"It is a fact, as we have seen, that minister after minister over many years used the policies — spending and borrowing, militarism and imperialism, and that business control was attempted by private business organizations — but the use of these devices never succeeded, first because they were never tried on a sufficiently large and persistent scale and second because within the framework of the constitutional representative system it was not possible to carry them to their full and logical lengths."
***
"Revolution through the barricades or by mass proletarian attack upon a regime is no longer thought to be a practical art. Revolution by procedures within the framework of the existing constitutional system has been for many years the accepted technique. There is a considerable literature on this subject which Americans, little concerned with revolution, have ignored."
***
"Fascism is a system of social organization that recognizes and proposes to protect the capitalist system and uses the device of public spending and debt as a means of creating national income to increase employment."
***
"Fascism is (1) a capitalist type of economic organization, (2) in which the government accepts responsibility to make the economic system work at full energy, (3) using the device of state-created purchasing power effected by means of government borrowing and spending, and (4) which organizes the economic life of the people into industrial and professional groups to subject the system to control under the supervision of the state."
***
Mussolini, having incorporated the principle of state-created purchasing power into his system, turned naturally to the old reliable project of militarism as the easiest means of spending money.... Money was spent on highways, schools, public projects of various kinds, and on the draining of the Pontine Marshes, which became in Italy the great exhibition project not unlike our TVA in America. But this was not enough, and so he turned more and more to military expenditures.... The militarization of Italy became an outstanding feature of the new regime. And the economic value of this institution in relieving unemployment while inducing the population to submit compliantly to the enormous cost became a boast of Fascist commentators.
***
To sum up, we may say, then, that Fascism in Italy was and is a form of organized society (1) capitalist in character, (2) designed to make the capitalist system function at top capacity, (3) using the device of state-created purchasing power through government debt, (4) and the direct planning and control of the economic society through corporativism, (5) with militarism and imperialism imbedded in the system as an inextricable device for employing a great mass of the employables.
***
but the use of these devices never succeeded, first because they were never tried on a sufficiently large and persistent scale and second because within the framework of the constitutional representative system it was not possible to carry them to their full and logical lengths.
***
Thus Rome got into its hands jurisdiction over every part of the political and economic system and undertook to manage that through a bureaucratic state dominated by a premier who held his power through the incomparable power of a philanthropic treasury which kept public funds flowing everywhere.
***
Revolution through the barricades or by mass proletarian attack upon a regime is no longer thought to be a practical art. Revolution by procedures within the framework of the existing constitutional system has been for many years the accepted technique. There is a considerable literature on this subject which Americans, little concerned with revolution, have ignored.
***
The popular mind must be subjected to intense conditioning, and this calls for the positive and aggressive forms of propaganda with which we are becoming familiar in this country. The chief instruments of this are the radio and the movies. In the hands of a dictator or a dictatorial government or a government bent on power the results that can be achieved are terrifying. Along with this, of course, goes the attack upon the mind of youth. The mind is taken young and molded in the desired forms. It is at this point the dictatorships develop their attitude toward religious organizations, which cannot be permitted to continue their influence over young minds.
***
Our own government is almost unique in its proclamation of the idea that the government shall not possess complete power over all human conduct and organization. The only powers possessed by our government are those granted by the Constitution. And that Constitution grants it very limited powers. The powers not granted to the central government are reserved to the states or to the people. Totalitarian government is the opposite of this. It defines a state whose powers are unlimited.
***
As we survey the whole scene in Italy, therefore, we may now name all the essential ingredients of fascism. It is a form of social organization
- In which the government acknowledges no restraint upon its powers — totalitarianism
- In which this unrestrained government is managed by a dictator — the leadership principle
- In which the government is organized to operate the capitalist system and enable it to function — under an immense bureaucracy
- In which the economic society is organized on the syndicalist model, that is by producing groups formed into craft and professional categories [me: such as the National Association of Homebuilders or the National Association of Realtors] under supervision of the state
- In which the government and the syndicalist organizations operate the capitalist society on the planned, autarchical principle
- In which the government holds itself responsible to provide the nation with adequate purchasing power by public spending and borrowing
- In which militarism is used as a conscious mechanism of government spending, and
- In which imperialism is included as a policy inevitably flowing from militarism as well as other elements of fascism.
(John T. Flynn)
No comments:
Post a Comment