Yves here. Below, Richard Murphy uses an essay by Blair Fix on what Fix sees as the origins of fascism: medieval theology (I hope our house theologians like Henry Moon Pie weigh in). Because the word fascism is so regularly used and too often signifies “right wingers I don’t like,” I have to confess not taking more rigorous discussions of the topic as seriously as I ought to. Nevertheless, Murphy makes the point that neoliberal policies create fear and insecurity….which helps promote fascism.
One could draw other connections between medieval theology and neoliberalism: how both are faith based rather than empirical, how both demand rigid adherence…
By Richard Murphy, a chartered accountant and a political economist who has been described by the Guardian newspaper as an “anti-poverty campaigner and tax expert”. He is Professor of Practice in International Political Economy at City University, London and Director of Tax Research UK. He is a non-executive director of Cambridge Econometrics. He is a member of the Progressive Economy Forum. Originally published at Tax Research UK.
As is apparent from this blog, the issue of fascism has been much on my mind this week. Amongst the things that I’ve read has been a fascinating blog post by someone called Blair Fix.
He analysed fascism in what seems like an entirely original way, showing that its roots are, in effect, in mediaeval theocracy, because the language used by those of fascist persuasion is remarkably similar to that found in some 17th, and maybe 18th, century political mediaeval theocratic thought, after which periods the language of the enlightenment displaced that of the theocrats, although the latter is now on the rise again.
If I had time, I would comment further on that post, because I think it is well worth reading and thinking about, but the reaction which came to me that I wish to note here is not one that came directly from the piece itself, but arose as a consequence of Blair Fix’s observation that the opposite to fascism is not, if it is rooted in mediaeval theocracy, communism or socialism, or anything to do with either of those ideologies, but is instead to be found in the enlightenment.
Unfortunately, we could also very easily say that enlightenment thinking has now been corrupted. Its destination might, in fact, be neoliberalism. I am not, therefore, too sure this creates an argument that is particularly useful. However, tangentially, what it suggested to me was something quite different, and that is not that the opposite of fascism is to be found in any sort of ideology, as such, but is instead to be found in action.
In his analysis of fascist writing, Blair Fix identified three common threats. One was the significant overuse of violent symbolism. Words like annihilation, bloodshed, conquer, extermination and fighting were substantially overused when compared to the body of normal writing of the periods when fascist or similar ideas were written.
The second was a significant quantity of emotion-laden judgment, typified by the use of words like betrayed, cowardice, enemies, hatred, humiliation, slander and treason.
Third, he found there was a significant use of what appear to be quasi-religious, e.g. references to the Almighty, blessings, providence and the eternal.
All of these do, of course, relate to a mythical fight against an oppressor, which only a supreme leader can deliver the true believers from. This is what the mythology of fascism is all about, after all.
In that case, though, there is no point in trying to persuade those who have submitted to fascist inclinations of the mistaken political view that they have adopted. Instead, what needs to be demonstrated is that there are better ways to overcome the oppression from which they are suffering. In other words, the opposite of fascism is not another political ideology, but is instead action to remove the causes of fear.
This is hardly surprising. William Beveridge, of course, was right about this in the 1940s, as was Nye Bevan in the 1950s. Freedom from fear has always been, in my opinion, the goal of the politics of care. If fear blights people’s lives, and it very obviously is, then the removal of fear has to be the goal of any successful political thinking now.
The trouble is that neoliberal politics is doing everything it can to reinforce the narratives of fear.
It says that people must live in fear of markets.
They must live in fear of a wealthy elite.
They must live in fear of a government that cannot meet their need because it must impose austerity.
They must live in fear of the consequences of inequality, leaving them forever without the opportunity to fulfil their reasonable hopes of being able to live with their families in a community.
Ultimately, they must live with the idea that they are, in the neoliberal view, expendable.
Those are the fears that have driven people towards fascist thinking now.
My suggestion is, let’s not spend too long trying to engage with the arguments that the fascists put forward. There is no logic to their medieval theocracy. To pretend that there is would be absurd. However, there is a way to tackle these fears, and that is by empowering the state to address the failures of neoliberal market philosophy, which dictates that they exist when that is wholly unnecessary.
We have a choice. What is clear is that neoliberalism is not amongst the viable options available to us.
Neoliberal politics is all about making the bulk majority of people live precarious lives constantly living on a tightrope. And if a few fall of all the time, all the better to keep the rest in line. Downgrading education and reducing wages and conditions is all part of this and rentierism enforces it all. To stop people wondering why a fraction of 1% of the population hoovers up the bulk majority of the country’s wealth, even though they could never possibly spend it. That is why there was so much counter-reaction when so many people were forced to stay at home back in 2020. People were actual having time to think and reassess their lives so that is why there is so much hostility about this idea of stay at home with promises of ‘never again.’
The same could be said about any economic ideology pursued for its own sake without any reference to its real-world effects on the entire population: Communism, Socialism, the F -ism, Capitalism.
Neoliberals posit that “The Market” (as they see it) is the greatest information processor in the world and infallible in its workings. The Market is the world’s largest information processor; it’s a giant computer that cannot be questioned. (sort of like AI / ;) It is unaffected by human biases they say. (If you believe that….) Therefore, no govt should try to regulate The Market; govt should be subordinate to The Market.(The Market is of course directed by self-interested men and corporations for their own enrichment, but nevermind.) Actual humans and societies are unimportant to The Market. Now there’s an ideology and dogma for ya , which pursued by its true believers has led us into this ditch. / my 2 cents.
adding mid-20th century Capitalism in the West kept markets and businesses subordinate to democratic processes. Monopolies were broken up. Terrible financial abuses were ended. Jim Crow was ended. Workers saw rising wages and Main Street prospered. Then came the neoliberal prophets of The Market, its wonders to behold…. if only govt would get out of the way.
I wrote in my Notebook two days ago, “I reached manhood in the high noon of the American middle class. The gas lines of 1973 were one of the first signs that the sun had passed the zenith. I could recite all the disasters, national humiliations, signs of decay. I imagine somewhere in the more than twenty years of these notebooks you could find those signs. Now it is unmistakable that what was middle class went away when the “industrial heartland” became the “rust belt.” Neo-liberalism is the Gilded age, the era of the Robber Barons, in $3,000 suits. It is perfumed Ayn Randian libertarianism. It is I’ll get mine and you can’t stop me. It wants the best government it can buy. Is it also fascist? To the extent that there is profit in fascism, yes. To the extent that there is profit under any other political label, it is that also. It is the mad drive to have the most toys. It is the engine without a governor running harder and faster until it destroys itself. It did so in 2008. It will do so again. Who will it blame this time?
From the all too true words of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden: People living lives of quiet desperation. And underneath the myriad individual sufferings and social breakdown of neoliberalism there are the looming consequences of unmitigated global warming/climate change effects which will only exacerbate them even further.
The icing on the cake is that Western “enlightenment” has somehow evolved into the worst dearth of general intelligence for opening ways forward and Western political leadership that I can remember in my life since the 50’s.
Agreed that action by the public themselves is the only cure for this desperation. Waiting on political leaders or political parties is an abject waste. Look how that has worked for climate change.
The premise of Enlightenment was that knowledge is good, and more knowledge
is better. We are now reaping the whirlwind.
We’ve known at least since Hiroshima that the Enlightenment has failed, Modernism has failed. The question is, what next?
The Seneca Effect?
Collapses are the way the universe gets rid of the old to leave space for the new. It was noted for the first time by the Roman Philosopher Lucius Anneaus Seneca (4 BCE-65 CE) and it is called today the “Seneca Effect.”
https://senecaeffect.substack.com/
That’s the goal of the current accelerationists: push Modernism in overdrive till it breaks everything, then that will give the oligarchs the freedom to recreate the system the way they think it should be. What most of them seem to want is a neo-feudal collection of city states run by tech bros and funded by wealthy shareholders who are allowed to use slave labor and get rid of useless eaters without any constraints. Which is one version of a postmodern solution with retro features, I guess. Another version would be the radical pragmatic conservative vision of relocalizing and downsizing based on the abandonment of big theories and just Doing What Works in smaller scale domains where that can be figured out (you can look at people like E. F. Schumacher, Jane Jacobs, Herman Daly, et al. for proponents of that). Then there is the hypermodern version from French Theory, which exhumes the corpses of the Modernist saints (Freud, Nietzsche, etc.) and speaks mumbo-jumbo spells to make them deliver miracles in the present age. Or maybe collapse will lead to something totally different from any of those (extinction being one possibility).
Any political ideology has drives that are non-negotiable. For Neoliberalism these are:
– Expanding, and creating new, markets for private capital exploitation.
– Making workers more precarious/easier to exploit.
Fascism as a concept has always struck me as a pretty useless analytical, as none of the historical examples were particularly similar (Nazism, Phalangism, Italian Fascism and I guess Japan’s War time elite). Since then it serves the same purpose that calling someone in the middle ages a heretic did.
Neoliberalism has no problem allying with authoritarianism and militarism. Where I think things will get tense are racist/anti-immigrant impulses, and pro-familial politics (e.g. women back in the kitchen). Neoliberalism wants to maximise the labour supply, and (as we see with Trump) that will lead to significant tensions with the nativist/traditional values right.
I also suspect that neoliberalism is reaching it’s limits, as it’s destroyed the foundations of the societies it depends upon. It has destroyed social reproduction, industrial capacity and administrative competence. I doubt it will be replaced by anything better.
Neoliberalism is simply a doctrine, and modern economists its high priests. “People and Culture” functionaries are members of the lower priesthood. They are there to encourage members of an organisation to abide by the doctrine. Their techniques are crafted to try to maximise cognitive dissonance amongst those members of the organisation who aren’t true believers. Attaining senior levels in the organisation is very difficult when not a true believer. One has to be extremely devout in adherence to the doctrine, so as to be perceived as being a true believer.
With neoliberalism, everything becomes a saleable commodity so I wouldn’t go so far as to say neoliberals consider the people expendable.
There is money to be made from Soylent Green after all.
Indeed, I think Chris Hedges called it a suicide-death cult many years ago. Neoliberal finance capitalism, or whatever euphemism we like to use to describe our system, is another example of how a small group of silly humans, afflicted with short-sighted greed, lust for power, and lack of empathy for others, steal most of the wealth and resources of a society for themselves (“privatization” aka kleptocracy) . (Look at corporate giants profiting from genocide, for current examples of death cult)
Mainstream economic ideology (neoliberal “junk economics”) indoctrinates the PMC and general public into supporting a system that steals from the natural environment, public assets, and allows a tiny oligarchy to command most of the wealth, resources and power for themselves. The educational and political institutions teach us that there is no alternative to neoliberal ideology. We must believe and not cast a critical eye.
This cult-like phenomenon kind of rhymes with history: The 99% (or vast majority) are the modern day peasants who willingly bow down, cooperate, and identify with their oppressors (A kind of conditioned Collective Stockholm Syndrome). The parallel with the Medieval mindset is clear to me. The oligarch Masters of the Universe are to be worshiped and obeyed, because they are “ordained by God” to rule over us, just like the old aristocracy. Humans never change…
But less metaphorically, this system has devolved/evolved into Techno-Totalitarian NeoFeudalism. It’s the modern tech version of classical Feudalism. Silly humans don’t realize that all of this “progress” is a myth and that humans will destroy the earth’s ability to sustain human life one way or the other due to the learned ignorance and short-sighted focus on shiny objects. But I’m an optimist (lol!) – I’m assuming that the neoliberal imperialists won’t cause a nuclear conflagration that will end life on earth. G
Neoliberalism in the US is most famously associated with the Chicago School of Economics and Milton Friedman in the 1950s. It is neoclassical economics with the added twist of appeal to modern computers – The Market as the greatest information processing machine in the world…according to the neoliberals.
In that light, I think it’s important to consider the rise of the idea of cybernetics in the 1950s. Norbert Wiener wrote a very famous book published in 1950 about his vision of what cybernetics could become. In some ways, the growth of cybernetics and neoliberalism seem to feed on each other and subtly reference each other, imo. A new tool for control and ideology to support using the tool for control.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Human_Use_of_Human_Beings
Computers are merely tools used by whomever for whatever purpose. A hammer can build a house or crush a human skull.
This has little to do with fascism as such, and much more to do with periods of apocalyptic terror and eschatological expectation. It’s unsurprising therefore that this kind of vocabulary is found in the period of the wars of religion.
A useful comparison would be the vocabulary of the official Soviet media from1936-39 during the purges. This kind of vocabulary was everywhere, and Stalin intervened personally to make the editorial in Pravda more radical and apocalyptic for example.Historians are divided about how much of this was genuine fear and how much was the product of a paranoid personality.
Sounds like you read Fix’s essay too. It’s not exactly a big surprise that words evoking violence, tribalism and divinity would peak in Germany during the Thirty Years War. The graph of the frequency of occurrence of Fix’s “fascist words” in the USA also revealed the complexity that he failed to take into account. Does anyone believe a big rise in “fascist words” in the USA during WWII correlates to a rise in fascist thinking? The country was at war with fascists.
Fix is also very sanguine about how the process of translation might affect the testing of his hypothesis. He uses English translations of Mussolini and Hitler as if all thought passed through the English language. He should have at least checked German translations of Mussolini and Italian translations of Hitler to get at the similarities and differences between “fascist” concepts that would have been masked by his use of only English translations.
Finally, fascism without a nation state? Fix’s supposed peak of “fascist words” in Germany and Italy occurred before there was a nation state.
Fix had an interesting idea, but it had to be carried out with a great deal of thorough, cautious research. Otherwise, it looks like he had an ax to grind against religion and did a couple of computer runs and got lucky.
yeah. i’ll likely be ruminating on all that for a day or two…so i’ll give Fix that,lol.
i sometimes think that all the confusion of tongues regarding “well, define fascism, then”…is in itself a cover.
camouflage.
Mussollini said it quite plainly: a marriage of state and corporation.
(amfortas looks around)
isnt that what we’re currently doing?
hence the camouflage of “well on this hand…” confusion.
Bertram Gross wrote a book in 1980, i think, called Friendly Fascism…and its worth a read…followed by Wolin.
Facts.
“But, the costs of production of labor consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to enable the worker to continue working, and to prevent the working class from dying out. The worker will therefore get no more for his labor than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labor, or the wage, will, in other words, be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life.” – Engels, 1847
This also supposedly covered the ability of the working class to replace itself, or even grow. The last time the birthrate in the US (crude birth rate –>live births per woman) was above replacement (2.1) was 2007 according to Macrotrends. So for nearly two decades, starting with the Financial Crisis the birth rate has been consistently lower than that needed to replace the population in the US.
The birthrate in the US has been hovering around the replacement rate since 1971. In only two years since 1971 (birthrate 2.27) has the birthrate exceeded that needed for replacement -2006 (2.11) and 2007 (2.12). Make of that what you will, but this is an indication of an economy, that, in Cian’s words above, “I also suspect that neoliberalism is reaching it’s limits, as it’s destroyed the foundations of the societies it depends upon. It has destroyed social reproduction, industrial capacity and administrative competence.”
Given this information, I suspect that neoliberalism has exceeded its limits. We have sustained growth through immigration, but that can’t go on forever. Not that our leaders will do anything to change this, since the only response i have seen is (failed) incentives to families to have more children. Lots of social and cultural forces at play . . .
When the fascists emerge with popular support, the neoliberals and neoconservatives alike will be riding on the bandwagon.
Another essential element re fear: fear of our neighbors, specifically crime and especially predatory/psychopathic criminals who are lurking behind every bush. The evening news is heavily scripted in this regard: report of the latest stabbing-shooting-mayhem, then the VoxPop interview that MUST contain a version of “Wow, now I’m so scared!”
You are close. Recall the situation in Cuba where neighborhoods were divided
into ‘watch areas’ with the watch chief occupying the best house, and everyone responsible for reporting ‘suspicious’ activity. Dick Cheney tried to institute a sitiuation
where postal workers and other agents spied on everybody. But the notion didn’t
take, because nobody was paid to do the peeping. With a high enough rate of
unemployment there would be an opportunity to earn a living by turning neighbors in
for cause. My dad in the McCarthy era lived in fear that someone would notice he had
a copy of “Das Capital”. He wasn’t, but Trump is attempting to induce a state of
fear in everyone (including his followers) to avoid ‘wrong’ words and actions.
Hasn’t really worked so far, but there’s a whole lotta time left in his term.
From Robert Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism published in 2004:
Good observation. I have not connected Jim Crow with fascism, but it does make sense.
Jim Crow especially in the late 1800s was used on both successful black and white business owners by their rivals. White business owners who didn’t like having their businesses threatened would claim some nonsense about impropriety with white women or the businessman getting uppity just by being successful or something. The local klan would pay a visit, if they were lucky, with a torch to burn down their business and home. If they were unlucky, it would be with guns and/or a noose. For the troublesome white business owner, it would be harder, but still possible to dream up some “crime.” Say he was too friendly with the blacks or too “friendly” with children. And since the KKK was enmeshed with the local political structure throughout the South, I would assume that it was often the local politicians who decided who succeeded and lived or not. Having the right drinking partners might have been crucial to one’s life and success.
This would happen to any reformers and union organizers as well. The South did successfully keep the socialists and the unions out for decades by killing them off.
American politics and business have far bloodier than most people especially Americans realize.
I’ll propose something that will probably offend people, but how about Sons of Liberty?
We associate “fascism” with things we don’t like now, but movements by self righteous people that used threats (and use) of violence against people whom they disliked to advance their political agenda quasi legitimately (at least on surface) while setting up parallel internal governing structures, etc, has a long time all over the world. One trouble I think we always face with “fascism” is that the ruthless politicking they engage in is not something we find as objectionable if we don’t disagree (much) with those who pursue them, I think.
The Sons of Liberty was a fairly small, but hotheaded, group of advocates for American independence, but they were helped by the British government’s heavy handedness and the use of the military to enforce the law even when there was little need. The British incompetence actually helped to create the revolution as the Americans assumed that the government was more competent than it was. It helped to turn a fringe political movement into a successful one.
The colonists assigned planned malevolence instead of the arrogance, incompetence, and cluelessness that it actually was. The revolutionaries reacted the way they did because of their belief that the government was Up to No Good, and had to be fought as such, and the government believed that the colonists were rebellious children to be treated as such.
The current American ruling class reminds me of the then British ruling class with the same carelessness and incompetence.
The Ku Klux Klan was just straight up reactionary and focused on bringing back the slavocracy’s elites, which they succeeded in doing, by terrorizing and murdering anyone who would interfere.
Off topic, I know, but whatever happened to the hordes of ‘anarchists’
who were responsible for destroying civil democracy. Did they
die off, or are they still out there, waiting for the chance to cause mayhem?
Well…there is fear and then there are situations actually happening to people.
‘Fascism’ is simply an appeal to the ‘reptilian’ parts of the brain. The ‘mob,’ in other words.
Neoliberalism is the handmaiden of fascism.
Neoliberalism inevitably results in a society where a few people control vast amounts of wealth and power while ever increasing numbers fall further behind.
Of course that type of society is going to be volatile and many people will be calling for a more equal system.
The Oligarchs who emerge in a neoliberal economic order will never voluntarily agree to give up their wealth and power but in fact will continue to demand more.
The only way to get more, fascism.
Neoliberalism + Time = Fascism
Neoliberalism, at this end stage, is privatisation of the commons with individualism ahead of cooperativism plus financialisation and rent extraction combined with seeking savings growth via asset price inflation. Productive economics is so yesterday when there’s fintech to pursue. Optimism is a wasted emotion and only realism provides a way out.
The USA, as best I can tell from the outside, has always been a proto-fascist nation. That fits with Michael Parenti’s: “It is the heart of US policy to use fascism to preserve capitalism, while claiming to be saving democracy from communism.”
So the Snake in the Garden whispered to Adam and Eve, “Ye shall be as Gods”.
And Lo! It has come to pass. Each of us has access to knowledge that every previous
generation going back to the origins of our species would have envied to their graves.
But. What we lack is agency. We are drops of honey in an endless sea of information. There is little we can do to alleviate the situation presently, except
talk about it, as I am doing here. Intuitively, we have as much right to consider solutions as the next MAGA blowhard with an AR15 he bought on installment plan.
Humanities greatest gift is pattern recognition- turning rod-and-cone upside down
vision into coherent patterns. Pipped by computers!
But the absurd interdiction of computers as sentience also contains a hopeful caveat.
Peaches are good, but a surfeit of peaches that overwhelms the stomach can
be deadly. Chaos theory warns that coherent organized systems can collapse
into disorganized messes without warning. And this is something which intuitive
pattern recognition can sense. So then, the question is, what kind of cognitive
clues should we be looking for, and how should we we prepare to act upon them?
While I have not developed my own climate model, in 3 recent papers, James Hansen (et al) makes the point you really don’t need to – just look at the data.
It gets technical – he looks at inter-glacial data but he claims global heating per CO2 doubling is 4.5C (with 99% confidence) not 3.0C assumed by IPCC.
It looks like use of fossil fuels is peaking – AI hype may launch us on a new growth trajectory – at 500 EJ/year (a measure of energy use).
So with apologies. I used AI to ask: 1) what will be the peak? 520EJ/yr in 2030.
Then determine global heating assuming 1) 4.5C per CO2 doubling and include aerosol effects, which Hasnen discusses in depth and 2) 1,5% reduction in fossil fuels per year – in 2035, 2050, 2075 and 2100. The results – 2.1C, 2.8C, 3.7C and 4.3C.
To stay within 1.5C will require a 10% reduction per year in use of fossil fuels.
So there you have it, this is no more a chaos theory outcome than an axe to the head of a chicken.
The climate consensus is clear – no more than 1.5C, 2C is pushing it but 3C and 4C is the end of life on our planet as we know it.
And what strange beast is this, its hour come round at last, slouches towards Bethlehem to be born with dreams of Energy Dominance. Trump is a deeply ignorant man with ruthless zeal and little self awareness. Do I have confidence in Americans to bring him to heel. I think I do not. Trump has created a government of the 0.1% to rule internationally without rules.
I liked Murphy’s point that the counter to Fascism is Enlightenment. But our media is overwhelmed by big-tech.
Still, the recent unanimous finding by the ICJ that governments must do their part may have legs but only when it is too late.
Why not recall history’s foremost protagonist. “Nature knows no political frontiers. She begins by establishing life on this globe and then watches the free play of forces. Those who show the greatest courage and industry are the children nearest to her heart and they will be granted the sovereign right of existence.”
“Nobody can doubt that this world will one day be the scene of dreadful struggles for existence on the part of mankind. In the end, the instinct of self-preservation alone will triumph. Before its consuming fire this so-called humanitarianism, which connotes only a mixture of fatuous timidity and self-conceit, will melt away as under the March sunshine.”
“Man has become great through perpetual struggle. In perpetual peace his greatness must decline.” Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf 1925.
When you look upon Gaza, forever wars, the potential for nuclear war, global warming and the destruction of food crops, it’s hard to be optimistic when little is done to address these existential threats.
“All of these do, of course, relate to a mythical fight against an oppressor, which only a supreme leader can deliver the true believers from. This is what the mythology of fascism is all about, after all.”
Sounds like a typical fairy tale – the true and just prince saves the worthy people in his kingdom from the monster, or religious narratives, which, of course, date to ancient times. New names, modern tech, same (unevolved) species.