ALB
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The irony of this debate is that it is taking place in the context of an election for the chief executive of the state and to various law-making bodies, both of which are abhorrent to fascism and which in themselves show that the US is not a fascist state.
As to what is meant by “corporate state”, Leon, you are either just playing with words or naively assuming that this is the same as “Corporatocracy”.
Here is a dictionary definition of “corporate state”:
“A state governed by representatives not of geographical areas but of vocational corporations of the employers and employees in each trade, profession, or industry.“
See also this.
And here is an exposition of it by a well-known fascist:
https://www.oswaldmosley.com/the-corporate-state/
Of course all capitalist governments have to govern in the interest of the capitalist class, today mostly organised as corporations, and of course corporations lobby governments and elected bodies to make decisions in their favour — largely in the US to let them get on with profit-making with as little state regulation as possible.
The US is fascist neither in the political nor in the economic sense. That doesn’t make it good. It is capitalist and that’s enough to condemn it.
A lot of those characteristics of “fascism” are features of capitalism; which is what you would expect as fascism is a political system that operates under capitalism just as “bourgeois democracy” is.
But the one big omission from your definition is the single party. Fascism advocates and implements a one-party state.
And you have completely misunderstood what fascists meant when they advocated a “corporate state”. This doesn’t mean a state where “the economy, politics and the media” are controlled by capitalist corporations. It was the idea that each industry should be organised as a single corporation and that these corporations should be represented in a decision-making body as an alternative to a parliament elected by universal suffrage. This was just the theory ( derived from syndicalism) but was never implemented. In practice what characterised fascism was state control of politics and the media while industry remained in private capitalist hands but was subject to state control. In this sense it was a form if state-run capitalism.
Neither of these are features of present-day America. Politically it is not a one-party state and the last thing most capitalist corporations want is to be subjected to state control.
The capitalist class do not normally want to hand over formal political control to a single political party. They prefer the two-party system of ins and outs as this means that no set of politicians gets so entrenched in power that they escape from control and begin to line their own pockets at the capitalists’ expense. That was why Engels pointed out that the ideal capitalist political form was a republic based on universal sufffage.
The US is capitalist and that is bad enough as capitalism is characterised by a tendency to ever-greater inequality and governments which have to put capitalist interests first and a media that puts out ruling class propaganda.
The trouble with Trotsky was that the political system he advocated did have features in common with fascism like a one-party state and state monopoly of the media, on the basis of the state ownership of the means of production while the workers remained wage-workers. Another form of state capitalism.
Chapter 13 on ‘War as an aid to the progress of the socialist movement?’ explains that, while we are a Marxist party, we don’t necessarily agree with Marx and Engels on everything and in particular not on this point.
“While we are at variance with Marx on the particular question we have been discussing, this does not affect our general acceptance of Marx’s social analysis and his theory of the class struggle. We are a Marxist party but we recognise that the conditions of the time, when Capitalism was relatively young and Feudalism had not yet been completely swept away, led Marx and Engels into a false position on war in the course of pursuing their pioneer work.”
Marcos has drawn attention to this article from News and Letters, a Marxist-Humanist group. It seems a bit alarmist, especially as they think that Trump will be voted out fairly decisively anyway, if only because people want a return to “normalcy”. But it does list various ways in which the election has been corrupted; all elections, in fact, since it’s not like here where elections are organised and run by neutral local government officials but by elected officials who represent one or other political party. Here’s a part of the list of corrupt practices:
- For years Republican state legislators, secretaries of state and judges have been making it harder to vote, limiting registration opportunities, absentee voting and early voting, closing polling locations and drop boxes, and adding requirements to present only certain IDs and to have witness signatures, sometimes notarized. One result has been people standing in line for up to 11 hours to vote. In the midst of a surging pandemic, all of these increase the risk of infection, and Black, Latinx and Native American areas are affected most.
- Native Americans living on reservations often have no street addresses, live far from voting locations and even mailboxes, and are confronted by impossible requirements to present IDs with addresses.
- More than 5 million people with felony convictions are barred from voting—a system introduced to disenfranchise Black people under Jim Crow. When Florida voters passed a referendum to lift that ban after sentences are completed, state legislators, backed by federal courts, gutted the law with the equivalent of a poll tax.
- Republican politicians, backed by federal judges, sustained restrictions on mail-in ballots that, during a pandemic, turned absentee voting into a death risk for many.
- Trump installed his crony Louis DeJoy as head of the Postal Service, which he has been sabotaging to slow down the mail. In some states, Republicans fought off measures to allow extra time for mailed ballots to arrive.
- States like Michigan and North Carolina throw out large numbers of mailed ballots because of arbitrary judgments that signatures don’t match or failure to follow pointless rules, using the excuse of fraud, which rarely occurs. As of Oct. 15, North Carolina had already rejected over 5,000 mail-in ballots.
- Slow absentee vote counting was engineered in some states, specifically to allow Trump to make false claims about vote fraud. Initial vote totals will not include mailed votes, which usually lean Democratic.
How do they describe Nazi Germany then? And the difference in political institutions and practices between there and the US? In fact how to they explain why the two of them are not in a concentration camp?
@ Leon Trotsky. Of course all new value is produced by the working class, including surplus value. Keeping society going rests entirely on us and our work.
But what happens to surplus value after it has been extracted from us at the point of production — how it is distributed amongst the various parasites who live off it — is not a concern of ours. Why should we be concerned about how the thieves share out their loot, for instance how much goes to the financiers as compared to the industrialists?
Quantitive Easing by the government does not create any new wealth or value. It just redistributes wealth, already produced by the working class, amongst different sections of the capitalist class.
You are right that the US could in theory go bankrupt but this has never happened and in practice is extremely unlikely. The US capitalist class is rich enough for the government to tax them to prevent this if this was threatened. Capitalists, both in the US and in other countries, know this; which is why they are prepared to lend the US government money confident that they will get it back with interest. There is no evidence that this is changing as they know that the US is not Argentina or some banana republic.
I take it, Leon Davidovitch, that you will be voting for Biden? Which would not be possible if the US were a fascist state rather than a limited, “bourgeois democracy”. It is true that in a fascist state there are two parties — one is in power, the other is in gaol.
That would be a proper response to a very hypothetical situation (though I suspect that this is just the usual Trotskyist resolution-mongering) but, as we have always said, if people are not prepared to vote for something they won’t be prepared to strike for it. It looks, though, as if they are going to be prepared to vote for it in sufficient numbers to make Trump history. Most of the US capitalist class seem to have become fed up with him too.
This was a big issue at the time the party was formed in 1904. The first issue of the Socialist Standard in a article in “Physical Deterioration” pointed out;
“We are told that over 100.000 school children in London alone go breakfastless to school. For them there is little hope for a sturdy manhood. Arrest the progress of physical deterioration amongst the children through the provision of meals by the State to all school children and you will do much to strengthen the physique and stamina of the race.”
Why is it still a problem 116 years later?
Not because the Tories are the nasty party and seem to revel in it but because capitalism is the nasty system.
“For example- I am Irish and wear a green hat. Adam wears a green hat- so he must be Irish.“
So, the flawed argument would be:
A is white and thinks he (or she) is entitled to be treated better than non-whites and oppresses them.
B is white.
Therefore, B thinks he is entitled to be treated better than non-whites and oppresses them.
I see what you mean.
Sounds as if some in the privilege studies department should follow a course in the philosophy department as they seem to be privileged in it not having to follow the rules of logic .😊
Thanks. When you use the term “essentialism” as an error to be avoided how exactly is it defined? Does it mean that it’s the essence of, for instance, “white” people to be privileged or racist or whatever? Anyway, it sounds as if it is something bad !
Sorry, LBN, she is not using the word “privilege” in the sense you said it is used in “privilege studies” — to criticise only those who think they are entitled to be privileged.
She is using it to criticise all “whites” (and of course all males too) simply for being privileged.
Listen to what she says:
“My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfairly advantaged person,”“I see the desire to keep our image of ourselves ”clean“ as part of white privilege.” [as if all groups didn’t share this desire ?]“The denial of men’s overprivileged state takes many forms.”
So, now all “whites” and all males are overprivileged oppressors !Supposing that this were true, what would it mean? If you are being oppressed, what is your response? Obviously, you struggle against your oppressor and to overthrow their privileges. It’s a recipe for race war and/or sex war.Socialists are opposed to all racism and all sexism but we don’t employ the language of “white privilege” and “male overprivilege”. We want to unite the working class not split it.I don’t suppose anybody in the field of “privilege studies” studies the privileges of those who own and control the means of life and the privileged lifestyle without having to work that this allows them?Thanks. I’ll take up his offer and send something to the Brooklyn Rail. Actually, the disagreement with the original article is essentially only on the one point as to whether or not businesses have the power to increase their prices at will and cause prices generally to rise.
Meanwhile, here’s the opening section of the Party’s Study Guide on Inflation, which explains that not every rise in prices is a case of “inflation” in its strict sense:
“The word inflation has come to be used very loosely in recent years to mean any rise in prices, so that it has in fact almost become a synonym for price increase. Words are of course always changing their meaning in line with changed social practices and ideas. We can’t complain about that. But this particular change reflects an underlying confusion, amongst professional economists and the general public alike, about the cause of the enormous rise in prices that has taken place since the beginning of the last world war.
First, let us distinguish between a rise in the price of a particular Commodity and a rise in the prices of all commodities, between a rise in individual prices and a rise in the general price level. This is not always easy in practice since a rise in the general price level will also of course involve a rise in individual prices. But there is a real distinction here which it is essential to make .
A rise in the general price level can be defined as a rise in the prices of all commodities such that their prices relative to each other remain unchanged. Individual prices, on the other hand, can rise for a number of reasons besides as part of a rise in the general price level. The demand for a commodity night temporarily exceed its supply; monopoly conditions might exist; its cost of production might go up. All these no doubt have operated since the war to cause particular prices to rise at particular times, but then at other times other forces – supply exceeding demand, falling costs, government subsidies – will have worked to reduce particular prices. But in any event none of these could explain a general rise in the prices of all commodities.
What could cause such a rise? Only, it will be argued here, some change in the standard of price, some monetary change. A general rise in prices, or inflation in its strict sense, is a purely monetary phenomenon. Marx was amongst those who recognised this.”
