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“fascism is capitalism’s defense mechanism” remains the most supreme diagnosis.
i’m not sure if I like that diagnosis either. At best you could say fascism is capitalism’s defense in response to specific circumstances regarding a confluence of various things all happening at once, including but not limited to inflation, restless population, stark economic class division, and a pre-existing imperial state apparatus that either has nowhere to go or has become so bloated it turns inward. Also necessary would be either a robust leftist presence or at least the perception of a large leftist presence. Now this guy is a liberal, but Robert O. Paxton is a pretty good historian who defines fascism as “suppression of the left amidst popular enthusiasm.” And while I think there’s more to it, that is a huge component of it.
I say this because capitalism has other defensive tools for other circumstances, especially circumstances in which no robust leftist organization exists. Like austerity for instance, that one is a much more wielded tool in capitalism’s immune system. Another would be increasingly complex abstraction of labor value, like I could point to the corporate raiding strategies that publicly traded companies took in the 1980s, and even the legal countermeasures put in place afterwards were part of further abstraction.
yeah so it is a good pithy statement to say fascism is capitalism’s defense mechanism, but i do believe we should be aware there are others and that fascism requires certain circumstances to actually get off the ground. Since I do think there’s a difference between an earnest fascist political movement and imperialist genocidal capitalism using fascist rhetoric (we have both of those two in the USA right now)
I am much more on the “actually existing fascism” train
Defense mechanism isn’t entirely inaccurate, but it puts the cause at opposition to capitalism instead of internal to capitalism’s need to expropriate
Hmm I like this one, it squares with something I’ve said a lot which is that “conservatism” describes the level of socially acceptable fascism.
Definitely does. Accepting fascism as a force which is currently/ recently existing and understanding its dynamics in those terms make it much more understandable and squares it up with the actual problems that we confront today. I think the biggest strength of this analysis is that: it is entirely relevant to current contradictions which isn’t true of most other definitions
Communism is when the government does things and the Nazis did a lot of things
People pay this guy for his opinions. Wild.
my dumb ass is out here having a real job meanwhile this guy gets paid to be wrong on the internet and probably makes way more than me
The real proof that much of the west is functionally illiterate
People generalize Hitlerian Nazism to all fascism and I think it damages people’s ability to understand it. You can look at Mussolini as an ethnic supremacist, but especially earlier in his career before Hitler became so successful, it’s much more salient to describe him in terms of nationalism and anticommunism with less of a concern for race, and then he subsequently imported racial ideology from Hitler.
This person seems to be demonstrating how it damages your ability to assess fascism, because he acts like it’s an indifferent and uncertain question if fucking Franco was a fascist. Yes, he obviously was a fascist, he was just more in the style of Mussolini than Hitler in this respect.
I think this is just a byproduct of baby’s first Carl Schmitt (“friend-enemy differentiator”) absorbed by historically illiterate liberals.
Mussolini and Hitler certainly differed on their approach to race. Like Mussolini famously stated that he did not believe racial purity could exist. But he also stated already in the early 1920s (Before Hitler rose to power) that fascism arose out of the racial needs of Aryan-Italians.
I included “ethnic supremacist” because, before he imported Nazi ideology, he talked about the supposed interests of the supposed dominant race, but he defined it in a more cultural and “spiritual” manner than the blood quanta, race science, phrenology of the Nazi approach, so the Italian approach more resembled what we today would call ethnicity. While still a chauvinist supremacist and, you know, a fascist, he repeatedly argued against the promotion of “The Jewish Question” early on, though even in those statements there was still a tone of clear antisemitism sometimes, but nonetheless he was not designating Jews as “the enemy” at the time. Then after that he was happy to embrace it because this was one of his many opportunistic stances whether for or against.
My point in saying this is that Noah here is deflecting from the fundamental characteristics of fascism, which are nationalism and anticommunism, though it readily embraces racism when it finds such a thing useful.
Aryan-Italians.
Angly Anglo noises
For me nazis are just “communists” (populists, really) who betrayed internationalism. Sorry you’re not better than other workers coz you live on the right side of your made up lines
There’s a huge difference between being a communist and simply being a populist. Populism is a rhetorical style, it’s the act of saying “There’s many of us and few of them” usually with “them” being some sort of elite or powerful group, or a group that you pretend is powerful (like Jews, who broadly had very little power in Weimar Germany). You can say that communists and Nazis are both “populists” because they both say “There’s many of us and few of them,” but there is no comparison to be made in their actual policies. The Nazis wanted to protect the capitalist class and keep it around forever, and they had no interest in helping the workers except in the most superficial or convenient ways (giving people free radios so they could hear Hitler’s speeches and other Nazi propaganda, for instance).
I absolutely agree ofc. I’m not a whitewinger saying nazis were really communists.
Yet when i see a nowaday movement saying that we should have a strong state that takes cares of the poor (socialism) as long as they’re white (nationalism), I call them what they are. Nazis.
Also known as what about OUR homelesses, usually uttered from a karen who think she’s a good person because she gave one a penny back in 1982.
We all known nazis dont really care about the poors lmao
the Populists were proto-socialist farmers
Really? I’d be curious to read about it
natopedia but it’s american history from over a hundred years ago so they’re probably not smart enough to misrepresent a bunch of shit and my knowledge about them comes from my old highschool curriculum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Populist_Party_(United_States)
interesting thanks :)
- Liberalism is when cereal boxes have fun marketable cartoons on them. And an entergaging puzzle game on the back!
- Communism is when you get a free boring box of cereal.
- Fascism is when mother makes you eat vegetables. >:(
I wish I would get paid for saying shit like this.
actually in both communism and fascism mother yells at you to do stuff. that’s what authoritarian means. liberalism might not be perfect but it’s the only system that provides us with a wide variety of cereal mascots
Liberalism is when you get to freely chose whether you want to eat the cereal or not.
But you surely won’t get any different food, so you better eat it or you starve. Also mum will yell at you because it looks bad if the kid is “picky” so it’s only for your best.
Franco commanded the Morroccan Regulares once so he’s multicultural–statements from the utterly deranged
Our first unironic iberotropicalist. Fuck i fear this joke migbt be too dumb and european.Lusotropicalism is a weird idea that portugal practised non racist colonialism and developed a sort of multicultural nationalism, because of its history as a nationality developed from multiple groups like visigoths, romans and moors the portugese were inherently less racist and their colonial projects were also inherently less racist. Iberotropicalism is the same idea but Spain.
my favorite part about this guy right now is that you can read all his tweets as if he’s in character as Dr. Strangelove and it still works.
This idea that fascism somehow has something to do with socialist or communist ideas is so prevalent, but where does it come from? Yes, both systems are not liberalism or neoliberalism. But one embraces and supports free private enterprise, and the other, well, doesn’t.
i even see this on the left! Why???!?
Fascism is a response to Communism. Fascism was made after WWI, after the Soviet Revolution. Fascism was invented to stop Communism. The premise of Fascism is the inversion of Communism. In response to whatever Communists want to do, Fascists say they want to do the opposite.
Fascists did look at Communist concepts and changed them to be the opposite. For example, Mussolini believed that one of the main pillars of fascism is class collaboration, which is the opposite of class struggle. Marxists believe that the working class should struggle against the capitalist class, with the goal of abolishing class. Fascists believe that the working class should collaborate with the capitalist class for the purposes of Nationalism, they think that their own nation will become stronger if the working class just submits to the capitalist demands.
As someone else pointed out, “race communism” does sound a lot like “national socialism”. I think this demonstrates how Fascists distort communist concepts. Fascists want to trick workers away from being Communist. Even like the symbolism of Fascism itself feels like a distortion of communism. Fasces, a bundle of sticks being stronger than a single stick. This seems like a distortion of the concept of labor organizing.
There is a concept in fascism, nazism, white supremacy called “race consciousness”, someone who is conscious of their own race in relation to other races. I believe Mussolini had this concept as well.
Communists believe in class consciousness. Fascists believe in race consciousness. Communists believe in class war. Fascists believe in race war. Class war is real, race war is not real.
Mussolini, the founder of Fascism, used to be a good communist and head editor of the most popular Italian communist newspaper. He was expelled from the party for his pro-WWI stance, but promised that he would continue pursuing socialism no matter what.
He obviously betrayed all of his ideals in the process of becoming a fascist, but right-wingers believe that he indeed never stopped being socialist, and that fascism was just the non-Marxist pursuit of socialism outside of the normal left-wing Italian parties.
Communism and Fascism both present as ways of solving the class conflict, as well.
But while communism wants to solve it by getting rid of classes, Fascism wants to keep classes, but there would be no class conflict, because a common national consciousness would inspire the different economic and social classes to live together harmoniously and work for the nation (with the “nation” being defined largely by race/ethnicity, even pre-racial-supremacism Mussolini defined it with the Aryan-Italians). It’s corporatism, where everyone is working for overall group benefit, rather than for their own class interest.
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Liberalism used to be favored by the Bourgeoisie because they found themselves at odds with the old ruling classes - they wanted free elections (that at least they could participate in, so many had citizenship, property or tax requirements), free speech/press (at least for Liberals, Socialists could get fucked), and free markets (so they could continue to accumulate wealth and overtake the traditional elites).
Under Fascism, the Bourgeoisie is at the top and wants to consolidate their position. Protectionist trade policies, rigged elections, and censorship are used to promote and protect the most virulently pro-Bourgeoise elements of the Bourgeoisie.
yellow socialism
Socialism with piss characteristics
These days one of my favorite go to ways of describing fascism is a right wing method of anti-liberalism – that is, capital’s push toward getting rid of free market economics and suppressing the backlash through violence
think it probably comes from fascist roots being traced back to yellow socialism
Oh no. Fascism has roots deep moral confusion, trauma, revolutionary socialism, and syndicalism. Mussolini was a maximalist, Michele Bianchi was organising strikes and riots, Nicola Bombacci was the leader of the revolutionary wing of the socialist party and founded the communist party, and Alceste De Ambris is probably one of the most famous syndicalists in italian history.
Every fascist who came from the left either abandoned their principles or abandoned fascism. But i can’t think of any of the early one who were yellow
First and foremost the “fascism is socialism” crap is so widespread because it is convenient to the ruling class. It is one way in which you can justify having a safe centrist ideology that will be socially acceptable and not get you in trouble with powerful people.
It is no coincidence that there are these superficial similarities, fascism was developed as an antidote to socialism, a form of inoculation that would make the same kinda of appeals while being completely harmless to the bourgeoisie.
Like all other good pieces of propaganda it has a kernel of truth, while being fundamentally different and opposite ideologies, fascism and socialism shares some superficial differences that are easier to spot for the historically and politically illiterate than the deeper structural changes that actually matter.
Fascism and socialism are both revolutionary in rhetoric, saying that the old system must go. This puts both in opposition to the liberal-conservative mainstream. But while socialism is revolutionary in praxis, fascism is revolutionary only in aesthetics while being materially conservative.
Another superficial similarity is the appeal to the downtrodden masses, both makes promises of bread and dignity. Again, this puts both socialism and fascism at odds with the mainstream who openly detest the people. While socialism is actually about delivering on those promises, fascism is all about entrenching the class rule that leeches off the people while only delivering on those grand promises to a small in-group.
This idea that fascism somehow has something to do with socialist or communist ideas is so prevalent, but where does it come from?
Chuds think:
Mussolini was a socialist, ergo fascism is just communism. And hits like: Hitler was a communist who wanted to kill all Christians.
Libs think:
Fascists are “authoritarian”, tankies are “authoritarian”, therefore both are the same.
Open a goddamn book jfc
Fascists and communists are against liberalism and liberals can never do anything but pretend they are therefore the same.
" Freedom is merely privilege extended
Unless enjoyed by one and all"Yeah, exactly like identity-swapped communism. lol
I had a guy once tell me that socialism could still lead to imperialism because “the state could benefit its workers by invading another country to steal its wealth and give it to them.”
I asked him what he thought “workers of the world unite” meant and his response was “that’s just a slogan”
i would have followed up by asking if there was a single example of a socialist country doing anything like that
the only thing that I can imagine that even comes close are all the completely unproven myths about Soviet soldiers doing grave robbery in WW2
Guys guys I have an idea what if we call it
National Socialism
I did guys I solved fascism
The fact that Noah Smith is what centrists will consider a Serious, Respectable Intellectual shows how shallow their analytical perspective is. Attempting to explain fascism without any sort of class analysis leads you to dumbass shit like this.
On the level plain, simple mounds look like hills; and the imbecile flatness of the present bourgeoisie is to be measured by the altitude of its great intellects.
There are times that I think “This is it, Noah Smith has made the dumbest take possible. He has peaked and will never beat this” And I am immediately proven wrong by his next take.
