308
PARTISAN REVIEW
a sign of a genuine anti-fascism on their part. They are merely
opposed to
German fascism,
that is, they are defending the capi–
talistic interests of their own countries. The anti-fascism angle of
this struggle is only incidental; its absence would alter only some
of the propaganda phrases employed.
From Liberalism to rstatism'
Capitalists far more than the workers are affected by the
recent social transformations.
That this should come to them as a
surprise only shows once more how little they understand their
own society. Bourgeois thinkers, however, foresaw quite early
what has now come to pass.
27
If
their present-day heirs despise the
most recent metamorphoses of the capitalist system, some of their
forefathers~
found delight in the thought that at a later day the
state would not only symbolically but actually represent the "whole
of society."
Capitalistic development displaced individual capitalists by
organized capitalist groups; individual workers by trade or politi–
cal organizations. Just as ·the market mechanism was increasingly
disrupted through this development, so the apparatus of the state
became increasingly incapable of serving under the new condi–
tions. Additional state powers were needed to assure some sort of
social stability. The
laissez faire
arguments against government
power became ridiculous. The
"question was no longer whether business could, or ought to,
stop government, but among what groups the business of gov–
erning the country was to be distributed."
29
The trend towards 'increasing centralization asserts itself, however,
only within the chaotic interplay of various monopolies and pres–
sure-groups. Monopolies began, either by reason of strength or
"Hobbes believed that a totalitarian state might be needed to secure order
in
the
capitalist society. His
Leviathan,
writes R. H. S. Crossman
(Government and the
Governed;
p. 69) "is the first democratic attack upon democracy." Hegel's discussion
of the various stages of government, writes H. Marcuse
(Reason and Revolution;
p. 59) "is a concrete description of the development from liberalism to an authori·
tarian political system. . . . The gist of Hegel's analysis is that liberalistic society
gives birth to an authoritarian state."
•saint-Simon and Comte, for example, derived their optimism precisely from the
authoritarian tendencies inherent in the capitalistic reproduction process. They
dreamed of a conscious re-organization of society through the wisdom and intelli–
gence of a selected ruling body which would plan and establish a desired social
harmony.
20
].
J.
Robbins and G. Heckscher, "The Constitutional Theory of Autonomous
Groups."
The Journal of Politics.
Vol. 3, No. 1; p. 19.
