Letter FromnWashingtonnby Samuel FrancisnOur Nation, Your MoneynEver since 1914, when the unity ofnEuropean socialism was virtually shatterednby the decision of some share-thewealthersnto support their own nationsnover the claims of the international classnstruggle, a furtive little thought has beenngnawing at the progressivist mind like anmouse chewing on a rafter. Thatnthought is the suspicion that nationalismnand socialism, so far from being naturalnenemies, are in fact symbiotic creatures.nDespite the pretense of the bourgeoisnchieftains of the left that the workers ofnthe world despise their own countries,ngovernments, and cultures, people whonactually work for a living seem to have.nan embarrassing affection for politicalnleaders and movements that assert national,nracial, and cultural solidarity,nwhile at the same time renouncingnliberal capitalism as a machine of nationalnexploitation and destruction.nThe obvious example, of course, isnAdolf Hitler, who succeeded in makingnthe phrase “national socialism” a synonymnfor tyranny and genocide, butnJoseph Stalin is no less in the samencamp. From the 1920’s Stalin began tonmutter anti-German, anti-Semitic, xenophobic,nand ultranationalist sentimentsnthat eventually served him well in then1940’s, when he had to deal with a realnforeign threat. Mao Tse-tung, Ho ChinMinh, Fidel Castro, the Sandinistas,nTito, Nkrumah, Sukarno, and similarngentlemen all beat the same drum ofnconsolidating their own races or nationsnaround hatred for private, often foreign,nfinancial, commercial, agricultural, andnindustrial wealth. Richard Nixon remarksnin his memoirs how on a trip tonItaly in 1947 he noted that “the leadersnof postwar European communism understoodnthe power of nationalism andnwere appropriating that power.”nTotalitarian national socialism, how­n42/CHRONICLESnCORRESPONDENCEnever, is generally dismissed as an aberration.nThe truth, as every damp-eyednparior pink still insists, is that real socialismnrejects the parochial bonds andninstitutions of nation, race, and culture,nthat if looks forward to a planet unifiednby equal distribution of wealth andnuniversal liberation from the confiningnchains of irrational group loyalties andnidentities. Still, the working and lowermiddlenparts of the social spectrum,nwhich are supposed to provide thentroopers on the long march to the newnEden, persist in giving their votes tonpoliticians who, even in the politicalnmainstream, entertain a different vision.nNeither the British Labour Party nornthe post-New Deal Democrats in thenUnited States could have exercised thenkind of mass following and politicalnpower they have enjoyed had they notnswigged on the potent brew that nationalismnand socialism compose. While inntheir inner councils the leaders of thentwo parties often glowed over the prospectsnof “one worid” and crafted theirnforeign policies, toward that end, theynhad enough sense not to carry their truenbeliefs to the polls. Harry Truman’snpenchant for combining chauvinisticnstrutting with solicitude for the commonnman makes him about as reasonablena facsimile of Benito Mussolini asnthe United States has yet sported. Nornmay it be entirely accidental that JohnnF. Kennedy’s best known publicnutterance — “Ask not what your countryncan do for you, but what you can donfor your country” — is largely a paraphrasenof a concluding sentence of ThenDynamics of War and Revolution,nwritten in 1940 by Lawrence Dennis,nthen the leading exponent of an Americannfascism. “A nation is a nation,”nwrote Dennis, “by reason of what itsncitizens have done for it rather thannbecause of what it has done for them.”nAs long as the democratic left persuadednAmerican workers that it combinednnationalistic pride with concernnfor their economic interests by reachingninto other people’s pockets, it prospered.nEver since its leadership passedninto the hands of George McGovernnnnand his crew, who have tried to deletenthe nationalism, its electoral fortunesnhave sunk. The nationalist rhetoric ofnRichard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, andnMrs. Thatcher began to attract thenrank and file supporters of the left tonconservative causes. Only in the lastnfew years have some of the morenpercipient leftists begun to realize theirnerror and tried to rectify it by talkingnonce more about family, community,nand nation.nYet if conservatives have flourishednin the last 20 years because theirnopponents have abandoned or compromisednnationalist themes, the rightnhas discovered only part of the secretnformula that yielded a mass followingnfor the left. The right in America andnWestern Europe remains stridentlynprocapitalist and voices its social andneconomic ideas in an individualist andnuniversalist rhetoric derived from classicalnliberalism. Its solidarist invocationsnof nation, family, community, andncultural tradition are fundamentally atnodds with its attachments to an abstractnindividuality and a cosmopolitan “market”nthat refuses to discriminate againstnthe color of money.nThe result is a political dialoguenbetween two rather incoherent voices,nwhat seems to be an irresolvablendestabilization of each ideologicalncamp, and the gradual erosion of theirndistinctive identities as competing alternativesnfor conducting government.nThe left sneers at national and culturalnloyalties, but ofFers an economics naturallynsuited to the collective aspirationsnof its constituency in the underclass.nThe right bubbles about opportunity,ngrowth, and private gratification, butnalso serves up affirmations of nationalnand cultural bonds.nThe confusion became clear in lastnyear’s presidential campaign. MissourinDemocrat Richard Gephardt andnDemocratic nominee Michael Dukakisnsounded the horn of “economicnnationalism,” but whatever success thisntheme might have enjoyed was drownednout by their refusal to break with thenliberal universalist mainstream of theirn