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As the rich get richer, the poor get poorer.
Eventually the poor get grouchy.
The rich hire more police to keep the poor from getting too uppity. The dwindling and fearful group that thinks of themselves as middle class support increasingly authoritarian policies thinking they'll be protected from the scary rabble, until they too are knocked into poverty and become targets themselves.
The feedback loop intensifies. Unrest spreads, crackdowns get harsher. Next thing you know, jackbooted thugs are rounding up the scapegoats/undesirables of the week like animals.
Round and round we go.
Racism is a subset of classism. Skin color is one of the many arbitrary criteria that are used to categorize people into higher vs lower social status.
A fundamental pillar of fascism is the belief that superior people have the right-- indeed, the *duty*-- to rule over inferior people. A lot of people spend their time arguing over WHICH people qualify in which category, and precious few go for dismantling the whole premise.
Very disappointed to see leftists continue to ignore how race, gender, sexuality and cultural background factor into capitalism being hand in hand with fascism. It's been a 100 years but so many Marxists are stuck ignoring what the marginalized have to say about their experiences, even when in America an entire race of people was turned into property
But it’s not categorically necessarily a racial thing! It’s just *capital*. Money to make money sans work. That is race neutral. It fundamentally doesn’t matter, and if it’s involved it’s purely incidental. I *have* to believe this to believe that the Nazis engaged in *scapegoating*.
It’s not incidental. Not everything is just theory: history is what leads to our present conditions. Capitalism led to imperialism which was justified by racism. The relegation of people of particular backgrounds to the reserve army of labor that makes all workers more vulnerable is a continuing result of that. At the same time, all people outside of those racial categories benefit from their exploitation. Racism divides people. For a white professional family who work for a living and also have investments, their concerns about “property values” or “good schools” keeps them firmly in the liberal camp. They may support anti-racism on an individual level, but not want any change that might alter their position.
Racism also persists as a way to justify neoliberalism: people will say “ We are tired of hearing about racism. Those people just need to work hard and be better. Then their conditions will improve. Nothing about the system itself needs to change.”
You don't have to. The nazis genuinely believed they were superior to the Jews and hated them for differences in appearance and religion. America as a nation was built from the stolen labor of a entire race/ethnicity who were believed to be inferior and deserve to be oppressed due to bigotry. Just look at Nixon, who straight up just didn't believe that black people belonged in America and chose to discriminate against them in ways that didn't seem obvious leading to the horrible war on drugs and the Crack epidemic. His tactics of trying to subtly discriminate are probably why we're having this whole conversation now in fact. Relying on purely economic reasons to explain why people act comes up short and fails to prevent the spread of intolerance and hate, even if we lived in a communist utopia.
> You don't have to. The nazis genuinely believed they were superior to the Jews and hated them for differences in appearance and religion.
There are people that believe the earth is flat. It doesn’t mean it has any actual grounding in truth, and therefore importance. They used them as a scapegoat because they didn’t want to say “our disgusting warmongering led to the entire world hating us”.
> America as a nation was built from the stolen labor of a entire race/ethnicity who were believed to be inferior and deserve to be oppressed due to bigotry.
I mean, they didn’t take over the continent(s) because they didn’t like Indians, they did it because they wanted gold and took advantage of cultural ambivalence.
> Just look at Nixon, who straight up just didn't believe that black people belonged in America and chose to discriminate against them in ways that didn't seem obvious leading to the horrible war on drugs and the Crack epidemic.
Perfect example. The government wanted slaves to not go away and they wanted to not have their political enemies vote then out. They went after blacks, leftists and Hispanics interchangeably because they all met the same group- not elitist.
If you want to explore this issue, you need to read stuff about racism written by people of color. Right now, you're basically making the argument that economic theories put forward primarily by white men perfectly explains racism. That just flat out can't be true. People who don't experience racism don't have the necessary perspective to explain why it exists in society. At the very least, it sounds like you would agree that racism and economics are deeply entertwined, and if you want to fully understand that dynamic you should study racism as its own issue. It is a big enough force in the world that it is a worthy use of your time.
Yeah there are some damning patterns too. Like with imperialism. US sends money to Turkey & Greece to fight communism (unironically based, carrots are tasty), sends the CIA to Guatemala where the brown people here (despotic, sticks hurt). You might have something there.
I feel like this book could be useful, by Guerin.
[Fascism and Big Business](https://files.libcom.org/files/Daniel%20Guerin-Fascism%20and%20Big%20Business-Pathfinder%20Press%20(2000).pdf)
I haven't gotten to reading it but I think the general idea is that fascism is an opportunistic political movement that takes advantage of capitalism in crisis. The bourgeoisie have lost profitability while the working class is made poorer and so fascists, historically, have funnelled the unrest of the working class towards an out group that is demonized and made out to be the source of lost strength/prosperity as opposed to capitalism. For Hitler it was Jews, for Trump (who uses fascist ideology at least) it was China and for Christian nationalists it's LGBTQ+ people. Fascists may use the language of leftist critiques of capitalism but instead of blaming capital accumulation, monopoly, or economic imperialism they'll blame "globalists" (Jews) or immigrants or China or what have you. They'll either engage in militaristic solutions as a way to impose neo-colonial ties and spur economic growth, or they'll engage in trade wars or privatization to open foreign markets or protect domestic markets that benefit the capitalist class that becomes their patrons.
That looks like a very interesting read of a book, thanks for linking it. I still think that Trump is one of the Christo-nationalist fascists too, that seems overwhelmingly to be the direction things are going here unfortunately.
Coming from the U.S. where capitalism is in decline and fascism is on the rise, and coming from a background studying the history of fascist Europe, there seems to be a pretty straight forward series of events that take place.
Firstly, because a capitalist economy is inherently unstable, with constant recessions and shifts, it eventually gets too difficult for the 99% to find reliable work and income, so they get angry and want somewhere to direct their anger.
There's a scramble to place blame. Leftists point at the rich and powerful. The rich and powerful find a random scape goat usually an ethnic/racial minority, as well as leftists. They convince poor people that if they hate minorities and leftists enough, and have them imprisoned or killed, things will getting better. People are desperate and starving, they need hope, they'll listen to that message if it means a possibly better future.
The more radical hateful groups start to gain power, influence the creation of laws and orders that will prevent minority groups from fighting back. The police have always been a tool for the ruling class so they're happy to comply and enforce the laws.
Keep pushing this cycle until minority groups (ethnic and political) are in death camps, the police are on every corner, and the working class are still toiling away making profits for the factory owners, still without enough to live well and get by.
A fantastic answer.
Worker resentment from the systemic failure of capitalism is maliciously redirected by fascists towards some othered minority (Jewish folks, Roma, LGBTQ+, “immigrants”) group as well as leftists (“woke” ideology, any resemblance of anti-capitalist critiques)
This is better than what I had to say by miles. The only thing I would add is that a critical component of fascism in action is the destruction of democratic institutions. Attacks with this aim are increasing in frequency and scale in the US. And for better or worse, many nations emulate the US when it comes to politics.
Perfect answer.
The short version is: capitalism is essentially when you transform scarcity in a commodity, creating difference in power in society. Some are powerful, some are not. When the system is unstable, fascism is a tool to enforce power so that the powerful do not lose it.
On a side note, that's why liberalism is the biggest lie of this century. How do you speak of freedom, when you support a system that does not permit freedom at all? That's because liberals have an idealistic idea of freedom, that the media is very much happy to support. Truth is, liberalism is the capitalist stage before fascism.
>too difficult for the 99% to find reliable work and income
However, we are now in a time where this is the exact opposite of our current economic situation.
>still without enough to live well and get by.
On this, we mostly agree. No one should ever have to work their ass off and still find themselves unable to afford the basics. That is, the *basics.* I'd also argue that anyone doing the bare minium has no right to expect more than said minium. However, the minimum should at least be livable.
Here's a tl;dr answer. I'm sure there are some really detailed explanations from other commenters.
Capitalism is unstable. It is a system for extracting wealth from the working class, and for perpetual growth to be sustained, the working class must be subjected to ever increasing austerity.
When things get too uncomfortable for the working class for a sustained amount of time, alternatives take root, namely socialism and fascism. Fascism is attractive for majority groups because it supplies a simple solution, a sense of belonging, and value as being part of a long legacy of ethnically great people.
Fascism plays into existing senses of nationalism and natural hierarchies reinforced by capitalism.
Rosa Luxemburg adds that since capitalism is driven to expand, it needs to expand its geographic territory. This manifests as imperialism. England, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, and especially the United States have acquired territories, already occupied by other people, in order to expand markets and access to resources. This imposes a sameness on the world, causes wars, devastates nature, but also eventually runs into a wall where there is nowhere else to go.
This is the subject of her book, "The acquisition of capital".
One thing I've been thinking about is what about the New Deal and FDR? It wasn't really fascist, you could argue it implemented aspects of socialism but that was only to protect capitalism. My question is why did the US take that liberal path unlike most countries that went towards fascism or socialism in crisis? I'm a learning Marxist but I just wasn't sure about it
We got lucky. If a Democratic had been president when the Great Depression hit, it's likely the country would have elected a right-winger as president. But Hoover was president, and so they went with the Dem.
FDR was relatively left but it easily could've gone the other way.
The HBO miniseries called “The Plot Against America” explores an alternate timeline and American fascist experiment around that timeframe with Charles Lindbergh as the face of the fascist movement. The show does a good and probably pretty accurate job of showing different perspectives during the rise of US fascism in that time period and rang alarm bells for me about what’s happening now.
Yeah one of the primary factors in the rise of the Nazis was the Great depression's effects on Germany, it was very reliant on American capital at the time.
You're not appreciating how close the US came to going either Socialist or fascist in the 1920s. And again, how the reaction to the New Deal in the 1930s very nearly ended up with fascism in "the Business Plot" (Schmedley Butler's story is finally getting told recently)
/u/LowBeautiful1531 hit the nail on the head. Basically in the mid- to late- 1800's Industrial Capital was superseded by Financial Capital. Capital becomes concentrated and monopolized by the financial oligarchy. As we enter later and later stages of capitalism, exploitation increases in kind. As exploitation increases, workers become conscious of these conditions and begin organizing. Capitalists weaponize the least class conscious members of the working class against the most class conscious members of the working class.
Further Reading(s):
[*Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/) by Lenin
[*The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism*](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm) by Dimitrov
Here’s the video you mentioned from Our Changing Climate titled “[Why You Can't Ignore This Far-Right Trend](https://youtu.be/DGlrX6lA9O8)”
Our Changing Climate has great videos on socialism too and how we can get there (hint: it’s probably not going to be peacefully):
- https://youtu.be/omcUaD8pxaY
- https://youtu.be/Qu_mUYi9Ptk
Thank you for posting in r/socialism_101, but unfortunately your submission was removed for the following reason(s):
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Here checkout this playlist [the alt right playbook by innuendo studios](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ)
But specifically these 2 videos [always a bigger fish](https://youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs) and [white fascism](https://youtu.be/5Luu1Beb8ng) he should answer alot of your questions
But basically capitalism is a hierarchical system "sharks and minnows" and fascism is a hierarchical system with a focus on "us"( typically the white bourgeoisie) vs "them"(litterally anyone else ) and fascism maps well onto capitalist hierarchy and fascism is heavily funded by the bourgeoise because even if they dont agree with fascists they hate us and know we will focus on fighting fascist instead of capitalism so its in there material interest to fund those groups
In 1935, R. Palme Dutt defined fascism in [The Question of Fascism and Capitalist Decay](https://www.marxists.org/archive/dutt/articles/1935/question_of_fascism.htm):
> Fascism represents an extreme phenomenon of this process of capitalism in decay, whose guiding laws were already analyzed by Lenin's analysis of imperialism. The increasing intensity of the conflict between the productive forces and the existing social forms of capitalism are characteristic of the process of decaying capitalism. The intensification of this conflict to the point of WWI and the beginning of the world revolution since 1917 constitutes **the general crisis of capitalism, a period of capitalist downfall. Within it fascism represents the desperate attempt of the doomed capitalist class to maintain its power and overcome the contradictions by extreme violent means, and thus to maintain the existing social forms** at the expense of the development of the forces of production, in particular:
> (1) to throttle the class struggle by suppression of all working class organizations; (2) to overcome the economic contradictions by active state intervention, so-called “planning”, subsidies, restrictions of production and trade, etc.; (3) to overcome the inner contradictions of the bourgeoisie by the unification of a single governmental party replacing the older political parties and divisions; (4) to overcome the international contradictions by intensified organization for war and world conquest.
Fascism -- a reaction of extreme violence and destruction -- is enacted by capitalists as a means of restoring order due a threat to the existence of the capitalist system. Such a threat comes about due to an economic crisis caused by the faults of capitalism or due to the threat of overthrow by revolution (usually these occur simultaneously). It's a form of [bonapartism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/index.htm) -- when differing factions within the capitalist class fight amongst themselves to determine who will be forced to pay to resolve the crisis, and one faction asserts political power by force to benefit itself over the other factions. They also mobilize sections of the working-class to be their foot soldiers in this fight who would push for their will (e.g. [brownshirts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung), [Freikorps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#Affiliation_with_the_Nazi_Party)). Fascism breaks out of the cocoon of liberal democracy.
Hitler implemented a war economy and concentration camps to reboot Germany's struggling economy -- it allowed him to employ much of the population on the one hand (e.g. as prison guards, weapons factory workers) and to put a section of society into prisons to labour for free on the other (e.g. [communists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...#Origin) who threatened capitalism, Jewish people).
Michael Parenti's [The Real Causes of WW2](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QfbF3y2HZH8) breaks down how western capitalism nurtured German/Japanese fascism for the purpose of taking down the USSR.
Thank you for posting in r/socialism_101, but unfortunately your submission was removed for the following reason(s):
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This is the film Decay: On Fascism and Breakdown by PROLEKULT on YouTube
Redditors are so minimalistic, why I gotta click shit to find out what I'm clicking on?
Anyway I had the same recommendation, that's a corkin' doc
Looks like they have also put together a list of texts for further reading. This list of readings should give readers a quick grounding in the topics and debates covered in the film. It is neither a full source list for the film, nor a comprehensive reading list, but simply a starting point: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62341912
Here's a follow up question:
Would it be wrong to view fascism as a collapse and fracturing of the capitalist system along racial/ethnic/national lines. While socialism is a collapse and fracturing of the capitalist system along class lines?
This would assume that capitalism naturally holds together the racial/ethnic/national lines, which it doesn't. We can't even say it *tends to hold these things together*. At best, capitalism is completely indifferent to how well groups get along. At worst, it helps fracture us along old lines and even invents brand new differences to keep us at each others' throats. It's fine with the whole range of divisions. Perfectly fine.
OTOH, socialism specifically strives for unity, as this is required for its existence and ultimately for sustaining it as a global system. Socialism also doesn't aim to "fracture" capitalism in any way. That's completely inaccurate. It does aim to remove the capitalist class from its position of power to neutralize it as a force of all sorts of chaos and problems. But even at that, what is specifically done with those capitalists is of great importance. In most revolutions, there are post-revolutionary trials and appropriate sentencing. In other words, always an attempt at true justice not just killing them off because we think they're all evil. If you want a better society, you must be that better society from day 1.
Also, the product of capitalism is vital to jump-start socialism. Makes no sense to collapse anything. Best case scenario is to keep the factories, the engineers, the farmers, the equipment, the planes, tanks, etc, etc, and use it for social good now rather than just profits.
There further I've been studying Marxism/Dialectical Materialism, I've seeing socialism as less of a proactive movement and more of a reaction to the contradictions of capitalism pushing itself to the breaking point. So I'm not saying that socialism in the abstract is necessarily aiming to achieve anything. Simply taking the path of least resistance based on changing material conditions.
Like during the move from Feudalism to Capitalism, we saw not only a new class taking over the means of production, we saw completely new forms of national and ethnic identities rise form that.
Eventually capitalism will grew weaker to the point the proletariat will begin to be able to the seize control of the Political Economy. When that happens a new Mode of Production will come into being. Based on this line of thinking I get concerned that proletariat won't be united in the ways we imagine they will be.
I know this train of thought is out in the weeds and not well organized. But I'd like to hear from others on how they think about this.
I don't think fascism tries to break from capitalism too much. The rhetoric of fascism can focus on an ethnocentric view of the world, but I think it would more readily utilize capitalism and the hierarchies it creates based around property ownership and production relationships to achieve it's ultranationalist goals. It seeks to reshape capitalism in an ethnocentric way, adding a new dimension to the already present hierarchies.
I think I can see what you mean when it comes to capitalism and liberalism bringing to a head the nationalistic/ethnic movements that partially spurred the revolutions of the 1800s and WW1. In some ways it's securing imperial control over the marketplace, in others it's tying bourgeois concepts of individual liberty to ethnicity and nationalism. This is mostly me spitballing, but I feel like capitalism didn't bring into existence new nationalities so much as it gave more people the political will and power to agitate for the recognition of those nationalities and for the bourgeois to seize onto those sentiments as a means to further their economic interests.
When it comes to socialism, I think of it as being proactive in changing the material conditions. It took revolutions to create liberal governments protecting bourgeois interests, so it will take revolutions to smash the bourgeois system. But while the move from feudalism was one spurred by enclosure and market forces, I think the move to socialism will have to be more direct. Revolutionaries will only be able to take advantage of crises to make it happen, like they did in Russia in 1917. I don't see material conditions moving towards socialism beyond the already present socialization of production present in shareholders in corporations and multifaceted production and trade. There we can see a sort of example in terms of how socially owned property could work, but I don't know if socialism will be a natural reaction to these things beyond what's identified by Marx in the Communist Manifesto as capitalism creating the grave diggers of its destruction in the immiseration of the proletariat. It builds the fuel for the fire, but won't light it intentionally.
Edit: as for ethnicities and national interests I don't know. There could be a tension there but Marx and other Marxists after him have focused on solidarity as a proletariat. I think you could have ethnic tension still, but without the exact same imperialistic tendencies as capitalist nations there hopefully won't be the same power imbalance that would lead to neo-colonialism or unequal exchange that would turn economic power struggles into ethnic struggles. Assuming during socialism you had a principled political line focused on repairing those imperialistic imbalances.
> I've seeing socialism as less of a proactive movement and more of a reaction to the contradictions of capitalism pushing itself to the breaking point.
Not quite right. Socialism aims to abolish classes entirely. Meaning, it's the synthesis between the thesis of the bourgeoisie class and the antithesis of the proletariat. Socialism abolishes both classes at once and it abolishes labor along with it ("labor" in the sense of what it is under capitalism, not "labor" in the naive sense of anybody making anything).
Who is aiming? How can anyone control the aims of an entire society? What causes the synthesis? ( these questions are not to debate but because the way the much of the “left” is coming up short for me and I don’t understand)
When I look at the nazis or Italian fascism, even MAGA, I wonder what class they represent. They are some blend of proletariat, petite bourgeoisie, and larger bourgeoisie. They don’t seem lumpen because they have class consciousness but they also have a strong racial/national/ethnic identity mixed in it too. This groups also seems to grow stronger by a crisis in capitalism.
I guess what I’m asking is why are the nazis not considered part of a Marxist synthesis(or an attempt at a synthesis)?
> I guess what I’m asking is why are the nazis not considered part of a Marxist synthesis(or an attempt at a synthesis)?
Nazism is an ideology. A person can be a Nazi regardless of which economic class they are in.
I think you are using the more common definition of "class", like when people say "He's upper-class!" or "middle class". Marx's definition of class is much more specific and precise. It's a group of people who share a particular *relationship* to the mode of production. Many modes of production had multiple classes. But under capitalism, only two classes remain because capitalism only allows this to be the case (it's only interested in you if you have lots of capital to invest or if you have your labor to sell, otherwise you are discarded and often killed).
An ideology, like Nazism, doesn't really cause one to be in any given Marxist class. It's simply about what ideals one holds and what one strives to achieve (roughly).
It depends what you buy into about how all this works but, people kill for disappointingly low sums of cash, right? We can say that economic crises push people to kill. You should let that sink in. Mr Beast found that about 45% of respondents would take $10,000 even if doing so meant some rando on earth would die. They said they would on Twitter anyhow.
Who are you a rando to? CAPITAL.
So the question of how capitalism becomes fascistic is really a question of how low the rate of profit has fallen. When the rate is high, capitalist nations are generous (for a given definition of generous), they splash out on welfare, and find a bit of room to invest in improvements. There's sense in this for the capitalist because if the state covers the costs of helping a worker make it from day to day then that's costs the company doesn't have to pick up.
But when the rate of profit falls low enough the boss loses patience and begins to look for the state to hold the worker down to receive his thrashing, and not lift him up a bit. No food, no water, just a beating til you do what you need to. Pick a subclass to do it to first to get everyone disciplined. (That last bit is actually a capitalist norm, think of racism in the US or the oppression of women to discipline men.) If you take this path you will see the investment flow in, like the US poured into Germany -- the promised returns are too high to ignore!
Commies did some of the earliest analysis of fascism, Clara Zetkin presented [The Struggle Against Fascism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1923/06/struggle-against-fascism.html) to the ComIntern in 1923. Germany and Italy were kinda humiliated countries in economic crisis in the other 20s. Some in the capitalist class felt it was time to hand the reigns over to mean bastards lest they lose their advantage. Note that they really gave over the reins! They relinquished some power, the corporate types, the boss types, so that someone could do the dirty work of whipping the ingrates into shape. (I think Novecento by Bertolucci captures this dynamic well in Donald Sutherland's character.) It was like summoning a genie, giving yourself over to a power you hoped work out well for you.
Capitalism HAS TO get nasty in a crisis because it has set the only goal as turning one dollar into two, and not the actual lifting up of living beings, if you know what I mean. There's nothing they won't contemplate. This sounds simplistic and it is. Capitalism is base and senseless as fuck. Just let it sink in! There's no real transformation for capitalism to go fash -- the mechanisms are always there and always in use. But some of the soft stuff is taken away, or the pressure is turned on different populations, or cranked up -- and so the really nasty stuff of, say the British colonies doesn't look super different to European fascism.
The fuckers who give you work today would cut your throat tomorrow if the returns were better. "It's not personal, it's business!"
You have to understand what capitalism in decay means.
Lenin explains that capitalism enters the decay period when the development of industrial technology stagnates and is no longer improving.
In "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism," Lenin gives an in depth explanation of how the social forces change and merge due to the stagnation of industrial development. Modern imperialism becomes reliant on cheaper labor and cheaper resources in colonial states. Cheaper resources means industry can be developed elsewhere or at home for less money. So banks and industries merge together since they become far more reliant on financing. Finance Capitalism develops. Workers become reliant on cheaper products and better wages since home industry is benefitted by imperialism. So all of these combine to make workers and capitalists into National Chauvinists.
Imperialism becomes stronger while the capitalist system slowly breaks down. As it breaks down, the capitalists blame Liberalism and Socialism. This leads to the need to revert backwards to Feudalism.
In Marxist theory, society evolves from Feudalism to Capitalism to Socialism. But each transition is caused by the struggle between classes. The bourgeoisie and workers defeat the Feudal aristocracy to establish Capitalism. Then the workers defeat the bourgeoisie to establish socialism.
Lenin predicted that when capitalism enters decay, the bourgeoisie will try to save its own class by destroying Liberalism and establishing a modern version of feudalism. Feudalism was a rigid hierarchical system in which a specific class defined the roles in society. Kings were at the top, peasants/serfs were at the bottom. Kings granted privileges in exchange for labor and loyalty.
Mussolini explicitly stated over-and-over that Fascism was a hierarchical system based on Feudalism. The Fascist slogan was "Order, Discipline, Hierarchy." He merged Feudalism with modern industry and the modern state. He re-established Feudal Guilds (Corporazioni) and forced all workers to join them by outlawing unions.
This is what defined Fascism as well. It was a Feudal Guild state (Corporate state). All Fascists states and Fascist movements defined themselves on this Feudal Guild system.
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As the rich get richer, the poor get poorer. Eventually the poor get grouchy. The rich hire more police to keep the poor from getting too uppity. The dwindling and fearful group that thinks of themselves as middle class support increasingly authoritarian policies thinking they'll be protected from the scary rabble, until they too are knocked into poverty and become targets themselves. The feedback loop intensifies. Unrest spreads, crackdowns get harsher. Next thing you know, jackbooted thugs are rounding up the scapegoats/undesirables of the week like animals. Round and round we go.
Perfect answer. I don’t know why some leftists insist on making it a racial thing. It’s not.
Racism is a subset of classism. Skin color is one of the many arbitrary criteria that are used to categorize people into higher vs lower social status. A fundamental pillar of fascism is the belief that superior people have the right-- indeed, the *duty*-- to rule over inferior people. A lot of people spend their time arguing over WHICH people qualify in which category, and precious few go for dismantling the whole premise.
Very disappointed to see leftists continue to ignore how race, gender, sexuality and cultural background factor into capitalism being hand in hand with fascism. It's been a 100 years but so many Marxists are stuck ignoring what the marginalized have to say about their experiences, even when in America an entire race of people was turned into property
But it’s not categorically necessarily a racial thing! It’s just *capital*. Money to make money sans work. That is race neutral. It fundamentally doesn’t matter, and if it’s involved it’s purely incidental. I *have* to believe this to believe that the Nazis engaged in *scapegoating*.
It’s not incidental. Not everything is just theory: history is what leads to our present conditions. Capitalism led to imperialism which was justified by racism. The relegation of people of particular backgrounds to the reserve army of labor that makes all workers more vulnerable is a continuing result of that. At the same time, all people outside of those racial categories benefit from their exploitation. Racism divides people. For a white professional family who work for a living and also have investments, their concerns about “property values” or “good schools” keeps them firmly in the liberal camp. They may support anti-racism on an individual level, but not want any change that might alter their position. Racism also persists as a way to justify neoliberalism: people will say “ We are tired of hearing about racism. Those people just need to work hard and be better. Then their conditions will improve. Nothing about the system itself needs to change.”
You don't have to. The nazis genuinely believed they were superior to the Jews and hated them for differences in appearance and religion. America as a nation was built from the stolen labor of a entire race/ethnicity who were believed to be inferior and deserve to be oppressed due to bigotry. Just look at Nixon, who straight up just didn't believe that black people belonged in America and chose to discriminate against them in ways that didn't seem obvious leading to the horrible war on drugs and the Crack epidemic. His tactics of trying to subtly discriminate are probably why we're having this whole conversation now in fact. Relying on purely economic reasons to explain why people act comes up short and fails to prevent the spread of intolerance and hate, even if we lived in a communist utopia.
> You don't have to. The nazis genuinely believed they were superior to the Jews and hated them for differences in appearance and religion. There are people that believe the earth is flat. It doesn’t mean it has any actual grounding in truth, and therefore importance. They used them as a scapegoat because they didn’t want to say “our disgusting warmongering led to the entire world hating us”. > America as a nation was built from the stolen labor of a entire race/ethnicity who were believed to be inferior and deserve to be oppressed due to bigotry. I mean, they didn’t take over the continent(s) because they didn’t like Indians, they did it because they wanted gold and took advantage of cultural ambivalence. > Just look at Nixon, who straight up just didn't believe that black people belonged in America and chose to discriminate against them in ways that didn't seem obvious leading to the horrible war on drugs and the Crack epidemic. Perfect example. The government wanted slaves to not go away and they wanted to not have their political enemies vote then out. They went after blacks, leftists and Hispanics interchangeably because they all met the same group- not elitist.
If you want to explore this issue, you need to read stuff about racism written by people of color. Right now, you're basically making the argument that economic theories put forward primarily by white men perfectly explains racism. That just flat out can't be true. People who don't experience racism don't have the necessary perspective to explain why it exists in society. At the very least, it sounds like you would agree that racism and economics are deeply entertwined, and if you want to fully understand that dynamic you should study racism as its own issue. It is a big enough force in the world that it is a worthy use of your time.
Yeah there are some damning patterns too. Like with imperialism. US sends money to Turkey & Greece to fight communism (unironically based, carrots are tasty), sends the CIA to Guatemala where the brown people here (despotic, sticks hurt). You might have something there.
But they will do it again. They always will. So paying attention to that aspect of our social dichotomies is important.
At its core its a class conflict, but make no mistake - the fascists will make it a race thing.
I feel like this book could be useful, by Guerin. [Fascism and Big Business](https://files.libcom.org/files/Daniel%20Guerin-Fascism%20and%20Big%20Business-Pathfinder%20Press%20(2000).pdf) I haven't gotten to reading it but I think the general idea is that fascism is an opportunistic political movement that takes advantage of capitalism in crisis. The bourgeoisie have lost profitability while the working class is made poorer and so fascists, historically, have funnelled the unrest of the working class towards an out group that is demonized and made out to be the source of lost strength/prosperity as opposed to capitalism. For Hitler it was Jews, for Trump (who uses fascist ideology at least) it was China and for Christian nationalists it's LGBTQ+ people. Fascists may use the language of leftist critiques of capitalism but instead of blaming capital accumulation, monopoly, or economic imperialism they'll blame "globalists" (Jews) or immigrants or China or what have you. They'll either engage in militaristic solutions as a way to impose neo-colonial ties and spur economic growth, or they'll engage in trade wars or privatization to open foreign markets or protect domestic markets that benefit the capitalist class that becomes their patrons.
That looks like a very interesting read of a book, thanks for linking it. I still think that Trump is one of the Christo-nationalist fascists too, that seems overwhelmingly to be the direction things are going here unfortunately.
Coming from the U.S. where capitalism is in decline and fascism is on the rise, and coming from a background studying the history of fascist Europe, there seems to be a pretty straight forward series of events that take place. Firstly, because a capitalist economy is inherently unstable, with constant recessions and shifts, it eventually gets too difficult for the 99% to find reliable work and income, so they get angry and want somewhere to direct their anger. There's a scramble to place blame. Leftists point at the rich and powerful. The rich and powerful find a random scape goat usually an ethnic/racial minority, as well as leftists. They convince poor people that if they hate minorities and leftists enough, and have them imprisoned or killed, things will getting better. People are desperate and starving, they need hope, they'll listen to that message if it means a possibly better future. The more radical hateful groups start to gain power, influence the creation of laws and orders that will prevent minority groups from fighting back. The police have always been a tool for the ruling class so they're happy to comply and enforce the laws. Keep pushing this cycle until minority groups (ethnic and political) are in death camps, the police are on every corner, and the working class are still toiling away making profits for the factory owners, still without enough to live well and get by.
A fantastic answer. Worker resentment from the systemic failure of capitalism is maliciously redirected by fascists towards some othered minority (Jewish folks, Roma, LGBTQ+, “immigrants”) group as well as leftists (“woke” ideology, any resemblance of anti-capitalist critiques)
This is better than what I had to say by miles. The only thing I would add is that a critical component of fascism in action is the destruction of democratic institutions. Attacks with this aim are increasing in frequency and scale in the US. And for better or worse, many nations emulate the US when it comes to politics.
Perfect answer. The short version is: capitalism is essentially when you transform scarcity in a commodity, creating difference in power in society. Some are powerful, some are not. When the system is unstable, fascism is a tool to enforce power so that the powerful do not lose it. On a side note, that's why liberalism is the biggest lie of this century. How do you speak of freedom, when you support a system that does not permit freedom at all? That's because liberals have an idealistic idea of freedom, that the media is very much happy to support. Truth is, liberalism is the capitalist stage before fascism.
>too difficult for the 99% to find reliable work and income However, we are now in a time where this is the exact opposite of our current economic situation. >still without enough to live well and get by. On this, we mostly agree. No one should ever have to work their ass off and still find themselves unable to afford the basics. That is, the *basics.* I'd also argue that anyone doing the bare minium has no right to expect more than said minium. However, the minimum should at least be livable.
Here's a tl;dr answer. I'm sure there are some really detailed explanations from other commenters. Capitalism is unstable. It is a system for extracting wealth from the working class, and for perpetual growth to be sustained, the working class must be subjected to ever increasing austerity. When things get too uncomfortable for the working class for a sustained amount of time, alternatives take root, namely socialism and fascism. Fascism is attractive for majority groups because it supplies a simple solution, a sense of belonging, and value as being part of a long legacy of ethnically great people. Fascism plays into existing senses of nationalism and natural hierarchies reinforced by capitalism.
Rosa Luxemburg adds that since capitalism is driven to expand, it needs to expand its geographic territory. This manifests as imperialism. England, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, and especially the United States have acquired territories, already occupied by other people, in order to expand markets and access to resources. This imposes a sameness on the world, causes wars, devastates nature, but also eventually runs into a wall where there is nowhere else to go. This is the subject of her book, "The acquisition of capital".
One thing I've been thinking about is what about the New Deal and FDR? It wasn't really fascist, you could argue it implemented aspects of socialism but that was only to protect capitalism. My question is why did the US take that liberal path unlike most countries that went towards fascism or socialism in crisis? I'm a learning Marxist but I just wasn't sure about it
We got lucky. If a Democratic had been president when the Great Depression hit, it's likely the country would have elected a right-winger as president. But Hoover was president, and so they went with the Dem. FDR was relatively left but it easily could've gone the other way.
The HBO miniseries called “The Plot Against America” explores an alternate timeline and American fascist experiment around that timeframe with Charles Lindbergh as the face of the fascist movement. The show does a good and probably pretty accurate job of showing different perspectives during the rise of US fascism in that time period and rang alarm bells for me about what’s happening now.
Yeah one of the primary factors in the rise of the Nazis was the Great depression's effects on Germany, it was very reliant on American capital at the time.
https://www.hoover.org/research/how-fdr-saved-capitalism
To avoid both fascism and socialism. American Liberalism is all about stabilizing capitalism.
You're not appreciating how close the US came to going either Socialist or fascist in the 1920s. And again, how the reaction to the New Deal in the 1930s very nearly ended up with fascism in "the Business Plot" (Schmedley Butler's story is finally getting told recently)
/u/LowBeautiful1531 hit the nail on the head. Basically in the mid- to late- 1800's Industrial Capital was superseded by Financial Capital. Capital becomes concentrated and monopolized by the financial oligarchy. As we enter later and later stages of capitalism, exploitation increases in kind. As exploitation increases, workers become conscious of these conditions and begin organizing. Capitalists weaponize the least class conscious members of the working class against the most class conscious members of the working class. Further Reading(s): [*Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism*](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/) by Lenin [*The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism*](https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm) by Dimitrov
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Here’s the video you mentioned from Our Changing Climate titled “[Why You Can't Ignore This Far-Right Trend](https://youtu.be/DGlrX6lA9O8)” Our Changing Climate has great videos on socialism too and how we can get there (hint: it’s probably not going to be peacefully): - https://youtu.be/omcUaD8pxaY - https://youtu.be/Qu_mUYi9Ptk
Yeessss absolutely amazing save chief kief i love ur music
Thank you for posting in r/socialism_101, but unfortunately your submission was removed for the following reason(s): >**Not conductive to learning:** this is an educational space in which to provide clarity for socialist ideas. Replies to a question should be thorough and comprehensive. >This includes but is not limited to: one word responses, one-liners, non-serious/meme(ish) responses, etc. Remember, **an answer isn't good because it's right, it's good because it teaches.**
Here checkout this playlist [the alt right playbook by innuendo studios](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJA_jUddXvY7v0VkYRbANnTnzkA_HMFtQ) But specifically these 2 videos [always a bigger fish](https://youtu.be/agzNANfNlTs) and [white fascism](https://youtu.be/5Luu1Beb8ng) he should answer alot of your questions But basically capitalism is a hierarchical system "sharks and minnows" and fascism is a hierarchical system with a focus on "us"( typically the white bourgeoisie) vs "them"(litterally anyone else ) and fascism maps well onto capitalist hierarchy and fascism is heavily funded by the bourgeoise because even if they dont agree with fascists they hate us and know we will focus on fighting fascist instead of capitalism so its in there material interest to fund those groups
In 1935, R. Palme Dutt defined fascism in [The Question of Fascism and Capitalist Decay](https://www.marxists.org/archive/dutt/articles/1935/question_of_fascism.htm): > Fascism represents an extreme phenomenon of this process of capitalism in decay, whose guiding laws were already analyzed by Lenin's analysis of imperialism. The increasing intensity of the conflict between the productive forces and the existing social forms of capitalism are characteristic of the process of decaying capitalism. The intensification of this conflict to the point of WWI and the beginning of the world revolution since 1917 constitutes **the general crisis of capitalism, a period of capitalist downfall. Within it fascism represents the desperate attempt of the doomed capitalist class to maintain its power and overcome the contradictions by extreme violent means, and thus to maintain the existing social forms** at the expense of the development of the forces of production, in particular: > (1) to throttle the class struggle by suppression of all working class organizations; (2) to overcome the economic contradictions by active state intervention, so-called “planning”, subsidies, restrictions of production and trade, etc.; (3) to overcome the inner contradictions of the bourgeoisie by the unification of a single governmental party replacing the older political parties and divisions; (4) to overcome the international contradictions by intensified organization for war and world conquest. Fascism -- a reaction of extreme violence and destruction -- is enacted by capitalists as a means of restoring order due a threat to the existence of the capitalist system. Such a threat comes about due to an economic crisis caused by the faults of capitalism or due to the threat of overthrow by revolution (usually these occur simultaneously). It's a form of [bonapartism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/index.htm) -- when differing factions within the capitalist class fight amongst themselves to determine who will be forced to pay to resolve the crisis, and one faction asserts political power by force to benefit itself over the other factions. They also mobilize sections of the working-class to be their foot soldiers in this fight who would push for their will (e.g. [brownshirts](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung), [Freikorps](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freikorps#Affiliation_with_the_Nazi_Party)). Fascism breaks out of the cocoon of liberal democracy. Hitler implemented a war economy and concentration camps to reboot Germany's struggling economy -- it allowed him to employ much of the population on the one hand (e.g. as prison guards, weapons factory workers) and to put a section of society into prisons to labour for free on the other (e.g. [communists](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_...#Origin) who threatened capitalism, Jewish people).
Michael Parenti's [The Real Causes of WW2](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QfbF3y2HZH8) breaks down how western capitalism nurtured German/Japanese fascism for the purpose of taking down the USSR.
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Thank you for posting in r/socialism_101, but unfortunately your submission was removed for the following reason(s): >**Not conductive to learning:** this is an educational space in which to provide clarity for socialist ideas. Replies to a question should be thorough and comprehensive. >This includes but is not limited to: one word responses, one-liners, non-serious/meme(ish) responses, etc. Remember, **an answer isn't good because it's right, it's good because it teaches.**
[Documentary on this topic](https://youtu.be/QO-7cymgtqo)
This is the film Decay: On Fascism and Breakdown by PROLEKULT on YouTube Redditors are so minimalistic, why I gotta click shit to find out what I'm clicking on? Anyway I had the same recommendation, that's a corkin' doc
Looks like they have also put together a list of texts for further reading. This list of readings should give readers a quick grounding in the topics and debates covered in the film. It is neither a full source list for the film, nor a comprehensive reading list, but simply a starting point: https://www.patreon.com/posts/62341912
Here's a follow up question: Would it be wrong to view fascism as a collapse and fracturing of the capitalist system along racial/ethnic/national lines. While socialism is a collapse and fracturing of the capitalist system along class lines?
This would assume that capitalism naturally holds together the racial/ethnic/national lines, which it doesn't. We can't even say it *tends to hold these things together*. At best, capitalism is completely indifferent to how well groups get along. At worst, it helps fracture us along old lines and even invents brand new differences to keep us at each others' throats. It's fine with the whole range of divisions. Perfectly fine. OTOH, socialism specifically strives for unity, as this is required for its existence and ultimately for sustaining it as a global system. Socialism also doesn't aim to "fracture" capitalism in any way. That's completely inaccurate. It does aim to remove the capitalist class from its position of power to neutralize it as a force of all sorts of chaos and problems. But even at that, what is specifically done with those capitalists is of great importance. In most revolutions, there are post-revolutionary trials and appropriate sentencing. In other words, always an attempt at true justice not just killing them off because we think they're all evil. If you want a better society, you must be that better society from day 1. Also, the product of capitalism is vital to jump-start socialism. Makes no sense to collapse anything. Best case scenario is to keep the factories, the engineers, the farmers, the equipment, the planes, tanks, etc, etc, and use it for social good now rather than just profits.
There further I've been studying Marxism/Dialectical Materialism, I've seeing socialism as less of a proactive movement and more of a reaction to the contradictions of capitalism pushing itself to the breaking point. So I'm not saying that socialism in the abstract is necessarily aiming to achieve anything. Simply taking the path of least resistance based on changing material conditions. Like during the move from Feudalism to Capitalism, we saw not only a new class taking over the means of production, we saw completely new forms of national and ethnic identities rise form that. Eventually capitalism will grew weaker to the point the proletariat will begin to be able to the seize control of the Political Economy. When that happens a new Mode of Production will come into being. Based on this line of thinking I get concerned that proletariat won't be united in the ways we imagine they will be. I know this train of thought is out in the weeds and not well organized. But I'd like to hear from others on how they think about this.
I don't think fascism tries to break from capitalism too much. The rhetoric of fascism can focus on an ethnocentric view of the world, but I think it would more readily utilize capitalism and the hierarchies it creates based around property ownership and production relationships to achieve it's ultranationalist goals. It seeks to reshape capitalism in an ethnocentric way, adding a new dimension to the already present hierarchies. I think I can see what you mean when it comes to capitalism and liberalism bringing to a head the nationalistic/ethnic movements that partially spurred the revolutions of the 1800s and WW1. In some ways it's securing imperial control over the marketplace, in others it's tying bourgeois concepts of individual liberty to ethnicity and nationalism. This is mostly me spitballing, but I feel like capitalism didn't bring into existence new nationalities so much as it gave more people the political will and power to agitate for the recognition of those nationalities and for the bourgeois to seize onto those sentiments as a means to further their economic interests. When it comes to socialism, I think of it as being proactive in changing the material conditions. It took revolutions to create liberal governments protecting bourgeois interests, so it will take revolutions to smash the bourgeois system. But while the move from feudalism was one spurred by enclosure and market forces, I think the move to socialism will have to be more direct. Revolutionaries will only be able to take advantage of crises to make it happen, like they did in Russia in 1917. I don't see material conditions moving towards socialism beyond the already present socialization of production present in shareholders in corporations and multifaceted production and trade. There we can see a sort of example in terms of how socially owned property could work, but I don't know if socialism will be a natural reaction to these things beyond what's identified by Marx in the Communist Manifesto as capitalism creating the grave diggers of its destruction in the immiseration of the proletariat. It builds the fuel for the fire, but won't light it intentionally. Edit: as for ethnicities and national interests I don't know. There could be a tension there but Marx and other Marxists after him have focused on solidarity as a proletariat. I think you could have ethnic tension still, but without the exact same imperialistic tendencies as capitalist nations there hopefully won't be the same power imbalance that would lead to neo-colonialism or unequal exchange that would turn economic power struggles into ethnic struggles. Assuming during socialism you had a principled political line focused on repairing those imperialistic imbalances.
> I've seeing socialism as less of a proactive movement and more of a reaction to the contradictions of capitalism pushing itself to the breaking point. Not quite right. Socialism aims to abolish classes entirely. Meaning, it's the synthesis between the thesis of the bourgeoisie class and the antithesis of the proletariat. Socialism abolishes both classes at once and it abolishes labor along with it ("labor" in the sense of what it is under capitalism, not "labor" in the naive sense of anybody making anything).
Who is aiming? How can anyone control the aims of an entire society? What causes the synthesis? ( these questions are not to debate but because the way the much of the “left” is coming up short for me and I don’t understand) When I look at the nazis or Italian fascism, even MAGA, I wonder what class they represent. They are some blend of proletariat, petite bourgeoisie, and larger bourgeoisie. They don’t seem lumpen because they have class consciousness but they also have a strong racial/national/ethnic identity mixed in it too. This groups also seems to grow stronger by a crisis in capitalism. I guess what I’m asking is why are the nazis not considered part of a Marxist synthesis(or an attempt at a synthesis)?
> I guess what I’m asking is why are the nazis not considered part of a Marxist synthesis(or an attempt at a synthesis)? Nazism is an ideology. A person can be a Nazi regardless of which economic class they are in. I think you are using the more common definition of "class", like when people say "He's upper-class!" or "middle class". Marx's definition of class is much more specific and precise. It's a group of people who share a particular *relationship* to the mode of production. Many modes of production had multiple classes. But under capitalism, only two classes remain because capitalism only allows this to be the case (it's only interested in you if you have lots of capital to invest or if you have your labor to sell, otherwise you are discarded and often killed). An ideology, like Nazism, doesn't really cause one to be in any given Marxist class. It's simply about what ideals one holds and what one strives to achieve (roughly).
It depends what you buy into about how all this works but, people kill for disappointingly low sums of cash, right? We can say that economic crises push people to kill. You should let that sink in. Mr Beast found that about 45% of respondents would take $10,000 even if doing so meant some rando on earth would die. They said they would on Twitter anyhow. Who are you a rando to? CAPITAL. So the question of how capitalism becomes fascistic is really a question of how low the rate of profit has fallen. When the rate is high, capitalist nations are generous (for a given definition of generous), they splash out on welfare, and find a bit of room to invest in improvements. There's sense in this for the capitalist because if the state covers the costs of helping a worker make it from day to day then that's costs the company doesn't have to pick up. But when the rate of profit falls low enough the boss loses patience and begins to look for the state to hold the worker down to receive his thrashing, and not lift him up a bit. No food, no water, just a beating til you do what you need to. Pick a subclass to do it to first to get everyone disciplined. (That last bit is actually a capitalist norm, think of racism in the US or the oppression of women to discipline men.) If you take this path you will see the investment flow in, like the US poured into Germany -- the promised returns are too high to ignore! Commies did some of the earliest analysis of fascism, Clara Zetkin presented [The Struggle Against Fascism](https://www.marxists.org/archive/zetkin/1923/06/struggle-against-fascism.html) to the ComIntern in 1923. Germany and Italy were kinda humiliated countries in economic crisis in the other 20s. Some in the capitalist class felt it was time to hand the reigns over to mean bastards lest they lose their advantage. Note that they really gave over the reins! They relinquished some power, the corporate types, the boss types, so that someone could do the dirty work of whipping the ingrates into shape. (I think Novecento by Bertolucci captures this dynamic well in Donald Sutherland's character.) It was like summoning a genie, giving yourself over to a power you hoped work out well for you. Capitalism HAS TO get nasty in a crisis because it has set the only goal as turning one dollar into two, and not the actual lifting up of living beings, if you know what I mean. There's nothing they won't contemplate. This sounds simplistic and it is. Capitalism is base and senseless as fuck. Just let it sink in! There's no real transformation for capitalism to go fash -- the mechanisms are always there and always in use. But some of the soft stuff is taken away, or the pressure is turned on different populations, or cranked up -- and so the really nasty stuff of, say the British colonies doesn't look super different to European fascism. The fuckers who give you work today would cut your throat tomorrow if the returns were better. "It's not personal, it's business!"
Are you listening to this week's "Economic Update" with prof Richard Wolff? Because it's about the link between austerity Capitalism and fascism.
I recommend the Apprentice's sorcerer by Ishay Landa. Seriously the best book on fascism I've read.
You have to understand what capitalism in decay means. Lenin explains that capitalism enters the decay period when the development of industrial technology stagnates and is no longer improving. In "Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism," Lenin gives an in depth explanation of how the social forces change and merge due to the stagnation of industrial development. Modern imperialism becomes reliant on cheaper labor and cheaper resources in colonial states. Cheaper resources means industry can be developed elsewhere or at home for less money. So banks and industries merge together since they become far more reliant on financing. Finance Capitalism develops. Workers become reliant on cheaper products and better wages since home industry is benefitted by imperialism. So all of these combine to make workers and capitalists into National Chauvinists. Imperialism becomes stronger while the capitalist system slowly breaks down. As it breaks down, the capitalists blame Liberalism and Socialism. This leads to the need to revert backwards to Feudalism. In Marxist theory, society evolves from Feudalism to Capitalism to Socialism. But each transition is caused by the struggle between classes. The bourgeoisie and workers defeat the Feudal aristocracy to establish Capitalism. Then the workers defeat the bourgeoisie to establish socialism. Lenin predicted that when capitalism enters decay, the bourgeoisie will try to save its own class by destroying Liberalism and establishing a modern version of feudalism. Feudalism was a rigid hierarchical system in which a specific class defined the roles in society. Kings were at the top, peasants/serfs were at the bottom. Kings granted privileges in exchange for labor and loyalty. Mussolini explicitly stated over-and-over that Fascism was a hierarchical system based on Feudalism. The Fascist slogan was "Order, Discipline, Hierarchy." He merged Feudalism with modern industry and the modern state. He re-established Feudal Guilds (Corporazioni) and forced all workers to join them by outlawing unions. This is what defined Fascism as well. It was a Feudal Guild state (Corporate state). All Fascists states and Fascist movements defined themselves on this Feudal Guild system.
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