NEOCONSERVATISM, MARXISM, AND HITLER

Yesterday I came across a curious interview, originally published by the Russian newspaper Pravda on its English-language website on September 4, 2012, and in Russian translation on its Russian-language site on September 14, 2012. The interviewee was the well-known American political commentator and critic of US foreign policy Dr. Paul Craig Roberts.

Born in 1939, he is an eminent American economist, who served as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan Administration, and is commonly credited as co-founder of Reaganomics. Having left the government (and not expected to ever join it again), he is, as quoted from the Wikipedia, “a former editor and columnist for the Wall Street Journal Business Week, and Scripps Howard News Service, who has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy.” He is also a columnist for California-based Creators Syndicate, etc.

I am familiar with Dr. Roberts’ sharply critical views, and although I often agree with the general direction of his thought, I feel that he is frequently carried away by his own rhetoric, and had he been less aggressive in his pronouncements, his contribution to the general debate could have been more constructive and valuable. Yet, I do find him interesting and thought-provoking, especially given the paucity and frequent inadequacy of his kind of alternative anti-establishment point of view.

In his longish interview to Pravda.ru, a particular portion of it caught my attention and elicited a comment on my part, which I just could not pass by. It concerns Dr. Roberts’ take on American neoconservatism, as he, rather flippantly, compares it to Marxism, and even to Nazism. Here is that portion of his interview:

“What the world seems to be unaware of is that the Soviet collapse unleashed a new, highly dangerous ideology in the US known as neoconservatism… It is a form of Marxism in which American ‘democratic capitalism’ instead of the proletariat has won history’s verdict--- ‘the end of history.’ Americans are the ‘indispensable people,’ and the US is the ‘indispensable nation’ with the right and responsibility to establish its hegemony over the world. Adolf Hitler called the same thing Aryan Superiority. Now Washington asserts the superiority. The neoconservative ideology threatens the world with nuclear war.”

…Marxism and Hitler are loud words, and when used declaratively they cheapen the discussion. There have been too many “Hitlers” around the world lately, courtesy not of Dr. Roberts, but of mainstream American politicians, seeing a “Hitler” in every petty third-world dictator whom they are eager to topple. But I am not inclined to take this particular case as declarative demagoguery, but seriously, for a change, especially since I am very much interested in the neoconservative phenomenon, and I have already commented on it several times in the book and on this blog. (See, for instance, my entry Lenin In America, posted on June 30, 2011.)

Now, how does neoconservatism compare to Marxism? I suggest that we distinguish between various forms of revolutionary movements, in this case Trotskyism being the closest to the ideology of neoconservatism, which is only natural, since the American founders of neoconservatism have all come out of Trotskyism, as I have pointed out in Lenin In America. But, mind you, it is terribly confusing and counterproductive when we are using the generalized word Marxism in this context. As an economic theory, Marxism has little to do with neoconservatism, except superficially, where the latter pushes America-driven Globalism as a remedy for global economic woes, and Dr. Roberts obviously realizes that. He chooses to compare the two on political-philosophical and ethical grounds, but does it casually, and without illuminating the important connection between Marx’s philosophy of history and his ethics. To say that neoconservatism “is a form of Marxism in which American ‘democratic capitalism’ instead of the proletariat has won history’s verdict--- ‘the end of history,’” is too broad a brush to paint with. Marx’s ethics defends the poor against the rich along the Christian Biblical lines (!), where the rich are the problem, and not the solution. (“Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven.” [Matthew 19:23.]) As you may notice here, Marx is on Jesus’ page in his ethics, when he asserts essentially the same thing that a rich man is a bad man.

Neoconservatism, on the other hand, asserts the opposite, namely, that a rich man is a good man. It makes a mockery of Christian ethics, and thus to call it “a form of Marxism” is disrespectful to Marxism, at best. Yes, we are dealing with ethics in both cases, but never are we to mislabel a wicked caricature as “a form of” the genuine article.

By the same token, Marxian “end of history” is deeply rooted in Hegel’s ethical philosophy of history, with Goethe’s Faustian undertones: “When to the moment I shall say, Linger awhile, so fair thou art!” But there is no similar ethical dimension to the neoconservative “eschatology,” not even an attempt to transcend the empty exploitative parody, which neoconservative philosophy boils down to. Once again, we are operating with concepts which are superficially similar, but substantially incongruent, and to talk about this being a form of that is OK as a teasing stimulus for a discussion, but not OK as a sincere conviction.

With regard to comparing neoconservatism to Nazism (“Adolf Hitler called the same thing Aryan Superiority. Now Washington asserts the superiority.”), this is surely an unpleasant association, on Dr. Roberts’ part, meant to offend, but hardly making a substantial point. German Nazism was an expression of nationalism, whereas neoconservatism/neoliberalism embodies anti-nationalism, using nationalist slogans merely for its self-promotion, while in reality it has subverted the very notion of American national interest. Rather than sprouting from inside out, neoconservatism is a parasitic external growth on the body of the American nation. Rather than strengthening national economy, it is bringing it to ruin, destroying the labor force, killing the middle class, depleting the social security reserves, etc., etc. What kind of American hegemony can be expected after borrowing trillions of dollars from extremely unsympathetic foreigners with no expectation of balancing the budget, or paying back what America owes already?

Neoconservatism is not about American superiority, but about taking advantage of American strength. One cannot possibly learn any lessons for America by studying the experience of the Third Reich. Therefore, no comparison of the one to the other can be justified even in impersonal academic terms…

In this Pravda interview, Dr. Roberts issues a troubling warning: “The neoconservative ideology threatens the world with nuclear war.”

Does it mean that, when the chicken come home to roost, a global war will be the only solution to America’s mounting problems? Although this train of thought seems unconscionable, I appreciate one aspect of it, but I do not appreciate that such an important aspect has been left floating out there, like a declarative hot air balloon. I believe that all well-wishers of America, and Dr. Roberts is obviously one of them, must address their dire warning to Washington, rightly accusing it of irresponsibility and mismanagement of America’s national affairs. It is time for the American government to stop playing their obscene partisan games, to drop their silly distraction tactics of finger-pointing to other people conducting their own affairs as they see fit, when Washington’s house is beset by grave national problems that must be faced with no further procrastination.

And in addressing this colossal challenge, neoconservatism, which is still in the driver’s seat of American politics four years into the current non-Republican Administration, must be dealt with--- not as a form of this or that, but as a concrete obstacle to solving the nation’s problems that has to be explicitly exposed as such, and removed.