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Samizdata quote of the day [The WEF crew and associated elites] are not Marxists. Marxism is rightly discredited (it really is) to all but a lunatic fringe. Even ‘Communist’ China is not really Marxist, not in any way that Karl Marx would have recognised.
These people owe far more ideologically to Henri de Saint-Simon or even Giovanni Gentile, which makes them far more dangerous, because so few people have any idea who Saint-Simon or Gentile were.
– Perry de Havilland
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Agreed Perry – Karl Marx held, in the words of his friend Fred Engels, that the state would wither away – Dr Marx may not really have believed that, but he officially did. The idea being total freedom, the end of the state, would arrive after the “socialist stage”.
The World Economic Forum, the United Nations, the “Woke” Corporations that push filth with their advertisements on American television, do NOT believe in the state withering away – not ever.
They want to control the state (in Saint-Simon style fashion – Credit Bubble bankers and other Corporate types controlling the Collectivist state, not being sent to a Gulag by it).
And YES the People’s Republic of China is very much their model – even when they claim to oppose it.
Interestingly the ideas of Saint-Simon were popular in Karl Marx’s home town (Trier) when he was young – at least among intellectual types.
The Collectivist control of all aspects of society by an elite (often from Big Business – especially banks) and all in the name of “SCIENCE”.
Someone like Dr Klaus Schwab (creator of the World Economic Forum – which has worked in “partnership” with the United Nations, Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030, for quite some years now) does not really hide the Fascist inspiration of their ideas – after all Dr Schwab’s foundational text was even titled “Stakeholder Capitalism” (the Corporate State – Fascism), more than 50 years ago.
The trouble is that when people here the word “Fascism” – they just think “nasty shouty men in jackboots” the IDEAS of Fascism, of Gentile and the rest, are forgotten – apart from by the world elite (who ardently believe in such Fascist ideas).
The old Soviet Union is partly to blame – because the NKVD and other Marxist organisations, going right to “Antifa” and so on today – just use the words “Fascist” and “Capitalist” interchangeably, they refuse to allow any examination of what Fascism actually is – because it is uncomfortably close to THEIR OWN beliefs, what Mussolini and Gentile did was ditch the “withering away of the state” stuff – as with Saint-Simon, under “Stakeholder Capitalism” (the Corporate State) totalitarianism (“totalitarianism” was a word that Mussolini and his associates invented) is meant to be here to stay – it is not going to go away.
As for modern Marxists such as BLM and Antifa – do they mind that they are really working for vast international corporations (as they go around looting and burning small independently owned business enterprises and so on – they are clearing away the competition to Amazon and Google, and the land can be bought cheap by the banks and by Black Rock, State Street and Vanguard).
Do the Marxist thugs on the streets know or care that they are really working for Fascism – even as they claim to fight it?
I do not know.
As for Credit Money – it is vital to the plan, and always has been.
Karl Marx was basically uninterested in banking – but Saint-Simon and others understood how important a particular form of banking (Credit Bubble, monetary expansion, banking) was to buying out independently owned business enterprises (such as FARMS) and concentrating ownership in a few hands.
Even Richard Cantillon (Irish economist) understood that – three centuries ago. Hence “Cantillon Effect”.
The idea is to concentrate ownership under a few dominant players (such as Black Rock – and a few others) and for these Corporations to work in “partnership” with the state and other “stake holders”.
Ordinary people? Ordinary people are to be serfs.
And isn’t it remarkable (just finished googling – I’d never heard of him) how it always involves an overarching “authority” who is not elected, can’t be removed and whose word is law, set in place to direct the proletariat to their own good and happiness? Isn’t it also remarkable how the overarching authority’s directions always amount to “you’ll own nothing and be happy”?
{ – “Well, why do we own nothing?” “Because we’re taking it all. We work hard for you, comrade – we deserve our Zils and dachas! Oh, you have further questions? What was your name again?” – }
My #1 complaint about the EU has always been the Council, and I suspect that nobody (most especially not citizens of the EU) will ever take the Council’s beneficent proclamations at face value until they disband themselves and turn governing over to the MEP’s. “Well we MUST be there, to guide you…” “Right – the door’s over there. NEXT!”
Think of France – not France as it is now, France as it was in the 19th century.
France was a land of family owned farms and family owned manufacturing enterprises, with no “Poor Law” tax or Income Tax, and with the gold currency (reintroduced by Napoleon after the failure of the fiat money of the Revolution) as the store-of-vale (real money is a store-of-value not just a medium-of-exchange).
19th century France summed up everything the Marxists and the Saint-Simonists hated. Even though Saint-Simon and Comte were French.
The Collectivists (in all countries) celebrated when France was defeated in 1870 – as they believed this military defeat would lead to ideological defeat for ideas of liberty, the rise of Collectivist ideas around the world.
And they were correct. Even though it was the French STATE that failed in 1870 (just as it failed again in 1940).
It was no accident that, for example, American economists who supported liberty (such as A.L. Perry) were inspired by French economists such as Bastiat and J.B. Say, and that American economists who supported statism (such as Richard Ely – the inspiration for both “Teddy” Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson) were inspired by the thinkers of Prussia-Germany.
Military victory led to ideological victory – at least over the long term.
All this is exactly what Robert Heinlein criticized in the American socialistic movement of Technocracy: that it provided no mechanism for turning the rascals out and thus no safeguard at all against abuses of power. Just pure reliance on “scientific” expertise. Though the Technocrats wanted things run by engineers rather than financiers.
Y. Knott – yes.
I rarely agreed with the late “Tony” Benn – but when he said a key defining question is “how do we get rid of you?”
If people do not elect those in power and an not VOTE THEM OUT – then “democracy” is a hollow sham.
Quangos such as “Ofcom” (the censorship people) should have no place in society – they should be abolished, and the “cultural aspect of Agenda 2030” with them.
As for the Labour Party idea of an unelected “Industrial Council” (with powers granted by law – the Leader of the Labour Party tells us), well why bother to have elections at all then?
The tragedy is that some in the Conservative Party go along with such ideas (especially at an international level) because it is just so difficult to NOT “go with the flow”.
For example, if you rubber stamp the “Social and Environmental Governance” (SEG) Agenda – nothing bad will happen to you. But if you resist it – you are a RACIST, and a “denier” of the “Climate Emergency” and you will be persecuted and punished.
This is how liberty dies – in farce.
Such a Keir Starmer industrial council is not a new idea – the “National Recovery Administration” (the Blue Eagle thugs) was set up under the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 in the United States – and ruled unconstitutional (by all NINE Justices) by the Supreme Court in 1935.
The thing was, of course, inspired by Fascist Italy – by the ideas of Gentile and Mussolini.
But tell boys and girls in universities that (that the “New Deal” policies of their precious Franklin Roosevelt and the “Brain’s Trust” were inspired by Fascist Italy) and they will not believe you – they will just scream “RACIST” in your face, or whatever.
And the first move of the New Dealers was against gold – privately owned monetary gold and the gold clauses in public and private contracts.
Of course it was – their idea of a Planned Society (of creeping totalitarianism over time), could not work any other way.
The striking down of the National Recovery Administration in 1935 was only a temporary reprieve – because the Supreme Court did not strike down monetary collectivism in 1935 (although it came close – the Gold Clause cases were lost five votes to four), the government could use the monetary system to gradually get Collectivism at a later date – which is what the SEG system in the Corporate world is now gradually doing.
It could be that the long term history books (if there are any real ones) will announce that the true end of the Republic (of the rule of law) came when the Gold Clause cases were lost in 1935 – although the pretence that the money represented something other than the whims of the government remained till 1971.
1971 – just about the time that “Stakeholder Capitalism” by Klaus Schwab had been out for a few months.
It was the Spirit of the Age as that swine Hegel might have put it.
Liberty has been declining for a very long time – in the case of the United States the decline was under way when my father was born, 1913. The year of Income Tax and the Federal Reserve.
The Federal Reserve – now there is a clear example of “Public-Private Partnership”. “Stakeholder Capitalism”, before Mussolini even coined the word Fascism.
“Paul, the United States government did not rip up the Constitution in 1971 – President Nixon only closed the Gold Window as a temporary emergency measure”.
A “temporary emergency measure” that has lasted 51 years – and which makes a nonsense of Article One, Section Ten (only gold or silver may be “legal tender” in any State).
But I agree that the Constitution was not ripped up in 1971 – it was ripped up long BEFORE 1971.
It was certainly ripped up when “common defence and general welfare” (the PURPOSE of the specific spending powers then specifically listed to the Congress by Article One, Section Eight) was “interpreted” as a catch-all “general welfare spending power”.
A “general welfare spending power” can only lead to economic and cultural ruin – and must lead to funny money (“money” that is just the creation of government and Credit Bubble bankers – as if there was any real distinction between the two).
William H. Stoddard – correct Sir.
But the technocrats are well represented – the government “scientists” behind lockdowns, and other demented policies.
“But I agree that the Constitution was not ripped up in 1971 – it was ripped up long BEFORE 1971.”
Karl Denninger of the Market Ticker blog holds that the greatest blow against the founders of the U.S.’s original intent, was the 17th Amendment. Before that, the Senators were representatives of their State’s government, which told them how to vote and could repeal them; and immediately after the 17th Amendment came the 18th Amendment, Prohibition, which illustrates his point. Before that, the pyramid of checks-and-balances worked as:
1) the CONGRESS (representation-by-population in its purest form)
2) the SENATE (representing the STATES, as they directed the Senators) and
3) the PRESIDENT, who was set in place by the Electoral College and therefore represents all the States, not merely the most populous ones.
Afterward, nobody really represents the individual States; and Denninger points-out, it’s quite unlikely a majority of the States would’ve supported Prohibition. And they’re all sworn to defend and uphold the Constitution – George Carlin sums-up that shtick quite nicely: ‘The Iraqis are trying to write a new Constitution, I say let’s give them ours! It was written by a buncha’ really smart guys, it’s served us well for the last two hundred years, and we’re not using it anymore!’
Very few know who Giovanni Gentile was but very few do not know who Mussolini was – but very few know that
The quote is from ‘The Mystery of Fascism’ by David Ramsay Steel, who explains his title thus:
Telling people that China’s ruling party has evolved from the rigours of Mao’s communism to fascism, as Mussolini himself did, will at best prompt questions, but may prompt ridicule from those who know the narrative and not how ignorant it has made them. I quite see Perry’s point, but would rather influence people by quoting all the explicit enthusiasm for China that the WEF types spout than devote any time to explaining that the modern China those WEFers love so much is closer to fascism than to a not-quite-as-horrible-as-Mao’s kind of communism – especially as those two are arguably quite close to each other.
Just my 0.02p FWIW.
Very interesting SQotD, and discussion. Paul Marks is in top form. (Although i have not yet read all of his comments.)
If i may interject an intuition that i have had recently: I remarked previously that Social Democracy, Leninism, Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and Wokeness are all heresies of Marxism. (Vulgar Marxism might be considered a 6th heresy, but unlike the others, it has never been in power — except in Latin America, perhaps?)
Now i think that Wokeness is the most heretical of them all, because it has utterly rejected the Marxist principle that power is always* concentrated into the hands of a small minority, the ruling class. Instead, power is supposed to be in the hands of a very large minority: “the patriarchy” and people with “White privilege”. Every Appalachian redneck is supposed to be more powerful than the Obamas.
* Before the emergence of a truly communist society.
Of course they are, first Fascism is a moderate form of Marxism, Communism the most virulent form. We have ESG that WEF exposes is fully Marxism thought embeded in oppressor-victim virtue complex.
Completely wrong, more than half journalist defend it, many university professors. What is one the books most read in American Universities?
Marxism is not discredited.
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As an aside we have now The Economist praising recessions
https://www.economist.com/leaders/2022/07/27/the-silver-linings-of-a-recession
lucklucky – the Economist magazine is dreadful, but I have a bit of obsession with bashing it so I will leave it aside. Other than to say once there is the Credit Money “boom” there must be a BUST – this is what the late Lord Keynes never grasped, the problem is the “boom” (the expansion of credit money) itself.
As for Marxism – yes Mussolini has been the leading Marxist of Italy and remained an admirer of Karl Marx to his dying day. But there are real differences between Marxism ad Fascism – most importantly (from the point of view of the Corporations and the international rich) is that under Fascism the ultra rich get to keep their life styles – rather than being shot, or sent to a Gulag.
If one is, say, Bill Gates – this difference between Fascism (or Saint-Simonism if one wants to be polite) and Marxism is very important. I do not think that Mr Gates and his associates wish to be shot – or sent to a Gulag.
However, this does not stop the Corporate State WEF types using Frankfurt School Marxist tactics – suppressing Freedom of Speech as “Hate Speech” or “disinformation” and-so-on.
The endless advertisements on television (and the internet and ….) from the Corporations are also saturated with Frankfurt School Marxist messages – about race, sexuality and….. like the education system (which produces Corporate Managers) the Corporations appear fanatically committed to destroying Western culture, Western civilisation. They do not grasp that they are destroying the ground under their own feet.
Whether the savage Marxists on the streets (Antifa, BLM and-so-on) ever turn on their Corporate State masters is something that will be interesting to find out.
After all WHY should a gang of Marxists looters and burners not pay attention to the homes of people of such people as Mr Gates – although I note that the ultra rich are increasingly living further and further away from the cities.
Not all the Marxists on the streets are stupid – destroying independent stores (and so on) for the benefit of Amazon and Google is not really want they want. They want to destroy Amazon and Google as well.
Indeed they want to destroy all the Davos types – the Davos types having USED the Marxists for so long.
The debate about what is the correct name to apply to the current version of Marxism (wokeness) is like the debate how many saints can dance on the head of a pin.
It’s Marxism all the way down.
No great need to dive deeply into the characteristics of every sub-current.
Then you obviously have no idea what Marxism or Fascism are. They are a subset of socialism, not a synonym for it, even if Marxist and Fascists typically kill other socialists for pointing that out.
Are the WEF crew calling for the wholesale nationalisation of the means of production? No, they want state regulation of privately held means of production, not direct state ownership of them. This is not a meaningless distinction if you are going to insist on calling people like Trudeau or Biden ‘Marxist’. They ain’t, not that it makes them any less toxic. Quite the contrary because not many normies will vote for an avowed Marxist. However, they don’t have the political anti-bodies to react as badly to a Saint-Simonist (who he?).
Words matter. Read Capital. Read Communist Manifesto. That is what Marxists thinks, not ‘stakeholder capitalism’ or ‘public-private partnerships’.
The people arguing for actual Marxism are irrelevant lunatics or mere academics (but I repeat myself). Those are typically not the people nice Mr. Schwab has been getting into cabinets world wide, it is people whose economic models hark back to the corporatist socialism of pre-Marxist Saint-Simon or outright (economic) fascists like Gentile, Mussolini et al.
Pure historical ignorance. Classical Marxists would have put the wokesters up against a wall & shot them all by now if they were in power. They are all socialists, they are not all Marxists. It is socialism all the way down.
Whenever I point to Fascism as defined by Mussolini himself, a lot of supposedly educated people would close their ears, simply refuse the evidence, and insist on the perverted definitions offered up by modern ideologues with an agenda, which is utterly bunk.
https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/the-original-fascist/
Having Gentile as an additional point of reference is great. Who can refute his definitions and philosophy of fascism? Together with Mussolini, he wrote the book on it!
The “nice guy” socialists would love to put their opponents (all the world) to a wall and shoot them too. It’s only that they have decided, as a tactic, not to boast about their wishes and keep a polite veneer.
There is no other difference between them and old-fashion Marxists.
Many thanks to the Wobbly Guy for the link to the Codevilla essay. I am less than half-way through, and there is already a lot to think about and study further.
Angelo Codevilla was well placed to appraise fascism critically, being familiar with the Italian school of ruling-class theory (which also influenced Mussolini).
“Many thanks to the Wobbly Guy for the link to the Codevilla essay.” – agreed: thank you!
But one item I take away from it, à la a very popular process I call “Hitlerian Studies”, in notice (not ‘honour’) of Schicklgruber’s instructions in Mein Kampf of how to study – you read voraciously, dismiss out-of-hand whatever you disagree with as its author is self-evidently insane, and parrot whatever agrees with you ad nauseam – is an important note at the very end of the piece, under Cui Bono?. The purpose of all such labels, be they “fascist”, “commie”, “racist”, “cisheteropatriarchal” or whatever, is to define your opponent in terms of your (and your group’s) genetic “WE / THEY”.
The label you use as a pejorative, you also use as a dismissal; “Oh, he’s a …” – he thus having been labelled as someone your group despises, he may be ignored, his opinions dismissed out-of-hand because he’s tagged as a wrong-thinker not worthy of debate, and in the more extreme political situations, he may be pogromed without further consideration – and you are sure of both absolution and group support by doing so. And this is not merely the focus of wokeness; it’s been the major focus of every political group throughout the history of the human (?) race. So my take-away is that whenever a pejorative label is applied, there’s little effort (or value) put into ensuring it is accurate, because that’s not why we label.
“He’s a FASCIST!” “Err well, ACK-sherally he’s not REALLY fascist, the definition of fascism is more like…” “SHUT UP, you pedant – he’s FASCIST!!!” Anybody else ever been there?
It is you that equate Marxism and Communism as if they are synonyms. They are not. Marxism can evolve in various directions.
I pointed that Fascism is a moderate form of Marxism because Class Struggle is central point of Fascism, they took it from Marxism and they dealt with it ideologically with Corporatism because they saw Class Struggle would make a country at war with itself, so they toned down Marxism.
Ownership of production… it was Fascist Italy that had almost 70% of its industry controlled by the state, the 2nd country after USSR, the Socialization of Economy in 1943 project was to have workers achieve ownership of any property(or company) they worked for to prevent worker “exploitation” right out of Marxism book.