Actually, contrary to several off-list complaints, I am not red-baiting Nathan Newman or Charles Brown, I am saying they are using definitions of fascism that the Comintern articlulated, but which have been discredited over the last 30 years throughout social science. It is a serious question. Other than the Comintern-sponsored work on Fascism (such as R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution, Martin Lawrence, London, 1933), what can they cite to back up their overly-broad use of the term fascism? When Charles Brown parrots "the openly terrorist rule of the most chauvinist, reactionary sectors of finance capital" it is not red-baiting to say that comes from the Comintern. I read that statement first while reviewing Comintern documents on fascism that I read 30 years ago.
Folks, there has been a whole lot written on fascism in the last 60 years that makes the Comintern position on fascism look simplistic and almost useless. Today there is a distinction made between fascism as an insurgent mass populist movement of the right, and fascism in state power.
And before some nit raises the issue, corporate power is not the same thing as corporatism, which was originally a form of Italian Catholic syndicalism in which workers, managers, and owners from each industrial sector would form congresses that would send representatives to a state congress that would rule the country. Interesting scheme. Has little to do with WTO, eh? Friendly Fascism was a great title but a creaky theory.
See the critique of the Comintern school of fascist theorizing by Griffin at:
http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/humanities/Roger/fascrev.htm
-Chip Berlet
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> [mailto:owner-lbo-talk at lists.panix.com]On Behalf Of Charles Brown
> Sent: Tuesday, June 26, 2001 5:12 PM
> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com
> Subject: Re: China Fascism weeds out the "unfit" from higher education
<SNIP>
>
> CB: I agree with Carrol on defining fascism more rigorously ,
> and not fast and loose: the openly terrorist rule of the most
> chauvinist, reactionary sectors of finance capital.
>
>