Point 121. Our socialist ideal

Even though the inadequacies and blemishes of socialism are evident for all to see and its takeover by capitalism is proved, socialism nevertheless sought and found – more or less, but this is a vast issue! – the remedy to the capitalist evil, at least in its French theoreticians such as Proudhon. This Proudhonian French socialism – “ socialism with a human face ” and “ mutualist ” – has clearly nothing to do with marxism, “ the tapeworm of socialism ” (Proudhon). On the contrary, it tends to the rediscovery and reconstruction of the most natural and the most traditional ecology.

1. Self-administration claimed to bring about a revival of the “ convivial society ” by rescuing the working people’s destiny from a heartless capitalism. The return of property ownership and the power of decision at the grass roots, to the enterprising community where everything is on a “ human scale ”, falls in with our corporatist project. In both cases it is a question of restoring to an organised people their freedom to dispose of themselves, their work and their property.

Unfortunately, democratic egalitarianism dilutes the right to private property and the power of decision by collectivising them, thus making self-administration impossible, as the Yugoslav experiment has proved! On the other hand, the organic and hierarchical corporation – for example – is viable and sure.

2. Nationalisation claimed to restore order, justice and peace through the intervention of an independent authority, that of the State, as judge, arbitrator, controller and regulator of an economy that the free rein left to confronting factions had reduced to a savage jungle. This recourse to a sovereign authority, animated solely by concern for the common good, falls in with our appeal to a sovereign but absolute Power that is independent of parties and of the powers of money. It is therefore not subjected to electoral constraints. This absolute Power alone is capable of freeing the working people from subjection to the great by withdrawing from the financiers the exorbitant rights they have granted themselves, so as to entrust the interests of trades and all professions to those who are truly involved in them.

Unfortunately, the democratic error corrupted the remedy and made it worse than the evil itself. For the democratic State is neither disinterested nor impartial, but partisan and monopolising. While the intervention of an absolute sovereign Authority is a deliverance from parties and from factions, democratic nationalisation is a subjection to state collectivism.

3. Socialism, with its democratic religion, condemned the people to misery and slavery. Its demophilia, however, approximates somewhat to our position. The Phalange, profoundly enamoured of the people’s happiness and social justice, would willingly call himself socialist, were it not for democratism.