Carrol writes:
Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
But if the rise of a fascist state presupposes a powerful
working-class movement, we'd have to come to a conclusion that Japan
at the height of its imperialism (from the February 26 Incident to the
end of WW2) wasn't fascist. Do we want to go this far?
I had just been speculating on this point myself. And I don't really
know enough about Japan to speculate very usefully.
===========================
That's a good point, and I also don't know enough about the history to
comment. What is your view, Yoshie, and why?
In general, fascism is not only a response to a threatening working class
movement - otherwise this term could describe virtually all military coups
and other strong states established from above to keep the masses in check -
but a specific type of response, one which involves the organization of a
mass movement from below based on economically insecure small
propertyholders in the cities and countryside and unorganized and often
unemployed workers who are encouraged to physically assault the trade
unions, social movements, and left-wing parties as the source of their
problems. I think the Chinese Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-Shek fit this
description, for example, as well as the European parties.
Certainly, the core Republican base has a cultural profile which has
features in common with fascism - even though it is not fascist, and the US
ruling class doesn't need to resort to extreme measures to turn it in that
direction. But I think the growing social conservatism of the Republican
rank and file - coupled with the Patriot Act and the countenance of torture-
is what has caused the alarm on the left about incipient "fascism". IMO, the
alarm will be justified when the self-conscious white supremacist gangs who
want to reproduce the single-party state of the Third Reich begin to win
support at all levels of the RP. Right now, they and even the non-fascist
evangelical Republicans are regarded as "nuts" by the White House. For the
present, the two major parties are more than holding their own against
threats from both right and left.
