Still the Century of Syndicalism?

When our local National Public Radio affiliate is running a sponsor spot “Raytheon: Customer Success is our Mission,” I assume that’s the kind of thing that’s more likely to get somone from “the left” annoyed. War is good for corporatism.

To add a bit more to what I said:

(1) Brian Leiter is a tenured professor and Juan Non-Volokh, it seems, is a non-tenured professor, hence the psydonym. In this context, it strikes me as wrong to try to strip Non-Volokh of his anonymity.

(2) I can’t find a single place where Non-Volokh insulted Leiter.

(3) It seems more plausible that Non-Volokh simply made a mistake when reading Leiter’s post. Non-Volok didn’t do it maliciously. Why can’t Leiter just leave it at that?

In answer to the titular question: The failure of state socialist systems to sustain themselves, let alone alleviate worker alientation from work-processes or bring about genuine participatory government, begs reexamination of the council communist, left-libertarian, anarchist, etc. traditions for anyone interested in post-capitalist alternatives.

You could call them ‘one section of the left, that the left of the rest repudiates’, I suppose. You wouldn’t call the Nazi party ‘the right’, would you?

It seems more plausible that Non-Volokh simply made a mistake when reading Leiter’s post. Non-Volok didn’t do it maliciously. Why can’t Leiter just leave it at that?

Prof. Leiter, whatever his virtues, does not appear to believe in non-malicious mistakes, as a perusal of his blog will support ….

Sooo…if we’re talking short summaries… is syndicalism ‘rule of the guilds’?

“In fascist corporatism, the state reorganizes society from the top down, along sectoral lines, largely for its own purposes.”

Isn’t that what FDR was trying to do with the NIRA and AAA?

I don’t disagree with some of your points. Syndicalism and corporatism were different philosophies. In my defense, there was overlap in some of the thought and proponents.. Especially in fascism and its influences… For instance, the corporatist Constitution of Fiume was mostly written by a syndicalist.. Gentile advocated a “totalitarian state of Corporative Syndicalism”, not a specifically corporative state. Also, I arguably misused the word socialism in the modern American English way of associating it with any planned / controlled economic arrangement that tends to benefit workers, or the public, at the expense of private property rights and use of market mechanisms. We tend to call, what most of the rest of the world calls, socialism ‘communism’ and then use the word socialism in this way. Ergo, a country generally run by social democrats, like Sweden, is called ‘socialist’ in common conversation… It’s worth noting that (left wing) Sweden also has had varying degrees of corporatist policies.. So it’s a valid point on your part. On the other hand, ‘socialism’ is older than Marx and Marxism is not the only school of socialist thought. I don’t think it is unfair (or an attempt to be dishonest) for me to associate syndicalism or corporatism as schools of socialistic thought when they are part of a wider utopian ideology. I think your wrong to imply that the proponents of corporatism (especially fascist) were essentially ‘conservative’ (especially in the American understanding of the word) based on the origins of the term while not examining its later proponents. I guess the important question and a quick way to get to the bottom line: You wouldn’t agree that most proponents of inter war European corporatism considered themselves on the left or had solid ties to left wing thought? To fascists specifically, were men like Gentile or Mussolini identifiable as economic ‘conservatives’? To me, I see utopians that saw themselves as progressive intellectuals and revolutionaries who not only wanted a new economic system, they wanted to change everything and create a ‘new man’… Mussolini spent much of his life as a big S socialist and devout Marxist.. All together, doesn’t sound ‘conservative’ in any way… What about Syndicalism? Sorel, for instance, insisted he was a Marxist… When I go down the list of players, I’m not seeing people I would understand as ‘conservative’ in either camp… and this is no play on words… ideologically and philosophically I’m not seeing a pro free market pro business / capitalist type, I’m seeing business distrusting radicals who wanted to subdue business and to overturn the whole social order to remake it…

Also, I think your still backing away from what I considered my point. A ‘corporate’ is not ‘a business’ and that the fascist council did work under a top down planned economic model. This was not how Leiter presented it and it is how that old Gentile / Mussolini quote is widely misused today to mean something it did not (namely government and business working in partnership… if not collusion). Rather, business was subservient to the state in an [totalitarian] atmosphere that did not encourage a free market. In some ways I can see business and workers both supporting this. Regulated industry protects existing businesses from failure, but it is not something a modern American ‘conservative’ would see as compatible with his philosophy (which is largely inspired by classical liberalism). Now progressives on the other hand… Post WWII Britain and the policies of the labor party come to mind.. Then, just the other day, what was the title of the NYTs editorial supporting the Kelo decision? I think it was “The Limits to Private Property”… Who voted for this decision? Whom against? Also, which US group still cannot get over [even non safety related] airline deregulation? Progressives or ‘Conservatives’?