How Fascism Revised Socialism: From THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY
This is the second posting consisting of a passage from Zeev Sternhell’s book THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY, the first being to be found at www.nonesoblind.org/blog/?p=5740.
In this passage, Sternhell is discussing the thought of Henri De Man:
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“This new variant of socialism was based on a new view of the idea of exploitation which is of great importance for an understanding of the role that this revision of Marxism was to play both in the formation of the Fascist philosophy and in the practice of fascism. ‘The concept of exploitation is ethical and not economic,’ wrote De Man, and socialism, he maintained, was unable to fight bourgeois egoism with a labor materialism and hedonism. The idea that the concept of exploitation is ethical and not economic was strongly emphasized in the development of the Fascist philosophy both before and after the First World War.
“All this therefore led to one major conclusion: if exploitation is a psychological and not an economic phenomenon and if class relationships are likewise the reflection of subjective feelings, the solution to social and economic problems must also be of a psychological nature. In practice, with De Man, psychological, emotional and affective problems took precedence over economic questions, and aesthetics played at least as important a role in people’s lives as economics. Thus, by satisfying the workers’ psychological needs one was spared having to deal with structural problems; that was the practical implication of this point of view. That was also the Fascist attitude, based on the conviction that existential questions are essentially cultural, emotional, and affective. It was this view of the nature of individual motivations that underlay the Fascist revolution. Fascism therefore sought to demonstrate that one can profoundly alter peoples’ lives without touching economic structures in any way. Since human motivations were affective, since one was concerned not with actual standard of living but with the ‘instinct of self-esteem’ or a ‘complex of social inferiority,’ since it was now a question of the place of the individual in the system of producton but of his or her dignity, one could create a revolution without changing the foundations of the system.
“A very pronounced elitism and the idea that people have a profound need for inequality and a no less deeply rooted need to obey– these were the natural concomitants of Henri De Man’s ‘theory of motivations.’”
February 21st, 2010 at 8:24 pm
“A very pronounced elitism and the idea that people have a profound need for inequality and a no less deeply rooted need to obey– these were the natural concomitants of Henri De Man’s ‘theory of motivations.’”
So, if De Man was right, all that would be needed to enable a fascist takeover would be a self-righteous ideology with a large block of authoritarian followers…. hmmmmmmm!
As they say down in the Islands, “I tink de Man be right!”
February 21st, 2010 at 9:26 pm
What I dislike here is the use of the term ‘exploitation’.
I would prefer to consider this in terms of leadership with wisdom.
These concepts of how individuals instinctively or culturally desire to commit themselves to society are very real. Much of the unrest of our times is from agitation making people feel uncomfortable with their own preferred place in the order. We could probably talk half the night on this.
In such a discussion I would probably include how I have come to see mis-education involved in this disturbing of the order.
I think this concept and theory is actual reality and observable but if fascist is a negative term then it shouldn’t be used and thrown out along with the term ‘exploitation’.
The use of these terms identifies the writer, in my mind, as an unfit person to be involved in the administration of human affairs.
Of course he is discussing how this understanding has been used with the motivation of exploitation; I realize that.
But that should not brand the wise ‘use’ of the ‘principles’ by a benevolent leader in his guiding the course of his society by such means as he might be able..
February 22nd, 2010 at 8:49 am
Are you suggesting, David R, that under a wise leader one could have fascism without exploitation? I don’t know if that is possible in an authoritarian hierarchical system, even in principle. But if sheeple are as needy of authority and inequality as de Man suggests, perhaps Gus Falconer is right as well. Certainly this was a factor in fascist development in Europe during the ’30s. I sincerely hope we Americans have a keener awareness of the use of propaganda to support an exploitative corporatist structure.
February 22nd, 2010 at 11:14 am
Andy, I have only the faintest idea of what this passage from Sternhell’s book is trying to convey. Would you mind writing a brief interpretation for such as myself who are still scratching our heads? Thanks.
February 22nd, 2010 at 12:33 pm
Sorry, Jim Z., sounds like I misjudged what would be intelligible.
Here’s a quick version of what I thought might be more or less conveyed by this passage. THis is MY take, and may not be something that Sternhell would altogether sign onto. (I would not have minded if Sternhell would have laid out things a bit more clearly and fundamentally more of the time than he did.)
Fascism was one of the outgrowths of a repudiation both of Marxism (also Democratic Socialism) and of the rationalist tradition generally, as it emerged from the Englightenment. In this rationalist tradition, people are considered rational actors with actual material interest as individuals. In that perspective, exploitation is something that inequalities of power can accomplish, with the powerful taking more than their fair share of various transactions and arrangements. (The Marxist “labor theory of value” and concept of “surplus value” are key to the Marxist notion of exploitation.) The thrust of this is toward equality: at least equality of power (as in the democratic concept of elections), and perhaps equality of outcome (as in the Marxist notion of “to each according to his need”).
The fascists reject that rationalist approach, and say that exploitation is not a matter of structures or outcomes but just a matter of how people FEEL, about whether they are able to identify with the NATION of which they are part, so that they are not concerned about whether they as INDIVIDUALS are being treated justly but are concerned to get the exhileration and uplift of IDENTIFICATION with something larger than their individuality. So the fascists let alone the highly unequal –some would say exploitative– economic/social/political structures and instead would provide the masses with myths and symbols and rituals to give them the FEELING of being part of something mighty and great.
One thinks of that great Nazi propaganda film –THE TRIUMPH OF THE WILL– where the individual is turned into a part of a uniformed and excited mass chanting in unison and parading around in the Nuremberg Square. Sieg Heil, rather than a chicken in every pot. Obedience and subservience of the individual to the good of the powerful state under the worshipped Leader.
One thinks of Fromm’s ESCAPE FROM FREEDOM. Eric Hoffer’s TRUE BELIEVER.
Does that help explain the thrust of this passage?
February 22nd, 2010 at 2:10 pm
Thanks, Andy. Yes, familiar with both Fromm’s and Hoffer’s books, and your explanation does help me understand what was being said.
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:21 pm
Dan, I think we live with the view of how we think it ought to be (or could better be) while we cope with the world as it is as we individually find it each day.