Maybe we can talk this week about what I think of as “small” or “limited” fascism and its seemingly ambiguous status in the eyes of many conservatives, Republicans, right wingers in the USA. Sound a plan? Let’s do it.
The core of fascism is that it’s undemocratic, authoritarian government to defend conservative views on the ethics of economic power against “leftist” views delivered from voters in a democracy or from authoritarian communism, which fascists tend to lump together as equivalent. It’s impossible to come to terms with the right wing movement of fascism if one doesn’t understand its entire reason to exist was to fight “leftist” views on the ethics of economic power coming from liberals, progressives, democratic socialists, and also authoritarian communists.
In order to be seen as a viable contender, European fascists found it expedient to argue right wing fascism, like “The Left,” had society’s best interests at heart, believed in welfare state goals, was in fact an alternative, conservative, right wing form of “socialism.” Modern fascists in the USA have taken hold of the social welfare pretensions of the old European fascists, their claim to care about (their) society no less, if not more, than “leftist” socialists, were another form of socialism, to risibly argue fascists were “leftists.” That seems a clueless, uninformed take that misses entirely the main point of contention between authoritarian fascists, authoritarian communists, and supporters of democracy, namely, the ethics of economic power, how society is meant to address them.
The ethics of economic power concerns the issues of the definition of economic power (legal property “rights”), the distribution of economic power, and the use of economic power in markets, or not, to resolve interpersonal conflicts of preferences, allocate scarce resources. The ethics of economic power are exogenous to the normative or ethical argument in neoclassical welfare economics about markets, and people typically have very strong views on them, who should have what and why, what the economy is meant to do, and so on.
Some conservatives in the USA seem to feel if one has a “small” or “limited” undemocratic, authoritarian government devoted to expressing, preserving, protecting conservative views on the ethics of economic power, but having no welfare state pretensions, it’s not really fascism. In their view, it may even be consistent with a sort of democracy if economic issues can be cordoned off as a special area immune from so-called “activist” democratic government. An inactive democratic government that supports conservative views on economic power would be fine. If democratic government constrained to support and not challenge conservative views on the ethics of economic power is impossible, they accept undemocratic government as conservative, right wing, authoritarian government, but feel it’s not yet fascism, per se. I see it rather as “small” or “limited” fascism. Having it the other way seems to me a case of the tail wagging the dog, making the core of fascism irrelevant to the definition of fascism, and making the unnecessary, contingent, insincere periphery the basis of definition.
During the heyday of European fascism, all nations expressed welfare state ideas, promoted social programs, in response to widespread economic suffering during the Great Depression, including democratic USA, communist USSR. There was nothing specifically fascistic about it. And then of course we have the fact fascism in the USA, in fact, does not diverge in any significant way from old European fascism except in relation to the specific word “socialism.” American fascism clearly also has welfare state pretensions, talks about social welfare. Indeed, American fascists talk just as much about what society, “America” wants, what’s best for everyone (of the right sort), as the Nazis ever did in Germany. It hews quite closely as well to the original in many peripheral issues such as racism, nationalism, and other issues.
The innovation in American fascism, if any, is that its social welfare pretensions rely heavily on the market utopianism of anti-democracy bad economics in the conservative style, hardly rhetoric available to the Nazis during the economic upheavals of the Great Depression. Bad economics in the conservative style, by playing games with normative or ethical ideas like socially optimal market results, muddies the water in terms of pretended, false professions of concern for society and authentic or sincere concern. There seems little reason to suppose under the right conditions US fascists will not do exactly as the Nazis did. During times of economic distress they will likely also profess an interest in social welfare programs for some; promote racism, bigotry: resort to thievery, war. Nor is there any reason to suppose undemocratic, authoritarian government in the USA, once established, would be any more concerned about intended limits on their power than were the old Nazi elite, no reason they would choose to remain “small,” by any definition.
What’s my point? Anti-democracy conservatives and Republicans promoting “small” or “limited” wholly or partially authoritarian government confined to promoting, defending conservative views on the ethics of economic power, are fascists, small or large.
