- 03 Apr 2009 14:23
#1857219
Fasces
As discussed before, the moralist movement indicated the revolt of the revolutionaries against the idea of an economic man, prevalent in both Marxism and Liberalism. It turned to a separate solution, and found it in the ideas of Henri de Saint-Simon, a pre-Marxist utopian.
Henri de Saint-Simon, Grandfather of Fascism
de Saint-Simon, unlike future socialists, did not focus on the conflict between labor and the worker, believing rather that society would theoretically be divided into industrial sectors, led by industrial chiefs. This division of society by trade rather than class or geography would later be incorporated almost directly into the ideas of national syndicalism, and the revolutionary syndicalists of the 1890s at least adapted the idea to what today is popularly known as revolutionary syndicalism, from the French term to mean rule by trade unions.
By any measure, George Sorel is widely considered the father of syndicalism, and thus fascism. However, one would be foolish to give unto him undeserved devotion; he was not the only philosopher of syndicalist thought, and by no means the only contributor to ideas. George Sorel's work is well known today, and yet when in 1908 he published his Reflections on Violence, he was not saying anything that sounded unusual in syndicalists' ears. His books were quite simply a systematic reworking of the writings of socialist and syndicalist leaders far better known than Sorel himself.
Syndicalist philosophers expressed many ideas more typically associated with fascism that the revolutionary left. For example, Emile Pouget thought that direct action "might proceed at a gentle and peaceable pace or, equally, by force and extreme violence." Syndicalism and "democratism" were irreconcilable principally because "the latter, by means of universal suffrage, gives control into the hands of the ignorant and the tardigrades... and stifles the minorities who are the flag-bearers of the future." In this fashion, the extreme leftists in the movement instilled in their sympathizers a contempt for democracy and parliamentarism combined with the ardent desire for violent rebellion led by the minority of informed activists.
In 1909 these exact sentiments were being voiced by Angelo Olivetti and the Italian revolutionary syndicalists; socialism would come into its own only in consequence of action on the part of the working-class elite. This hypocrisy was intolerable, hence the efforts that were made to price the working class away from parliamentary democracy, and thus undo the work of the Dreyfus Affair.
It is at this time that Sorel becomes the man history remembers him as, and this is what we will discuss next time.
As discussed before, the moralist movement indicated the revolt of the revolutionaries against the idea of an economic man, prevalent in both Marxism and Liberalism. It turned to a separate solution, and found it in the ideas of Henri de Saint-Simon, a pre-Marxist utopian.
Henri de Saint-Simon, Grandfather of Fascism
de Saint-Simon, unlike future socialists, did not focus on the conflict between labor and the worker, believing rather that society would theoretically be divided into industrial sectors, led by industrial chiefs. This division of society by trade rather than class or geography would later be incorporated almost directly into the ideas of national syndicalism, and the revolutionary syndicalists of the 1890s at least adapted the idea to what today is popularly known as revolutionary syndicalism, from the French term to mean rule by trade unions.
By any measure, George Sorel is widely considered the father of syndicalism, and thus fascism. However, one would be foolish to give unto him undeserved devotion; he was not the only philosopher of syndicalist thought, and by no means the only contributor to ideas. George Sorel's work is well known today, and yet when in 1908 he published his Reflections on Violence, he was not saying anything that sounded unusual in syndicalists' ears. His books were quite simply a systematic reworking of the writings of socialist and syndicalist leaders far better known than Sorel himself.
Syndicalist philosophers expressed many ideas more typically associated with fascism that the revolutionary left. For example, Emile Pouget thought that direct action "might proceed at a gentle and peaceable pace or, equally, by force and extreme violence." Syndicalism and "democratism" were irreconcilable principally because "the latter, by means of universal suffrage, gives control into the hands of the ignorant and the tardigrades... and stifles the minorities who are the flag-bearers of the future." In this fashion, the extreme leftists in the movement instilled in their sympathizers a contempt for democracy and parliamentarism combined with the ardent desire for violent rebellion led by the minority of informed activists.
In 1909 these exact sentiments were being voiced by Angelo Olivetti and the Italian revolutionary syndicalists; socialism would come into its own only in consequence of action on the part of the working-class elite. This hypocrisy was intolerable, hence the efforts that were made to price the working class away from parliamentary democracy, and thus undo the work of the Dreyfus Affair.
It is at this time that Sorel becomes the man history remembers him as, and this is what we will discuss next time.
- By litwin
- By wat0n