“Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian ultranationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce.”
This is a useless definition of fascism. It describes basically any existing political-economic system. Even an anarchist system falls under it. Unless your anarchist system wouldn’t maintain a monopoly on political power, forcibly suppress people trying to destroy it, and not have control over industry and commerce?
I don’t really know where to begin with this essay. To try to take it apart point by point would take ages and it just hits on all the same points that liberals do anyway (and uses the same sources). I’m just tired of fighting with anarchist comrades. Maybe when the struggle gets to the point that this shit actually matters we can try to resolve our contradictions. Until then I’m fine working with anarchists in actual real life work that matters.
Funny aside, ziq hates me :D
Yeahh, zig hates everyone btw lol. They’re one of those ridiculous “anti-civ” “anarchists” who basically exist solely online. Have you read their essays where they advocate for ending organized agriculture and returning to a hunter-gatherer subsistence lifestyle? Lmao
Any other definition of fascism I’ve seen includes the whole ethnic superiority/ social hierarchy aspect in the definition.
… Not that it makes a whole lot of difference what with Homo Sovieticus or N. Korean weird racial purity fetish but it’s still disingenuous to leave it out
The most useful definitions of fascism I’ve seen are how it’s primarily a response to a collapse in liberal economic order and certain sectors of capital find it useful to rile up popular suppression of leftist organizing. As in, capitalists hit the emergency button to maintain authority and drop the theater of democracy. In some cases fascists will represent specific sectors of capital, such as manufacturing, at the expense of other sectors such as finance. The ethnic superiority thing comes along with typical revanchist rhetoric about restoring order, which is the main plank of a standard fascist movement: “We’ll get rid of the socialists and restore the previous order.”
I really do think it’s most practical to view fascism as an emergency movement. It’s panic, it’s frenzied stripping of the copper wires. Not to get into it here, but “peacetime” fascism is arguably modern neoliberalism.
I typically point to Robert O. Paxton’s work. He’s a liberal, but otherwise has a very good insight into fascism.
Fascism is not inherently as aggressively racist as the Nazis, though racial ideology seems to be an inevitable part of it. See how Mussolini wasn’t exactly running racial pogroms, at least until Hitler pushed him in that direction.
Your characterization of those socialist states is wildly incongruous and misleading, but I don’t think there’s hope on moving that needle.
Im totally happy to hear explanations as to why it’s not a racial superiority thing, I was just given to understand that N. Korea has an insane racial dogma and that the Hom Sovieticus was all about racial evolution.
Which was very trendy at the time. Doesn’t mean it aged well.
I would encourage you to actually read about these topics and especially look at all at primary sources.
The idea of the New Soviet Man was simply that people are formed by their material conditions, so a new set of conditions in a society that fosters pro-social values and development would produce people who were different from those raised under the Czar or in liberal states. It is absolutely not a race thing. If you want to hear about eugenics being cool, try post-exile Trotsky (fuck him, he was a crank).
With the DPRK, I’ll need a reference because otherwise it just sounds like one of the countless things just invented by South Korea or the US to slander them. My guess is that they just have their own version of the New Soviet Man as a matter of cultural inheritance from their involvement with the Soviet Union.
I expect the Homo Sovieticus misunderstanding on my part is a result of the terrible US high school system and some blending of Trotsky into mainstream Sovietism, thanks for the clarification!
If you read the article, there is an allusion to there being a book on the subject, but the only direct evidence presented is that quote from Kim Jong-Il, so I tried googling it and the result is basically three other sites plagiarizing the article and nothing else. If you are wondering, I placed the quotes on the second clause only because of the spelling of “homogenous” being variable, as you’ll notice from the suggested search.
So basically “there’s a book about it” is what is left of the claim. I do also find the history a bit weird since Koreans were treated as chattel by Imperial Japan and to this day the more reactionary parts of Japanese culture regards them as a foreign and inferior race, while mainstream Japan glosses over how much of Japan’s population is ethnically Korean to make its own claims of homogeneity.
Do I need to try to dig up a digital copy of that book?
Edit: full disclosure, Trotsky supporting eugenics is a pretty obscure thing, I mostly just mentioned it as a dig at him. I doubt it really influenced the New Soviet Man perception even though he basically did assert that if America went socialist, there would be a New Socialist Man within 100 years that would actually be the product of eugenics, unlike in the Soviet case.
Another “both-sides” banger by ziq.
This is a useless definition of fascism. It describes basically any existing political-economic system. Even an anarchist system falls under it. Unless your anarchist system wouldn’t maintain a monopoly on political power, forcibly suppress people trying to destroy it, and not have control over industry and commerce?
I don’t really know where to begin with this essay. To try to take it apart point by point would take ages and it just hits on all the same points that liberals do anyway (and uses the same sources). I’m just tired of fighting with anarchist comrades. Maybe when the struggle gets to the point that this shit actually matters we can try to resolve our contradictions. Until then I’m fine working with anarchists in actual real life work that matters.
Yeahh, zig hates everyone btw lol. They’re one of those ridiculous “anti-civ” “anarchists” who basically exist solely online. Have you read their essays where they advocate for ending organized agriculture and returning to a hunter-gatherer subsistence lifestyle? Lmao
Any other definition of fascism I’ve seen includes the whole ethnic superiority/ social hierarchy aspect in the definition.
… Not that it makes a whole lot of difference what with Homo Sovieticus or N. Korean weird racial purity fetish but it’s still disingenuous to leave it out
The most useful definitions of fascism I’ve seen are how it’s primarily a response to a collapse in liberal economic order and certain sectors of capital find it useful to rile up popular suppression of leftist organizing. As in, capitalists hit the emergency button to maintain authority and drop the theater of democracy. In some cases fascists will represent specific sectors of capital, such as manufacturing, at the expense of other sectors such as finance. The ethnic superiority thing comes along with typical revanchist rhetoric about restoring order, which is the main plank of a standard fascist movement: “We’ll get rid of the socialists and restore the previous order.”
I really do think it’s most practical to view fascism as an emergency movement. It’s panic, it’s frenzied stripping of the copper wires. Not to get into it here, but “peacetime” fascism is arguably modern neoliberalism.
I typically point to Robert O. Paxton’s work. He’s a liberal, but otherwise has a very good insight into fascism.
100%, I unironically view fascism as the second half of the boss fight, when Capitalism gets all red and angry and does double damage.
Based. We need gamer Marxism (just a little, as a treat)
Fascism is not inherently as aggressively racist as the Nazis, though racial ideology seems to be an inevitable part of it. See how Mussolini wasn’t exactly running racial pogroms, at least until Hitler pushed him in that direction.
Your characterization of those socialist states is wildly incongruous and misleading, but I don’t think there’s hope on moving that needle.
Im totally happy to hear explanations as to why it’s not a racial superiority thing, I was just given to understand that N. Korea has an insane racial dogma and that the Hom Sovieticus was all about racial evolution.
Which was very trendy at the time. Doesn’t mean it aged well.
I would encourage you to actually read about these topics and especially look at all at primary sources.
The idea of the New Soviet Man was simply that people are formed by their material conditions, so a new set of conditions in a society that fosters pro-social values and development would produce people who were different from those raised under the Czar or in liberal states. It is absolutely not a race thing. If you want to hear about eugenics being cool, try post-exile Trotsky (fuck him, he was a crank).
With the DPRK, I’ll need a reference because otherwise it just sounds like one of the countless things just invented by South Korea or the US to slander them. My guess is that they just have their own version of the New Soviet Man as a matter of cultural inheritance from their involvement with the Soviet Union.
I expect the Homo Sovieticus misunderstanding on my part is a result of the terrible US high school system and some blending of Trotsky into mainstream Sovietism, thanks for the clarification!
While I’m equally unsure about the DPRK racial purity thing since you’ve challenged it I did find this article from Berkeley discussing it’s roots in Japanese fascism.
If you read the article, there is an allusion to there being a book on the subject, but the only direct evidence presented is that quote from Kim Jong-Il, so I tried googling it and the result is basically three other sites plagiarizing the article and nothing else. If you are wondering, I placed the quotes on the second clause only because of the spelling of “homogenous” being variable, as you’ll notice from the suggested search.
So basically “there’s a book about it” is what is left of the claim. I do also find the history a bit weird since Koreans were treated as chattel by Imperial Japan and to this day the more reactionary parts of Japanese culture regards them as a foreign and inferior race, while mainstream Japan glosses over how much of Japan’s population is ethnically Korean to make its own claims of homogeneity.
Do I need to try to dig up a digital copy of that book?
Edit: full disclosure, Trotsky supporting eugenics is a pretty obscure thing, I mostly just mentioned it as a dig at him. I doubt it really influenced the New Soviet Man perception even though he basically did assert that if America went socialist, there would be a New Socialist Man within 100 years that would actually be the product of eugenics, unlike in the Soviet case.