Um fantástico artigo de Carlo Lottieri e Carlo Stagnaro, que complementa uma polémica antiga entre Ralph Raico e Tom Palmer (aqui, aqui e aqui). Este foi o Império que desapareceu por querer combater o terrorismo apoiado pelo Estado Sérvio, responsável pelo assassinato do Príncipe herdeiro, graças à França, Rússia e às sagradas alianças, incluindo a Inglaterra que fez questão de entrar no conflito da Grande Guerra por causa da neutralidade da Bélgica (claro está, tudo menos a Bélgica!) apesar do Kaiser ter dado garantias que respeitaria a sua independência e pagaria os danos causados.
Como aqui é dito:
"With World War I, the Jacobin spirit triumphed over Western society. President Wilson’s "project of a new American century" (as his modern heirs would define it) needed to normalize the Austrian exception. As Ralph Raico notes, "Wilson was a ‘progressive,’ a leader in the movement that advocated using the full power of government to create ‘real democracy’ at home. But Wilson’s horizons were much broader than the United States. Preaching the gospel of ‘making the world safe for democracy,’ he aimed to extend the progressive creed to the ends of the earth. More than Franklin Roosevelt himself, Woodrow Wilson is the patron saint of the ‘exporting democracy’ clique in America today."
Esta também é deliciosa:
“Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn told the story of an arrogant Teddy Roosevelt calling on Franz Josef and asking what possible point there could be to a monarch in the modern 20th century. "To protect my peoples from their governments" replied the Emperor.”
Sobre o Império:
The old Habsburg Empire was 676,616 square kilometres in size and had 52 million inhabitants, including 12 million Austrians, 10 million Hungarians, 5 million Poles, more than 5 million Serbs and Croatians, 4 million Ruthenians, less than 9 million Czechs and Slovaks, and 1 million Tridentate, Venetians and Friuli’s. There were 34 million Roman Catholics, 4.5 million Orthodox, as many Protestants, 2.5 million Jews, and 700,000 Muslims. The peaceful coexistence of such different realities was granted by the structure of the Empire. This complexity prevented any single identity from emerging as a leader able to impose uniformity on the others.
During Franz Joseph’s reign (1848–1916), Vienna was not only the capital of a wealthy Empire, but also the cultural capital of the whole world. The major philosophers, scientists, and artists of the time had their roots within the Empire: Brahms and Kafka, Doderer and Klimt, Brentano and Mahler, Husserl and Kokoschka, Freud and Popper, Wittgenstein and Kelsen, and so forth. And, of course, the Austrian school of economics owes its name to the fact that Carl Menger had the opportunity to work and develop a new economic theory in Vienna. By noting that, we don’t mean that Franz Joseph was some sort of patron; indeed, most intellectuals lived without his support (though he did hire Menger as tutor to his son, the Crown Prince). The point is that culture finds the ideal conditions to emerge in a context of liberty and wealth; and especially in a society which understands the central importance of exchange and debate.
Já escrevi (até citando Churchill e o seu julgamento da intervenção de Woodrow Wilson) como a Grande Guerra foi o grande acontecimento responsável pela queda das monarquias europeias, dando lugar à subida do extremismo do comunismo, fascismo e nazismo. Falta acrescentar o anti-semitismo.
“Significantly enough, Franz Joseph was always opposed to the anti-semitic movement of Karl Lueger, the Christian-Socials: "any anti-semitic movement should be halted at its birth." He repeatedly vetoed Lueger’s election as Mayor of Vienna, showing how the "absolute" power of the Emperor was less absolute, and far less dangerous than the power of democratic bodies. The fall of Austria-Hungary left the road free for all the nationalisms, including Mussolini’s and Hitler’s.”
Inferências sobre o “Project for a New American Century”?
“One could infer that today’s neo-conservative project, that is, building an American Empire, follows the example of Austria-Hungary, and therefore libertarians should support it. Unfortunately not. George W. Bush will not be a new Franz Joseph. Basically, the Habsburg Empire was a multi-national, largely pre-state Empire, while what the former Trotskyites who are running the federal government aim at creating is one global, stars-and-stripes state. They want to create a super-state at a global level, while the old Empire was the survival of a completely different way of organizing social relationships.
If we compare it to US imperialism, the European Union is actually part of the same paradigm. In Paris, Berlin or Rome we don’t have ruling classes determined to conquer the world – probably because they do not have a strong enough army – but it’s evident that they would like the United Nations to become a legislative body with democratic elections and an absolute power – some sort of command and control headquarters.
In contrast, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire was implicitly "federalist"; within it the instances of local communities were taken into great account. While both the EU and the forthcoming American Empire are modelled on the basis of the modern nation-state, the old Empire had its roots in medieval polycentrism and pluralism, and was the heritage of Catholic universalism, which was peculiar to Europe before the idea of "sovereignty" deeply harmed all those good things.
These are very good reasons to praise the memory of the Emperor Franz Joseph of Habsburg.”
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