There was something that caught my attention over the course completing The Work-Standard (3rd Ed.) in the previous month. It has now been four months since Bogumil posted something on ARPLAN. A message was sent to that Blog on my end back in June, but nothing came back as a response. I am starting to wonder if the long hiatus has something to do with an English translation of another major work. If so, then I can understand why it would be taking a while for something new to be posted on the ARPLAN Blog. If not, then I hope Bogumil is doing alright.
Back in February, I did recall Bogumil mentioning plans to do an English translation of more literature from Pan-Germanic Socialism. Four works were proposed:
- Hermann Heller’s Sozialismus und Nation
- Richard Schapke’s Die schwarze Front
- Ernst Graf zu Reventlow’s Deutscher Sozialismus
- Otto Dickel’s Die Auferstehung des Abendlandes
Bogumil was more interested in translating Sozialismus und Nation over the next three works, all of which are more firmly rooted in Pan-Germanic Socialism. Sozialismus und Nation was originally written with a Social-Democratic basis in mind, which is a manifesto on the “Neorevisionist” faction inside the pre-1945 SPD during the Weimar years. This faction was an eclectic group that saw itself trying to foster the Nationalistic sentiments of the period within the SPD’s political program. The book’s author, Hermann Heller, was a popular historical figure from the SPD whose works are read in post-1945 Japan and the Spanish-speaking world. Heller’s work has seen a comeback to some extent in part due to his coining of the term “Authoritarian Liberalism,” which has been since revived to criticize “Ordoliberalism,” a European variant of Neoliberalism found throughout German-speaking world.
In Europe, the collapse of Liberal Capitalism during the Interwar years coincided with the collapse of Parliamentary Democracy, a trend that the Jeffersonians had sought to avoid repeating when they helped found the EU/NATO. The concept of Authoritarian Liberalism gets its “Authoritarian” tendencies from its harsh security measures to prevent any “unconstitutional actions” that might undermine Parliamentary Democracy’s control over the Market/Mixed Economy. In practice, this meant that any takeover of some EU/NATO member-state cannot occur in the Parliamentary Democratic process without coming under extensive police surveillance and court orders to ban parties for challenging the constitutional order. Practically any Ideology that is not congruent with Liberal Capitalist Parliamentary Democracy is a viable target.
To be fair, I can totally see why Bogumil would want to do a translation of Heller’s Sozialismus und Nation over the next three choices. I have a feeling that whatever came from Heller is more relevant to this stage of the 21st century, especially when others are convinced that certain concepts introduced by Heller can be recontextualized to understand contemporary politics throughout the broader Empire of Liberty, and more specifically the UK and the EU/NATO member-states. The other three, by contrast, are historical in nature, and provide context on the origins of Pan-Germanic Socialism and where its future could have gone if not for Hitlerism.
If that is the case, then I would like to see if I could do a few rough English translations of Sozialismus und Nation, just to see if there is anything worthy of imparting here. I have not read the book yet, so it is probably worth checking.
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