"This most dangerous enemy is the American counterpart of the British Fabian Socialist, who denies that he is a Socialist and operates behind a mask which he calls National Planning"
About this Quote
Flynn isn’t diagnosing an ideology so much as constructing a villain with a costume change. “Most dangerous enemy” is alarm language meant to collapse nuance: the threat isn’t socialism as an openly argued program, it’s socialism as stealth infiltration. The line works by yoking two anxieties that reliably travel together in American political rhetoric: the foreign (the “British Fabian Socialist”) and the bureaucratic (the blandly managerial “National Planning”). He’s not arguing policy details; he’s arguing that a certain kind of language is itself contraband.
Fabianism, historically, was the gradualist, suit-and-tie alternative to revolutionary socialism. Flynn exploits that reputation for patience and respectability to suggest a deeper menace: incremental change that’s hard to spot until it’s too late. The phrase “denies that he is a Socialist” turns disagreement into bad faith. If your opponent says they aren’t a socialist, that denial becomes evidence of the crime. It’s a neat rhetorical trap that preemptively discredits self-description and makes motive the battlefield.
Context matters. Flynn’s career arcs through interwar reform fights and the New Deal era, when “planning” became a respectable term for state coordination amid crisis. Calling it a “mask” is a way to reframe emergency governance and technocratic ambition as ideological laundering. The subtext is a warning about experts: planners, administrators, economists, the people who claim neutrality while expanding state capacity. By naming “National Planning” rather than, say, specific agencies, Flynn targets a style of politics - managerial, incremental, and rhetorically modest - and insists it’s precisely that modesty that makes it dangerous.
Fabianism, historically, was the gradualist, suit-and-tie alternative to revolutionary socialism. Flynn exploits that reputation for patience and respectability to suggest a deeper menace: incremental change that’s hard to spot until it’s too late. The phrase “denies that he is a Socialist” turns disagreement into bad faith. If your opponent says they aren’t a socialist, that denial becomes evidence of the crime. It’s a neat rhetorical trap that preemptively discredits self-description and makes motive the battlefield.
Context matters. Flynn’s career arcs through interwar reform fights and the New Deal era, when “planning” became a respectable term for state coordination amid crisis. Calling it a “mask” is a way to reframe emergency governance and technocratic ambition as ideological laundering. The subtext is a warning about experts: planners, administrators, economists, the people who claim neutrality while expanding state capacity. By naming “National Planning” rather than, say, specific agencies, Flynn targets a style of politics - managerial, incremental, and rhetorically modest - and insists it’s precisely that modesty that makes it dangerous.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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