(From Wilhelm Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism – 1933)

In the US only half of eligible adults register and a little over fifty percent of registered voters actually vote. Reich argues that it’s typical in highly authoritarian “democracies” for the passive, non-voting population to constitute the majority. The fact that other western democracies (Europe and New Zealand, for example) experience a higher turn-out would suggest that these countries are somewhat more “democratic” (less authoritarian). This could also explain why US turn-out was better prior to the rise of the New Right in the 1980s – which has been accompanied by an increase in political and social repression (including loss of earning power and workplace protections, loss of Constitutional rights, smoking bans, warrantless surveillance and wiretaps and mandatory airport searches and workplace urine screens).

Why the Left Fails to Engage the Working Class

Reich also stresses, with examples from Germany, Japan, Italy and other totalitarian states that it’s is precisely this passive, non-voting majority that fascists and ultra-conservatives reach out to in achieving power. He is very critical of the Left for attempting to engage this demographic by addressing their appalling economic conditions – a strategy he insists is doomed to failure. According to Reich, what the Left needs to grasp – and never does – is that owing to the social conditions they grow up in, this politically inactive majority are too caught up in the inner struggle to function as effective adults to think in terms of their economic needs. To put it crudely, personal needs, such as getting laid, and driving a fast car and watching the Superbowl on a flat screen TV will always be a much higher priority than their wages or working conditions.  

Not Voting is an “Active” Choice

Reich also makes the point that just because this group is “non-political” in no way means they are passive. To the contrary, he argues that their withdrawal from the political process is actually a highly active (though unconscious) defense against the social responsibility inherent in making political choices. Reich’s definition of “freedom” is the ability and responsibility for each individual to shape his own personal, occupational and social existence in a rational way. He also asserts that there is nothing more terrifying to the average person than the responsibility entailed in this level of freedom. Because the experience of being raised in excessively authoritarian family, educational and religious structures denies men and women any experience of the human organism’s natural capacity of self-regulation – they reach adulthood with no confidence in their ability to conduct their lives without external authority to guide and compel them.

Moreover because all of this is unconscious, it never occurs to most people that their unhappiness and perceived lack of freedom stems from their own fears and anxieties about taking full responsibility for their own thoughts and feelings – and lives.

Why the Extreme Right is So Appealing

As Reich outlines, the reactionary right knows exactly how to appeal to these unconscious fears and anxieties. First by creating even more rigid and authoritarian structures – that provide immediate relief of anxiety by limiting choice. And secondly by promoting racist or pseudo-racist ideology that projects this group’s unhappiness and perceived lack of freedom away from themselves onto an external “enemy” – Jews, Moslems, socialists, immigrants, terrorists, Hispanics, blacks, feminazis, liberals, intellectuals (this was Bush’s favorite scapegoat) and increasingly teenagers.

 To be continued, with Reich’s specific recommendations for the Left