Image citation : Freedom to People by Paul Sableman, Wikimedia Commons
I’ve been warning you about the worldwide rise of fascism. It loves the State, not you. It is the extreme form of statism, and the opposite of real liberalism. In the 1920s Mussolini put it this way: “Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.”
In the “spectrum” that some people think is all there is to political theory, fascism is supposed to be the opposite of communism. That’s what people thought in the 1930s. It’s wrong. The cliché in reply is that “the extremes join at their ends.” Fascism can be left wing, as in Venezuela, or right, as in Russia.
Its ambition is totalitarian, plain in Xi Jinping’s China. Therefore, Brazil being cordial to Xi’s attempt to form a Third-World against the North and West will threaten democracy. Listen up, Lula.
In the USA “a liberal” slipped a century ago into meaning “a social democrat,” that is, a moderate socialist, happy that the state takes over 40 percent of GDP for it purposes. A typical purpose is buying an army that Brazil will never need and one that the USA uses too much. In Latin countries by contrast a “liberal” means “someone who favors making the rich still more rich, with the backing of the police and the army.” Partido Liberal.
Something’s strange about the water in the New World.
You think I exaggerate the fascist, anti-liberal threat. But consider the checklist of fascism.
A cultish image of il duce as a virtuous strongman., check Politics as theatre, check: Nuremburg rallies; Trump rallies. Demonization of political opponents, check. Lack of interest in compromise, or practical politics, check. Designation of a minority as “vermin,” check. Love of macho physical power, check. Fascination with guns, check: “When I hear the word culture, I reach for my gun.” Propaganda as supplement to physical power, check. The Big Lie, check.
Reality or threat of violence as a political tool, check: January 6 in the USA; January 8 in Brazil. Resentment as the leading theme, check Single-identity politics on left and right, check: “Black,” “Jew,” “bourgeois,” “queer.” The state as “our thing,” excluding minorities, or in the case of women, majorities, check. Elevation of the State to holy status, check.
Beware.
The piece was originally published in the Brazilian Newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and permisson from the author has been obtained to republish the piece on Bastiat Scrolls.
