What constitutes fascism today?

[Steve_j]

This is comming off the back of the thread by "EDL in peace"

Whilst not intended as a "is the EDL facist?" thread (but feel free as it is a related debate) looking at the wider changes in the packaging of fascist ideology (such as the BNP or Autonomous/Anarcho nationalists) and other movements that whilst not rooted in facism, some choose to label as facist (ie the EDL, fundamentalist movements in Islam) what do you feel constitutes fascism today?

Can we set defining paramaters to maintain consistency in analysis? Is economic positions relevent (ie pinochet)? Is it even worth defining modern movements as fascist (as opposed to just challenging them on face value)?

[MilkmanofHumanKindness]

Benito Mussolini summed up Fascism quite nicely when he stated that, "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

Historically, Fascist states used militarism, racism, nationalism, and patriotism to the benefit of corporations. These different strategies sought to divide up the working class between lines of race and nationality hurting their ability to act as one International.

The primary trait of fascist movements today, lie in exploiting the racism and nationalism inherent in much of modern society to gain power. They disguise this intrinsic racism, under the guise of "Upholding immigration law" and "Protecting the Nation".

In some ways, I would not call the BNP fascist, more racist/nationalist populist than anything else.

Of course we can look to Deleuze and Guattari's beliefs on fascism as being a philisophical rather than a political system:

Deleuze and Guattari, "A Thousand Plateaus" pg. 214-215, 1980


Doubtless, fascism invented the concept of the totalitarian State, but there is no reason to define fascism by a concept of its own devising: there are totalitarian States, of the Stalinist or military dictatorship type, that are not fascist. The concept of the totalitarian State applies only at the macrophysical level, to a rigid segmentarity and a particular mode of totalization and centralization. But fascism is inseparable from a proliferation of molecular forces in interaction, which skip from point to point, before beginning to resonate together in the National Socialist State. Rural fascism and city or neighborhood fascism, youth fascism and war veteran's fascism, fascism of the Left and fascism of the Right, fascism of the couple, family, school, and office: every fascism is defined by a micro-black hole that stands on its own and communicates with the others, before resonating in a great, generalized central black hole. There is fascism when a war machine is installed in each hole, in every niche. Even after the National Socialist State had been established, microfascisms persisted that gave it unequaled ability to act upon the "masses." Daniel Guerin is correct to say that if Hitler took power, rather then taking over the German State administration, it was because from the beginning he had at his disposal microorganizations giving him "an unequaled, irreplaceable ability to penetrate every cell of society," in other words, a molecular and supple segementarity, flows capable of suffusing every kind of cell. Conversely, if capitalism came to consider the fascist experience as catastrophic, if it preferred to ally itself with Stalinist totalitarianism, which from its point of view was much more sensible and manageable, it was because the segementarity and centralization of the latter was more classical and less fluid. What makes fascism dangerous is its molecular or micropolitical power, for it is a mass movement: a cancerous body rather than a totalitarian organism. American film has often depicted these molecular focal points; band, gang, sect, family, town, neighborhood, vehicle fascisms spare no one. Only microfascism provides an answer to the global question: Why does desire desire its own repression, how can it desire its own repression? The masses certainly do not passively submit to power; nor do they "want" to be repressed, in a kind of masochistic hysteria; nor are they tricked by an ideological lure. Desire is never separable from complex assemblages that necessarily tie into molecular levels, from microformations already shaping postures, attitudes, perceptions, expectations, semiotic systems, etc. Desire is never an undifferentiated instinctual energy, but itself results from a highly developed, engineered setup rich in interactions: a whole supple segmentarity that processes molecular energies and potentially gives desire a fascist determination. Leftist organizations will not be the last to secrete microfascisms. It's too easy to be antifascist on the molar level, and not even see the fascist inside you, the fascist you yourself sustain and nourish and cherish with molecules both personal and collective. [Emphasis added]

It can be debated as to whether Guattari and Deleuze are indeed correct, but there is some truth to their theory of how Macro-fascism develops through micro-fascistic groups.

Perhaps a clarification of Microfascism at least in my own words, would be, "Microfascism is the internal desire inside all of us to make everyone, and everything around us, to be mirror copies, like us in almost everyway."

Understanding this philosophical/psychological underpinning we can analyze now the BNP, Fundamentalist [Insert Religion] etc.

The BNP and Nick Griffin want a "All-White Britain" because then, everyone will be more like Nick Griffin and the BNP.

Fundamentalist Christians go on Mission trips in an attempt to make others think like they do.

I could be completely wrong though.

That' just my 2¢.

[blackwave]

I was thinking the other day, 'what is fascism?'. You hear the word thrown about a lot, but its difficult to tell exactly what unites the regimes labelled fascist. My conclusion, which may be naive, was that Fascism is social darwinist, anti-individualist, ultra-statism. Of course, many communist regimes could claim the latter two, but not the first, that of being against egalitarianism.

[Comrade_Stalin]

If we ahd to some up fascism today or at anytime, one line would sum it up.

“private gains and public losses”

[Nolan]

Fascism as it was for Mussolini, Hitler, the Falangists, and others is a dead movement.

Even modern neo-nazis have lost much of their fascist character, focusing entirely on race and typically not having any particular position on economics, unlike Hitler who preached and implemented corporatism, or "guild capitalism."

[GreenCommunism]

i'm not sure if we can call white segregationist democracy as fascist. after all such a system existed back then and had nothing to do with fascism. according to communist theory fascism and social-democracy are both system who are in place to slow down the communist revolution. though i find such ideas cocky, i do think fascism has this historical role of fighting communism through a strong welfare state, ultranationalism and breaching human rights to crack down on opposition.