"Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that is a majority, can direct human society: it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently levelled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage..."
Mike Moore, Director-General of the WTO?
No, Benito Mussolini, former El Duce of Italy, now dead.
1.
The word "Canadian" used to be a beautiful word, but since Quebec City it has become a bad penny. At the recent demonstration against the Pacific North West Economic Region (PNWER) in Whistler, B.C., a fellow protestor carried a Canadian flag on a pole--which he flew upside down. This made me angry at first. But then I realized the point he was trying to make. Our country has been turned upside down.
After the APEC protests, images of the notorious "Sergeant Pepper" wading into the crowd of protestors waving a canister of pepper spray like an out-of-control fire hose were broadcast across the nation. What was the official comment from the top? "Pepper, for me, I put it on my plate," our Prime Minister said. Thanks, Jean. Forgive me for laughing when you finally die.
But shouldn't we respect our Prime Minister? Respect is a two-way street, the cliché goes, which is a cliché because its true.
Respect. This is what a democracy is founded on. This is what activism is founded on. And this is where our democracy is breaking down.
The word fascist has been tossed around a lot of late. It came to the front in the reports from Genoa when the political prisoners described the Carabinieri singing fascist hymns ("One, Two, kill all the Jews") and pictures of Mussolini hanging throughout the jails. This is fascism with a capital F that can be traced directly back to its origins before the Second World War.
But what of fascism in other countries like our own, who never had a significant fascist movement in our history?
I had a job once working for a huge multinational forestry corporation in Vancouver, British Columbia. Nothing special, just an adequately-paying computer job I got through a temp agency. I'm not sure what it would have been like living under Fascism in another country, but I think it would have been pretty close to what it was like working for this company.
One thing you notice right away when you walk into the offices of a company like this is where are old the people? Then why does everyone treat the obviously closeted gay guy with complete contempt? Finally, why doe everyone take such visceral delight in the failings, faux pas, mistakes and slip-ups of their co-workers?
Contrast this to the atmosphere of a demonstration, an activist's meeting or even the larger anti-globalization movement itself. At the PNWER demonstration in Whistler, there were no gray-haired Raging Grannies, but definitely people in their 50s. (At the debriefing meeting a protest veteran from the 1960s related his experience from that decade in a constructive way that was helpful and inspiring to all). I'm not sure how many gays and lesbians are involved in the anti-globalization movement, but the large goal is social justice and I would hope they feel welcome here. Our groups operate on the principle of consensus and equality--"leaders" or media reps are elected or chosen by group consensus and remain in these positions for only a short period of time. When there is little or no hierarchy (and even then for short periods of time) there is no competition for position, and so people treat each other with respect (person failings aside), and so we loose the back-stabbing and delight in other's misfortune that is endemic in the corporate office.
But why this lack of respect among the people who make a corporation work? I think we find the answer when we identify the essentially fascist nature of a multinational corporation.
When I was a child I grew up in a farmhouse along a riverbank. Down the river from where we lived was the oldest house on the road--built in 1842 (this was Ontario). It was a brickhouse with chimneys, a dirt driveway and wide, shiny windows. I mention it here because there is a story associated with the house that we can set at odds against the concept of fascism.
This story (and it was my father who told it to me) recounts that natives who were paddling up the river would stop at the house and spend the night there before continuing on their way in the morning. What intrigued me about the story as a 7-year old boy was the fact that the natives didn't knock on the front door and ask to spend the night there. Instead, they slipped in a basement window and spent the night in the cellar unannounced. Their stay would have gone undetected had they not each morning on leaving left a gift of fish for the owners of the house.
We should not take the wrong lesson from this story i.e. natives are only good enough to sleep in basements. This was another time. Before there was a Canada. Whites were fewer in this area of the country, there were still great forests and natives could still to a certain degree live from hunting and trapping. Thus the white European world (capitalist, agricultural, industrial) and the native world (subsistence agriculture, hunting, trapping for trade) could still exist in two separate spheres at the same time. And the lesson for us is what happened when they came together.
Remember respect is a two-way street (which is also to say, if two people are to respect each other they must consider themselves broadly equal). The natives in the middle of a trapping/hunting expedition where they were "roughing it" anyways slip into European-style brickhouse to get out of the elements. The Europeans, who after the first visit became aware of their visitors, exert a kind of silent hospitality and keep letting them stay. On their side of the two-way street, the natives respond with a gesture that is probably common to all cultures--the gift of thanks. Is there any greater gesture of respect than thanking someone? (And I don't mean the kind of false respect i.e. fear the powerful demands of the powerless). On the other hand is there any greater gesture of respect than the gift of hospitality?
Set against this the express purpose of fascism (as stated by one of it's two prime movers as quoted at the beginning of this article) to affirm "the immutable, beneficial and fruitful inequality of man." Where is the respect there? There is only fear on one side, and loathing on the other. The slave cannot respect his or her master, and the master cannot respect his or her slave.
2.
"The protestors make me want to vomit."
Benito Mussolini, former El Duce of Italy, now dead?
No, Mike Moore, Director-General of the WTO, brain-dead.
We all know, and have probably felt throughout our lives the lack-of-respect with which the corporations treat the inhabitants of this earth. Exploitation, devastation, suppression, and plain old lying, cheating and stealing are their modus operandi. What's new you say? Corporations (and capital) have been doing this since the Industrial Revolution of the 19th century. What's new is the scale on which they are doing it--the global scale.
There was globalization in the 19th century. It was called colonization or imperialism (those natives who slept in the basement felt it--it is what built Canada). It had a different name but the principle was the same: subjugate a foreign people, mine their land of resources cheaply (devastating their communities in the process), then sell manufactured goods they don't want (but now need because the old way of life has disappeared) back to them at outrageous prices. We can call this old, 19th century process historical globalization.
But there is one crucial difference that separates contemporary globalization from historical globalization. Historical globalization operated under the principle "trade follows the flag". This means that a government would go in first and conquer a country (like the Europeans who checker-boarded Africa). Then once the territory was secure (a European flag hoisted over it) the corporations would pour in to gut and suck it dry.
Now, under contemporary globalization foreign countries are not conquered by the state with guns (there are interventions--Iraq, Yugoslavia--but the country is not colonized in the traditional sense). Instead, trade now has a free hand. This did not happen over night. 19th century colonization or historical globalization as we are calling it did not end properly until after the Second World War. There had been gradual independence up until then, but it was only after WWII that the great colonial possessions like India, Indonesia and Africa were given up.
Whereas before "trade follows the flag", now the flag follows trade. Trade goes first into a country (and then the interventions follow: Iraq, Yugoslavia, Somalia--all for oil). But, we should observe, trade did not come immediately unfettered from the state after the Second World War. This was prevented by the Cold War. The global face-off between Communism and the "American way-of-life" insured that there were some parts of the world the corporations couldn't get to. The two vast state-systems the Americans and the Soviets operated with their client states, alliances (NATO, Warsaw Pact) ensured that a semi-colonial world order i.e. elements of historical globalization still existed. Only with the fall of Communism did the old system of historical globalization disappear and the new system of contemporary globalization take its place.
3.
"Reactionary concepts plus revolutionary emotion result in Fascist mentality"
Wilhem Reich
Can corporations as they have always existed from the Industrial Revolution and before be called fascist? (And here we should make a distinction between historical fascism--as practiced by Mussolini and Hitler--and a new concept we can call corporate fascism).
My argument is that even though corporations may have always had fascism incipient in them it is only since the fall of Communism and the subsequent global corporate take-over, that we have seen corporate fascism become overt and affect the lives of millions, if not billions of people.
First we must define what fascism, that is, what historical fascism is. Historical fascism can be said to have the following characteristics:
(1) Authoritarian reliance on leader not constitutionally responsible to electorate.
(2) Attack on democracy or democratic values (all the while using them to get power).
(3) Use of violence/threats of violence to oppose views of others.
(4) Dehumanization/Scapegoating of Enemy.
(5) Abandonment of any consistent ideology in a ruthless drive for power.
(6) Exhortation for the mass of people to join in a historic mission.
(7) Imperial expansion to express the vitality of the people.
These 7 characteristics can also be said to define corporate fascism:
(1) Authoritarian leader. The fabled CEO from whom all power flows. Frequently has a salary 1,000 times that of the lowest paid worker in his corporation. Is responsible to no electorate--only the share-holders and frequently not even then.
(2) Attacks on democracy. Corporations use international trade agreements (WTO, Chapter 11 of NAFTA) to override local or national democratic decisions. Where did the WTO and NAFTA come from? These agreements were signed on behalf of the corporations by people we elected with an X on a ballot. Thus corporations use democracy to undermine itself. They mold public opinion in national elections through their monopolies in the media where public debate occurs. Hitler was elected and asked to form a government by Hindenberg the German president. Mussolini also came to power constitutionally, being asked to form a government by the king. So too do the corporations bring friendly or out and out puppet governments to power through technically democratic means. It is at this point, like Hitler and Mussolini did, that the corporations work to limit democracy. Mussolini had his national assembly vote itself out of existence. Hitler first burnt the Reichstag to the ground, then intimidated the remaining delegates with the presence of brownshirts to vote away all their powers to him--making him dictator. In our own age, corporation-friendly governments, once elected effectively tie their own hands, just as Mussolini's assembly and Hitler's Reichstag voted themselves out of existence.
(3) Use of violence. Corporations themselves do not use violence (or at least not on a large scale). They leave this to the corporate-friendly governments and the paramilitaries (death squads, Carabinieri, Public Order Program) that those governments arm.
Historical fascism was marked by the use of violence or the threat of violence against those who held opposite views. Brownshirts beat up Communists and leftists in the streets. Trade unionists were liquidated in concentration camps. Under corporate fascism, these things happen at their most intense level in "Third World" countries. Trade unionists are massacred (Columbia), rebellious communities around oil wells are eliminated through scorched earth policies (the southern Sudan--children were nailed to trees, according to Amnesty International), anti-globalization journalists are intimidated in their homes by thugs (Yevgeniy Gilbo--Russia). It is a sign of the increasing ascendance of corporate fascism that this "Third World" violence is coming to the "First World". Just read up on what happened in Genoa.
(4) Dehumanization/Scapegoating. At this point the qualities of historical and corporate fascism diverge somewhat. The dehumanization practiced by Hitler and Mussolini resulted in the unprecedented genocide of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others as enemies who had "stabbed" the nation "in the back". They were scapegoats used to mobilize public opinion in the historical fascist take-over. There is an element of scapegoating that can be identified in the corporate fascist take-over, though it is nowhere near the level of pure hatred historical fascism unleashed.
The scapegoating can be seen in the elections corporations engineer to bring corporate-friendly governments to power. To understand how scapegoating happens today we must take a look at the conditions that allow a fascist movement, either historical or corporate, to rise.
Historical fascism arose out of a "crisis of capitalism" that existed in Europe after WWI and reached its peak in the Great Depression of the 1930s. Hitler harnessed the widespread unemployed and disaffected with the "national socialist" platform of his Nazi Party. Once he got into power, it was another story. Heard of the "Night of Long Knives"? This was a purge of the "national socialist" side of his party after he was made chancellor in 1933. Hitler used dissatisfaction with the state of capitalism to gain power (in an election) but once he was there, he made an alliance with the capitalists (i.e. corporations) who were eager to keep their positions. All the "national socialist" leaders in his party were killed in their beds.
Contemporary corporate fascism also arises out of "crisis of capitalism". Since the early 1970s there has been a pattern of recession and recovery in the world's economy, with the recoveries never being enough to reverse completely the damage of the previous recession. Add to this the fact that modern capitalism requires enormous input costs to pay for R&D, technology and other resources--and what you see is declining net profits for the corporations over the last 30 years.
The "crisis of capitalism" that affects the average person happens because as the economy worsens over time unemployment becomes progressively and permanently higher (despite the efforts by governments to define it away statistically). With more people wanting jobs, and worries about the security of jobs in bad economic times, there is a downward pressure on wages and salaries. Wages and salaries fall far behind the level of inflation. We witness the spectacle of two parents having to work full-time, with longer hours (whether they want to or not) to keep the family's head above water.
The "crisis of capitalism" is worsened by the efforts of the corporations to maintain their profitability. Operations are "rationalized" i.e. people are fired, to keep costs down. Those that remain are exploited more to keep production at the same level. But they don't complain, because they're glad to have a job. But this is not enough to maintain the level of profitability a corporation requires. So the corporation turns to another source of costs to its operations--taxes and regulations imposed by the state.
In the west at least, the corporation does not have a completely free hand to tell the state what to do. The state must answer first to the people, in theory at least. In this case, the corporation must modify public opinion to the extent that it elects a corporation-friendly government that will make the necessary changes to taxes and regulations that ensure profitability. This happened earlier in some nations than others. In Britain, Margaret Thatcher was elected in 1976. Reagan was elected in 1980. And in Canada, Brian Mulroney in 1984. The principle in each though was to harness the middle class voter who felt squeezed by the "crisis of capitalism". This was done (and is still being done) in part through scapegoating.
The poor ("welfare queens") are represented in campaigns as being parasites sucking the public purse dry. This continued right through the 1990s to our own day (remember Jean Chretien smearing welfare recipients as people who sat on the couch all day drinking beer). Why does scapegoating occur?
Behind the scenes, while this is going on, corporations are lobbying governments to reduce corporate taxes to keep profits at adequate levels despite the ongoing "crisis of capitalism" since the 1970s. Cutting corporate taxes will mean less revenue for a government to spend on social programs. But there must be public support for these cuts. This public support is created by scapegoating. The middle class, who is already being squeezed by falling wages/salaries, is told there are people (outsiders, non-taxpayers, the poor) who are taking advantage of the programs middle class income tax pays for. Other targets include environmental groups who cost jobs because of regulations they demand--and progressive causes in general that want things to exist at better than the lowest common denominator in their society.
The result is cuts to programs the more marginal use (welfare, family services, public transit). Middle class services (health, libraries, roads) are not touched, or if so, only very, very modestly (one week library closure year each year in Vancouver to save money).
Still, the larger purpose of these corporate-friendly governments (and some would argue--any government for that matter) is not to cut social programs, but to create conditions favourable for corporate profit. According to Statistics Canada (1992) only 2-5% of our national debt comes from spending on social programs. Close to 50% comes from revenue lost to changes in the tax structure. As corporate taxes fall, and revenue dries up, the government must borrow more to keep popular middle class social programs in place. The debt rises. This increases pressure to cut spending. Attacks on the poor and other marginal people (think of recent efforts of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to take away natives' constitutional right not to pay income tax) become more insistent. It is a vicious cycle caused by the "crisis of capitalism" and the resultant cuts to corporate incomes taxes.
(5) Ruthless drive to power. This one is pretty self-explanatory. Its accompanied by the "abandonment of consistent ideology". If anything the corporations behind the WTO, IMF and FTAA cannot be accused of having a "consistent ideology". They may says so in their official propaganda (and they have a propaganda machine that would make Hitler envious) but the truth is what they enforce on the world is a double standard--protected markets and a high quality of life in the western nations where the multinationals are based, but free markets and a low standard of living for the Second and Third World where they extract resources and sell their products.
(6) Exhortations for the people to join a historic mission. This is where the "revolutionary feeling" Wilhelm Reich identified in historic fascism comes in. What is the "historic mission" of corporate fascism? In a word--globalization. This is the true revolutionary movement in the world today. After the fall of Communism, the world was at a crossroads. It was time for the "New World Order" as Bush called it in a bizarre phrase that sounds like it could've come straight out of Mein Kampf.
The project the corporations had in mind was truly revolutionary--the creation of a Corporate Fascist Superstate (CFS). By 1995 they had largely succeeded in creating this new level of government, above all other levels of government--the WTO, NAFTA, EU were all in place. Signs of resistance were growing. But where it counted the Corporate Fascist Superstate was a done deal.
Mussolini wrote: "The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State."
and also: "The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone..."
It is important to remember in our analysis that corporate fascism is not implemented at the nation-state level, but instead at the supra-national level--the Corporate Fascist Superstate in its organs the WTO, NAFTA, the EU etc. Nation-states created the Corporate Fascist Superstate (our governments drafted--under corporate guidance--and signed into existence the WTO, NAFTA, the EU). This is akin to historical fascism. Remember in Italy, Mussolini had the House of Deputies vote itself out of existence. So too have our states brought into existence an extra level of government--the Corporate Fascist Superstate--to which they are answerable and which overrides any democratic decisions they might make.
Mussolini's description of the historical fascist state (HFS) is pretty much of our own Corporate Fascist Superstate (CFS) as well. The CFS is an "absolute" as Mussolini called the HFS--it overrides everything underneath. It is power from the top down. Individuals or groups are "only to be conceived of in relation to the State". In the HFS, all individuals, groups and communities were cogs in the party wheel. Sound familiar? In the CFS, all individuals, groups, communities are cogs in the corporate wheel. Individuals have no rights in themselves, only what the corporations, through the CFS allows them.
(And don't think I'm being alarmist here--this is where we are heading. Democracy works on one person, one vote. This implies certain fundamental rights he or she holds just by being alive. But the CFS in cancelling out democracy, cancels out these inherent rights as well. We, as in the HFS, have only the rights they decide to give us. If you doubt this, look up all the corporate challenges to national/state/municipal environmental laws under NAFTA or the WTO. The corporation has won every time. Every time the law is overturned. In the Corporate Fascist Superstate, the corporations hold all rights. As Mussolini said "the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual but the State alone...")
This is the corporate revolutionary project. But where is the exhortation for the common or woman to join in? It does exist, if you listen for it. "Competitive," they say, "We must be competitive--in the global marketplace. Take a pay cut. Work a few hours more everyday, or see your job go overseas. Someone in India or China is waiting to take it"--this is the great capitalist struggle we are exhorted to take part in. Work harder, so that our GDP might grow.
Of course the historic mission that the common man or woman is exhorted to take part in is different than the historic mission of the Corporate Fascist Superstate. This was the same with historical fascism. As said before, Hitler took power on a "national socialist" platform and once he was there he had that element of his party murdered in their beds. Thus, with contemporary corporate fascism, we are exhorted to work harder for the economic glory of our country. Hitler fed his people a struggle between races (the "nationalist" part of his platform). We are fed a struggle between national economies. Only the strongest will survive. We must make the national workplace stronger. What doesn't kill you (paycuts, long hours, insecurity) makes you stronger.
Hitler envisioned a fourth reich ruling the world. He didn't live to see it. With the WTO, NAFTA, IMF the corporations have realized that fourth reich in the Corporate Fascist Superstate. That is their historic mission--a little different from what they fed the people. But they, like Hitler, used that exhortation to take power and play us one off against the other.
(7) Imperial Expansion. Unlimited Growth. New Markets. A corporation must always grow (make profits, accumulate capital) or it will die. Hitler said the Germans needed "living room" to realize their true potential and he proceeded to try and conquer the world. Whole countries and peoples were subjugated in the process. What does the IMF do? It subjugates "Third World" countries through poison pill loan offers. A country takes the loans, but there are conditions--privatize this, cut that--setting the stage for the corporations to march in, like the Nazis into Paris, and take control. More cuts. More privatizations--and the people are beaten back to the stone age.
4.
Respect recognizes a person's fundamental rights--that thing in all of us that is equal. It is no mistake that in the prison's of Genoa there were threats of sexual abuse. That in Sudan they nailed children to trees. That in Canada, natives suffer a rate of suicide three times the national average. What happens here is failure to recognize the other person as a human being.
Why were there no old people in the corporate office I worked for? They are expendable. Their usefulness has passed. In historical fascism, the weak, infirm, handicapped were liquidated. Under corporate fascism (not to overstate the case), they are economically liquidated--downsized, laid off, bought-out of a good job and left to fend for themselves on the outside.
Why was the gay man treated with scorn? Remember, historical fascism was defined as "reactionary concepts plus revolutionary emotion". Is there any more reactionary organization on earth today than a multinational corporation? They are trying to undo all the progress in rights and freedoms we have gained in the last hundred years.
Finally why the back-stabbing and delight in failure?--the struggle, the Darwinian view of life. Your enemy's mistake is your gain.
So what? It is not overstated to say that corporations now rule the world. Effectively that is what they do. If, through the WTO or NAFTA, they can overturn the law of a national parliament, then they are the top level of government--the Corporate Fascist Superstate. It doesn't matter that Mike Moore, Director-General of the WTO is not a direct employee of Monsanto, Shell, Union Carbide. At least not at the moment. No doubt when his term is up he'll move onto the board of directors of some corporation somewhere.
A corporation is a fascist organization. This wouldn't matter if they were small and exercised little power. But the fact that they are huge and exercise de facto world government means they effect us all. And as the state gets out of the business of being the state by privatizing and contracting-out, corporations will come to govern more and more areas of our lives. A fascist view of the world is being imposed on us from the top down. Will the rest of our lives, our leisure time, our friendships, our families become like the employees in a corporate head office--full of scorn, contempt for the weak, a Darwinian struggle to survive? This is a real threat. Go to Toys R Us. Take a look at the little miniature shopping cars they have for kids. They say "customer in training" on the side. But what about the kid on welfare, the native kid, the kid in Columbia whose parents' crop is being sprayed by pesticides from U.S.-supplied helicopters and runs off into the water they bathe him in?
Respect. This comes from the bottom up. It is the most basic thing on earth. Respect for land and people. And if there is no respect from the top, then the top must be blown off. It won't take much. All of us breathing together can do it. There are 6 billion people on this earth, but how many corporations are there?
Simon Pole
September 2, 2001
Vancouver, BC, Canada |
