"Fascist" label

It is obvious that the abolition of the outward manifestations of the conflict of interests between private employer and employee, while maintaining unbroken the economic relationship between private employer and employee, means precisely the freezing hard of existing class divisions while disarming the employee of his normal channels of social and political protest—unions. Labour and Socialist parties—and leaving him to the mercy of the employer and a State which brings force of law down on the employer's side, That is a neat description of Hitler's "Labour Front" and Mussolini's "Corporate State." It is also the logical end of the policy preached by MRA.

It may sound far-fetched to label the policies of MRA, so sweetly reasonable on the surface, as "Fascist." But MRA has already labelled itself.

Moral Re-Armament was founded in 1921 by the American pastor Rev. Dr. Frank N. D. Buchman (recently on show in New Zealand). It was originally known as the "Oxford Group Movement." Its basic themes have always been "industrial harmony," "rapprochement between capital and labour."

Ruth McKenney (author of "My Sister Eileen") recounts in her book "industrial Valley" how the rubber magnates shipped an MRA team into Akron, Ohio, at the height of the great slump, to preach patience to the unemployed An MRA team visiting New Zealand in March, 1960 (see Wellington Teachers' College paper Stud Op for that month) boasted its successes in the United Kingdom in encouraging "production speed-up." Patience in 1930, speed-up in 1960: the policy exactly reflected the momentary interests of big business.

The American Roman Catholic journalist, George Seldes has described in detail ("racta ana Fascism," pp. 134-136; "One Thousand Americans," pp. 216-219) how MRA won such disinterested enthusiasts as Henry Ford (car king), Harvey Firestone (rubber king), and William Randolph Hearst (yellow newspaper king). Seldes summarises Buchman's lice-work, "making an excellent living getting money from big businessmen to preach a 'philosophy' of appeasement to labour, Everyone was to co-operate, there were to be no strikes, the lion and the lamb were to lie down together: and if the labour-lamb was frequently inside the belly of the capitalist-lion, it could only result in more contributions to Buchmanism."