Taki vs. Fukuyama: It Could Have Been a German Century

Wall Street Journal | 12/31/99 | Francis Fukuyama

[nicollo]

I raised the question about the White Russians only to illuminate the notion that ideas do matter. You say that the wars (I assume WWII?) made socialism less attractive to Americans. Certainly, National Socialism, but definitely not socialism, which took Reagan to kill on our shores.

It was thought by many at the time, and I don't know for sure that he did, that Wilson and certain English liberals sympathized with the Russian revolution. The reason people might have thought it good is because they applied the groundless principle of power to the people, blah, blah, blah. Europe of 1913 was awash in this.

I'm not thinking that Roosevelt was headed towards socialism, per se, all the to each to his own, etc. I erred above in saying he'd have gone beyond the New Deal to socialism. He was too shrewd for that foolishness and it grated at his conception of self-reliance. He stood for min. wages/ max. hours, etc., and not just to the railroads, but all businesses, which is a given today (outside of LewRockwell.com...). The danger lied elsehwere.

What bothers me about him, the New Nationalism speech especially, was this deliverance to big business as an unavoidable fact of life. He was headed towards, as I said above, a government-business partnership, which is the far worser aspect of socialism, or national socialism, or communism, than New Deal social programs. If this means anything to you, check out what George Perkins was saying about the relationship between business and government. I'd be happy to post or send you a copy of an interview with him on the subject from 1912. This was "managed trade" at its worst, the German impulse you describe above.

Roosevelt's belief in the triumph of business was almost Marxist in its historical assumption. Here is why this thread moves me in this direction (and I hate to keep bringing up TR): Fukuyama makes the same mistake with his static view of history (correct me if I am wrong).

Your explanation of 1914 Germany is on, especially #19.

[x]

Everything that grew out of WWI taken as a whole and looked at from today -- Communism, Fascism, WWII, the Cold War -- had the effect of disillusioning the world with socialism. Though of course, at the time and in the short run the war vastly increased support for socialism.

What gets me about a lot of these alternative histories is that it's hard to know what to make of them. How could Britain or America have foreseen Hitler and Stalin in 1914 or 1917? Ought they simply to have rolled over and let Germany have everything it wanted? Would this not also have had bad consequences? Why assume that allied victory was responsible for what followed and not German aggression or post-war failures? If history had taken another course, how would we know what we had missed?

In any event, it does seem puzzling that some of those who make out that Hamilton's or Clay's protectionism makes them monsters ignore the protectionism, cartelization, and welfare statism of the imperial German economy. Why do supporters of Taki's view say so much about TR or Wilson or the British Fabians and ignore Germany's own socialists and its statist authoritarians. Had Germany won the war, we'd see articles about how much better things would have been had Britain prevailed.

A German victory might have prevented a Hitler or Stalin from coming to power, and that would have been a very good thing, though there's always the possiblity that a defeated France or Russia would breed their own monsters, especially if, the Germans imposed the kind of harsh terms on them that one would have expected. Those who experienced and suffered under such an Imperial German ascendancy would have regarded it as a defeat for liberty. It may be unlikely that statist and racialist ideas would have been taken as far by Imperial Germany as they were by the Nazis, but the ideas that were in the air would definitely have had consequences.

Good book on alternative history: "Virtual History," edited by Niall Ferguson, who does view Imperial Germany in a benign light. Also, New article on Theodore Roosevelt today.

[nicollo]

This thread's been buggin' me, cuz I can't figure it out. It takes me five different directions. Thanks, though, as always for your thoughts. If I trip over anything new, I'll let you know.

Thanks for the latest TR bump. He's still playin' us for suckers. He's a hit these days, ain't he? He hasnt lost a beat. This one is funny, because the author commits the exact crime he accuses others of, the usurpation of TR. The main thesis, though is correct:

In other words, the Roosevelt fans are being selective, not to say opportunistic, in claiming his legacy.

But Roosevelt himself was the first one to do this. Oh well.

This one, I'll smash in my upcoming book on Taft:

TR felt compelled to come out of retirement in 1912 to challenge his Republican successor, William H. Taft, for the presidency because he saw that the GOP was already reconstituting itself as the party of big business. Republican leaders now opposed conservation, railroad regulation, and causes he had made his own.

Bull. And for all the wrong reasons.