Hans Hoppe on the Economics of the Nazis, and a Couple Other Thoughts

I think a lot about the economics of the interwar period - usually of the early twenties. I'm working on a short comment right now on the Hoover administration, which has had me thinking more about the early Depression than usual. And then this morning my post about Mein Kampf got me thinking about the economics of Nazism.

There are a lot of interesting things to be said about economics and Nazism. A lot of drama and good history going on with the war debts and the havoc that that wreaked on monetary policy. The fundamentally Keynesian employment program of the Nazis raises stimulating questions. A third, more gruesome issue I've been interested in is the economic logic of the doctrine of Lebensraum to maintain the agrarian character of German society, and put off the concentration and proletarianization of the population. The analysis - as I understand it - is quite similar to Jefferson's attitude toward the western frontier. Obviously the execution and the racial beliefs underlying the Lebensraum idea are more macabre and offensive, but the logic - and the logic of overproductionism - is quite similar. Given the popularity of this sort of overproductionist thinking in the interwar period, I've always found that intriguing and have been a little curious about where Hitler derived those ideas.

Anyway, so I put a little thought into these ideas again, and came across this fascinating talk on Nazi economics by Hans Hoppe. He's impressively objective given his subject matter, and even draws a few parallels between Hitler's economics and Austrian economics. Enjoy the ever-intriguing (if no always embracable) Hans Hoppe*:

*Jonathan has a critique of Hoppe's views on an entirely different issue here. I largely agree with him and have actually blogged about it in the past - see my comment on Jonathan's post for that link.

What does it mean to own Mein Kampf?

So one of the things that's been interesting is to hear reactions to Loughner's reading list, particularly the Communist Manifesto and Mein Kampf duo. There have been some interesting reactions ranging from "those two don't make sense together" to "of course they do - they're all socialism so he's a left-winger".

I own the Communist Manifesto, all three volumes of Capital, and several other Marx and Engels volumes, as well as one old philosophical volume by Lenin that I picked up at a library book sale. Marxist books, for some reason, are pretty easy to own and buy, and nobody would see Marx on my shelf and assume I'm a communist (those who would assume that probably already thought I was a communist when they saw Keynes on my shelf... I keep my Keynes much more accessible and within arms reach than my Marx).

But Mein Kampf is different. People don't just have Mein Kampf lying around, you know? But that introduces a very interesting question - what would or should one think if they saw Mein Kampf sitting on someone's shelf? I think it would be somewhat surprising and something of a novelty, but I don't think most people would assume you're a closet neo-Nazi. There's kind of a weird taboo about that one, although it's never completely beyond the pale. And yet when we see it on Loughner's list, the assumption is he had it because he agreed with it. Is that true at all? Who knows. It's doubtful anyone will forcefully probe the issue.

I, for one, have been interested in buying Mein Kampf before from the bookstore, but I couldn't quite bring myself to getting it. I was especially interested in picking it up after reading Adam Tooze's book on the Nazi economy, but I never managed to get it to the checkout line. There's something weird about buying that book. And yet it offers a window into the mind of one of the most destructive and important figures of the twentieth century. It should be a book that people want to objectively devour, just like non-communists will familiarize themselves with Capital. I'm not sure there's anything else to say about the matter except that "Nazis are different".

Do any readers own Mein Kampf? Has anyone read any substantial portion of it? What about the Zweites Buch? How did you acquire it? Did you just waltz into the Barnes and Noble and unflinchingly bring it to the check-out?

Assault of Thoughts - 10/17/2010, Hitler Edition

"Words ought to be a little wild, for they are the assault of thoughts on the unthinking" - JMK

- The Economist has a review of Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, which documents the ways in which Stalin and Hitler enabled each others' tyrannies, and the ways in which we have forgotten the crimes of both men in Eastern Europe. In 1937, Bertrand Russell wrote that: "homicidal lunatics were well employed in killing each other, but... sensible men would keep out of their way while they were doing it", and I think this is how we tend to view the second world war's eastern front. What that obscures, of course, is the innocents caught in the middle.

- The New York Times reports on a controversial new exhibit on Hitler in Germany. I can understand the German sensitivity to this, but I think the educational goals are laudable. Andrew Sullivan reacts to the exhibit here.

- It turns out that producing fraudulent propaganda was not below the Nazis (shocking, I know). One particular instance recently revealed as a fake is a famous picture that was alleged to show Hitler at a rally in 1914, showcasing the leader's German patriotism. Recent analysis suggests it was doctored.

- I don't mean to ignite any political firestorm with this one - I just thought it was interesting. Apparently, in the 1930s Twentieth Century Fox helped produce film propaganda for the Nazis. I just think it's an interesting piece of history that says nothing about the modern corporation... less scrupulous people that like to make use of flow charts on chalkboards could probably draw a different conclusion, if they were so inclined.

- I recently acquired a copy of Joachim Fest's authoritative biography, Hitler. Not sure if I'll get a chance to read it any time soon, though.

- Twice in the last week or two I've come across references to the foreword to the German edition of Keynes's General Theory and the alleged connection with the Nazis. It's horribly bad analysis to draw that parallel. So in the interest of dispelling it, here's an old post of mine about the foreword. Reading it again, I think the prose is a little rougher than it ought to be. I think I ought to expand on this in the future.

Fascism in America

This is not a Jonah Goldberg or a Noam Chomsky rant - both of whom I consider to be clowns. Chomsky is at best a marginally more plausible clown, but only marginally. But this post is not a rehashing of those arguments...

...I am, once again, collecting and reading more about Lovecraft's views on political economy. Fascism plays a major role in his thinking on the economy - and he explicitly calls it "fascism". There are a lot of people, like Keynes for example, that people try to accuse of being fascist with little success. Lovecraft self-identified as one, and he was by no means the only person to self-identify as one during the interwar period.

So I'm reading about American fascist thought in the interwar period, and I had a thought - I am guessing that not even World War II, but the Holocaust specifically, more than anything else, prevented the spread of fascism in the Western world. Really, the fascism that Lovecraft and others advocated was different from Nazism from the beginning. It was an advocacy for a strong-man polity and a planned economy to be sure, but it was fundamentally different. These sorts of "fascism-lite" boosters in America, as well as elsewhere, were able to romanticize German and Italian fascism through the twenties, thirties, and even into the forties because of their fundamental ignorance. The Holocaust, however, put a decided end to anything like that, and these days you couldn't have a guy like Lovecraft self-identify as a fascist.

Interwar American fascists were able to romanticize Germany and Italy because they:

1. "Made the trains run on time"

2. Beat back the Bolsheviks (von Mises calls the fascists the "saviors of Europe" for this feat in the 1920s).

3. Provide a sense of order and pride after the disarray of first the Great War, and then the Great Depression.

None of this made a bit of difference after the Holocaust. Invading sovereign states was forgivable - democracies, monarchies, dictatorships, tribes, and socialist collectives had been doing that for eons. But wholesale slaughter and genocide was a different matter entirely. This is not to say the human beings aren't capable of sweeping genocide under the rug - they are. But when systematic genocide is thrust upon them, when they are not allowed to ignore it, we humans will not waver on the verdict.

Without the Holocaust, I think things would be very different. We would see a lot more Hitler apologists out there. Racism and anti-semitism would be considerably worse, because it would not be so closely tied in with the image of actual extermination. The pseudo-scientific veneer might even be maintained. Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, and Henry Kissinger even might have self-identified as fascists (of course denouncing the excesses of those first generation of German and Italian fascists). With that sort of base, any number of modern politicians: Dick Cheney, Sarah Palin, etc. might have taken up the fascist banner. The neo-conservative movement, with its roots in Trotskyism and the New Left, perhaps might have avoided drifting into the fascist fold, but then again - perhaps not. Neo-conservatism has taken quite a fall since its early days.

All these developments are reasonably plausible. Why didn't that happen? Because the Holocaust made fascism and Nazi apologetics absolutely untenable. I'm guessing that tragedy alone explains why fascism fizzled in the West. I still think it's possible we could see fascism in America, but I think we need a major, major jolt for it to happen. The Tea Party definitely won't cut it, despite Chomsky's hand-wringing over them. If the 60s or even simply 1968 didn't catapult us into fascism, it will take quite a bit to. A nuclear attack. A prolonged depression (!!!). A pivotal assassination. I could see it happening, but not without a major, major trigger.

So anyway, that's just a speculative thought on how the Holocaust ultimately did in the prospects of fascism. None of this is directly related to Lovecraft's economics - which is going to be delicate in this area. Planning and interwar American fascism are more nuanced issues than a lot of disparaging modern retrospectives give credit for. It's not something a rational person can embrace, to be sure - but it's not Nazism either. Making that distinction is very tricky. It's very much like Orwell's socialism, in that sense. The difference being, of course, that we have a long record of Trotskyism and anti-Stalinist socialism (and before that, anti-Marxist socialism) to highlight that kind of distinction. In contrast, the life of this brand of fascism was cut short. For the sake of humanity, that is a very good thing - but it makes researching it much harder.

Keynes's Foreword to the German Edition of the General Theory

Lurking in the cracks between what one school of thought considers worth talking about and what its critics feel is worth engaging with are a few niche nuggets that critics latch on to with particular ferocity and impunity. Facing few, if any, counter-arguments from an unintrigued opponent, the critical interpretations of these nuggets become ferrell and fertile, spreading very quickly, practically unbeknownst to anyone else. Such is the fate of the foreword to the German edition of The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. For many, it is proof-positive that Keynes is a thinly veiled fascist. For virtually anyone else, it isn't even on the radar screen. Many that may come across the reference and the critics' interpretation of it are likely to be dismissive. It's so patently absurd that a champion of British liberalism would embrace Nazism in the way that it is asserted that these interpretations of the foreword are dismissed as ravings, rather than analysis. What Keynesian is going to waste their time delving into the issue to prove the obvious point that Keynes was not a Nazi?

That's unfortunate, because while it may be particularly bad analysis, these are analyses nonetheless - not ravings. Meeting them is the surest way of curing them. I am going to review the foreword in its entirety here.

In September, 1936, a few months after the initial release of the General Theory, Keynes penned a foreword for the new German translation of the book. The foreword made clear (as was made clear in the introduction to the book itself), that his audience was primarily economists. He began with a history of thought, reviewing the underemphasis of Marshall's (his teacher and mentor at Cambridge) macroeconomic thought:

"Alfred Marshall, on whose Principles of Economics the education of all contemporary English economists has been based, took particular pains to call special attention to the relationship of his thought to that of Ricardo. His work consisted for the most part in stuffing the law of limited use [Grenznutzen] and the law of substitution into the Ricardo tradition, and his theory of production and of consumption as a whole—contrary to his theory of producing and distributing a given production—has never been laid open. I am not certain whether he himself ever perceived the need for such a theory, but his immediate successors and disciples surely have abandoned it and evidently never perceived its absence. I was educated in this atmosphere. I have taught these doctrines myself and it was only in the course of the last decade that I became aware of their inadequacy. In my own thought and development, this book, therefore, presents a reaction, a transition and a disengagement from the classical English (or orthodox) tradition. How I have stressed this and the points in which I deviate from the recognized doctrine has been regarded by certain circles in England as extremely controversial. But how could someone educated in English economic orthodoxy, who was even once a priest of that faith, avoid some controversial emphasis, if he becomes a protestant for the first time?"

Here, Keynes sets himself up against the classics, as he does in the General Theory itself. He's careful to show his debt to the classics, though, again as he does in several places in the main work. But what do Germans get out of this? He goes on,

"I can, however, imagine that all this may concern the German readers somewhat differently. The orthodox tradition which reigned in the England of the 19th century never had such a strong influence on German thought. In Germany there have always been important schools of economics which strongly questioned the adequacy of classical theory for the analysis of contemporary events. The Manchester School as well as Marxism, have, after all, stemmed from Ricardo—a conclusion that need cause surprise only when superficially considered. But in Germany there has always been a majority of opinion which adhered neither to one school nor the other."

Keynes is still engaging German economists and now goes on to precisely what German economic thought consists of:

However, it can hardly be contended that this school of thought ever established a theoretical counter-structure, nor did it ever attempt to do this. It has been skeptical and realistic, satisfied with historical and empirical methods and results which reject a formal analysis. The most important unorthodox discussion on the theoretical level has been that of Wicksell. His books (until recently not available in English) were available in the German language; one of his most important was in fact written in German. His successors, however, were mainly Swedes and Austrians; the latter linked his ideas in with a substantially Austrian theory, and thus in reality actually brought them back to the classical tradition. Germany thus has—in contrast to her custom in most fields of science—contented herself for a whole century without a dominant and generally recognized formal theory of economics."

The "skeptical and realistic" approach, "satisfied with historical and empirical methods and results which reject a formal analysis" is, of course, the German Historical School, best known through the work of Gustav Schmoller. Max Weber is also often counted among the ranks of later German historicists, but Weber never had the zeal or intransigence of Schmoller. The community most responsible for diminishing the historicists was, of course, the Austrian School under Carl Menger and his disciples during the Methodenstreit episode in the 1880s, which is very well documented in von Mises's short piece The Historical Setting of Austrian Economics. Keynes is highlighting here that German economics and British economics are quite different. The long-dominant historicists banished classicism from Germany for quite a while, and the neoclassicism that at least partially displaced this school was Swedish and Austrian in origin. A Marshallian wave - the tradition that was so resistant to reformation by one of its own prize pupils in 1936 - never really swept over Germany in the first place. That is the setting for this foreword. Keynes goes on, with quite a bit of optimism,

"I may, therefore, perhaps expect to meet with less resistance on the part of German readers than from English, when I submit to them a theory of employment and production as a whole which deviates in important particulars from the orthodox tradition. But could I hope to overcome the economic agnosticism of Germany? Could I convince German economists that methods of formal analysis constitute an important contribution to the interpretation of contemporary events and to the shaping of contemporary policy? It is, after all, a feature of German character to find satisfaction in a theory. How hungry and thirsty German economists must feel having lived all these years without one! It is certainly worthwhile for me to make the effort. And if I can contribute a single morsel to a full meal prepared by German economists, particularly adjusted to German conditions, I will be satisfied. For I must confess that much in the following book has been mainly set forth and illustrated in relation to conditions in the Anglo-Saxon countries."

Here, Keynes seems to be operating off the assumption that most German economists are still of some historicist persuasion at this point. I don't know enough about the history of German economic thought to evaluate this assumption. So far, the purpose and the audience of the foreword strikes me as being uncontestable. Keynes is discussing his theory as it relates to classical and neoclassical theory - of the Marshallian variety, particularly. He is opposing himself to British orthodoxy (not a particularly surprising move on his part), and he is telling German economists why that should be of interest to them. With this backdrop, Keynes moves on to the sentences that are most commonly highlighted by modern critics:

The theory of aggregated production, which is the point of the following book, nevertheless can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state [eines totalen Staates] than the theory of production and distribution of a given production put forth under conditions of free competition and a large degree of laissez-faire. This is one of the reasons that justifies the fact that I call my theory a general theory. Since it is based on fewer hypotheses than the orthodox theory, it can accommodate itself all the easier to a wider field of varying conditions. Although I have, after all, worked it out with a view to the conditions prevailing in the Anglo-Saxon countries where a large degree of laissez-faire still prevails, nevertheless it remains applicable to situations in which state management is more pronounced. For the theory of psychological laws which bring consumption and saving into relationship with each other, the influence of loan expenditures on prices, and real wages, the role played by the rate of interest—all these basic ideas also remain under such conditions necessary parts of our plan of thought.

Here Keynes is clearly talking about his "theory of aggregate production" - namely, the macroeconomic theorizing that he lead the foreword with, of which he said earlier that Marshall's students "surely have abandoned it and evidently never perceived its absence". This is the crux of the counter-argument, so this is where people should raise issues with my reading of the foreward if they have any. It was his theory of output, of aggregate output and aggregate demand, and not his brief review of a possible policy response - that "can be much easier adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state". If there is any lingering doubt about this, he goes on to explain that his theory is dependent on fewer assumptions than British orthodoxy. Since totalitarian Germany departs so regularly from the assumptions made by British orthodoxy, such a theory is of little use to German economists. But a general theory may be of greater use. This, at least, is the argument. I see no reference in any part of this foreword to what has been understood as a Keynesian policy response. I see only references to Keynesian economic theory. And I see no defense of totalitarianism, what I see is Keynes selling a theory that he thinks is most appropriate for explaining the operation of a totalitarian economy. For a German historicist interested in case-specific idiosyncrasies, this could be very attractive.

The concluding paragraph of the foreword is equally instructive:

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank my translator, Mr. Waeger, for his excellent effort (I hope that his vocabulary at the end of this book will prove useful beyond its immediate purpose), as well as my publishers, Messrs. Duncker & Humblot, whose enterprising spirit ever since the days sixteen years ago when they published my Economic Consequences of the Peace has made it possible for me to maintain my contact with German readers."

Here he mentions the success of his Economic Consequences of the Peace, where Keynes wrote that "If we aim deliberately at the impoverishment of Central Europe, vengence, I dare predict, will not limp. Nothing can then delay for very long that final civil war between the force of Reaction and the despairing convulsions of Revolution, before the horrors of the late German war will fade into nothing, and which will destory, whoever is the victor, the civilization and the progress of our generation. Even though the result disappoint us, must we not base our actions on better expectations, and believe that the prosperity and happiness of one country promotes that of others, that the solidarity of man is not a fiction, and that nations can still afford to treat other nations as fellow-creatures?" It was this assessment in the Economic Consequences of the Peace that earned Keynes such a following in Germany - the idea that Germany must be supported to prevent the rise of either the powers of Reaction or Revolution in the country (and elsewhere in the book he raises the prospect of Revolution, rather than Reaction.

What sense would it make to embrace fascism in a foreward to a book which itself criticizes fascism, particularly in its concluding chapter? What sense would it make to embrace fascism in a foreward that cites the popularity of an earlier book written to stave off the rise of reactionaries in Central Europe? It makes no sense at all, before even reading the content of the foreward itself. And the content of the foreward is clearly methodological, referencing the history of German economic thought and citing reasons why Keynesian theory might be more useful to Germans than other British theories.

So believe what you will about the German foreward to the General Theory. I think its meaning is quite clear and quite benign, and any other interpretation not only fails to account for the text of the foreward itself - it also fails to account for the stark incongruity between the less charitable interpretations and Keynes's own character and values.

Fascist Political Economy, the "Compression of Liberalism", and the "Presumption of Ideological Orthogonality"

I had a recent private correspondence where the idea of a "fascist political economy" came up. It's an issue I find interesting, but what I found a little disconcerting was that my correspondent (who is no wild-eyed ideologue) suggested that the U.S. economy "bears a resemblance" to fascist political economy. The argument is specifically that we are "corporatist", and the line is then drawn between corporatist and fascist economics.

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[UPDATE: Just to make clear - below, this post gets into issues and points that weren't made at all in my correspondence. That discussion simply got the gears in my head turning.]

First, I find the "corporatist" label itself hard to swallow. Usually, what people point to in this regard are the bank and auto bailouts, as well as health reform. It seems to me that a "corporatist" position would require support of the normal functioning of a corporation in regular cooperation with an industry association, the state, and perhaps a labor association. The idea that this characterized the bailouts is ludicrous. Whatever your views on the bailouts (I supported the bank bailouts, but opposed the auto bailouts), you can't convincingly argue that they were anything but a temporary attempt to stop the hemorrhaging in an already battered economy. It may have been unwise policy, and it may even look like corporatism, but it's no more real corporatism than Somalian anarchy is "real libertarianism". There is no permanence to the relationship between the state and the corporations set up by the bailout, and there is no clear point to it except to protect the "real economy" from the fall-out of multiple failed institutions. Health reform is trickier. Obviously there hasn't been any nationalization, but there has been quite a bit of regulation, and we will have exchanges which I suppose might resemble a corporatist organization to some people. I opposed the mandate, but I also have to wonder about anyone that thinks this rises to the standard of "corporatism". While I don't think the availability of health care is in any sense a "right" (I'm a negative rights sort of guy), I do think it's in a vague public good/humanitarian good territory that free societies might consider providing publicly. It's the same with education. If you completely jettisoned all sense of context, perhaps our public education system could be considered "corporatist", and then you could leverage that into an accusation of "fascist". But the liberal tradition has always recognized the reality of "public goods" (to varying degrees depending on the writer, of course). It seems to me that a corporatism that seems exclusively directed towards these "public goods" may or may not be good policy, but should avoid the "corporatist" label effectively and be considered firmly rooted in the liberal tradition. The distinction of fascist political economy, it seems to me, is that unlike the liberal tradition that recognizes only limited scope for "public goods" based on some very well defined properties, the fascists and socialists see all goods as inherently "public goods". This is not the perspective we see in the United States.

Fascist political economy emphasizes the submission of all economic activity to the needs of the nation or the state rather than the needs of the individual. To achieve this, cooperative organizations between business, government, and labor are formed. The state sets production goals and priorities and businesses and labor cooperate in an effort to meet these goals. Where in the U.S. do we see this? Nowhere. Even in the bailouts discussed above, the only "goal" to speak of is "please don't implode while unemployment is so high". It's hardly reminiscent of the 20s and 30s in Italy and Germany.

I think the source of these concerns about fascist political economy comes from what I would call the "compression of Liberalism" that is adopted by many libertarians as well as Tea Party types with somewhat less ideological clarity. "Classical liberalism" no longer means what it used to mean - it has become a synonym for libertarianism. All the differences of opinion between the classical liberals, and all liberals through the ages, are jettisoned and a libertarian core alone is maintained as legitimate.

This sort of "compression of Liberalism" inevitably leads to what you might call the "presumption of ideological orthogonality". Let me provide an example. I'm sure many of you have had someone run through the ten planks of the Communist manifesto for you and check off the several points of the list that we've adopted in the U.S.. The exercise (I suppose) is meant to be some sort of stunning revelation about how Communist we've become. But the argument falls flat. Why? Because it relies on this "presumption of ideological orthogonality". To be convinced that it says anything about the extent to which we're Communist, you have to believe that Communism shares no perspective at all in common with Liberalism. You have to assume that all ideologies are perfectly independent of each other, so that a check list is sufficient for determining how Communist one is. A similar example with fascism is the common claim that the fascists supported public works projects. What does this demonstrate other than that the fascists apparently agreed with a lot of Liberals on the value of the strategic use of public works projects? Why does this observation imply that Liberals who do support public works actually resemble fascists? Why can't it imply that fascists who do support public works are actually secretly Liberals (I don't believe that either, but it's telling that you never hear anyone draw that conclusion - why don't you?). The fact is, economic and political ideologies are not perfectly orthogonal. There are a lot of perspectives out there that support a progressive income tax. My support for a progressive income tax is integral to my Liberalism, which is grounded in my classical liberalism. This doesn't change because Marxists or fascists also support progressive income taxes for their own reasons.

It's extremely disconcerting to me that for a lot of smart people out there the options are apparently libertarianism and corporatist fascism, and that if you depart from libertarianism you "resemble fascism". Analytically, it's a laughable conclusion. But socially, it's disconcerting as well. One of the great things about Liberalism is that historically it has practiced what it preaches with regards to pluralism. Advocates of human liberty and representative government have always maintained disagreements on specific points and emphases. Liberalism is not a homogenizing perspective. It's deeply unfortunate that we've come to the point where departure from one brand of classical liberalism isn't recognized as another version of Liberalism, but an alien ideology.

For further reading on fascist political economy, I highly recommend Adam Tooze's Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy. He provides good references to the earlier literature as well.

Carl Schmitt provides insights into the legal underpinnings of fascism (specifically German national socialism). I think these insights and his thinking on the Ausnahmezustand are especially important to keep in mind. There are two fundamental planks of Liberalism: human liberty and representative government. Schmitt highlights how fascism is completely contingent on the abrogation of the latter. Whatever your views of the American response to the economic crisis, it has strictly adhered to the principles of representative and Constitutional government throughout. It's an essential distinction. If I were less charitable, I might even argue that common libertarian complaints about representative government as fundamentally problematic (tyranny of the majority type arguments) also depart from Liberalism's focus on representative government and bear a striking resemblance to Schmitt's judicial philosophy, which doesn't let a pesky thing like the will of the people get in the way of the "correct" policy. But I do think I'm relatively charitable, and I won't make that accusation because I understand and respect the "tyranny of the majority" perspective, regardless of whether similar facetious reasoning gets applied to my brand of Liberalism on occasion.

The best genealogy of Liberalism that I've read is Keynes's The End of Laissez-Faire, which I also highly recommend. He succinctly reviews the differences of opinion in classical liberalism, and traces these differences of opinion into what I've above called the "compression of Liberalism" into two camps: laissez-faire and Marxist socialism. He laments the "compression of Liberalism", as do I.

And for another perspective on fascist political economy, here is Dwight Schrute delivering a speech modified from one delivered by Mussolini. He's tricked into delivering it at a sales conference by Jim, of course, although Dwight's fascist sympathies are revealed at other points in the show as well.

Philosophical Musing 1: Historical Determinism, Epistemology, and Total War

***This will be one in a series of probably three "philosophical musings" posts from me. They've been slowly written over the last month and a half or so. This one frames the total war of the first half of the 20th century as an important historical singularity that was made inevitable by the epistemological projects that emerged from the Enlightenment.***
A couple weeks back, I worked through this documentary on the Spanish Civil War, which is especially rewarding because it is interview-heavy. It, along with a lot of thinking I've been doing over the last year on the inter-war economy, has helped to focus my attention on broader, more fundamental questions about the period from 1914 to 1945 - quite possibly the most catastrophic and revolutionary period in human history.

Although we present WWI and WWII in light of "making the world safe for democracy", to a large extent this was not the point or purpose of the wars at all. To a large degree, this extended war was a war between communism and fascism. Fascism lost, liberals became quickly disillusioned with communism, and the Cold War slowly wore communism down as well. I think instinctively we don't like this understanding of the wars. Great wars should have "good guys" and "bad guys" and the "good guys" should win, right? The point that the defining conflict of the 20th century was a conflict between two "bad guys" comes across as somewhat surprising.

I want to argue that this interpretation should not be a surprising thing at all. In a lot of ways, total war was pre-ordained at the Enlightenment, which released the forces of Reason. Reason applied to society constructs social mega-programs built from considerably smaller logical axioms. Undue faith in our reason leads us to trust these mega-programs, which are iterated synthetic a priori propositions: "true" propositions which are not axiomatic but which are also considered "a priori" because they are true independent of experience. These rational mega-programs are what we also know as the "-isms": communism, fascism, libertarianism, syndicalism, anarchism, etc. All are thrust upon society with absolute confidence in their own self-evidence. They are not tested or evolved - they are deduced - that is their hallmark: logical deduction. This is the spawn of unchecked Reason.

In societies where Empiricism dominated or at least competed vigorously with Rationalism, these "-isms" did not take hold. The value of a mega-program had to be demonstrated, so change was slower and planning was less grandiose. The political, economic, and social systems of Empiricist societies evolved, and were generally conservative and relatively undisruptive.

I think it's reasonable to suggest that from the outset global, total war was an inevitable result of the rise of Reason. Reason results in social mega-programs and complete faith in the value of these mega-programs. Since the logical faculties of human beings are bound to fail or vary, a myriad of these self-confident mega-programs could have been expected to emerge, and indeed did emerge. In this sense, Reason is very likely to be a divergent epistemological endeavor, whereas empiricism can be thought of as a convergent epistemological endeavor (this is quite a claim, I know - at first glance you would assume that experience would vary much more widely between individuals than logic would - I don't think this is true, although I can't really prove it here... I'm thinking along the lines of "the wisdom of crowds" type argument).

If, back in 1700 or so, we had to predict what would happen in the far future given the emerging landscape of epistemology, what would we conclude? I would argue that we would conclude that Empirical societies would slowly change and evolve into more efficient societies. They would try out new forms of organization, evaluate the adjustments they make, and proceed forward from there. The outcomes can be expected to be roughly as variable as human experience is. In societies where Reason dominates, we can imagine social theorists not moving incrementally, but designing and promoting programs constructed from basic axioms of human behavior. Whereas in empirical societies, a program of social organization may take decades of incrementalism to evolve, in rational societies, a philosopher dedicated to the task of designing a program of social organization could produce his tailor-made program in under a decade. So, back in 1700 we could expect socieites grounded in Reason to produce a number of mega-programs that involved a radical alteration of social organization. These mega-programs would appear paradoxical to the empiricist, because they are (1.) entirely untested, and yet (2.) vigorously believed in.

Given a basic assumption that human collectives can be extremely violent, I think someone in 1700 could have concluded that the Enlightenment and the rise of Reason necessitated:

1. The emergence of several different mega-programs for social organization grounded in Reason and a unique, internally consistent deductive logic,

2. Which are both untested and attract exuberant devotees, and that

3. That the incompatibility of these mega-programs will lead to conflict between the devotees of the mega-programs, so that

4. As soon as technology allows, and as soon as a critical mass of states capitulate to the various mega-programs, a total war between the logically deduced mega-programs will errupt

Contingent on the presence of a decently large population of Empirical societies, the early 18th century observer might also conclude that:

5. The empiricists will be left to pick up the pieces, because empirical social organizations will always be more robust than logically-deduced social organizations. Therefore, any rationalists allied with the empiricists will share victory, but will themselves slowly be superceded by the empiricists.

We think of the world wars just another spectacular episode in the march of human history. The earliest we date the "inevitability" of WWII is November 11th, 1918. The earliest that we date the "inevitability" of WWI is perhaps German unification and the inauguration of the Second Reich under Bismark in 1871. I argue that we should have seen this coming much, much earlier than that. History is a series of choices by human beings, and human choice is dictated by the way we understand and interpret our world. As soon as Reason emerged in the modern world as a major and pervasive force for understanding the world, a global, total war was inevitable (clearly Reason pre-dates the enlightenment, but it seems to me it was kept in check by revealed religion before the modern era). The world wars were not another episode in history: they were a pre-determined historical singularity, necessitated by the epistemology of the Enlightenment. The precise actors and battles may not have been pre-determined, but the forces driving the conflagration were.

I've presented this largely as a modern drama: an internicine struggle among rationalists, as well as a contrast between rationalists and empiricists. Looking forward, what I think is significant is that modernism is not a foregone conclusion at all. First and foremost, pre-modern thought patterns have reasserted themselves in the age of holy terror. While the pre-modern factions in Islam that have lately resisted the West and sought to establish a new caliphate are the most prominent example, other (admittedly less problematic) examples abound as well. Christian Fundamentalism holds considerable sway in no less a polity than the United States. By "Christian Fundamentalism" I don't simply mean "Christian Conservatism," which can be entirely benign and often even beneficial. I'm refering to fundamentalism, which brooks neither logic nor experience as the primary path that humans must travel to find truth. In the former Soviet Union, many societies are reverting to their pre-Rationalist days, before the Communist mega-program, to the tsarism of a bygone era. This is also true of much of Africa, which, after throwing off the oppressive yoke imperialism (or more accurately, after having this yoke removed for them by a repentant imperialist) have not embraced constitutional democracy, but instead have relied on strongmen, warlords, and tribalism. And of course in other regions, Rationalism has not yet even been tempered. Marxism still dominates much of South America. Fortunately, East Asia has joined the empiricist camp with gusto, and even China and India are tentatively following in the footsteps of Japan, Korea, and Australia. On top of this re-emergence of pre-modernism, there is also the looming specter of post-modernism, which I honestly can't make heads or tails of in this schema.

This is one view of modern history, one that I find relatively convincing and meaningful. It doesn't answer every question, but I think it sheds new light on the world wars and the Cold War. These are epochal events, pre-ordained for centuries. We got through them. Thinking in these mega-epistemological-trend terms may be a useful guide for the future.

Or by promoting this view of modern history, perhaps I'm just setting up the prologue to a Rationalist mega-program of my own! In case that's what I'm inadvertently doing, I'll end on this entreaty: err on the side of evidence, experience, and caution.

Four Reasons Why the Torturers Must Be Prosecuted

I agree completely with Evan that the torturing of prisoners that went on during the Bush administration was unambiguously criminal, and that the Justice Department needs to charge somebody with these acts, even if the burden of proof may represent a steep uphill battle. The torture of a few al Qaeda operatives is important because it violates U.S. and international law, but it's not important for that reason alone. I'm confident that the law is violated all the time - sometimes flagrantly, sometimes accidentally - and not all of these infractions merit public indignation over whether the Justice Department decides to prosecute. So why this time?

- First, because this crime is uniquely heinous. As Christopher Hitchens has said, "It used to be in the press you remember people would say that it simulates the feeling of drowning. You've read that I'm sure. In fact it doesn't simulate it at all in fact you are being drowned." There is a reason that both the Republican and the Democratic candidate for president this Fall came out strongly against torture, and it had less to do with McCain's war experience than it did with the fundamental incongruity of torture with modern society.

- Second, because this is not just a legal violation - it as a constitutional violation as well. While some of the Bill of Rights protections of criminals arguably do not apply to prisoners of war, and those who are tried by military tribunals, the injunction against cruel and unusual punishments has no such distinction. The numerous protections guaranteed by the fifth amendment are qualified by a very vital loophole that the Bush administration has ably exploited: "No person shall be held to answer for any capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation." The eighth amendment, for what should be obvious reasons, includes no such qualification: "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

- Third, and quite simply, the Bush administration has to be held accountable for something with respect to the prosecution of the war on terror and the Iraq War. History will judge the American people to be as complicit with the Bush as the American people were found to be with Jackson's Trail of Tears or FDR's internment camps if they do nothing to right this wrong. The specific points of the Patriot Act, the War on Terror, the Iraq War, the Plame Affair, extraditions, Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharib, etc. can certainly be debated by reasonable people, and several of these cases have already been tried. Not all critiques may end up being legitimate critiques (I've agreed with the administration on a few of these concerns. For example, I'm a strong supporter of a vigorous War on Terror, and I don't think there's anything wrong with having a prison at Guantanamo, so long as the proceedings there are legal). This third point is therefore not meant to be a thoughtless, blanket indictment of the Bush administration. Instead, it is a recognition that life in America and abroad was radically different between September 11th, 2001, and January 20th, 2009. Some of it was handled quite well, and some of it was handled not as well. But we cannot abandon an evaluation of these years in an effort to "move forward". We can't move forward with confidence without knowing where we may have misstepped in the path. Obama's justification for failing to prosecute for these crimes is completely wrong-headed. If we don't grapple with what was done we have no road map with which we can move forward.

- Fourth, and by far the most important, we must prosecute as a defense against fascist tendencies. I have been enormously critical of news outlets that apply labels like "fascist" or "socialist" to President Obama. That kind of hyperbole is incredibly destructive. So why do I use this word now? It is because I'm concerned about letting the mindset of fascism take root in this country. Allow me to explain my distinction: it is my opinion that the Iraq War was aggressive and unprovoked - that we should have focused our energies on the War on Terror, which we actually had cause to prosecute. Despite my strong disagreement with Bush on the Iraq war, I don't think the war had any tendency towards fascism at all. Bush made a case to the people. He made a case to the international community. He had allies. He got the approval of Congress. A reasonable person could say that he didn't intentionally and recklessly abandon international law. In other words, the Iraq War may have been ill-advised, inappropriate, and perhaps even illegal: but it was done in broad daylight, it was not executed by personal fiat, and it was prosecuted in line with the Constitution. It was therefore not fascist. The same is true of the stimulus package and the TARP program. I'm infuriated when these things are called "fascist", not just because I agree with their necessity, but also because the critics ignore the clear consistency of the method of passing the stimulus package and the TARP with the liberal political tradition and democratic principles. No such consistency exists for these acts of torture, and while they may not be fascist themselves, they represent "fascist tendencies". Fascism is about method, not policy. A "benevolent dictator" could implement the same programs that any presidential administration in history has enacted, but they would still be fascist if they did so by will of the president, rather than by the will of the people, through the Constitutional apparatuses designed and assented to by the people. Likewise, democracies are capable of a great deal of misery, but poor or even ruthless decisions on the part of democracies are not "fascist" so long as they are implemented by a government limited by well defined constraints on it's power and the will of the people. I think this distinction is important to make, because we have flirted with fascism on more than a few occasions in our country's history. The bedrock fascist position is best stated by Nixon, probably the closest we have come to a president with a truly fascist mindset: "When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal." Nixon probably hurt his policital adversaries more than anyone else - his crime ultimately didn't result in much more of substance than a broad-based loss of innocence - but this man's very mindset was a fascist mindset. He was, and I think he will be remembered as, a fascist who held an official position in a democratic Republic for a number of years in the late twentieth century. Was Bush a fascist in this mold? Was Cheney? Prosecuting torturers won't answer that question, and we may never know. We probably won't have the benefit of a Frost interview for those men, like we had with Nixon. But the tortures reek of something terrible, in the same way that Watergate did. And even if the torture could be explained away in various ways (just like Watergate could have itself been explained away as quite insignificant), the entire endeavor is indicative of "fascist tendencies" in the Bush White House - a tendency to place the president above the law, rather than under it. We need that tendency to be scrutinized in the light of day. And perhaps I have it all wrong and the torturers will be found not guilty, and this whole post was all a big mistake - but I think the preponderance of evidence for enough people suggests that we need to shore up the value and strength of the law in America. We're likely to have very trying times ahead - we don't want a charismatic president like Obama to enter trying times without a firm message from the American people that fascist tendencies are not acceptable, regardless of the objective desirability of the program that the fascist is offering.