Charles Brown wrote: "Max is wrong. Fascism is the augmentation of the terror of the bourgeois state to defend and RETAIN, not negate , the status quo. Fascism is a defense of capitalism in...."
It is not necessary to make this claim, or similar claims that fascism was somehow a premeditated conspiracy of a committee of the ruling class. Such claims, in some form or other, may be valid, but they are *unnecessary* to make the central point, which is that clearly the mode of production operative in the Italian and German states of the '30s was capitalist, as were all the various authoritarian states of what was called the "Free World."
It is this obvious fact about Hitler's Germany which Alex questioned -- therefore placing him on my automatic delete list.
As to "status quo" (I didn't read Max's post, so I don't know how he used it), when we are talking about whole social systems in conflict the term becomes at best a sort of vague slang.
Carrol