On Mon, Mar 16, 2026 at 08:57 PM, Charles wrote: > > The chaotic Trump reign over US politics is showing critical signs of > weakening on many fronts: ...
Analogies have often been drawn between Trumpism and other contemporary far right movements and the fascism that existed in the 20th century between the twoworldwars. would argue that from the standpoint of the capitalist ruling classes, the fascism of the 1920s-1940s was a great success. The fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, Spain, etc. successfully neutralized the threats to capitalism that were coming out of the socialist and communist movements. Eventually, most of the fascist regimes would be eliminated with the Second World War, but by then, fascism had already done its job. Back in 1927, the right-wing economist Ludwig von Mises in his book Liberalism: The Classical Tradition , in a chapter, in which he critiqued fascism, nevertheless, ended that same chapter with the following tribute: “It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.” If today’s capitalist ideologues had von Mises’s candor, they would say much the same thing about fascism. One consequence of the fascist interlude between the two world wars was to help to push the politics of the capitalist world permanently to the right. Before the rise of fascism, the major left-wing parties in Europe such as the SPD in Germany or the Socialist Party in France, were, at least officially, Marxist parties committed to the overthrow of capitalism. Following the Second World War, most of these parties dropped those commitments. The SPD officially dropped its allegiance to Marxism in the 1950s, for example. Nor was this phenomenon confined to the social democratic parties. Most of the Moscow-oriented Communist parties in Europe moved rightwards too. They basically morphed into left social democratic parties, basically, dropping their commitments to the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism, and, instead, filling the roles that had previously been filled by the prewar social democratic parties. This raises the question can anything similar be said about today's far right movements? Perhaps we can. Ludwig von Mises's remark that fascism had temporarily “saved European civilization” from socialism reflected the willingness of many defenders of capitalism to view authoritarian movements as a necessary emergency measure. In our very different historical context (Bolshevism is not a real threat to capitalism), something similar can be seen today in the tolerance that sections of the capitalist ruling class have shown toward Trumpism and other far-right populist movements. While these movements operate within electoral systems rather than establishing outright dictatorships, they can function politically to redirect social discontent away from capitalism itself and toward cultural or national antagonisms much the way that the fascist movements of the 20th century had done. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#41137): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/41137 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/118357117/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
