FDR and Fascism

Posted by Guest Blogger on Sunday, 27 August 2006 22:13.

One of the great questions of modern American politics is why FDR’s administration and the New Deal were never properly connected with the political theory of fascism in general and Mussolini in particular. While doing some research, I found this article from Chronicles Magazine which does a fairly good job of laying out the historical facts:

Until Abyssinia, Mussolini was hailed as a genius and a superman on both sides of the Atlantic, primarily because of his economic and social policies. When FDR was inaugurated in March 1933, the world was praising Mussolini’s success in avoiding the Great Depression. Roosevelt and his “Brain Trust,” the architects of the New Deal, were fascinated by Italy’s fascism—a term which was not perjorative at the time. In America, it was seen as a form of economic nationalism built around consensus planning by the established elites in government, business, and labor.

American leaders were not very concerned with the undemocratic character of Mussolini’s regime. Fascism had “effectively stifled hostile elements in restricting the right of free assembly, in abolishing freedom of the press and in having at its command a large military organization,” the U.S. Embassy in Rome reported in 1925. But Mussolini remained a “moderate,” confronting the Bolsheviks while fending off extremists on the right. Ambassador Henry Fletcher saw only a choice between Mussolini and socialism, and the Italian people preferred fascist “peace and prosperity” to the “free speech and loose administration” that risked bringing Bolshevism to power. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg joined Fletcher in labeling all opposition groups as “communists, socialists, and anarchists.” The chief of the State Department’s Western European Division, William Castle, declared in 1926 that “the methods of the Duce are not by any means American methods,” but “methods which would certainly not appeal to this country might easily appeal to a people so differently constituted as are the Italians.”

As the political and social effects of the Great Depression hit Europe, Italy received mounting praise as a bastion of order and stability. “The wops are unwopping themselves,” Fortune magazine noted with awe in 1934. State Department roving Ambassador Norman Davis praised the successes of Italy in remarks before the Council on Foreign Relations in 1933, speaking after the Italian ambassador had drawn applause from his distinguished audience for his description of how Italy had put its “own house in order . . . A class war was put down.” Roosevelt’s ambassador to Italy, Breckenridge Long, was also full of enthusiasm for the “new experiment in government” which “works most successfully.” Henry Stimson (secretary of state under Hoover, secretary of war under Roosevelt) recalled that he and Hoover had found Mussolini to be “a sound and useful leader.” Roosevelt shared many of these positive views of “that admirable Italian gentleman,” as he termed Mussolini in 1933.

The most radical aspect of the New Deal was the National Industrial Recovery Act, passed in June 1933, which set up the National Recovery Administration. Most industries were forced into cartels. Codes that regulated prices and terms of sale transformed much of the American economy. The industrial and agricultural life of the country was to be organized by government into vast farm and industrial cartels. This was corporatism, the essence of fascism.
It may be argued that Roosevelt simply did what seemed politically expedient. But contemporaries knew what was in the making. Some liked it: Charles Beard freely admitted that “FDR accepts the inexorable collectivism of the American economy . . . national planning in industry, business, agriculture and government.” But detractors existed even within his own party. Democratic Sen. Carter Glass of Virginia denounced the NRA as “the utterly dangerous effort of the federal government at Washington to transplant Hitlerism to every corner of this nation.”

FDR’s New Deal united communists and fascists. Union leader Sidney Hillman praised Lenin as “one of the few great men that the human race has produced, one of the greatest statesmen of our age and perhaps of all ages.” Big-business partisan Gen. Hugh Johnson wanted America to imitate the “dynamic pragmatism” of Mussolini. Together, Hillman and Johnson developed the National Labor Relations Board. They shared a collectivist and authoritarian aversion for historical American principles of liberty.

Like fascist and communist dictators, Roosevelt relied on his own charisma, carefully and deceitfully developed, and the executive power of his office to stroke the electorate into compliance and to bludgeon his critics. His welfare projects went far beyond aid to the poor and wound up bribing whole sectors of American society—farmers, businessmen, banks, intellectuals—into dependence on him and the state he created. Through subsidies, wrote Richard Hofstadter, “a generation of artists and intellectuals became wedded to the New Deal and devoted to Rooseveltian liberalism.” Their corrupted descendants still thrive through federal endowments for the arts and humanities and in politically correct, federally funded academia. The only practical difference between FDR and fascist dictators was that he was far less successful in resolving the economic crisis. He made the Depression worse and even prolonged it. When he was elected, there were 11.6 million unemployed; seven years later, there were still 11.3 million out of work. In 1932, there were 16.6 million on relief; in 1939, there were 19.6 million. Only the war eventually ended the depression.

FDR was of course held as a sort of hero by many who lived though that generation. I know my grandparents were quite fond of him. It is no surprise that they refused to accept that the New Deal was based on the fascism developed by Mussolini. However now that their generation is passing from the scene, I think there is a lot that can be gained by drawing the connection which has been long delayed.

First of course, it would be a well deserved blow to the self-serving official American political narrative. Not only would it destroy the left’s bogyman of “fascism” always lurking just around the corner (“sorry, been there, done that already”), it would put on display their own fascination and support for it. It would also be a blow for the establishment right though: having long purported that American is a nation based on an Idea, it takes the cover off of the darker truth that America is more a country in search of an Idea. For the multiculturalists, it is worth remembering FDR was well known for taking the initiative to bring Blacks, Jews and others into his political alliance; there is nothing about multi-ethnicity which precludes fascism and statism. It also helps explain the weakness of the establishment to lobbying (and blackmail) that led to the 1965 immigration bill and other “inclusive” agenda.

In the end, the State is not our friend. MR’ers know that of course, but hopefully the sad tale of FDR’s effect on America can remind more average Americans of this as well. Statism and hard nationalism are no substitutes for our ethnic genetic interest. How to pursue it without the parasites of bureaucratism, corporatism, and other “discrete” groups piling on to feed is perhaps a harder question to answer.

Tags:

Comments:

Posted by On Holliday on Sun, 27 Aug 2006 22:34 | #

Fascism is palingenetic populist ultra-nationalism. FDR was no fascist, and one can argue that even Mussolini’s regime was only truly fascist in the period before the Vatican accord and during the Italian Social Republic, with the intervening period being characterized as being an authoritarian reactionary para-fascism.

Despite some of the scholarly debate about Nazism being fascism or not, actually National Socialism was the only regime in power that was, actually, fascist in its purest sense, from beginning to end.

With respect to groups that never obtained full state power that were fascist, Codreanu’s movement in Romania comes to mind. Quisling in Norway can be considered fascist, but his “coming to power” was through German arms and he was not accepted by the Norweigen people. Leon Degrelle was not fascist during the early days of the Rex party, but can be considered to have crossed the line, particularly after 1940. Of course, Mosely in the UK was fascist as well.

Not FDR.

“Statism and hard nationalism are no substitutes for our ethnic genetic interest.”

Why “statism” and “hard nationalism” cannot be used to defend ethnic genetic interests, I don’t quite understand. If not for that un-needed war, the NS regime would have done quite a job in defending German EGI.

But then, I am no “conservative”, and it is an error to consider all past and present MR bloggers to be “conservatives” wary of the “state.”

By the way, “Chronicles” magazine is hardly the last word in the definition of fascism.

Posted by empty13 on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 00:26 | #

FDR was, in a pure tho covered up sense, about as JudeoFascist as it gets.

Even Dubya has done a handful of things that werent pure Judeofascistic. Not FDR.

Posted by James Bowery on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 02:24 | #

One of the reasons artificial intelligence is so important, and one of the reasons it is so filled with <a >progress negators</a>, is that it will result in word-sense disambiguation via modeling of the way people use words. There is already a very good start on this will latent relational analysis, which has resulted in <a >programs that can match college-bound high school seniors on such g-loaded tests as verbal analogy</a>. When this happens, the games people play with politically charged words will be exposed via a hardcore language model that doesn’t admit any weaseling.

It will become apparent when words like “fascism” and “racism” are being used in their politically crazed senses and when they are being used in their technical sense. There will be _very_ few uses of words of this type that qualify as genuinely descriptive rather than emotive.

Posted by john ray on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 02:35 | #

I have for some time been pointing out the similarities between the European Fascists and the American prewar Left—and the current left to a degree as well

http://jonjayray.cafe150.com/amerfasc.html

and

http://jonjayray.cafe150.com/musso.html

Posted by Andy on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 02:53 | #

I like to avoid discussions of “facism” because it has become, as James indicates, a Janus word similar to “racism”. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal about the creator of the term “Islamo-facism” is an example of this. The coiner of this phrase was a Marxist who used the term “facism” to refer to literally anything he disagreed with. Scores of leftists use facism in the same way. Like racism, it’s both a descriptive and a pejorative term. Essentially, the use of both words is usually a big mess of question-begging.

Posted by Daedalus on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 07:04 | #

The New Deal was not based on fascism. Americans had been experimenting with a regulated market economy for decades before the Great Depression. The origins of the New Deal can be traced back to the “Square Deal” (hence the name) or “New Nationalism” of FDR’s famous cousin Theodore Roosevelt. Progressives were thrilled when Wilson nationalized American railroads during the Great War. Most of the New Deal reforms had long been floating around on the progressive left before FDR was elected president.

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:20 | #

“On Holliday, the NS regime would have done a very poor job of defending German EGI without the war because the economy would have collpased. “

Is that why Germany was doing better economically in the 30s than the USA, or most of the other “capitalist liberal democracies?”

“The military machine could only be funded by conquest, and conquest made war (probably against the Soviets) more or less inevitable.”

I was talking about a non-expansionist model of NS Germany. What are *you* talking about? It was the USA, not Germany, that needed the war for economic recovery; the war was destructive for German economics (see Irving’s “Hitler’s War”). Thus, this is my point: what if NS Germany was NOT hyper-militaristic and expansionist?

“Even looting Jewish assets would not have sustained it for more than 5-10 years.”

In the absence of the war, that would not be necessary. Note that you suggest that Germany’s Jewish population has enough assets to sustain an entire national economy for 5-10 years! You are likely right, but what does that say about the distribution of wealth in Weimer Germany? And how was his maldistribution “good” for German interests?

“The best defender of German EGI was Konrad Adenauer, who made them rich, and the eventual lynchpin of the EU, thus more or less invulnerable.”

Really? Germans are “invulnerable?” Is that why they are in the process of being replaced by Turks? EGI stands for “ethnic genetic interests”, not “economic germanstate interests.” Being a “lynchpin of the EU” is in fact highly negative, since the EU defends the interests of everyone in Europe except native Europeans.

“There are other compenents to EGI beyond exterminating minorities.”

Yes - including not having majorities being exterminated.

“Nationalism is no substitute for economic literacy.”

For defending EGI, it is.

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 13:46 | #

“I have for some time been pointing out the similarities between the European Fascists and the American prewar Left—and the current left to a degree as well”

Leftists bad, rightists good, ignore race, ignore ideology, go go Bush. Do better.

“so in the end the only really common components of Fascism are nationalism combined with the paternalistic and authoritarian “we will look after you” undertaking that is basic to Leftism.”

No. The common component of Fascism that distingushes it from other nationalist and/or paternalistic “leftist” systems is the palingenetic component. Indeed, as Griffin and others realize, palingenetic ideologies are in fact the *fundamental* and distinguishing features of Fascism.

Do better.

Posted by Al Ross on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 14:21 | #

While Adenauer was busily engaged,inter alia, in hitching the foreign policy of the German ship of state to the rotting hulk of Israel, the architect of the country’s economic revival was Ludwig Erhardt.

The most unremarked-upon feature of Germany’s hugely impressive recovery was that it was effected entirely without any Jewish involvement, thus disproving any Judeophile sentamentalist claims about indispensible entrepreneurial Semites.

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:16 | #

Er…I was under the impression that the Great Depression took place because of the rampant speculation that took place under the Coolidge regime. That it actually occurred under Hoover is not sufficient evidence to blame it on Hoover himself.

“Germany’s economic recovery in the 1930s was far less impressive than Britain’s led by Neville Chamberlain, Britain’s greatest Chancellor of the Exchequer. As South Africa found in 1970-90, an EGI policy unaccompanied by free market economics leads to poverty, not enrichment.”

Was Great Britain outsourcing jobs while imported cheap immgrant labor? Was there a resurgent China at that time capable of knocking off cheap goods in just about anything?

Do you have any actual idea what an “EGI policy” is?

Granted, I’d prefer a free market homogenous state to a controlled multicultural one, any time.

Unfortunately, the “free market” means that Dominican mulattoes can earn $25,000,000 per year for hitting a little round white ball with a wooden stick, while, techno-professionals are lucky to earn 1/500 of that salary.

Enormous trade deficits, enormous debt (much foreign owned), an entire industrial base outsourced - I’m not convinced that “American prosperity” is not living off of borrowed time, as well as borrowed money.

EGI concerns come first, then economics. With respect to the latter, I’m not convinced that an unfettered free market is the best model for the overall health of the nation.

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:26 | #

http://www.gusmorino.com/pag3/greatdepression/

That seems consistent with most accounts I have read - too much capitalism, rather than ‘fascism.’

There are parallels with the USA of today, as well.

Perhaps a stable homogenous society, with a mixed economy, and long-term investment in securing EGI, is a better option that a society in which there is more wealth per capita, but instability, demographic genocide, and rampant insecurity for the broad middle class.

There are trade-offs in every scenario. Proponents of the free market need to be more honest about the trade-offs that come with “more wealth.”

There is no “free lunch” in life.

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:30 | #

More:
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Causes.htm

I assume Karl can find references supporting a contrarian view, but that is a major point: there is no consensus that “fasicst”, rather than excessive capitalist, policies caused the Depression - and many believe the opposite.

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:36 | #

An individual named “JLK” posted the following online four years ago:

Posted: Wed Nov 27, 2002 7:35 pm Post subject:
“Here are a few statistics that I have lifted from The Nazi Economic Recovery 1932-1938, by R.J. Overy (1982):

Economic Indicators 1932; 1938
GNP (1928 Prices) 71.9; 126.2
Unemployment (m) 5.6; 0.4
Capital Goods 45.7; 135.9
Pig Iron 33.4; 157.3
Household Furniture 69.6; 113.6

This in the midst of The Great Depression.

One could hypothesize that Hitler’s economic policies would have caught up with him in the long run, if it were not for the war, but these numbers pretty much speak for themselves as far as their initial efficacy are concerned.”
——————————————
JW: one could hypothesize many things, but indeed “initial efficacy” was high, and, in the absence of war, adjustments could be made to maintain the growth.

The major position of the NS regime was race, not economics, one can assume flexibility for the latter.

Posted by James Bowery on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:41 | #

Depressions are caused by subsidizing wealth to the point that the demand side of the economoy collapses due to concentration of wealth.

The New Deal + WW II was simply the only way that the US could avoid shifting the tax base off productivity and onto property rights (the maintenance of which are, after all, the primary service of governments in capitalist regimes). If you want to see the sort of corruption of character that this sort of tax base creates just look at John Jay Ray.

Posted by Count Dooku on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 19:45 | #

“Unfortunately, the “free market” means that Dominican mulattoes can earn $25,000,000 per year for hitting a little round white ball with a wooden stick, while, techno-professionals are lucky to earn 1/500 of that salary.”

Don’t forget that Mr. Mulatto will then be scoring some white trophy wife bimbo as well.

As for the great depression, some have speculated that the Fed decreasing the money supply (deflation) played a major role as well.

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:21 | #

“If you want to see the sort of corruption of character that this sort of tax base creates just look at John Jay Ray.”

Indeed.

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:34 | #

“Don’t forget that Mr. Mulatto will then be scoring some white trophy wife bimbo as well.”

Count Dooku is correct:
Photos of Alex Rodriguez, where his partially Negro ancestry is, IMO, plainly visible:
http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/players/5275/photos

“A-Rod” and wife:
http://people.aol.com/people/article/0,26334,832981,00.html

Given that the woman does not look so particularly extremely attractive to compensate for a $25M/year husband, one wonders what the attraction is. Maybe it is her personality. Or, maybe something else, hmmm?

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 20:47 | #

These are better pictures here, to give a “flavor” of the “free market” outcome:

http://www.nndb.com/people/471/000023402/

Posted by On Holliday on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 21:57 | #

“Holliday is right to say that there is no “free lunch”. We have to choose: the productivity and wealth of the free market, or the racial and sexual (and other) equality given to us by a socialist economy. I know which one I’d choose. “

Or, this can be worded as:
We have to choose: the gross income mal-distribution and indulgence of the stupidity of the masses of the free market, or the social stability, and incentives for reproduction in a homogenous state, given to us by a socialist economy. I know which one I’d choose.

Of course, there needs not to be a strict black vs. white either/or. A partially free market, with controls to balance out social stability and EGI interests, may be optimal.

Talking to Eastern Europeans, there *were* some advantages in their system, but of course, those advantages were not worth the gross ineffiency and poverty resulting from it. But, many of the problems of the system were due to rigidity imposed by ideology, as well as exploitation of satellite states for Soviet interests, or, in the case of the USSR itself, ideology and military expenditure.

I note that their birthrates plummeted after embracing “liberal democracy.”

Posted by Daedalus on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:18 | #

Wasn’t the Smoot-Hawley tariff enacted after the Great Depression began? The notion that Smoot-Hawley was the cause of the Depression is ludicrous on its face. International trade accounted for little in the way of American GNP at that time.

Posted by Count Dooku on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 22:43 | #

I’m not suggesting capitalism is totally responsible for miscegnation. Capitalism made it possible for “talented” Blacks like OJ and Seal and other Black models of success to score good looking blonde White women and it also allowed the media to promote cultural degeneracy including miscegnation in pursuit of the all mighty buck.

We do not have to choose between multicult capitalism and white socialism. We can have white capitalism and if anything, the presence of Blacks necessitates the need for socialism which we will see more of as the West turns more non-White.

Posted by James Bowery on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 23:00 | #

I had written: “property rights (the maintenance of which are, after all, the primary service of governments in capitalist regimes).

Alex responded: Not quite true if said of most modern gov’ts.

Most modern governments are a devil’s brew of capitalism biased in favor of the wealthy and socialism biased in favor of minorities.

Alex further responded: Infact, if you consider immigration control a matter of property rights (of the natives to their homeland), not at all.

This is a perfect example of said devil’s brew.

Posted by Al Ross on Mon, 28 Aug 2006 23:44 | #

“German foreign policy isnt hitched to Israel”, wrote KM.
In fact, it is so assiduously promoting Israel’s interests that Germany cannot send peacekeeping troops, even under the UN banner, to the Lebanon for fear of having to engage the IDF.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:04 | #

“On Holliday, you may like to try North Korea, an admirably “homogenous state.”

Or how about pre-immigration Sweden?

“You are at least 40 years out of date in your diagnosis of the Great Depression”

Right, which is why I cite recent analyses.

“the idea that it was caused by the Coolidge propsperity was exploded by the 1960s, notably by Friedman and Schwarz.”

With an ethnic interest in promoting unrestrained capitalism?

“It had 3 causes (i) the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, (ii) the collapse of the money supply after the Bank of the United States fauiled in December 1930 and (iii) the public spending boondoggles and tax increases of both Hoover and Roosevelt, particulalry the Hoover tax increase of 1932.”

Er, the Depression preceded FDR, and took place near the beginning of Hoover’s tenure.

“There is now complete agreement on this diagnosis except among the extreme loony left, mainly because we did not have Great Depressions after 1987 (bigger crash than 1929) or 2000 (more overvaluation than 1929.)”

Er, the system had in place checks and balances with those latter dates, designed to prevent a collapse. They *did* learn something. To say that the initial collapse could not have been due to cause “X”, just because “X” didn’t result in the same at a later date, under different conditions, is illogical.

And, no, one does not have to be a “loony leftist” to disagree with your views; there are plenty of “mainstream” analyses on the internet that say different. Just picking a random sample of the highest ranking google/yahoo hits on this subject are revealing, and are not from, as far as I can tell, “loony leftists.”

“I agree about the property rights inherent in birth in a country being destroyed by excessive immigration, but preusme you;’ve never actually lived in a country ruled by Socialists. I did: Britain 1950-1979.”

No, some of us live in a country ruled by right globalists in alliance with left globalists, the USA.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:13 | #

“Are you aware that the the “gross income mal-distribution” you bemoan is actually the fundamental inequality produced by the fact that a free market does not indulge the special pleading of the stupid?”

No, the exact opposite is the case, the free market indulges the stupidity of the masses, which is why mulatto athletes earn 500x more than the techno-professionals and why CEOs earn outrageous salaries even when their companies fail. A bipolar economy is not healthy for the long-term stability of a nation.

“As for your social stability comment, really, don’t make me laugh. Are you even aware of the Britain in the 1970s, let alone of the USSR, North Korea, Tiannoman Square, etc, etc?”

See above. Scandinavian nations, for example, had asmirable social systems that well fitted states which were ethnically homogenous.

Is Britain more socially stable now? Or do you consider that once Britain becomes a Muslim state, the Imans will enforce said stability?

“Daedalus, most of the measures that KM bemoans took place after the stock market collapse. If not for the disincentives to productive work created by these, the economy would have recovered the way it did after the stock market collapses of 1987 and 2000.”

See above, it is illogical to equate the 1930s with these latter dates, without taking into account infrastructure evolved to specifically prevent an economic collapse.

“Finally, I would like to ask all the anti-free market types on here to answer a simply question. What actual social policies do you support?”

“U/e benefit?”
yes.
“Free healthcare?”
yes.
“Anti-discrimination legislation?”
Obviously no, and stop with the strawmen. All of my views are assuming a homogenous state. The USA may as well keep its current economic system as it is leading the establishment to ultimate ruin.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 10:21 | #

“Miscegenation is caused not by the free market, but by the aracial progoganda, fed to us mostly by gov’t run schools and gov’t commissions, and enforced by gov’t police officers. Victroian Britain had a far more freer market then the one we have nowadays, and yet still believed in the age old wisdom that “high fences make good neighbours.” It was the expansion of state power in the 40s and 50s which allowed the easy flow of immigration into the West, aswell as creating (through responsibilty-and-thrift-discouraging free healthcare, etc) the hippy phenomenum. These hippies, reared on gov’t-enforced equality of outcomes, began to agitate for yet more of the same, eventually leading to the displacement of Europeans from their homeland. “

No. “Right globalists”, including your gods of big business have long promoted immigration for cheap labor. Advertising promotes miscegenation and privately-owned capitalist Hollywood promote miscegenation as much as any “gov’t schools.”

You really believe that “hippes” were responsible for immigration? The US Congress and LBJ in 1965 were hippies? John McCain, Vietnam vet, was a hippie? The good conservative Bush, JJR’s rightist hero and god, a hippie?

Victorian Britain? That’s your example? What? They didn’t have their own low-paid, low living standard workforce? Of course they did. Was there easy international travel then? It was cheaper to have cockneys slaving away in the factories then import Pakistanis from half a world away.

The USA, with its more open spaces, was a different story, and, anyway, the 1924 immigration restriction was designed to end an immigration flood that had nothing to do with hippes or “leftists”, but a desire for immigrant labor.

Posted by Daedalus on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:56 | #

Daedalus, most of the measures that KM bemoans took place after the stock market collapse. If not for the disincentives to productive work created by these, the economy would have recovered the way it did after the stock market collapses of 1987 and 2000. As it was, the recession continued and hence became the Great Depression.

The structure of the U.S. economy in 1987 and 2000 was radically different from what it was in 1929. In those days, international trade accounted for only a miniscule portion of U.S. GNP. That’s one reason why America had such relatively high tariffs on foreign imports. Trade had little to do with American prosperity. Smoot Hawley could not have possibly caused the Great Depression.

Finally, I would like to ask all the anti-free market types on here to answer a simply question. What actual social policies do you support? U/e benefit? Free healthcare? Anti-discrimination legislation?

What do you mean by the free market? I support state intervention in the economy if that is what you are getting at. That’s one of the fundamental reasons we have traditionally had a strong middle class in America.

Posted by Al Ross on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 11:59 | #

On Holliday’s point about Scandinavian nations having admirable social systems is well taken. While Sweden’s welfare system was utilised for the benefit of EGI it worked well enough in tandem with an economy which was far less state-controlled than that of pre-Thatcher UK.

Even in state-controlled businesses the Swedes have done well, the marketing of Absolut Vodka being an almost embarrassing success for the national liquor firm, the raison d’etre of which was to effect a limitation of domestic alcohol consumption.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 12:24 | #

“What do you mean by the free market? I support state intervention in the economy if that is what you are getting at. That’s one of the fundamental reasons we have traditionally had a strong middle class in America.”

That is one point of agreement between Daedalus and myself.

I care nothing for labels of “left” or “right”, nor worshipping on the altar of the “free market” or “socialism.”

I am interested in policies that will create a society that promotes EGI and a situation where all classes in that society have a stake in defending it.

If that means state intervention in the economy, so be it.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:43 | #

“Presumably it is healthy when inefficently run gov’t depts get more funding because of their desperate ‘need’. “

One would assume that a racially homogenous, nationalist state would have “gov’t depts” that are run efficiently. Pay attention.

“As for CEOs earning enormouse salaries when their companies fail, that is the fault of their idiotic investors who fail to ensure a performance related pay-scale. Investors who make such mistakes are amply punished by the market, demosntrating that it does not suffer fools gladly.”

Not punished enough it seems, since outraegeous CEO salaries and buyouts are commonplace. One wonders if the market was so efficient in correcting these errors, why do the errors predominate?

With respect to “idiotic investors” - that is my point. Investors are idiotic, and consumers are idiotic. An efficient free market -one that actually works to benefit the society in the long run - presupposes a population that is not composed of drooling idiots.

Since many investors - presumably more economically more savvy than the average consuming moron - are, by your own words, “idiotic”, this doesn’t hold out much hope.

Thus, sneering mulatto athletes earn more in one game than the combined yearly salaries of 2 or 3 educated professionals.

“Scandinavians used to have the work ethic to make their socialism work. That has since dissipitated (broken by welfare-dependency), leaving Sweden somewhat in the lurch for the past couple of decades. Socialism destroys the very social forces that make it possible.”

First, I’m not advocating pure socialism per se (which, incidentally, Hitlerism, funded by big business, was not), but a mixed economy - a mixed economy being, by definition, not a “pure” “free market.”

Second, one cannot tease out effects of a “broken work ethic” from immigration in analyzing the Swedish situation. It’s one thing to work for a welfare state that gives benefits to co-ethnics, another to work to support black and brown reproduction.

“As for your second paragraph, I’m afraid I find it simply meaningless. Imams? Muslim state? From whence do you get the extraordianry idea that I welcome the Islamisation of the UK? Isn’t that, ah, a strawman? “

No. The Pakistanis were let into Northern England to work the textile mills; the “free market” needed labor. As is the usual state of affairs, big businessmen is suits, with their stock portfolios, are more responsible for immigration flow than are flower-bedecked “hippies.”

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 14:48 | #

“big businessmen is suits,”

that is:

big businessmen in suits…

The corporate world - prime facillator of immigration.

All you have to do is read any prominent economics mag or paper - Economist, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, and you’ll see the proponents of the “free market” raving about the benefits of immigration and outsourcing - more so than any “hippies.”

It is no coincidence that the most pro-immigration member of MR is John Ray - the hyper-capitalist “rightist” libertarian, investor, and real estate “baron.”

Posted by James Bowery on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 16:12 | #

“Conservatives” have a point that bad incentives create bad character. The problem is, they are themselves subject to bad incentives and end up not applying the principle to themselves out of the bad character generated by those bad incentives. We get hypocrites like John Jay Ray holding land and running around defining “libertarian” principles.

Libertarian principles are just fine if they aren’t corrupted by the hypocrites. While there are many ways to be a hypocritical libertarian there is one dominant theme of “libertarian” hypocrisy:

When it comes to property rights that would not exist in the absence of government, the so-called “libertarians” think they should pay no fees for their maintanence. They think they have a “moral right” to property that was acquired as part of a “fair deal” and that this “moral right” entitles them to the heroic sacrifice (altruism) of others to defend “civilization”. In other words, the moment their own civilization-supported property rights become the subject “conservatives” suddenly burst forth in full drag as welfare queens.

Now the main lynchpin of this situation is the taxation of economic activity—which they reasonably decry. But you’ll never hear a “conservative” or “libertarian” demanding that a wealth tax become the primary source of government revenue due to the fact that it is a use fee for property rights that would not exist in the absence of the govenrment.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 17:45 | #

“Your whole argument rests on stating that the state will be well run (based on what?) even though it is badly run now, whilst the market will always remain as badly run as it is now. Notice a contradiction?”

No. After several generations of a eugenics program the average moron will no longer be a moron, and then, perhaps a “free market” can work.

The state, on the other hand - and note I am against democracy - would be run by an elite, of higher cognitive ability than the mass.

An economy run by the same elite would not be a free market.

The principle is completely different; a free market would be equivalent to mass democracy, in which people “vote” with their consumption and investing, rather in the voting booth.

And I thought the “conservatives” were against mass democracy? Or, is mass participation “bad” in politics but “good” in economics?

Posted by Desmond Jones on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:18 | #

Does not an America, without the Fourteenth Amendment, and its precursor, the Civil Rights Act of 1866:

‘All citizens of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and Territory, as is enjoyed by white citizens thereof to inherit, purchase, lease, sell, hold, and convey real and personal property.’

effectively fulfill the principal of ethnic genetic interests?

Did not the Fourteenth Amendment inhibit judicial enforcement by state courts of restrictive covenants based on race? If Harmen and Tyler, 1927, or Buchanan v. Warley were upheld, then ordinances forbidding blacks to establish a home on any property in a white community or any white person to establish a home in a black community, ‘except on the written consent of a majority of the persons of the opposite race inhabiting such community or portion of the City to be affected remain valid.

Possibly, Mr. Tillman might advise.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 18:19 | #

“If I were you, I would steer clear of subjects you don’t understand.”

Why then do you post at all?

Seriously though, note that I give references (links) for my assertions, and you do not.

“Alex, well done.”

The blind leading the blind.

“On Holliday, the state is never well run, no matter who’s running it.”

I see. We shall be stateless. And when the Chinese come to pick up the pieces, we’ll have a bunch of middle-aged libertarians to fight them off.

Wonderful.

A stateless society is possible only in a world without states.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:20 | #

Right, Alex. I’m the only one is this debate who has actually provided links to back up assertions. Better to hear you and “Karl” shill for corporate interests and the “free market”, offering nothing but ancecdotes.

“Illogical. Just because something cannot be well run doesn’t mean that it isn’t necessary. “

Talking about the “free market” here?

“and so should be trusted to do only that which will not be done by private actors”

And who are these private actors and what evidence is there that they are more efficient than the state?
Who? Enron?

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 19:30 | #

The efficient market:

http://www.forbes.com/finance/lists/54/2004/LIR.jhtml?passListId=54&passYear=2004&passListType=Person&uniqueId=O0ZT&datatype=Person

Oprah, private actor.

Maybe Winfrey and Rodriguez can have a tea party where they can exchange investment tips, discuss their Negro ancestry, and pontificate on their contributions to society.

After all, with one at 1.3 billion, and the other at 252 million, the trusty market forces tell us that they must have, you know, found a cure for cancer or something…

Posted by Top on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 21:14 | #

I understand Holiday when he argues thing like the following:

“I am interested in policies that will create a society that promotes EGI and a situation where all classes in that society have a stake in defending it. “

I am just not quite sure what Karl and Alex are arguing, if anything at all. Can they please explain it to me - thank-you.

Posted by Top on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 22:34 | #

This how I look at the whole government versus free market issue.

While I agree with most free market policies I do believe that the government has some functions in the economic sphere - I think everyone here agrees with that. I see the government as a safeguard against some of the excesses of unregulated capitalism AND as a tool for long term planning of social units – ranging from municipal to national. Specifically in regard to the arguments made on this web site, I would like to see in that the Western governments implement a solid demographic policy based on realistic criteria grounded in history, current knowledge of human ethnic relations, and such concepts as EGI – as opposed to the LaLa land fantasies that it is based on today.

I think immigration and all forms of human migration needs to be strictly controlled in the West as step one. I believe failure to do will be disastrous and result in long term harm not just the West, but to all of humanity. I envision a strict point-like system for human migration where ethnic proximity and cultural proximity (along with other criteria) are used for regulation of human movement to the West. The government needs to be able to correct the short-sightedness of the free market in this respect. Just as a company is regulated on the harm it causes to the environment, so the company needs to be regulated on the demographic impact it causes by its hiring policies.

These are just examples though. The whole structure needs to be changed at a philosophical level– because as far as I am concerned the structure of government/market no longer reflects my long term interests – and by that I am arguing it no longer serves other people of European origin. And why should I want a society that is based on what no longer serves our interests just so a few idiots can have a huge mansion and lots of cars and women? What do we have to gain by having a ‘free’ market (whatever that means) if we lose site of what’s in our long term interest? We the people define what the market and government should be and they should serve us. When it comes to demographic policies in the West they BOTH need to change because right now they both suck. Step one is to agree that change is necessary.

Posted by On Holliday on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:28 | #

Thank you Top, for those sensible comments. Like you, I do not totally eschew market forces; rather, one needs to view the economy as a means to an end, rather than as an end to itself. That is one problem I have with many so-called “conservatives” and “rightists” - race, culture, tradition all take a back seat to “economic growth” and the “generation of wealth.” I think most people would rather be middle-class and healthy, rather than wealthy and riddled with terminal cancer. The latter describes the west today, dempgraphically and culturally, and to the extent that “the market” promotes immigration flow (“the economy needs it”) and cultural degradation (“what the people want”) it needs to be regulated.

Top makes some sensible suggestions. I would add that surplus wealth should be subject to a more stringent progressive tax *and* that should be linked to value of the economic activity. Putting race aside for the moment, a billion dollars of wealth generated by Bill Gates should be valued more than the same generated by Oprah Winfrey. The latter’s wealth should be taxed to a greater extent than Gates’, although Gates too should contribute to society.

The argument that a net worth of $10 billion is more of an incentive to “effort and productivity” than a net worth of, say, $3 billion, leaves me a bit skeptical. The $7 billion difference could be plowed back into society, for example, funding eugnenics and helping moderate income, bright white couples have more children, or plowed back into other areas of need for society. Better than Gates’ present use of the money, giving charity to coloreds.

Some will argue that, “it’s his money.” Very well. A drafted soldier can argue, “it’s my life”, and so he chooses not to expend his life defending the property rights of the elder generation, or whatever other scheme leads to warfare.

If we ask members of our society to risk their lives for the alleged “good of the country”, it is not too much to ask someone to be a “lesser billionaire”, instead of a “greater billionaire.”

Posted by Count Dooku on Tue, 29 Aug 2006 23:57 | #

This is an excellent article on how White South Africa destroyed itself through capitalism and mass immigration.

http://www.realiteit.co.za/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=573&mode=thread

In 1980, White South Africa was acknowledged—even by her enemies—as the most powerful country on the African continent. Now, 25 years later, this White giant has collapsed and is in the hands of the ANC. The Afrikaners, once masters of the country, are today a subject nation, ruled by people, who only 120 years ago, did not have the wheel.
How did this happen? What happened to Apartheid? Why did that policy not guarantee White survival in that country? What went wrong? Arthur Kemp provides the answer.

It is one of the many bitter ironies about South Africa that the policy of Apartheid – to which Afrikaners clung for decades as their only hope and salvation from Third World domination – was in fact an impracticable and unworkable system which led directly to the Afrikaners’ demise as a political force in that country.

The politicians—the National Party—who fostered Apartheid, are the primary criminals in this tragedy, holding out a false illusory hope to the Afrikaners, and then when the inevitable became just that, changed track and gave in, abandoning their followers to ANC rule as callously as they had earlier lied to them.

For Apartheid – in reality forced social segregation – was nothing but an illusion, a twisted distortion of the demographic reality of South Africa, not to mention the truth that it was, ultimately, morally repugnant as well.

Who really wants to rule over millions of non-Whites by force? What sane White person would wish that as a legacy to their children?

Worse, the conservative White South African politicians – all of them - never understood – and possibly still today, do not understand – what the driving force of political power is: namely, physical occupation.

Political power comes from physical occupation: not historical rights, not title deeds, not moral rights – only occupation. Those people who occupy a territory determine the nature of the society in that region. Two examples, familiar to all, illustrate this point well:

Example 1: North America. On that continent, the American Indian (Amerind) people lived for thousands of years, creating a culture which dominated that continent. The culture of North America reflected the fact that the Amerinds lived and formed the majority population there.

After 1500 AD, however, that continent filled up with White immigrants from Europe. These White immigrants displaced the Amerinds by squeezing them out of possession of North America.

The great shift in North America then occurred. Whereas the Amerind culture had dominated for thousands of years, in a few hundred years the dominant civilization on that continent had become White European. This shift reflected the fact that the majority of inhabitants of North America had become White Europeans—and the Amerind civilization “fell” because the population of North America changed.

This effect—the displacement of peoples and the subsequent disappearance of their civilization—has direct implications in racial terms. The rise and fall of any particular civilization can therefore be traced, not by the economics, politics, morals etc. of a particular civilization, but rather by the actual racial presence of the people themselves. If the society which has produced a particular civilization stays intact as a racially homogeneous unit, then that civilization remains active.

If, however, the society within any particular given area changes its racial makeup—through invasion, immigration, or any decline in numbers—then the civilization which that society has produced will disappear with them, to be replaced by a new civilization reflecting the new inhabitants of that territory.

Example 2: Israel. The state of Israel is today a political reality, not because the Bible says Jews belong there (although many Jews and Christians might think so), but simply because the Zionist movement has ensured that Jews are a majority in that territory. This was done through a deliberate policy of settlement and immigration, coordinated over decades.

This also forms the rationale behind the current Israeli government’s plans to build up Jewish settlements in the occupied Arab West Bank: by physically occupying the territory, they hope to change the make-up of that region to the point where it becomes de facto part of Israel. History teaches us that there are two main reasons for a change in the racial make-up of any
society: either military occupation or the use of foreign or alien labor.

The American Indians serve as a text book example of the “military occupation” case study, as detailed earlier, while South Africa serves as a text book example of the “use of foreign labor” case study. When a change occurs through the use of alien labor, the following process occurs:

- The dominant society imports (usually racially) foreign labor to do the menial work in that society.
- These racial aliens then become established, settle down and multiply in numbers by drawing upon the society’s structures (in White countries, their science, healthcare, technology, etc.)
- They grow in number, and finally dominate that society by their sheer numbers.

It is, simply put, a demographic reality: those who occupy a land, determine the nature of that society. And so it was – and is – with South Africa, where population figures reveal precisely how the use of alien labor by the Afrikaners dispossessed them of their fatherland.

Consider the following: in 1904, the first population census of the old Transvaal (one of four provinces in the ‘old’ South Africa) revealed that there were 297,277 Whites and 937,127 non-Whites in that region. (Transvaal,
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.) Importantly, the 1904 census also tells us that of these non-Whites, some 135,042 were not from the Transvaal, and only were in the “Witwatersrand to work in the gold and other mines”, and that only 77% of all Blacks in the Transvaal in 1904 were actually born there.

What this means is that, with the transient migrant laborers removed from the equation, there were 297,277 Whites and 802,085 Transvaal born Blacks in the region. Now, according to the 1960 census, the population of the Transvaal numbered 6,225,052, of which only 1,455,372 were Whites (Transvaal, Encyclopedia Britannica, 1966). This was just the figure for the Transvaal, it needs to be noted. For the entire country, the figures were/are even more frightening: in 1966, there were 4.5 million Whites to anywhere between 30 and 35 million non-Whites.

What caused this disproportionate population imbalance to swing from 802,000 Blacks in the Boer homeland in 1904, to 4,769,680 in 1960 – just 56 years?

The answer: the Black numbers multiplied because they were drawn to the Transvaal by the offer of work, and once settled there, used White society benefits (healthcare, technology, etc.) to exponentially increase their numbers.

It was not just in the Transvaal where the use of non-White labor caused this massive demographic shift.

The east coast city of Durban, in the ‘old’ province of Natal provides yet another breathtaking example. According to the Durban city police department’s report of 31 July, 1893, there were only 360 “native women, including Hottentots” in that city in that year. Although that report does not specify how many Black males were in Durban in 1893, given that there were this few females, it is safe to assume that a fairly similar number of males were present. In any event, it is unlikely that the Black population of Durban was more than 1,000 – this in 1893.

According to the 2001 census, the population of Durban consisted of
3,090,117 people of whom 277,492 (nine percent) were White, as opposed to
2,812,625 non-Whites. This includes some 618,000 Indians, imported by the British to provide cheap labor in the city.

The formalization of Apartheid by the National Party after 1948 did therefore not address the real issue: namely that the White population was simply being outnumbered by non-Whites because they wanted the non-Whites to do all the manual labor.

This issue has faced every minority trying to rule over a majority country throughout history: the contradiction of allowing huge numbers of racial aliens into the territory in question to do the labor; whilst trying to prevent that civilization from being overwhelmed by foreign numbers.

The truth is that it cannot be done.

In South Africa, almost every White household had (and still has) one or more Black servants. They have a maid (or maids) to clean the house; a ‘garden boy’ or two to keep the garden neat; and all building work is always done by Black laborers. It is an ironic truth that Blacks did indeed build the infrastructure of White South Africa – as the laborers, not as the planners or directors, but certainly as the muscle power.

The Afrikaner farmers who are now being murdered complain bitterly of the attacks on their properties, and of the impending government plans to seize and redistribute their farms. Yet it was those same Afrikaner farmers who were the ones who employed (and still do) hundreds of Black laborers on those farms, providing their families with housing, schools, food, and of course, churches. It is estimated that each Afrikaner farmer still to this day, employs anywhere between 100 and 300 Black laborers – and then still provides for their families as well. Outnumbered on their ‘own’ farms by hundreds to one, it is little wonder that the White farmers are subjected to such attacks.

In the mines, the economic heart of the country, the vast majority of common laborers, numbering many hundreds of thousands, are Black.

All over the country the overwhelming majority of laborers doing almost everything, from factory work to driving, from road building to house building, were (and still are) Black.

Over this mass of economic integration, the Apartheid government attempted to enforce social segregation and still maintain a White government: it was a plan which was doomed from the start.

Apartheid was based on a fallacy: the fallacy that non-Whites could be used as labor to drive society; that non-Whites could physically form a majority inside South Africa, but that they could not determine the nature of South African society. The huge Black housing complex of Soweto, located outside Johannesburg as a dormitory town for non-White labor working in the ‘White’
city, was, for example, built up in 1961 – at the height of the Apartheid policy, which was supposed to be saving the Whites.

In fact, all that Apartheid actually did was guarantee that Whites would most certainly be overrun by the ever-growing non-White numbers. Apartheid was built on the premise that Blacks could do the labor, and could live segregated in the areas from where they performed the labor.

This then, was the lie of Apartheid: that it was possible, through strict segregation, to ensure that Blacks could not rule over a country in which they were/are the majority.

The historical record is clear: there has never been a society in which the majority of the population has not determined the nature of that society.

Nowhere, ever.

White South Africans, it must be said, more or less believed the lie: they were happy to have Black domestic servants; to have Blacks serve them in restaurants; iron their clothes; make up the very beds they slept in – and were prepared to believe that this mass of established Black labor inside their territory would never have any effect upon the political power structure of their country.

It is said, in jest, that the definition of a White South African is ‘someone who would rather be murdered in their bed than make it.’

Amusing? To be honest, not really: consider these true examples:

* Under Apartheid, Blacks could not use White public toilets, but were used to clean those same toilets each day. One can only wonder at the naiveté of such an arrangement.

* Under Apartheid, Blacks could work in restaurant kitchens, prepare the food, put it on the plates and deliver it to the White patrons’ tables, but could not eat that food at the same table in that same restaurant. What hypocrisy is that? Surely if one was going to be consistent, one would have forbidden Blacks from working in restaurants completely: but no, Apartheid didn’t go that far, it was built upon the premise that Blacks did do the work.

Cynical observers talked about the “grass mower” syndrome amongst South African Whites. They regarded Black labor as akin to lawn mowers. A lawn mower sits quietly in its shed or garage until you need it, then it mows the grass, and then you put it back in the shed where it stays quietly, not causing any trouble, until the next time it is needed.

Somehow, White South Africans believed that Black labor was like a lawn
mower: you could have it around, and when you didn’t need it, you could hide it in its little shed where it would be good and quiet – until you needed it again. The reality is, of course, dramatically different.

Another important part of the Apartheid lie was that military force could keep the system intact. The demographic reality once again belies this: the South African White population totaled about 5 million at its height, while the Black population at that time was around 30 million.

Of the 5 million Whites, less than 800,000 were of military serviceable age, and not even all of these could be called up at any one time, so in reality the state had to rely on no more than a few hundred thousand military personnel at any one time – to try and control a Black population of millions.

Given that demographic reality, it can be seen that Apartheid was unsustainable by military means. Yet the lie continued, and young White South Africans were conscripted into the army and police to fight and die for a system which was doomed from the very beginning.

At the same time, White Western healthcare and technology was made available on a massive scale: the largest hospital in the Southern Hemisphere was erected in the Black township of Soweto, outside Johannesburg, specifically for the Black population. Infant mortality rates for Blacks fell dramatically (and were way below that of the rest of Black ruled Africa).

This rapid population growth put additional pressure on the demographic makeup of the country.

- snip -

Posted by WJG on Wed, 30 Aug 2006 04:24 | #

Count Dooku,

That essay is essential reading for any White Nationalist; I think I saw it before at National Vanguard or Duke’s site. All the talk about conservatives, liberals, communists, capitalists, nazis, libertarians, blah, blah, blah, is interesting but not very important while the ship is sinking.

That essay describes clearly the fundamental principle of our plight. The greatest beneficiaries of apartheid, like American slavery, were Africans. Other non-White groups were lifted up (or profited) as well; Indians in SA, Meztisos in the US, and the vulture always. We were/are the only clear losers in the deal. If the Africans weren’t brought in to these White countries there would be a much smaller number of them and they would be living in their typical squalor. Likewise, our people wouldn’t have had a false prosperity which depressed our fertility and made us soft paper pushers.

A people who don’t do their own work don’t deserve to survive. Ironically it is White Separatists – we who detest importing foreign workers – who are called Supremacists when the opposite is true. I not only don’t want to lord over a non-white, I don’t even want them to pick up my trash. Each should rule his own. Each should do his own work.

Posted by Daedalus on Thu, 31 Aug 2006 00:20 | #

Daedalus, I was referring not to the tariffs, but to Roosevelt’s domestic policy of public works, which consisted of taking money from the provident (reducing the incentives to be so) and using it to fund useless make-work programs. The tax burden this created slowed the reignition of genuine business enterprise. Other nations, e.g. France and UK, which followed orthodox economic policy, recovered from the depression much quicker than the Keynesian run USA.

So, the New Deal is to blame for the Great Depression now, not Smoot Hawley? FDR was elected president in 1932 and came to power in early 1933. The Great Depression had been going on for over three years by then. FDR won reelection against Landon in 1936 in one of the greatest landslides in American history precisely because his economic policies were perceived as making a difference, especially for the rural poor (Southern whites never forgot TVA). The Republican Party didn’t fully recover from Hoover’s discredited economic policies until the Reagan years. Eisenhower was a war hero. Both Nixon and Eisenhower were committed to big government economic policies.

Government spending kept the U.S. mired in the Depression? Just the opposite was true. By 1936, American unemployment had been reduced substantially thanks to government spending, and the worst aspects of the Depression of the Hoover years were receding into the past. It was government spending on rearmament and Allied war orders from 1938 that lifted the U.S. out of the Depression. American planners learned a lesson from this and government spending still hasn’t returned to pre-Depression levels right down to the present.

If government spending caused the Great Depression, then certainly such spending should have caused a much worse Depression during the late forties, fifties, and sixties when spending was at record highs. That’s not what happened at all. In the postwar period, which is still romantizied as something of a golden age in America, government spending radically reduced income inequality and eliminated the ultimate cause of the Great Depression. The GI Bill put millions of veterans through college and into the ranks of the middle class.

The circumstances of France and Britain are not comparable to the U.S. France was still a predominantly rural country in the 1930s. Britain’s prosperity was far more dependent upon international trade. Also, unlike the United States, which still had an army smaller than Romania’s in 1938, France and Britain began rearmament much sooner. The only European country really comparable to the U.S. at the time would have been Germany, another highly industrialized country, which similarly lifted itself out of the Depression through government spending and rearmament.

You say you support state intervention, well so do I. Please tell us what sort of intervention you support and why.

I consider myself a strong supporter of America’s traditional economic policy of managed capitalism, probably best articulated best by Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Henry Clay. Numerous examples of this come to mind: the Homestead bill, the restrictive tariffs which protected the American market and encouraged industrial development, the founding of the agricultural colleges during the nineteenth century, government support for public education, the creation of a strong navy to promote American commerce abroad.

There are million reasons why I oppose laissez-faire capitalism, but perhaps the most important is the devastating role free market orthodoxy has played in retarding the development of the American South. The defeat of the Confederacy by the Union in the Civil War and the loss of our independence that followed is in my view the ultimate refutation of such theories. For example, at the outset of the war, the South had barely no manufacturing industries, little in the way of railroads, a third of the population of the North, and was completely without a navy; which had all been promoted by conscious, government subsidized industrial development in the North over the previous sixty years.

Comments:

Post a comment:

Existential Issues

DNA Nations

Categories

Contributors

Links

MR Central & News

Comments