The US is currently a fascist dictatorship. Both parties in the US function as a single unit uniparty. Don't forget they repealed abortion rights under a democrat. The US legislator (Congress) is corrupted and captured and their supreme court is not different from Iran with religious fundamentalists that have lifetime appointments with power to review any case law. It literally doesn't matter. The Kristallnacht is coming and no voting will stop it, just like voting never stopped the German Nazi's. Is idea here to just have the Democrats win every election forever?
Hey, Iran’s had and kept abortion and trans rights for half a century, they never legalized money in politics. The US is so bad comparing it to something other than itself or the Nazis minimizes it.
While the GOP is definitely become fascist, the US and the democrats is a neoliberal plutocracy, it's different from fascism (= a belief in inequality based on an mythological and essentialized identity). Say what you want about capitalism but they don't give a shit about your identity as long as they can sell you things or exploit you. Fascists don't like capitalism because it's too egalitarian - they want inequality and classes based on identity not money.
If you're an accelerationist you should also consider what the better tactical choice is to bring about a socialist revolution. Fascism is very stable and difficult to overthrow without the support of the military, and the technology to surveil and control people is much more advanced than in e.g. Nazi Germany. And you didn't have much of a resistance there either.
their supreme court is not different from Iran
I love the comparison to Iran's guardian council. To be fair their model of democracy / theocracy is build around resisting regime change / coup attempts from imperialist influences.
I suggest you literally read anything. You haven't even read easy stuff like Blackshirts and Reds if you really believe that fascists don't like capitalism.
Fascism is capitalism's last line of defense against the threat of revolution. While fascist do manage the economy somewhat differently than liberals they absolutely AREN'T against capitalism.
"They took our jobs" isn't opposition to capitalism it is knee jerk reactionary sentiment. No one who says that actually subscribes to anti capitalist ideology.
You need to go back and read Blackshirts and Reds and learn about how fascism ultimately serves the interests of capital. You clearly lack the knowledge and ideological framework to understand this issue.
That's not opposing capitalism, that's opposing globalization. Also that is the outcry fascists sometimes capitalize from, not a policy. Look at how the fascists went from parroting that right wing populist line, to empowering corporations. Mottos are not ideologies, corporatism is WAY more vital to fascism than complaining about immigrants taking jobs
This is an incoherent analysis based entirely on liberal ideology, particularly an acceptance of the libertarian notion that 'neoliberal capitalism' is a separable entity from 'capitalism as described by Marx, imperialism as described by Lenin, super-imperialism described by Hudson'. This is not the case and does not bear itself out historically, as described in great detail by Parenti in multiple well-cited books.
To the extent that neoliberal capitalism is a different entity it is a different entity BECAUSE it normalized and made permanent the corporatization and privatization of German fascism. Cultural flattening and globalization ARE NOT historically unique to capitalism nor to the neoliberal project. If anything, they precedes them by at least 100 years or more, and capitalism COMES OUT of the cultural flattening of nationalism, and is not it's root cause. And because of that, capitalism is inextricably tied to the maintenance and perpetuation of the national project.
Hand-in-hand with the capitalist's at-home national project is to insistence that others are too culturally different to ever find solidarity with and that we must spend all of our time and energy preserving an celebrating those cultural differences. Anthropologists and sociologists should be studying supply chains and monetary theory, not if the town of Anstead spins right three times when they salt their pork. But now, the only proper cosmopolitan is the bourgeoisie, while workers are told that they must represent their national interests.
Fuck you and your liberal aesthetic argument. You cannot convince the liberal bourgeoisie to be socialists or actually approach socialism or communism, because as soon as you get close they will immediately use fascism and fascists to suppress you. One is the tool of the other. You especially cannot do it if you continue to vote for them even when they are the most anti-labor and genocidal president in your lifetime.
Anthropologists and sociologists should be studying supply chains and monetary theory, not if the town of Anstead spins right three times when they salt their pork. But now, the only proper cosmopolitan is the bourgeoisie, while workers are told that they must represent their national interests.
Could you give me some literature on this? It is a fascinating point.
There is some level of literature on the concept of 'cosmopolitanism' and 'ethics of race', but it's basically an under-developed concept in philosophy. My personal opinion of anthropologists and sociologists is my own, developed by a wide array of readings and personal experiences, and I literally do not have the time to actually write a book or article on it, even though that might be something I do in the future.
Both you and the person you are quoting misunderstand what fascism is and does.
Just because fascists are less free marketeers than neoliberals don't make them anti-capitalists.
You CANOT pit fascists and neoliberals against each others, they systematically work and develop together. Just look at how much liberal countries tend to be passive or even openly protective toward fascists. Have y'all already forgotten the openly swastika wearing neo nazi gang that did a demonstration in some big city in the US just last year and how both the police and the state did literally nothing about it? Just look at how historical examples of fascism came to power and at who supported them, spoiler, it's all capitalists who helped them coup their government and willingly collaborated with them.
Yes, fascists do sometime say that they are not capitalists and critic capitalism, but if you look at their acts instead of their words you quickly understand that it's all rhetoric to appeal to the public and that they are in fact pro capitalist.
And yes, those "concetration of economic power" absolutely do care about ideology, more specifically, they want a pro capitalist ideology to dominate and they want it to be as favorable to their rate of profit as possible. Again, look who supported Hitler and Mussolini since even before they came to power, look at who supported and helped to power Augusto Pinochet.
And no, aesthetic is far from enough to make any significant portion of the bourgeoisie switch from supporting fascism to opposing fascism.
It is not a 3 way tug war, fascists and neoliberals are very much in the same camp.
So the critique of Jon Steward of this farce is absolutely important but just as important is the prevention of the worst case outcome. Even if you believe that fascism is the inevitable outcome sooner or later, personally I believe later is better because it allows more groups of people time to prepare.
Electing Biden won't delay fascism. This dude has been rounding up migrants in literal concentration camps, has passively let the right repeal a bunch of minority rights even though he had more than enough power to stop it and has given his unconditional support to a literal apartheid state's genocide against their territory's native population. At this point, continuing to tell yourself that you are doing anything against the far right by voting for Biden is just self gaslighting.
Also, did y'all forget that Trump has been president before? We already have a good reference for what a Trump presidency would be like. Sure, he'll continue to make things worse for everyone but the millionaires and above but implement outright fascism? I doubt it.
He will certainly lay the ground for fascists to take over in the future, but that's only if push come to shove for them.
One thing you need to understand about fascism is that it is the capitalist's last defence against the threat of revolution. Fascists don't fully take over in time of mild crisis let alone in time of relative political stability like the US right now, they take over to crush popular revolutionary working class movements that all less extreme measures failed to stop. The US as of now isn't close to have such a revolutionary movement any time soon therefore the American bourgeois state has no reason to let the fascists take over so soon. In 1 or 2 decades from now this will most likely be different but for now I wouldn't bet on it.
I’ll read and respond to the rest later, but here’s a great article explaining why liberalism and fascism aren’t as different as they’d like you to believe: https://redsails.org/really-existing-fascism/
Please read actual historians and / or theory like the already mentioned Blackshirts and reds. Fascism is definitionally capitalism in decay and the capitalist's violent protection of the remnants against any emerging threats. To suggest that fascists are not capitalists is completely ludicrous.
The entire point of fascism is class collaboration/subordination for the benefit of the capital owners, to suppress labor and stabilize falling profit rates
It's precisely the reason Hitler was backed to the hilt by German industrialists
Brain-dead liberals have always confused certain protectionist measures used by fascist regimes as "anti-capitalist" because many of them have been completely blinkered by the exploded neoclassical conception of capital accumulation, while they ignore the unprecedented privatization campaigns of every fascist regime
Liberals are forced to believe in a fantasy version of capitalism and then stare in disbelief when the fascists turn out to be more efficient capitalists than they ever were
Fascism is an ideology that is practically defined by a constant search for an Other, an outgroup, an underclass it can use as scapegoat. It is literally in a perpetual state of eating its own tail
Genuinely one of the most baffling things I've seen a Lemmyite post here
Fascists absolutely want classes based on money. Fascism was devised as the union of labor and capital. Mussolini and the Syndicalists wanted to use national identity to "resolve" class contradictions, not make classes into national identities.
Even allowing the distinction, the Democrats fuel fascism by funding far right Republican candidates and fear-mongering over immigrants, China, etc. Capitalists will typically side with fascism to defeat socialism because it allows (most of) them to maintain their status. And fear-mongering about foreigners gives them a scapegoat and distracts from domestic problems, while justifying the corrupt military-industrial complex which allows transferring public funds into private hands. The Democrats are 100% fascist enablers.
The US is currently a fascist dictatorship. Both parties in the US function as a single unit uniparty. Don't forget they repealed abortion rights under a democrat. The US legislator (Congress) is corrupted and captured and their supreme court is not different from Iran with religious fundamentalists that have lifetime appointments with power to review any case law. It literally doesn't matter. The Kristallnacht is coming and no voting will stop it, just like voting never stopped the German Nazi's. Is idea here to just have the Democrats win every election forever?
Hey, Iran’s had and kept abortion and trans rights for half a century, they never legalized money in politics. The US is so bad comparing it to something other than itself or the Nazis minimizes it.
While the GOP is definitely become fascist, the US and the democrats is a neoliberal plutocracy, it's different from fascism (= a belief in inequality based on an mythological and essentialized identity). Say what you want about capitalism but they don't give a shit about your identity as long as they can sell you things or exploit you. Fascists don't like capitalism because it's too egalitarian - they want inequality and classes based on identity not money.
If you're an accelerationist you should also consider what the better tactical choice is to bring about a socialist revolution. Fascism is very stable and difficult to overthrow without the support of the military, and the technology to surveil and control people is much more advanced than in e.g. Nazi Germany. And you didn't have much of a resistance there either.
I love the comparison to Iran's guardian council. To be fair their model of democracy / theocracy is build around resisting regime change / coup attempts from imperialist influences.
ahahahahahahhahahah
aaaaahhahahahahahahahahahahzahahahahahaahahah
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahhaahah moron
I suggest you read a book on fascism like this one (excerpts)
I suggest you literally read anything. You haven't even read easy stuff like Blackshirts and Reds if you really believe that fascists don't like capitalism.
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Protecting yourself from competition through monopolization of force is literally what capitalism is all about.
Fascism is capitalism's last line of defense against the threat of revolution. While fascist do manage the economy somewhat differently than liberals they absolutely AREN'T against capitalism.
"They took our jobs" isn't opposition to capitalism it is knee jerk reactionary sentiment. No one who says that actually subscribes to anti capitalist ideology.
You need to go back and read Blackshirts and Reds and learn about how fascism ultimately serves the interests of capital. You clearly lack the knowledge and ideological framework to understand this issue.
That's not opposing capitalism, that's opposing globalization. Also that is the outcry fascists sometimes capitalize from, not a policy. Look at how the fascists went from parroting that right wing populist line, to empowering corporations. Mottos are not ideologies, corporatism is WAY more vital to fascism than complaining about immigrants taking jobs
Removed by mod
This is an incoherent analysis based entirely on liberal ideology, particularly an acceptance of the libertarian notion that 'neoliberal capitalism' is a separable entity from 'capitalism as described by Marx, imperialism as described by Lenin, super-imperialism described by Hudson'. This is not the case and does not bear itself out historically, as described in great detail by Parenti in multiple well-cited books.
To the extent that neoliberal capitalism is a different entity it is a different entity BECAUSE it normalized and made permanent the corporatization and privatization of German fascism. Cultural flattening and globalization ARE NOT historically unique to capitalism nor to the neoliberal project. If anything, they precedes them by at least 100 years or more, and capitalism COMES OUT of the cultural flattening of nationalism, and is not it's root cause. And because of that, capitalism is inextricably tied to the maintenance and perpetuation of the national project.
Hand-in-hand with the capitalist's at-home national project is to insistence that others are too culturally different to ever find solidarity with and that we must spend all of our time and energy preserving an celebrating those cultural differences. Anthropologists and sociologists should be studying supply chains and monetary theory, not if the town of Anstead spins right three times when they salt their pork. But now, the only proper cosmopolitan is the bourgeoisie, while workers are told that they must represent their national interests.
Fuck you and your liberal aesthetic argument. You cannot convince the liberal bourgeoisie to be socialists or actually approach socialism or communism, because as soon as you get close they will immediately use fascism and fascists to suppress you. One is the tool of the other. You especially cannot do it if you continue to vote for them even when they are the most anti-labor and genocidal president in your lifetime.
They know where their interests lie. Do you?
Could you give me some literature on this? It is a fascinating point.
There is some level of literature on the concept of 'cosmopolitanism' and 'ethics of race', but it's basically an under-developed concept in philosophy. My personal opinion of anthropologists and sociologists is my own, developed by a wide array of readings and personal experiences, and I literally do not have the time to actually write a book or article on it, even though that might be something I do in the future.
Well here's hoping you do have that time eventually. It seems like a useful string to pull on
Both you and the person you are quoting misunderstand what fascism is and does.
Just because fascists are less free marketeers than neoliberals don't make them anti-capitalists.
You CANOT pit fascists and neoliberals against each others, they systematically work and develop together. Just look at how much liberal countries tend to be passive or even openly protective toward fascists. Have y'all already forgotten the openly swastika wearing neo nazi gang that did a demonstration in some big city in the US just last year and how both the police and the state did literally nothing about it? Just look at how historical examples of fascism came to power and at who supported them, spoiler, it's all capitalists who helped them coup their government and willingly collaborated with them.
Yes, fascists do sometime say that they are not capitalists and critic capitalism, but if you look at their acts instead of their words you quickly understand that it's all rhetoric to appeal to the public and that they are in fact pro capitalist.
And yes, those "concetration of economic power" absolutely do care about ideology, more specifically, they want a pro capitalist ideology to dominate and they want it to be as favorable to their rate of profit as possible. Again, look who supported Hitler and Mussolini since even before they came to power, look at who supported and helped to power Augusto Pinochet.
And no, aesthetic is far from enough to make any significant portion of the bourgeoisie switch from supporting fascism to opposing fascism.
It is not a 3 way tug war, fascists and neoliberals are very much in the same camp.
Electing Biden won't delay fascism. This dude has been rounding up migrants in literal concentration camps, has passively let the right repeal a bunch of minority rights even though he had more than enough power to stop it and has given his unconditional support to a literal apartheid state's genocide against their territory's native population. At this point, continuing to tell yourself that you are doing anything against the far right by voting for Biden is just self gaslighting.
Also, did y'all forget that Trump has been president before? We already have a good reference for what a Trump presidency would be like. Sure, he'll continue to make things worse for everyone but the millionaires and above but implement outright fascism? I doubt it.
He will certainly lay the ground for fascists to take over in the future, but that's only if push come to shove for them.
One thing you need to understand about fascism is that it is the capitalist's last defence against the threat of revolution. Fascists don't fully take over in time of mild crisis let alone in time of relative political stability like the US right now, they take over to crush popular revolutionary working class movements that all less extreme measures failed to stop. The US as of now isn't close to have such a revolutionary movement any time soon therefore the American bourgeois state has no reason to let the fascists take over so soon. In 1 or 2 decades from now this will most likely be different but for now I wouldn't bet on it.
Their comment got removed before I could see it. What....what did I miss? Who did they quote?
They quoted an other lemmy user that was as confused as them about fascism
I’ll read and respond to the rest later, but here’s a great article explaining why liberalism and fascism aren’t as different as they’d like you to believe: https://redsails.org/really-existing-fascism/
Please read actual historians and / or theory like the already mentioned Blackshirts and reds. Fascism is definitionally capitalism in decay and the capitalist's violent protection of the remnants against any emerging threats. To suggest that fascists are not capitalists is completely ludicrous.
The entire point of fascism is class collaboration/subordination for the benefit of the capital owners, to suppress labor and stabilize falling profit rates
It's precisely the reason Hitler was backed to the hilt by German industrialists
Brain-dead liberals have always confused certain protectionist measures used by fascist regimes as "anti-capitalist" because many of them have been completely blinkered by the exploded neoclassical conception of capital accumulation, while they ignore the unprecedented privatization campaigns of every fascist regime
Liberals are forced to believe in a fantasy version of capitalism and then stare in disbelief when the fascists turn out to be more efficient capitalists than they ever were
Fascism is capitalism in decay. Your definition is silly and incomplete.
Fascism is an ideology that is practically defined by a constant search for an Other, an outgroup, an underclass it can use as scapegoat. It is literally in a perpetual state of eating its own tail
Genuinely one of the most baffling things I've seen a Lemmyite post here
Fascists absolutely want classes based on money. Fascism was devised as the union of labor and capital. Mussolini and the Syndicalists wanted to use national identity to "resolve" class contradictions, not make classes into national identities.
Even allowing the distinction, the Democrats fuel fascism by funding far right Republican candidates and fear-mongering over immigrants, China, etc. Capitalists will typically side with fascism to defeat socialism because it allows (most of) them to maintain their status. And fear-mongering about foreigners gives them a scapegoat and distracts from domestic problems, while justifying the corrupt military-industrial complex which allows transferring public funds into private hands. The Democrats are 100% fascist enablers.
Wrong.
Fascism is open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.