Haven't read your book. Read lots of other books about the history of Nazi Germany, of the sociology of the economy - remind you I have a Ph.D. in sociology where my major study was workplace organization and institutional economics - so it's silly to play the game of saying, if you haven't read my favored book, you are ignorant. The definition you posted below is not an unuseful approach, but downplays the economics driving fascism in favor of cultural issues almost exclusively. It mentions the "social base" of fascism only vaguely at the end with little discussion of the relationship of clashes of different economic sectors in driving an opening for fascism's emergence-- much as Marx early on noted how the class stalemate of 1848 drove the emergence of Louis Napoleon in a manner that presaged some of the populist elitism of modern fascism.
So I'm unimpressed with your addition settling the definitional question. Again, I understand why it is useful for your particular work in fighting neo-Nazis in the US, who fit your populist model perfectly, but it is insufficient for the historical reality of fascism which had a large economic component as well which was not an afterthought but integral to its historic existence.
Yes, you're right. Charles and I do agree on that point, even if we disagree on what that economic component was in its empirical reality. I just don't think a cultural-dependent definition does the job.
Nathan Newman nathan at newman.org http://www.nathannewman.org
----- Original Message ----- From: "Chip Berlet" <cberlet at igc.org> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Cc: <CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us>; <nathan at newman.org> Sent: Wednesday, June 27, 2001 12:39 PM Subject: RE: Defining Fascism
Hi,
Let me ask a blunt question. Has Charles Brown or Nathan Newman or anyone else claiming that it is hard to define fascism, or offering Dimitrov or R. Palme Dutt (or any of the other Comintern definitions), actually read anything written by Griffin? Anything written about fascism in the last 20 years?
It seems to me that much of this discussion is based on a stunning lack of reading of recent material on the subject.
Also. there is a difference between authoritarianism and totalitarianism. (and not the difference suggested by Kirkpatrick in her misrepresentation of arendt). There is a difference between a police state and a fascist police state.
If you read Matt Lyons' definition, it talks about attacks on the left and the mythical organic tribalist nature of fascism.
Here is the definition:
What is Fascism? Some General Ideological Features by Matthew N. Lyons
I am skeptical of efforts to produce a "definition" of fascism. As a dynamic historical current, fascism has taken many different forms, and has evolved dramatically in some ways. To understand what fascism has encompassed as a movement and a system of rule, we have to look at its historical context and development--as a form of counter-revolutionary politics that first arose in early twentieth-century Europe in response to rapid social upheaval, the devastation of World War I, and the Bolshevik Revolution. The following paragraphs are intented as an initial, open-ended sketch.
Fascism is a form of extreme right-wing ideology that celebrates the nation or the race as an organic community transcending all other loyalties. It emphasizes a myth of national or racial rebirth after a period of decline or destruction. To this end, fascism calls for a "spiritual revolution" against signs of moral decay such as individualism and materialism, and seeks to purge "alien" forces and groups that threaten the organic community. Fascism tends to celebrate masculinity, youth, mystical unity, and the regenerative power of violence. Often, but not always, it promotes racial superiority doctrines, ethnic persecution, imperialist expansion, and genocide. At the same time, fascists may embrace a form of internationalism based on either racial or ideological solidarity across national boundaries. Usually fascism espouses open male supremacy, though sometimes it may also promote female solidarity and new opportunities for women of the privileged nation or race.
Fascism's approach to politics is both populist--in that it seeks to activate "the people" as a whole against perceived oppressors or enemies--and elitist--in that it treats the people's will as embodied in a select group, or often one supreme leader, from whom authority proceeds downward. Fascism seeks to organize a cadre-led mass movement in a drive to seize state power. It seeks to forcibly subordinate all spheres of society to its ideological vision of organic community, usually through a totalitarian state. Both as a movement and a regime, fascism uses mass organizations as a system of integration and control, and uses organized violence to suppress opposition, although the scale of violence varies widely.
Fascism is hostile to Marxism, liberalism, and conservatism, yet it borrows concepts and practices from all three. Fascism rejects the principles of class struggle and workers' internationalism as threats to national or racial unity, yet it often exploits real grievances against capitalists and landowners through ethnic scapegoating or radical-sounding conspiracy theories. Fascism rejects the liberal doctrines of individual autonomy and rights, political pluralism, and representative government, yet it advocates broad popular participation in politics and may use parliamentary channels in its drive to power. Its vision of a "new order" clashes with the conservative attachment to tradition-based institutions and hierarchies, yet fascism often romanticizes the past as inspiration for national rebirth.
Fascism has a complex relationship with established elites and the non-fascist right. It is never a mere puppet of the ruling class, but an autonomous movement with its own social base. In practice, fascism defends capitalism against instability and the left, but also pursues an agenda that sometimes clashes with capitalist interests in significant ways. There has been much cooperation, competition, and interaction between fascism and other sections of the right, producing various hybrid movements and regimes.