The
mainstream media and even Democrats have been slow to call Mitt
Romney's deliberate falsehoods "lies." But after just calling them what
they are, it is also important to analyze their meaning. Lies on
Romney's scale do not simply show contempt for the intelligence of
American voters. They show contempt for democracy, and display some of
the features of capitalist dictatorship of a sort that was common in the
late twentieth century. Mohammad Reza Pahlevi in Iran, Alfredo
Stroessner in Paraguay, Park Hung Chee in South Korea and P.W. Boetha in
South Africa are examples of this form of government. Capitalist
dictatorship has declined around the world in favor of capitalist
parliamentarism, in part because of the rising power of middle and
working classes in the global South.
Capitalist
dictatorship has many similarities to fascism, but differs from it in
lionizing not the workers of the nation but the entrepreneurs of the
nation. Fascism seeks a mixed economy, whereas capitalist dictatorship
privileges the corporate sector and attacks the non-military public
sector. But both try to subsume class conflict under a
hyper-nationalism. Both glorify military strength and pick fights with
other countries to whip up nationalist fervor. Both disallow unions,
collective bargaining and workers' strikes. Both typically privilege one
ethnic group within the nation, marking it as superior and setting up a
racial hierarchy.
One big difference between
capitalist democracy (as in contemporary Germany and France) and
capitalist dictatorship is the willingness of the business classes to
play by the rules of democratic elections, to allow a free, fair and
transparent contest, to acknowledge the rights of unions, and to respect
the universal franchise. Businessmen in such a society share a civic
ethic that sees these goods as necessary for a well ordered society, and
therefore as ultimately good for business. They may also be afraid of
the social disruptions (as in France) that would attend any attempt to
whittle away workers' rights. Attempts to limit the franchise, to ban
unions, and to manipulate the electorate with bald-faced lies are all
signs of a barracuda business class that secretly seeks its class
interests above all others in society, and which is not afraid of
workers and middle classes because the latter are apolitical, apathetic
and disorganized.
Sound familiar?
1.
Romney's contempt for the democratic process is demonstrated in his
preference for the Big Lie. In order to scare workers in Toledo, Ohio,
into voting for him, he alleged that President Obama was arranging for
Chrysler's Jeep production to be shifted to China.
Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne
sent an email to all employees refuting Romney: "I feel obliged to
unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved
from the United States to China..." He pointed out that Jeep production
in the US has tripled since 2009. Romney's political ad containing this
sheer falsehood, is blanketing Ohio.
3.
Romney supports Koch-brother-funded attempts to suppress voting,
typically through state legislatures requiring voter identification
documents at polling booths. Such identification often costs money, so
that it is a stealth poll tax. It also requires, for non-drivers, a trip
to a state office and bureaucratic runarounds. Voter i.d. requirements
hit the poor, Latinos, African-Americans and urban people who use public
transit hardest, i.e., mostly voters for the Democratic Party. In some
states,
the courts are questioning the laws.
But in many states they are now entrenched. Limiting the franchise was a
key tactic for Apartheid South Africa's government under Boetha, which
was run as a capitalist dictatorship on behalf of the white Cape Town
business classes.
4. Romney's devotion to
increasing military spending and his rattling of sabers at Russia,
China, Iran, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt (aren't we up to about half
the world now?) are typical of the militarism of capitalist
dictatorship. His repeated pledges to defer to the wishes of the officer
corps with regard to whether to end the Afghanistan war suggests a
certain amount of Bonapartism, where the business classes bring in the
generals to make key decisions. The problem for small authoritarian
business classes is that they are in competition for resources with the
much larger middle and working classes and in a parliamentary system
they risk being outvoted. In order to suppress the latter's claims on
resources and deflect any tendency to vote along class interests, the
business classes in this system pose as defenders of the nation, thus
hiding class conflict and legitimating the diversion of resources to
arms manufacturers and other corporations. Nationalism, militarism and
war, along with voter suppression, can even the playing field for the
rich.
5. The Romney campaign's
remarks about "Anglo-Saxons" better understanding allies like Britain, and its support for the
racist Arizona immigration and profiling law
show a preference for racial hierarchy, with "Anglo-Saxons" at the top.
Again, many capitalist dictatorships privilege a dominant ethnicity, as
with Apartheid South Africa or discrimination against native Chileans
by the Pinochet regime in Chile. Fostering racism is a way of dividing
and ruling the middle and working classes, of binding a segment of them
to the dominant business classes.
Obviously, the
Romney version is capitalist dictatorship lite. But its strong
resemblance to the full form of that sort of polity is highly
disturbing. While these tendencies have existed on the Republican Right
for some time, the sheer level of contempt for democracy as demonstrated
in the Big Lies, the exaltation of war, the racial profiling, and the
new extent of attempts at voter suppression and union-busting all
indicate a sharp veering toward authoritarianism.
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