Umair Haque recently posed a profound question. What, he asked, is the opposite of fascism?
His answer was not “democracy,” as many would suppose, but humanism. That, I think, is right, in the sense that we as people should stand equal, whoever we are, without special favour being granted or denied to anyone by any external authority, divine or political.
But having thought about that, another question immediately followed, which is one that Zoe Gardner has been asking in her invaluable work on migration, and is, if the rights of people come before the rights of states to police borders, how can democracy survive when governments insist on treating migrants as exceptions to humanity?
In my opinion, these two ideas belong together. They force us to confront not only the nature of fascism but also the hollowing out of democracy when states deny the equality of all people.
Fascism and the denial of humanity
First, we need to be clear about what fascism is. I think Umair Haque (whom I have met for coffee in the past) is correct to insist that it is not simply the merger of corporate and state power, or the presence of a charismatic leader, or the subversion of parliaments. Those, and other characteristics, are all symptoms, many of which are familiarly listed. However, the underlying disease that is fascism is identified by an ideology that separates humanity into “superhuman” and “subhuman” groups. As Umair says:
“Fascism is the cleavage of human beings into superhuman and subhuman. From that point, all else follows naturally. The atrocities, the horrors, the contempt for the rule of law, the abuses of power, the craving for dictatorship, the cultism, the pageantry—all of it.”
In particular:
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Rights become conditional, not universal.
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The rule of law is suspended for those deemed unworthy.
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Violence becomes justified, and even celebrated, as a test of superiority.
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Conflict becomes eternal because domination is its own proof of worth.
Importantly, fascism is not a passing aberration; it is a persistent and enduring phenomenon. It is a pseudo-science of superiority and inferiority that denies the possibility of human growth, care, or solidarity. Its justice is violence; its morality is power.
Humanism as the alternative
Second, we must understand why humanism, as noted above, and not democracy, is the true opposite of fascism.
Democracy is an institutional form. It is only as strong as the values that sustain it. Humanism provides those values.
At its core, Haque suggests that humanism rests on three claims:
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Dignity. Every person, by virtue of being human, possesses equal worth, whoever, whatever, however, and wherever they are.
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Liberation. Freedom from oppression is not something that is earned, but is rather something that is inherent.
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Transformation. Human beings are not defined by our genes, biology, or social status; we grow, change, and flourish.
These principles invert fascism. They refuse determinism. They reject division. They locate meaning not in domination but in shared existence.
And here Zoe Gardner's insight becomes indispensable, as it exposes the place where states most blatantly deny these principles today: on their borders.
The Gardner Question
It seems to me that Zoe Gardner poses the question that if the rights of people come before the rights of states to police borders, how can democracy survive when governments insist on treating migrants as exceptions to humanity? This is not an abstract issue. It goes to the heart of how our politics works now.
At national borders, rights are being suspended. Detention without trial occurs. Pushbacks into the sea can happen. Violent deterrence is happening and is being actively promoted by politicians in many countries. All are being justified in the name of “control.” The result is that borders create zones of exception, where human dignity is stripped away.
To exacerbate that, politicians talk as if rights are inherent in the gift of citizenship, which they wish to confer or withhold on behalf of the state. Zoe Gardner insists on the opposite, that rights are inherent, universal, and indivisible. Denying them does not make them vanish. It only unmasks the injustice of the state.
And then, as Zoe Gardner often notes, migration is cast as a “crisis” or “invasion”, but as she points out, in reality, human movement is normal. It has always happened. It has always enriched societies. It always will. Far from creating brain drains as people move, for whatever reason, she rightly argues that migration creates brain gains from the creation of shared knowledge, culture and experience. The crisis we supposedly face is, in that case, not a crisis at all, but is manufactured as a part of a politics of fear designed to legitimise exclusion.
Gardner's suggestion is that when states deny human rights at their borders, it is not migrants who weaken democracy. It is governments themselves that do that. By treating migrants as exceptions to humanity, they set the precedent that rights are conditional and not universal. And once rights are conditional for one group, they are fragile for all.
Why this matters for democracy and economics
If we bring Haque and Gardner together, a larger pattern emerges.
Fascism begins with the division of humanity; governments today reproduce that division on their borders. Humanism insists on universality; states resist it by treating rights as privileges of citizenship.
The consequences are profound.
First, democracy itself is eroded. A democracy that excludes people living within its jurisdiction from their rights is hollow. Scapegoating migrants corrodes the very principle of equal citizenship.
Second, the politics of fear reshapes economics. Migrants are framed as burdens to justify austerity, exclusion, and deregulation. In reality, migrants contribute labour, taxes, and creativity. Any cost is not due to migration, but rather from the myths that governments peddle to sustain hostility.
Third, border exceptionalism legitimises wider injustice. Once it is normal to detain without charge at the border, it becomes easier to normalise surveillance, precarity, and rights erosion inside a society. What begins at the border creeps into everyday life.
Fourth, humanism demands a new political economy. If dignity, liberation and transformation are inherent rights, then economics must serve those ends. This means redistributive taxation, universal public services, protection for workers (including migrants), and fiscal policy focused on inclusion rather than exclusion.
What must we do?
What must we do with these insights? We must turn principle into practice by:
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Ending border exceptionalism. The same standards of law and rights must apply at the frontier as within it. Indefinite detention, violent deterrence, and arbitrary exclusion must end.
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Embedding universality. Rights belong to people, not passports. That requires legal reforms to prevent governments from treating migrants as less than human.
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Reframing migration. Leaders must abandon the language of “crisis” and tell the truth: migration is normal, beneficial, and part of human history.
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Investing in inclusion. Migrants need housing, education, healthcare, and work, not as favours, but as the foundations of dignity, and as the basis for the contribution they will make to the places where they will live.
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Defending democracy. Those who live in a community should have a voice in its decisions. Local voting rights, workplace protections, and access to justice are part of that. Denying these rights to those treated as migrants denies the importance of democracy itself.
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Exposing the ideology. Anti-migrant politics is not neutral. It is a deliberate strategy of fear and division. Naming it is the first step in defeating it.
Humanism, fiscal justice, and the economy of care
This debate cannot be separated from economics. Fascism dehumanises, and neoliberalism, in its own way, has prepared the ground by reducing people to economic units whose worth is measured only in productivity and cost. If we are serious about this approach to human dignity, we must also be serious about fiscal and tax justice.
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Taxation must be redistributive. If dignity is universal, then so too must be the claim on society's wealth. Progressive taxation is not just efficient; it is the fiscal expression of human equality as it requires that each contribute according to their means.
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Fiscal rules must serve people, not markets. Deficit limits that prevent investment in housing, health or education perpetuate exclusion. Fiscal policy must be redesigned to prioritise inclusion and care.
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Wealth must be accountable. A society that allows the wealthy to hoard assets that are free to move across borders to save tax, whilst migrants are denied shelter and work is not democratic. It is already on the path to fascism.
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Public services are human rights in practice. Healthcare, education, housing and security are how dignity becomes real. To underfund them, or to deny them to some groups, is to fracture democracy.
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Borders are economic fictions as much as political ones. Labour markets are international, supply chains are global, and climate change is borderless. Pretending borders can protect “our” wealth while denying rights to those displaced by global crises is dishonest.
Humanism, as I am defining it, requires that economic life be organised around care and survival, not scarcity and fear. The politics of exclusion has always hidden behind economic myths — about “burdens,” “affordability,” or “fiscal responsibility.” These must be confronted as directly as the myths about migration itself.
Conclusion: Humanising democracy and economics
Umair Haque is right: fascism is the division of humanity, and its opposite is humanism, or a united humanity.
Zoe Gardner is also right: borders are where human rights and humanity itself are most often denied, and democracy cannot survive if migrants are treated as exceptions to humanity.
The lessons are unavoidable. To defend democracy, we must protect and defend universality.
To resist fascism, we must resist border exceptionalism.
To build an economy fit for human beings, we must root it in dignity, liberation, and transformation.
We are left with a choice. Define ourselves by fear of outsiders, and we hollow out democracy until little or nothing remains. Define ourselves by humanism and our common humanity, and we can build a politics of care, equality and survival.
That, ultimately, is what the questions these two thinkers raise are all about. They force us to see that democracy is not just about how we vote, but about how we treat the most vulnerable. Answer wrongly, and we open the door to fascism and the logic of the division between the superhuman and the subhuman, which is a division that does not exist except in the minds of those intent on abuse. Answer rightly, and we make humanism and human equality real, not only in politics, but in the economy that sustains us.
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I love all this but remain deeply troubled by some elements.
My concern firstly is with humanism. There maybe a religious propensity to deify humanity, to worship it as an idea,to give it the attributes of a God. We must be wary of this. Humanism must be and demonstrate its awareness of human frailty – the bad side of our species. With this in mind, some sort of conditionality has to be observed and be seen to be. Most of the immigrant dispersal processes I’ve seen in the UK can only be described as shambolic and amateurish – a distinct lack of care. Also, you cannot be seen to be helping one group of people whilst it is felt that you are removing help or not being helpful enough to another.
Secondly, there is what I would call the ‘Liberal Conundrum’ that has tied up Liberals in knots. It is a reluctance to accept that in order to have more equality or freedom some must have their freedoms curbed. The rich are not treated like citizens remember – think about what happened during Covid; think about how they surf the world and are worshipped themselves, made welcome everywhere. Until we grapple with wealth and put it in its place and make no exceptions for them, we will create less valid and more cruel exceptions for others.
Thirdly, it is what I call the ‘Mother Hen Problem’. It is all very well implying that a state can or should under a humanist banner take and shelter those escaping to a new life. But what is being done by the state abroad about the causal elements that lead to migration in the first place? This is where the stupidity of Trump and Farage really raises its head when we start talking about cutting foreign aid and failing post war institutions like the WHO and NATO.
Fourthly – OK, Haque talks about humanity. Does she know that humanity created money, and that a principle of fascism is using a lack of it (austerity) to control the population in favour of itself and capital? You need humanist principles AND money (with tax) to be a humanist.
Again I broadly agree with your thoughtful post, but these four issues need to be part of the story – for me at least.
I hoped I had sufficiently qualified the term humanism, but you suggest I have not. That’s why doing this is worthwhile. Ideas iterate as a result. This might not be this idea in its final form.
This analysis makes a lot of sense, thank you.
As a small example – when the BBC news’ ‘two migrants’ were believed drowned in the Channel, was changed later in the day to ‘two women’ were believed drowned. That did sort of change them from ‘things’ – ‘migrants’ to ‘people’ .
Fascism seems to have at its core a fundamental division between ‘people’ and ‘the others’ – who are labelled as ‘things’ . ‘Migrants’, ‘Asylum seekers’, ‘jews’, ‘illegal aliens’, ‘terrorists’, ‘arabs’.
Maybe that’s what she was trying to convey by her term ‘humanism’
Umair is male.
20 years ago, I would agree. That was before I really came to terms with the visible presence of fascism. As a result my perspective has grown a bit. I am leaning towards a view that I would disagree that ‘humanism’ or ‘humanitarian’ is the opposite of fascism because fascists are humans. Fascists do deny the universal character of humanity. However, if we want to have a universal character of humanity, then unfortunately for us, we do have to concede that this does include fascism. This universalism is what fascism is trying to escape. They can only escape it by redefining what is human. They believe themselves to be heroic that there have broken free from the moral framework called “humanity”. No they haven’t and they need to be shown their place. This would require a politician to be a functional human-being and not afraid to use their backbone and their nervous system. These politicians are in very short supply. Why is it all our “Politicians” are incapable of being a politician?
I’m going to throw this one in the mix too:
What is freedom, really?
Here’s a possible definition, not mine*.
Three freedoms, each building on the one before:
1) The foundational freedom is the freedom to walk away, knowing that you will be taken in elsewhere by other people who see you as one of them.
2) The freedom to disobey or ignore rules imposed from the top, knowing that you can ‘vote with your feet’ because of 1).
3) The freedom to create new and different forms of society.
We will never get to 3) unless we treat all people as worthy of dignity, liberation and transformation “as an inherent right, just by virtue of existing.”
If we welcome strangers, knowing that if we needed it, we would be welcomed too.
I like that
So much I may borrow it
Go for it.
Thank you
I have reservations – maybe I am misunderstanding?
For the person without citizenship, a passport, financial resources, a home, friends, family, health – they do NOT have freedom 1, to “walk away” even if a state grants it in law. How do you walk away if you have no legs and no one to carry you or no wheelchair?
For those who DO have those things, the freedom may be achievable.
Or is that what you were getting at anyway?
I think the point is that unless we all have practical access to that fundamental right, none of us is really free. Which is why neoliberalism hates welfare, pensioners, home ownership and the concept of ‘enough’.
It has been the case in the past, and in some cultures, as cited in the Graber and Wengrow book, e.g.:
Native Americans who could literally wander America knowing they would be taken in. The result was that the people the Europeans called ‘chiefs’ could not force anyone to accept a ruling, only persuade, a fact which astonished the Europeans.
Also Roman plebs who literally downed tools and took to the hills whenever the patricians got too full of themselves. Luckily for Palestine and the Sumud flotilla, they are willing to do the same today.
* the definition comes from Graeber and Wengrow ‘The Dawn of Everything’.
Can I be devil’s advocate? (because the devil will be challenging us with these questions next time we have an “immigration” conversation)
How do we prevent humanism/common humanity/universal human rights being turned into a “free for all”? IOW, where is the humanist justification for imposing ANY limits to immigration? (I am always mindful of Lebanon with 1/3 of its population being refugees, or Egypt, filling up with Sudanese refugees fleeing war -poor countries dealing with even poorer neighbours’ refugees).
Secondly, coming at it from the other end, where is the boundary between fascism’s idea of “untermenschen & ubermeschen” (which seems to be more popular than I personally find comfortable) and any “humane” system which imposes distinctions based on citizenship or origin or economic status or circumstances (ie: immigration controls).
Assumption – we live (for now) in a world of imperfect nation states, amidst gross inequality, climate disaster, wars and large scale human rights abuses. In N Europe we experience little of this.
I emphasise, these are devil’s advocate questions – I want to be equipped for conversations – because at a personal level there is this awful silence, we don’t talk about these issues, we sit silent while the racist assumptions of our neighbours or family members go unchallenged – or else there is a mighty row followed by a silent rift. My own context for these conversations will be neighbours and church.
Personally I’d rather talk about the real causes of austerity, but Fa***e has very effectively made immigration the problem, and no other parties have worked out how to answer him, they’ve simply given in and agreed with him, while hypocritically pretending to be outraged by his racism (like this week at Labour conference). If we don’t crack this one, fascism gets to Downing St.
As an illustration – and I like real life examples – see this story about a lady from the British Overseas Territory of (post volcano devastated) Montserrat, who needs urgent medical care…
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/oct/01/uk-montserrat-british-overseas-territory-citizens-injustice-donaldson-romeo
Of course, in reality there are millions like her. Even those in countries with NO connection to the UK, can justifiably claim their struggles are a consequence of our power, wealth, and inustice.
Thank you.
These are the questions we have to be able to answer.
Humanism does not mean “free-for-all.” It means recognising that everyone has equal dignity, and that when we set limits, they must be justified by care and justice, not fear or scapegoating.
The real issue is that rich countries deliberately offload responsibility onto poorer ones while blaming migrants for austerity that was in fact caused by political choices. Fascism thrives on that lie. The humane answer is not to close doors, but to acknowledge our responsibilities, share resources fairly, and never accept the idea that some lives matter less than others.
Good luck
So humanism provides the overarching value (all humans are of equal value, in opposition to fascism’s idea of a master race) but the details of how that works pragmatically in a given situation (eg: the beaches of Kent), are found in the “politics of care” textbook?
At the moment we have neither the humanism nor the politics of care, so really BAD things keep happening, and are either igmored or dealt with hypocritically on an ad hoc individual basis to minimise reputational fallout.
That (humanism + politics of care) works for me, both politically and theologically, especially as you, unlike Starmer, have put some effort into telling us what that means in real life.
Now, which party is offering us that combination or wants to develop their manifesto based on that?
No one
Maybe I should stop writing blogs and write a book….
But they take years to get out.
V thoughtful post …. And comments.
You present a choice:
“Define ourselves by fear of outsiders, and we hollow out democracy until little or nothing remains. Define ourselves by humanism and our common humanity, and we can build a politics of care, equality and survival.”
Let’s imagine that the people of the World don’t descend to fascism in the very short term. The reality of climate crisis and our failure to change suggests that the pressures for migration will only increase (it’s what animals do and have always done).
I’m concerned at how many biggots it takes to preclude an atmosphere of intolerance to “perceived others”. We seem unable to encourage tolerance at the moment. Increasing inequality, and the constant blame on “them” makes the challenge harder.
It does seem to be a perfect storm. What I don’t understand is how even the 0.1% think they will gain?
Nor do I…
“To defend democracy, we must protect and defend universality.“ In general I agree but I have one area of doubt.
Many countries have a wide franchise but restrict the right to vote on constitutional matters to citizens of that country. In the Scottish referendum of 2014 the right to vote was extended to people who were here only temporarily. Subsequent academic research showed that Scots had voted Yes but the No vote was carried in part by those who were not Scots. These were not just from the other nations of the UK but many from the EU who had been taken in by the scaremongering which claimed a Yes vote would lead to our being kicked out of the EU.
Of course, Scotland can only offer citizenship if it is independent. I believe most Scots are inclusive and would offer citizenship to all who showed some commitment to the country by having lived here for a defined period, say 3 to 5 years.
A quote attributed to Tony Benn: “Watch how governments treat migrants. That is how they’d treat you if they could get away with it.”
He was right
In my opinion, the opposite of Fascism, is Socialism. I say this because I see Fascism as self-centred, all about “me”, “I” and not about “you”. Socialism is about “us”, “we”. My depiction of Fascism fits with the the definition above, by Umair, as being centred around “me”, I am able see “you” as beneath me, lower class. I see Fascism as going hand in hand with Libertarianism and Neoliberalism.
I would also like to quote from PSR, above: “It is a reluctance to accept that in order to have more equality or freedom some must have their freedoms curbed”.
This is correct and socialism understands this. You might call this authoritarian, but every state is authoritarian – they all have enforceable rules that curtail freedoms. Socialism might say that the state’s resources cannot be privatised, or that there is a minimum wage, or that the is a cap on CEO pay. Many might agree these are worthwhile sacrifices.
I would also agree with Bill Williams, “Humanism” has to include Fascists, because they are part of humanity. Socialism simply aims to be a way to view humanity as encompassing everyone, irrespective of race, colour or religion (including Fascists, of course). That, I think puts it absolutely the opposite of Fascism.
I totally disagreee.
Soclialism is a materialist construct about the ownership of the means of production dating to a past era.
It is not about ‘We’. It is about workers – and Starmer uses that language, albeit without conviction.
Precisely because it is not inclusive socialism is not the opposite of fascism.
20thC fascism opposed globalisation and neoclassical economics, it’s not an economic ideology but primarily a social ideology, Essentially control freakery, they wanted to control everyone, one of its aims was to concentrate power in the leadership, falsely claiming to be delivering freedom to the individual, and the leadership can’t have the power if markets, particularly international markets, have the power.
This was also evident in Le Pen’s earlier years particularly, her economics were quite “left” and in local government, Front national reinstated some welfare measures which their Socialist predecessors had abandoned as they moved rightwards. Generally, she’s an economic Nationalist as well as a social nationalist, as was 20thC fascism, she still generally favours protectionism rather than free trade, the separation of investment and retail banking and is opposed to the privatization of public services and social security and speculation on international commodity markets (wiki summary)
Socialism on the other hand is almost entirely an economic ideology who primary objective is to remove the rentier class on the basis that would create a more equitable society, but very little social policy is ideologically fixed in socialism.
One could argue the Bolsheviks were fascist Socialists, aimed for a socialist economy but were very fascist-like in the social policy.
The modern variation on fascism has been labelled National Neoliberalism by some in academia, it appears to have embraced neoliberalism, to a large extent, possibly because neoliberal ideas have become so ingrained that it’s a unnecessary battle to try and overturn them and easier to work within the envelope, just push it a bit in places, given economics is not what fascism is really about. Le Pen has also adopted more neoliberalism in recent years, whilst still being on the “left” side of it.
Also, 20thC fascism denounced democracy as a matter of fundamental principle, the 21stC variant generally keeps within a basic democracy envelope, albeit often stretching that envelope to the limit.
I think fascism and economic ideology can be largely independent variables.
Fascism is a social and not an economic phenomen0n.
Whether or not socialism will be ultimately be for all of humanity or just their own tribe will be up to the socialist in question. I think what you are suggesting is a view that was held by Marx. I don’t believe it is actually possible. Sometimes what is opposite to good is not bad, just another good. And here there is going to conflict with no easy answers. And we could say the same about the bad. Sometimes what is opposite to bad is just another bad, and the best that we can do is say no to both bads.
I’m not on the same page as this view of fascism at all – indeed, I think it’s dangerous. Reducing fascism to ‘the cleavage of human beings into superhuman and subhuman’ robs it of specificity, makes it universal and ahistorical. Was Britain ‘fascist’, for example, in the 18th-19th centuries, when it was widely believed that black people were inferior ? There are any number of historical instances of such beliefs, and social formations based on them – and other words we can use to describe them. Fascism, though is more specific than this. It refers to a particular historical phenomenon, when capitalism was under threat from the fear that the Russian Revolution would spread, from the very real popularity of socialism, the fact that people were voting for it, and the circumstance of the development of unregulated capitalism towards oligarchy and related economic instability. Fascism is ‘the continuation of capitalism by undemocratic means’ – when it loses, or feels to be losing ideological control. It’s crucial, I believe, that we insist on this definition because it captures the real danger here and now, including the way the current rise of the far right is rooted in our economic circumstances – not in some universal characteristic of any human society.
The political and social characteristics of fascism are of course widely encountered – authoritarianism, scapegoating minorities, etc – but they do not always constitute fascism. Imagining that they do is dangerous, because it disguises the specifics of what happened in Europe in the 1920s and 30s, or in reaction to the election of a socialist government in Chile in the 70s, and it therefore hampers our understanding of what is happening in the US now – and how it might be avoided elsewhere.
a) Was Britian fascist in the 18c/19c – yes, proto-fascist, at least.
b) And so I do not believe this is undemocratic capitalism. The issue is much bigger than that.
We’ll have to disagree. Fascism is the ideological abuse of the other.
Fascism is the ideological abuse of the other; racism is the ideological abuse of the other; sexism is the ideological abuse of the other; communism (at least at some times and places) has been the ideological abuse of the other… Are they then all the same ?
If we overlook the specific nature of fascism, we miss the similarities between our time and past similar conditions that led to fascism, we miss its roots in unregulated capitalism, which leads to both oligarchy and instability, and in turn to social conflicts, and the resulting collapse of pro-capitalism ‘hegemony’ prompting the oligarchs’ loss of faith in democracy and attempts to control government by hook or crook.
Of course we must pose humanitarian ideas and values against this threat – but do so intelligently, with understanding of how and why and where the threat is strong again now.
At root, maybe they are the same.
And I do not think the root of fascism is in unregulated capitalism.
I think it is in eugenic thinking.
‘Me. We.’ Muhammed Ali, 1975
Geof Cox says: The political and social characteristics of fascism are of course widely encountered – authoritarianism, scapegoating minorities, etc – but they do not always constitute fascism.
I’m sympathetic to the point but the problem then is how does distinguish between extreme authoritarianism and fascism, potentially fascism is a particular type of extreme authoritarianism using essentially the same tool set to achieve it.
One then gets into a game of splitting hairs to argue that one is just an extreme authoritarian and that one’s a fascist, while most people will see no real difference.
20thC fascism as political ideology bullet points (but other ways of looking at it are available):
firstly Italian fascism and German fascism differed in some areas, notably the Italian version used scapegoating minorities significantly less and anti-Semitism was Hitlers hobbyhorse.
Both were extremely authoritarian, extremely nationalistic, militaristic, saw war as glorious and desirable, and concentrated power in the leader, both used extreme political violence against political opponents (potential or actual), both rejected (Marxist) Socialism and saw it as the main political enemy though both also rejected conservative economics (- economics was seen as a tool rather than fundamental ideology). They were socially very conservative and both rejected the normal notions of democracy.
but then political ideas evolve, 21stC fascism is likely to be an evolution of that rather than an exact copy.
Thanks
So, we still need a matrix, and maybe a weighted one, but perhaps with this discrimination a major feature.
I’d also recommend “Creating Freedom” by Raoul Martinez.
https://www.newsfromnowhere.co.uk/page/detail/Creating-freedom/?K=BDZ0028816554
Thank goodness for second hand booksellers.
“Human movement is normal. It has always happened. It has always enriched societies. It always will.”
Even a few seconds of thought yields abundant counter examples. I wish this weren’t so. But it is. The arrival of well armed, aggressive, technologically sophisticated people into a defenceless traditional society is invariably catastrophic for the host population.
That’s it migration.
That’s war, and I was not talking about war, or colonisation. So, why distort what I said?
Oliver,
Warmongering is an extreme example of increased pressure to migrate. However we have the benefit of many 10’s of 1000’s of years to know that humans, animals, plants all migrate. So because they are subject to pressure, others because that is what they’ve always done before (because they could!).
As I hinted at earlier: we know we are going to be subject to climate migration. Enormous pressure. We’ve seen this in the fossil record before.