So what is a fascist anyway?

[The_Southern_Leftist]

Fascism is, in the strictest definition, the doctrine of the PNF that ruled Italy and the Salo Republic. The doctrine is categorized by right wing populism, "class collaboration", and caesarism. There have been marxist analysis' done by figures such as Leon Trotsky who asserted that fascism was capitalism in decay. Many apply the label of fascist to National-Socialism. However, there are some forms of National-Socialism that could not be considered capitalism in decay. For example, strasserism, while remaining a racialist and populist ideology, is charecterized by a rejection of the capitalist overtones that Nazi germany developed. Strasserism argues for worker councils to lead and believed a second revolution necessary in order to distribute the means of production to the working class. This does not make strasserism good. Nor does it make any form of fascism desirable. I just find it redundant and not accurate to label fascism broadly as capitalism in decay because the various theories in fascist thought such as strasserism or National-Syndicalism do have non capitalist economic bases. However, if one was to apply fascism as capitalism in decay to Italy and the PNF then that would be wholly true. Italian or Classical Fascism is a form of sexed up capitalism made appealing to the masses through militarism, strong-man leaders, and populism.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Fascism is, in the strictest definition, the doctrine of the PNF that ruled Italy and the Salo Republic. The doctrine is categorized by right wing populism, "class collaboration", and caesarism. There have been marxist analysis' done by figures such as Leon Trotsky who asserted that fascism was capitalism in decay. Many apply the label of fascist to National-Socialism. However, there are some forms of National-Socialism that could not be considered capitalism in decay. For example, strasserism, while remaining a racialist and populist ideology, is charecterized by a rejection of the capitalist overtones that Nazi germany developed. Strasserism argues for worker councils to lead and believed a second revolution necessary in order to distribute the means of production to the working class. This does not make strasserism good. Nor does it make any form of fascism desirable. I just find it redundant and not accurate to label fascism broadly as capitalism in decay because the various theories in fascist thought such as strasserism or National-Syndicalism do have non capitalist economic bases. However, if one was to apply fascism as capitalism in decay to Italy and the PNF then that would be wholly true. Italian or Classical Fascism is a form of sexed up capitalism made appealing to the masses through militarism, strong-man leaders, and populism.

First of all, Trotsky saw fascism as more than simply fascism in decay. He saw it as a mass terrorist movement of the ruined petite bourgeoisie. As for various "third position" ideas like "national syndicalism", "national socialism", "Strasserism", "synarquism", whatever, all of them are capitalist because they mean the preservation of private ownership, commodity production and wage labour. Simply proclaiming oneself to be anti-capitalist does not make you so.

As for workers' councils, there are reactionary workers' councils. Councils of "Aryan" workers set to exterminate Jews would be reactionary councils, for example.

[Brandon's Impotent Rage]

Fascism, at least the old-school Post-WWI Fascism, does seem to be a rather cobbled together ideology. I sometimes wonder if, on top of a reaction to socialism, Fascism was also something of a psychological reaction to the traumas of the Great War. Parts of the conservative establishment trying to make sense of a horrific conflict that had managed to wipe out many of the last vestiges of empires and feudalism, and suddenly were found in a brave new world that they found hard to comprehend.

Fascism often seems to have this desire of returning to a mythic 'Golden Age' of the past. But when the traditional system fails, to the mind of the deprived petite-bourgeois and the conservative establishment you had to sweep away the decadent things of the present to return to the more 'pure' past.

[cyu]

Racism is just a fad - like many religions and other ideologies are fads - it will eventually wither and fade away, since we've already seen the result of attempted full-on race war in the 1940s - those that engage in it just ultimately destroy themselves and it is a fairly inefficient way to run a society.

Is authoritarianism merely a fad as well? I would say yes. While it is true that governments throughout history have had authoritarian structures, I would say the more authoritarian they are, the more they stifle themselves. The more any society worships one person, the more they doom themselves to failure - and it is the anti-authoritarian parts of those societies that drag them forward, despite their appeals to authority.