Moreover, Georges Sorel, the philosophic father of both Italian Fascism and Leninism, was a devout follower of James. It's been said many times that Sorel's great accomplishment was to marry James' "Will to Believe" and Nietzsche's "Will to Power." Moreover, the influence worked both ways. James was hugely influenced by the Italian Pragmatists. He deeply admired Giuseppe Prezzolini — later a New Republic contributor and muckety-muck at Columbia University's pro-fascist Casa Italiana. In a letter to the philosopher FCS Schiller James wrote of Giovanni Papini: "Papini is a Jewel! To think of that little Dago putting himself ahead of every one of us … at a single stride.”

The relationship between Pragmatism and Statism is hard for some to see at first blush. But it boils down to the fact that the Progressives used Pragmatic philosophy (correctly or not) to destroy the Old Order of liberal democracy. It was a tool, sometimes sledgehammer, sometimes scalpel, aimed at dismantling the "old ideas" that held back the free exercise of will by social planners and others who wanted to start the world over at year zero, or at least to reshuffle the existing deck for a "new deal."

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