Is America Going Fascist?
Is America Going Fascist? A Symposium on John T. Flynn's Thesis Henry Bamford Parkes froftttor of Hintory, New York University r>AS< ISM li primarily a political phenomenon which * appears in...
...Definitely the defeat of fascism will require an organized movement and a political expression of it somewhat along the lines of the ('.( F in Canada...
...aitd it diverta popular discontent into attacks on minority races and foreign eountriea...
...Flynn's simple formula is erected on a very narrow and flimsy base...
...Norman Thomas National Chairman, Socialist Party HPHE question you ask me to discuss briefly is, 1 think, not so much John T, Flynn's brilliant book as the «aore fundamental proposition, can and will America go fascist—of course under a sweeter name...
...Certain big business men who hate both Roosevelt and Willkie are using Flynn's book as propaganda against liberalism in support of reactionary Republican candidates...
...Where Are We Marching...
...which will plan and maintain full production and employment, and a national income high enough to reduce the national debt and taxes...
...It can be done, though the prospects are not bright...
...Last week Hie New leader printed the answers of Kred KodelL Algernon l,ee, and Eugene Lyons...
...Our demagogues cannot fan the flame of extreme nationalism by blaming our troubles on foreign powers, the victors, or by telling us that prosperity depends on imperialist conquest...
...Flynn's argument...
...Read again Flynn's definition of fascism quoted on this page by Norman Thomas...
...What is needed is not a futile effort to turn the clock .back to eighteenth-century free competition, but a new New Deal which will preserve and extend the social reforms initiated feebly by the Roosevelt Administration...
...but Flynn calls it dictatorship over capitalism by a political elite...
...I think * is most likely to come as a result of a demogogic *°*einent, largely outside of both old parties, which *T derive its strength from the unemployment and "•fasions of the postwar period...
...I admire this volume especially because Mr...
...We have been moving away from free enterprise and from the essential features of constitutional government," Flynn writes...
...Flynn outlines the New DesI fiscal theory, and that of John Ma v us id Keynes and Alvin H. Hansen: capitalism has reached the dead end—private investments are insufficient to keep the system working smoothly...
...In the end both will result...
...The entire pattern of life in Italy and Germany between two wars differed widely from that In America then and now...
...Fascist expedients, in our case, will not be necessary as a means to seek revenge, a redivision of the world's colonies, raw materials, resources, trade, markets...
...1 would make explicit *hatl think is implicit in Mr...
...Where are we marching...
...It will be greatly aided by the lack of difference of principle between the old parties and the general cynicism about them both...
...But it seems ta me to be extremely unlikely that the United States will ever have a Fascist government...
...Oswald Garrison Villard I AM entirely in agreement with Mr...
...militarism as an established economic institution...
...Liston M. Oak IOIIN T. FLYNN begins his book by warning against using the term fascist as an expletive...
...after confusion, in a fascist state capitalism...
...it will mean less freedom than Americans have been accustomed to in the past...
...Thinking in terms of analogies is always dangerous, and "rather an exercise in rhetoric than a search for truth...
...In other words, it will not be Fascist...
...We will continue to mu I !!¦• through...
...perpetual pump-priming by borrowing and spending and enormous public debt...
...Congress has abdicated its powers to the executive, and we have a gigantic network of bureaucracies issuing directives to business and the public, runs Flynn's argument...
...Flynn's book does less than Jestice to his comprehensive definition of fascism...
...There are Fascist tendencies in this country, which are capable of doing a great deal of harm...
...I think that the word ?farina" should be restricted to this phenomenon, and isauUi not be used as a loose term of abuse...
...Flynn's "striking parallels" are forced, superficial, unconvincing, and leave out of arcount equally striking differences...
...it sappteaaai any hind of opposition by terrorixation...
...A book j,aa Mr...
...It maintains the property relation-tiipe which have developed under capitalism, while aaeli'si'l' the capitalist system of free enterprise...
...Flynn's thesis, and I believe that his book proves it beyond question...
...In capitalist society throughout the world there is concentration oi wealth and power, the cartelisation of industry, the monopoly state, an autarrhical, planned finance capitalism, of which fascism is the final stage...
...the government must borrow our frosen assets—the savings not sbsorbed by investments—and spend It on federal projects...
...It is all just too neat, as Fred Rodell remarks...
...And I doubt whether Flynn, or Hansen, or Keynes, er Churchill, or Roosevelt, or Willkie, or Dewey has any sort of blueprint of the future...
...He argues that America has reached, in economic development, the impasse experienced by European countries before World War I; that we are following the desperate economic policies adopted by Italy and Germany after that war, which aggravate, not Solve, our difficulties...
...F»xeism could come in one of several ways...
...The consequences, he states, are monopolies, militarism, and war—and eventually, Faacism...
...Basically this is the theory advanced by the Communists prior to 1985, when they called FDR the Bruenlng of America and the NRA a fascist scheme...
...I agree that the stupendous national debt, unbalanced budget, and vast public expenditures inevitably mean Fascism in one form or another, certainly complete regimentation of the national economic life...
...The American people at the end of the war will want as much individual freedom as they can get...
...Imperial-ism...
...It will not be egalitarian...
...Our natural resources are far richer, our industrisl plant capable of vastly higher production...
...Flynn makes the mistake of interpreting history almost exclusively in economic terms anil ignoring psychological factors...
...Next week the symposium will be concluded...
...Some discussion of Mr...
...Please remember that I am a New Dealer and have supported every liberal reform of Mr...
...Assertions that businessmen are faathit are dangerous for the same reason...
...Our democratic traditions and institutions are far stronger, more deeply rooted, than in the lands which went fascist...
...mind that * snti-Roosevelt Administration, also not consciously fascist but old-fashioned reactionary, would end up by •aking its contribution to the coming of fascism...
...Or where ARE we marching...
...We have . . . turned to the devices for escaping our economic difficulties to which Italy and Germany turned before us...
...Its coming will be hindered by a great emotional effort of progressives, induing former socialists and labor people, to discover non-existent virtues in the Roosevelt Administration as it is today, which will demand their support...
...The political phenomena of fascism—the totalitarian one-party state, suppression of opposition by terror, glorification of militarism and imperialism, racism, etc.—will lollow in due time, Flynn says...
...the state intervenes increasingly in every phase of production, distribution, investment - until it controls the entire economic system and becomes totalitarian to enforce its decrees...
...It will have to Ik- democratic socialist in character even if not dogmatic...
...Investment is socialized, but not ownership...
...But it will not involve suppression of the essential liberties of speech, press, and election, sr government-sponsored persecution of minorities...
...This, he says, is what led to fascism in Italy and Germany...
...He further argues that we have four of the elements of fascism already—planned consumption or the borrowing-spending policy...
...Or as the jacket-blurb puts it," our problem is not how to prevent th» coming of national socialism but how to get rid of it...
...He vastly over-simplifies, dramatizes, exaggerates, in his determined effort to fit American facts into the P roc us tea n bed of his theory of fascism...
...I believe that if there had not been danger from the war in Europe Roosevelt would still have turned to conscription, preparedness and militarism as the only way to save himself from his disastrous conduct of the New Deal and the great unemployment...
...In his closing chapters his bitter hated of Roosevelt and the New Deal leads him to precisely this error -FDR is a fascist, the New Deal is fascism...
...it is a vulgarizstion of pure economic determinism, ignoring political and psychological and cultural factors...
...There is no question in my mind that the Roosevelt Administration, while by no means consciously fascist, »sx already made a large contribution to the coming ¦ such a fascism very much as did pre-fascist govern-*»nts in Europe...
...The important thing is the development of an intelligent political expression of a positive program, not the difference one way or another between Roosevelt and his Republican opponent...
...He defines fascism as a "system of social organization in *hieh the political state is a dictatorship supported by » political elite and in which the economic society is an lutarehical captalism, enclosed and planned, in which tee government assumes responsibility for creating sdeouate purchasing power through the instrumentality •f national debt and in which militarism is adopted as * treat economic project for creating work as well as •treat romantic project in the service of the imperialist state...
...To which I answer, not only can America go fascist, but she will go facial unless democratic socialism or the cooperative ceismonwealth can win the day...
...Flynn maintains that if deficit spending continues, with a constantly mounting national debt of astronomical proportions and an unbalanced budget, wo cannot avoid the political consequences—fascism...
...There is no question in my...
...It will remember the Klu Klux Klan and Huey l<ong...
...But I thought in 1940, and 1 think now, that there is no such urgent need in all America as his retirement to private life if the Republic is still to lie saved...
...Roosevelt's that I possibly could, especially all his measures for the 'improvement of the lot of labor...
...I don't know, but I deeply doubt that the road ahead leads to fascism...
...Nor is it probable that the threat of a Bolshevik revolution will drive our big Industrialists and bankers to support a fascist party...
...Flynn does not attack President Roosevelt or any special group ill the community...
...The general trend wW be against the policies of Fascism and not towards them...
...naively, that private capitalism cannot save itself except hy a process which leads ultimately to fascism...
...The Communists said it Is the dictatorship of finance capital...
...This means that the business classes will get the major share, but (since the problem is to dispose of a surplus, not to distribute poverty) organised labor and agriculture will also be better off...
...And uc are here a* on m darkling plain Swept with confuted aim mt of it niggle and flight Where ignorant mrmiet elmth kg night...
...It cannot be defeated without a strung and intelligent labor movement, but its defeat will require much more than numerical strength of lalior or even a generalized opposition to imperialism and militarism which oppo-stion I am not sure we can expect from the Ameiiean labor movement...
...There will not be the almost insuperable obstacles to economic stability that existed ' in Italy and Germany...
...I see no reason why such an economic system cannot function with an adequate degree of efficiency...
...Are we marching down the easae path te disaster that Karopeaa nations followed...
...That is equally true of a Rooseveltian or anti-Rooscveltian attempt to save private capitalism...
...planned economy...
...IN Ida recent book, 1 Aa We Ge Marching, John T. Flynn says that Roosevelt —anal the exigencies of war—are leading us down the read to Faacaasn...
...The movement will not need European precedents...
...The most usual effect of war is to hasten trends already in exitence...
...We have been doing this because each of these devices offered the political administration |he easiest escape...
...Flynn'a is dangerous because, by arguing that tfes New Deal ia Fascist, it tends to weaken opposition la genuine Fascism...
...If their program for "free" enterprise replaces the New Deal there will be, after the next depression, more danger of fascism than now exists...
...and it will involve some of the evils traditionally associated with bureaucracies...
...Drawing a •aralled te Italy and Car assay, Flynn rial ass that the stupeadoas national debt, unbalanced budget, huge public borrowing and tremendous public expenditures bring a greater concentration of newer ia the gevernsaent, and regimentation ef the economic life of the country...
...which will also preserve our liberties and constitutional government in a mixed economy...
...It is obvious that after the war government control of the economic system, government partnership with business, and government planning must continue and may become more elaborate...
...Fascism is a product of defeat and national humiliation, not of vie-tsry...
...The distribution of rewards among different classes of the population will depend upon their relative capacity for political pressure...
...A Symposium on John T. Flynn's Thesis Henry Bamford Parkes froftttor of Hintory, New York University r>AS< ISM li primarily a political phenomenon which * appears in nations which have suffered defeat in war or have ether rsaaossi for feeling reaentment against fareiga countries...
...and they will not be inclined to blame foreign powers for their economic maladjustments or to fall for a political move-meat which tells them that they can find prosperity only by increasing their military strength and adopting a program of imperialist conquest...
...They were have-not nations...
...It consists of the dictatorship of a selrural party, and the primary objective of its leaders b to retain power...
...Italy was not vanquished and humiliated as was Germany, but was poverty-stricken and defeated in her imperialist ambitions...
...He builds his case on the fact, which cannot be questioned, that in all aspects of our government finance we are doing precisely what Italy and Germany did on their road to Fascism...
Vol. 27 • April 1944 • No. 14
