But at Least the Trains Ran on Time...

Jonathan's post arguing that fascism was not a true ideology until historians made it one is, in my view, very off base. For one, I think he underestimates the novelty of the fascist movement. Several aspects of fascism separate it from previous authoritarian systems, such as its fundamental connection to mass politics. Totalitarianism arose out of an atomized and terrified society where class and social distinctions had been wiped clean by the First World War. Fascism was not a class movement--it was factional, but it drew support from all corners of Italian society. A second differentiating factor was its new idea of relations between rulers and the ruled. Absolutism had to recognize the aristocracy as a lesser or greater partner in government. Liberal statists nominally presented themselves as popular servants and sought to reconcile competing social interests. Fascism, as its name implies, believed in the ultimate 'binding' of all members of society. The state and the people would be unified in the service of a common ideal--that of national greatness and the acquisition of power.

Mussolini called expansion and a larger sense of struggle 'an essential manifestation of vitality' by the State. The rhetoric of fascism was communal, emphasizing the greater unity of a people and the expression of this unity through the State. Contrary to what Jonathan asserts, fascism necessitated such an ideology before it could take hold in Italy else it could not have achieved the victory it did. Only once the regime had cemented its position could ideology be subverted to the greater telos of totalitarianism--the perpetuation of the regime for its own sake.

Is The Revolution Inevitable?

OR: Reply to Charlie

Marx would argue that liberal democracy is nothing but another opiate of the masses, not an actual tool for their own welfare. However, I agree with Charlie that this is a mistake, though for slightly different reasons. Marx's proletarian revolution has not occurred in the West because capitalism's image has remained good enough for people of all social classes to "buy into". Hence the farthest left the West has gone is only democratic socialism--working within a democratic market economy to promote an egalitarian social theory. Marx also underestimated the flexibility of democracy to incorporate populist movements that would promote the "general welfare", universal happiness, a pony for every poor child, etc. So rather than an explosive proletarian revolution, the state has instead slowly expanded to incorporate much of Marx's ambitions within the scheme of a democratic society. 

Another angle, perhaps, is the enduring legacy of the Enlightenment in Europe and America. Thomas mentioned this in his comment, and I agree. Because we're so Lockean and steeped in ideas of equal access to liberty and opportunity, American politics tends not to revolve around differences of economic class. On both sides of the Atlantic people on the whole put their lot in with the democratic process as the best way to resolve issues of "social justice". 

Not that this is a good thing. In fact, it makes it all the more insidious because socialism is no longer the monstrous, oppressive, and coercive beast that it is but merely a cog in the state's machinery. 

Reply to "The Mean Nurse Returns" (and comment)

Original post and comment here

I agree with Leigh's point that the basic idea of Romanticism was to shift the focus of art and thought toward the passionate, emotive side of individuals. However, I don't see it as an individualistic movement. The whole Romatic ideal of the "creative genius" only existed insofar as individuals tapped (sometimes in dramatic fashion) into a common reservoir of human emotion. Beethoven did not create something "new" through his Eroica Symphony, for example, but tapped into something that was already there. In fact, no one could really appreciate his work if there were not some commonality with his audience in it. Even though Romantics celebrated individual experience, they did not see it the individual as the end-all of human existence. 

This explains how pliable Romanticism became in the political sphere. Conservatives like Chateaubriand could emphasize the unity and solidarity that such experience brought to people. Liberals could portray the ideal of solidarity as the basis for a "non-repressive society" (to use Marcuse's term) where a free and tolerant social context allowed individuals to embrace their own romantic essence. Nationalism most clearly manifests this kind of romantic paradigm--defining a community in terms of its shared cultural values and qualities focuses on the basic, universal side of human nature, not the apogee of human nature that the Enlightenment revered. 

On page 730, however, the textbook asserts that it was Romaticism's individuality that associated it with nationalism. I beg to differ. Individuality divides the community as opposed to uniting it. If nations are unique entities, why are people within them not? This is an incoherent argument. Rather, Romanticism's interest in the "primitive" side of human nature could show how bonds of society brought people together into distinct cultures, forming the basis of nations. 

This brings me to Leigh and Nate's comments. Modernism and Romanticism have nothing to do with one another. Modernism is, as its name suggests, about "modern" things, sophisticated, pointy things with lots of sheet metal and minimalist design. It's about progress, building the new and sweeping away the cobwebbed vestiges of old outdated ideas like human emotion and irrationality. Compare a piece of art from the Bauhaus School to Delacroix. They have absolutely nothing in common. 

Modernism grows out of the same current Romanticism opposed, the application of the rational human mind to everything. Marx, Darwin, Bertrand Russell, even John Maynard Kenyes and the like are all trying to categorize and systematize and control the universe under their little analytical microscopes, whereas Romanticism just wants to run free in the woods. To conflate the two is a mistake. 

But that's just my opinion. 

Quibbles with Karl

Marx predicates his entire argument on the alienation of labor on an idea of exploitation. According to Marx, in other words, the capitalist must exploit the worker in order to accrue a profit. He uses the labor theory of value (i.e. the "just" price of something is directly proportionate to the amount of labor put into it) to justify this conclusion. If the marginal cost of a commodity, for example, is $100 per unit in Marx's scheme, the capitalist pays the worker only $90 per unit and pockets the extra $10. 

Marx is surely not arguing that the act of creation is a personally destructive process. Rather, he argues that labor is destructive to the worker when the value of his labor is worth more than the worker receives in return. Here's the rub though--the labor theory of value is false. Value is not absolute, it is subjective. There is no such thing as a "just price" for something. Rather, the price of a good is determined by its utility to the person buying it. To quote the Austrian economist Carl Menger (courtesy of Wikipedia):

Whether a diamond was found accidentally or was obtained from a diamond pit with the employment of a thousand days of labor is completely irrelevant for its value. In general, no one in practical life asks for the history of the origin of a good in estimating its value, but considers solely the services that the good will render him and which he would have to forgo if he did not have it at his command. (Principles of Economics).

Once we debunk his theory of value, Marx's entire exploitation scheme falls apart completely. Real wages and standards of living have risen, not fallen, over the last 150 years for the vast, vast majority of the worlds peoples, even during the Industrial Revolution that inspired Marx. His failure to grasp the subjectivity of value underscores his misunderstanding of capitalism.

Normative Name-Calling (Coffin 717-724, Proudhon, and other stuff)

The Early Romantic period is a textbook demonstration of Hegel's theory of history. The materialism/idealism debate aside, thanks to the French Revolution you have a new theory of social relations in liberalism countenanced by reactionary conservatism. However, material circumstances appeared to catalyze existing thought, not create it. The seeds of liberalism did not lie in factory conditions, they lay in Rousseau. Regardless, it leads to a basic reassessment of how society ought to be constructed. With regards to the Industrial Revolution, how do you distribute all this new wealth? If people can choose freely where they work and where they buy goods (economic freedom), does that imply a freedom to vote or self-governance (political freedom)? At this point, the synthesis is still elusive and won't emerge until long after the 1849-50 revolutions.

What feels most odd is the strange marriage of nationalism and liberalism. Nationalism is a highly illiberal idea--submerging the individual identity in the collective mass of a national identity. The only way to explain it is in terms of a common opposition to the illegitimate rule of monarchy and conservatism. This implies, though, that liberalism was not an atomistic, individualistic philosophy but again a new assertion of social relations--liberty can only be protected when each individuals has the power to protect their own liberty. The nation, a body of individuals, allows each to contribute to the political process, allegedly thereby securing liberty.