longer.blue

"Fascism, then, is a reaction-formation to capitalist crisis in its final stage. The problem here, obviously, is that the stage of imperialism can last a very long time—partly because of fascism itself. Thus, fascism has to be understood as a problem that is designed to defer the end of the imperialist stage, and thus to defer the end of capitalism itself... Fascism is a reaction-formation of disavowal and denial of the contradictions of capitalist society and of its inevitable crisis under the dominance of finance capital and the financial oligarchy. Thus, when fascism tries to look or sound ‘radical’, if often refers to working class victims of industrial capital, as if to appear critical of finance capital and the elites on Wall Street. This, however, is an illusion. Fascism is fundamentally financial in nature and it thrives on Wall Street... In imperialism, the capitalist state has to use everything it has to prevent unemployed labour power from forming solidarities and alliances with employed workers and into a unified and antagonistic proletarian class force against the dictatorship of capital. If we fail to grasp this aspect of imperialism’s chronic depression, the historical and materialist source of fascism’s seductive power over (unemployed) workers is largely lost. Put differently, fascism, as a reaction-formation to capitalist crisis and chronic depression in the capitalist stage of imperialism, tries to make imperialism itself chronic, thereby prolonging and deferring the inevitable death of capitalism." — Ken Kawashima