Lawrence Dennis
Jun 21, 2020 23:52:59 GMT
Post by Deleted on Jun 21, 2020 23:52:59 GMT
Every social situation has an unlimited number of aspects. Unworkability of the existing system is the particular aspect of the present social situation in the United States which, to the fascist way of thinking, seems most challenging to thoughtful analysis and immediate action. It is the unworkability of a given social system in a changed set of conditions which is most responsible for revolutionary social change. Feudalism, for instance, gave way to modern capitalism, not because any number of the people at any given moment decided that they would prefer a new social order, but because a series of discoveries of new lands and inventions of new machines and techniques created new conditions, among them the rise of a new business class, in which the feudal system could not work. This is not to state a thesis of rigid economic determinism or an exclusively materialistic interpretation of history. It is to recognize that changes in things act on preferences as well as changes in preferences on things. (discontinued)
This book needs an introduction to anticipate certain easy misconstructions of its major theses and, to set the reader straight from the start as to the author’s attitude and purposes. First, let it be said that I am undertaking to explain rather than to advocate the current decline and fall of capitalism and democracy; and the new revolution which is worldwide and just beginning in this country. I do not seek to show what can or should be done to save democracy and capitalism or to stop the new revolution. I am concerned only over what can and should be done for the best interests of the American people, not of a system, during developments which I consider inevitable and already in progress. Second, I argue that permanent social revolution is the only alternative to stagnation, pointing out that democracy, or capitalism on its economic side, was a great revolution and is fast becoming only a great legend. In so doing, I seek to explain the new revolution in various countries as a great and more or less inevitable process of social change the world over. I shall, therefore, probably be accused, though wrongly, of defending all revolutions and everything done in each one of them. I do not say that all revolutions are absolutely good. I say merely that any revolution that is big enough will end stagnation which is the essence of the social problem of today. Third, as to war, I hold it probable that nothing can keep America out and that our going to war will prove futile for the purposes for which we shall fight because, in going to war against the Have-nots, we shall be lighting a world revolution abroad only thereby to bring about here the same revolution which I consider inevitable everywhere. I am in favor of the revolution here but deem the war way of bringing it about regrettable though inevitable in the present emotional attitude of the American people toward world events. It will be easy to misunderstand or distort my position as to our going to war. It will seem to many that it is contradictory, at the same time, to disapprove of our entering the war, to approve of our going through with the new revolution and to say that we shall do so through entering the war. Obviously, from what I have to say, my personal preference would be to have the new revolution carried out here without our going to war in a futile effort to stop war abroad. What will be hard for many to understand about this book is that it is primarily my analysis of the situation and the near-future probabilities rather than a statement of my personal preferences. As I see no likelihood of my preferences being realized in the transition from capitalism to socialism, I do not devote a whole book to expounding them, as a detailed program, though I do not hesitate to express or suggest them from time to time in different connections. But my preferences are brought in only incidentally to the development of the book’s main theses which are largely interpretative of actual trends and probable events. (discontinued)
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www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/lawrence-dennis/the-coming-american-fascism ("In 1931 Dennis wrote Is Capitalism Doomed?: he believes that liberal capitalism is and here points out that it is desirable for the major parties to accept Fascism now rather than to wait for it to come by force from an embittered minority. This is certainly a logical and clear sighted presentation and though you disagree and ridicule the idea of Fascism in the United States, it will force you to find arguments for your belief. It revolves around the questions -- can we continue prewar formulas of expanding population, exploitation of new territories and markets, can we resume financing on credit of large scale consumption, can the present system go on carrying the depression and can we effect a sound economic reorganization under the existing conditions and get a fresh start.")
www.marxists.org/archive/hansen/1943/10/burnham.htm
willisacartolibrary.com/2017/07/03/lawrence-dennis/
www.amerika.org/texts/the-isolationist-as-collectivist-lawrence-dennis-and-the-coming-of-world-war-ii-justus-d-doenecke/
original.antiwar.com/justin/2000/04/28/tale-of-a-seditionist-the-lawrence-dennis-story/
www.amfirstbooks.com/Articles_Archive/Barnes_Review/Barnes2002-2003/PiperBarnes200307-08Mr.LawrenceDennisAppealsToReason.html
www.takimag.com/article/the_subversion_of_lawrence_dennis/
www.counter-currents.com/2014/12/lawrence-dennis-and-a-frontier-thesis-for-american-capitalism/
www.counter-currents.com/2015/12/lawrence-dennis-1893-1977/ ("Back in 1933 and 1934 I was one of the few writing Americans who saw that both socialism and nazism had to end in an extreme form of socialism by reason of the pressures of inevitable trends in social change. I derided the interpretations of Fascism and Naziism made equally by the conservatives and the communists at the time. Incidentally, it is to be remarked the American communists and fellow travelers, who are as unsophisticated in politics as Wall Streeters or Mrs Roosevelt, helped both Mussolini no end in the early days by denouncing them as capitalist stooges. My book The Coming American Fascism, was treated my many critics as wholly irrelevant to Fascism because it did not accord with the the orthodox Moscow interpretation of this new phenomenon. On this point, the orthodox line of Union Square and the Union League Club was the same... To me in 1933-1936, as now, the idea then being advanced on Park Avenue and lower Third Avenue that the demagogue of a popular national socialist movement with a private army of the people under his orders could be the Charlie McCarthy of big businessmen was utterly preposterous. I have known intimately too many big businessmen to have any uncertainly as to the role they would be playing in any Charlie McCarthy act with a Hitler. Businessmen are socially the least intelligent and creative members of our ruling classes...")
losthunderlads.com/2017/10/19/lawrence-dennis-and-james-burnham/