The Corporative Society: How Social Life will be in the New State
Planning: The Force Factor
It is the refusal to see the inevitability of force in order to realize social values which condemns most reformers to futility.
Social systems represent a balance of power between consent and pressures brought to bear on the governed. There has never been a free society in which men and women enjoyed much sovereignty over their choices or conduct. All government has a monopoly on force or violence.
Everyone disapproves of certain coercions and wants certain liberties. Calling what I like liberty and what I dislike ‘license’, just means that when the law suits me, it is liberty, and when it doesn’t, it is coercive and oppressive. But we can’t demonstrate scientifically that there is more or less coercion under capitalism, communism, or fascism. Under any of these, we can point out different liberties and coercions.
The inevitable uniqueness of a social plan for a given nation is going to require coercion to realize that plan. Clearly, only one plan can be operative in one country at one time, if it is to enjoy public order.
Freedom of conscience has never been an absolute freedom under liberal capitalism. Social order, not individual or group self-expression, must be the highest ultimate value of any social plan. When self-expression is incompatible with social order, the result is anarchy.
No matter what system it is, some administrative body will have the authority over the imperatives of social order, and those imperatives will demand some limit on individual self-expression.
It isn’t necessary to prescribe every activity, it is only necessary to prevent any associative activity from being used by leaders to defeat the national plan. Tolerance of safe differences, even within as broad and inclusive a way as possible, are good. But there can’t be unlimited tolerance.
One of the strongest arguing and operating points of liberal capitalism has always been the fact that its most vital and often its harshest coercions, those of economic necessity, under a given regime of property distribution and deprivation, legally enforced with the might of the state, have been applied with impersonality, anonymity, and a large measure of irresponsibility.
Here Morgan refers to loss of jobs through measures that were beyond the control of workers.
Dave note:
I think there IS something to the fact that the market forces of capitalism, because they are impersonal, do make it a more fair system. If the market, which is society, chooses A over B, B may not like it, but it wasn’t like someone up in the government arbitrarily chose A and screwed B over.
The free market system of capitalism will always include a very dynamic set of circumstances where workers are losing jobs in industries that are outcompeted by others. That would happen in the purest, fairest version of the free market. I will grant that there are plenty of forces involved trying to put fingers on scales and manipulate things in their favor. That IS unfair and should be seen as such. But the free market, as a system, is fair, despite the negative consequence of market losers.
State Absolutism
The state must enforce a country’s unique social plan through government institutions. These can follow either liberal or fascist methods, but it will require the absolute power of the state. The popular denunciation of fascism is that it is state absolutist, requiring unlimited powers, as contrasted with the limited powers of the liberal state. But this misrepresents the issue. The powers of every state are in theory, unlimited. The difference between fascism and liberalism is only in which certain things the state does without limitation, and in which the state is inhibited. Therefore, state absolutism isn’t really the issue, but rather the specific applications of the absolute power of the state.
Here Morgan delves into military conscription and authority, which he considers absolute even in liberal systems. He contrasts this with private property and notes that private property is respected more than life (given that individuals can be involuntarily coerced into the military).
The reply is that the Constitution protects not the right of the hungry to eat, but the right of the rich to keep what they have and to eat while the poor starve. “Nothing augurs so impressively the end of liberalism today as the changing temper of those on relief who are coming more and more to feel and assert a vested right to be cared for by the State.”
Dave note:
I’m not sure, given his last sentence, if Morgan disagrees with me, but as to what the constitution protects, the framing is wrong. The hungry being hungry isn’t a matter of a ‘right’ being denied. No one would deny them the right to eat. But the right to eat isn’t the same as the right to be provided with food. The government should protect the private property of its citizens, rich or poor.
But I think he is right in that the common acceptance of this idea that the citizens have a right to be fed or housed or clothed, does signal the end of liberalism. Freedom entails responsibility, and the more people offload their responsibility to take care of themselves to the government, the more they offload their rights to make decisions in those areas.
The idea of liberalism was to limit the unlimited powers of the State in ways suitable to supposed property interests. But, Morgan writes, the time has come to acknowledge those limitations in respect to his property, aren’t actually calculated to protect his interests in the long-run. Fascism is saying that property and capital be called to colors as well as conscripts in time of war, and further, that this term of service is not only for war, but a permanent scheme of social organization and operation.
Dave Note:
While there is much that I grant in his analysis, I think it deliberately reduces the problem.
We, of course, grant that individual self-expression isn’t limitless, particularly where it would infringe on fellow citizen’s rights. Moving from the consequent necessity of some limitation to “it’s just a matter of degrees” is true, but also misleading. The smaller limitations in liberal society may only be ‘degrees’ less than under fascism, but it’s precisely in just how much that is important. 10% limitation isn’t the same as 90% limitation. There’s a reason why communist countries had barbed wire keeping people in, and it wasn’t because there was essentially no difference between a few degrees of limitations on individual freedom.
Planning: A Problem in Value Choices
Morgan outlines an interesting discussion over the choice of values. He starts with the impossibility of expressing the fascist scheme in the language of liberalism or communism or another system. Each has its own language. The liberal scheme rests on the ideology of supposed eternal and absolute truths. These he calls mere verbalisms, like ‘equality before the law’, ‘freedom of contract’, democratic self-government’, ‘just compensation’, and so on. They sound impressive, but the majority couldn’t possibly explain what they mean in terms which harmonize the definition with the reality.
The fascist scheme is an expression of human will which creates its own truths and values from day to day, to suit its changing purposes. Fascists start from a situation of fact and a human will to do something about it- either to alter it, or preserve it. Fascism is an expression of the human will reacting to changing situations of life in the eternal struggle for existence.
The fascist plan is what the people want, or the leaders want, and fascist planning is the way to get it.
The chief plank in the conservative platform is inhibition- inhibition of government, inhibition of the underprivileged, inhibition of anything in the nature of a vital plan of a nation. To talk about fascism or communism in the language of liberalism will end up reducing the content, and changing the values from virtues to monstrosities.
Under communism, a small shopkeeper with a few helpers is changed into a dirty bourgeois capitalist oppressor. What the fascist regards as an ennobling love of country, becomes mass hysteria under liberalism. What fascist cherish as social discipline, becomes tyranny in the liberal language.
Two fundamental notions are essential to understanding of planning, or the formulation of a new social system:
1) Any social system represents a scheme or hierarchy of ultimate values or objectives, the upholding of which is one of the chief duties of the state and its citizens.
2) These ultimate values can’t be validated by logic or reason.
Morgan says there is little difference in the way a social system is enforced under any system. Liberal states may be free of many of the repressive measures of communism or fascism in peace, but in war, they are quite similar.
So essentially, there are no real disbelievers in planning per se, only disbelievers in certain plans and planning by the other fellow.
There are a wide range of values or objectives for national planning from which to make choices. Planning for America must proceed from an analysis of our own problems, assume a set of values, and explore the possibilities of their realization and possible means to this end.
Whatever these ultimate values are, they can’t be validated or proved good or desirable by processes of logic. Rational statement, analysis, clarification, and comparison of values are useful for two reasons:
1) values are realized, made to triumph, or enforced, through the instrumentality of reason. In other words: you know what you want and reason will help you to get it, if it can be had.
2) values can be clarified and compared only by the processes of reason.
But Morgan says we need to dispense with the rationalist notion that assumes reason as normative, instead of being instrumental. Reason is the tool of our will and emotional drives.
Morgan writes: “As the scientist knows, facts have to be selected according to purposes, or preconceived theories and intuitions, or hunches, or, more definitely, according to the conclusion or verdict which is desired to reach, or according to the hypothesis it is desired to build up.”
Dave note:
This is NOT the way science is supposed to work. Certainly, facts have to be selected, and we all work according to preconceptions. But the point of doing things scientifically is to look for flaws and undermine the test, which should lead one closer to the truth. Of course, we have to acknowledge that people do use the method at times in a manipulative way to bolster their position, rather than in a genuine search for truth.
Morgan proceeds: Fascism is not anti-intellectual or antirational. It uses observed fact and logical deduction as well as liberalism.
Reason is useful as a means to an end, and as a selector or clarifier of ends about which one is not clear. Had I lived in 15th century Spain with my present religious convictions, I would have understood the futility of trying to dissuade the heads of the Inquisition from their pursuit of heresy. Their rational capacity was just as good as mine, and their understanding of the implications of religious persecution and consequences as complete as mine. But their premises and emotional attitudes differed. They felt those unpleasant things had to be done, and those heavy prices paid in Spain, to save the souls of most of their compatriots. They undoubtedly believed this with deep intensity and fervor.
Today, we need to rational clarification of values of a plan for America. Using reason to clarify momentous social values and their consequences brings the choice down to: fight, or make concessions. Trying to make the other fellow see that God, reasons, right, etc is on your side will only exasperate him more and make him all the more eager to fight.
In the discussion of values or social objectives, it is useful to clear as to what one wants and what the other fellow wants, and to find out at what point either will fight. Taking this view will usually produce more concessions on both sides rather than an appeal to justice or reason to support one’s own scheme of values.
The National Plan: An Expression of the Popular Will
Fascism holds that the national plan or social scheme is always an expression of the might of the people, and this expression must be made explicit through the administration of those in power.
The beguiling myth of liberalism is that people can be governed by laws and not by men. This myth relies chiefly on the assumption that while administrative men are unreliable and prone to weaknesses, judges are not. But the trouble with any theory of impersonal government, or government by laws and principles, rather than men, is that it attributes to documents or statements of principle, qualities only humans can possess. The written word always requires interpretation and application by a given person.
The law can only express the will of the people with regard to current problems, subject to contemporary thought and feeling.
Morgan writes that trial by battle is one of the most essential features of the theory of liberal jurisprudence. The underlying assumption is that there is such a thing as absolute right and wrong, and that if both parties to a dispute select a champion, the champion of the right side will win the battle.
The champion used to be a knight in arms, now he is a lawyer. This is justice by sporting event.
This theory of pursuing absolutes like justice, fair competition, equality, etc, by means of trial by sporting event is incompatible with any rational theory of national planning. Its vogue under liberalism is probably due to two considerations:
1) It makes right theoretically superior to might. Even though settling right by a legal battle contradicts this theory, it eases Christian consciences to the predatory features of the economic struggle under capitalism. The successful in the acquisitive struggle can exculpate themselves all wrongdoing or abusive uses of force and violence if they can say they have kept within the law.
2) it is in the professional interests of the lawyers to have a social system operated on this principle because it means highly remunerative work on their end.
Instead, while courts and judicial processes have a place in every social scheme, their function must be that of an instrument of the popular will, not that of making interpretations of the popular will, and not that of making economic relationships a racket for lawyers and bankers.
The fascist State repudiates the liberal idea of conflict of interests and rights as between the State and the individual; such conflicts being settled through a trial by legal battle under the umpiring of a supposed neutral third party represented by a judge.
The main concern of the administration of justice under fascism is not the protection of the individual against a state assumed to be prone to abuse the individual. The chief purpose is the protection of the State against its own mistakes.
Liberalism assumes the individual welfare and protection is largely a matter of having active and powerful judicial restraints on governmental interference with the individual; Fascism assumes that individual welfare and protection is mainly secured by the strength, efficiency, and success of the State in realization of the national plan.
Morgan then adds:
“Conceivably, of course, a State and government might fall into the hands of a few individuals whose every act would be an abuse. But such an eventuality seems most improbable in any modern State, least of all in the United States.”
Those in charge of government would have the most obvious self-interest in making these tribunals function efficiently. They would not have an interest in upholding mistakes of the State that could be corrected.
A View of the Corporate Syndical State
Each corporation, which is an occupational group, is responsible for its own corporate life. It must protect all those engaged in the branch of activity with which it is concerned; it must see that they are adequately rewarded for their work, it must defend their rights, it must provide for them in misfortune.
Society will regarded as being divided vertically, according to trade or profession, instead of horizontally, according to social status, or worse, income. It is elementary that all class war is to be repudiated.
In each industry, the hierarchy of functions is to remain; there will be authority and obedience, but not absolute authority and wage slavery. Strikes and lock-outs and such methods of class defense are specifically declared illegal.
All national syndicates are to subordinate their own interests to the interests of the national economy. The key principle in all corporative theory is the principle of the common good.
Reference to an older Portuguese tradition of fishermen’s associations is made. The Casa dos Pescadores includes both masters and men, and is designed as an organ of social cooperation. It’s functions are classified under three heads: the representation and defense of professional interests; the instruction of the young in the art of fishing; the care of the sick and assistance for those who have suffered loss in storms, and general welfare work. These confraternities were the accredited representatives of all seafarers, and were designed to help the widows, the sick and disabled, and even to make good the loss caused by shipwreck or damage. Such confraternities were local rather than national, and demonstrated an essential traditionalism that fascism seeks: something rooted in the history of Portugal.
The spirit of fascist corporatism is found in this application: it is rooted in the national traditions, it has a power of adaptation, avoidance of state bureaucracy, and it recognizes the reality of the time- the illiterate and impractical nature of the Portuguese people, as well as the need for coordination, which necessitated a modicum of officials.
The Coming Corporate State
Alexander Raven Thomson (British writer)
The Corporate State must replace the liberal system. The reason is that democracy [probably he means the liberal system] is failing everywhere, most likely due to its mistaken belief in absolute individual liberty, which has negated effective government, and deprived people of their essential freedom.
The British Union wants power to govern, including power to control and direct industrial and financial organization. Not only will it then be possible to clear slums and cure unemployment, but the productive powers of the nation will be released to raise the standard of life in the entire community.
The nation is higher in the order than the individuals comprising it.
We want a social order that maintains the family and freedom of self-expression and initiative within the bounds of national well-being.
Prosperity is attained by the functional organization of economic and industrial groups.
Freedom is realized by the individual once he is released from political corruption and economic oppression to enjoy leisure for cultural self-expression.
Fascism recognizes the desirability of individual freedom of expression and initiative, as a basis of healthy social life, but it does not place this principle before all others, as does decayed democracy.
Individual freedom can only follow economic liberation.
The government will establish prosperity by planning both production and distribution.
Dave Notes:
In a later section of the book, Ziotio Garibaldi, a Mexican fascist, is expounding his ideas of fascism, and he mentions the ‘ruling class of exploiters who cheat them (workers) of their share of the profits…’
It made me question how much of the profits the workers are entitled to? It doesn’t seem to me they’re entitled to a share of ANY of the profits. They are contracted for a wage. As long as workers are paid the wage they have earned, they have received their full payment. On the flip side, they have no more responsibility to the company either. If the company loses money, they must still be paid, since they were contracted only to work a certain amount of hours for a certain amount of pay. They have no responsibilities, and consequently no rights to the profits or loss of the company.
If a company, like Amazon, does particularly well, the warehouse workers there are not more entitled to the massive gains of the company simply because the company has been successful.
Assuming Amazon’s success has come from its wide range of products, easy purchasing process, and quick delivery, there is no more effort on the part of the warehouse workers than there would be if they were working at a competitor who is not successful. The workers output is the same. It is the process itself that is the difference. Now if all things were equal and the workers at one company just bust their butts to produce more, then yeah, they should be sharers in the profits, since the profits are due to them. But the average worker has no more right to company profits than anyone else.