What Is Fascism?

May 3, 2004 10:50 PM

Can Compassionate Fascism Be Far Behind? It's only a short book review but Terry Eagleton - who could be defined as a playful and disobedient neo-Marxist literary theorist - manages to give us, propelled by Robert Paxton's universally praised The Anatomy of Fascism, a pithy and workable definition of fascism and its opposition to conservatism, as well as some depressing, very provocative misgivings about the future of capitalism and the increasing appeal of authoritarianism. Just what is, in the 21st century, the danger and chance of revisionist fascism, in the style of a dubious, unctuous political I Can't Believe It's Not Democracy margarine? [Via .]
posted by MiguelCardoso (17 comments total)

Er, make that [Via Arts & Letters Daily.]
posted by MiguelCardoso at 10:54 PM on May 3, 2004

Fascists strut, while conservatives lounge.
Classic.

And in answer to the question posed, I am of the opinion that a continued global swing towards some sort of revised-for-the-21st-century fascism is inevitable - just as the ancient Roman republic turned to military dictatorship in times of war.
posted by nomis at 11:42 PM on May 3, 2004

just as the ancient Roman republic turned to military dictatorship in times of war.

The Scourge of Militarism
posted by homunculus at 12:24 AM on May 4, 2004

Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
- Benito Mussolini

It's useful to separate fascism from mohawked 17 year-olds calling their school principle 'fascist!' and also to separate corporatism from knee-jerk anticapitalist screeds.

Once that's done -- mostly to eliminate justified if annoying sneers from the usual gang of apologists -- much shit disguised as gold can be mined from an examination of the present-day implications of ol' Benito's words, there.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 2:13 AM on May 4, 2004

Yes, the comparisons of Bush to Hitler are unfair... he is so-o-o-o Mussolini.
*goes back under bridge to wait for billy goats*
posted by wendell at 8:30 AM on May 4, 2004

Oh, shut the fuck up wendell. Nobody said anything about Bush.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 8:52 AM on May 4, 2004

"Who's that walking across my bridge?" - wendell

"Just me, little billy goats gruff." :-)

What stavros said. Time to bust up the multinationalist corporate party. Time for more anti-trust. Time to unionize. Time to remove citizen rights from corporate entities.
posted by nofundy at 8:55 AM on May 4, 2004

I didn't want a chicken. I want a billy goat.
posted by wendell at 8:56 AM on May 4, 2004

Well, c'mon, Capitalism (big) is the enemy within the walls of Democracy: it's essentially 'neo-feudalism', quite the converse of equality and representation.

China is the model Western leaders wish they had: all the power all the time, with a well stocked trough.
posted by Blue Stone at 9:02 AM on May 4, 2004

Eagleton takes a quite different view of the book from that in this Sunday's NYT Book Review.
posted by MattD at 9:03 AM on May 4, 2004

Oh, shut the fuck up wendell

Aha! O'Reilly does have a MeFi account!
posted by nofundy at 9:06 AM on May 4, 2004

China is the model Western leaders wish they had: all the power all the time, with a well stocked trough.

Beijing today is more fascist than communist.
posted by homunculus at 9:12 AM on May 4, 2004

Amaury De Riencourt-
"Caesarism can come to America constitutionally without having to break down any existing institution."


"But in real terms the military establishment is enormous, much more than most people know To the million on active duty must be added another 2 million in the reserves, and a million civilians in the defense department. This 5-million-figure total is merely the base for a much larger number of people in war industries, space exploration, war think tanks and veterans' assistance. Behind this total group of more than 12 million-and profiting from intercourse with them-stands an elaborate network of war industry associations, veterans' organizations, special associations for each branch of the armed services, and general organizations such as the American Security Council and the Committee on the Present Danger. But there is something else that George Washington could never have dreamed of when he warned against an overgrown military establishment and that Dwight D. Eisenhower never mentioned in his warning against the military-industrial complex: namely, a transnational military complex. This American-led complex has five military components beyond the narrowly defined U.S. military-industrial complex itself:
1. The dozen or so countries formally allied with the United States through NATO
2. Other industrialized countries not formerly part of NATO, such as Spain, Israel, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand
3. A large portion of the Third World countries
4. Intelligence and police forces throughout the "Free World"
5. Irregular forces composed of primitive tribesmen, often operating behind the lines of the Second World countries.
All these forces are backed up by a support infrastructure which includes training schools, research institutes, foreign aid, and complex systems of communication and logistics."

excerpts from: 'Friendly Fascism'
posted by clavdivs at 9:24 AM on May 4, 2004

Fascism on MeFi, for further discussion.
posted by languagehat at 10:03 AM on May 4, 2004

Wow. Do the following seem uncannily familiar in the USA of today?

"1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism

This is a difficult question and I shall use Cambodia as an example. The french came in to help protect Cambodia from the Thais and Vietnamese. The Khmers did not even have a modern translation of the temple inscriptions at Angkor ('Ang-ko wah' i believe is how to say this, yes LH?) When the historians made it known to the Khmers that thier civilzation had once control much of S.E. Asia (Laos, thailand, parts of vietnam) it instilled in them a sence of national pride and to some extent unity. Is this a fascist trait? or merely culutural scholarship to help people regain a sense of their own history. moreover, Did the Pol Pot era, which used angkor as a symbol of nationalism and pride, look more like a facist regime or Maoist? even when he and this denziens proclaimed the end of history, establishing the "Year Zero"?
posted by clavdivs at 10:31 AM on May 4, 2004

Did the Pol Pot era, which used angkor as a symbol of nationalism and pride, look more like a facist regime or Maoist? even when he and this denziens proclaimed the end of history, establishing the "Year Zero"?

Similarly, the Maoist revolutionary goal of eliminating the "Four Olds" meaning: old thought, culture habits, and customs, toward some utopian (distopian) ideal led to massacres unparalled in history and despite the countless dead, has endured.
posted by hama7 at 5:40 PM on May 4, 2004

Oh, shut the fuck up wendell. Nobody said anything about Bush.

I apologize for that. It was meant in a 'ya bastard, ya' smack-in-the-shoulder kind of way, not a angry crank kind of way.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:21 PM on May 4, 2004