What Is Fascism?

There have been many academics, journalists and others who have tried to define what Fascism is but the vast majority have made the intellectually fatal mistake of describing the surface phenomena produced by Fascism in cultural terms rather than starting with its underlying political-economic drivers. Fascism can be quite fluid with respect to its surface phenomena, creating a slippery creature that evades easy or even stable definition; its surfacing in such places as Portugal, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Argentina and many other Latin American nations, as well as the deeply memory-holed US example under President Wilson during the period 1917-1920, produced quite heterogeneous examples.

When we move beyond the surface criteria so loved and thrashed nearly to death by the careerist and co-opted Western”critical” theorists and ruling class organic intellectuals, to eye the political economy of Fascism, its definition becomes much easier. As Gramsci noted, the capitalist ruling class much prefer to dominate society through a “democracy” under which they control the state and the consent of the people is manufactured through a cultural hegemony that both legitimizes their rule while obfuscating the nature of that rule. The tools of coercion (e.g. the need for people to work to support their families) and outright violence (e.g. incarceration) are always there to lend support to the cultural hegemony. Bourgeois democracy is an efficient way to manage a modern industrialized capitalist economy, given the required literacy and geographical mobility of the population.

It is only when the capitalist ruling class is threatened from within (a collapse of capitalist profitability) and another solution is not found (such as the New Dealcompromise in the US or the “Nationalist” UK governments that co-opted the right-wing labour leaders), or when a successful cultural hegemonic project of the masses threatens to take power, that Fascism emerges. Daniel Guerin, in his 1936 book Fascism and Big Business notes the vulnerability of high capital investment / high fixed cost businesses to a collapses in profitability, and identifies them as the main funders and supporters of Fascism in both Italy and Germany in the inter-world war period. The same can be said of Portugal in 1933 (the Estado Novo), and Austria in the same year (the Fatherland Front), and Greece in 1934 (Metaxism); as with Italy and Germany, mainly a response to a crisis of profitability. Spain was a more complex affair, as a competing hegemonic class project was successful in gaining power through electoral means in 1936 within the Second Spanish Republic. The ruling class reaction was an attempted coup that lead to a civil war of 1936-1939, heavily supported by the fascist states of Portugal, Italy and Germany whilst the supposedly “democratic” Western states stood aside; the latter preferred Fascism to a republic with significant power in the hands of the general populace. The earlier 1917-1920 US period of Fascism was brought about by the need to drag the unwilling US population into WW1 to protect the big business and financial interests who would be exposed to German victory or a negotiated stalemate (the Russian revolution had begun in February 1917). Hochschild very well describes the fascist nature of the regime that President Wilson implemented, including the 250,000 strong American Protective League of state-sponsored thugs, but in American Midnight: The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy's Forgotten Crisis the actual word is never mentioned; as that would be an unacceptable level of truth telling even a century after the event.

To describe the main functions of the fascist state the following will use the 2023 twenty-second printing of the English version of Guerin’s book, as it provides one of the most direct and forthright descriptions of Fascism. As Guerin notes, “the state has always been the instrument by which one social class rules over the other social classes” (p. 25). When a crisis threatens profitability the state must be changed in character:

the bourgeoisie can only see one way to restore its profits: it empties the pockets of the people down to the last centime … brutal slashing of wages and social expenditures, raising of tariff duties at the expense of the consumer etc. The state, furthermore, rescues business enterprises on the brink of bankruptcy, forcing the masses to foot the bill. Such enterprises are kept alive with subsidies , tax exemptions, orders for public works and armaments. (pp. 27-28).

Does that sound a lot like the period from the mid-1970s to the present? Are we currently living under a form of Fascism which is skillfully hidden behind propaganda? Guerin identifies the importance of freedom of the press, universal suffrage, and an organized working class as restricting such actions under bourgeois “fake” democracy, but have those been nullified within the present? Are we living in an Inverted Totalitarianism as Wolin put it? I will return to that topic later.

Guerin notes that the capitalist ruling class is not homogeneous, and it is the capital investment intensive industries such as iron and steel and mining (also the large agricultural landowners), together with their bankers, which are most exposed to falling profitability. Guerin could not have imagined the peace-time scale of the US Military Industrial Complex, nor the rise of transnational corporations that rely upon the ability to manage global supply chains, having their much-expanded intellectual property rights respected abroad and the ability to ward off challengers. In addition to an incredibly concentrated and leveraged financial sector. Creating a much larger group supportive of foreign wars and a disciplining of the population both at home and abroad, while being resistant to tariffs that threaten their extensive global supply chains. Light industry, that relies much more on mass consumption is dependent upon the masses to consume their products and therefore too tough a level of austerity for the masses threatens their profitability. It is exactly this group that was central to the class compromise of the New Deal, but increasing foreign competition in the US domestic market, and the ability to offshore, from the 1970s onwards has altered the calculus for such light industry in the present.

For the Italian heavy industrialists the crisis arrived with the post-WW1 peace, as “war orders ceased overnight, the domestic market vanished, and the established foreign outlets disappeared” (p. 39). Mussolini’s movement was increasingly funded by these capitalist elements, and the other parts of the ruling class were unwilling to intervene against Mussolini’s movement as that could create a ruling class fracture that could threaten overall class interests. In addition, some of the light industrial interests had taken stakes in heavy industry, widening the support for Fascism. They funded Mussolini’s march on the capital and facilitated his taking of power. In the immediate post-WW1 period in Germany, the ruling class fought off a revolution with the help of the “volunteer militias” (the Freikorps) that they paid to crush it. One of these militias became the National Socialist Party lead by Hitler, and they were financed enough to keep them from disappearing during the 1920s (e.g. by the heavy industrialist Thyssen). They were kept as a reserve option, as German heavy industry greatly benefitted from foreign capital that enabled both an upgrading and expansion of capacity; especially after the Dawes Plan stabilized the German currency. But this ended in catastrophe with the 1929 crash and then the Credit-Anstalt banking collapse of 1931. Both the great industrialists and the large landowners now needed the state to help both smash the unions and to financially rescue them. They needed to change the nature of the state from limited class collaboration to Fascism, and the funding and support for Hitler’s movement rapidly escalated. As with the Italian light industry interests before them, the capitalist elites opposed to the National Socialists understood that “the general interests of the owning classes forbade that ‘national’ forces tear each other to pieces” and Hitler was anointed Chancellor by the German ruling class (he was never elected as such by the people as is so often erroneously stated).

As noted by Guerin the middle class “are prevented by their heterogeneity and their position between the two fundamental classes of society - the bourgeoisie and the proletariat - from having a political policy of their own’” (p. 60) Without a counter-hegemonic project that can reach out to the middle class and construct a larger coalition against the ruling class, it is possible for them to be co-opted by the ruling class with right-wing parties that blame unions and Others, as well as falsely claiming to be anti-capitalist and anti-statist (an excellent current example is that of Milei in Argentina, others being Meloni in Italy and the right-wing parties in Greece after the failure of Syriza); the middle class become Fascism’s mass base.

With respect to the youth, Guerin makes a statement about the inter-war years that could have been written about the present:

the lot of the young bourgeois (or petty bourgeois) and young proletarian was almost identical: all young people, without distinction, were victimized by the crisis … As a result of the economic crisis, the position of the intellectual and student youth became more precarious. Their particular ‘aspirations’ were thereby intensified. (p. 78)

And sadly also:

But the socialist movement did not show itself revolutionary and ceased to be a pole of attraction. It was fascism, playing skillfully on the youth mystique, which won over not only the intellectual youth, but also - what was far more serious - many declassed unemployed youth. (p. 79)

Guerin also notes that “fascism recruits a certain number of outcasts from the working class … the lumpenproletariat”. With the destruction of the trade unions outside of the state in many Western nations, and the precarious individualized nature of so many jobs that lack any form of group solidarity, this breeding ground for Fascism is very significant in the present day. The middle class, the youth and the lumpenproletariat are prevalent within both the Brazilian right-wing parties and the Milei base.

To hold together such a diverse coalition of forces, Fascism relies on a vague mysticism to arouse faith rather than intelligence.

A party supported by the subsidies of the propertied classes, with the secret aim of defending the privileges of property owners, is not interested in appealing to the intelligence of its recruits; or rather, it considers it prudent not to appeal to their understanding until they have been thoroughly bewitched. The moment the faithful believe, nothing is easier than to play with truth and logic … Thus fascism presents itself, above all, and even before trying to define itself, as a religion. (p. 86)

This use of propaganda was nothing new, as the British and Americans greatly developed this during WW1 - with the power of images over words, feelings over thoughts.

The post-WW2 alignment of the US right wing with religious figures who were against the Social Gospel that supported the New Deal, to create a new Prosperity Gospelthat turned support for capitalism into a matter of faith comes to mind. Also, the manipulation of the Scofield Bible to increasingly support the state of Israel. In the present, the average citizen is surrounded by propaganda throughout the day at a level far above that of the inter-wars years as they are connected to media delivery devices continuously. With increasing attempts to shut down those individuals, and those platforms, that do not follow the required messaging.

Within this mysticism is The Man of Destiny, created by the propagandists funded with ruling class money. His image will never be allowed to be tarnished by the actual policies and real personal history. Does not the cult of Obama fit with the Man of Destiny? A man whose path in life was carefully groomed and lubricated, with a meteoric political rise, who perfectly served the ruling elite instead of the people throughout his two terms? The man who told the bankers that he was there to protect them against the avenging people, who ramped up covert operations and the surveillance state, who prosecuted whistleblowers but not war criminals and torturers, destroyed Libya and Syria, remained in Afghanistan and Iraq, and turned the hope of real healthcare reform into a new massive capitalist subsidy program? Of course Trump is attempting to also fill that role, but his Man of Destiny project is spoiled by the resistance of the Mainstream Media. In the same way that TikTok has undermined the Israeli Nation of Destiny project.

The fascist party must also exude a fake anti-capitalist message, so that it can claim to provide answers to their material interests. It is a “demagogic anti-capitalism … a utopian and harmless anti-capitalism” (pp. 105-106) that helps turn the population away from genuine socialism.

Fascism’s game is to call itself anti-capitalist without seriously attacking capitalism. It first endeavours to transmute anti-capitalism of the masses into nationalism … In all periods as we have seen, the hostility of the middle classes towards big capital is accompanied by tenacious attachment to the idea of the nation … Hence fascism has no difficulty in shielding its financial backers from popular anger by diverting the anti-capitalism of the masses to the “international plutocracy.” (p. 106)

Is this not exactly what Trump does with his spurious Make America Great Again which much more blames the Chinese for America’s ills than the actions of the US ruling class and its corporate underlings to outsource, offshore, and close down so much of America’s productive capabilities while crushing the unions? The very notion of being unAmerican reeks of such fascist ideology.

In Germany, the National Socialists also successfully transmuted a general anti-capitalism into a more specific anti-semitism, but that was not an option in an Italy with a very small Jewish population; and of course in the present. Instead there is a building anti-Chinese orientation, as wall as extreme Russophobia and of course an Othering of everything Moslem. In the fascist Hindutva of India, Moslems replace Jews as the Othered dehumanized group, as with Zionism.

There may be much rhetoric about disciplining business, or even breaking up or nationalizing businesses, but once in power such promises are quickly forgotten as they would displease the backers of the fascists. After gaining power both Mussolini and Hitler went through a process of cleansing their parties of the most radical elements that threatened the ruling class interests as well as disarming party members by replacing their security functions with the police and the military. In Germany this included the Night of the Long Knives of 1934 where the leadership of the Nazi brownshirts (the SA) were executed. Instead of disciplining business, the fascists disciplined the workers and the state to serve the interests of their business backers as well as their own ends. Only when those ends become problematic for the business backers, as with military expansion far beyond that envisaged by business leaders, did the business backers understand that they had lost control of the state. The profits kept rolling in though, and the vast majority of those business leaders were allowed to keep their wealth in the post-WW2 years while not being prosecuted for their crimes.

In the past five decades the union movement has been crushed (aided by the crushing of the Air Traffic Controllers in the US and the Miners in the UK) in the Anglo-Saxon nations, tamed in the other Western nations, and any so-called socialist parties co-opted. Where socialist interests have been seen to take any leadership, the ruling elite have shown their exceptional ability in removing them; as with the case of Corbyn and the British Labour Party - now lead by a Conservative. The only area in which unions still exist with any degree of power within the AngloSaxon nations is within the state, and they are under increasing pressure. Without the need to crush the unions or socialist parties, there is little need for any “brownshirts” in the Anglo-Saxon nations.

In the past 2-3 years heavily under-reported levels of inflation have in fact allowed business profits to be substantially increased in North America at the expense of the living standards of the many, while public protest has been muted. In the European nations, where unions are much stronger but truly socialist parties have very much disappeared, pressure from the populace has been very much met by the power of the state. As with the heavily militarized reaction to protests within France, who needs brownshirts when you have a police force like the French one?

Western populations have been heavily politically demobilized by an “Inverted Totalitarianism” with the capitalist class taking full control of the state and utilizing many of the tools of Fascism but without needing a mass fascist party; in this way the capitalist class does not risk losing control of the state. The German AfD, with its core in East Germany, espouses an anti-capitalist nationalism and opposition to climate change policies and Muslim immigration, but does not possess a mass brownshirt style movement, as with the French RN. Both could be utilized by the capitalist elite if needed, perhaps in the very much tamed version of of the Italian Meloni and her Brothers of Italy, the organizational descendant of Mussolini’s fascist party. The European capitalist ruling classes may have worked out how to have all the benefits of Fascism without the need for a mass fascist party that takes control of the state from them.

Other than in the instance of an economic crisis that cannot be contained by the capitalist elites, or the implementation of conscription to fight a war the population does not want to fight, we may never see the 1930s style Fascism in Europe again. This may not be the case in Latin America where in the 1970s and 1980s fascist states were used to destroy oppositional forces through murder, torture and intimidation after successful counter-hegemonic projects. Para-military style death squads organized and paid for by the capitalist elite are still a real element in some Latin American countries, such as Colombia. Brown-shirt style groups were also used in the removal of Rousseff and the election of Bolsonaro in the 2010s; with Bolsonaro then destroying much of the social state and further deregulating the economy.

With the continuing deindustrialization of Latin America in the past few decades, and the immiseration of its working classes, we may once again see classic Fascism in Latin America. Bolsonaro may have been replaced with Lula, but that is a Lula reminded of what happens if he strays from ruling class interests and who has to work with a predominantly right-wing legislative assembly. Any economic crisis in the West would be rapidly felt in Brazil and the other Latin American nations through falling commodity prices, pushing the capitalist elite toward a more fascist stance in order to further crush the welfare state and general living standards.

Argentina shows many of the fascist elements as the agricultural and extractive elements aligned with financial interests attempt to destroy and loot the state while driving down general living standards even further. This is a very different constituency to that of the European fascists, as agricultural and extractive industries benefit from free trade policies which inhibit industrial development. Milei has rapidly moved toward authoritarian measures and a love of state power that he vehemently opposed during his elections. His theatrics and stated libertarian anti-statism also appeal to many of the young and the lumpenproletariat, while promising false and vague solutions to the middle class (now experiencing one more event of immiseration at his hands). He lacks a legislative majority though and opposition is rapidly rising within the nation as his policies have already rapidly increased the numbers living in poverty (now nearly 60%); a popular uprising is most definitely a possibility.

In the West we are seeing the state, and the capitalist elite owned media, take on more and more of the policies and orientation of Fascism, but without the need for a fascist party. The current US Democratic government pushes a vague and false anti-capitalist message (especially the fake left of the Party), while using all the functions of the state to quieten and intimidate opposition voices and remove the possibility of the people from voting for the major opposition candidate; at the same time as it doles out protectionist business subsidies, bails out the financial sector, and ramps up anti-China and anti-Russia rhetoric and actions. Very little would change under Trump, apart from the cultural messaging and perhaps less anti-Russia rhetoric.

We see very much the same across the other Western nations, as discussions of the banning of opposition parties are openly carried out (e.g. the AfD in Germany) and those opposing government policies are branded as traitors to the nation and its “shared values” (“Putin lovers”, “terrorist supporters”, “anti-semites”). These states may not fit the 1930s style Fascism, but they are very much, and increasingly, fascist in nature. As with the British Home Secretary calling pro-Palestinian marchers a “hate mob”.

She later had to resign, but the anti-democratic nature of the British government (and the Zionist Conservative leader of the opposition Labour Party), with online speech and political demonstrations being increasingly controlled and criminalized, has remained unchanged. A trend seen across the Western nations. In 2022 in the UK about 3,500 people were prosecuted for online speech, and many, many more visited by the police.

Then of course, we have the ongoing jailing and persecution of the journalist Julian Assange, together with the long prison terms doled out to anyone else attempting to expose state crimes. Together with the disappearing of old uncomfortable facts that parallels the fictional work of Winston Smith. Inverted Totalitarianism serves to depoliticize the masses in the face of attacks against their living standards and civil rights, quite the opposite Fascism. While this can be maintained, and insurrectionary forces shut down by the state and controlled media before they can blossom, a fascist party and its thugs are not necessary.

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