Later
by Yanne Horas
The 1932 agitprop movie Kuhle Wampe – Who owns the world? (1) starts out in midst of economic crisis and rising fascism. Over 4 million jobless say the newspapers. The film’s protagonist is kicked out of her apartment, rent arrears, and flees Berlin to the garden colony Kuhle Wampe, which also means empty stomach. The central message of the film is this: Fascism springs from crisis prone capitalism.
Berthold Brecht, who co-directed KW, grandiloquently remarks elsewhere that ‘Fascism can be combated as capitalism alone, as the nakedest, most shameless, most oppressive, and most treacherous form of capitalism’. Not sure its that straight forward, though. Capitalism and fascism are not just two sides of the same coin. Fascism is more of a Frankenstein than an evil twin.
The introduction to the German translation of the ‘General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money’ a foundational text of modern economics published in the middle of the Nazi Wirtschaftswunder, states that it’s lessons can be adapted much more easily to the conditions of a total State than under conditions of free competition. Teetering at the edge of the cliff, capitalism is inherently unstable.
Fascism fills the vacuum left by its collapse but replaces the logic of commerce with a logic of racial hygiene. The god of mercury is ousted by mars. Fascists fancied themselves as saving capitalism from the abyss, to bring about discipline and order. From Heroic Capitalism, over Static Capitalism, to Supercapitalism. Later, the Corporate State integrates all sectors of the economy into a hierarchical structure aligned with the body national.
Along that path, everything has to give way and is subordinated to the will of the people, except private property. That stays exactly as it was. The bourgeoisie jumps into bed with fascists in a devil’s bargain. This way they hope to prevail, lose less and be able to ringfence their belongings against the mob. It’s the smart choice. A cigar smoking dream to steer the ship and pull the strings from the background. Hindenburg, for many years, used to call Hitler ‘Bohemian Corporate’, behind his back, it was meant as an insult. Later he joined forces with the Corporate and the corporates to save his skin.
The term late capitalism was coined over a century ago. Monopolization, financialization, decadent consumer culture. It did stick around though. Later, its inventor, one of those German theorists, joined the National Socialist Academy for German Law and claimed that the Volksgeist the ‘people’s spirit’ would rule over the human race.
Not just supercharged market doctrine, fascism is borne out of capitalist crisis. It is a vicious reaction to the erosion of laissez-faire. Back of the envelope calculation, if capitalism has been around 250 years, its been in its late stage for almost half of its existence. Chalk dust from the writing of history has settled on fertile grounds, but the wheels keep churning.
So, fascism is capitalism in decay. But how come that they get away with it? Some socialists agonized that it is a punishment for our flakiness. Or riff on false consciousness. In Kuhle Wampe’s final scene, there’s an argument over the question of who can change the world. One man tries to convince us that no one. A self-fulfilling prophecy.
Yanne Horas
is a writer and researcher based in Berlin. She teaches at the Berlin School of Economics and Law (BSEL) where she concentrates on macroeconomic trends and international economic governance. Focused on political economy Yanne is interested in exploring the cultural dynamics of debt and financial crises. In her writing and curatorial work, she combines political economy with a perspective on modern history and aesthetic theory.