cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/16451158
I have not argued that fascism cannot evolve, that neofascism does not exist, or that fascism is defined by a single rigid economic model. I have argued that historical fascism had specific institutions, notably corporatism, that you repeatedly conflate with modern corporate influence.
If you believe modern states are fascist, then you need to explain how those institutions and structures transformed while preserving a fascist core. Instead, you've repeatedly responded to positions I never took rather than the critique I actually made.
As I previously said:
As of now, you have not been able to identify the structures that they share and how the differences in structures were in service of a fascist core. If you are able to, then we can have a discussion of two good faith interlocuters.
The spread of fascism is not the same as America or the world is fascist. None of the links makes that conflation and none would claim that the "US was always fascist" as you did. The only way you can do this is by claiming every country has some fascism in it already because, you claim, "it's a scale."
You deny neofascism
You failed to argue for its existence and it's dominance. You connected it to corporate influence on the state and failed to see that you made a basic error when you quoted Mussolini and how the syndicate exerted control through production goals, wage requirements, and distribution of inputs. You failed to see any connection of the current state to the liberal history.
Instead you doubled down, avoided the hard work, repeatedly argued against positions I never took, and then called me pedantic. That's evasion dressed up as argument.
Your claim that fascism only exists in you one specific form thus no fascism can exist unless you say so is fucking bonkers.
Never made this claim. I was open to being convinced that the features I saw in fascism in the mid 20th century are present or have transformed today just like imperialism. How can you possibly misread that?
fascism is a scale
A scale you failed to describe in any detail beyond "US more" and "Norway less". Even the article you finally provides a framework for your claim. Still, flattening a multidimension phenomena like fascism to a linear scale is analytically lazy but rhetorically convenient. It biases liberal institutions as the good side and fascism as the bad side. All other existing systems exists between these two poles. There are plenty of scholars who don't fall into this scalar representation such as Kurt Weyland and Juan Linz noting that the "points on this line" aren't just waystations or fascism-lite, but unique configurations with their own goals distinct from either liberalism or fascism.
Robert Paxton in The Anatomy of Fascism dismantles the linear definitions that treat fascism as a fixed ideological point or a simple endpoint on a slider. Paxton argues that fascism is a functional process that moves through distinct historical stages.
And this is what I was asking you to do with neofascism.
And now for my coup de grace. Only about 20% of Italy’s industry was actually controlled by the government.
Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state.
- Mussolini's speech to the Chamber of Deputies on May 26, 1934.
Through the IRI, the Fascist state held direct financial control over:
- 100% of the steel industry
- 80% of shipping and shipbuilding
- 75% of pig iron production
- Almost 50% of basic steel production
- Over 80% of the country's available bank credit and financial systems.
If this was only 20%, then it's the most important 20% of a industrial country.
Thanks for the laugh.
You certainly wrote with confidence. But confidence isn't evidence.
Edit: calling me disingenious after you waited 12 hours to make an edit to your coup de gras and failed to call it out is pretty rich.