Chip and Nathan's Argument (was Re: Defining Fascism)

[Ken Hanly]

The racism was also used to justify repression of: unions, left wing
movements- particularly communist, and a fraction of the capitalist class
itself and all of this could work in the interest of many capitalists.
Jews were behind unions. Jews were behind communism. Jews were responsible
for those aspects of capitalism that profited at the expense of the Volk..

Cheers, Ken Hanly

----- Original Message -----
From: Nathan Newman <nathan at newman.org>
To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com>
Sent: Thursday, July 05, 2001 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: Chip and Nathan's Argument (was Re: Defining Fascism)


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <Archer.Todd at ic.gc.ca>
>
> >In what little reading on fascism I've done, historically at least,
fascism
> >gained numbers primarily from people who were pushed to the margins by
> >capital's dynamic (either in the short- or long-term).  I see the same
sort
> >of thing happening now, but in slow
> >motion, over decades, as capitalism starts hitting its limits again, and
> >people who don't want to lose what they have start making hard choices
and
> >turning gimlet eyes on the "Other".
>
> There is truth there- it's also truth that the racist aspects of fascism
and
> racism have great appeal to certain elites in capitalism that need to
> justify the inequality and stratification, creating a basis especially in
> times of scarcity and want for why certain groups should get the proceeds
of
> society while others should be denied.
>
> This relates to the China reference in noting that as China creates
greater
> and greater inequality and even celebrates the wealthy, there does need to
> be a social ideological justification for this.  Nationalism is a hardy
> favorite, of course, and whether with the Olympics or nationalist
posturing
> against the US government - even as both happily cut necessary economic
> deals for their respective capital elites -China has been pursuing that
> direction.  But eugenics has always been a useful part of the ideological
> justification for capitalist inequality, from social Darwinism through the
> more twisted versions of Nazism.
>
> So mere inequality plus repression is too limited a definition of fascism,
> but my point is that no repression is without ideological justification
over
> the long term, and for repressive capitalism, fascism is the natural mode
of
> its state justification.  It is for that reason that when capitalism finds
> that formal democratic structures are failing its purposes and it needs to
> resort to dictatorship, it readily finds fascist forces as its best mass
> base to solidify such a dictatorship for its needs.  That is often not the
> goal of the fascists themselves, but the successful fascists - ie. the
ones
> that actually get state power - make the compromise with capital as their
> only route to power.
>
> -- Nathan Newman
>