Amerikan Fascism & Prisons
by MC12

The injustice system in general, and the prison system in particular, is the most fascistic element of U.S. society. Besides foreign wars and conquests, it is here that Amerikans concentrate their most terrorist aggressions, mostly upon members of the oppressed nations in North America, and party on the bottom of white Amerikan society as well. The brutality, oppression and extent of the amerikan prison system are rightfully world-renowned. However, MIM does not conclude that the united states is currently under a fascist system. In this essay we explain where we do and do not see fascism.

In MIM Theory 10, "Coming to Grips with the Labor Aristocracy," we revived the Comintern of Lenin's analysis of the labor aristocracy to show what they had in common with us today. We discussed briefly a book by R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution, published in 1934.(1) The main contribution of that book for our purposes was to help distinguish between the labor aristocracy and the proletariat, to show what a great proportion of the "workers" in the imperialist countries are not in the proletariat.

The 'New Middle Class'

Dutt wrote in particular about the "new middle class," which were the former small independent owners being driven into dependence on employment by big capital.(2) Writing during the 1930s Depression, Dutt thought they were being driven downward toward the proletariat. He did not argue that they were in the proletariat already. What was important for fascism was that this group, as they lost status, formed the vehicle for the bourgeoisie's expression of fascism.

Dutt defined this middle class as the "many and varied strata between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat (small business men, small and middle peasantry, handicraftsmen, independent workers, small rentiers, liberal professions, technical managerial and commercial employees)."(3)

This group of non-proletarian middle class workers is the vast majority of the Amerikan labor force in the 1990s. Dutt and the Comintern at the time saw them as going through a process of proletarianization, as they lost their independence and became employees on a downward trajectory toward poverty and immiseration. In the imperialist nations, this has not happened, as Dutt would surely see if he had the information that we now have. That is an empirical question; a failure of his prediction. The important political point is still true: this middle class is not a proletarian class. 

The "new middle class" in Germany in the 1930s was influenced by high unemployment among educated people, a relative surplus of professionals, and many farmers and small business people going out of business. These became "a large part of the social basis for the desperate armies of Fascism." He goes on: 

"The impoverished middle class is driven from its former philistine slumbers into political activity. … [T]he new dispossessed and ruined middle-class elements break out as an extremely unstable, violent force potentially revolutionary, or, alternately, ultra-reactionary, without clear social basis or consciousness, but recklessly seeking any line of immediate action, which may offer a hope of immediate relief (relief from debts, State aid to small businesses, smashing the large stores, etc.) or the prospect of jobs (the new bureaucracy, mercenary fighting forces, displacement of Jews, war)."(4)

In such conditions, the "dispossessed and ruined" middle class can go either of two ways, Dutt said.

"Either finance-capital, owning the means of production, can seek to make the middle class its auxiliary, giving a measure of employment, if diminishingly in production, then at any rate increasingly in the tasks of violent coercion of the working class (fascist militia, police-officer class, fascist bureaucracy). Or the proletariat, socializing the means of production, can at last give full scope to all the useful trained and technical abilities with the middle class in the gigantic tasks of social reconstruction. These are the only two alternatives before the middle class. The first is the line of Fascism. The second is the line of communism."(4)

Insofar as the middle class is "dispossessed and ruined," Dutt's options are true. But looking at the facts today, we cannot say this of the imperialist-nation middle classes. In fact, the capitalists are best able to provide such "relief" when they are sitting on top of an imperialist pile of superprofits and over time this class has become more stable, not less stable. Still, some in the middle classes have been squeezed, although not nearly to the degree hyped by liberal critics and hopeful Trotskyists alike. These, a minority of the middle class, are today's fascist base. The white farmers and blue-collar workers in militias are the base for the most virulent fascism, as well as the professionals whose jobs or occupations are eliminated by technology (like the mechanical draftsman in the reactionary movie Falling Down) or other realignment.

So even though Dutt's prediction did not come true, his political analysis of the middle class remains very useful. The passage of more than 60 years has also given us the chance to learn more about the material basis for the middle class's reactionary character. Dutt attributed their political direction to the nature of working class leadership: "Where the working class movement is strong, follows a revolutionary line, and is able to stand out as the political leader of the fight of all oppressed sections against large capital, there the mass of the petit-bourgeoisie is swept in the wake of the working class." This is what he saw in the post-WWI war wave of revolution.

"But where the working class movement fails to realise its revolutionary role, follows the leadership of Reformism and thus surrenders to large capital, and even appears to enter into collaboration with it, there the discontented petit-bourgeois elements and declassed proletarian elements begin to look elsewhere for leadership. On this basis Fascism is able to win its hold. In the name of demagogic slogans against large capital and exploiting their grievances, these elements are drawn in practice into the service of large capital."(5)

He concludes, in fact, that "Fascism is able finally to step in and seize the reins, not through its own strength, but through the failure of working-class leadership."(6)

Here MIM would say Dutt has only half the truth. There is a contest between reactionary and revolutionary lines within working class leadership, it is true. Clearly, the leadership of the labor aristocracy has been in collaboration with imperialism, led by reformists, social chauvinists, fascists and other reactionaries, and social democrats. But we have seen from history that the material conditions of imperialism stack the deck against the revolutionary line in its efforts to recruit the labor aristocracy. We cannot look back at the last 60 years of the Amerikan labor aristocracy and say the reason they are not revolutionary is principally because of a failure of leadership. In part, the labor aristocracy is a minority of the white nation in the first place - it is outnumbered by the petit-bourgeoisie and semi-proletariat, more so today than in Dutt's day. But this, too, results from the  economic conditions of imperialism: the inundation of the white Amerikan nation with superprofits first and foremost. That helps explain also why, even though some middle-class workers are more fascist than others, they are not violently at odds with the rest of the labor aristocracy - because the whole class is pro-imperialism, even if some are perceived as being unnecessarily vicious about it.

So, the middle class that Dutt described and the labor aristocracy have been completely corrupted, by superprofits and by reactionary leadership. And yet, we do not have full-blown fascism. Why? First, the middle class has not suffered the kind of blows that they did in the 1930s, as we have seen. Second, and related, the communist movement in the imperialist countries is much weaker now than t was in the post-WWI period. On this second point, Dutt and the Comintern of his day were quite clear.

Fascist Anti-Communism

Dutt summarized fascism this way: "Fascism, in short, is a movement of mixed elements, dominantly petit-bourgeois, but also slum-proletarian and demoralised working class, financed and directed by finance-capital, by the big industrialists, landlords and financiers, to defeat the working-class revolution and smash the working-class organizations."(7) This followed from the Comintern Programme for 1928, which said: "The principal aim of Fascism is to destroy the revolutionary vanguard, i.e., the Communist sections and leading units of the proletariat."(8)

The weakness of the overall communist movement in the united states in the last 25 years has meant that fascism in this respect was not necessary. At the same time, we know that the Communist vanguards that there have been -especially the Black Panther Party of the late 1960s - were the most severely repressed under the current injustice system, with some of them still living behind bars on bogus charges. Within prisons, as MIM's mailbag regularly demonstrates, those who suffer the greatest repression are the politically active members of the oppressed nations, the vanguard of revolution in North America. So while the oppressor nation has had a stagnant or at best tiny communist movement, and the oppressed nations have been much more actively opposed to imperialism, the brunt of the fascist element on the continent has been directed at the oppressed nations. This is true to the Comintern's analysis. 

So again, insofar as there are elements of fascism here, they are most clearly seen in the prison system.

Remember that fascism is just one variety of capitalism; it is not a wholly different system. In both cases the goals of the bourgeoisie are the same. "The specific character of complete Fascism lies in the means adopted toward the realisation of these policies, in the new social and political mechanism built up for their realisation."(9) The tricky thing for white Amerika has been to perpetrate something close to fascism on the oppressed nations, without pissing off the pro-imperialist white majority. 

In that effort, the legal system has become centrally important. For example, laws restricting citizens' protections from government search and seizure are accepted by the majority only because they perceive most "criminals" to be members of oppressed nations. The selective actions of the repressive state apparatus help as well, as they did in Dutt's day, when he wrote: "Fascism is able to count on the assistance of the greater part of the State forces, of the higher army staffs, of the police authorities, and of the lawcourts and magistry, who exert all their force to crush working-class opposition, while treating Fascist illegality with open connivance (banning of the Red Front alongside permission of the Storm Troops.)"(10)

Banning the Red Front and allowing the Storm Troops has its parallel in the crackdown of Black revolutionaries such as the Black Panther Party and the tolerance of such fascists as the militia movement (despite some gentle arrests here and there).

The Example of the PLP

Among those who believe that the labor aristocracy of the imperialist countries is a revolutionary vehicle, there is a tendency to work backward from fascist movements to see evidence that the labor aristocracy is (again) in such dire straits that it is about to become revolutionary for real.

A good example is the Progressive Labor Party (see a more complete review in this issue). PLP considers the Montana "Freemen" to be fascists. "Their ideology mixes racist, sexist, patriotic, and religious myths in the classic fascist formula," PLP wrote in a recent editorial. "The same reactionary ideas can be found in the ideology of the militia movement, the Neo-Nazis, skinheads, and the KKK, the Christian Coalition, and the Nation of Islam. Fascist ideology leads workers to blame the deepening crisis of capitalism on other workers."(11)

How do they see this "Deepening crisis"? They say: "Competition and their falling rate of profit force big capitalists to gobble up smaller capitalists or die. Most professional, technical, white collar, and office workers are actually working class wage slaves. This 'proletarianization' of middle strata of the population is a law of capitalism."

The difference between this and the much better Dutt is that PLP is saying these group s already are proletarian, whereas Dutt said they were potential proletarians if they continued downward. We will take a moment to rebut their factual claims before commenting on the argument. 

From 1975 to 1987, PLP says, the number of farmers has dropped from nine million to five million, "downsizing corporations have fired millions of white collar workers, and the new Wal-Marts have closed down thousands of small businesses."

It is common among apologists for the labor aristocracy to say that their conditions are ever-worsening, so revolution is sure coming from them soon. PLP goes farther and says that this extends all the way up into the middle classes. It's hard to say if "millions" of white collar workers were downsized in the 12 years they are referring to. But clearly however many lost their jobs, they were more than replaced, because the white collar sectors of the society are growing, not shrinking. 

From 1979 to 1989, the number of experienced workers increased by 19.9 million, of which 7.8 million - about 38% of the new jobs - were in "professional services" industries.(12) There is no decline of workers in the white collar industries. Now, some jobs in these industries are worse than others, but most of the new jobs require college training, and were year-round, full time, permanent jobs with above average wages.(13)

In white collar occupations (rather than industries), there were big increases. From 1979 to 1989 the total number of white collar workers increased by 17.4 million, or 30.2% from the 1979 level. Here is how much different white collar occupations grew from 1979 to 1989 (14):

Executives and managers: 	+42% (to 15.3 million)
Professional specialty: 		+35.7$ (to 17.7 million)
Technical specialty: 		+42.2% (to 7.1 million)
Sales: 				+28.3% (to 16.0 million)
Administrative support:		+10.8% (to 21.4 million)

Of all major occupation groups, the only one to decline is the closest to proletarian - semiskilled operatives, which fell 7.5% to 14.6 million.(14) This hurts non-whites more than whites, because whites are underrepresented in blue-collar jobs, and within that category they are even more underrepresented in the low-skilled jobs that lost the most. In the change of occupational structure in the 1980s, the biggest beneficiaries were white wimmin, and the biggest losers were Black and Latino men.(15)

A lot of the changes in the occupational structure are manifested in retirements. The biggest decline in labor force participation in the 1980s was among people aged 55-64. The number of retired people in that age group was 17.8 million in 1989, up from 4.9 million in 1969 and 10.4 million in 1979. That's a 70% increase in retired people in that age group in the 1980s.(16) There are also a million pre-retirement age people in "early retirement."(17)

What of the "thousands" of small businesses closed down by Wal-Marts? No doubt Wal-Mart has driven out of business many small shop-owners. And we know that the number of farmers continues to go down as agriculture is ever-more concentrated. But what is the overall trend? Self-employment is increasing, not decreasing, from 8.6 million people in 1980 to 10.3 million in 1993 (up 19.6%). The number of self-employed farmers is indeed falling, from 1.6 million in 1980 to 1.3 million in 1993 (down 18.9%), but they are being more than replaced by self-employed people in other areas.(18)

Contrary to conventional wisdom in Marxist circles, then, there is not a continuous process of small business people being driven into the proletariat. Capital is becoming more and more concentrated, but in the imperialist countries there remains a significant space for small business people to move around at various levels of independence from capitalism. 


While white men have not been losers int he recent economy - especially if you count family incomes which include wimmin's incomes - white men in down-trend categories provide a lot of support for the fascist tendencies that exist in mainstream white society, much more than they support revolution at any rate. As we said in MIM Theory 10, however, if we had enough comrades we would try to make sure these potentially disgruntled labor aristocrats had a chance to hear a revolutionary line and act on it if they chose. History is not on the side of that hypothesis, but some of them may turn traitor and join the ranks of the people. Insofar as their reactionary response to their predicament is encouraged by social democratic or other reactionary leaders, combating those lines may have some positive effects.

The Anti-"Crime" Fascism

In the case of the anti-"crime" wave that feeds fascism in the united states, it is the work of the bourgeoisie, leading the vast middle classes, including primarily those who are not losing ground in the current economy. From this we may learn that a suffering middle class is not a prerequisite for fascist tendencies, especially in the case of an imperialist country with internal oppressed nations. 

The world may never again know the kind of fascism that existed in Germany in the 1930s, for several reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason is the transference of inter-imperialist aggression out into the Third World, a result of neocolonialism. With neocolonialism, it is no longer such a conflict which particular imperialist controls an oppressed nation, because their economies are relatively open to all imperialists. There is competition, but it is less nationally based and more corporate-based than before. It thus does not appear likely that United Snakes military will attack France over domination of oil in the Arab countries, for example. This is very different from the 1930s.

In that context it also makes sense that the fascist tendencies in imperialist countries are more directed against oppressed nations than they are against other imperialists. (Japan is a convenient exception, being both an imperialist rival and a target of racist association with oppressed nations.) So in terms of Amerikan fascist tendencies, we can see why they are expressed most directly in the injustice and prison systems, the primary tools of oppressor-nation repression in the united states.

Notes:
1. R. Palme Dutt, Fascism an Social Revolution: A Study of the Economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism and Decay. International Publishers: New York, 1934.
2. Dutt, P.104.
3. Dutt, p.103.
4. Dutt, p.106.
5. Dutt, p.107.
6. Dutt, p.108.
7. Dutt, p.102.
8. Dutt, p.109.
9. Dutt, p.93.
10. Dutt, p.101.
11. Challenge (PLP's newspaper), April 24, 1996, p.2. The outrageous inclusion of the Nation of Islam here reflects their view that all nationalism is the same and all bad all the time. This is dealt with more in the other review.
12. Reynolds Farley, ed., State of the Union: America in the 1990s. Volume One Economic Trends. Russell Sage Foundation: New York. 1995. p.74.
13. Farley, p.75.
14. Farley, p.78
15. Farley, p.72-73.
16. Farley, p.64
17. Farley, p.70.
18. Statistical Abstract of the United States 1994, p.404.