[lbo-talk] INSTANT POPULISM: A short history of populism old and new

[Somebody Somebody]

Alan: Fascism combines an intense cultural romanticism with an aggressive modern technophilia... it is industrial modernization in the name of premodern values. This is very much not like patrician conservatism and reactionary populism neither of which has any necessary connection to advanced technological efficiencies and both of which tend - in their communitarian romanticism - to be quite opposed to such things. Jim Crow relied on traditional power relations in the state and chronic low-tech violence to reinscribe and enforce devastating racial injustice... very different from what Fascists did in the 30s and 40s, much less more recently. 

Somebody: Nazism was more traditional and agrarian than you give it credit for. The NSDAP received its highest vote percentages in rural Protestant parts of the country, in a few counties on the order of three-quarters of the population. On average, they did 10 percentage points better in rural Protestant regions as compared to the national average. And of course, their social base in the cities was the traditional self-employed middle class.

We're blinded by the autobahn, the blitzkrieg, and rocket into thinking of the Nazis as ultra-modern. But in reality, in social origins, they're in the same family as all the right-wing militarist regimes in the post-colonial nations after World War II. Nazi Germany had a higher percentage of the population employed in agriculture than Columbia, Iran, or Brazil today; that is to say, it was still in transition from being an agrarian society.