Defining Fascism

[Brad DeLong]

>Brad comments that his definition doesn't fit well with the current Russian
>and Chinese régimes. This makes sense. Does it also make sense to say that
>fascism as described, was a kind of phenomenon that arose in capitalist
>states that were more or less advanced, but still had large population
>components that were, or recently had been peasants with roots in pre
>modernity, but which had been touched just enough by market relations that
>they were susceptible to the kind of blandishments that Brad describes and
>which would have fed into their anomie? That would account for a number of
>things that seem to be unclear in this discussion, in particular, the fact
>that "fascism" seem inapt to any current circumstances.

A nice argument, but it increases one's fear that China or India may 
develop their own forms of fascism in the future...