The Argument of Callicles
The Coming American Fascism. By Lawrence Dennis. (Harper. 10s. 6d.) Mn. -DENsas has, from the propagandist point of view, put his best wine last. The first -half of his book is an analysis of the necessary contradictions of capitalism which has been done before by many persons, including Mr. Dennis himself. He sees no solution in any revival of international trade or the free market of the classical economist. He sees no future for any economic structure based on interest. Only a debtless society can keep afloat. That debtless society, that flexible adjustment of means to ends, of aims to possi- bilities, is impossible in the modern economic and political system. Mr. Dennis argues against any acceptance of absolute standard of right. Right is what people want and get ; rights that are not asserted successfully don't exist and all the liberal palaver of the rule of law, of freedom, of justice merely -covers !with an inadequate fig-leaf the facts of this human life.
A powerful case can be made against any society and especially against any society that gapes at the seams as badly or runs so stiffly as does ours. That case could be put more briefly than it is put by Mr. Dennis and could be put as it is put by hint without the use of the dangerous argument of analogy: But Mr. Dennis's ease, though stated in general terms, is in fact in the main an attack on the American constitutional sYitiin, against the rule of law that is a rule of lawYers. That ease is even stronger than it was since Mr. Dennis wrote his book, since the Supreme Court has put up yet another "'No Thoroughfare " notice over the few open streets that reinained to the Roosevelt administration. If the United States is going to adjust itself to the new world seen by Mr. Dennis, if the old days of economic " freedom " and laissez-faire are over, then the American Constitution, since it has refuSed to bend, will have to break, if not immediately then soon: Thus Mr. Dennis may not be far wrong in seeing Mr. ROoseVelt as a fascist leader against the old guard RepubliCans and the Democrats of the " Liberty League."
But for a British reader, much of what Mr. Dennis has to say will seem very odd because of his naïve identification of " liberal " government with judicial review. Like very many Americans he cannot, apparently, realise that there exist liberal states in which judicial review is unknown, in which the last legal word does not lie with the judges but With the law-makers. Thus, as Mr. Dennis knows, Lord Hewart deplores the growth of delegated legislation ; so does the Supreme Court, but while the English Lord Chief Justice has to be content with expressing his fears and hopes in a book, the Supreme Court has no need to write a New Despotism —it has more potent means of expressing its discontent than that ! Mr. Dennis may say that he is talking about America and only about America ; well, often he isn't, and he lays down laws applicable to all liberal states-; but even if he is talking only about America, fascism is not the only possible cure for the excessive power of judges. Sometimes the ambiguities involved are serious. Thus on page 158 it is not clear that what Mr. Dennis 'objeets to is a judge ever giving a verdict against the State in a dispute between the State and a private citizen on the ground that that means that " one voice of the State discredits another voice of the State." It that is. Mr. Dennis's opinion, then it is the Napoleonic view of administrative law stated rather extrava- gantly against the modem view adopted by the French Conseil d'Etat or a common-law court. 'But it seems likely that what Mr. Dennis has in mind is the invalidation of legislation by the courts and that type of -procedure is just as difficult for an English reader to understand as the legis- lative supremacy of parliament is for an American. It is to be feared that the British common reader will be at cross purposes with Mr. Dennis again and again for this reason.
More impressive (not more right, for that means nothing) is Mr. Dennis's analysis of the political dangers to the present structure. He agrees with many Marxist criticisms of the present order, notably with the view that it will be overthrown, but he does not accept the dogma that it will be overthrown by a class-conscious proletariat. _He doesn't believe that " the dictatorship of the proletariat " means anything.
Dictators are always a minority ; they are in Russia ; they will be in America. The majority is ruled (it is implied for its own good) by the elite. Now that elite isn't the class-conscious proletariat; but the bourgeoisie, though that is not what Mr. Dennis calls them. He asserts that the real elite is, in America, the class earning over $6,000 a year. He is aware that, many in, this class which he numbers at 15,000,000 are not true effis and that there are many of the true elite in a lower economio station. He restates, indeed, Aristotle's view of natural slaves. The danger to the present--order is in the " frustrated elite" who are debarred by the, .contradictions of present society from a chance to live as they have or feel they have a right to live. This frustrated elite will not be put off by fine words-; it will seize power to get at the parsnip supply.
So far so good. Mr. Dennis is right in thinking that in Atherica the diesgrimiled middle:classes are more than the_ proletariat, that if there is a reVolution it will not come through any Marxist organisatidn: That is -arealist point of view. Bid what Mr. Dennisdoes not tell us clearly enough is how this new elite is going to take over. He suggests that it will do so by legal means, by persuading the Masses that they Will gain by getting a smaller share of a larger total of good!' rather than all of a smaller total, which is what the Com- munists really Offer, whatever they may pretend: How is this idea to be sold ? Mr Dennis is not nearly specific enough, so I will fill in the gap : by the method used by Hitler and by Mussolini, by nationalist ballyhoo, by some powerful mass emotion which can eompete with the naive appeal of Marxism. If there is any other recipe what is it ? Rio people, least of all the Americans, will put up with being told that a self-chosen group is the salt of the earth and bOW down before it. If the idea is spld by nationalist ballyhoo, then Mr. Dennis's peaceful fascist world is a myth ; either inside or outside the United States a target must be found. I sumest, for example, that the frustrated elite when it develops new appetitea, tOr example, when a new generation of natural rulers. finds middle-aged men holding down all the good jobs (as in con- temporary Italy), there will be a strong temptation to abandon Mr. Dennis's self-denying ordinance for Latin ,America. If the Fascist idea is not sold by such means, will it be imposed by force ? It may well be, and if it becomes a free-for-all, the winners, on Mr. Dennis's principle, must be the elite for they have succeeded. How does he knOvi who the new elite will be ? He can only guess that they will be people capable of maximising production; &c. My guess is .that the new American Fascists will be in the old American tradition, that they will be a fusion of the methods and talents of the Ku Klux Klan, Huey Long and Al Capone. I own such a prospect frightens me, but Mr. Dennis is: of sterner stuff. Does he not propose to-put the American woman back where
Previous page
