THE LUNATIC FRINGE: VICTIMS OF CAPITALISM
Why are the discontented easily captured by fascism and the ‘strong man saviour myth?’
First because the political, economic and moral sources of discontent go largely ignored or unanswered by the Establishment* election after election.
And why? Because at the centre of Capitalism is the desire to exploit other’s skills and labour to make an ever larger profit.
Second, today, under this neoliberal from of capitalism, the new captains of industry, CEOs, bankers and billionaires have not found it within their paradigm of social pathology to share sufficiently to buy people off. In essence, they want it all, including what more they can squeeze out of people’s labour and the riches of the earth.
But there is a much less acceptable reason. Their store cupboard of possibilities and promises is empty. In the 1950’s and 1960’s this was not the case. CEOs understood that they had a substantial responsibility towards their investors, but also to their customers, their community and their workers. This was a post war period when Capitalism had to prove to its own populations that their system was superior to the communist system in making a better life for their workers.
Fourth, the Establishment’s broken promises, uncaring mendacity and lack of imagination has opened a huge gulf of mistrust, dislike and disbelief between themselves and the mass of discounted individuals. This chasm is essentially a cultural one. The neoliberal story about a good life being constructed out of fame, fortune, opportunity and consumption for all, no longer covers over the harsh reality of ever increasing poverty and ever decreasing opportunity witnessed by so many people at the same time.
As disbelief and rejection grow, proto-fascist populists recognise that there is a huge arena of unrequited emotions ripe for pouncing on and turning to their advantage promising a return to the mythical golden days. They reduce complex problems to using simplistic dualities: migrants = lower wages; safety and peace = war; for jobs to increase they must have protective trade barriers, and so on. Totalitarians have always known they must fabricate and name a problem; explain it by blaming some easily identifiable vulnerable group who can be targeted as being responsible, enraging under educated individuals and then offering simplistic solutions (arrests, expulsion, proscriptive laws, prison camps, gas chambers).
Finally, the supposed superiority of the Establishment ill affords them the imagination to understand the number and depth of discontented lives that would convince them to seek another solution, outside the current status quo. This is precisely where populism thrives. Trump’s and Johnson’s journeys revealed just this. But it is also why these evil dictators, when grabbed by the people and face their own deaths have such surprised looks on their faces. ‘But we have always ruled like this, they must be saying to themselves. ‘How has my ring of iron failed me?’
Given all above, I think there will be darkness but I ask, as others have before me, in the darkness will there be singing? Brecht said yes, singing about the darkness…
(with thanks to Professor Jules Pretty)
*The Establishment constitute the top or richest 10% of many countries. It has been said that throughout history to rule over the 90% there needed to be 10% in charge of the military, the secret services, the courts, politics, the bureaucracies, trading, educational and financial institutions. The top 1% of the 10% will have been and still are the ultra-wealthy demanding polices, laws, statutes to protect their wealth. It is not in any of their interests to have a real democracy wherein the mass of people actually determine laws and regulations, as they would naturally begin to demand equality of opportunity and a levelling of wealth. This is why present day capitalism eats democracy while pretending it is one of its virtues, when in fact, there is only freedom for business and business people.
Here is a documentary I made several years ago to describe how a development for post WWI soldiers, called Homes For Heroes, became a failed estate.