I feel like it's a very ill-defined term in the imperial core, but also there seems to be no coherent agreement on the left. Many thinkers have different definitions that often overlap.
Lenin called fascism "capitalism in decay"
Fanon called it "colonialism at home"
Umberto Eco offers his own incoherent mess of a definition
Roger Griffin defines it as a "palingenetic ultranationalism" that imagine a mythical "rebirth" of some previous glory (Rome, the volk, MAGA), and in doing so seek the "dominance of the insiders of the ultra-nation over those outside of it."
Parenti states that fascism "offers a beguiling mix of revolutionary-sounding mass appeals and reactionary class politics", adding that if fascism means anything "it means all-out government support for business and severe repression of anti-business, pro- labour forces."
Andreas Malm adapts Griffin's definition in White Skin, Black Fuel to a "palindefenIve, palingenetic ultranationalism", etc, adding that in addition to the sense of rebirth to some mythical glory time, there is also a mythical defense of the ultra-nation from those who are defined as foreign, be they Muslims, central American refugees, judeo-bolsheviks, etc.
I find the most functionally useful definition of fascism is Parenti's: the violent oppression of the left to maintain the dominance of the ownership class. However I feel like it lacks the element of violent chauvinism against arbitrarily defined others in society. That is to say I suppose I also lack a coherent definition.
What say you comrades?
Fascism is petty bourgeois politics taken to their logical conclusion. The petty bourgeoisie are bourgeoisie so they can't strike at the base of their decaying system (private property). Instead they attempt to regulate all other aspects of life (nation, gender, sexuality, even the market economy) which capitalism necessarily liberalizes to open up markets in to combat the fall of the rate of profit. Because the petty bourgeoisie will never actually be revolutionary, they form reactionary alliances with the big bourgeoisie who happily use them to crush the left.
Edit: I forgot to mention that the people who are criminalized by fascism tend to be imprisoned and enslaved to serve the big bourgeoisie.
Fascism is one of those things that is so inherently interlinked with other things that defining it becomes very hard. Its essence becomes hard to tell apart from its historical specifics. Attempts at defining it tend to either include so much that they become only barely useful, or so little that many modern fascist movements fall outside them.
One way I like looking at fascism is as a (temporary) resolution of the central contradiction in liberal democracies, the contradiction between liberalism and democracy. In this way, it is the opposite of communism which solves the contradiction by raising democracy over liberalism, whereas fascism gets rid of democracy to save liberalism.
Mussolini is interesting because he got his start as a labor organizer and his denunciation of socialism directly preceded his creation of fascism. I see this exact point misinterpreted all the time to try and say that a state nationalizing businesses is inherently fascist, but it misunderstands what that marriage means and what its motivations are
Yeah, the state nationalizing a business is very different from businesses running the state. My other preferred definition of fascism is "whatever tf america has going on" which is definitely the latter.
Fascism is when people I don't like do stuff.
Socialism is when the government does stuff.
Anarchy is when I and a friend do different things.
Communism is when I and some pals do the same thing.
Liberalism is when someone does a thing, but doesn't do it enough.
Libertarianism is when someone does a thing that is too young to consent.
Fascism is anything that it needs to be in order to provide a tool of ultra-violence to whoever is in power or capable of influencing power from behind the scenes through wealth.
It provides a simple tool, extreme violence against any target in large quantities, which is a tool that is necessary when capitalism becomes in crisis. The ruling class needs this tool to kill their enemies to save capitalism and to save their ruling position.
It manifests when capitalism is in decay because capitalism in decay is capitalism that becomes in crisis.
Every other trait of fascism other than this tool is malleable. Fascism takes on whatever form it needs to take on in whatever national conditions it finds itself in. Fascism must have the ability to grow and this means it gains different traits in different national conditions and different times. German fascism is different to Italian fascism which is different to Chilean fascism and Spanish fascism and Israeli fascism, etc etc etc. They all become whatever they must become in order to succeed and provide their masters with the tool of ultraviolence.
Once it has established itself its method of absolute hierarchical organisation of society is almost always the same. Its base and superstructure is almost always the same.
In short form I usually go with -- "Fascism is whatever it needs to be to succeed so that it can provide the ruling class with the ability to kill whoever they think threatens their class rule without opposition. Fascism takes on different national characteristics and mythos wherever it emerges in order to succeed, and the ruling class funds whatever they believe can be shaped into something that will succeed."
That's probably the most helpful simple-language interpretation I've heard, and it satisfies my feeling that a lot of these idealist aspects of nationalism, others, rebirth, defense all feel downstream to the more material concerns of violently protecting capital.
Furthermore, it explains the continuity with liberalism - liberalism is what you get when overt violence is not required to protect capital.
:sankara-salute: thanks for helping me with my brainworms comrade!
The important part of this is really the understanding that fascism is always different in different national conditions, because it is forced to be different in order to succeed. The only true characteristic that exists in all forms of fascism is that it gets structured hierarchically and provides those at the top of the hierarchy with the absolute power to kill whoever they deem to be their enemies.
For a leftist this is an incomplete definition without including class analysis though, and that analysis ultimately leads to the question "So why do people fund fascists? They do not succeed until the wealthy start funding them." and the only answer to that question is that they are threatened and want mass violence to eliminate a threat to them.
I believe the final piece of understanding that it only exists as a tool of violence for the ruling class lies in realising that it eventually becomes liberalism again if it is not defeated in a massive way. Spanish fascism was not defeated. Chilean fascism was not defeated. These eventually morphed back into liberalism because the fascist method of organising society only exists as a tool to eliminate enemies. When that tool isn't required the ruling class morphs it back into liberalism because it is a more efficient at extracting labour from workers -- fascism is actually quite wasteful because it kills its workers and doesn't give a fuck. Israel continues to exist because Israeli fascism has not completed its goals yet, although we do see some signs of that liberal morph occurring there fascism it still is and probably will be until Palestine is gone.
This is good. I think specifically it is a trait of capitalist societies ; that is, you don't get fascism in a monarchy -- they don't need it.
But you have pointed out the key feature of fascism that the other definitions dance around, the ultraviolence.
Right. Liberalism lacks that tool. Liberalism can not just round up all the communists and execute us all, and if liberalism were to do that people would either deny that it is liberalism or massively reject liberalism for being so bad.
A different method of organising society is necessary in order to wield the tool of ultraviolence without caring that people do not like the ultraviolence. You need supreme central authority and hierarchy. You need a society where people are afraid of going against that, where neighbours snitch on neighbours. You design society to enable the tool of ultraviolence and make opposition to the use of ultraviolence as politically marginalised as possible.
All the rest? All the racism and all the bullshit? It's interchangeable. It literally doesn't matter whether jews or trans or indigenous peoples or ANYONE is the mythos of the whole thing. That is inconsequential to the functional tools that fascism provides that liberalism does not provide. The monetary backers don't give a fuck, what they care about is what abilities they're getting out of it.
Oh I forgot to add that fascists always seem to exist under capitalism in one form or another but it isn't until the ruling class funds them that they start to succeed, and that funding only occurs when that ruling class feels threatened, which only seems to manifest during capitalist decay. All of this comes together in a neat package.
Yes, the mask is a convenience that creates more efficient extraction of labour from workers because a willing exploitation relationship pays more and kills off less of the labour pool. The fascist method of extraction is very efficient at extreme violence to its own detriment because they'll kill off vast swathes of potential labour that could be effectively put to work. Fascist mines starved their jewish and soviet workers, starving people don't do good work and dead workers don't do any work. It's just a shit an inefficient method of exploitation really, a willing method with well fed workers is much better. The one that looks more humane is also just more efficient. They build the lie of liberalism and being humane around it out of convenience, they would build a completely different lie given different conditions.
I feel like whatever you're talking about should have a different name than "fascism". Fascism is the merger of state and corporate power.
I would argue that there are states where that merger has occurred that are not considered fascism and that there are fascist states we recognise as such where that merger is not particularly cut and dry. If you can't apply the definition to everything then the definition is incomplete.
Then I argue that such a term is worthlessly vague and new vocabulary must be applied to resolve the situation.
It's not vague though. It's defined by providing the tool of extreme violence to the ruling class within capitalism to use against its enemies without the use of that tool carrying a political cost.
This applies to absolutely all variants of fascism, and I do not think it applies to anything that is not fascism.
You can then go on to discuss how there are common features that fascism often has but that aren't present in all cases, and you have the ability to explain exactly why those features are not present in all cases of fascism. Any definition must be able to adequately justify why other definitions are incorrect, I think this does that.
I get the idea that some people are just in love with the word fascism and would be disappointed if they didn't get to use it on every opportunity.
Ok let's dive into a specific example then. Which country that is widely regarded as fascist would you say is not fascist and should be defined differently because it doesn't fit Mussolini's "merger of corporate and state power" definition?
It might be Umberto Eco but the idea that Fascism is the imperial strategies and drive towards colonialism turning inwards always made sense to me. Maybe that’s lib for some reason, but with British imperialism being the progenitor of so many forms of fascist control; concentration camps, etc, this definition always made sense to me.
But that doesn't work for South Korea or Spain since the former didn't have imperial strategies and the latter didn't look like their imperial strategies.
Well I think South Korea is better understood as a fascist proxy similar to Israel. Spain on the other hand is still certainly the inheritor of spoils of imperialism in the Americas and the cultural hegemony of Catholicism in the Spanish language world.
The best description of it is found in Trotskys pamphlet: Fascism what it is and how to fight it. (Actually a collection of what he wrote about fascism in other places). Because he describes the class character of it by examining how it emerged in say Germany and Italy.
Ultimately as the contradictions of capitalism come to a head the proletariat begins agitating (labor Union movements, communist or labor parties, strikes, mass protests, insurrection and revolution) to overthrow the bourgeoisie, but as they fail to do so and the contradictions heighten further, the petit bourgeoisie (which has no independent destiny) gets armed and organized under the supervision of the bourgeoisie to put an end to the proletarian agitation. That’s who the soldiers of fascism are, petit bougs who go into the street to put down the proles, typically working hand in hand with the armed bodies of the state. It’s a form of false consciousness whereby the “middle class” blames the proletarian hooligans for their problems instead of blaming the big bourgeoisie and sets out to eliminate them, beginning with whichever group is an easy scapegoat , Jews, communists, sexual minorities. Once this ideology takes state power (because the libs will hand the reins over to them, however uncouth they are, to do away with the threat of real proletarian uprising) they continue this madness of finding and eliminating scapegoats because without a willingness to end the real problem (private property relations) that’s all they can do to keep the whole thing going a bit longer.
Slight :trot-shining: correction: by directing anger at “others”, they attract lumpen proles and squeezed labor “aristocracy” (or just high paid ones). Like if you look at configuration of america: petit bougie local boat sellers, former army soldiers with shitty benefits and shitty jobs (lumpenized/freikorp config), skilled manual labor which got shipped off - rust belt (proles). Big bourgeoisie (if they think treat of proletariat is credible enough) will finance them.
Everyone seems to agree that they define fascism as a mixture of two of the definitions listed in this post which I think reflects that there are two aspects to fascism, yes this is indeed a base-superstructure moment. The Base is the comically evil economic policy of protectorate capitalism and primitive accumulation (I'm sure you can identify more). The Superstructure is the crackpot ideology of the existence of a subservient class whose whole purpose is to serve the "greater" and the threat of the "barbaric" other, all of which is cooked up to justify the base. One of the reasons fascism is so confusing is because it is hard to separate from capitalism, the classes have a virtually identical character and their organization has not changed, only the exploitation has intensified. But eh, what do I know.
One of the reasons fascism is so confusing is because it is hard to separate from capitalism, the classes have a virtually identical character and their organization has not changed, only the exploitation has intensified.
Not to mention the blatantly obvious, that it is an ideology created and perpetuated by history's biggest morons
It's literally just conservatism taken to its logical endpoint. All other definitions overcomplicate things IMO - the main difference between conservatives and fascists is literally just whether or not they are letting the market enforce the bullshit hierarchy they believe in indirectly, or if they are using the military and police to do it directly (as with everything, there is a long blurry border where they're doing both).
A while ago I watched a panel about Fascism on YouTube and all the panelist were asked for a definition. I believe one of them was something like "Revolutionary Conservatism". I kinda like the simplicity of that definition.
I think most of these are coherent together. Capitalism in decay/colonialism at home seem pretty synonymous if your understanding of colonialism is capitalist exploitation of the periphery. Parenti ties the economic base to the culturally fascist superstructure, which Malm and Griffin further describe.
I think the problem is that defining fascism requires 5-6 sentences and at that point people stop paying attention and think that you didn't even give them a definition. Like others here are saying, those are all (except maybe Eco's) informative. Fascism is a reaction to the left. It marries the government to business in order to do so, trying to distinguish a form of good capitalism from bad capitalism and saying that the left is the bad capitalism that must be destroyed. It plays off of a false class consciousness that takes contradictions that could lead to left radicalization and redirects them at "others", which chiefly means a set of scapegoats aligning with a concept of traditional values or restoration. Fundamentally, all of this happens opportunistically, it's another face of capitalism: capitalism under threat by the just, i.e. capitalism in decay.
The common chud only needs to be told that everything that's wrong is the left's fault and they're gonna destroy your family and culture if you don't stop terrorizing anyone that falls outside of normative patriarchical capitalism. This is enough for them.
Parenti's definition is pretty similar to Robert Paxton's, which is "Dictatorship against the Left amidst popular enthusiasm." Paxton's a bit of a liberal though, so he doesn't put it in class terms, but I think he observes the same phenomena.
Lenin called fascism “capitalism in decay”
He did? Surprised he had time to remark on the rise of fascism since he died in 1924.
idk why i hit reply to you i meant to reply to OP lol. my brain is short-circuiting today.
right I know lenin would have had a 2 year window to comment on fascism in italy before dying, I'm just surprised that he did. it was kinda out of his way and he was really busy with governing the newborn USSR lol
i would appreciate a source though on any remarks lenin made about mussolini before dying. I've run into anticommunists before who claim that lenin praised mussolini but they are never able to produce a source
I think that one of the important things to understand with fascism is that the aesthetics matter a lot. This is the Frankfurt school reading (Benjamin esp). Basically, fascism is a particular aesthetic of oppressing others and being "strong" (cult of the great man). This is why the fascist doesn't need to deliver a real class politics to his supporters (I think about Adorno and the clownish aspect of the fascist): the aesthetics of subjugation are more important. This is why it becomes the contradictory material politics for the wealthy coupled to making scapegoats suffer (which is material, ofc).
I'm about three Cuba libres in today, so sorry if this is a bit ramshackle.
:allende-rhetoric:
I really like Robert Paxton's The Anatomy of Fascism. This is the most precise quote I could find from the book.
Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim- hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
It's the blind men and the elephant imo, they all make a good point. As capitalism inevitably falls into decay, the Scapegoat is created to deflect immiserated workers away from class struggle. This invented crisis is used to justify state violence and oppression of the scapegoat, and coincidentally always leftists who are either to blame for the scapegoat, or an enemy who allies with the scapegoat. Or the left is just directly scapegoated, either way someone is blamed for taking away the past and its better material conditions.
I feel like the problem with trying to unite all these thread (the Eco approach) is that they don't all apply in some of the most important cases. Like you don't need scapegoating all the time, a lot of right-wing paramilitary death squads don't need a mythology, they just suit up to kill leftists for capital, often for material reward.
Contrast this with a racist, homophobic or transphobic movement that doesn't use violence against leftists directly but will use terrorism (state or otherwise) against targeted, othered groups.
Are both of these fascism? I'm more inclined to call the first fascism, as in theory social-reactionary violence is possible and we have seen it in left governments before.
I don't know what your problem with Eco is but you are misrepresenting his work. No where in Ur-Fascism does Eco claim that ALL of the fascist characteristics he identified has to be present, quite the opposite in fact:
The contradictory picture I describe was not the result of tolerance but of political and ideological discombobulation. But it was a rigid discombobulation, a structured confusion. Fascism was philosophically out of joint, but emotionally it was firmly fastened to some archetypal foundations.
So we come to my second point. There was only one Nazism. We cannot label Franco’s hyper-Catholic Falangism as Nazism, since Nazism is fundamentally pagan, polytheistic, and anti-Christian. But the fascist game can be played in many forms, and the name of the game does not change. The notion of fascism is not unlike Wittgenstein’s notion of a game. A game can be either competitive or not, it can require some special skill or none, it can or cannot involve money. Games are different activities that display only some “family resemblance,” as Wittgenstein put it. Consider the following sequence:
1 2 3 4
abc bcd cde def
Suppose there is a series of political groups in which group one is characterized by the features abc, group two by the features bcd, and so on. Group two is similar to group one since they have two features in common; for the same reasons three is similar to two and four is similar to three. Notice that three is also similar to one (they have in common the feature c). The most curious case is presented by four, obviously similar to three and two, but with no feature in common with one. However, owing to the uninterrupted series of decreasing similarities between one and four, there remains, by a sort of illusory transitivity, a family resemblance between four and one.
Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola.
