the two heads of the dragon
Nazism and liberalism
The neoliberal cycle began in 1973, when North American economists of the neoliberal school used a killer named Pinochet to destroy Salvador Allende’s democratic experiment.
When the Chilean insurrection of autumn 2019 forced the Pineira government to accept the electoral process that led to Boric’s affirmation and the start of the constituent process, we said: where it all began, the nazi-liberal cycle could end.
Could.
It was the ultimate illusion. Now we know that this did not happen and perhaps we must abandon the illusion that a political initiative (voluntary action) can stop the apocalypse that five centuries of imperialist capitalism have prepared and which is now unfolding, and that seems unstoppable, not stoppable at least by the voluntary action of humans.
This defeat should lead us to a redefinition of the relationship between autonomous insurrectionary communities and the destiny of the planet.
This means: we thought that social movements had the prospect of transforming society as a whole. In this sense we have interpreted the insurrections as triggers for revolutions, that is, we have interpreted the act of revolt and subtraction as the trigger of a process of overturning the social equilibrium and radical transformation of society as a whole.
That model of radical change based on organised will, a model that worked (albeit imperfectly) in the twentieth century, no longer works. There is no longer any possibility of stopping and reversing trends that are irreversible.
Human will is not capable to reverse the irreversible, and also the great political powers that pretend to be in control are no longer in the position to do anything (except adding destruction to the ongoing destruction).
Abandon the illusions, therefore. Resign yourself to the end of the modern illusion (democracy, prosperity, progress), and prepare to multiply moments of collective autonomy that can result in collective actions of desertion, and secessive self-constitution. This is insurrection today.
In the global storm of unplanned revolts of autumn 1919, Chile was the place where people were aware of the long-term historical context, where insurgent people were conscious of the choices to be made in the immediate future: to rewrite the constitution from below as charter of political rights and above all as an affirmation of the primacy of society over business.
Globalitarian liberalism asserted itself in 1973 thanks to military dictatorship and violence.
In the years of Thatcher and Reagan, the counter-revolution experienced in Chile and Argentina was generalised throughout the West: economic violence against social welfare.
We should not forget that the philosophy of Neoliberalism is essentially based on the same principles on which Hitler’s Nazism is based: natural selection, imposition of the law of the strongest in the social sphere, elimination of all differences between society and the jungle.
Nazi-liberal philosophy has established itself in the ’80s and ’90s through the elimination of the workers’ avant-gardes, the technical restructuring of production, the privatization of the school, of the health system, of public transport and through the private occupation of the media.
The official history of the twentieth century tells us about a conflict in which three main actors are involved: the Communist workers’ movement unluckily represented by the Soviet experiment, the Nazi-fascism of European origin that after the Second World War re-emerged with virulence in Latin America, and Liberalism, the extreme form of the capitalist dominance.
After the Second World War, democracy prevailed thanks to the military alliance between the Anglo-Americans and the Soviets, so Nazi-Fascism disappeared from history.
This narrative is false, and today (in the third decade of the twenty-first century) it is important to understand it not for merely for historical reasons, but because that narrative confuses our understanding of the present.
It is false because the actors were and are two: society and Nazi liberalism.
There has never been an opposition (if not apparent, or merely formal) between Anglo-American capitalism and Nazi-fascism.
In 1914 and in 1939 an inter-imperialist conflict opposed two blocs, two different faces of the white domination of the world: the block of the established colonialist powers and the block of the emerging colonialist powers; like any other inter-imperialist war that conflict did not imply any systemic alternative.
The fable that Hitler is an extreme exception in modern history must be debunked, once and for all. Fascism and Nazism are not only a display of delusional violence, but also and above all the last resort of white supremacism and capitalist imperialism. When supremacism feels in danger due to the emergence of conflicting nationalisms or the rise of irreconcilably hostile civilizations, it abandons the democratic-liberal form and wears the brown shirt.
The relationship between white supremacism and Nazism is clear to African and African-American Marxists such as Cedric Robinson who in Race and Capitalism (Pluto Press, 2019) argues that slavery and systemic racism are entirely comparable to Hitler’s Nazism. For W.E.B. Du Bois the conditions of Nazism are found in a civilization traumatized by slavery and racism. It is therefore a specific feature of Western capitalist civilization.
If we reflect on the macabre enumeration of figures, we would discover that English or Spanish colonialism are responsible for massacres in comparison with which Hitler himself pales, and we would discover that the rise of the United States of America is inseparable from the genocide of the natives and the deportation and slavery subjugation of at least ten million Africans.
It is necessary to be clear on this point because from 2016 onwards we live in an era that seems to be characterized by a deadly struggle between sovereign authoritarianism with openly racist and fascist characters, and liberal democracies. But this description is completely false.
Authoritarian nationalists are the most diligent in pursuing neo-liberal policies of tax cuts for the rich, forced privatization of social services, job insecurity and wage cuts.
And the Liberal Democrats are the most diligent in pursuing supremacist and racist policies, as shown by the Italian case in which the murder of migrants by water was legally sanctioned by a criminal named Marco Minniti who handed over countless numbers to Libyan torturers, women, men and children who fled the wars and misery sown by the West in Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
In Chilean history, this indissoluble unity of Nazism and liberalism was in full display since the 1970s.
the two heads of the dragon
I do not expect that from the war between liberal democracy and authoritarian sovereignty the Good will win or the Evil will win, because I do not believe that liberal democracy is the Good, nor do I think that fascism that grows wherever is Evil. I think they are the two heads of the dragon produced by global capitalism in its agonic phase, and I expect that the war between these two heads is preparing the end of social civilization. Nothing less, nothing more.
So let’s take it easy, and try to understand.
The democratic-liberal conformism removes the fact that the majority of people hate them to the point of voting for anyone who is hated and feared by them.
In short: when Trump began his rise, we tried to reassured ourselves by saying: he sucks so much, he is so false and aggressive that certainly the majority of Americans, who by nature are good and democratic, will totally screw him up.
The opposite happened: the majority of Americans, who are by nature racist and vindictive, humiliated Hillary Clinton.
This is why a large part or the majority of voters are well disposed towards those who represent evil. The inversion of Evil and Good is an effect of the Baroque Mediascape, of the disturbed mind of the society worn out by humiliation and fear.
Resign and rise up
For this reason, in the autumn of 2019, the Chilean revolt marked the beginning of a phase of radical questioning of the Nazi-liberal domination.
For this reason it was right to attribute a universal value to the Chilean process.
After the estallido came the pandemic, then came the elections, then the plebiscite that decreed the abolition of the 1980 Constitution by a very large majority. Then a constitutional process was started and this process led to the proposal for a moderately post-liberal Constitution based on feminism, respect of the indigenous people and the environment.
Finally, on 4 September, the referendum sanctioned the defeat of this new Constitution.
For the umpteenth time we have believed in democracy.
For the umpteenth time, society has been defeated.
For the umpteenth time, capitalism has affirmed its insuperability.
For the umpteenth time democracy has revealed to be a trap: the formation of the collective will is hetero-determined, and political decisions are in any case unable to break the financial and technical automatisms. military.
I am well aware that my reasoning can be questioned: is there an alternative way to the democratic one?
We know that the violent overthrow of state power has led to the establishment of authoritarian states that have been unable to create the conditions for a society free from exploitation.
I believe that the Chilean lesson must be accepted: insurrection is possible, it can create conditions for the flourishing of an autonomous society, but it cannot transform the whole of social relations either through the democratic method or through the revolutionary method.
The promise of modernity, of equality, prosperity, and peace, has vanished and we must resign ourselves to this evidence.
The word resignation does not have a good reputation if one does not believe that we must bow to God’s will.
I don’t believe that God’s will governs the course of human affairs, but I believe that resigning oneself to the end of illusions is not in itself a bad thing.
Resignation and insurrection can go hand in hand, as long as we give up the idea that insurrection can win and reverse the irreversible.
Someone wrote on the walls of the Chilean cities
“No era depresion it was capitalism”.
The activation of desiring bodies and the mobilization of collective intelligence act as a cure for depressive syndrome, this is known.
In the months of autumn 2019, capitalism had not been abolished, it continued to dominate work and social life. So that sentence written on the walls did not mean that depression ends (or is suspended) when capitalism is gone.
Instead, it meant that living in the conditions of submission and competition causes depression. Collectively rebelling, stopping the regular life of cities, experimenting creative forms of urban life and collective consumption has a therapeutic function, and can also have (as long as we resign ourselves to the impossibility of overcoming) the function of inventing autonomous models of social life.
