US Politics in an Age of Uncertainty

by Lance Selfa

  But if the Holocaust was a barbaric irrelevance—except incidentally—for German capital, the Nazi regime also presents us with examples of policies that were instrumentally irrational from the perspective of the capitalist state. As Detlev Peukert writes: “To see fascism as an effective answer to the weakness of the bourgeois democratic state, i.e., as a functional solution to the crisis in the interests of capital, is to be taken in by the self-image of National Socialism created by its own propaganda.” For one thing, it led to the creation of a deeply fragmented and incoherent institution:

  The equipping of state bodies with economic functions, and of business enterprises with quasi-state powers, led not to a more effective and rationally functioning “state monopoly capitalism,” but to a welter of jurisdictions and responsibilities that could be held in check only by short-term projects and campaigns. The splintered state and semi-state managerial bodies adopted the principle of competition. The “nationalization” of society by Nazism was followed by the “privatization” of the state. This paradox meant that, on the one hand, there were huge concentrations of power as a result of internal and external Blitzkrieg campaigns, while, on the other hand, inefficiency, lack of planning, falling productivity and general decline prevailed.31

  This had the most serious implications in relation to German war-making. Götz Aly claims that the plundering of conquered territories and externalization of monetary inflation undertaken by the Nazis as World War II progressed served to bind the German masses to the regime by raising their living standards.32 The thesis is massively exaggerated and ignores such opposition and resistance that did take place.33 Nevertheless, it inadvertently identifies a central problem for the regime: the provision of material resources for German industry and provisions for the German population would have been impossible without territorial expansion through war; yet this was precisely what the nature of the regime undermined. As Tim Mason noted, “The racial-ethical utopia… was taken so seriously by the political leadership, in particular by Hitler and by the SS, that in decisive questions even the urgent material needs of the system were sacrificed to it.”34

  Germany had higher rates of female participation in the workforce than either Britain or the United States at the beginning of the war, although many of these jobs were in roles considered suitable for women and which would not be detrimental to their roles as wives and mothers.35 Yet, despite a desperate shortage of labor, Hitler resisted female conscription until after German defeat at the battle of Stalingrad, apparently for ideological concerns over a potential decline in the birth rate (and hence to the strength of the “Aryan” race) and the threat to female morals; but even then his resistance was applied halfheartedly and was widely evaded.36

  Thus, there can be situations where there is a genuine “non-identity of interest” between capitalists and what are—from their point of view—the irrational demands made by the social base of the political party that they prefer to have custody of the state. This may appear to be sheer stupidity, but as Theodor Adorno once pointed out, specifically in relation to the Nazi regime, “Stupidity is not a natural quality, but one socially produced and reinforced.” Hitler failed to invade the United Kingdom when he had the chance and invaded the Soviet Union when he did not need to:

  The German ruling clique drove towards war because they were excluded from a position of imperial power. But in their exclusion lay the reason for the blind and clumsy provincialism that made Hitler’s and Ribbentropp’s policies uncompetitive and their war a gamble…. Germany’s industrial backwardness forced its politicians—anxious to regain lost ground and, as have-nots, specially qualified for the role—to fall back on their immediate, narrow experience, that of the political façade. They saw nothing in front of them except cheering assemblies and frightened negotiators: this blocked their view of the objective power of a greater mass of capital.37

  The contemporary relevance of this experience is limited: The working class is not currently combative enough to inspire fear in the bourgeoisie, and the states in which the fascist far right is large enough even to conceive of achieving power, like Greece or Hungary, are not imperialist powers capable of attempting continental domination in the way that Germany or even Italy was capable of doing. The point is that, in the contemporary situation, all that may remain are those aspects of the far-right program that are irrational for capital, particularly in its current neoliberal manifestation.

  The Appeal of the Populist Right

  Fascist movements cannot base themselves on working-class organizations, since one of their defining characteristics is to seek the destruction of such movements. This is why a movement like Ulster Loyalism in Northern Ireland, based as it was on the skilled Protestant working class, cannot be described as fascist, however reactionary and divisive it may otherwise have been. But if fascist movements are incompatible with working-class organizations, they can and do draw support from individual members of the working class, as can the far right more generally. This is the real threat posed by Trump in the United States and the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the United Kingdom.

  Chip Berlet and Matthew Lyons observe that, in the context of the United States, there are “two versions of secular right-wing populism,” each drawing on a different class base: “one centered around ‘get the government off my back’ economic libertarianism coupled with a rejection of mainstream political parties (more attractive to the upper-middle class and small entrepreneurs); the other based on xenophobia and ethnocentric nationalism (more attractive to the lower-middle class and wage workers).”38 As the reference to “wage-workers” in relation to the second version suggests, the reactionary role played by sections of the middle classes does not exhaust the social basis of right-wing social movements. Since the majority of the population are exploited and oppressed, such movements must draw at least some support from their ranks.

  Unfortunately, the spectacle of the working class, or the oppressed more generally, mobilizing against their own interests alongside members of other social classes has produced a number of inadequate responses from socialists. One is the claim that working-class demands or actions, which might appear reactionary, actually contain a rational core that renders them defensible by the left: in relation to migration this is sometimes expressed as the need for socialists to pay heed to the “genuine concerns” of the working class, as if the sincerity of the belief rendered it valid. The other inadequate response is the argument that, even if working-class people participate in them, right-wing movements are illegitimate because they are funded or led by wealthy corporations or individuals.

  This argument inverts the classic conservative theme that popular unrest against the established order is never, as it were, natural, but always orchestrated by external forces (“outside agitators”), inventing or, at most, manipulating grievances in order to further their own ends.39 Some of the people who supported Trump may well be morally wrong and politically misguided, but it is patronizing—and above all politically useless—to pretend that they are simply being manipulated by elite puppet masters. Sara Diamond is therefore correct that left critics of the US Christian right are wrong to adopt what she calls “a view of conspiracies by small, right-wing cliques to stage-manage what was truly a mass movement.” She is also right to emphasize the complexity of right-wing populism towards “existing power structures,” being “partially oppositional and partially… system supportive”40

  Why, then, might working-class people be predisposed to respond positively to right-wing arguments? There are both general reasons true at all periods in the history of capitalism and specific reasons relevant to the present neoliberal conjuncture. Marxists, above all Gramsci, have shown that most members of the subordinate classes have highly contradictory forms of consciousness.41 Nevertheless, the capitalist system could not survive unless it was accepted at some level, most of the time, by the majority of the people who live under it. The implications of this are darker than is sometim
es supposed. A characteristic form of contradictory consciousness involves a reformist inability to conceive of anything beyond capitalism, while opposing specific effects of the system.

  But the alternatives are not restricted to active rejection at one extreme and passive acceptance at the other. There can also be active support, the internalization of capitalist values associated with the system to the point where they can lead to action. Marxists and other anticapitalist radicals frequently point out that, rather than men benefiting from the oppression of women, whites from the oppression of Blacks, or straights from the oppression of LGBTQ people, it is capitalism and the bourgeoisie that do so. This is a useful corrective to the argument, common in many left-wing movements, that each form of oppression is separate from the others and that none has any necessary connection to the capitalist system.

  Nevertheless, it fails to take seriously the distinction made by Lukács between “what men in fact thought, felt and wanted at any point in the class structure” and “the thoughts and feelings which men would have in a particular situation if they were able to assess both it and the interests arising from it in their impact on immediate action and on the whole structure of society.”42 For we cannot assume that members of the working class are not only capable of having, but actually have the thoughts and feelings “appropriate to their objective situation.” If the workers do not attain this level of consciousness, a significant minority take positions supportive of, for example, racial oppression, which may not have benefited them compared with the benefits they would have received by struggling for racial equality, let alone full social equality. Without some degree of class consciousness, however, they need not ever consider this alternative: in the immediate context of their situation, a stance that is detrimental to working-class interests as a whole may not make sense to particular individual members of the working class.

  The victories of neoliberalism have left the working class in the West increasingly fragmented and disorganized, and, for some workers, appeals to blood and nation appear as the only viable form of collectivity still available, particularly in a context where any systemic alternative to capitalism—however false it may have been—had apparently collapsed in 1989–91. Dismissing their views on grounds of irrationality is simply an evasion. As Berlet and Lyons write: “Right-wing populist claims are no more and no less irrational than conventional claims that presidential elections express the will of the people, that economic health can be measured by the profits of multimillion dollar corporations, or that US military interventions in Haiti or Somalia or Kosovo or wherever are designed to promote democracy and human rights.”43 Yet these beliefs, which are accepted by many more people than those who believe in, say, the literal truth of the Book of Genesis, are not treated as signs of insanity. The issue, as Berlet has argued elsewhere, is not “personal pathology” but collective “desperation.”44

  The increasing interchangeability of mainstream political parties, including those on the social democratic left, gives the far right an opening to voters by positioning themselves as outside the consensus in relation to social policy.45 Michael Kimmel points out that, although it would be absurd to claim that “women or gay people or people of color are being treated equally,” it is true that “we have never been more equal than we are today”; but “at the same time… economically we are more unequal than we have been in about a century”:

  So it’s easy to think these phenomena are related—that the greater class inequality is somehow attendant upon, even caused by, greater social equality. Perhaps we can be convinced that the reason for the dramatic skewing of our country’s riches is somehow that these newly arrived groups are siphoning off the very benefits that were supposed to be trickling down to middle- and lower-middle-class white men.46

  Kimmel follows the characteristic, everyday discourse in the United States, in which working-class people are described as, or contained within the categories of, “middle- and lower-middle-class,” but his conclusion is apt: “To believe that greater social equality is the cause of your economic misery requires a significant amount of manipulation, perhaps the greatest bait and switch that has ever been perpetuated against middle- and lower-middle-class Americans.”47

  A majority of the people involved in right-wing social movements do so because of underlying economic concerns; the more relevant question is perhaps whether, in the absence of any left-wing solution to those concerns, they continue to demand the implementation of their social program as a condition of support for politicians who claim to represent them. In these circumstances, a deeper problem for the stability of the capitalist system than the possibility of far-right parties themselves coming to power with a program destructive to capitalist needs might be their influence over the mainstream parties of the right, when the beliefs of their supporters may inadvertently cause difficulty for the accumulation process. As Muller writes, from the perspective of the liberal left:

  It’s hard to deny that some policies justified with reference to “the people” really can turn out to have been irresponsible: those deciding on such policies did not think hard enough; they failed to gather all the relevant evidence; or, most plausibly, their knowledge of the likely long-term consequences should have made them refrain from policies with only short-term electoral benefits to themselves. One does not have to be a neoliberal technocrat to judge some policies as plainly irrational.48

  The clearest examples of this type of irrationality are to be found in the Anglo-Saxon heartlands of neoliberalism: the United States and Britain. Take an important area of Republican Party support. Since the late Sixties, Republicans have been increasingly reliant on communities of fundamentalist Christian believers, whose activism allows them to be mobilized for voting purposes. The problem, and not only for the Republicans, is not only that the extremism of fundamentalist Christianity may alienate the electoral “middle ground” on which the result of American elections increasingly depends, but that politicians are constrained from undertaking policies that may be necessary for American capitalism. Unwanted outcomes for capital need not be the product of a coherent religious worldview, simply one that no longer believes anything produced outside its own experience—or the way in which that experience is interpreted by their trusted sources of information.

  But it is not only religious belief that can cause difficulties for US capital; so too can overt anti-migrant racism. One concrete example of this is the Tea Party-inspired Beason-Hammon Alabama Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act—HB56, as it is usually known—which was passed by the state legislature in June 2011, making it illegal not to carry immigration papers and preventing anyone without documents from receiving any provisions from the state, including water supply. The law was intended to prevent and reverse immigration by undocumented immigrants, but the effect was to cause a mass departure from the many of the agricultural businesses that relied on these workers to form the bulk of their labor force: “In the north of the state, the pungent smell of rotting tomatoes hangs in the air across huge tranches of land that have been virtually abandoned by workers who, through fear or anger, are no longer turning up to gather the harvest.”49 But the effects went deeper. Before the laws introduced it was estimated that 4.2 percent of the workforce, or ninety-five thousand people, were undocumented but paying $130.3 million in state and local taxes. Their departure from the state or withdrawal to the underground economy threatened to reduce the size of the local economy by $40 million. Moreover, employers had to spend more money on screening prospective employees, on HR staff to check paperwork, and on insuring for potential legal liabilities from inadvertent breaches of the law.50

  These developments are not equivalent to the type of policies with which social democracy occasionally (and decreasingly) attempts to ameliorate the excesses of capitalism. On the one hand, social democratic reforms are usually intended to enable the system as a whole to function more effectively for capitalists and more equitably for the majority, however i
rreconcilable these aims may be. But far-right reforms of the type just discussed are not even intended to work in the interests of capitalists, nor do they: they really embody irrational racist beliefs that take precedence over all else.

  Independent Class Politics in a New Era

  I have tried here to set out a general argument about the nature of the populist hard right and, in particular, to show that it plays a contradictory role: always opposed to the actual interests of the working class, but sometimes also undermining—albeit uninten-tionally—the interests of capital. What does it mean in relation to the two episodes with which I began: the UK vote to leave the EU and the election of Trump? These required different responses: a choice in one and a refusal to choose in the other, despite the presence of the populist hard right in both.

  In one, socialists were faced with a particular outcome, UK withdrawal from the EU, which was indeterminate in its effects (there are both left- and right-wing reasons for leaving) and in which the pro-Leave sections of the bourgeoisie were (in Gramsci’s terms) “in error” over what it meant for British capital. In the other, socialists were being asked to support a party (the Democrats) that had engineered the exclusion of the only genuine left-winger from the ballot and a particular candidate (Clinton) standing on a platform of maintaining the very neoliberal policies that the left is opposed. This is the difference between a situation in which socialists can at least attempt to shape events and one in which they are effectively their prisoners. The key, as always, is being able to tell which is which.

  FROM HOPE TO DESPAIR

  How the Obama Years Gave Us Trump