Martinez Contra Fascism

1,990 words

Recently, Martinez Politics, whose commentary I usually enjoy, assumed a strong stance against fascism. Here are a few snippets from his Telegram posts on this topic:

Same end goal: “everything in the State, nothing outside the State” aka Communism. ^[2]

Fascism says the State is supreme and you cannot rebuke it. ^[3] There’s no reason to believe that only means specific states that you selectively choose to be loyal to, but all States. . . . But the people touting this Supreme Statist ideology don’t apply any of these standards consistently, but selectively/tactically, because they don’t actually believe in these principles at all. If they’re only applied selectively, then they’re not real principles but tactics.

It is surprising how many people on the Right ^[4] have fallen into the inaccurate leftist Bernie Bro/Chomskyite worldview where they think corporations that have no power to

1) initiate force

2) tax the populace

3) print money

. . . is somehow more powerful than the State which has all of those powers.

A fundamental distinction should be made between what I will call capital-F “Fascism” and lower case-f “fascism.” Capital-F Fascism is indeed “everything in the State, nothing outside the State,” with a perfect synthesis of state and corporate power.

By contrast, lower case-f fascism is more of an aesthetic than an ideology. It is not particularly concerned with the dismal science of economics, which it correctly sees as merely a means and not as an end in itself. It is epitomized by the anarcho-fascist commune of Fiume, in which the government’s functions included poetry and fireworks; or by the Futurist Manifesto’s values or speed, youth, and militarism. This fascism could be summarized in a single word: life.

Capital-F Fascism is a means, and lower-case fascism is the ultimate end. The end goal of Communism 1.0 was a materialist workers’ paradise in which death and dissolution are a means, and the end goal of contemporary “woke” Communism is dissolution and death, even if their stated goal is different. We can therefore rebuke the assertion that fascism and Communism have the same end goals. In fact, their goals are diametrically opposed.

But despite the fact that one is a means and the other an ends, “Fascism” and “fascism” are not wholly compatible with one another. Julius Evola observed that many of the Italian Fascists who had been idealists in the beginning ended up as boring party apparatchiks.

This fact would appear to support Martinez’s position. But it does not. Fascism was a means that went too far and became an end in itself. As with many issues, this issue can be easily resolved through Aristotle’s golden mean. Anything taken to an unnatural extreme becomes a warped parody of its former self. Additionally, a great amount of slack must be given to the Italian Fascists, who found themselves overwhelmed by hostile powers and who had less time to realize their dreams than the Communists ended up with.

Additionally, if fascism and Communism had had the same goals, it would have been much less likely that they would have fought — and continue to fight each other — so vehemently. The Communists would have allied with the Falange against the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. Many of the Sturmabteilung had originally been Communists, just as many Alt Right fascists had originally been libertarian because they were disillusioned with the mainstream options presented to them. Nevertheless, the violence between the former two in the Weimar Republic was not a farcical misunderstanding.

Next, I completely agree that most fascists use Fascism selectively. I simply disagree with Martinez about whether this is the correct course of action, because fascism — or life and truth — should be our guiding principles, and not Fascism as a party program.

For example, I have personally seen an anarchist punk skater become a bootlicking toady praising Ashli Babbitt’s executioner. I was initially shocked, but there is really no contradiction or hypocrisy. The enemy is a conduit of chaos, with dissolution as his ultimate goal. When they are out of power, they will be punk skaters; when in power, they will indulge in unmitigated anarcho-tyranny and statism. We should copy this winning strategy in the pursuit of fascism: While we are out of power, we should be libertarian in our methods; once in power we should, at least initially, be Fascists.

This naturally leads to the argument that in doing so, we will become what we are fighting against. But statism is not like Sauron’s ring of power, regardless of what the libertarians claim. Otherwise, all of the governments in history would have descended into evil. The anti-statist sentiment which defines America is a relatively recent phenomenon spawned by the Enlightenment’s hatred of monarchy, which by the 1700s had degenerated into a parody of traditional kingship. This overreaction had some merit in its day, but is now an anachronism.

Furthermore, nature abhors a vacuum, especially in regard to power. The odd allergy to state power is only found on the Right. The Left has no qualms about it, and thus has had great success. The attitude that power corrupts only serves to ensure that those who are inherently corrupt wield power unimpeded while those who are virtuous render themselves unable to exercise their virtue in the political realm.

The third point I wish to address is the idea that corporations cannot perform traditional state functions, such as the use of force and the enforcement of taxes. At first glance this appears to be a strong argument. But who ultimately wields more power, the President and Congress or the various private interests they must court to get elected and remain in office? Why run for Congress when you can make a Congressman your pet poodle? George Soros has worked to ensure that state power is used almost exclusively against his enemies, and rarely against his friends and pawns. And the fact that mega-corps design tax loopholes has become common knowledge even among the most apolitical.

There is also the matter of a potential power vacuum between the state and business. A perfect balance between state and corporate power would be ideal, but such a thing would be too delicate to last, anyway. One must eventually predominate over the other, like one side in a game of tug-of-war. It is simply the nature of the dynamic.

The question is thus whether the state will rule business or vice versa, and to what extent. The threat of business conquering government is the Achilles’ heel of any liberal democracy. As Oswald Spengler explained in The Decline of the West, “It is symptomatic that no constitution knows of money as a political force, it is pure theory that they contain, one and all.” The state must rule business, or business will rule the state. It is a zero-sum game.

It is therefore better to embrace a political order in which the state openly and honestly rules over business, but in which there are limits as to how it does so. Attempting to achieve a balance will invariably slide into the nearly absolute rule of the state by private business. The state being predominant is not a perfect option, but it is preferable, since government is nominally public and business is private. One could counter that the current governments throughout much of the West are objectively evil, but this came about precisely because private interests of a Jewish nature were able to hijack the American government due to its weakness.

A state should be an extension of the people. Our current government is indeed an extension of a people — the Jewish people, rather than its white founding stock. The US constitutional order abhors national government, and thus deracinated white business interests such as banks, railroads, and the industrial robber barons were able to corrupt it soon after its inception. The Founders’ naïve hope that ambition and private enterprise would check each other backfired and ultimately aggrandized those interests. As a result, these same greedy industrial interests hijacked the federal government in order to launch their war against the South, which permanently injured the states’ rights that the Constitution was ironically designed to protect. It was then quite easy for the Jews to insert themselves into this corrupt state of affairs a few decades later.

Furthermore, one of the best American presidents, Teddy Roosevelt, aptly wielded state power in domestic affairs in order to bust trusts, found the national park system, and pass the Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug acts while increasing US naval power abroad. It would be accurate to describe President Roosevelt as a proto-ecofascist. That Teddy is remembered as a beloved leader and not as a dark lord should thoroughly rebuke the claim that the use of state power inherently corrupts.

One could point to numerous examples of businesses having to kowtow to woke ideas such as diversity and equity, which had already been around in less virulent forms for decades in the form of human resources commissars. Isn’t this an example of government bullying business? Actually, no — it is woke businesses bullying other businesses that are not in lockstep with their agenda. Such enterprises simply fall outside the current Fascist synthesis of state and corporate power.

A point which Martinez did not bring up but which I wish to address is the claim that “the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen.” There is actually some truth to this when Fascism abandons the Aristotelian golden mean and goes awry. All things else being equal, it is more efficient for issues to be handled at the lowest level possible — i.e., by the citizenry or local government. But civil society in America has all but withered today. Government overreach is one reason for this, but not the sole reason. One need only live for a brief time in a European country to observe the marked contrast.

The inverse of this dictum is also true. The lack of civil society requires a strong government to kick-start it, and then gradually back off. For example, the Third Reich enriched its people through sporting and cultural events following the social devastation of the Weimar era. A responsible nationalist government would do the same in the US today, and encourage people to be free and happy to the extent that state encouragement is needed.

I do not claim that Fascism is an ideal form of government. However, no ideal government can exist in the Kali Yuga — or in the post-modern/post-industrial world, if one prefers to discard Traditionalist metaphysics. But Fascism is at least functional, which is the best we can currently hope for. And while Fascism comes with the danger of falling into excess, the excesses of liberal democracy and unfettered capitalism have proven to be far worse, both in probability and magnitude. It is they who have become indistinguishable from Communism.

I am writing this partly out of respect for Martinez Perspective, and so would like to humbly and cautiously offer an explanation for his strong criticisms of Fascism. Recently, a number of individuals of the “zigger” community have become obnoxiously loud in praising Russia’s vanilla statism and casting Putin as a savior. This is particularly annoying given that Russia Today constantly runs anti-white propaganda, such as by attacking Daniel Penny for exercising his right to defend himself. The only justification offered is dismissive handwringing over geopolitics.

A blanket dismissal of “statism” might trigger ziggers on Telegram, but it is not a serious position for a race-conscious white to take. There is no non-statist solution to the problems whites face today. If Martinez wishes to criticize Fascism, he is entitled to do so. Quite frankly, those who advocate Fascism and National Socialism today often tend to rest on other people’s laurels. But this will not be a serious debate until Martinez offers a statist alternative that better serves the interests of whites. Otherwise, he risks retreating into stale libertarian and conservative talking points.

* * *

Like all journals of dissident ideas, Counter-Currents depends on the support of readers like you. Help us compete with the censors of the Left and the violent accelerationists of the Right with a donation today. (The easiest way to help is with an e-check donation. All you need is your checkbook.)

For other ways to donate, click here ^[10].