Date: Sun, 11 Feb 1996 13:19:30 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: Buchanan a fascist?


On Sun, 11 Feb 1996, Bradley Mayer wrote:
> 
> appreciated and generally agreed with).  The point is: fascism is not 
> simply a force to be deployed in the breach by bourgeois society in 
> extremis, but attains a transitional form as a permanent structural 
> feature of bourgeois society *in this new phase of the epoch of its decay*, 
> even in periods of relative political and economic stability.  How else 

Louis: I have not addressed the whole question of Le Pen, Italian 
neofascism, etc. for the simple reason that I tend not to speak about 
social movements that I don't have a lot of empirical evidence to work 
with. I hope that European comrades can contribute to the discussion 
around this.

But as to your assertion that fascism "attains a transitional form as a 
permanent structural feature of bourgeois society *in this new phase of the 
epoch of its decay*, even in periods of relative political and economic 
stability", this seems to encapsulate and compress too many themes for me to 
comment on intelligently.

Fascism is a counter-revolutionary, violent, extraparliamentary mass 
movement. Why would the ruling-class exploit fascism unless it could not 
rely on bourgeois democracy to manage its affairs? When bourgeois 
democracy is abolished, the ruling-class loses a forum to work out policy 
differences. A Fuehrer can decide to launch a suicidal attack on the 
USSR, but if there had been bourgeois democracy or even aspects of it, 
the German ruling-class might have argued the wisdom of this policy in the 
halls of the Reichstag or in the pages of the daily press.

What is the point to talk about a fascist takeover when there is genuine
"stability". What has been going on this country over the last fifteen 
years or so is a dismantling of the trade union movement. The unions have 
had misleaders and this allowed Reagan, Bush and Clinton to enact 
anti-working class policies which allowed a bigger share of surplus 
value to be allocated to the capitalist class. The worker's share of the 
pie has grown smaller.

There is no left-wing in the United States to challenge this attack. If 
there is no left-wing challenge, what is the need for a right-wing 
exceptional state based on the personal rule of a psychopath? 

By the way, if fascism does arrive, it won't be through the auspices of a 
fairly establishment politician like Pat Buchanan, former speech writer for 
Nixon and talking-head on various TV shows. I expect that genuine fascist 
politicians will have much more in common with characters like Lyndon 
Larouche of the US Labor Party or some other figures who appear bizarre right 
now. At any rate, it still makes more sense to pay attention to movements 
rather than individuals.





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