Big fascism vs. Petty fascism?

[jake williams]

How much can one meaningfully distinguish a "big fascism" of big business, a powerful interventionist state, company unions, and so on from a "petty fascism" of small business, populist outrage, expansion of credit to small businesses and consumers (with a heavy focus on implicit or explicit anti-semitism), and so on?

It might well be simply a distinction of practice (the former) and rhetoric (the latter), but if there's a viable distinction in fact or practice, it's probably pretty relevant vis à vis the Tea Party.

I'd be pretty interested to read anything on this particular topic, though it'd be a lot more interesting to see something recent (so probably no Trotsky, unless he actually had something interesting to say on the topic).

[Broletariat]

Neither of those are fascism. At all.

[jake williams]

Neither of those are fascism. At all.
What do you characterize as fascism?

I'm not suggesting that those characteristics define ideologies, but economic contradictions within or between different fascist ideologies.

[Commissar Rykov]

Neither of those are fascism. At all.
Exactly, fascism seems to be a concept completely and utterly unknown to people anymore which is bad because it is still very much alive. Fascism has specific ideals and goals it isn't some amorphous blob that is whatever the Left hates.

[Commissar Rykov]

What do you characterize as fascism?
Fascism is an organic corporatist state that has the economy subjugated by the power of the State. The State is everything as Mussolini stated many times everything within the State nothing without. Fascism is anti-capitalist in the nature that it rejects open class warfare and seeks class cooperation but the majority of supporters of the Fascist movements is usually small business owners and the "Middle Class'' while using Working Class members as Squadristi, Stormtroopers, etc.

[Apoi_Viitor]

It might well be simply a distinction of practice (the former) and rhetoric (the latter), but if there's a viable distinction in fact or practice, it's probably pretty relevant vis à vis the Tea Party.

The rhetoric of the tea party has never struck me as being fascist. Fascism seeks the complete destruction of bourgeios democracy and does so through the utilization of psuedo-revolutionary discourse. The tea party movement has neither characteristics, and is more or less just a re-labeling of the republican party.

Anyways, I don't there's a meaningful distinction between bourgeios and petty-bourgeios fascism. Trotsky's analysis was that Fascist movements in speech promised the petty-bourgeios control of the state and utilized the rhetoric of what you called "petty fascism", but once it took power, it merely proved itself to be a tool of the bourgeios (and implemented all the things you referred to as "big fascism").

[Tommy4ever]

Why do people feel the need to label everything they don't like and which is right wing as fascist?

Why can't you just use different words to describe different things. In fact, calling everything fascist greatly devalues any argument you make - even if it is a good argument - because it makes you come across as a fool groping for an insult.

It all makes fascism seem something unreal and fantastical and modern day right wing threats (namely right wing populism) less dangerous.

I know its an easy thing to do, but we've got to get passed this. The big scary fascist monster isn't a threat to the world around us - right wing populism and neo-liberalism are.

[Susurrus]

"The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people." "Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle. Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognises the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonised in the unity of the State."

Benito Mussolini

[Commissar Rykov]

Why do people feel the need to label everything they don't like and which is right wing as fascist?

Why can't you just use different words to describe different things. In fact, calling everything fascist greatly devalues any argument you make - even if it is a good argument - because it makes you come across as a fool groping for an insult.

It all makes fascism seem something unreal and fantastical and modern day right wing threats (namely right wing populism) less dangerous.

I know its an easy thing to do, but we've got to get passed this. The big scary fascist monster isn't a threat to the world around us - right wing populism and neo-liberalism are.
I disagree. Fascism is still a very living threat it is just one that goes unnoticed by many due to being ignorant of what it entails. Is it the biggest threat? No but it is still very much alive and looking for power.

[CAleftist]

Fascism was what developed in response to the end of the First World War, the socialist revolution of 1917-1921, and the conditions in Europe at that particular time. It was the particular form the existing capitalism took when it mixed with reactionary populist anger in Europe.

Fascism is a label that is too often a distraction and fear that makes us miss the very real evil in front of us-capitalism in its modern imperialist form.

[Commissar Rykov]

Fascism was what developed in response to the end of the First World War, the socialist revolution of 1917-1921, and the conditions in Europe at that particular time. It was the particular form the existing capitalism took when it mixed with reactionary populist anger in Europe.

Fascism is a label that is too often a distraction and fear that makes us miss the very real evil in front of us-capitalism in its modern imperialist form.
Fascism arose because of WWI not after. It is far more complex then just a simple Bourgeois reaction to material conditions as Mussolini himself wasn't bourgeois in fact his parents were Leftist Revolutionaries and he himself was a member of the Italian Socialist Party until he split with them on a disagreement about entering the First World War thus leading to the creation of the first fascist organizations which were largely made up of socialists like Mussolini who didn't agree with the party line.

[CAleftist]

Fascism arose because of WWI not after. It is far more complex then just a simple Bourgeois reaction to material conditions as Mussolini himself wasn't bourgeois in fact his parents were Leftist Revolutionaries and he himself was a member of the Italian Socialist Party until he split with them on a disagreement about entering the First World War thus leading to the creation of the first fascist organizations which were largely made up of socialists like Mussolini who didn't agree with the party line.

Yes it is complex, and yes there were many socialists involved in the fascist parties. However, the fascist parties became largely directed by petty-bourgeois interests and bourgeois interests, who integrated the class relationships of capitalism into the fascist economies.

Fascism can be described as a historical phenomenon of many different conditions, events, and interests converging, a particular malignant system that arose in a time of great unrest and turmoil in Europe between different class interests.

[jake williams]

I should make clear that I'm not suggesting any particular modern organizations are fascistic organizations, and did I not think there was particular present relevance to the questions I asked, this thread might better be placed in History. Even if one restricts the definition of "fascism" to refer to a very few states' policies during the interwar period, not only did they include all of the attributes I mentioned - right-wing class collaborationist "unions", state interventionism, and socialization of credit - but I think it's reasonable to talk about contradictions between the petty bourgeoisie and the bourgeoisie in ideology and in state policy, in these few cases.

That said, these policies and ideological perspectives are not at all unique to fascist movements, and I think the Tea Party would probably be a good example. I think, though, that an analysis of these contradictions within fascism is relevant to a discussion of other reactionary and anti-working class political movements.


I disagree. Fascism is still a very living threat it is just one that goes unnoticed by many due to being ignorant of what it entails. Is it the biggest threat? No but it is still very much alive and looking for power.
What movements are you qualifying as significant fascist movements, and what are their economic programs, implicit or explicit?


The rhetoric of the tea party has never struck me as being fascist. Fascism seeks the complete destruction of bourgeios democracy and does so through the utilization of psuedo-revolutionary discourse. The tea party movement has neither characteristics, and is more or less just a re-labeling of the republican party.
Actually the Tea Party shares both of those characteristics, though their expression is different than that of classical fascist movements. American right libertarians are openly anti-democratic, with innumerable examples. The rhetoric is typically that the US is or ought be a "republic" - a nation of a particular set of laws protecting private property and certain types of individual liberty - and that (bourgeois) democracy is an enemy. Their pseudo-revolutionary discourse about American politics is superficially "conservative", asserting that all they're calling for is a retrenchment of the American revolution, but it makes a lot of similar appeals.

[Commissar Rykov]

What movements are you qualifying as significant fascist movements, and what are their economic programs, implicit or explicit?
Fascism only applies to one movement and that is the Italian one. It has become a catch all phrase for a lot of movements though even movements that didn't consider themselves Fascist like the Nazis because they rejected the economic and some of the social ideals of the Italian Fascists. Fascism is a corporatist state though it lacked much power due to the inclusion of futurists and monarchists into the Italian Fascist Movement a few years before the March on Rome.

http://www.anesi.com/Fascism-TheUltimateDefinition.htm
That link has a very nice and simple overview of fascist ideology and sources a lot of scholars who spent their times studying Mussolini and his movement.

[jake williams]

Fascism only applies to one movement and that is the Italian one. It has become a catch all phrase for a lot of movements though even movements that didn't consider themselves Fascist like the Nazis because they rejected the economic and some of the social ideals of the Italian Fascists. Fascism is a corporatist state though it lacked much power due to the inclusion of futurists and monarchists into the Italian Fascist Movement a few years before the March on Rome.

http://www.anesi.com/Fascism-TheUltimateDefinition.htm
That link has a very nice and simple overview of fascist ideology and sources a lot of scholars who spent their times studying Mussolini and his movement.
So you're saying the fascist threat we should be really concerned about is Italy threatening to take over the world? What are you talking about?

[Commissar Rykov]

So you're saying the fascist threat we should be really concerned about is Italy threatening to take over the world? What are you talking about?
Are you discussing Fascist or Neo-Fascist movements? There is no real movement in the Neo-Fash that are technically fascist they are mostly Strasserist/Neo-Nazi.

Most Italian Fascist inspired organizations are moving away from parties and are attempting to establish themselves as Think Tanks like the Casa Pound organization. This is dangerous as they are taking a mainstream attempt to enter academia and other areas to establish themselves as legitimate. Which is unlike Neo-Nazis and other boneheads who go around bashing skulls in while having no chance of entering mainstream politics as a serious contender.