Sunday, December 21, 2014

Further into Hell: Fascism, Keynesianism, and Red States

The tax-cutting and anti-labor policies of Kansas are destroying jobs. During a time of modest recovery, employment in Kansas continues to fall.

One of the things I now grasp about 1930s fascism is that it had to be militarist, it had to encourage internal looting. It had no other way to create jobs and maintain the wealth of its would-be aristocracy. How will this play out in states like Kansas and Wisconsin? Do the paramilitaries of the far right merge with the state militias? That sounds disturbingly plausible, especially since the state Guards and national reserve forces are already are full of Sunday soldiers. What happens then?

Internal violence, for sure. More attacks on victimized groups—blacks, Hispanics, Muslims, Jews, and women of all ethnicities—seem likely. External violence? It is hard for me to imagine a successful revolt; the state forces are too corrupt and disorganized, and the Federal forces are very powerful indeed. So instead, I think, a radical states-rights agenda enabled by a complaisant Congress and the Roberts Court.

I don't see how it can work, without a successful revolt. These states will not be able to hold their citizens and, especially, their women. Poverty and sickness will be a hard sell, when neighboring states will be relatively prosperous and healthy. But it promises hard times for whole (dis-) United States for some years to come.

1 comment:

The Blog Fodder said...

According to Kennedy's The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, Hitler's "economic miracle" was financed by looting, first of Jewish property, then of countries he invaded. The amount of expenditure on military could not be sustained by the economy. As you point out about Kansas, it was not in the business of creating wealth.
Russia is in the same situation. It is certainly fascist and its top people trained in the Soviet system have no clue (nor interest in) how to create wealth, only how to steal it.