Friday discusses Pioneer power politics. If the officers win, then they will impose a caste system. If Wilson wins, then he will impose a nominally communist dictatorship. Either way, the merchants' Guilds lose. The text leads us to sympathize with this third group, as does Friday, partly for personal reasons.
As I understand it, the petite bourgeoisie, feeling equally threatened both by big capital and by organized labour, have sometimes thought of themselves as a third social force and, on this basis, have been organized into street armies by political parties that did in fact serve big capital.
When I was at University in Dublin, a Fianna Fail (conservative) student denounced a Maoist public speaker for working in a bank! Instead of saying, "I have to work somewhere, like anyone else," the speaker replied, "Yes, I am a member of the petite bourgeois class and that class will join the revolution..." I was just listening and learning (and unlearning) in those days. (BTW, the crazed Maoists did a good job of inoculating almost everyone against any alternative political ideas whatsoever.) The lotus grows from dark places. (A Buddhists saying that I think is relevant.)
21 comments:
Many of Germany's big capitalists thought they could use the Nazis.
As Fritz Thyssen found out, they were so, so wrong... 8-).
The problem was that unlike the Italian Fascists, the Nazis -really believed- what they were peddling, and aimed at enthroning a new elite, not bolstering the old one.
By the early 1940's, Germany's industrialists and bankers were either genuine converts (like the Krupps) or keeping their heads down and praying they didn't get noticed, while the NSDAP's bureaucracy graciously let them chose what they'd have for breakfast.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: I have zero use for all crazed ideologues, Leninists, Trotskyites, Maoists, whatever! Far better to be a Burkean conservative with no illusions about human beings.
Mr. Stirling: And because most Italian Fascists were not crazed ideologues was why they accepted Victor Immanuel III's dismissal of Mussolini as premier in 1943, after the Fascist Grand Council voted to return the powers held by the Duce to the king.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
But not all people with left views are crazed!
Paul.
Paul: unfortunately, fairly often the ones who are tend to beat the ones who aren't.
Not a thing peculiar to the left, of course.
"The best lack all conviction
While the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
Other things being equal, those without doubts beat those with. Fortunately things aren't always equal, but they are all too often.
Kaor, Paul!
Again, I agree with Stirling, not you. Too many leftists are crazed ideologues who make up in fanaticism what they lack in numbers. And so we get the reigns of terror, purges, gulags, final solutions, killing fields, etc.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Not all leftists are crazed.
Paul.
However, Mr Stirling's remarks are quite reasonable.
Sean, Paul: lots of -people- are crazed.
That happens as a psychological mobilization reflex in any fight for power.
People who can act drastically from a 'cold start' are unfortunately fairly rare. I can, but I haven't met all that many other people who are that way. Some, but not many.
I have met people who want to be part of changing society for the better and who would become Stalins if the course of events led them in that direction. Meanwhile, at the same time, I do think that the present state of society does need a lot of changing for the better. As for what is going to happen, that we do not know.
Paul: no, we don't know what's going to happen -- which is why, as often as not, attempts to improve things make them worse.
"If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it", as the saying goes. Because then you may -really- break it.
I agree up to a point but the world is kind of getting broken right now. I think that things would be even worse if no one was resisting, protesting etc.
Kaor, Paul and Mr. Stirling!
Paul: Irrelevant. The fact remains too many leftists ARE crazed.
Mr. Stirling: Absolutely! It's so hard, difficult, and dangerous trying to change society for the "better" that most times it's better to leave well enough alone. At most a statesman can try building up a consensus agreeing to a change. The example I've thought of more than once being how Alexander II of Russia maneuvered, argued, cajoled, etc., for years with the governing elites before he was able to abolish serfdom.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
The left is a very broad spectrum. Some on the other side are crazed as well. These comparisons don't get us very fare. The issue of who is "crazed" came up because I described a certain Maoist group with that term but they were very small and unrepresentative or alternative opinion.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
I still disagree, because right wing crazies, for whatever reason, don't seem to be very effective, politically speaking.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
That is a matter of definition, surely? Have there been no dictatorships that we would describe as right wing? No xenophobic heads of government? No heads of state inciting hatred and violence?
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
None I would call truly "right wing" in a Burkean conservative sense. The closest I can think of might be Francisco Franco of Spain, who was at heart a conservative Catholic Spanish nationalist.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
Well, in a Burkean conservative sense, no...
Paul.
Sean's right about Franco, by the way. He was a traditional right-wing caudillo type, a political Catholic and a monarchist.
Which, btw, means he was no more a 'fascist' than a Methodist.
He used fascists, of course... the Falange, who were the genuine article... and betrayed them with efficiency and dispatch.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Absolutely! Franco defanged both the Falangists and Carlists.
Ad astra! Sean
Fascism, in the places where it was a genuine mass movement, was a movement of plebeian radicalism.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Correct. REAL Fascism was socialism mixed with nationalism. No bull twaddle about the "international" solidarity of workers.
Ad astra! Sean
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