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Fascism is on the rise (lemmygrad.ml)

submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I am also trending toward this thesis, although I wouldn't underestimate the chauvinism of the Germans and French either and I suspect Italy to some extent also, but I'm less informed on the situation there.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Yes but it manifests differently in the bigger EU countries you mentioned due to the fact that they are more advanced along the path of neoliberalism and thus their populations have less privileges to lose. They have also more diverse populations than the Nordics which helps to create a somewhat more cosmopolitan attitude as opposed to the petty parochialism and obsession with cultural and racial purity you see in more ethnically and culturally homogenous countries.

In the bigger European countries the problem comes more from their institutions and political elites complete capture by the Atlanticists and the EU bureaucracy which serve as a tool for Washington to exercise control over Europe. Which is why i don't expect similar results in the next elections in Germany or France, not yet at least. It would be unwise to break the liberal facade and wake people up too much by allowing say an AfD like party or a LePen to take power.

These sorts of political forces are more useful as a permanent boogieman to keep the liberal voters in line, kind of like how the threat of another Trump like figure getting elected keeps Americans voting Democrat.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I can see that. I'm unsure where New Zealand and Australia fit within this continuum of Nordic <———> bigger European countries, but you've made me think—

NZ and Aus had decent welfare states like the bigger European countries.
That welfare provision has been eroded.
What was provided, and what little is still provided, is due to the fruits of imperialism/settler colonialism.
That's the main problem with progressive liberals: they want to bolster or reintroduce greater social welfare provision at the expense of hyper-exploited 'out of view' communities.
The progressive liberals are little shits because they're essentially saying they're willing to sacrifice the global south/colonised population to prop up their welfare states.

The problem is, it's hard to argue to the 'labour aristocrats' in these countries by saying, 'Your privilege comes from said exploitation'; because they look around and say, 'What privilege? It's all gone!'
These labour aristos might often be willing to scapegoat immigrants, etc, to keep hold of their privilege, but first they have to fight the bourgeoisie to reintroduce many of those privileges.
And half the workers are willing to fight alongside immigrants for those privileges, many of whom won't be keen on doing it if it means asking the government to spend more on bombs that will land wherever they emigrated from.
There appears to be a contradiction at the left-edge of neoliberalism that splits the 'fascist vote'.

Not so in the Nordic countries. They still have strong welfare provision. They don't have to fight their bourgeoisie for a welfare state (maybe they have to fight to keep it; but the classic combination of humans and inertia mean this is easier than fighting to change the status quo, as elsewhere in the 'international community'.
Which means there may be a more natural alliance between the workers and rulers of the Nordics.
The Nordics managed to export their contradictions and keep them out the country.
Unlike the more strongly neoliberal states, which exported their contradictions up to the 1960s, then imported a different set from the 70s onwards.

What about the US? I'm unsure where this fits as it already seems to be fascist, so… But at the same time, contradiction-wise:

The US is kind of a mixture of the two, Nordic and e.g. New Zealand/France.
On the one hand, there's a welfare state or high enough incomes for half the US population to live at least as well as in the Nordic countries.
On the other hand, there's nothing for the other half.
So the US is roughly half hard core worker-bourgeois allies and half fighting for even less than what is available in NZ, Australia, and bigger European Countries.

This is all very loose so feel free to point out all the holes.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I think that is a more or less accurate summary. You've seized on one very important point which i would like to further emphasize, namely that it is easier in countries with a larger (non-European) immigrant population to build a working class bulwark against fascism and to radicalize workers toward realizing the necessity to overthrow capitalism altogether rather than just turn the dial back to more social democracy (which is not possible anyway due to the declining rates of profit, the contraction of empire, etc.). This is why fascists perceive immigrants, particularly those who do not "fit in" and will not or cannot be assimilated into the national identity and culture as especially threatening (as exemplified by even the most "liberal" Europeans' unhinged, borderline genocidal aversion to the Roma people).

In the case of the US there is a very interesting contradiction present because on the one hand it is the imperial capital and has settler colonial mentality deeply imprinted on its national identity, but at the same time there are possibly more groups that are rife for radicalization there than in any other part of the imperial core. From indigenous groups to the black and latin american minorities, the US is in the most real sense of the term a prisonhouse of nations. In addition to that the US has one of the least bribed and most exploited working classes compared to the rest of the imperial core. I see a lot of potential for building a revolutionary coalition. The two main obstacles to overcome are the pernicious liberal-individualist indoctrination and the settler national mythology, and these are both primarily ideological and not material factors.

New Zealand and Australia share some characteristics of the US as they are also settler colonies with all the internal contradictions that creates, but in other ways they are also very different and resemble more a country like France where there is an ongoing neoliberal slide but one that has not yet been fully completed.