned into a receptacle into which there flow all the dirty waters of history; that it is a universal law that before it disappears every class must first disgrace itself completely, on all fronts, and that it is with their heads buried in the dunghill that dying societies utter their swan songs.”

— Aimé Césaire, discourses on colonialism

Fascism—as well as the personification of such in the form of Hitler and Trump—is the inevitable outcome of a global capitalist system whose entire economy is predicated on constant racialized war, terror, and violence, and unsustainably expanding and creating new markets to achieve such a feat. Hitler is not dead. Fascism is simply “capitalism in decay.” If we want to end, or even remotely challenge fascism, we must work to eradicate capitalism.

The misunderstanding of fascism begins with the deliberate political positing of [neo]liberalism as in-opposition or an alternative to the fascist order. When in actuality, history has shown us that it is in cahoots with, if not, an actual strand of fascism in and of itself. Liberal democrats often spout rhetorical devices such as, “there is no middle ground; pick a side.” Such statements are not to emphasize the crucial sociopolitical moment we find ourselves in, which necessitates that we choose between fascism or socialism—in the face of pending climate doom and deteriorating material conditions—but to guilt us into voting for Democrats over Republicans.

It has never been more apparent that liberal democrats are the stabilizers and upkeepers of fascist rule—who exist to provide an illusion of “opposition” to the material actualities and consequences of liberal democracy, western capital(ism), and the white power structure at-large—while actively upholding the neoliberal fascist order and inhibiting even the slightest possibilities of progress. Left radicals, or anyone who has divested from bourgeois electoralism, are constantly punched down on and condescended to for daring to demand more than mild concessions (“reforms” that’ll just be poked, prodded, weakened and rendered obsolete the moment the next Republican gets into office) and milquetoast, uninspiring, career-imperialist Democrat candidates. There have been constant claims on the part of liberal democrats—and those sympathetic to their politics—of radicals being “child-like” and expecting “purity” for wanting a world without constant racialized violence, demanding political representatives that aren’t subservient to capital but to our material interests, and refusing to engage in lesser of two evils every election cycle. It is quite clear that liberal establishment democrats—and the opportunists who serve their rule—are categorically irrelevant to the dispossessed, colonized, racialized, super-exploited, and wretched of our world, beyond their attempts to postpone and/or flat-out hinder our drive to build a better world, and redirecting our aims back into the arms of the establishment.

Liberal democrats obediently assume their role as the “left-wing” of fascism—the “good cops” to the Republican “bad cops.” The covert fascists versus overt fascists. But at the detriment to us all, the fact still remains that they are both still cops and they are both still driving a fascist system to its inevitable conclusion. Democrats represent the only publicly legitimized and acknowledged political “left” party despite being overwhelmingly ideologically right wing. They allow and endorse mild concessions that will help keep the racialized, colonized, dispossessed, and super-exploited slightly comfortable enough—at the expense of one another and persons in the Global South and Third World—to remain complicit in their subjugation. They will even give impassioned monologues on social media, or in front of the cameras, yell at Republicans’ blatant political violence—while doing nothing materially to actually offer resistance or represent an opposition to said violence beyond rhetorical moral grandstanding. While Republicans don’t even pretend to care about providing subjects of their rule crumbs through these concessions. They don’t pretend to care about whether or not you vote because they accept and relish in their bad cop role. But ultimately, both parties truly cannot exist and flourish without one another. They are both incredibly useful, in their own way, as agents of capital, to the sustainment and growth of fascism.

I’d argue “centrism,” “conservatism,” and “republicanism” are not even economic ideologies—in fact, their ideology largely rests on the premise that they have none—beyond the rule of capital. So why else—beyond the aforementioned reasons—would you need two parties? Both parties are one in the same—just differ in tactics and approaches—but are united under the banner of upholding economic [neo]liberalism, i.e., capitalism. Which is why the rhetoric of “we have a choice between neoliberalism or fascism”—which has been an ostensible liberal talking point—as if, again, neoliberalism is, or could ever be, an alternative, reprieve, or in-opposition to fascism. How could something that has historically worked in cahoots with fascism be an alternative to its rule?

The fact that so much state-sanctioned violence, political repression, mishandling and neglect of the most marginalized—especially incarcerated, immigrant, and houseless populations—in the face of COVID-19, an ongoing housing crisis, unemployment, and economic turmoil, is happening in “liberal” cities and cities led by Democrats nationwide, should very much inform our understanding of the situation at hand. The fascist order will remain intact regardless of who is elected into office on November 3rd—despite the hand-wringing and finger-pointing over which party is more at fault for white-supremacist capitalism’s ills being exposed. The public perception and liberal media coverage of certain events and political violence will adjust accordingly. What we are seeing now, and have been seeing for the last four years is simply a declining empire doing anything and everything it can to maintain its tight (but loosening) grip on its own people—as well as the rest of the world. As evidenced by not just the uprisings and rebellions happening across the country and the world at-large, but the failed coup d’etat attempts—namely in Venezuela and Bolivia—which the professional liberals condemned, not from an anti-imperialist stance but because of Trump’s inability to do imperialism effectively.

If Trump is Hitler, what is Obama to people of Libya? Or Syria? Or Pakistan? What is George W. Bush Jr. to Iraqis? What is Bill Clinton to the people of Sudan? Yuglosavia? What are any and all of them to migrants who have been caged and deported, or Black people who have been executed by police in the streets on a daily basis, or workers who have been left without means to sustain basic life, or tens of millions who are surveilled each and every day? These things occurred long before Trump and will continue to escalate long after Trump.

The empire lives. For now. And Hitler is not dead.

Abolish it All: Towards Eradicating the Prison and Military Industrial Complex

By Blake Simons

I, like many other Black radicals who follow the Black radical tradition, are filled with hope to see such a large amount of people talking about abolishment of the police. A few months ago, many would deem us wild to even think that abolishment was such a possibility, let alone a mainstream conversation. With national discussion, however, nuance is erased and conversations become watered down, and the reality of the conditions we are in are not properly articulated. I want to recognize the work of Mariame Kaba, who helped me come to this abolitionist politic; in addition, I want to thank the many folks like Angela Davis who have laid the foundation for abolitionist thought. This piece seeks to provide clarity and guidance to the people, and a framework for which abolishment of the prison industrial complex is possible. 

For starters, it is important to note that the prison industrial complex is deeply tied to the military industrial complex. The weapons and gear manufactured by captured Africans in penitentiaries is used to loot countries in the 3rd world. This makes way for corporations like apple, tesla, google, and microsoft to come to the continent to loot Africa’s resources while also using African child labor. This is only made possible because the police force captures Africans and then enslaves us in penitentiaries in which our people are forced to make weapons and materials for the military. This undeniably connects the prison industrial complex with the military industrial complex. It’s important that we know our enemy and what we are up against if we are going to abolish the PIC. 

The us empire and its military is the most violent imperial regime in human history. Do we think that the biggest purveyor of violence will willingly concede to demands of abolishment? The national guard was called in and military rule began when windows were broken and buildings were burned. Similarly, if we seek to abolish the PIC, this fascist state will have a violent response. I purposefully start here with this framework because it’s important to know what we will be up against if we seek to truly abolish prisons and the police, and thus the military industrial complex. 

america’s economy runs off the exploitation of captured Africans and global imperial dominance. To think that prisons and police will be abolished through non violence underestimates the capacity for violence that america has. ‬america will do anything to preserve its colonial violence, history shows us this and it is a scientific fact.

Prisons won’t be abolished through the reformist calls to defund. Schools are defunded. Healthcare is defunded. Section 8 housing services are defunded. Just because the police are defunded doesn’t mean that they will be abolished. Revolution doesn’t come from policy changes, it comes from destroying these systems that kill us. This is an important distinction necessary for us to be aware of. We must be wary of reformist calls that will somehow “lead” us to abolishment. 

We know that reform only furthers fascism. The past 400 years shows us that. We can’t settle for nothing less than the complete eradication of the systems of oppression that kill and exploit our people on the daily. Whether it is transphobia, ableism, or police violence (which are all deeply connected and often intersect at the same time) we can’t concede to the demands of a fascist state for reform. As George Jackson says,.“...with each reform, revolution became more remote[...]But if one were forced for the sake of clarity to define [fascism] in a word simple enough for all to understand, that word would be ‘reform.”Our people’s lives depend on revolution. 

While new calls to abolish the police show that the general public is ready for change, we have to be honest about what true abolishment will take. As prison-industrial-complex abolitionists, we seek to eradicate systems of violence that enslave, kill, and exploit us. We seek to create new systems that address violence at its core to create peace in our communities. Kwame Ture teaches us that we (revolutionaries) are not only destroyers but we are creators. Creators of a new world where peace is possible. But we must understand that in order for peace to exist, there is a scientific method that must be used to obtain it.

We must understand that armed struggle in defense of and against this fascist state is the only way to eradicate fascism. Mussolini wasn’t defeated through non-violent protests. Hitler wasn’t defeated through non-violent protests. And trump and the united corporations of america won’t be destroyed through non-violence. Revolutionary (counter)violence, which is a defensive and life-affirming posture as much as it is an act of self-preservation, will create the conditions in which we can abolish these systems that have oppressed us for the past 400 years. As Malcolm X said best, there’s been no revolution in the world without bloodshed — from Haiti, to Venezuela, to Cuba, to Ghana. 

While many might say our people are not ready for this, I would like to remind people that it was unarmed protestors in Minneapolis who sent pigs squealing and retreating from their precinct. This happened as people in current time created a plan to do so. Imagine if the people had more organization? Imagine if the people were armed? There’s endless possibilities if we have an organized guerrilla front. 

As I said earlier, revolutionary (counter)violence is at the core of abolishment, but as revolutionaries we also create twice as much as we seek to destroy. As my comrade noname said,

“when the dust settles and the protests stop, communities will still be poor, police will still murder and violate citizens. prisons will still be filled with millions of ppl. half a million ppl will still be houseless. the past 2 weeks was the easy part. solidarity isn’t a trend”.

This is why we have to create programs, people’s programs, that serve the material needs of our people pending armed struggle. We have to show our people that a future outside the parasitic conditions of capitalism do exist. We need food programs for the hungry. Housing programs for the houseless. Medical programs for the people. COVID-19 testing for the community. We must provide this for our people. If we are to claim the title as revolutionary, it is our duty to serve the people, love the people, and free the people. 

In struggle.

*

Blake Simons is co-host of Hella Black podcast and co-founder of People’s Breakfast Oakland, a grassroots Black socialist organization in Oakland, CA. The author is on Twitter @BlakeDontCrack.

Donald Trump and Erik Prince's Privatization of War

(Pictured: Corporate mercenaries in Afghanistan)

By James Richard Marra

During my career as a business analyst, I learned much about why and how some businesses succeed while others fail. Failure may result from higher wage levels, employee health insurance costs, or market conditions. Nevertheless, it generally occurs due to poor management: owner incompetence, arrogance, and greed, insensitivity to fundamental business factors and best practices, or a flawed understanding of their markets and competitors.

I bring this up because the neofascist governance in Washington and its corporate partners are wooing Americans toward another imperial catastrophe in the Middle East, this time involving Iran. For these capitalists, much is never enough. So as expected, the military-technology-surveillance complex (MTSC) wishes to expand its profitable productive capacity into new or under-exploited war-commodity markets. The success of this expansion depends upon careful attention to geographic, material, and operational considerations. Best business practices demand that the MTSC develops a sound plan by first consulting experts in these areas. These factors might include those identified by the famous military theorist Carl von Clausewitz. For von Clausewitz, the three pillars of warfare are strategy, operations, and tactics. Within the MTSC’s production and marketing plans, these required military functions are transformed into profitable exchange values - money. If this program is managed well, the sky is the limit. If not, failure will likely come.

With these thoughts in mind, we might consider the case of Erik Prince, the ex-Navy Seal and founder/CEO of the failed and criminally mercenary service provider Blackwater. In 2018, Prince, the brother of Education Secretary, and public-education privatizer, Betsy DeVos, approached the Trump Administration with a proposal to privatize the Afghan War. Prince’s dog-and-pony show claimed that the war could be waged more economically and efficiently, while deploying fewer troops in smaller specialized units. 

Neofascists, like Steve Bannon, invited further discussion and exploration. This is not surprising because fascism of any sort, including today's neofascism, is an artful alliance of an anti-conventional and zealous "Leader," a hyper-nationalistic culture, and an exceptionally exploitative form of capitalism. Trump's fascism gets its "neo" in part from the fact that today's capitalism is largely unfettered, "neoliberal," finance-and-service-dominated, and monopolized. This current form differs from the manufacturing capitalism that dominated the world economy from the 1920s to the 1980s. Furthermore, history reminds us that, while Hitler disliked “industrialists,” he admired Henry Ford to the extent that, in 1938, he bestowed upon him the Grand Cross of the German Eagle.

Now, capitalism opposes worker control over their labor power. The military command structure epitomizes this, as unions are banned and the demands made upon military labor (soldiers) go unquestioned. Likewise, fascist governance requires that workers absolutely obey the will of the political Leader, as it is transformed into the productive operations in which workers participate.

Both Prince and Bannon recognized a profitable business opportunity enabled by the structural efficiencies fascism offers within a privatized war market. In this model, military needs are continually identified and marketed by the Leader and the MTSC through their political minions and the capitalist media. Once workers are indoctrinated to the benefits of war, the MTSC transforms those needs into corresponding commodities. Vast amounts of capital are provided by taxes largely levied upon the working class. Politically trumped up fears of the working class not only provide a market incentive, but also mobilize workers’ labor power, both on and off the battlefield.

Trump’s military and other members of the MTSC balked at Prince’s scheme. Generals Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster ensured that Prince’s folly was a non-starter. Given this, a question arises: How could a neofascist mercenary's neofascist proposal to a neofascist Leader fail? Prince is neither an idiot nor a novice. His operational capabilities have been successfully field-tested, are marshaled by a highly skilled cadre of special-forces experts, and bolstered by significant international technical and political support.

It occurs to me that Prince’s business failure significantly resides in his misunderstanding of the contemporary war market and its players. He doesn’t understand his competitors’ collective business model, its functional role within the neofascist governance, or its monopolistic structure. Prince’s arrogance leads him to believe he can slither his way directly to the top of the neofascist food chain, biting off a prime piece of the war market without complaint from the big players. That might work if the market were immature, and competition largely relevant to profitability. But today’s market is both mature and well organized. Leading participants synergistically avoid price wars, fight unions and organizing efforts, fund think tanks and lobbyists, contribute to the campaign coffers of servile politicians, and meet together at national and global conferences to determine market rules.

Dominant corporations viscously defend themselves from the competitive risks presented by new and less mature companies. Thus, corporations join in a “co-respective” market behavior that largely guarantees their continuing control and profitability.

Alex Hollings asks:

So why didn’t Trump...a business man that values bottom-line savings, sign off on it?...Steve Bannon, Trump’s recently fired chief strategist, was said to support Prince’s plan, but the Generals Mattis, Kelly, and McMaster have all dismissed it.  For those in Bannon’s corner, they argue it’s because he’s the outsider, free from the political pressures of the military industrial complex.

A congressional aide attending the meeting reported, “The adults hate it.”

There is another potential problem, although one that might offer a silver lining for Prince: the laws that govern American wars. These pesky laws make it more difficult for any privatized war business to control production, supply, and operational management. For a privatized war commodity to be successful, businesses require that civilian leadership regularly deliver new war-needs, which would motivate market demand. While both Democrats and Republicans are quick to fund occasional “short” wars, that isn’t enough. What is needed is a government that will go to war as unhesitatingly and continually, as Hitler did devouring the nations of Europe. A fascist leadership is ideal because it considers war to be among the noblest of human endeavors, and resists conventional or legal restraints imposed by “decadent” liberal democracies.

However, today’s renewed calls for limits upon the now imperial presidency from the American left illustrate the business risk represented by not appreciating the vicissitudes involved in political strategy. Prince’s short-term thinking led him to largely ignore the fact that presidents come and go. Public opinion changes with the lifting of a TV remote, and politicians the chase political winds like a bloodhound after a jackrabbit through a lush Kentucky meadow. Prince failed to appreciate that his business success hinged on controlling the dance card at a capitalist senior prom to which he is not invited.

My references to “neofascism” may annoy some folks: "You’re calling Trump a neofascist just because you don’t like his politics!” Although I find Trump's politics uniquely vile, that fact doesn’t inform my understanding of a “Futurist”-inspired fascism. To understand Futurism, let's allow it to speak for itself.

Futurists wish to

...sing the love of danger, the habit of energy and boldness.

...extol aggressive movement, feverish insomnia, the double-quick step, the somersault, the box on the ear, the fisticuff.

...to destroy the museum, the libraries, to fight against moralism, feminism and all opportunistic and utilitarian malignancy.

...glorify war - the only health-give [sic] of the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive arm of the Anarchist, the beautiful ideas that kill, and contempt for woman.

These pleasantries might well have come from Donald Trump or one of his torch-bearing neo-Nazi devotees. But, they are offered by the founder of the Futurist movement, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, in Futurist Aristocracy (1923), edited by the Italian Futurist Nanni Leone Castelli. As such, they illuminate a frightening Futurist thread between contemporary Trumpian neofascism and its historical roots. Benito Mussolini was a Futurist of sorts, and was seen by many contemporaries, Italian or otherwise, as the epitome of the aggressive and spontaneous Futurist hero. Here are a few priceless insights from Benito Mussolini’s (with Giovanni Gentile) 1932 article “Doctrine of Fascism.”

[Fascism]...repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism....[W]ar alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it.

For Fascism the tendency to Empire, that is to say, to the expansion of nations, is a manifestation of vitality...

Fascism attacks the whole complex of democratic ideologies and rejects them both in their theoretical premises and in their applications or practical manifestations. [F]ascism denies that the majority, through the mere fact of being a majority, van [sic] rule human societies; it denies that this majority can govern by means of a periodical consultation; it affirms the irremediable, fruitful and beneficent inequality of men, who cannot be leveled by such a mechanical and extrinsic fact as universal suffrage.

Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence.

Fascism, in short, is not only the giver of laws and the founder of institutions, but the educator and promoter of spiritual life. It wants to remake, not the forms of human life, but its content, man, character, faith. And to this end it requires discipline and authority that can enter into the spirits of men and there govern unopposed.

These happy thoughts tighten the historical thread that connects Mussolini’s historical fascism to Trump’s regime, as transmitted through pseudo-intellectuals like Steve Bannon and Sebastian Gorka. This fascist mentality now commands the most powerful military force in human history. Trump’s behavior in both deed and word is a litany of fascist, and therewith Futurist, virtues.

Possessing the legal and political prerequisites for endless warfare, war enterprises need capital to fuel ongoing accumulation. War profiteers understand that citizens purchase war commodities in the sense that they accede to the Constitutional requirement that they pay war costs through taxation. In the current war market, temporary wars no longer provide the required market potential or capital. Fighting temporary wars no longer makes market sense. Instead, the working class must purchase a product that is always urgently needed, requiring continuing maintenance, like the family car. To ensure the needed profitability, war is sold as an indispensable civic need, based upon a continually present danger. That danger comes conveniently from “terrorists,” a term whose meaning is so muddled that it can apply to anyone, anywhere, anytime, anyhow.

With the proper social and political indoctrination, and product marketing, citizens happily surrender their Constitutional right to decide against whom, where, when, and how they sacrifice themselves to the god of imperial war. They are invited by a monopoly of war service providers to choose between column A or column A. Americans now enjoy a neofascist Leader in the White House, and a semi-fascist congress willing to pass mushrooming military budgets. If there were a Constitutional challenge to this state of affairs, the matter would be decided by a Supreme Court infested with neoliberal sycophants. Thus, endless war, as always under capitalism, becomes a good business investment, and therefore good governance.

Under Trump's neofascism, the Leader commands the “supply side” of the war market. Taxes on war businesses are deeply cut, while those enterprises become decreasingly deregulated and increasingly empowered. Under contemporary capitalism, the distinction between the sales effort, which invents new needs, and commodity production is largely dissolved. With the rise of a privatized war market, the traditional relationship between democratic governance and the “invisible” divine hand that supposedly guides markets is, to echo Mussolini, "repudiated." The MTSC is now fully absorbed within the structural operations of the governance, and vice versa. The business role of the Leader is to manage a permanent war-marketing project that inspires the continuing development of new war commodities. Thus, the US Defense Department is “deconstructed” (to use one of Bannon’s favorite words), only to emerge refreshed as the Fannie Mae of American global capitalist dominance.

In sum, Prince’s business proposal was ill conceived, misinformed, and poorly timed. It suffered from management problems that most failed businesses experience. While Prince, like Trump, may have obtained some measure of business success by bullying the defenseless and lying about much, both have left an ultimate legacy of business failure and bankruptcy. Unfortunately, Trump was provided a place at the head of the capitalist table by a rapacious Republican Party and its white nationalist supporters. It will remain to be seen if Prince learns some lessons and abandons his unprofitable arrogance in favor of sound business judgment. For the sake of the American working class, I hope that won’t happen.

Commentary on the Concept of Enlightenment

By Spenser Rapone

Despite years of supposed progress, both technological and social, we remain slaves to capital, subjected to a dull, daily routine within a prescribed division of labor. Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's Dialectic of Enlightenment outlines how the desire to "enlighten" human beings merely reproduced domination and oppression, leading to our current alienated state. Contextualizing their work specifically, its dour tone of course reflects that of its publication in 1947; nonetheless, I insist that it remains relevant, given the political precipice we currently find ourselves. Regarding the first chapter, of which I examine in this piece, the authors aspire to turn enlightenment on its head, conceptualizing a critical enlightenment that rejects absolute power and domination. [1] Of course, enlightenment remains a rather nebulous concept. To be enlightened, at face value, seems to conjure up an image of self-actualized thought. The Enlightenment, as we know it from the eighteenth through nineteenth centuries, sought the progress of our collective human existence. Yet, at what cost do we seek progress? Herein lies Horkheimer's and Adorno's focus. While enlightenment sought to assert the human race as masters of our domain, by the 1940s, "the wholly enlightened earth [was] radiant with triumphant calamity." [2] Specifically, the 20th century had brought about two devastating world wars, the rise of fascism, and widespread destitution and alienation. How did the desire for an enlightened human race produce such barbarism?

Adorno and Horkheimer's work demonstrates how the likes of Hitler, Mussolini, et al. were in many ways the logical conclusion of enlightenment thought. They did not exist as an aberration, but were in the spirit of other oppressive enlightenment figures and regimes (when one takes into account the genocidal impulses of the British Empire in India, or the same of the United States with regards to indigenous peoples, this picture becomes much more clear). Francis Bacon's edict of "knowledge is power" is far more than a pithy musing; Horkheimer and Adorno insist that when it comes to knowledge and power, the two are synonymous, within the Baconian framework. [3] Thus, enlightenment did not seek out knowledge for the sake of knowledge; knowledge was only useful insofar as its utility in the pursuit of power. In other words, knowledge became the object of instrumental reason; that is, knowledge was used to achieve a certain end, in this case, power. [4] Resultantly, knowledge itself existed as a crude, empirical framework to arrange, observe, and dominate objects; inevitably, this process further entrenched the capitalist mode of production. [5] Yet, the enlightenment's regressive tendencies under the guise of human progress, did not appear out of thin air; it traces its lineage to and draws from the various mythologies of the western canon.

More than anything else, I seek to emphasize that both Horkheimer and Adorno wrote Dialectic of Enlightenment as a warning against the cult of "progress." In other words, we ought to see to it that in the process of liberating ourselves from the shackles of our miserable existence, we do not lose sight of what it means to truly carry out an emancipatory movement. Enlightenment merely perpetuated myth under a veneer of scientism and technocratic impulses, existing as manipulator of things as dictator exists as manipulator of human beings. [6] Enlightenment was not a movement in the spirit of liberty, but in the spirit of control, domination, and sovereignty. I claim that the most critical line of this opening chapter lies in the assertion that "a true praxis capable of overturning the status quo depends on theory's refusal to yield to the oblivion in which society allows thought to ossify." [7] An authentic emancipatory movement must not fall prey to instrumental reason; revolutionary thought must both liberate but also recognize the inherent value of thought itself.

Although Dialectic of Enlightenment was published nearly 70 years ago, many of its concepts, particularly the fetishization of technological advancement, can be examined in the current day. Let us take a brief foray into Silicon Valley, where progress narratives and TED Talk "solutions" serve as an idol to which lanyard dicks such as Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, and many others, bow down. Horkheimer and Adorno contend that the maxim of western civilization lies with Spinoza's claim that virtue is ultimately motivated by self-preservation. [8] While self-preservation itself is not irrational, it becomes profoundly alienating when the capitalist mode of production and bourgeois division of labor organizes society. [9] Peter Thiel believes that he can achieve permanent self-preservation, essentially immortality, through the use of blood transfusions from the youth. [10] A terrifying prospect, his absurd proposal has its origin in the advancement of technology and empiricist, "scientific" thought.

The "massive rejuvenating effect" that Thiel desires at the expense of human beings also contains another implication: that the lives of the ruling class, especially those of the so-called "innovator" class, hold more value than those of the poor. [11] Is this not the ultimate "reification of human beings in factory and office?" [12] Thiel's dystopic, obscene vision carries with it the legacy of eugenicist, fascistic thought. Yet, in a world where Thiel vehemently endorsed the likes of Donald Trump, [13] further confirming the Republican Party's status as a white ethno-nationalist cabal, the Democratic Party, through propping up Hillary Clinton, doubled-down on neoliberalism in the face of neofascism. Thus, in keeping with the enlightenment traditions of the guiding star of trusting a lesser evil, [14] the American political system failed, and continues to fail, to produce an alternative. Progressivism, positivism, and technocracy rule the day in late stage capitalist society. Much like how the United States recruited Nazi scientists in the postwar period, valuing scientific "progress" over any sort of authentic political commitment to antifascism, so too do current establishment political figures and parties value technological efficiency over human empowerment.

The concept of intellectual thought, in capitalist society, exists as a mythological construct. Horkheimer and Adorno contend that we are subjected to an "autocratic intellect," one which has standardized what it means to be an intellectual itself. [15] Here, Gramsci's analysis of the intellectual subject must be consulted. Horkheimer and Adorno speak of how the aforementioned standardization produces a supposed cleavage between sensuous, lived experience, vis-à-vis more conceptual, abstract thought. [16] Yet, as Gramsci notes, "[a]ll men are intellectuals, one could therefore say; but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals." [17] Thus, capitalist society establishes tenured professors, technological innovators, and various other positions of authority of having sole access to the intellectual function. This, of course, is elitism at its finest.

A factory worker's labor requires just as much intellectual thought as physical exertion. Gramsci insists that "homo faber cannot be separated from homo sapiens," [18] meaning man-the-maker and man-the-thinker exists as one complete being. We can see then the ruling class's domination persists in large part due to the manufactured separation of intellectual thought from the wretched of the earth. The "new form of blindness" exhibited by the working class [19] manifests itself through widespread anti-intellectualism, racism driven by economic insecurity, et al. Of course, while many of the conservative punditry takes pride in such behavior, the liberal solution amounts to sanctimonious moralizing that only further entrenches widespread anxiety wrought by social immobility. Gramsci's proposition of the organic intellectual who arises through lived experience, organization, and critical pedagogy offers a compelling solution to the stagnation of mass movements which desire social change. [20] Indeed, as the existing society asserts its dominance further, workers resultantly become even more so powerless to overcome its regressive function. [21] However, there always remains even the slightest glimmer of hope to reverse the cycle of oppression, and one of the first steps can be found in redefining what constitutes an intellectual, through both thought and action, joined together as one.

Enlightenment, that notion of the progressive advancement of human thought, to this day bends to the whim of the ruling class. Yet, despite the underlying pessimism to their work, both Horkheimer and Adorno admit that all is not lost, even with the concept of enlightenment itself; its ideal of human emancipation can still be realized, only if we completely and unabashedly reject the principle of blind power. [22] In doing so, not only would we abolish enlightenment's empiricist cruelty and technocratic impulses, but we would then break away with its mythological tendencies, unlike the past 300 years, which has only served to replace one mythology with another. I believe that there is a meta-narrative present in this text, most readily accessible in one of the closing statements of the first chapter. Horkheimer and Adorno observe that the bourgeois economy has grown so powerful that ruling elites alone cannot maintain its function; in fact, "all human beings are needed" to ensure its continuation. [23] Indeed, the blindness wrought by late stage capitalism leads to some of the most downtrodden elements of our current society complicit in their own exploitation and oppression, sometimes enthusiastically so. Yet, herein lies the revolutionary subtext, exemplified by that simple line of thought, "all people are needed." The moment that the masses of people stir from their false consciousness and channel their desires towards a mass movement, the cycle of oppression can be broken. Yes, enlightenment has produced an "outright deception of the masses." [24] But, in requiring all people for its continuation, we once again affirm the quintessential adage of all emancipatory movements: power lies with the people. Horkheimer and Adorno provide us with hope, for while the attempt to enlighten human beings produced some of the darkest moments of our history, the people, collectively, still have within them the power to bring about a liberated world.

Notes

[1] Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno, Dialectic of Enlightenment, xviii.

[2] Ibid., 1.

[3] Ibid., 2.

[4] Curtis Bowman, Odysseus and the Siren Call of Reason: The Frankfurt School Critique of Enlightenment . http://www.othervoices.org/1.1/cubowman/siren.php .

[5] Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic, 3.

[6] Ibid., 6.

[7] Ibid., 33.

[8] Ibid., 22.

[9] Ibid., 23.

[10] J.K. Trotter, "What Does Peter Thiel Want?" Gawker. http://gawker.com/what-does-peter-thiel-want-1784039918#_ga=1.142753974.240915375.1460756871 .

[11] Ibid.

[12] Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic, 23.

[13] Dan Primack, "Peter Thiel Gives Full-Throated Endorsement of Donald Trump," Fortune. http://fortune.com/2016/07/21/peter-thiel-gives-full-throated-endorsement-of-donald-trump/ .

[14] Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic, 24.

[15] Ibid., 28.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 9.

[18] Ibid., 9.

[19] Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic, 28.

[20] Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, 10.

[21] Horkheimer and Adorno, Dialectic, 29.

[22] Ibid., 33.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid., 34.