>Fascism began to be studied as a right-wing populist movement seeking
>the overhaul of society. Griffin argues that this involves
>palingenesis--or heroic rebirth. Once in power fascism forms an alliance
>with certain power elites, but as a social/political movement it uses
>populist anti-elite rhetoric. Once in state power it uses demonization
>and scapegoating to write conspiracist narratives of subversion to blame
>all societal troubles on a targeted group.
I was actually arguing for the totalitarian thesis per se, since I was using the term authoritarian or dictatorial alliance with capital with some degree of planning inspired by socialist traditions.
Your definition fits the approach you use in your work in analyzing the far right in America (and useful to that extent), but I think it is too limited since Mussolini as an example came straight out of the traditional socialist movement with a leap to nationalism during WWI. You define Franco out of fascism, since he definately is outside your box, but I find in more interesting to look at the similarities of their corporatist solutions to economic problems.
If there is anything that is radically different about China it is that its authoritarian state-dominated capitalist system is embedded in a global economy, so it is actually even more savage in beating down workers since it has less need of building a domestic consumer market with a global market beckoning for the state-allied firms. In that light, Gramsci analyzed fascism as a particular solution/alternative to the Fordist solutions he saw emerging in the United States.
-- Nathan Newman