Fascism is capitalism in decay.
You may have heard that quote already but
what does it mean?
And who said it?
That seems like an easy question because the
entire internet seems to be sure that it was
the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich
Lenin who said this but that’s not quite
true.
I spent more time than I should have trying
to find a source for this but there doesn’t
seem to be one.
From this I conclude that it wasn’t Lenin
who said it, but someone evidently did so
we’ll go with it.
I guess our first lesson today is: “Don’t
claim Lenin said this”.
Now that that’s out of the way let’s look
at what it’s supposed to mean.
For this we break it up into its components
and talk about those for a bit.
You should already be familiar with the words
“is” and “in” if you watch English
videos, so I’ll ignore those.
The word “decay” means to gradually become
worse in this context.
I explain this because a lot of my viewers
are from non-English speaking countries and
it’s not exactly the most common word is
it?
The words “Fascism” and “Capitalism”
are the interesting ones in this context.
Capitalism can broadly be described as any
economic system build on the grounds of the
free market and private ownership of things
like land and industry.
We know it.
We live in it.
Nothing much new.
Let’s move on.
Fascism is a political system in which the
state has ultimate powers over everything,
and civil liberties are kept at a minimum
or don’t exist at all.
Historic examples include Nazi Germany, imperial
Japan and Italy under Mussolini.
Who incidentally invented fascism or fascismo
as it’s called in Italian.
It’s derived from the Latin word “Fasces
“which refers to a bundle of sticks.
The story goes: “A single stick breaks easily
but a bundle of sticks is unbreakable” which
shows us the first key feature of fascism.
Unity and lack of individuality.
Fascists unify under the banner of their group,
usually a race of people, against all others.
They claim to be the strongest people of them
all and explain away any evidence to the contrary
with some great conspiracy.
They are naturally quite xenophobic and some
of the worst things, humanity is capable of,
happened under fascist regimes.
Fascist economies are usually oriented in
a pseudo-capitalist way.
The richest business owners become friends
with the party leadership and get many great
government contracts.
The state prosecutes anyone who threatens
the profit of the industrialists.
That includes unions, socialists and foreign
competition.
Fascism isn’t really capitalist, but it
keeps the main features like private property
and wage labour.
The free market exists in some fascist societies
and not in others.
But how are those two things, fascism and
capitalism, connected?
And why did someone, remember it wasn’t
Lenin, say that one follows the other?
To understand this, we have to look at the
history of capitalism like a Marxist.
You could say that we are gonna do a Marxist
analysis of the history of capitalism.
In Marxism history and societies are understood
by the systems of production they use.
There are many ways you can organise production
believe it or not.
For example, there was Feudalism in which
people were born into their social role and
all land belonged to the nobility while being
worked by the peasants.
This system started, it lived and then it
ended.
Then there was slavery and mercantilism both
of which started, lived and then ended.
And then came capitalism, it was introduced
during the French revolution, lived through
and caused the industrial revolution and then
it died … well almost.
Of course, this sounds really weird to viewers
from 2019 since we all know that capitalism
didn’t die… at time of recording… but
there was a time where it came a lot closer
that most people think.
Right after the first world war.
The great war, the war that had devastated
empires and destroyed monarchies.
The people where angry and the people wanted
a new world.
In Russia there as a revolution and in Germany
the socialists had overthrown the Kaiser.
Hungary proclaimed itself a socialist republic
and all major nations had massive socialist
demonstrations.
In 1929 the great depression hit the world
and the people became even more angry.
They became tired of being hungry and cold
while the heads of the monopolies where living
in luxury.
In the united states the communist party was
gaining votes at an unprecedented pace while
in Bavaria the radicals proclaimed a new socialist
republic as well.
At the time really seemed like the days of
capitalism where numbered.
But then Germany, instead of falling to a
socialist revolution as revolutionary Marxists
had predicted, went down the route of fascism.
The calls for a class less society where replaced
with calls for a society made up purely of
Arians.
The blame for the economic crisis moved from
the financial sector to Jews.
All capitalist problems were blamed on foreigners
or minorities and soon the fascist party had
taken over.
How did this happen?
How did a nation that was mostly made up of
workers go from demanding the end of the monarchy
to appointing an all-powerful dictator as
the head of state?
There are many answers and every historian
will give you a different interpretation.
This doesn’t mean that only one is right.
There are many factors and many explanations
could be true at the same time.
Knowing that here goes the Marxist explanation
of what happened.
Right after the first world war as I mentioned
capitalism seemed to be at it’s end just
like all of the economic systems that came
before it.
The revolutions in Russia, Hungary and Bavaria
might have seen like the beginning of a new
and better age for the workers who stood to
gain everything from this but not everyone
was set to win from the abolition of capitalism.
Notably Landowners and industrialists, what
a Marxist would call the bourgeoisie, did
not like the idea of collectivising their
land and giving up their wealth and privilege.
Imagine you are a capitalist living in Germany
who just saw the Russian revolution that deposed
all capitalists and took their stuff and gave
it to the masses while severely punishing
those capitalists who didn’t want to comply.
You probably wouldn’t enjoy that idea.
And now you see the German working-class push
for the exact same thing.
You probably wouldn’t want to sit around
until there is a revolution, would you?
And then the rich and powerful did what they
always do and began to meddle in politics.
They paid huge donations to fascist parties
that, until then, had barely gotten any voters.
With nearly infinite money and free media
coverage the message of the fascists spread
quickly.
They picked up many socialist talking points
but manipulated them to suit themselves.
Instead of admitting that the financial sector
is structurally exploitative they said that
the fault lied with individual people.
Jewish people to be more exact.
In Germany they even called themselves national
socialists to try to get the vote of the huge
amounts of workers who supported socialism
all while putting labour rights activists
and union leaders into concentration camps
at the request of their rich friends.
When we look at a fascist government we usually
only think of the leader.
The head of government, but beneath every
dictator there must be someone who gives him
his power and in fascism those people are
the heads of the monopolies.
Volkswagen, IG-Farben, Rheinmetall, Krupp,
Henschel, MAN, Daimler Benz, Mauser, The ford
motor company and practically every business
that has existed in Germany at the time.
Those where Hitler’s friends.
In Germany the inmates in concentration camps
where forced to work as slaves for private
military and construction companies.
And do you know what gas was used in the mass
killings?
Cyclone B. That’s not the scientific name
for the gas.
It’s a brand name.
It was made by a private company with a government
contract.
In fascist states the interests of the state
and the interest of the capitalists is the
same.
While a neoliberal democracy at least tries
to balance the needs of the people with the
greed of the capitalists a fascist regime
does not even try that.
The capitalists are given contracts for their
businesses and slaves to work for them all
for free provided by the dictator.
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is the
way fascism spreads to the people.
From what we’ve seen now it only benefits
the rich people that fund the party so why
did so many ordinary people become nazis as
well?
Because of the main tactic fascists use.
Propaganda.
They take the anger and frustration the working
class has and turn it around and use it against
minorities.
Instead of admitting that the first world
war and the economic crisis happened because
of the way capitalism works they push the
blame on foreigners.
They divide the working class.
Instead of allowing a polish and a German
worker to identify as a united and exploited
working class they are pitted against each
other so they cannot unite.
Instead the German worker is supposed to cooperate
with the German industrialists that exploit
him.
Fascists use the most primal “Us vs them”
instinct in people to fabricate a conflict
build around race instead of class.
Then they tell everyone that they can bring
about change.
That they will make their nation great again.
And that they will make the enemies suffer
if only they get in power.
This combined with the infinite funding and
free exposure I mentioned before made sure
that they quickly became the part of the government.
And as soon as they were in power, they told
the workers to hold out for a little more.
That they’d have to continue to work 12
hours a day until the final victory was achieved.
This is where we come to the last big feature
of fascism.
A distain for socialism.
Do you remember how I mentioned that the capitalists
only began to fund the fascists because they
where afraid of the socialist revolution in
Russia?
They still where.
And they wanted to destroy it at any cost.
All fascists hate workers rights and they
always talked about destroying the Bolsheviks
in Russia.
The destruction of socialism is the highest
goal of fascism.
So we could feasibly say that fascism is a
reaction of the rich against the threat of
the poor.
When the poor organise to bring about equality
the rich will turn to fascism which means
that when capitalism comes close to falling,
fascism will arise.
That means that fascism is what happens when
capitalism decays.
Fascism is capitalism in decay.
In conclusion.
When capitalism fails and the people notice
it and try to begin the change to a new system
the rich and powerful become afraid that they
may lose their privileges and they do everything
in their power to stop this change.
They will fund ultra nationalist parties that
use lies manipulation and fearmongering to
divide the workers again.
To fabricate a conflict between races instead
of one between classes.
And then once in power they remove any idea
of civil liberties to make sure that they
can never be brought down again.
At least not by an uprising from within.
