Mark Leyner Quotes
I have an enduring, very robust infatuation with dictators. I have an infatuation with Stalin, Mao, and Mussolini. In the Paris Review interview I did (in 2013), I said my next book, this one, was going to be about Mussolini. I wound up only having a Mussolini cameo in the book.
Leyner, Mark. Gone with the Mind. Little, Brown and Company, 2016.
Many notables of the left and the right supported Mussolini in his early political days. Virtually all of the worst dictators were welcomed by many when they first appeared on the scene. Human nature seems to have us all looking for exceptional leaders and statesmen and that is exactly what the dictator relies upon to acquire power, By the time most recognize the truth, the dictator has control of all the levers of compulsion. Many Americans were fooled just as the Europeans were. For others, see {623202}. {623200} and {623201}.
This quotation brought Mises much criticism at the time and has destroyed his moral credibility for the rest of his career. Like many others who supported the wealthy ruling classes, he expressed admiration for Fascism. Worse he claimed that Nazi German and Italian Fascism saved Europe when subsequent events proved that they destroyed Europe along with 30-40 million people killed. However, unlike most of the right wing Fascist enthusiasts of the day, he did—in the last sentence of this quotation which is often omitted by critical quoters—observe that Fascism success would not be permanent or long lived. His lack of moral condemnation of Fascism and Fascists however was clear. Some of his apologists and decuples observe that his philosophy tended to avoid all kinds of moral judgments pro and con about almost everything. It was this lack of a moral / ethical framework that most of his critics point to as a great failing of his. Also, many argue that this is another example of Mises tendency to exaggerate. Mises also took great criticism on what he claimed were “best intentions”; this included virulent racial and religious discrimination, militarism, aggression and expansionism, persecution of the handicapped. Ironically much later, Mises admitted that all of the Nazi evil was clear before it was implemented, {632449}. Some scholars think that Mises who was almost amoral outside the context of economics, began to develop a moral awareness in the reality of the Nazi charnel that much of Europe had become. One problem is that a person like Mises loses much credibility because of his lack of moral sensibilities and moral perception of a way of life and then exaggerates so many of his examples. However, many of his ideas and insights are very important in man’s quest of an economic system that produces substantial increases in standard of living and development and at the same time assure a modicum of subsistence and dignity and a fair opportunity to achieve much more. Mises’s ideas should not be ignored because of the failings of Mises the man.
Fermi and Segre was two of the group of European Scientists who emigrated to the United States and were key to the Manhattan Project developing the Atomic Bomb.
Mark Leyner (born 1956) is an American postmodernist author.
