}
It cannot be denied that fascism and similar movements aimed at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has for the moment saved European civilization. The merit that fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.
- Ludwig van Mises in his book 'Liberalism' (1927)
Still reading? Great, you made it through the first 2 sentences of that quote without imploding! I want to congratulate you. Indeed, it is not an easy to digest quote for many and it also left Mises and libertarian thinkers following his tradition being targeted by some intellectuals as supporters of fascism.
Mises' 1927 book 'Liberalism' has been largely ignored, except for its comments on fascism. Marxists Herbert Marcuse and Perry Anderson, as well as German writer Claus-Dieter Krohn, criticized Mises for writing approvingly of Italian Fascism, especially for its suppression of leftist elements. In 2009 economist J. Bradford DeLong and sociologist Richard Seymour, repeated the criticism.
If you'd ask me, I am baffled as to how well known and supposedly smart 'intellectuals' weren't able to neutrally handle this quote and how this knockout-argument against Mises still prevails up until today's left-leaning circles. Please note, that he wrote all this before Hitler even rose to power in Germany, making the shots fired at Mises even more irrational. The only reasons behind this smearing attempts I can come up with are, that either these people really are just to hysterical to have a sincere discussion about one of the most important times of modern history, or just trying to reject Mises' points in order to justify dismissing his life work and all that he stood for in its entirety. Not too unrealistic, given these people are mostly hard-bitten anti-capitalists, that have to enforce the idea of classical liberal philosophy being tyrannical and restraining, to divert from the involved violence in their own collectivist stance.
Frankly put, people should actually commend his statement about fascism, which was a very early, yet almost prophetic side note on the future dangers of submitting to this model of society.
Mises biographer Jörg Guido Hülsmann says that critics who suggest that Mises supported fascism are 'absurd', as he notes that the full quote describes fascism as dangerous. He notes that Mises thought it was a 'fatal error' to think that it was more than an 'emergency makeshift' against the looming threat of communism and socialism, as exemplified by the Bolsheviks in Russia
Social Democrats, The Forgotten Mussolini Fanboys
What the hardcore as well as the moderate left ignores completely, is the fact that progressives and social democrats basically all over the western world hyped Mussolini's corporatist leadership, while others wouldn't even figure things out later on, regarding Hitler's seeming success with national-socialism in its infancy. From The Journal of Historical Review, (May-June 1995):
America's image today of Benito Mussolini and his Italian Fascist regime is, to a considerable extent, a product of Second World War propaganda. The wartime image of the Duce (leader) as a clownish bully remains largely intact to this day. But this was not always so. During the 1920s and early 1930s, Mussolini and Fascist Italy were generally well regarded in the United States.
Yet the only one, they point fingers at is Mises, who at the very same time dedicated his entire book 'Liberalism' to point out the flaws of collectivism and the overarching state, not failing to neutrally and soundly depict and forecast fascism as what it was. Namely as a tiny bit lesser developed violent 'evil' at most, in its relation to the Marxist threat to European liberty. In later years he would just be even more outspoken about it. In comparison, let's look up what FDR had to say about Mussolini's reign:
President Franklin Roosevelt expressed admiration for the Italian leader, and sent him cordial letters. In June 1933, Roosevelt praised Mussolini in a letter to an American envoy: “... I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble.” In another letter a few weeks later, the President wrote: “I don't mind telling you in confidence that I am keeping in fairly close touch with the admirable Italian gentleman.”
Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning is a book by Jonah Goldberg, in which he argues that fascist movements were and are left-wing
Crazy, right? Fascism and National-Socialism a left-wing movement? FDR labeled as the 'American Mussolini' in a praising manner? Even though Germany's fascist party had the words 'socialism' and 'workers party' in its name, all of this a widely contested perspective. Yet when adopted, it makes the political forces fall in line perfectly. Everything is a struggle between collectivism and individualism. Emphasizing on the most crucial factor, the amount of coercion involved. We would've made real progress, if society would accept this simple change in angles, when looking at political factions depicted in one line.
So, what about the Right?
Now, that leads me to address the other side of the coin. As I hinted in my last post on immigration, the right-wing, especially the Alt-Right is not so far away from their despised counterpart. They are much closer together in all their strategies as any of them would like to admit or even realize. And that is the part, where history seems to repeat itself in a weird way.
So relating to Mises' insights, I'd outline Fascism historically as a reactionary movement to Marxism, resulting in a statist built up through a leading figure, who was able to drive a populist paradigm change, carrying the moderate majority along, which was stationed on both sides of the political spectrum. People of all factions were fished with either nationalistic or general worker's ambitions, except the very few left principled liberals, which were either ignored, demonized or hunted down in the prevailing post-crisis anti-capitalist raise.
What lead to the Alt-Right phenomenon? More or less the same thing: It gained momentum as a reactionary movement this time to cultural Marxism. The post-crisis big-government part didn't fall short with Trumps rather protectionist ambitions, that got huge support from the American worker and also from the self-proclaimed conservatives, who could easily argue for this rather progressive intervention in a nationalistic manner. Even the slogan "Make America Great Again" is resembling the referral to old glory very much as Mussolini did with Italy's Roman history. But all of this is only a dampened, arguably soft version compared of what we know today of Fascism. Well, for the most part. But it's not just about Trumps protectionism, nor his almost 'neoconish' foreign policy. Not even about Trump's populist leader role.
Where I see the pattern of history disfiguring society the most is the Alt- and New-right grasroots offspring. It's the millenials, who didn't even live long enough to remember a time, where they weren't fighting "terrorism in the Middle East". It's about the white guy, who had to deal all his life with being called a racist, while being bullied by some black self proclaimed 'gangster' for being white, now in a position to 'strike back'.
All of those, who at some point would have seen themselves as moderate, maybe right, maybe left-leaning people, who mostly were fed anti-religious propaganda by state education and war propaganda by corporate media. A great hotbed to trigger anti-islamic if not anti-(((jewish))) sentiment, once they found their 'alternative' media sources. While the latter might even derive from even more simplistic and sinister perceptions of world history.
The dedicated christian is also part of it, who is calling out Islam for its fundamentalist 'holy war', while being perfectly fine with justifying christian crusades as a mere consequential reaction to 'islamic expansion', even calling for a modern crusade to finally take back what's theirs. As if there was no western expansionist hegemony or political struggle preceding today's Islamist terrorism. As if this kind of thinking wassn't as abysmal as the narrative of their oriental fundamentalist counterparts.
But it's also the presumably smarter, professional and politically versed identitarian, studying everything but Mises, relentlessly pointing out the need to fight societies, that have too much 'warrior-genes' or a reduced average IQ, not even knowing, how these were the typical leftist approaches to take on world issues with 'scientifically justified' interventionism (apart from being unsound arguments in the first place).
It's also the 'pragmatist' libertarians and conservatives, that come up with ingenious guffs like 'we have to expand the state in order to save liberty!' Or guys like Richard Spencer emotively holding speeches about white nationalism, and trying to not come off as a supremacist, while calling for a white ethno-state or remigration, all of that state-managed of course.
Or the daily memeing troll, who started helicopter jokes in a dark humored amusement, just to find himself secretly leaning towards vindicating the idea to 'physically remove' unwanted people from his society. A notion taken out of its context entirely by the Alt-Right, that somehow tries to align themselves with the most radical Misesian Anarchocapitalist, Hans Herman Hoppe, while misrepresenting his stance and amusingly dismissing anarchy alltogether as 'way too cucky'. Guess what folks, you can't justify 'physical removal' outside of anarchist parameters. And it surely never meant to throw people out of flying helicopters, if they do not agree with your short-sighted egocentric ideal.
So next time, if someone calls out the Alt-Right as basically fascists and supremacists, you might still be able to laugh at them justifiably, as they most likely not even know what it means and surely didn't come to the conclusion by listening to people like Mises. But maybe you should be less forgiving, defending those attitudes and views, keeping an eye on the bigger picture: That apart from being the 'lesser of two evils', they're still far too interventionist, and far too collectivist. Many of them are arguably nothing more than disguised lefties turned sour in their reactionism. The most you get from them is a lip service to classical liberalism, which will be their first ideal thrown over board. None of this is needed in the liberty movement to fight off globalist elites and corrupt intellectuals, that try to mold society through coercion and power. In fact, it plays right in their hands in many ways. It's time to shake off all of these violent fantasies and reconsider principles over 'pragmatism', before it corrupts our core values. You know, those values that they are supposedly defending, while hailing towards an evermore authoritarian state, their savior, his ongoing wars and basically everything that has an European descent.
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