Dear All,
First of all greetings to everyone. I have joined back the list after
5 years of hiatus.
On Nov 20, 2005, at 4:02 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Both Gramsci and Trotsky relate fascism directly and primarily, not to
a
shoppers' list of symptoms, but to [Gramsci] "the activity which the
bourgeois
class carries out to halt the proletarian class on its path."
I am willing to go along with this definition but, may I ask, who is
"the proletarian class" today? Or, why is "the bourgeois class" going
along with this fascist project? There is practically not much of a
resistance to capitalism in the USA. In Europe? Yeah, maybe, but they
are too concerned with their crumbling welfare state and keeping their
borders shut. Is it still the trauma of Seattle (the anarchists, the
anti-war movement, etc)? Or, is it the rising leftist consciousness in
Latin America? Or, maybe it is Islam, the signifier of "just society"
for many who live in the Global South.
I don't know which one is the true "the proletarian class" that "the
bourgeois class" wishes to stop. None of them But, as you may have
guessed I also think that this dual class structure is too
simplistic—and to the extent of what I've read of their writings, both
Gramsci and Trotsky has much more to say on Fascism than this
simplistic slogan.
What I really think is that transnational ruling classes (see for very
nice agit-prop art project: http://www.theyrule.net) doing their best,
in a manner as coordinated (G8, IMF, WB, etc.) as possible given their
internal conflicts, to manage, to maintain, and to reproduce the
circuit of capital. The circuit of capital is coming off its seams
everyday, every moment, as I write, and Bush and company are trying to
stitch it together perpetually. In doing so, they always prefer more
power to less, more control to less, and so on. Fascism emerges, i
think just like that, in the most banal, unintended way. It is just
another, ultimately impotent (to bring out its psychic economy),
solution to the perpetual crises of capitalism.
Many have written on the libidinal/psychic economies that sustain
fascism, Slavoj Zizek being the most prolific of all. But, in general
I think the emerging Marxian/Lacanian literature is a very useful place
to look for sound analyses of fascism for both Marxian and
non-Marxian/radical political economists.
Warmest,
Yahya M. Madra
