Essay:The American Crisis of Capital: The Nazification of the United States: Difference between revisions

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== Chapter II: A Crisis of Capital ==
== Chapter II: A Crisis of Capital ==
In 2007, the famous [[Great Recession]] began. Wages in the capitalist world collapsed in many countries as the economies entered a [[finacial crisis]].<ref name=":1">[https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=78761 The 2007-08 Financial Crisis from a Marxist View]</ref> The crisis affected every cornor of the capitalist world, being considered a "[[global crisis]]". To many who under [[Marxism]], this crisis was very much unsurprising. Despite this, the bourgeoise scrambled and became fearful, just like they did during the Great Depression.<ref>[https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/economyCategory/2008-financial-crash The 2008 global financial crash]</ref> This was, without a doubt, a crisis of capital.<ref name=":1" /> As will be covered in the following chapter, it was this Great Recession that led to fascism entering the mainstream of American politics.
In 2007, the famous [[Great Recession]] began. Wages in the capitalist world collapsed in many countries as the economies entered a [[finacial crisis]].<ref name=":1">[https://www.scirp.org/journal/paperinformation.aspx?paperid=78761 The 2007-08 Financial Crisis from a Marxist View]</ref> The crisis affected every cornor of the capitalist world, being considered a "[[global crisis]]". To many who under [[Marxism]], this crisis was very much unsurprising. Despite this, the bourgeoise scrambled and became fearful, just like they did during the Great Depression.<ref name=":2">[https://www.wsws.org/en/topics/economyCategory/2008-financial-crash The 2008 global financial crash]</ref> This was, without a doubt, a crisis of capital.<ref name=":1" /> As will be covered in the following chapter, it was this Great Recession that led to fascism entering the mainstream of American politics.
 
The Great Recession had its roots in the troubling changes shaking the housing market in the United States. Many banks in the United States complete collapsed and filed for bankruptcy.<ref name=":2" /> [[Wall Street]] failed to counter the Great Recession, and even contributed to the worsening of the crisis.<ref>[https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/12/31/shor-d31.html ''The Big Short'': The criminality of Wall Street and the crash of 2008]</ref> [[Globalism|Globalist]] capitalism nearly ceased to function during the crisis as international trade also began to collapse.<ref>[https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/09/15/fina-s15.html The 2008 crisis and the lessons of history]</ref> While it spawned in the United States, the Great Recession quickly grew out of control and began affecting almost every capitalist country in the world.<ref name=":3">[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Recession#/media/File:GDP_Real_Growth_in_2009.svg World map showing GDP real growth rates for 2009. CIA world factbook estimates as of April 2010.]</ref> All of this culminated into what became the largest crisis of capital since the Great Depression.<ref>[https://www.britannica.com/topic/great-recession Great Recession]</ref>
 
Prior to the Great Recession, a [[2000s energy crisis|major energy crisis]] broke out in 2000 and 2001. The 2000s energy crisis was rooted in the actions taken by the US government in the 1990s.<ref>[https://www.nwcouncil.org/reports/columbia-river-history/energycrisis/ Energy crisis of 2000/2001]</ref> The housing market's unpredictability also greatly contributed to the crisis.<ref>[https://www.marketwatch.com/story/home-prices-off-record-18-in-past-year-case-shiller-says Home prices off record 18% in past year, Case-Shiller says]</ref> This led to an attempted housing market "correction" in 2006.<ref>[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2000s_United_States_housing_market_correction 2000s United States housing market correction]</ref> However, the housing market still collapsed and the Great Recession began in 2007.
 
While the capitalist world was deeply harmed by the outbreak of the Great Recession, [[Socialist state|socialist states]] remained almost completely unharmed. The [[People's Republic of China]]'s economic status managed to rapidly improve during the global bourgeois crisis.<ref>[https://www.huffpost.com/entry/chinas-rapid-recovery-in-_b_825194 China's Rapid Recovery in the Great Recession of 2007 - 2009]</ref> Meanwhile, the [[Republic of Cuba]]'s economy stayed stable and undamaged.<ref name=":3" /> The fact that only capitalist nation were harmed only further speaks to the idea that the Great Recession was, in fact, a crisis of capital.
 
On top of this, [[Michael Roberts]] describes the Great Recession as a "slump" in capitalism. He points to the changes in real [[Gross domestic product|GDP]] and investment in capital as the main causes of the Great Recession.<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isj2/2013/isj2-140/roberts.html From global slump to long depression]</ref> Meanwhile, [[Trotskyism|Trotskyist]] articles argue that [[Barack Obama]] stalled post-recession recovery.<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/3017.html Obama's Reform, Recovery Stalled]</ref> Trotskyists also argue that the American proletariat in particular was deeply affected by the Great Recession.<ref>[https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/4245.html One Step Up, Three Steps Down]</ref> This mixture of the American proletariat being shaken by the recession and the American government failing to handle the recession well can easily be attributed as a major reason to how so many Americans turned to fascism as the only solution in the aftermath of the crisis.


== Chapter III: Fascism Gone Mainstream ==
== Chapter III: Fascism Gone Mainstream ==

Revision as of 21:53, 7 August 2022

Notice: This essay is a work-in-progress.

January 6 rioter with the flag of the Confederate States of America inside the United States capital as a police officer stands idly by and does nothing.

Flying their pro-slavery flags, armed men marched unopposed into the United States capital on January 6, 2021.[1][2] This was only four years after a large crowd of Americans marched through the streets of North Carolina with their torches, chanting the Nazi slogans 'Sieg Heil!' and 'Blood and soil!' as they demand the eradication of the Jewish people. Just a day after this scene, an even larger crowd in North Carolina took control of a large field, flying Swastika flags and saying that Hitler did nothing wrong.[3] Then President Donald Trump described these men with Nazi flags and pro-slavery iconography as 'very fine people'[4] and 'great people',[5] the Republican Party cheering for him along the way.[6] How did it come to this? How did the same nation that fought against Nazi Germany in the Second World War turn into a hotbed of that exact same Nazi sentiment? The answer is simple. The United States of America has had its own crisis of capital and is now falling into a state of decayed capitalism - fascism.

Chapter I: The History of American Fascism

While the United States has always been built on settler colonial imperialism, the origins of the American fascist movement go back to 1854 - just seven years before the American Civil War. In 1854, a proto-fascist organization seeking to preserve and expand the institution of slavery called the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC) was formed. The KGC has its roots in Manifesto Destiny, the idea that the United States had a god-given right to rule all of North America, and the Monroe Doctrine, the idea that all of America was the USA's personal playground.[7] The KGC was semi-militaristic and wanted to establish "military colonies".[8]

The KGC was part of a bigger issue - the question of slavery in the United States. This issue eventually led to a socioeconomic divide between the Northern and Southern parts of the United States. A socioeconomic issue that eventually led to the American Civil War between the anti-slavery "Union" led by Abraham Lincoln, a close contemporary of Karl Marx, and the Confederate States of America (CSA), a proto-fascist experiment at creating a feudal slave state. In effect, this made the American Civil War the bourgeois revolution of the Southern United States.[9] The KGC was dissolved in 1864,[8] during the 1861-1866[10] tenure of the CSA.

Following the fall of the CSA, a white supremacist organization known as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) came into existence. Given the fact that later sources document it as becoming a fascist organization after fascism had become a semented ideology,[11] it can be argued that the KKK was, in fact, a proto-fascist movement in its early 1865-1872 state. The KKK committed multiple acts of terrorism against black people in the Southern United States. While it was dissolved in 1872 during the Reconstruction era, the KKK was revived in 1915 during the First World War following the release of the movie The Birth of a Nation, which glorified the KKK as heroes of the American people. Following the Second World War, the Nazi ideology became semented in the KKK. Unlike the KGC, the KKK still exists and has begun targeting Hispanic people in more recent years.[12] The KKK is widely considered to be a neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate organization.[13]

In 1929, the Great Depression began as the American stock market crashed and the bourgeoisie was left scrambling. It spread fear into the bourgeoisie and further impoverished the American proletariat. In response, the new ideology called fascism began gaining steam in 1930s America. The previously mentioned KKK began gaining steam with many new rallies as the father of Donald Trump was arrested for his white supremacist activities. Some sources report that over a hundred fascist organizations existed in the 1930s United States.[14] This came around the same time that Nazi Germany was formed in 1933 and Adolf Hitler began turning Germany into a fascist state. It even went as far as many Americans sympathizing with Adolf Hitler himself.[15] In 1939, it escalated to a group of American Nazis taking control of large parts of New York City.[16] Hitler himself is even described as had having "American friends".[17]

The 1920s and 1930s bring us to a fairly controversial figure. Huey P. Long, the former Governor of Louisiana and later United States Senator from Louisiana. Sometimes compared to Abraham Lincoln, Huey Long was an elected official who effectively became a dictator, using his autocratic power to do things that largely benefitted the proletariat of Louisiana. While he was not a Marxist or communist of any type, he was largely popular with the people of Louisiana and had the support of the state's local proletariat.[18] His work helping the proletariat has led to many in the bourgeoisie and in anti-socialist circles to fall Long a fascist.[19] While he was most certainly not a fascist, his discussion in the discourse of American fascism is important as he is credited with the following quote: "When the United States gets fascism, it will call it anti-fascism."[20] This quote is important to understanding American fascism. Most American fascists will say that they aren't fascists, but they're still fascist in reality.

December 7, 1941 - a day that will live in infamy. The fascist Empire of Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor in the Territory of Hawaii and in various other places.[21] This brought the United States into the Second World War as it declared war on fascist Japan. Japan, being in the Rome–Berlin Axis, had Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy declare war on the United States.[22] Despite America now at war with the Germans, the United States did not crack down on fascism on the home front and avoided attacking American businesses located in Germany, not even the ones that were arming the German war machine. However, the United States still leveled entire civilian cities in Germany to the ground.[23] Per the Standard American History Myth,[24] the Second World War ended with the the United States' nuclear attacks on Japan. However, a more modern analysis suggets that the nuclear attacks were unnecessary and that the Japanese would've surrendered anyways.[25] With these things in mind, we should change our mindset about the Second World War. For the United States, the war was not one against fascism, but rather a war for American self-interests - an expansion of American imperialism. The United States was never an enemy of fascism, saying otherwise allows you to be indoctrinated into the belief that the United States could, theoretically, never fall to fascism.

After World War II, the United States took advantage if their victorious state to set up military occupations of Germany and Japan. Instead of destroying the fascist states, the United States "rehabilitated" the Nazi German and Imperial Japanese officials and turned them into puppets in the Cold War against socialism.[26] Meanwhile, fascist Spain also became an ally with the United States as part of the Cold War against socialism.[27] This alliance between the American bourgeoisie and foreign fascists only helped to legitimize fascists back home in the United States. During the Cold War, major anti-communist crackdowns as part of "McCarthyism" occurred as the American Red Scare occurred and many communists - open or suspected - were persecuted for their open or alleged political beliefs. It went to the point where all protests regardless of political position were considered a "communist subversion" of the United States.[28] In the 1950s and 1960s, the civil rights movement for African-American rights began to rise in the United States. In response, the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) began cracking down on these civil rights groups by targeting leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr.[29][30] and launching militant attacks against civil rights organizations like the Black Panther Party.[31] On top of this, groups such as the Ku Klux Klan also saw a revival during this period.[32] Around the same time this was happening, the Vietnam War broke out with the United States committing heavy war crimes and bombing millions of civilians.[33][34]

Following the end of the mainstream civil rights movement, the rise of neoliberalism in the United States begin. This starts with the presidency of Ronald Reagan, a racist and imperialist member of the Republican Party.[35] While Reagan was undeniably a white supremacist, he was not a fascist as Reagan did not come to power as the result of a crisis of capital. In this time, however, the so-called "New Right" (also known as the "Alt-Right") began to rise in popularity, greatly contributing to the fascist movement's expansion. The New Right united behind Reagan's candidacy, leading to many fascists backing his presidency.[36] The Reagan administration also worked to fund fascist dictatorships in Latin America, such as the ones in Argentina and Chile.[37][38]

After the Reagan era, George H. W. Bush came to the presidency. He pushed for further imperialist actions, invading Iraq in 1991 as part of the Gulf War.[39] Bush was followed by Bill Clinton, who fought to maintain the US imperial order. This was especially true in Haiti, where Clinton worked to keep the nation under the boot of US imperialism.[40] George W. Bush's administration oversaw imperialist invasions of both Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003). Both of these saw various war crimes and many attrocities.[41][42] Fascists and especially Islamophobic ones were very supportive of these invasions. However, none of this would contribute to the rise of American fascism like what came next did.

Chapter II: A Crisis of Capital

In 2007, the famous Great Recession began. Wages in the capitalist world collapsed in many countries as the economies entered a finacial crisis.[43] The crisis affected every cornor of the capitalist world, being considered a "global crisis". To many who under Marxism, this crisis was very much unsurprising. Despite this, the bourgeoise scrambled and became fearful, just like they did during the Great Depression.[44] This was, without a doubt, a crisis of capital.[43] As will be covered in the following chapter, it was this Great Recession that led to fascism entering the mainstream of American politics.

The Great Recession had its roots in the troubling changes shaking the housing market in the United States. Many banks in the United States complete collapsed and filed for bankruptcy.[44] Wall Street failed to counter the Great Recession, and even contributed to the worsening of the crisis.[45] Globalist capitalism nearly ceased to function during the crisis as international trade also began to collapse.[46] While it spawned in the United States, the Great Recession quickly grew out of control and began affecting almost every capitalist country in the world.[47] All of this culminated into what became the largest crisis of capital since the Great Depression.[48]

Prior to the Great Recession, a major energy crisis broke out in 2000 and 2001. The 2000s energy crisis was rooted in the actions taken by the US government in the 1990s.[49] The housing market's unpredictability also greatly contributed to the crisis.[50] This led to an attempted housing market "correction" in 2006.[51] However, the housing market still collapsed and the Great Recession began in 2007.

While the capitalist world was deeply harmed by the outbreak of the Great Recession, socialist states remained almost completely unharmed. The People's Republic of China's economic status managed to rapidly improve during the global bourgeois crisis.[52] Meanwhile, the Republic of Cuba's economy stayed stable and undamaged.[47] The fact that only capitalist nation were harmed only further speaks to the idea that the Great Recession was, in fact, a crisis of capital.

On top of this, Michael Roberts describes the Great Recession as a "slump" in capitalism. He points to the changes in real GDP and investment in capital as the main causes of the Great Recession.[53] Meanwhile, Trotskyist articles argue that Barack Obama stalled post-recession recovery.[54] Trotskyists also argue that the American proletariat in particular was deeply affected by the Great Recession.[55] This mixture of the American proletariat being shaken by the recession and the American government failing to handle the recession well can easily be attributed as a major reason to how so many Americans turned to fascism as the only solution in the aftermath of the crisis.

Chapter III: Fascism Gone Mainstream

Chapter IV: Anti-Fascist Resistance

Chapter V: An Infiltrated Proletariat

Chapter VI: What the Future Holds

Chapter VII: Conclusion

References

  1. Day of Rage: How Trump Supporters Took the U.S. Capitol | Visual Investigations
  2. How the Proud Boys Breached the Capitol | Visual Investigations
  3. Charlottesville: The True Alt-Right
  4. How PragerU Lies to You: Charlottesville
  5. Trump on Jan. 6 insurrection: 'These were great people'
  6. Republican leaders remain silent as Trump casts perpetrators of Jan. 6 attack as political prisoners
  7. Knights of the Golden Circle
  8. 8.0 8.1 Knights of the Golden Circle
  9. Slavery, Capitalism, and Politics in the Antebellum Republic: Volume 1, Commerce and Compromise, 1820-1850
  10. Proclamation 157—Declaring that Peace, Order, Tranquillity, and Civil Authority Now Exists in and Throughout the Whole of the United States of America
  11. Populism, Fascism, and the Ku Klux Klan of the 1920s
  12. Ku Klux Klan - History
  13. White nationalist groups espouse white supremacist or white separatist ideologies, often focusing on the alleged inferiority of nonwhites. Groups listed in a variety of other categories—Ku Klux Klan, neo-Confederate, neo-Nazi, racist skinhead and Christian Identity—could also be fairly described as white nationalist.
  14. These are the three reasons fascism spread in 1930s America — and might spread again today
  15. More Americans Supported Hitler Than You May Think. Here's Why One Expert Thinks That History Isn't Better Known
  16. When Nazis Took Manhattan
  17. Hitler's American Friends
  18. Huey Long: The Dictator of Louisiana
  19. Allen Hall plaque defaced with the word 'fascist,' arrow pointing to Huey P. Long's name
  20. „When the United States gets fascism, it will call it anti-fascism.“
  21. FDR's Infamy Speech
  22. When, Why, and How did the United States enter WW2? The Date America Joins the Party
  23. "Blackshirts & Reds" (1997) by Michael Parenti, Part 1: Front Matter, Preface, Chapter 1. #Audiobook
  24. The Part of History You've Always Skipped | Neoslavery
  25. Dropping the Bomb: Hiroshima & Nagasaki
  26. Shinzo Abe's Assassination - Who Was He? - The US Japan Imperialist Alliance Post WWII
  27. Toasts of the President and General Francisco Franco of Spain at a State Dinner in Madrid
  28. Red Scare
  29. Documentary Exposes How The FBI Tried To Destroy MLK With Wiretaps, Blackmail
  30. Why the FBI Saw Martin Luther King Jr. as a Communist Threat
  31. What was the FBI’s response to the Black Panther Party?
  32. Jim Crow and the Ku Klux Klan
  33. Vietnam War from a REAL North Vietnamese Perspective | Armchair Historian Animated History DEBUNKED
  34. How did Communists Win the Vietnam War?
  35. How a Historian Uncovered Ronald Reagan’s Racist Remarks to Richard Nixon
  36. The Fascist Menace in the United States and How to Fight It
  37. The Awful Story of South America's Most Evil Dictator
  38. Why Pinochet Apologists Are Wrong | BadEmpanada
  39. Imperialism, Socialism and the Gulf War
  40. Bush, Clinton and the crimes of US imperialism in Haiti
  41. Taliban Retakes Afghanistan - The Narrative of US Imperialism Falls With It
  42. The US Invasion of Iraq: Marxist and Defensive Realist Perspectives
  43. 43.0 43.1 The 2007-08 Financial Crisis from a Marxist View
  44. 44.0 44.1 The 2008 global financial crash
  45. The Big Short: The criminality of Wall Street and the crash of 2008
  46. The 2008 crisis and the lessons of history
  47. 47.0 47.1 World map showing GDP real growth rates for 2009. CIA world factbook estimates as of April 2010.
  48. Great Recession
  49. Energy crisis of 2000/2001
  50. Home prices off record 18% in past year, Case-Shiller says
  51. 2000s United States housing market correction
  52. China's Rapid Recovery in the Great Recession of 2007 - 2009
  53. From global slump to long depression
  54. Obama's Reform, Recovery Stalled
  55. One Step Up, Three Steps Down