Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to denounce the barbarism in which humanity is subjected throughout history that reached its highest level during the existence of capitalism in the contemporary era and to strive for its end in defense of the principles of civilization. Humanity has evolved to date from the stage of savagery to that of barbarism. Savagery is a characteristic stage of primitive societies or primitive peoples, which are normally associated with indigenous peoples. The term barbarism has two distinct but linked meanings: lack of civilization and cruelty of barbarian. Eric Hobsbawm notes that barbarism means a break with the moral standards that regulate life in society and traditional social controls, giving way to rampant violence and contempt for human beings [See La barbarie: guia del usuario (The barbarisme: user guide) on the website <http://pt.scribd.com/doc/50203686/La-barbarie-guia-del-usuario>]. The great challenge of the contemporary era is to make humanity evolve from the stage of barbarism in which it finds itself at the moment to that of civilization.
According to Eric Hobsbawn, in the last 150 years, barbarism has been permanently increasing. Year by year, decade by decade, violence and contempt for human beings have increased, and there seems to be no limit to this phenomenon. Something much worse: men and women have become accustomed to barbarism, there is no longer any astonishment, strangeness or horror in the face of inhuman acts. In 1847 Marx wrote this surprising and prophetic passage: “Barbarism has reappeared, but this time it is engendered within civilization itself and is an integral part of it. It is leprous barbarism, barbarism as the leprosy of civilization” [See Barbárie e modernidade no século 20 (Barbarism and modernity 20th century) by Michael Lowy, published in Brazil by the newspaper “Em Tempo” – emtempo@ax.apc.org and, originally in French, in the magazine “Critique Communiste” nº 157, hiver 2000].
The First and Second World War established a new form of eminently modern barbarism, far worse in its murderous inhumanity than the warlike practices of the “barbaric” conquerors of the end of the Roman Empire. According to Eric Hobsbawn, the Great War (1914-1918) opens the most bloodthirsty stage in world history. 1914 begins with unlimited sacrifices in an effort to eliminate the enemy. Sacrifice that incorporates the civilian population itself. 1914 begins with the era of total war, the absence of distinctions between combatants and non-combatants [See Eric Hobsbawn’s article La barbarie: guia del usuario (Barbarism: user guide) on the site <http://pt.scribd.com/doc/50203686/La-barbarie-guia-del-usuario>). From 1914 to 1990, 187 million people died in warlike acts or systematic extermination.
Despite the repeated intentions of all countries in the world to maintain world peace, the 20th century was the scene of two great wars. In the First World War (1914-1918), about 9 million people died. Only twenty years later, World War II (1939-1945) broke out, which killed 40 to 52 million people. Furthermore, the violence of conflicts in our time is unparalleled in history. The wars of the 20th century were “total wars” against combatants and civilians without discrimination. Historian Eric Hobsbawm [A Era dos Extremos (The Age of Extremes), Companhia das Letras, 2008] adds: “Undoubtedly it was the most murderous century on record, both in the scale, frequency and extent of the war that filled it, barely ceasing for a moment in the 1920s, but also because of the unique volume of human catastrophes it produced, from the greatest famines in history to systematic genocide”.
The tragedy of wars in the twentieth century has hit most families over two, three or four generations. The call to arms took millions of children, husbands, parents and brothers to the battlefield, and millions did not return. The Nazi genocide against Jews, Gypsies and Communists, the use of the atomic bomb in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Stalinist Goulag, the Vietnam war, the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the two Iraq wars, the war of Afghanistan, the recent civil wars in Libya and Syria and the indiscriminate violence practiced by the Islamic State exemplify more fully the barbarism that characterizes the world in which we live. Socialism, which was built in the Soviet Union and other countries, has failed to fulfill its historic promise to emancipate humanity, end the exploitation of man-by-man, eliminate social inequalities and make society egalitarian, has turned into tyranny.
In the 20th century, the crises of capitalism always resulted in social revolutions aimed at the overthrow of the capitalist system as occurred in Russia in 1917 with the implantation of the socialist system or in counter-revolution with the implantation of fascist dictatorships as occurred in Italy with Mussolini and Nazifascist as it occurred in Germany with Hitler. The rise of Fascism in 1922 as well as that of Adolf Hitler’s Nazism in Germany in 1933 was only possible with the collaboration and financial support of large capitalist corporations. Fascism represented a reaction by conservative forces in Europe against the rise of workers to power in several countries after the victory of socialism in the Soviet Union in 1917 and was based on strongly nationalist conceptions and the totalitarian exercise of power, therefore against the democratic and liberal, and repressive in the face of social democratic, socialist and communist ideas. The fascism implanted during the 1920s and 1930s of the 20th century was based on a strong, totalitarian state that claimed to embody the spirit of the people, in the exercise of power by a single party whose authority was imposed through violence, repression and of political propaganda.
The affinities between capitalist liberalism, which is supposedly a defender of democracy, and its opposite, the dictatorship, manifested itself in 1795, after the French Revolution, when the Jacobins were overthrown by Girondins and a dictatorial government was installed in France. General Napoleon Bonaparte was put in power, after the Thermidorian Reaction with the coup d’etat of the 18th Brumaire (November 9, 1799) with the aim of controlling social instability in France. Napoleon takes over as France’s first consul, establishing a dictatorship. Likewise there is an affinity between capitalist liberalism and dictatorship as occurred in France with Bonaparte, the same happens between capitalist liberalism and fascism, which are not strictly equal, but neither does an insurmountable wall exist between them. Among them, there are more points of convergence than of divergence. This was confirmed by the rise of fascism in Italy in the 1920s and Nazism in Germany in the 1930s of the 20th century, which had the support of liberals. Liberals legitimized both fascism and Nazism with liberally inspired policies in their dictatorships.
The neoclassical liberals who gave rise to the ideological current that has become hegemonic today, capitalist neoliberalism, also defended fascism and its Nazi variant as political projects necessary to maintain capitalist order. This is what can be seen in this statement by Friedrich Hayek, a member of the Austrian School of Economics, about his impression of Nazism: “Hitler did not have to destroy democracy; he limited himself to taking advantage of his decay and at the critical moment he obtained the support of many who, although they detested him, considered him the only man strong enough to set things in motion” [HAYEK, Friedrich. O caminho da servidão (The path of serfdom). 5 ed. Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Liberal, 1990]. Contrary to what Hayek said, Hitler destroyed democracy in Germany.
The complacency of liberal neoclassical theorists towards Fascism continues with Ludwig von Mises. Another icon of the Austrian School of Economics. Mises served as economic advisor to the fascist government of Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria. In his book “Liberalism – According to Classical Tradition“, he reiterates that Fascism was a political movement that had as one of its main objectives the fight against Bolshevism. Ludwig von Mises said: “The actions of fascists and other parties that corresponded to him were emotional reactions, evoked by indignation at the actions perpetrated by the Bolsheviks and Communists. (…) Against the weapons of the Bolsheviks, the same weapons should be used in retaliation, and it would be a mistake to show weakness in the face of the murderers. Never did a liberal question this” [VON MISES, Ludwig. Liberalismo – Segundo a Tradição Clássica (Liberalism – According to Classical Tradition). São Paulo: Instituto Ludwig von Mises Brasil, 2010]. Mises said no liberal questioned the use of violence by fascists and Nazis.
In this work, Mises also did not hesitate to legitimize, praise and even praise Fascism: “It cannot be denied that fascism and similar movements, aiming at the establishment of dictatorships, are imbued with the best intentions and that their intervention, until now, it saved European civilization. The merit that, therefore, fascism obtained for itself will be inscribed in history. However, while his policy has provided momentary salvation, he is not the type to promise continued success. Fascism is an emergency expedient”. Mises, one of the ideologues of capitalist neoliberalism, asserted the absurdity that fascism and Nazism saved European civilization.
According to Robert Paxton, fascism emerges in search of some kind of nationalist renewal (PAXTON, Robert. The anatomy of fascism. New York: Vintage Books, 2005). According to Paxton, fascism only grows on the shaky ground of a mature democracy in crisis, as is the case in the United States today. This view was fully embraced by the Republican Party, which now defines itself in this line. At this stage, he is openly racist, sexist, repressive, exclusionary and permanently addicted to the politics of fear and hatred, as he did during the George W. Bush administration and which is being deepened in the Donald Trump administration. The rise of fascism under the command of Donald Trump in the United States resulted, fundamentally, from its economic decline and the loss of his hegemony on the world stage in a very short time.
In the book Capitalism, Hegemony and Violence in the Age of Drones, published by Springer Nature in 2018, Norman Pollack, who was professor emeritus of history at Michigan State University, states that “fascism in the United States, at any gestational stage, it advances against the people”. In Pollack’s view, fascism is more than a historically temporary political arrangement, as in Germany, Italy, Japan and other countries between the two great world wars. Fascism is a general social state.
Fascism was leveraged in the United States with the Bush administration and was maintained by the Obama administration when the violation of communication secrecy and intrusive surveillance in people’s lives became widespread; each library was obliged to inform the FBI of the list of books requested, a rule that applies even to universities; and a list of internal enemies was created, which, for example, cannot travel by air, and which today brings together tens of thousands of names (around 100,000 are spoken), a good number of university dissidents, pacifists, etc. Lists like these are typical of totalitarian regimes. Gradually the siege is closed to journalists, teachers, pastors, activists and dozens of others. In practice, the universal right of habeas corpus was extinguished.
United States government forces (CIA and military) are authorized to arrest anyone, anywhere in the world and also in the country, without any justification, to keep them imprisoned without communication with family members or lawyers and without indemnification for an indefinite period, and move it to any of its prisons, known or secret, in various countries, or even some prison ships, all of these places where it torture and murder with absolute impunity, as has been documented in the prisons at the Baghram base, in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, in Iraq, and in the infamous maximum security prison of Guantánamo, in the extreme east of Cuba. It is a set of fascist dispositions that make Hitler’s terror apparatus envious.
In American foreign policy, a new doctrine has replaced the old concepts of peoples’ self-determination, non-aggression, respect for international law and UN authority, etc. with the creation of pseudo-legal monsters such as the “preventive wars” proposal, aggression against countries in disobedience to the decisions of the UN Security Council and to countries that threatened or could remotely threaten the hegemony of the United States in the world, whose dominant circles are responsible for framing themselves as friends and enemies according to their interests. Another characteristic of the discourse and practice of members of the United States government is the fabrication of false truth based on lessons, omissions and lies. This was the way found to base the decision to invade Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya.
The totalitarian origin of capitalist Neoliberalism resulted from the collusion between liberals and fascists in the fight against socialism. In the contemporary era of economic and financial globalization, modern fascism arises, not only in the United States, but also in encompassing the entire planet, including Brazil with Bolsonaro’s neo-fascist government. The dominant neoliberal capitalist system is defined by the ubiquity of its mercantile ideology, which occupies all the space and all sectors of life at the same time. This ideology reduced all human relations to mercantile relations and considers our planet as a simple commodity. The only right that the neoliberal capitalist system recognizes is the right to private property. The only god he worships is money.
The ubiquity of the neo-fascist neoliberal ideology is manifested in the cult of money, in the single party disguised as parliamentary pluralism, in the absence of visible opposition and in repression in all forms against the will to transform man and the world. This is the true face of modern fascism that needs to be called by its true name: totalitarian capitalist system. Man, society and our planet as a whole are at the service of this neo-fascist ideology. The totalitarian capitalist system has accomplished what no totalitarianism has managed to do before: to unify the world in its image. Today there is no longer possible exile. In the contemporary era of economic and financial globalization, the most nefarious of all fascisms arises, which encompasses the entire planet. The new fascism aims to defend the interests of the dominant neoliberal world capitalist system.
It is unfortunate the situation that humanity has reached with the prevalence of barbarism, where hunger kills millions of people worldwide every day, most children do not reach adulthood due to lack of food, while others eat too much and they are obese by mistakes and overeating as their parents do. We live in a world of contrasts between luxury and garbage, material wealth and misery. It is unacceptable to live in a world in which, in the last 6,000 years of human history, there have been only 292 years of relative peace between peoples. Join in all this, the immense aggression that has been taking place against the natural environment that can threaten the survival of humanity in the face of the prospect of catastrophic global climate change. To aggravate this ordeal, humanity was affected by the Covid 19 pandemic that has already killed more than one million inhabitants of the planet.
It should be noted that the antithesis of Barbarism is Civilization, which is considered the most advanced stage that a human society can reach. There are some elements generally accepted by everyone about what would make a civilized society: 1) offer guaranteed security for all citizens who should not fear the loss of their lives or physical harm; 2) provide the best possible medical care for all members of society; 3) grant access to food and water for all citizens so that no one is hungry or thirsty; 4) provide basic housing conditions for all citizens; 5) have a democratic legislative system whose laws are established to preserve the well-being of the population; 6) provide an educational system that guarantees equal access to high-level education for all people in order to make their population highly educated; and, 7) ensure for the population freedom of thought, belief, religion, affiliation and expression and the right to participate in government decisions.
In view of the dark history of the attacks against humanity and its dark prospects, it is urgent to attack the evil of barbarism at the root with the construction of a new civilized world order to replace the dominant capitalist order that generates the attacks on Civilization in all quarters of the Earth registered 500 years ago. The new civilized world order to be built must adopt the universal motto “Freedom, Equality, Fraternity” as an inheritance of the Enlightenment at the end of the 17th century. This motto invoked during the French Revolution, which is universal because it reflects the desires of all human beings, needs to be rescued by humanity. In order to make Civilization prevail over Barbarism, it is necessary for the living defending forces of Civilization to come together across the planet to oppose the forces of Barbarism. Humanity’s future depends on the outcome of this confrontation.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 80, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018, em co-autoria) and Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019).
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