As is apparent from this blog, the issue of fascism has been much on my mind this week. Amongst the things that I've read has been a fascinating blog post by someone called Blair Fix.
He analysed fascism in what seems like an entirely original way, showing that its roots are, in effect, in mediaeval theocracy, because the language used by those of fascist persuasion is remarkably similar to that found in some 17th, and maybe 18th, century political mediaeval theocratic thought, after which periods the language of the enlightenment displaced that of the theocrats, although the latter is now on the rise again.
If I had time, I would comment further on that post, because I think it is well worth reading and thinking about, but the reaction which came to me that I wish to note here is not one that came directly from the piece itself, but arose as a consequence of Blair Fix's observation that the opposite to fascism is not, if it is rooted in mediaeval theocracy, communism or socialism, or anything to do with either of those ideologies, but is instead to be found in the enlightenment.
Unfortunately, we could also very easily say that enlightenment thinking has now been corrupted. Its destination might, in fact, be neoliberalism. I am not, therefore, too sure this creates an argument that is particularly useful. However, tangentially, what it suggested to me was something quite different, and that is not that the opposite of fascism is to be found in any sort of ideology, as such, but is instead to be found in action.
In his analysis of fascist writing, Blair Fix identified three common threats. One was the significant overuse of violent symbolism. Words like annihilation, bloodshed, conquer, extermination and fighting were substantially overused when compared to the body of normal writing of the periods when fascist or similar ideas were written.
The second was a significant quantity of emotion-laden judgment, typified by the use of words like betrayed, cowardice, enemies, hatred, humiliation, slander and treason.
Third, he found there was a significant use of what appear to be quasi-religious, e.g. references to the Almighty, blessings, providence and the eternal.
All of these do, of course, relate to a mythical fight against an oppressor, which only a supreme leader can deliver the true believers from. This is what the mythology of fascism is all about, after all.
In that case, though, there is no point in trying to persuade those who have submitted to fascist inclinations of the mistaken political view that they have adopted. Instead, what needs to be demonstrated is that there are better ways to overcome the oppression from which they are suffering. In other words, the opposite of fascism is not another political ideology, but is instead action to remove the causes of fear.
This is hardly surprising. William Beveridge, of course, was right about this in the 1940s, as was Nye Bevan in the 1950s. Freedom from fear has always been, in my opinion, the goal of the politics of care. If fear blights people's lives, and it very obviously is, then the removal of fear has to be the goal of any successful political thinking now.
The trouble is that neoliberal politics is doing everything it can to reinforce the narratives of fear.
It says that people must live in fear of markets.
They must live in fear of a wealthy elite.
They must live in fear of a government that cannot meet their need because it must impose austerity.
They must live in fear of the consequences of inequality, leaving them forever without the opportunity to fulfil their reasonable hopes of being able to live with their families in a community.
Ultimately, they must live with the idea that they are, in the neoliberal view, expendable.
Those are the fears that have driven people towards fascist thinking now.
My suggestion is, let's not spend too long trying to engage with the arguments that the fascists put forward. There is no logic to their medieval theocracy. To pretend that there is would be absurd. However, there is a way to tackle these fears, and that is by empowering the state to address the failures of neoliberal market philosophy, which dictates that they exist when that is wholly unnecessary.
We have a choice. What is clear is that neoliberalism is not amongst the viable options available to us.
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Thank you Richard. It doesn’t happen often for these days, but your post was a lightbulb moment for me. You’re absolutely right, it’s fear!
Thanks
Perhaps we need a new political party that does exactly what its name suggests: Compassion.
I also liked Peter Oborne’s suggested campaign slogan (in the September issue of the Byline Times) when commenting on “our disgusting role in the destruction of Gaza: ‘Good Britain. No longer Great Britain’.”
That is good. Pun intended.
Complicit Britain…..
Surely when Great Britain was first named Great, that just meant its size, as in “Grande Bretagne” in the French. Trump never defined what he intended it to mean in MAGA, but America is finding out now for sure. I suspect many will be regretting their vote for him. I prefer Good too…
In your penultimate paragraph you write: “there is a way to tackle these fears, and that is by empowering the state to address the failures of neoliberal market philosophy”; but alas! “The State” is now one of the main adherents of neoliberal market philosophy. So we have to find some way tearing the powers that be away from this harmful, hateful thinking; and guide them towards more widely beneficial principles and practices – and that’s the problem. How do we take a greedy dog’s nose out of its food bowl without it turning on us? My experience says a gradual and gentle building of trust often works; but sometimes the beast is beyond changing, and I think this is the situation we know face. Either we repeatedly get bitten; or the dog is put down…
I retain a belief that in democracy we can reclaim the state.
Demos Kratos whole heartedly agree!
Comprehensive democracy includes access to decent public services, pensions, education, housing, health, and legal services.
Thanks
I’m for putting the dog of capitalism/neoliberalism/fascism down.
If that is the case then one challenge is that averages people’s situations are so precarious that very significant change is required before they stop feeling scared of the next financial challenge or housing issue.
That’s part of where Labour has struggled, on strikes and the economic mood. Minimum wage may be outpacing inflation but as it hasn’t reached a point where things become affordable the economic fear remains. Above-inflation public sector deals one year undid some harm of previous wage erosion but not enough so union demands are still but the next above inflation increase.
Bigger and bolder steps are required. That might include things like Universal Basic Income, significant investment in social housing, better energy price controls and more.
Possibly ones like UBI especially given fears of AI taking away their job in coming years, or young adults fear AI will stop then ever having a career.
I entirely accept your point about the desperate situation in which many people find themselves, but no one has an answer to that, and most especially Nigel Farage, so all of this has to be laid out very clearly and honestly by anyone who seeks power to change anything. But what they also have to do is say that they are committed to that process of change, and will fight the power of the city of London and those who will oppose them in the process of doing so.
Minimum wage may be outpacing inflation…
But it isn’t outpacing real inflation in everything we need. CPI is bad, I would say deliberately so, at reflecting that. Anyone on low pay, low pension, or any low/fixed income situation, will be spending more on their “needs” and getting left behind, every year. Many will never catch up. Everytime the bar is raised, it becames harder to catch up.
I don’t get the impression that Labour understand this.
That is why they will lose at the next election. It is no good them arguing that CPI is 3% (or less) when water bills are at least 26%. Or rents going up 5-10% or gas, electricity, travel council tax…
This Labour government doesn’t even accept that austerity is happening.
Much to agree with.
It is not only that the level of inflation for essentials is so much higher than CPI, there is also the 6 month time lag between the rates, calculated on September CPI and implementation in April. Allegedly the DWP computers are so useless they can’t do it any faster.
If you are talking about the creation of fear isn’t that precisely what this Starmer government engages in – there’s a dreadful “black hole” in the government’s books which spells disaster if we don’t fill it. – Then there’s cracking down on immigration we’ll be swamped if we don’t. – Then there’s if we don’t demonise the opposition to our support for ethnic cleansing in Palestine then they’ll destroy our military preparedness. And on and on it goes. Scare the hell out of the public with false claims! This is right-wing authoritarianism on steroids and a so-called Labour government to boot. Not!
Starmer is paving the way for fascism. Even Clive Lewis MP has said so.
You in Britain might take some useful information from this true story from U.S. history, and use it to forestall or deal with what looks very similar.
Bill Clinton campaigned for the presidency as The Man From Hope. (He was from Hope, Arkansas, but he was educated at Georgetown University, Oxford University College and at Yale.) He campaigned on “putting people first.” This catch phrase became the title of Clinton’s campaign book and the campaign’s basic promise.
Almost immediately upon election, Clinton pivoted to obsession with the federal deficit, which had metastasized to more than $4 trillion in national debt and more than $300 billion in annual deficit. Clinton didn’t want to raise taxes.
Clinton didn’t want to raise taxes.
Clinton didn’t want to raise taxes on the wealthy, so his only alternative was to cut spending on federal programs.
Interest on the national debt was almost entirely due to wealthy corporations and individuals who had previously financed the government through their taxes. Along came President Reagan’s tax cuts, by which the wealthy corpos and people financed government by lending it money, which the rest of American had to pay back with interest on those bonds.
The huge deficit made it harder for the federal government do do anything for the rest of America. Like health care.
And why did Bill Clinton quiver and quail at the prospect of taxing the rich and fulfilling his campaign pledge to The People?
Because Clinton was intimidated by Wall Street, and feared that bond traders would punish him by raising interest rates on long term bonds, thus slowing the economy and potentially putting millions of people out of work.
Such courage.
Starmer’s government scaremongering on the basis of data that now appears to be unreliable:-
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/22/fears-grow-over-impact-of-ons-data-reliability-on-rachel-reeves-budget
What a mess!
“Jagjit Chadha, a Cambridge university economist and former director of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, said there was “considerable dysfunction in Newport”, partly as the agency had been pushed to make cost savings.”
Austerians hoist by their own petard! You couldn’t make it up!
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/22/fears-grow-over-impact-of-ons-data-reliability-on-rachel-reeves-budget
Indeed. I have, for a very long time question the validity of the data produced by the office for national statistics and it looks like that I was right to do so all along.
Very interesting, and how these ideas legitimised crusades, the mediaeval culture wars.
There are many more fast neural pathways to sense threat and activate that experience we call fear / amygdala activation , and those who have lived insecure and threat filled lives are especially sensitive.
Our brains have evolved to detect extrusion, because as humans our biggest threat is to be outcast by our tribe. Loss of status is the slippery slope to being extruded.
Neoliberalism creates inequality which in turn creates loss of dignity and status- triggering threat.
The extreme right show a good understanding of our fear buttons and how to keep pressing them, to activate authoritarianism, which is dormant in a culture and politics of care. 🙂
Useful thoughts. Thank you.
“Perfect love casts out fear”
“Love your neighbour”
“Love your enemies”
Fears…
Children – being cold or hungry or seeing your parents worrying about money
The young – fear for the future of the planet. Coping with school.
The pregnant mum – fear of lack of care in childbirth. Giving up work and being poor.
The partner – domestic violence and coercive control, and a lack of legal remedy
The consumer and service user – a lack of protective regulation
The schoolleaver/student – lack of a job, unaffordability of a home
Those not in work – demonisation, poverty.
The woman – misogyny, violence, an unresponsive legal system
Being part of a minority – (skin colour, nationality, religion, sexuality, gender identity, disability and more) – bigotry and the violence that goes with it on the street and in institutions
The parent – unaffordable unavailable childcare
The tenant – insecurity of tenure & affordability
The sick, injured, disabled, and those with special needs – a lack of available, effective and timely care.
The middle-aged – insecurity of employment and inadequate pension arrangements.
The elderly – their grandchildren’s future, and inadequate elderly social care. Being a burden. Waiting lists. Isolation. Pain. Euthanasia
Incidentally, I haven’t yet met anyone who is genuinely “afraid” of immigrants.
How to emasculate fascists? Deal with the above fears. This is within the power of government.
Problem – those in power don’t share our fears. They only fear losing power or wealth or both. They have to go.
Solution, dealing with the above fears will remove the appeal of fascism and reduce it once again to a few flag waving drunks on the street corner.
The challenge – getting the right people into positions of power and influence.
KUTGW!
Fear of migrants is greatest in those communities where you are least likely to meet one. Where they are your neighbours, the fear is very low. I know. I lived in Southwest London for over 20 years.
As for the rest of your fears, I agree, entirely.
Not sure I agree wrt to the last set of points (ref fear).
The neolib narrative is markets are good & deliver results that are beneficial to people. The wealthy are welath creators (= good) strivers not skivers (= hate those that don’t work) & so on & so forth. John Ralston Saul wrote “Voltaire’s Bastards” which was an attack on the societal structures which emerged from the “enlightenment” and were then deformed (neoliberalism being the ultimate outcome). His attack was generalised and remains valid. Then there is “Late Soviet Britain” which is more rigourous in its focus and demolition of neoliberalism & the underpinning economics.
Just reading Goliath’s Curse (Luke Kemp) (the hisotyr & future of societal collapse)…. society needs to build resilience which is +/- totally lacking now, against a whole host of problems coming down the track, not least, the climate disaster. I am sorry to say but, my & a partners attempt to do so wrt communty energy (as a starting point) have been an abject failure. This bodes badly for much of western society. Neolioberalism has created brittle societies, fascism (a reaction to neoliberalism) will make things worse (= strong man doing the thinking for you) whilst utterly failing to address the assorted threats that are heading towards us.
The 1945 Atlee government was not frightened of introducing changes in the provision of health care, housing, education and so on.
The UK’s fear of change because “we can’t afford it” can be overcome by persistent challenge to the orthodoxy with “yes we can afford it because this is how the system really works.”
“Would you like to have your children/grandchildren in schools which are not falling down and they are educated for the 21st century, proper affordable housing for you and your family, a health system that really works for you, a much better state pension?”
Well you can and here’s how to do it.
As you say there is no point of fighting head to head. The narrative must be changed and we are the ones to get the ball rolling.
It will take time.
Agreed.
The ‘fear’ of being overwhelmed by ‘asylum seekers’, ‘migrants’, raping ‘our women and girls’, ‘flying their flags when we not allowed to fly our own’, been given places in (luxury) hotels , featured prominently in radio 4 news programmes every day for the last three weeks.
‘Another 400 yesterday’, ‘25000 this year’, ‘50000 since Labour elected’, ‘111000 asylum applicants – a record’ – intoned day after day as if the world was coming to an end. ‘A very serious matter for Labour’.
Even Woman’s Hour, ‘the Briefing Room’ etc etc banging on and banging on.
The pretence of the BBC as the ‘independent public service broadcaster’ the most frightening aspect of the drift to fascism, when it has clearly been mandated to follow Starmer’s doomed strategy – to out Farage Farage .
How could they invite ‘think tanker’ Clair Fox on PM as the first to comment on the flags issue? – Implying she was an authoritative voice when she is actually one of those attention seekers who switched from ultra left to the ultra right – to gain prominence . In other words a far right nut case whom the BBC chooses to present as ‘head of a think tank’. Just as they have always refused to characterise the IEA Policy Exchange – secretly funded lobby groups as ‘think tanks’.
Much to agree with
As Prof. Jeffrey Sachs points out:
“All Problems in the World Go Back to the British | Jeffrey Sachs”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=231swqLAFcw
And
“Jeffrey Sachs Thinks British Empire Is Responsible for Israel-Palestine Conflict”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AGKv-2QhaI8
It makes a change. it’s usually the US that Sachs says is to blame for all the problems including the Russian invasion of Ukraine. His presentations on Youtube are one sided and ignore other factors.
He doesn’t seem to realise that things happen in the world without being caused by the US. The rest of the world is not waiting around to be directed by them.
No doubt the US or the dollar system headed by them HAS contributed to a lot but they are not alone.
It is a version of American exceptionalism which he claims to deplore because he thinks it is so.
Fear and control go hand in hand. Keep the people scared and they are much more agreeable to authoritairian measures. Somehow it seems always easier to think up doom scenarios. We need to train our imagination to create good outcomes to the challenges we face. I think that would be the true antidote to the power that fear, and for that matter, fascism, can exercise over us.
Unfortunately, Neo-liberalism remains the viable option for those in power as it has either got them there or has helped to further embed them. If it’s working for you, why would you think anything else?
It is the rich who are addicted to it, not the burgeoning rest of us.
What price democracy when we have a free press written by children!
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/22/rachel-reeves-labour-wealth-tax-budget
Faiza does, I am afraid, know nothing about tax, and it shows.
I can see why you fell out with “Tax Justice”.
That article is AWFUL!
Even a reception class economics kindergarten student like me can see that.
The problem is they do not understand tax. Or economics. Or the relationships between either and money, and society. And those are big things to get wrong when you are, supposedly, talking tax justice.
Fear is absolutely a key plank in authoritarian and fascist regimes. But why? This topic is a thorny one, with so much interdisciplinary literature from neurology, psychology, economics, and political science, I cannot claim to have any mastery of it. I would propose, however, that the key exploitative mechanism is disrupting emotional self-regulation and self-awareness. Marketing, a field which is explicitly dedicated to affecting decision making, does this all the time. Perhaps this is why there is not insignificant overlap between marketing campaigns and certain intelligence operations.
As for fear itself, fear is not necessarily bad. If I am afraid of touching fire, that fear helps keep me safe. But when fear short circuits the capacity for more complex reasoning, thinking, and feeling, then it might become a problem. A man who is terribly afraid or angry at immigrants will not look at an individual human being and see that individual human being; they will rush from fear and anger to action. This is even more likely when combined with the herd effect. Gain a critical mass of angry, fearful people, and the destructive effect becomes almost viral.
States have exploited this phenomenon a lot. It’s why states cultivate, and are afraid of, minority extremists.
I too would like to believe empowering the state, reclaiming the state through democracy, is a viable path. But we must also examine how democracy has failed; how did we get here? I think state capture by extreme wealth is the answer, and it has happened globally. We nurtured a viper, allowed inequality to grow because many were complacent and happy (for the time being). Now the viper is too big for us to manage.
And? What follows from those statements? What are you suggesting? Is it some form of anarchy that you are promoting?
Definitely not. But if you are sick, ignoring the sickness doesn’t help. You need to treat it. Democracy needs a doctor.
My first serious political action was walking the strike lines in support of teachers in both university and k-12. Our opposition wasn’t Republican. It was Democratic. The democrats, who were supposedly the party of labor, were trying to shaft not one but two unions at the same time — in a state which historically has been very blue. The governor had no popular support on this issue, yet he tried to shove his agenda down our throats. How could this reasonably happen if the governor was supposed to represent the people who had elected him?
Since then, time after time, I have watched both parties somehow miraculously push deeply unpopular policies. On my paternal family’s side (third generation immigrants), the outsourcing of the textile industry to cheap labor in SE Asia and the rise of the big box stores directly led to the destruction of their business. They were one of many businesses in America ruined by Walmart and such. Towns have literally been destroyed by these box stores moving in, killing local businesses, then moving out, taking all the employment with them.
There are so many other examples I could give: abortion (a pro-life referendum was even rejected in Kansas, which gives you an inkling of how unpopular pro-life is nationally); capture of the FAA by industry, which predictably led to the Boeing tragedies; the multiple failures in the opioid scandal, which should have resulted in jail time and manslaughter charges at a high level, given the number of deaths involved; Uvalde and other mass shootings failing to impact gun policy; the Black Lives Matter movement, which had enormous grassroots support, but very little came of it; and so on.
To those who saw all of this, Trump is no surprise. He is a natural consequence.
Likewise Farage is of Labour here.
Final Speech from The Great Dictator.
Charlie Chaplin saw what fascism was in 1939
https://youtu.be/J7GY1Xg6X20?si=7KAMdNh61Q2p-ZoU
His plea for shared humanity remains as relevant as ever.
Agreed
David Byrne says.
Reading Robt. Reich’s post this evening on Palantir. Frightening!
AI to provide the government with the ultimate repression tool. George Orwell will be turning in his grave, smiling, and bellowing, “I told you so”.
If my memory serves me correctly, Wes Streeting is a big Palantir fan.
Will the NHS be the Trojan Horse data centre run by Peter Thiel?
Roll on 1984.
If I get time this morning, I will comment on this.
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