Extensive and painstaking therapeutic work on the human character has led me to the conclusion that, as a rule, we are dealing with three different layers of the biopsychic structure in the evaluation of human reactions. As I demonstrated in my book Character-Analysis, these layers of the character structure are deposits of social development, which function autonomously. On the surface layer of his personality the average man is reserved, polite, compassionate, responsible, and conscientious. There would be no social tragedy of the human animal if this surface layer of the personality were in direct contact with the deep natural core.
This, unfortunately, is not the case. The surface layer of social cooperation is not in contact with the deep biologic core of one's selfhood; it is borne second, an intermediate character layer, which consists exclusively of cruel, sadistic, lascivious, rapacious and envious impulses. It represents the Freudian 'unconscious' or 'what is repressed'; to put it in the language of sex-economy, it represents the sum total of all so-called 'secondary drives'.
Orgone biophysics made it possible to comprehend the Freudian unconscious, that which is anti-social in man, as a secondary result of the repression of primary biologic urges. If one penetrates through this second layer of perversion, deeper into the biologic substratum of the human animal, one always discovers the third, deepest, layer, which we call the biologic core. In this core, under favourable social conditions, man is an essentially honest, industrious, cooperative, loving, and, if motivated, rationally hating animal.
Yet it is not at all possible to bring about a loosening of the character structure of present-day man by penetrating to this deepest and so promising layer without first eliminating the non-genuine, spuriously social surface. Drop the mask of cultivation, and it is not natural sociality that prevails at first, but only the perverse, sadistic character layer.
It is this unfortunate structuralization that is responsible for the fact that every natural, social or libidinous impulse that wants to spring into action from the biologic core has to pass through the layer of secondary perverse drives and is thereby distorted. This distortion transforms the original social nature of the natural impulses and makes it perverse, thus inhibiting every genuine expression of life.
Let us now transpose our human structure into the social and political sphere.
It is not difficult to see that the various political and ideological groupings of human society correspond to the various layers of the structure of the human character. We, however, decline to accept the error of idealistic philosophy, namely that this human structure is immutable to all eternity. After social conditions and changes have transmuted man's original biologic demands and made them a part of his character structure, the latter reproduces the social structure of society in the form of ideologies.
Since the breakdown of the primitive work-democratic form of social organization, the biologic core of man has been without social representation. The 'natural' and 'sublime' in man, that which links him to his cosmos, has found genuine expression only in great works of art, especially in music and in painting. Until now, however, it has not exercised a fundamental influence on the shaping of human society, if by society we mean the community of mankind and not the culture of a small, rich upper class.
In the ethical and social ideals of liberalism we recognize the advocacy of the characteristics of the surface layer of the character, which is intent upon self-control and tolerance. This liberalism lays stress upon its ethics for the purpose of holding in suppression the 'monster in man', our layer of 'secondary drives', the Freudian 'unconscious'. The natural sociabilility of the deepest third layer, the core layer, is foreign to the liberal. He deplores the perversion of the human character and seeks to overcome it by means of ethical norms, but the social catastrophes of the twentieth century show that he did not get very far with this approach.
Everything that is genuinely revolutionary; every genuine art and science, stems from man's natural biologic core. Thus far, neither the genuine revolutionary nor the artist nor scientist has won favour with masses of people and acted as the leader, or if he has, he has not been able to hold them in the sphere of vital interest for any length of time.
The case of fascism, in contrast to liberalism and genuine revolution, is quite different. Its essence embodies neither the surface nor the depth, but by and large the second, intermediate character layer of secondary drives.
When this book was first written, fascism was generally regarded as a 'political party', which, as other 'social groups', advocated an organized 'political idea'. According to this appraisal 'the fascist party was instituting fascism by means of force or through “political manoeuvre”'.
Contrary to this, my medical experiences with men and women of various classes, races, nations, religious beliefs, etc., taught me that 'fascism' is only the organized political expression of the structure of the average man's character, a structure that is confined neither to certain races or nations nor to certain parties, but is general and international. Viewed with respect to man's character, 'fascism' is the basic emotional attitude of the suppressed man of our authoritarian machine civilisation and its mechanistic-mystical conception of life.
It is the mechanistic-mystical character of modern man that produces fascist parties, and not vice versa.
The result of erroneous political thinking is that even today fascism is conceived as a specific national characteristic of the Germans or the Japanese. All further erroneous interpretations follow from this initial erroneous conception.
To the detriment of genuine efforts to achieve freedom, fascism was and is still conceived as the dictatorship of a small reactionary clique. The tenacity with which this error persists is to be ascribed to our fear of recognizing the true state of affairs: fascism is an international phenomenon, which pervades all bodies of human society of all nations. This conclusion is in agreement with the international events of the past fifteen years.
My character-analytic experiences have convinced me that there is not a single individual who does not bear the elements of fascist feeling and thinking in his structure. As a political movement fascism differs from other reactionary parties inasmuch as it is borne and championed by masses of people.
I am fully conscious of the enormous responsibility involved in making such an assertion. And in the interest of this lacerated world I should like the toiling masses to be just as clear about their responsibility for fascism.
A sharp distinction must be made between ordinary militarism and fascism.
Wilhelmian Germany was militaristic, but it was not fascistic.
Since fascism, whenever and wherever it makes its appearance, is a movement borne by masses of people, it betrays all the characteristics and contradictions present in the character structure of the mass individual. It is not, as is commonly believed, a purely reactionary movement - it represents an amalgam between rebellious emotions and reactionary social ideas.
If we conceive of being revolutionary as the rational rebellion against intolerable conditions in human society, the rational will 'to get to the root of all things' ('radical' = 'radic' = 'root') and to improve them, then fascism is never revolutionary. It can of course appear in the guise of revolutionary emotions. But it is not the physician who tackles a disease with reckless invectives whom we call revolutionary, but the one who examines the causes of the disease quietly, courageously and painstakingly, and fights it. Fascist rebelliousness always accrues where a revolutionary emotion, out of fear of the truth, is distorted into illusion.
In its pure form fascism is the sum total of all the irrational of the average human character. To the obtuse sociologist who lacks the mettle to recognize the supreme role played by irrationality in the history of man, the fascist racial theory appears to be nothing more than an imperialistic interest, or, more mildly speaking, a 'prejudice'. The same holds true for the irresponsible glib politician. The scope and widespread dissemination of these 'racial prejudices' are evidence of their origin in the irrational part of the human character. The racial theory is not a product of fascism. On the contrary: it is fascism that is a product of racial hatred and is its politically organized expression. It follows from this that there is a German, Italian, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, Jewish and
Arabian fascism. Race ideology is a pure biopathic expression of the character structure of the orgastically impotent man.
The sadistically perverse character of race ideology is also betrayed in its attitude towards religion. Fascism is supposed to be a reversion to paganism and an archenemy of religion. Far from it - fascism is the supreme expression of religious mysticism. As such, it comes into being in a peculiar social form. Fascism countenances that religiosity that stems from sexual perversion, and it transforms the masochistic character of the old patriarchal religion of suffering into a sadistic religion. In short, it transposes religion from the 'other-worldliness' of the philosophy of suffering to the 'this worldliness' of sadistic murder.
Fascist mentality is the mentality of the 'little man', who is enslaved and craves authority and is at the same time rebellious. It is no coincidence that all fascist dictators stem from the reactionary milieu of the little man. The industrial magnate and the feudal militarist exploit this social fact for their own purposes, after it has evolved within the framework of the general suppression of life-impulses. In the form of fascism, mechanistic, authoritarian civilization reaps from the suppressed little man only what it has sown in the masses of subjugated human beings in the way of mysticism, militarism, automatism, over the centuries. This little man has studied the big man's behaviour all too well, and he reproduces it in a distorted and grotesque fashion.
The fascist is the drill sergeant in the colossal army of our deeply sick, highly industrialized civilization. It is not with impunity that the hullabaloo of high politics is made a show of in front of the little man. The little sergeant has surpassed the imperialistic general in everything: in martial music; in goose-stepping; in commanding and obeying; in cowering before ideas; in diplomacy, strategy and tactic; in dressing and parading; in decorating and 'honourating'. A Kaiser Wilhelm was a miserable duffer in all these things compared with the famished civil servant's son, Hitler. When a 'proletarian' general pins his chest full of medals, he gives a demonstration of the little man who will not be 'outclassed' by the 'genuine' big general.
An extensive and thorough study of the suppressed little man's character, an intimate knowledge of his backstage life, are indispensable prerequisites to an understanding of the forces fascism builds upon.
In the rebellion of vast numbers of abused human animals against the hollow civilities of false liberalism (not to fee mistaken with genuine liberalism and genuine tolerance), it was the character layer, consisting of secondary drives, that appeared.
The fascist madman cannot be made innocuous if he is sought, according to the prevailing political circumstances, only in the German or the Italian and not in the American and the Chinese man as well; if he is not tracked down in oneself; if we are not conversant with the social institutions that hatch him daily.
Fascism can be crushed only if it is countered objectively and practically, with a well-grounded knowledge of life's processes. In political manoeuvre, acts of diplomacy and making a show, ; it is without peer. But it has no answer to the practical questions life, for it sees everything merely in the speculum of or in the shape of the national uniform.
When a fascist character, regardless of hue, is heard sermonizing the 'honour of the nation' (instead of talking about honour of man) or the 'salvation of the sacred family and
the race' (instead of the community of toiling mankind); when he is seen puffing himself up and has his chops full of slogans, let him be asked quietly and simply in public:
'What are you doing in a practical way to feed the nation, without murdering other nations? What are you doing as a physician to combat chronic diseases, what as an educator to intensify the child's joy of living, what as an economist to erase poverty, what as a social worker to alleviate the weariness of mothers having too many children, what as an architect to promote hygienic conditions in living quarters? Let's have no more of your chatter. Give us a straightforward concrete answer or shut up!'
It follows from this that international fascism will never be overcome by political manoeuvre. It will fall victim to the natural organization of work, love and knowledge on an international scale.
In our society, love and knowledge still do not have the power at their disposal to regulate human existence. In fact, these great forces of the positive principle of life are not conscious of their enormity, their indispensability, their overwhelming importance for social existence. It is for this reason that human society today, one year after the military victory over party fascism, still finds itself on the brink of the abyss. The fall of our civilization is inevitable if those who work, the natural scientists of all living (not dead) branches of knowledge and the givers and receivers of natural love, should not become conscious of their enormous responsibility quickly enough.
The life-impulse can exist without fascism, but fascism cannot exist without the life-impulse. Fascism is the vampire leeched to the body of the living, the impulse to murder given free reign, when love calls for fulfilment in spring.
Will individual and social freedom, will the self-regulation of our lives and of the lives of our offspring, advance peacefully or violently? It is a fearful question. No one knows the answer.
Yet, he who understands the living functions in an animal and in a newborn babe, he who knows the meaning of devoted work, be he a mechanic, researcher or artist, knows. He ceases to think with the concepts that party manipulators have spread in this world. The life-impulse cannot 'seize power violently', for it would not know what to do with power. Does this conclusion mean that the life-impulse will always be at the mercy of political gangsterism, will always be its victim, its martyr? Does it mean that the would-be politician will always suck life's blood? This would be a false conclusion.
As a physician it is my job to heal diseases. As a researcher I must shed light upon unknown relationships in nature. Now if a political windbag should come along and try to force me to leave my patients in the lurch and to put aside my microscope, I would not let myself be inconvenienced. I would simply throw him out, if he refused to leave voluntarily. Whether I have to use force against intruders to protect my work on life does not depend on me or on my work, but on the intruders' degree of insolence. But just imagine now that all those who are engaged in vital living work could recognize the political windbag in time.
They would act in the same way. Perhaps this simplified example contains some intimation of the answer to the question how the life-impulse will have to defend itself sooner or later against intruders and destroyers.
The Mass Psychology of Fascism was thought out during the German crisis years, 1930-33. It was written in 1933; the first edition appeared in September of 1933 and the second edition in April of 1934, in Denmark.
Ten years have elapsed since then. The book's exposure of the irrational nature of the fascist ideology often received a far too enthusiastic acclaim from all political camps, an acclaim that was not based on accurate knowledge and did not lead to appropriate action. Copies of the book - sometimes pseudonymously - crossed the German border in large numbers. The illegal revolutionary movement in Germany accorded it a happy reception. For years it served as a source of contact with the German anti-fascist movement. The fascists banned the book in 1935, together with all literature on political psychology.
Excerpts from it were printed in France, America, Czechoslovakia, Scandinavia and other countries, and it was discussed in detailed articles. Only the party Socialists, who viewed everything from an economic point of view, and the salaried party officials, who were in control of the organs of political power, did not and still do not know what to make of it. In Denmark and in Norway, for instance, it was severely attacked and denounced as 'counterrevolutionary' by the leadership of the Communist party. It is significant, on the other hand, that the revolution-oriented youth from fascist groups understood the sex-economic explanation of the irrational nature of the racial theory.
In 1942 an English source suggested that the book be translated into English. Thus I was confronted with the task of examining the validity of the book ten years after it was written. The result of this examination exactly reflects the stupendous revolution in thinking that had taken place over the course of the last decade. It is also a test of the tenableness of sex-economic sociology and its bearing on the social revolutions of our century. I had not had this book in my hands for a number of years. As I began to correct and enlarge it, I was stunned by the errors in thinking that I had made fifteen years before, by the revolutions in thought that had taken place and by the great strain the overcoming of fascism had put on science.
To begin with, I could well afford to celebrate a great triumph. The sex-economic analysis of fascist ideology had not only held its own against the criticism of the time - its essential points were more than confirmed by the events of the past ten years. It outlived the downfall of the purely economic, vulgar conception of Marxism, with which the German Marxist parties had tried to cope with fascism. That a new edition is called for some ten years after its initial publication speaks in favour of Mass Psychology, None of the Marxist writings of the 19305, whose authors had denounced sex-economy, could make such a claim.
My revision of the second edition reflects the revolution that had taken place in my thinking.
Around 1930 I had no idea of the natural work-democratic relations of working men and women. The inchoate sex-economic insights into the formation of the human structure were inserted into the intellectual framework of Marxist parties. At that time I was active in liberal, socialist and communist cultural organizations and was regularly forced to make use of the conventional Marxist sociologic concepts in my expositions on sex-economy. Even then the enormous contradiction between sex-economic sociology and vulgar economism was brought out in embarrassing disputes with various party functionaries.
As I still believed in the fundamental scientific nature of the Marxist parties, it was difficult for me to understand why the party members attacked the social effects of my medical work most sharply precisely when masses of employees, industrial workers, small businessmen, students, etc., thronged to the sex-economic organizations to obtain knowledge of living life. I shall never forget the 'Red professor' from Moscow who was ordered to attend one of the lectures in Vienna in 1928, to advocate the 'party line' against me. Among other things, this professor declared that 'the Oedipus complex was all nonsense', such a thing did not exist. Fourteen years later his Russian comrades bled to death under the tanks of the fuehrer-enslaved German machine-men.
One should certainly have expected parties claiming to fight for human freedom to be more than happy about the effects of my political and psychological work. As the archives of our Institute convincingly show, the exact opposite was the case. The greater the social effects of our work on mass psychology, the harsher were the countermeasures adopted by the party politicians. As early as 1929-30, Austrian Social Democrats barred the doors of their cultural organizations to the lecturers from our organization. In 1932, notwithstanding the strong protest of their members, the socialist as well as communist organizations prohibited the distribution of the publications of the 'Publishers for Sexual Polities', which was located in Berlin.
I myself was warned that I would be shot as soon as the Marxists came to power in Germany. That same year the communist organizations in Germany closed the doors of their assembly halls to physicians advocating sex-economy. This too was done against the will of the organizations' members. I was expelled from both organizations on grounds that I had introduced sexology into sociology, and shown how it affects the formation of human structure. In the years between 1934 and 1937 it was always Communist party functionaries who warned fascist circles in Europe about the 'hazard' of sex-economy. This can be documentarily proven. Sex-economic publications were turned back at the Soviet Russian border, as were the throngs of refugees who were trying to save themselves from German fascism. There is no valid argument in justification of this.
These events, which seemed so senseless to me at that time, became completely clear while revising The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Sex-economic-biologic knowledge had been compressed into the terminology of vulgar Marxism as an elephant into a foxhole. As early as 1938, while revising my 'youth' book, I noticed that every sex-economic word had retained its meaning after eight years, whereas every party slogan I had included in the book had become meaningless. The same holds true for the third edition of The Mass Psychology of fascism.
It is generally clear today that 'fascism' is not the act of a Hitler or a Mussolini, but that it is the expression of the irrational structure of mass man. It is more clear today than it was ten years ago that the race theory is a biologic mysticism. We also have far more knowledge at our disposal, which enables us to understand man's orgastic yearnings, and we have already begun to divine that fascist mysticism is orgastic yearning, restricted by tnystic distortion and inhibition of natural sexuality. The sex-economic statements about fascism are more valid today than they were ten years ago. On the other hand the Marxist party concepts used in this book had to be completely eliminated and replaced by new concepts.
Does this mean that the Marxist economic theory is fundamentally false? I should like to answer this question with an illustration. Is the microscope of Pasteur's time or the water pump constructed by Leonardo da Vinci, 'false'? Marxism is a scientific theory of economy, which originated in the social conditions at the beginning and middle of the nineteenth century. But the social process did not stop there; it continued into the totally different process of the twentieth century.
In this new social process we find all the essential features that existed in the nineteenth century, just as we rediscover the basic construction of the Pasteurian microscope in the modern microscope, or da Vinci's basic principle in modern water supply. Yet neither the Pasteurian microscope nor Leonardo da Vinci's pump would be of any use to anybody today. They have become outdated as a result of the totally new processes and functions corresponding to a totally new conception and technology. The Marxist parties in Europe failed and came to naught (I don't derive any malicious joy from saying that!) because they tried to comprehend twentieth-century fascism, which was something completely new, with concepts belonging to the nineteenth century.
They lost their impetus as social organizations because they failed to keep alive and develop the vital possibilities inherent in every scientific theory. I have no regrets about the many years I spent as a physician in Marxist organizations. My knowledge of society does not derive from books; essentially it was acquired from my practical involvement in the fight of masses of people for a dignified and free existence. In fact, my best sex-economic insights were gained from the errors in thinking of these same masses of people, i.e., the very errors that made them ripe for the fascist plague. As a physician I got to know the international working man and his problems in a way that no party politician could have known him.
The party politician saw only 'the working class', which he wanted 'to infuse with class consciousness '. I saw man as a creature who had come under the domination of the worst possible social conditions, conditions he himself had created and bore within himself as a part of his character and from which he sought to free himself in vain. The gap between the purely economic and bio-sociologic views became unbridgeable. The theory of 'class man' on the one hand was set against the irrational nature of the society of the animal 'man' on the other hand.
Everyone knows today that Marxist economic ideas have more or less infiltrated and influenced the thinking of modern man, yet very often individual economists and sociologists are not conscious of the source of their ideas. Such concepts as 'class', 'profit', 'exploitation', 'class conflict', 'commodity* and 'surplus value' have become common knowledge. For all that, today there is no party that can be regarded as the heir and living representative of the scientific wealth of Marxism, when it comes to the actual facts of sociological development and not to the slogans, which are no longer in agreement with their original import.
In the years between 1937 and 1939 the new sex-economic concept 'work-democracy' was developed. The third edition of this book includes an exposition of the principal features of this new sociologic concept. It comprises the best, still valid, sociologic findings of Marxism. It also takes into account the social changes that have taken place in the concept 'worker' in the course of the last hundred years. I know from experience that it is the 'sole representatives of the working class' and the former and emerging 'leaders of the international proletariat' who will oppose this extension of the social concept of the worker on grounds that it is 'fascist',' Trotskyian', 'counterrevolutionary', 'hostile to the party', etc. Organizations of workers that exclude Negroes and practise Hitlerism do not deserve to be regarded as creators of a new and free society. Hitlerism, however, is not confined to the Nazi party or to the borders of Germany; it infiltrates workers' organiza-
tions as well as liberal and democratic circles. Fascism is not a political party but a specific concept of life and attitude towards man, love and work. This does not alter the fact that the policies pursued by the pre-war Marxist parties are played out and have no future. Just as the concept of sexual energy was lost within the psychoanalytic organization only to reappear strong and young in the discovery of the orgone, the concept of the international worker lost its meaning in the practices of Marxist parties only to be resurrected within the framework of sex-economic sociology. For the activities of sex-economists are possible only within the framework of socially necessary work and not within the framework of reactionary, mystified, nonworking life.
Sex-economic sociology was born from the effort to harmonize Freud's depth psychology with Marx's economic theory. Instinctual and socio-economic processes determine human existence. But we have to reject eclectic attempts to combine 'instinct' and 'economy' arbitrarily. Sex-economic sociology dissolves the contradiction that caused psychoanalysis to forget the social factor and Marxism to forget the animal origin of man. As I stated elsewhere: Psychoanalysis is the mother, sociology the father, of sex-economy. But a child is more the sum total of his parents. He is a new, independent E creature; he is the seed of the future.
In accord with the new, sex-economic comprehension of the concept of' work', the following changes were made in the book's terminology. The concepts 'communist', 'socialist', 'class consciousness', etc., were replaced by more specific sociologic and psychological terms, such as 'revolutionary' and 'scientific'. What they import is a 'radical revolutionizing', 'rational activity', 'getting to the root of things'.
This takes into account the fact that today it is not the Communist or the Socialist parties but, in contradistinction to them, many non-political groups and social classes of every political hue that are becoming more and more revolutionary, i.e., are striving for a fundamentally new, rational social order. It has become part of our universal social consciousness — and even the old bourgeois politicians are saying it - that, as a result of its fight against the fascist plague, the world has become involved in the process of an enormous, international, revolutionary upheaval.
The words 'proletariat' and 'prole-tarian' were coined more than a hundred years ago to denote a completely defrauded class of society, which was condemned to pauperization on a mass scale. To be sure, such categories still exist today, but the great grandchildren of the nineteenth-century proletariat have become specialized, technically highly developed, indispensable, responsible industrial workers who are conscious of their skills. The words 'class consciousness' are replaced by 'consciousness of one's skills' or 'social responsibility'.
In nineteenth-century Marxism 'class consciousness' was restricted to manual labourers. Those who were employed in other vital occupations, i.e., occupations without which society could not function, were labelled 'intellectuals' or 'petty bourgeois' and set against the 'manual labour proletariat'. This schematic and no longer applicable juxtaposition played a very essential part in the victory of fascism in Germany.
The concept 'class consciousness' is not only too narrow, it does not at all tally with the structure of the class of manual workers. For this reason, 'industrial work' and 'pro-letariat' were replaced by the terms 'vital work' and 'the working man'. These two terms include all those who perform work that is vital to the existence of the society. In addition to the industrial workers, this includes the physician, teacher, technician, laboratory
worker, writer, social administrator, farmer, scientific worker, etc. This new conception closes a gap that contributed in no small way to the fragmentation of working human society and, consequently, led to fascism, both the black and red variety.
Owing to its lack of knowledge of mass psychology, Marxist sociology set 'bourgeois' against 'proletariat'. This is incorrect from a psychological viewpoint. The character structure is not restricted to the capitalists; it is prevalent among the working men of all occupations. There are liberal capitalists and reactionary workers. There are no 'class distinctions' when it comes to character. For that reason, the purely economic concepts 'bourgeoisie' and 'proletariat' were replaced by the concepts 'reactionary' and 'revolutionary' or 'free-minded', which relate to man's character and not to his social class. These changes were forced upon us by the fascist plague.
The dialectical materialism Engels outlined in his Anti-Duhring went on to become an energetic functionalism. This forward development was made possible by the discovery of the biological energy, the orgone (1936-8). Sociology and psychology acquired a solid biological foundation. Such a development could not fail to exercise an influence on our thinking. Our extension of thought brings about changes in old concepts; new ones take the place of those that have ceased to be valid. The Marxist word 'consciousness' was replaced by 'dynamic structure'; 'need' was replaced by 'orgonotic instinctual processes'; 'tradition' by 'biological and characterological rigidity', etc.
The vulgar Marxist concept of 'private enterprise' was totally misconstrued by man's irrationality; it was understood to mean that the liberal development of society precluded every private possession. Naturally, this was widely exploited by political reaction. Quite obviously, social development and individual freedom have nothing to do with the so-called abolishment of private property. Marx's concept of private property did not refer to man's shirts, pants, typewriters, toilet paper, books, beds, savings, houses, real estate, etc. This concept was used exclusively in reference to the private ownership of the social means of production, i.e., those means of production that determine the general course of society.
In other words: railroads, waterworks, generating plants, coal mines, etc. The 'socialization of the means of production' became such a bugbear precisely because it was confounded to mean the 'private expropriation' of chickens, shirts, books, residences, etc., in conformity with the ideology of the expropriated. Over the course of the past century the nationalization of the social means of production has begun to make an incursion upon the latter's private availability in all capitalist countries, in some countries more, in others less.
Since the working man's structure and capacity for freedom were too inhibited to enable him to adapt to the rapid development of social organizations, it was the 'state' that carried out those acts that were actually reserved for the 'community' of working man. As for Soviet Russia, the alleged citadel of Marxism, it is out of the question to speak of the c socialization of the means of production'.
The Marxist parties simply confused 'socialization' with 'nationalization'. It was shown in this past war that the government of the United States also has the jurisdiction and the means of nationalizing poorly functioning industries. A socialisation of the means of production, their transfer from the private ownership of single individuals to social ownership, sounds a lot less horrible when one realizes that today, as a result of the war, only a few independent owners remain in capitalist countries, whereas there are many trusts that are responsible to the state; when one realizes, moreover, that in Soviet Russia the social industries are certainly not managed by the people who work in them, but by groups of state functionaries.
The socialisation of the social means of production will not be topical or possible until the masses of working humanity have become structurally mature, i.e., conscious of their responsibility to manage them. The overwhelming majority of the masses today is neither willing nor mature enough for it. Moreover, a socialization of large industries, which would place these industries under the sole management of the manual labourer, excluding technicians, engineers, directors, administrators, distributors, etc., is sociologically and economically senseless. Today such an idea is rejected by the manual labourers themselves. If that were not the case, Marxist parties would already have conquered power everywhere.
This is the most essential sociological explanation of the fact that more and more the private enterprise of the nineteenth century is turning into a state-capitalist planned economy. It must be clearly stated that even in Soviet Russia state socialism does not exist, but a rigid state capitalism in the strict Marxian sense of the word. According to Marx, the social condition of 'capitalism' does not, as the vulgar Marxist believed, derive from the existence of individual capitalists, but from the existence of the specific 'capitalist modes of production'.
It derives, in short, from exchange economy and not from use economy, from the paid labour of masses of people and from surplus production, whether this surplus accrues to the state above the society, or to the individual capitalists through their appropriation of social production. In this strict Marxian sense the capitalist system continues to exist in Russia. And it will continue to exist as long as masses of people are irrationally motivated and crave authority as they are and do at present.
The sex-economic psychology of structure adds to the economic view of society a new interpretation of man's character and biology. The removal of individual capitalists and the establishment of state capitalism in Russia in place of private capitalism did not effect the slightest change in the typical, helpless, subservient character-structure of masses of people. Moreover, the political ideology of the European Marxist parties was based on economic conditions that were confined to a period of some two hundred years, from about the seventeenth to the nineteenth century, during which the machine was developed.
Twentieth-century fascism, on the other hand, raised the basic question of man's character, human mysticism and craving for authority, which covered a period of some four to six thousand years. Here, too, vulgar Marxism sought to ram an elephant into a foxhole. The human structure with which sex-economic sociology is concerned did not evolve during the past two hundred years; on the contrary, it reflects a patriarchal authoritarian civilization that goes back thousands of years. Indeed, sex-economy goes so far as to say that the abominable excesses of the capitalist era of the past three thousand years (predatory imperialism, denudation of the working man, racial subjugation, etc.) were possible only because the human structure of the untold masses who had endured all this had become totally dependent upon authority, incapable of freedom and extremely accessible to mysticism.
That this structure is not native to man but was inculcated by social conditions and indoctrination does not alter its effects one bit; but it does point to a way out, namely restructuration. If being radical is understood to mean 'getting to the root of things', then the point of view of sex-economic biophysics is, in the strict and positive sense of the word, infinitely more radical than that of the vulgar Marxist.
It follows from all this that the social measures of the past three hundred years can no more cope with the mass pestilence of fascism than an elephant (six thousand years) can be forced into a foxhole (three hundred years).
“Hence, the discovery of natural biological work-democracy in international human intercourse is to be considered the answer to fascism. This would be true, even if not a single contemporary sex-economist, orgone biophysicist or work-democrat should live to see its complete realization and victory over irrationality in social life.
MAINE, AUGUST 1942
WlLHELM REICH