There has been a lot of talk about ex President Carter getting a ‘grammy’ for the audio verison of his latest it-is-all-the-fault-of-the-Jews book. And certainly he was honoured in the company one might expect. The ‘Dixie Chicks’ were honoured with three awards in spite of their commercial decline (Bush bashing trumps anything else), as was a gentleman whose songs are largely about ‘niggerz’ and his practice of beating up his ‘Ho’.
The award ceremony was, as it happens, held on the 28th anniversary of the Iranian Revolution – an event that occurred after then President James Earl Carter sold out the Shah. I wonder how many in the audience noted the irony.
However, ex-President Carter is not alone. There seems to be a broader movement in the South (for some time considered generally the most conservative part of the United States) towards something that reminds me of the late 19th and early 20 century Populism.
The Populists sometimes operated as a party in their own right, and sometimes as a faction of the Democratic party in the South (after the end of Reconstruction the Republican party virtually ceased to exist in the Southern States – so a lot of politics was between factions of the Democratic party) against conservative ‘Bourbon’ Democrats.
The stock in trade of the Populists was hatred of big business, the rich, Roman Catholics and Jews.
Ex Senator John Edwards recently got into trouble for having two bloggers on his pay roll who specialized in obscene attacks on (for example) the Virgin Mary. Many were surprised that Mr Edwards did not fire these staffers – but he is no fool, and it not just a matter of fear of revenge from the left of the blogosphere if he did fire them.
As long as the attacks can be kept as anti-Catholic as opposed to anti-Christian he may be fine – indeed these attacks may even help him. Although he may be making a mistake, as the principle reason that his staffers hate Roman Catholics is the Catholic position on abortion – a position that many Protestants (and Orthodox Jews and some atheists and others) share. John Edwards long ago made a judgement to go for the Populists path. The ‘two America’s’ (the rich versus the poor) the wild promises of government spending on virtually everything (universal health care and so on), and the photo opps of him helping (with his own hands) the poor people in New Orleans (Louisiana being the State where the Long family launched a Populist political campaign from the late 1920’s onwards) are all carefully calculated. Indeed ex President Carter has been doing these “see I get my hands dirty personally building things for the poor” stunts for years.
The Populists “I am one of the workers and hate the rich” message is effective (even if like ex-President Carter one is the son of a wealthy farmer, or like John Edwards one is a millionaire trial lawyer specializing in dubious tort cases – indeed that sort of lawyer is exactly the sort of person to be a Populist).
The message is also spreading. Even once conservative James Webb became a Democrat Senator for Virginia last November only party by attacking the Iraq war, he also ran ads demanding that “we must protect our workers” the standard Populist line.
Indeed, for example, Walmart (as the big business that more people have direct contact with than any other) bashing has become the fashion among very many Democrats. And no matter what Walmart does: donate money to the Greens, join in a union campaign for government subsidised ‘universal health care’ and so on… the bashing continues (the Walmart executives just do not seem to “get it” that one can not buy off these sort of enemies). One thinks of the South as ‘anti-union’ – but the Populists were not anti-union.
And the movement is spreading outside the South. Even Catholics such as Congressman Joe Kennedy are seeing the advantages of Popularism – in his case a television campaign promoting cheap oil (for the poor of course) from Chavez in Venezuela.
Come to think of it, the Kennedy family has ‘form’ for stunts like this. Many decades ago Joe Kennedy (the father of John F. Kennedy) used to make a big show of going round in a cart on the streets of Boston “taking coal to the poor”, But at least that Joe Kennedy was not using money from someone who wished to destroy the United States.
“Get back to the point, how dare you distort things into a rant against Democrats in general – the Populists were anti-black and people like James Earl Carter and John Edwards are not anti-black”.
But not all the Populists were anti-black. For some Populists being anti-Catholic or anti-Jewish was their thing (there was even an Roman Catholic Priest who used to go on the radio in the 1930’s attacking evil Jewish big business), but for all of them it was the same basic message of “the rich versus the poor” – “protect our workers” and so on. In modern terms – minimum wage laws, unionism (ignoring the fact the unions undermine the very industries they claim to protect workers in), trade taxes and other restrictions.
Senator Hillary Clinton is the sort of leftist we are used to. Actually her ‘Progressive’ opinions grow (if one traces them back before her time) out of a faction of the Republican party in the late 19th century (the same people were the ‘Social Gospel’ movement made its biggest impact), but there is another collectivist tradition in American politics – and that is the Popularism I have tried to describe above.
These Populists had always had a position in the Democratic party (although, as I have stated, there was also a separate party of Populists) and their first great defeat of conservative Democrats (on a national scale – there had been various struggles in the several States) was at the Convention of 1896 when the conservative Democrat President Grover Cleveland (the last conservative Democrat to be President) was defeated.
The reason that their was such bad blood between (for example) FDR and Governor Long in the 1930’s (in spite of both men being members of the Democratic party and both men being big government people) was because FDR was really an upper class Progressive (a political tradition that one can trace mostly in the Republican party and before them the Whigs right to such people as H. Mann in Massachusetts in the mid 19th century) whereas ‘Kingfisher’ Long was a Populist.
Progressives are bad (from the libertarian point of view), but Populists are, perhaps, even worse.
Populism is not a set in stone ideaology like Capitalism, or Socialism. Populism’s platform is to be against whatever today’s boogyman happens to be. Be that Big Bussiness, or illegal immigration, trade deficits, trade surpluses, the Joooooos, dang furriners’,or whatever the people you want to elect you hate.
The holy scriptures of Populism isn’t The Wealth of Nations, or The Communist Manifesto; it’s whatever the latest opinion polls say. It is essentialy the political equivilant of trying to make yourself as popular as you can with all the other kids in high-school, only with higher stakes.
Put simply, Populism is saying whatever you think will get you elected.
Populists politicians like Bill Clinton are becoming rare. After his successes in politics, he tried to tell everyone in the Democratic party how to be elected just like him. Thank the heavens that all of them have been too damn stupid to listen, including his wife.
To find skilled populists now you would do much better to search cable news than the speakers podium. Bill O’Reiley and Lou Dobbs, call your respective offices.
Southern populism is nothing new. Even the heavily Republican parts of the south are more populist than truly conservative.
Quenton: true, but in reality populism most often coincides with socialism, as there are always more than enough people who feel that they are entitled to someone else’s money.
Thank you Paul for a very informative and well laid out post. From my own (British) perspective it does make US politics a lot easier to understand from an uncluttered view.
Regarding the Edwards campaign bloggers: one has walked. Unsure about the other one though.
Fraser is quite correct. After a lot of days of pressure one of the bloggers has resigned. Perhaps the Edwards campaign would be better off without the graphic descriptions of God’s hot, sticky fluid going into the Virgin Mary (and all the rest of the Christian bashing).
Although (I must admit) it made a change from the bland “let us bring everyone togther” stuff we have seen from the Senator O’B. campaign (and a lot of other campaigns in both parties).
On Populism itself:
I agree it is not a clear philosophy, but whilst it might be “populist” to argue for lower taxes across the board, it would never be “Populist” (captial P. to indicate the movement) to do so if this included tax reductions for the rich – there is a general point of view here.
On Bill O’Reilly:
Actually I rather like the man. Certainly I disagree with him a lot (for example his passionate belief in the drug prohibition laws – which are both unconstitutional [there being no Amendment giving the Feds any power in this area – unlike the 18th which gave power over booze] and counter productive). And when I have seen him trying to debate with (for example) Neil Cavuto on the oil market it is plain that he does not understand what a market actually is (that is not just about people buying stuff for their own use – i.e. that speculation is not “rigging”).
However, any man who has taken the sort of hatred that O’Reilly has taken over the last ten years (from virtually all of the print media and all of the mainstream broadcasting media – bar Fox, although sometimes he even gets attacked by people on Fox) can not just be concerned with being popular.
I am sure that (say) Mr Dobbs has had less insults and personal attacks directed at him in the last ten years than Mr O’Reilly gets in a typical week.
So I would not say that Bill O’Reilly is even a populist, let alone a Populist. He says what he believes and (right or wrong) argues openly.
In a dangerious situation I think that Mr O’Reilly would a trustworthy person to be with (something that could not be correctly said about a lot of people in the media).
There seems to be a strong strand of populism in the Republican party right now, it was exploiting this which helped Bush win his second term.
Its reemergence in the Democrats is worrying, it can also be seen in the xenophobia of the protectionism being advocated by many Democrats.
A good review of some of the history of US politics, something the British are very bad on (then again we don’t know the history of UK politics…). I constantly struggle trying to convince people that neither the Republicans or Democrats are liberal – although right now the Republicans have a greater liberal representation.
As for the Dixie Chicks – they’re great musicians, their political stance shouldn’t have any effect on your judgment of them.
The fact that the writer of this post is in the UK explains a lot; presumably he gets his information about the South from Hollywood or the MSM. I moved from Boston, MA to the Deep South a decade ago, live in a mixed, low-income neighborhood and associate with people in all of what you in the UK (where I lived for a time) would describe as “classes”. I have seen NOTHING of the anti-Catholicism described. (As an “out” lesbian, I can also state that I have never been subject to discrimination or insult, and that racism is much more alive in the Northeast than it is here in Dixie). If the poster will look a tad closer, he will find that support for Edwards’s bloggers is coming not from anti-Catholics, but from the viciously anti-religious Left (who use abortion as a bloody flag to cover their objection to religion, period).
Keep Samizdata a useful website. Stick to writing about what you know.
Cynthi makes a good point. For example, (I believe) neither of the two bloggers was from the South.
However, I did not say that being antiCatholic is common in the South now (although it once was) – in fact it is more common in Hollywood (as Cynthi may well know).
However, antiCatholic stuff (indeed general anti Christian stuff) may not hurt Senator Edwards (as long as he can continue to say “I did not write such things myself”) as it brings in support from such places as Hollywood. Money is important in political campaigns.
On lesbianism. An historical footnote from this island.
In one of the 19th century Bills (I forget which one)covering sexual acts, lesbian acts would have been made illegal (as the Bill said something like “men or women …..”) Queen Victoria crossed out the bit about women (the last time a monarch crossed out part of a Bill) as she held that no such women existed.
As noone was prepared to argue with Queen Victoria on this point, the Bill went through Parliament and became an Act with same sex sexual acts only being unlawful for men.
This meant that it was not possible to blackmail women for conduct (at least not blackmail them with the threat of criminal prosecution) that the law was silent upon.
First of all, both bloggers are gone(Link), McEwan resign on the 13th.
My take on what happened was Edwards hired them without any vetting, OOOPS. He then was going to fire them, but the nutroots got up in arms, so he issued a statement saying that he didn’t agree with what they said, but he was going to give them a chance as long as they cleaned up their act. Marcotte issued a lame non-apology about how she didn’t mean to offend anyone and it wouldn’t happen again.
A day or two later, last Sunday IIRC, she posted a review of a movie on her blog in which she launched into another anti-religion/X-tianity tirade. Edwards then fired her/she resigned.
In summary I think Edwards believed it would have blown over, if she’d behaved, but she didn’t.
FYI, the epitome of U.S. populism was a Midwesterner, William Jennings Bryan.
Edwards and Carter are anti-Black in the same way that celebrity stalkers are ant-(the best interests of) said celebrity. Catering to and cultivating the spread of the most crippling neurosis that a human being can indulge (“my life sucks because you think that you are better than me”) is ultimately not a compassionate or even a helpful thing. In fact, considering that both men are sophisticated enough to know better, the damage they do almost seems deliberate.
I am always surprised how sophisticated and self-assured Atlanta’s downtown and northern suburbs are when I visit.
You can find habitable pockets in any town, but it is surprising how pervasively cosmopolitan that place is. And Atlanta is creating 40,000 new jobs per year. With that kind of success, I do not see an army of the dispossessed falling for anything other than more of the same economic blessing.
That town knack for success has now become a target for other cities competing for businesses. Where Atlanta goes is a good indication of where the larger south is going. I see anything but populism on the rise.
Michiganny,
I came within an ace of living in Atlanta. What you say about it is totally correct. Downtown, Midtown and the Northern suburbs are rather nice. The least said about College Park and the South soonest mended.
Personally, I quite fancied Virginia Highlands but then I was a little boho at the time. Not boho enough for Little Five as I did value having a Kroger’s round the corner higher than having a body-piercing gaff.
I had a previous comment along the lines of “The South – nowhere near as bad as you might think” smited and it still hasn’t come up.
Michiganny is right about a lot of the South doing well economically (although such things as the rise in the minimum wage level may hit that).
William Jennings Bryan – yes he was the man the Democrats went for in 1896.
“You shall not crucify mankind on a cross of gold” contains an interesting mixture of a stupid policy proposal (that the government coin lots of silver money but insist on a fixed exchange rate with gold money), with a CORRECT feeling that something bad was going on.
It was correct because the banks were playing games (as was perfectly legal under the National Banking Act of 1861). There were bits of bank paper about that did not represent gold in the vaults (i.e. even then it was a “gold standard” not gold as money).
So there was “inflation” (in the old sense of the term – i.e. an increase in the money supply, in this case specially loans that were not 100% financed by real savings) going on – but the high financial circles, rather than people lower down the food chain, were getting the profit of it. Indeed the people lower down were hit – by boom-bust cycles.
Of course the policy suggested by W.J.B. would have just made things worse rather than better – but his vague feeling that something was wrong was not mistaken.
Then there was his hostility to the First World War. W.J.B. was the only member of President Wilson’s [a Progressive – although a Democrat] cabinet to resign over the matter – although once the war was formally under way he supported the war effort (that is what a person should do once his country is at war).
What would the people who denounce the Iraq war think of a war in which (if my memory serves) 117,000 Americans died and where the consequence of American intervention was Marxism in Russia (yes the Germans financed the Revolution to knock Russia out of the war – but Imperial Germany would not have tolerated a Marxist Russia, it was only German defeat that made the Marxist regime secure in Russia) with all the TENS OF MILLIONS OF DEAD that meant. And, later, National Socialism in Germany (with the old government, really governments, gone there was the mess of the Weimar Republic for a few years and then the Nazis when that farce fell apart).
Although I am British, and without American intervention Britain would have lost the First World War it seems (as much as we can tell with historical “what ifs”) that it would have been better if Kingdoms, Dukedoms, Free Cities (and so on) of the German Empire had not lost (and, for all their faults, the destruction of the Kingdom of Hungary and the thousand year old House of Hapsburg in Austria was a terrible thing).
W.J.B. was not that bad by Populist (I have to make a effort not to type “Popularist” – as in the Roman “Populari” of the period of the decline of the Republic) standards (although those standards are, of course, very low), he was not like “Kingfisher” Long or any of that crowd.
I know that H.L.M. hated Bryan – but the “monkey trial” was a sad end.
I think Paul mistakes the current attempts at Southern populism by former Sen. John Edwards, Carter and Sen Webb as some new political phenomenon and a dangerous precedent. Its not. The South is tribal and will vote for the leaders it respects forever. This new populism is actually a sign of extraordinary political weakness. Edwards is a one-term Senator who did very little in the Senate other than posture. He is incredibly unpopular in NC. The only reason he got elected in the first place was that people were so upset at the republican party for renominating Sen. Faircloth, who was so patently corrupt it was considered an insult to the electorate.; i.e every road project seemed to have to go through his or his buddys’ lands, the numerous payoffs by pig farmers to silence the local EPA etc…For Carter, well everybody down South dislikes Carter. Senator Webb nearly lost the Virginia race with incessant favourable reporting by the WaPo, racist comments by his opponent and his cracker ethnicity. If the yankees hadnt colonized northern Virginia, Webb would have lost even with all that support. The point is that these Democrat ‘leaders’ want to be accepted by the electorate the same way Thurmon and Helms were. It is part of the new DNC strategy. They want a power base similar to that of the old Democratic party in the South, where Gov. Wallace could bar the school door crying ‘Segregation now, Segregation forever’ and eight years later be re-elected Governor with a majority of the black vote. Or my personal favorite, Governor James Folsom, Jr., who after serving a spell in federal prison for bribery and other financial irregularities, ran successfully for Governor with the slogan: “Sho’ I stool’, but I stool for you’. This does have a lot to do with a very corrupt political culture, but it also reflects the near absolute faith certain Southern voters have in their elected leaders. What democratic Senator would not want to have the power that Jesse Helms wielded? What other member of an elected legislative assembly has had the power to force the Security Council to convene behind closed doors so he could lecture them? Or going back to the Civl War, Secretary of State Judah Benjamin was a practising Jew that everyone hated. The papers of the time all crooned about that ‘filthy Israelite” ruining the Confederacy’s chance for victory. Yet Pres. Jefferson Davis kept his man and the people accepted it. They didnt agree, but, then again there must be something to it, Jeff Davis is a damn Saint.
This talk of Southern populism seems biased by the Huey Long episode and the exceptional circumstances of the Great Depression. The terrible privation of the Depression and the Reconstruction-era tariff system are long gone. The SE, with SW, is growning faster than any part of the Union. Sen. Edwards and Webb are just desparate men who are familiar with their political history, but dont understand it.
Populism is actually just a milder form of what was known as “national socialism”.
(1) It is extremely xenophobic. Two of current topics that raise the hackles of a significant portion of the population are illegal immigration and the trade imbalance (particularly where it applies to China). The populists bang on about both of these endlessly. Notice that the subject of said topics are Mexican and central Americans, and Chinese.
(2) It is in love with socialism. There is no end to what the populists will promise to spend money on, if not actually try and nationalize (for example, health care).
For a democrat there are a couple of ways to win the nomination for president. One of them is through the populist route. By going the populist route they appeal to two large factions of the democrat party — the unions and the black political leadership.
The unions because they expect all of that government spending to prop up the union movement via the David-Bacon Act and such.
The current political leadership in major black political organizations are mainly concerned with some form of restitution, be that “jobs for the boys”, pimping the system for support of their “programs”, or just simply an expanded federal work-force (where blacks are over-represented compared to their percentage of the countries population). (And this also applies to the political leadership of both hispanic and American Indian organizations.)
While populism has replaced some of their objects of hatred (Mexicans and foreigners for catholics and jews), they have retained other objects of their hatred (the “rich”, i.e., those that have had enough success in life to pay their own freight.)
The Democratic Party: A group of warring tribes united for the common purpose of plunder.
Paul, no offence, but that’s a bunch of cock. Any perusal of German plans for Europe or simply the German mode of government then current should fill anyone, especially an Englishman, with horror. National Socialism, minus the absurd occultism and frantic racism, would have dominated Europe indefinitely.
As to the German Empire crushing Bolshevism it’s far from clear that they could have. Indeed it’s equally far from clear that the Germans could have won the war with or without American involvement. The same result, but with a year or so extra deaths is more likely. Many German generals privately admitted that the war was unwinnable after they failed to capture Paris. Pre-war Germany, for all its protestations of granduer, was a tinpot piece of shit – it’s surprising to find a libertarian (and not one of the moronic “anyone who opposes my particular government must have something to be said for them” camp) take your view.
Bolshevism could easily have been strangled in the cradle if our P.M hadn’t have been an amoral cowardly traitor or had the U.S. not retreated in on itself. WW2 could have been prevented by the simple expedient of sticking to the treaty of Versailles, which – if it does not labour the point too much – would have happened if subsequent P.M.s had not also been amoral, cowardly traitors.
Every death caused by international Communism and Nazism would’t have happened had it not been for the inter-war peace movement and American isolationism. The fact is that the outcome of WW1 placed us in a potentially brilliant situation and we straight up blew it; that doesn’t mean that the result of the war wasn’t the right one.
Alternativley, ask yourself “what if America had intervened in 1914?”.
I agree that Germany was more statist than either Britain or France in 1914. Although it was hardly statist by modern standards.
However, Britain had made some recent moves that put on the path of becomming more statist. For example, the 1906 union Act was even worse than German labour law (it put unions totally above the laws of contract) and the 1911 National Insurance Act included special unemployment pay (which the schemes of Bismark had not really included).
Also in Britain there was “Progressive” (i.e. graduated) income tax. Whereas (in memory serves) income tax was a matter of the individual states in Germany.
Certainly Prussia (the largest) had graduated income tax (since 1891), but some other states did not. Also in Germany there was not just one political system – everone having a vote for an all powerful Paliament.
For those who doubt the “divine right of the 51%” the various states of the German Empire offer more diversity. Although I wish Bismark had failed and the old Germany (of fully independent Kingdoms, Dukedoms and Free City states) had remained.
As for “tin pot” and so on. Germany in 1914 was the second greatest economic power on Earth (after the United States). Although output-per-man was still higher in Britain (although the gap was getting narrower).
Science was dominated by Germans, as were many other branches of human knowledge and culture. To dismiss that part of Western civilization that was Germany is a great mistake.
On the question of antisemitism. There was a lot in 1914 Germany – but there was also a lot in 1914 Britain. It was defeat and the experiences in the interwar period that helped lead to the growth of antisemitism in Germany.
As for Austro-Hungary:
Well the Austian half of the Empire was bit of a joke (the most bureacratic state in Europe, more so even than Russia, with some two millian non military government employees), but it was still a very important part of Western civilization – and the states after the First World War were certainly more statist than pre war Austria.
The Hungarian half of the Empire was different. Less taxed and regulated, but also very intolerant of nonHungarian speakers. Oddly enough it was not antisemtic – whereas post war Hungary (about half the size of pre war Hungary – “no, no never” was a common saying in Hungary and it meant that they would never accept what the Allies had done to them – one day they would have revenge) was not antisemtic – proof that antisemitism can just appear from nowhere.
On German plans for Europe should they have won – I agree that they were wicked (even more wicked than what the Allies did to Germany and Austo-Hungary after they won).
Lord Landsdown was right – the war should never have started. But as it had started there should have been a compromise peace – NEITHER SIDE SHOULD HAVE WON.
On Russia – it came to the balance of a hair (you are right that if Allied intervention had not been so half hearted the Reds would have been destroyed).
However, even small German forces (even after the defeat in 1918) had no problem in sweeping away Red forces whenever they were allowed (by the Allies) to do so. The Baltic Republics (for example) would never have been saved from the Reds with out the help of German forces (although, I admit, they were not government forces – Germany having no real government at the time).
As for without the Americans Britain might have won the war anyway.
Well perhaps, for example if the operation against Gallipoli in Turkey (to enable the Royal Navy to sail to Constantinople, take Turkey out of the war and link up with Russians) and not be entrusted to Generals (like Stopford) who made Haig look like a great genius.
However, after Russia was knocked out of the war there was no chance of a British victory (in fact the Americans had been financing quite a lot of he Allied war effort even before the Russians were knocked out).
“The Americans did not do much” or “we could have won the First World War without them” are just myths that we like to tell ourselves.
After the Russian defeat there are only two possible alternatives (assuming no American help) – a compromise peace, or total victory for Germany.
“America going to war in 1914” – on which side?
After all the British violated American shipping just as the Germans did (and not just with surface ships – British mines would sink ships
trying to get to Germany just as German U. boats would sink ships trying to get to Britain).
President Wilson operated a double standard, it was alright for the British to attack civilian ships going to Germany, but not for Germany to attack civilian ships going to Britain.
Indeed many Germans died after the war – as the blockade did not stop in November 1918 (it carried on well into 1919).
This doesn’t in any sense mitigate the collectivism of early 20th century Germany, it just proves that the primary purpose of that collectivism wasn’t equalitarianism. I suppose, if I was some crotchety Tory from 1730, I might find that to be a mitigating feature, but as it is…
Yeah, but he didn’t so all that would have been ‘preserved’ was some retrograde facade.
I thought you were a devotee of the Austrian School, presumably you then recognise that bigger numbers do not equal better.
The myth of Prussian superiority in organisation, is just that – a myth. No less than the myth of the invincible USSR or the inevitabliity of Keynesianism. They just about managed to prop up their war effort on the systematic expoitation of the German civilian population, they couldn’t have done so indefinitely. Don’t buy into the myths of collectivists just because this lot happen to be, nominally, of the “Right”.
Prussia, from its inception, represented everything that is bad about western civilzation. The Germany that was formed as its appendage did too. Britain represents what’s good.
Germany, likewise, was a curse on the world from 1871 onwards. Seizing territories that would otherwise be administered by civilized governments and turning them into nightmares (I admit the Belgians were even worse), spreading its ideals of conscription, goosestepping, obedience and organisation in a world dominated by the English ideals of laissez faire and Free Trade and subjecting sane men to the ordeal of dealing with a deranged sadist and his withered arm.
So I don’t dismiss it, I despise it.
I am reminded of the merits of previewing a post before posting it.
‘niggerz’
Niggaz
On a historical note, I don’t think the arrival of US troops on the Western Front in 1918 really changed he outcome of the war. Access to American raw materials was certainly of use, but in the First World War the USA was not the arsenal of democracy; US forces had to use British and French equipment because their industries were not geared towards war production. That would have changed if the war had continued into 1919/20 of course, but it did not.
The fact is that Germany had been really weakened by 1918, by the effects of fighting a war on three fronts (let’s not forget Italy) and the naval blockade. By 1918 the British army had become a superb fighting force, and had developed doctrines for using artillery and tanks in support of felxible infantry formations. The Somme in 1916, when lines of ill trained soldiers had marched slowly into machine gun fire was long gone.
If the Germans had not sought an armistice in 1918, they would have been totally crushed in 1919, and World War II would never have happened. A couple of years ago I saw a TV interview with one of the last of the Tommies, who made the point that the army in 1918 were in good spirits, and really wanted to beat Germany once and for all. I agree with the old boy. As ever, moron politicians managed to screw up the position of complete victory which had been achieved in 1918, but I maintain that Britain and France would have defeated Germany whether or not the USA had entered the war on our side.
No.
Without American help (financial and military) Germany would not have been defeated in 1918 – or in 1919.
There would either have been a compromise peace or there would have been a German victory.
As for direct military intervention (perhaps not the most important part of the intervention – financing being so important).
If memory serves there were 117,000 American dead (I forget how many wounded) a couple of million men ready by November 1918 and 12 million getting called on.
When Ludendorf read the American stats he was found on the floor frothing at the mouth.
As for Gabrial’s view of pre World War One Germany – it is a very one sided one (to put it mildly).
Germany had made vast economic advances (and I mean in living standards as well as in total).
German civilization (in almost all the arts and sciences) was a vast part of the West (at least as important as that of Britain).
As for freedom of speech and so on. Bismark’s antics are well known to me – but he was out of office in 1890 and dead in 1898 (at least I think that was when he died – by memory says “same year as Gladstone” so I will stick with 1898).
There were many different newspapers (of wildly different points of view) in pre World War One Germany.
Indeed if one wishes to give an example of a nation were in, most parts of the country, only one view is given in print – the modern United States is a good one (although Fox News and talk radio mean there is some diversity in the broadcast media).
As for Bismark’s reduction of the indepedence of the Kingdoms and Free Cities of Germany – yes this was bad, but it was nothing like the situation in Britain.
In Britain (at least since 1875) local government was the creature of national government – with a long list of things that it must do (whether local taxpayers liked it or not).
I sound like an early 18th century Tory – well if you mean a “October Club” man that is no insult. Although I rather like the Whig Sir Robert Walpole (he bribed people who demanded bribes – but he cut taxes and, till his hand was forced by “honest” men, kept the peace) and I am no great fan of the Stuarts.
Of course “Court and Country” was what mattered (not Whig and Tory) and there were at least as many Country Tory people as Country Whigs.
As for democracy – you are right Gabrial, I am not in love with it (especially not the representative democracy kind).
However, it was (in the early 18th century as opposed to the early 19th century) the Tory people who were in favour of lot of people having the vote.
For the record the Imperial German Parliament had universal male franchise whereas Britain (in 1914) did not.
Of course I rather think that was one of the bad things about Germany.
However, at least the German Empire (as opposed to Prussia) was not financed by an income tax.
In Britain the main source of revenue was an income tax (graduated in the early 1890’s) yet ONLY A MINORITY OF VOTERS WERE INCOME TAXPAYERS.
This was true from 1867, but became absurd after the Act of 1884. The British political system is an accident waiting to happen after this Act. Either income tax should have abolished (as Gladstone and others had wanted to do – and it was only a per cent or two of income in 1874) or the vote should have been limited to income taxpayers.
Of course before the Act of 1832 there had been seats where virtually all men had the vote (Preston springs to mind) it is often forgotten that this Act took the vote away from the children of some voters, but they had been a small minority of seats and there was no income tax in 1832 anyway.
Of course the democracy in the United States (the democracy of Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren) depended on their being no taxes that hit only the wealthy.
Poor against rich politics is how democracies destroy themselves (this has been true since the days of Pericles).
As for the comment that the invasion of Belgium in 1914 (and whatever wild “what we should do after we win the war” plans may say, the majority of German leaders had no intention of staying Belgium after the war) justified the starving to death of vast numbers of German civilians in 1919 (after the fighting was over).
Well, it is better I say nothing about such a comment.
I think it changed the German’s perception in that they realised that whereas they might just be able to match British and French attrition on the Western Front they would not be able to withstand the attrition of a combined Anglo-American/Franco-American alliance.
As it happens the real breakthrough in World War 1 came not directly from the USA intervention but actually from a combined Canadian, Australian and French effort that broke through the exhausted German lines between Albert and Moreuil on 8th August. That sole action is often held as having been sufficient to precipitate the ensuing collapse of the Balkan Front and Ludendorff’s famous memo to Wilhelm and von Hertling that he could no longer guarantee holding the Western Front.
Quite. Germany had made its last throw of the dice with the Spring Offensive of 1918, which was fought to a standstill. By late 1918 attritional warfare was over, and the Germans were being pushed steadily back. They sought the Armistice because they had lost the war, pure and simple.
By 1918 America had sent lots of men to France, but they were very ill-equipped, and needed British and French machine guns, artillery, tanks and aircraft, in complete contrast to the Second World War. Going into 1919 American industry would have been able to provide ever growing amounts of war materiel, but the fact is that the war was won in 1918, though I am sure that American involvement was as good for our morale as it must have been bad for the Germans’.
Paul you seem intent on providing long commentaries to my throaway remarka and, while I have no problem with Talmudic scholarship per se., I don’t think this is quite the time or the place.
Suffice to say that your regard for for Prussianism is perverse in a libertarian, it seems simply that you have no real problem with collectivism as long as it is utilised in the interests of maintaining hierarchy.
All this, again, is irrelevant to my original challenge. Your claim that American intervention in WW1 caused the deaths resulting from Bolshevism and Nazism is false. Both would never have occurred had America, Britain, and France acted sensibly (genuinely sensibly, not the fake ‘realist’ kind of sensibly) in the inter-war period.
Although, you have raised an interesting point. In accordance with your love of the Holy Roman Emperor, the TofV should, I posit, have included the dissolution of the abhorrent excrescense that was the GErman nation state.
Gabriel, I did not say anything about having a regard for Prussia or “Prussianism” (although, if you mean what I think you mean by this term, it is a wild generalization to conflate Prussia with Prussianism, Prussia was a large and complex place). As for useing force to maintain ……… I did not write anything about this stuff either.
Why attack me for things I never said and do not believe?
As for “Prussianism” (again if you mean statism) that was all the rage in Britain before the World War One – for example the front page of the Daily Telegraph on January the first 1900 is all about how we must adopt all the worst features of Germany (accept they do not call them the “worst” features of course) and shows no regard for the good things (such as music or the respect for science – or even for local control of taxation).
Economists (such as Alfred Marshall) and politicians (Liberal or Conservative) were competing to demand that we adopt this or that from “Germany” and they meant Prussia (not some Grand Dukedom in the Empire where there was not much statism at all).
If you want to talk about a country were economists resisted “Prussianism” in the years just before 1914 – that country was FRANCE (not Britain). Although politicians in France were not in the habit of taking note of “Liberal School” economists.
In fact in some ways Britain had managed to become even more statist than Prussia (unemployment pay, pro union laws) – it was still not as statist (overall) but everyone (who mattered) was working hard to make this so.
THE WAR ONLY MADE THINGS WORSE – there was even more apeing of Germany (Prussia) after the war than had been before it. For example, the “cult of the PhD” infected British universities (this may be a good thing in the physical sciences, I do not know enough to judge, but in the humanities the effects were bad).
As for Germany. True the war undermined the old Prussian army for awhile – but it also destroyed the independence of such things as the Bavarian army.
Adolf Hitler faced no independent armies when he took power – the allies had seen to it that the old Royal armies no longer existed (and guess which army he based his on – and, of course, he added things like the S.S.)
Also he faced no trial by jury or other features of the “bad old Germany” – these things were got rid of the Weimar Republic.
The old “rule of law” had been replaced by the “social rule of law” (see Hayek) in a way that even a Prussian bureacrat (before WWI) would have been shocked by (see Hayek on all this – Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation and Liberty) although the war and the collapse of insitutions helped on forces that were already at work (for example undermining the traditional Prussian distinction between “law” and “will” – even Prussia not being all bad you see, the old administators and judges resisted the modern progressives).
The “liberal” Weimar Republic paved the way for the National Socialists (although the Great Depression opened the door for them).
I have also said nothing at all about the Holy Roman Empire (abolished by Napoleon).
I did say it was sad to see the House of Hapsburg go – although I agreed with you that by 1914 the Austrian half (at least) of the Hapsburg Empire was a bit of bureacratic joke (of course there had been that element in it for a very long time).
As for breaking up Germany (which I think is what you are talking about) – there was little support for that (either in Germany or outside it).
Some people in Hannover wanted the old Kingdom back – but there were not many. However, if you can prove me wrong (rather than just tossing random insults in my direction) I would AGREE with you – I would have loved the old Kingdom to have been restored (if the majority of the population could be show to support this – not a worship of democracy, just a realistic understanding that a nation can not be maintained if most people do not want it to even exist). Even though it would spoil a good story “and the last King of Hannover led his army out in 1866 to oppose the forces of evil, blind though his eyes were his duty was clear to his soul and ……”
There were also a few people in Bavaria who wanted full independence back (there still are – especially after a few beers). But they were not going to win a vote. And again how can an independent nation survive when most people there do not want it to?
As for the Allies – well the French said and wrote all sorts of nasty things (just as some Germans said and wrote nasty things about what they would do if they won the war), but they were not really serious about destroying Germany.
They just wanted to humilate the place – and the British and Americans (eventually) went along with a lot of that.
Of course nothing is inevitable and it is possible that (had there been no Great Depression) politicians dedicated to revenge (indeed to demented dreams of conquest) would never have come to power in Germany – although the seeds were planted by the way the Germans were treated (and not just at the Conference – there was also the occupation of part of Germany, the demands for money and so on).
On the Baltic States (being saved, in part, by German forces) this was after the war – i.e. after the revolutions in Germany.
That is way I said “there was no real government in Germany at the time” – I was not talking about the period of the war itself (when a compromise peace might have been possible). And yes Imperial Germany would never have tolerated a Red victory in Russia – although YES it must bare the guilt of financing them to knock Russia out ot the war.
As for the Americans – their role was vital (and not just financially). For example why launch a 1918 offensive against France if it were not for “the Americans are comming we must win before they arrive”.
It is not my fault that this intervention led (in both Russia and Germany) to bad results (and they were not bad in Germany just because of the Nazis – the Weimar Republic was much worse than the old Germany as well – for example in centralized taxation, and it set up a political police in Prussia, yes the “Gestapo” were the creation of Weimar although the National Socialist made them a thousand times worse).
Some interventions make things better (Rothbard was quite wrong to claim they never work) and some interventions make things worse.
World War One made things worse – to argue that it made things better is to fly in the face of the facts.
That doesn’t mean Britain was more statist, it just means that British statism had a different aim than Prussian statism (i.e. a misplaced desire to help the less well off, rather than a simple desire to glorify the military state). This is exactly why I said it seems simply that you have no real problem with collectivism as long as it is utilised in the interests of maintaining hierarchy . I overstated the case, but it does seem that you regard certain forms of statism (those whose purpose is welfarist) as worse than others for no clear reason.
Rightly so. If we had adhered to the TofV there would not have been a WW2, inded there could not have been a WW2.
Whenever Germans whine (and, oh, how they do whine!) about the TofV, I always want to throw hundreds of copies of the Treaty of Brest Litovsk at them. By historical standards, either then or at any other time except our absurdist age, the TofV was not remotely ‘humiliating’, only the German inferiority/superiority complex made it appear so.
I couldn’t care less what the Germans wanted and, as I have pointed out, I have precious little respect for the British, American (or French) political classes at that time either.
It would have been a good idea, I think that’s fairly indisputable.
I mean the Prussian variant of statism, from Friedrich Wilhelm onwards.
I know, we blew it in practically every way we could have, but I fail to see how a stalemate would have resulted in a better situation.
Again had America intervened (on our side, remember it is OUR side Paul) in 1914, surely you agree the result would have been better. At the very least the Bolshevik cult would never have seized control of the Russian empire.
Just as a postscript, I remember once reading that Kaiser Wilhelm had a particular loathing for British soldeirs. Why? Because they were volunteers who fought for the love of their homeland of course.
The very concept that human beings should be motivated by anything other than obedience to their masters offended him. It offended the Prussian imagination. Patriotism vs. Nationalism in a nutshell.
May I remind you that Marx and Engels prophesised a future war between England and Germany that would represent the truimph of organisation over bourgois liberalism.
You’re dealing with some majorly dodgy shit here Paul.
Ummm, getting back to President Carter for a minute….
The degeneration of our former chief executive into a crack whore for islamist cash is well documented. In April 29, 2002, an articel by Dave Eberhart over at Newsmax “Carter’s Arab funding may color Isreal stance” detailed his inexorable fall from honor. A more recent article I saw claims that creepizoid sheiks from Saudi and Kuwait pump $140 Million plus per year into his library. No wonder Dhimmi-in-chief Carter drops his drawers and grabs his anklles for his islamist masters.
Uain – sadly true.
There is a lot of debate about James Earl Carter – with some people claiming he always hated Jews (“but he opposed segregation” – some people were anti segregation against blacks, but still anti Jewish) and some people claiming that it has got worse over time.
It was the case that some Jewish people used to work for ex President Carter or for organizations he controlled – but over time they have resigned (I suspect there are very few if any left).
I suspect that it is not as simple as Carter being bought. It is more a matter of man brought up in Georgia in 1930’s keeping his anti Jewish feelings (he would have been expossed to a lot of anti Jewish stuff at that time and place) under control in his adult life, but then (gradually) antisemitism (under the mask of “antizionism”) became popular in “liberal” circles things were just different for him.
As for his book – lots of false information. Whether he knows it is false (i.e. he is telling lies) or whether he has convinced himself that things happened as he tells them – well I do not know.
The state of exPresident Carter’s soul is between him and God.
Gabriel:
No I do not regard militarism (if that is what you mean) as less bad than welfarism (although military budgets have proved less difficult to control than entitlement programs). Of course there was plenty of militarism in Britain – with hundreds of thousands of men going to their deaths in absurd ways (such as walking slowly in frontal attacks against fortified positions with machine guns nests and so on), pre war state education in Britain was supposed (not paranoia on my part – they really did what to produce a lot of obedient men who would obey orders without question) to produce this sort of mentality – and it did.
On the German Emperor: The “contemptable little army” comment is as much a myth as the German accent that actors always play him with. He did not use such words (or have such opinions) and he spoke English without an accent.
His chief flaw was weakness (which he tried to cover up with bluster, as weak men often do). Ministers and generals could make him agree to more or less anything.
The Russian Emperor was similar (accept that his weakness was obvious to anyone who met him – he did not hide it as well as the German Emperor did).
For example, the Nicky knew that mobalizing the Russian army in response to Austro-Hungary’s move against Serbia (itself quite justified – as Serbian military intelligence had ordered the “Black Hand” to murder Franz Ferdinand, the heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife) would lead to general war – and that Russia was not ready for war.
The wise course would have been to let there be another balkan war (there had just been two in the last few years – and Russia and Germany had stayed out of them) without Russian mobalization (as once Russia started to mobalize both Austra-Hungary and Germany must act).
However, the minister of war shouted at the Emperor – and Nicky just gave in (as he always did – about everything).
As for the German Emperor – he was pleased when it looked that France was not going to support Russia. But his ministers told him that the war plan (should war ever break out) dictated that France be knocked out (before Russia could fully mobalize) via an attack via Belgium.
Then change the plan (suggested William II), we can not do that, the train timetables dictate things now (was the reply). And he just accepted it.
As for the rest of what you have said, I must confess that I do not follow a lot of it. So you may be right (if I can not understand what you are saying I can not say “you are wrong”).
If we had a long chat about this I might well come to understand what you mean, but it is not likely via e.mails.
On things like America going to war in 1914 (why? how?).
Or the treaty of V. being a good thing that was not enforced (I do not understand this comment – either bit of it).
And so on.
As I said above, I do not see an e.mail disscussion achieving anything.