How Fascism Works - The politics of us and them

Hi, I'm Wayne Brittanden for the Political Compass. Jason Stanley's a philosopher and a professor of philosophy at Yale University. Perhaps best known internationally for two books, both of them widely acclaimed the first how propaganda works back in 2015 and more recently how fascism works, the politics of us and them, particularly timely given the world we're in at the moment. Welcome Jason, your book broke new ground on the understanding of fascism on many levels. It remains a controversial description, doesn't it? It does. It remains a controversial description because fascism gets associated with the worst of its manifestation, namely Nazi Germany. And Nazi Germany was genocidal, it involved an attempt at world domination. And what we're seeing now is not that extremity, so that hence the controversy. Some people argue that Mussolini was fascist, but Naziism was something slightly different. That's right, the old school fascism literature that's been happening for a long time involves many distinctions. And on some of those distinctions, national socialism isn't fascist, Italian fascism, as you say, for example, doesn't involve race, involves a different relationship to the economy than Hitler's Germany did. So that should tell us that the old school debate, the multi-decade debate about the nature and character of fascism involves many different concepts. So when you're choosing to use the word fascism, it's a delicate thing because you can either situate yourself in an extremely lengthy debate in history and political theory that involves dozens of different conceptions of fascism. Or you can sort of appropriate it and give it a definition that has use in the current moment and is justified by its connections to the past. And that's what I try to do in my work. Right. I'm interested that you mentioned economics and the differences between Italy and Germany. And I'm interested in Germany on that front. At the political compass, we often get correspondence from angry Americans, only Americans actually who say, don't you know Hitler was a socialist. It was the national socialist party. And we usually write back and say, well, are you just as happy to accept that the German Democratic Republic was democratic? Or the people's Republic of North Korea, people's Democratic Republic of North Korea. Yeah. I mean, Martin Nemuller's poem goes, the famous poem by Pastor Martin Nemuller goes, first they came for the communists, but there was no one to speak up because I, but I did not speak up because I was not a communist. Then they came from came for the trade unionists, but I did not speak up because I was not a trade unionist. Finally, they came for the Jews, but I did not speak because I was not Jewish. Then they came for me, but there was no one to speak up left to speak up for me. And from that, you learn the three targets of fascism, which are communists and socialists, trade unionists, labor unions, and minority targeted, marginalized minority groups. So I mean, it's right there. The first group of people, the national socialist targeted for concentration camps, were communist and socialist. And indeed, just getting back quickly to the economic side of things, I noticed that in the American heritage dictionary of 1983, fascism is described as a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism. That definition was changed in later editions, and of course, the early 1980s was the time when we had the introduction of globalization as we know it now, and neoliberalism. I like that definition. I like that definition because that is what happens when fascism comes to power. When fascism comes to power, the business elite see a means to smash labor unions. The business elite see a means to get the government to push aside democratic regulations and let the companies operate as they will. I mean, you see this in Putin's Russia, you can't really make a distinction between the oligarchs and the state. You see this increasingly in the United States. So the in chapter 10 of my book, "How Fascism Works," I discuss Hitler's speech to the industrialists, where he says to them, "How could you want democracy? Why would you want a system that lets the people play shackles on what you can do? You want a figure, a dictator in the public sphere who then, in the political sphere, who then gives you free reign as long as you feel tea to him." So this partnership, it's a key to understanding fascism, this partnership between the business elite and the fascist leader. The business elite who go along get rewarded, as we just saw in the United States in the CARES Act, the stimulus package passed during the first wave of COVID-19. There was $135 billion tax break just for high earning real estate investors, retroactive tax break back to 2018, I believe. $135 billion. And that's because high dollar real estate investors are part of this government. Right. So we could look at another definition here. Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile and the encyclopedia Italian said that fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it's a merger of state and corporate power. Yes, exactly. I think that's accurate. What you see, I mean, that's why you see the labor unions being targeted in fascism. That's why my comp really, because labor unions give you, labor unions are a weapon against corporate power, but labor unions are also a weapon against virulent nationalism because labor unions connect people across race, across gender, across differences because, hey, everybody likes the weekend, everybody likes overtime pay. It doesn't matter whether you're white, black, Asian, whatever. You know, those are things you like. So fascism has to smash labor unions. So there's a great new book by Bradley Hart called Hitlers American Friends. And it goes through the different groups that supported, that were against entering World War II and supported closer ties between the United States and Germany. And one of the chapters is called the business elite. A lot of those would have been the people behind the so-called business plot in 1933. A coup attempt against the Roosevelt White House. Right. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, these are, you know, business. There is no natural connection between democratic liberty and free market, free and free market economics. I mean, those are, you can free market economics places. I mean, libertarianism, economic libertarianism presents freedom as coming from free markets. But liberalism is liberal democracy has a very different conception of freedom. Liberal democracy has freedom as, you know, the freedom to, for everyone to participate in the laws that govern in the construction of the laws that govern them. Right. Of course. Those two areas got blurred, didn't they? When the Berlin Wall came down and people got liberal democracy and neoliberal economics at the same time and thought they were an extricably linked. Which has been a disaster for liberal democracy worldwide. Because the depredations of neoliberalism have laying waste to people's sense of security and comfort and their sense of stability. They blamed that on liberal democracy and have sought refuge in the arms of strong men. Indeed, and we can see that manifesting itself very clearly, particularly in Poland and Hungary. Absolutely. And Poland, Hungary, Russia, the Eastern Europe is a case in point. I mean, Russia is a case in point where, you know, liberal democracy just meant linear liberalism and, you know, how many people died, how many millions died from starvation, from in the 1990s as austerity policies were pursued and, you know, the switch to market immediately. So this is, so, you know, and I think that you have this connection between, and I emphasize this in how fascism works, there's this natural connection between economic libertarianism and fascist ideology and that's social Darwinism. So that's something Corey Robin emphasizes in the reactionary mind. something I emphasize in how fascism works the idea the underlying idea of both is that you have value in so far as you win that's why Hitler's book is called mine come my struggle value accrues to winning economic libertarianism is not fascism because economic libertarianism is individualist it says you know the individual wins and so you know everyone should have an equal chance to participate and losers should you know go away and winners get value uh. which is social darwinism whereas fascism takes that and say certain groups have value over other groups because history shows that those groups are winners in struggle and superior and struggle so they're very different systems and if you gave me a choice and obviously economic libertarianism would be the far superior view but the problem is that economic libertarianism makes you susceptible to the kind of fascist thinking that it's all about winning that all that matters is winning in a struggle and and that by definition then you have contempt for losers by definition you have contempt for losers so for instance and ran in the fountain had i was just a mention yeah exactly and ran in the fountain had exhibits tremendous contempt for the disabled and obviously the not ct4 program involved gassing the disabled and in the united states our tradition our fascist tradition involved eugenics involved health tests for immigrants and things like this we only wanted you know the healthy able body to immigrants and so this thinking about you know this anti-disabled thinking is is key to both of these systems you know and that's that's a clue to the fact that we're dealing with an illiberal ideology here because liberal liberalism requires us to to recognize all of our fellow creatures as worthy of dignity we've seen in covet nineteen in a number of countries with more authoritarian governments that care homes particularly i have been neglected in the general clamp down and does this in any way reflect a disinterest in the inhabitants of such places because they're not part of useful production absolutely that's it productionism you know you're your value fascist thinking involves center it's social Darwinism is the center of it and productionism like you're valuable in so far as you have productive value for the economy so chapter this is the meaning of the phrase obi moth fai which is on the gates of our sheds work shall make you free and it's extremely disturbing that a num in a number of these opening up protests that we've seen in the united states we've seen people unironically used to use you you waving the slogan works shall make you free and in some cases even using the german obi moth fai so uh. that idea that you know if you're gonna you know the economy requires society requires that you're either productive or you're not and if you're not it's time to die that is the basis of the kind of thinking that as as liberals as socialists as as arranged as christians as as jude as muslims as as arranged we need to reject it's social Darwinism and across very different viewpoints that comprise a democracy social Darwinism is antifatical to all of them i'm interested in your point that fascism is a mechanism attendancy rather than a fixed ideology you can have fascist tendencies among individuals and among particular parties within a liberal democracy absolutely i think that's utterly key because we get hung up on whether trump is a fascist weather erudwan's regime is a fascist regime we get hung up on these questions you know is china fascist is trying to come to some to some other kind of authoritarian regime i mean i think it's not fascist but but we get hung up on that i prefer to think i think it's much clearer if we think in terms of fascist forces or stony morrison says in our nineteen ninety five howard community commencement speech racism and fascism fascist solutions to problems that's how she thinks that she says the united states as long sought fascist solutions to problems so i prefer to think of things in terms of fascist forces you can clearly have fascist forces in a liberal democratic society the united states is always had powerful fascist forces and uh. and also if you think about what kind of ideology fascism is it's not a set of beliefs fascism is about power it's centrally about power and what is power so what is what is it to achieve power so people will say okay such and such person isn't a fascist because you know they're all about power well fascism is all about power fascism is all about the winner you know the winner is uh. the representative of the name you know the nation wins a p-winter and it's all in and anyone who's not winning has no value it's all about power so if we think of it in terms of forces if we think of it in terms of tactics to remain to gain power and remain in power we're actually being more true to the ideology that fascism is and fascism can also thrive with a very moderate economic position it doesn't have to be neoliberal does it uh. i mean you saw in chili uh. uh. accool led by uh. a fascist uh. who was a dictator in every sense but he was also a free market here you mean uh. you mean promotion uh. pinache right now uh. whereas on the other hand you look at france with the uh. national front and you see that their extremism is very much on the social scale rather than an economics because their economics are often to the left of the french socialist party right so uh. so socialism for the in group for socialism for the white rake socialism for the french uh. you know nothing for you know expulsion for everyone else that is a fascism can very much take the form of you know national social so uh. sort of welfare system for those in the in group and even if you look at the united states and even if you look at donald trump who is a who is as free market as you can get he is completely practicing socialist politics for billionaires we've just had multi trillion dollar so uh. taxpayer money stimulus stimulus sent to billionaires and billionaires and to and to the members of his to supporters uh. farmers have received you know tens of billions of dollars every single year in support from the trump administration and why because they're his supporters so this idea of sending your uh. sending your supporters a uh. you know supporting you know using socialism massive state socialism to four year supporters for form uh. form for mothers to support that support them and having more children of the chosen race this is also uh. consistent and typical with fascism but it's it's tricky because you know it goes back around to the business elite point that you know you're you're also going to be supporting the businesses that support you um. so our our categories of uh. fascism involves directing large amounts of support economic support uh. and it's and government support the classes and the groups that support you so the business groups the farmers and uh. and and support for things like having more children in traditional families uh. it can't happen here simply a little sit in nineteen thirty five but you're saying it's been happening all along the way i think of fascism is that it's because i because i think of it as as you said a set of dispositions a force i think it's a an ever prevalent tendency in almost any contemporary society and the united states well hitler certainly reference Hitler references united states in my comp says as his model for what germany should be slavery was his model for what he was going to impose in the uh. in the east and uh. on flops and in russia in ukraine uh. he admired the u_s_'s history of indigenous genocide uh. if you look at australia australia is you know liberal democracy this incredible racist undercurrent you know the white australia policy until very recently the treatment of our originals the nonstop vilification of immigrants these forces are always there good you know denial of climate change to science denial uh. these forces are present and we distract ourselves by asking well uh. if this regime fascist is this person fascist the fact is that fascism as a force is an anti-democratic is the current anti-democratic force of greatest concern And it's not. always very visible is it particularly in the in the mass media no the mass media participate in it because capitalism helps provide the media environment that helps these authoritarian to our showman uh. after all uh. practice the kind of politics that keeps them in power so uh. what the media likes is you know shock and outrage and you know they prefer that to news because there are more eyeballs paying attention to it and so uh. since the media prefers that uh. that's what sells more that's getting gets more clicks uh. that's also the kind of politics as we know from from people like it had a rent that feeds into fascism constant spectacle uh. the perpetual motion many of totalitarian governments that she calls it so there's constantly uh. like if you look at in the united states that all trump is constantly trying to like create outrage and transform everything into a culture war uh. get his opponents to call him a racist so that he can say look at the liberals are doing this again uh. so the media uh. is part of the production of the stage upon which the strong man thrives and in all liberal democracies i think notably including the united states in the seventies and even before in the sixties the anti-establishment position was a lift wing one now uh. icons of the right uh. claiming the anti-establishment label yeah it's a good yeah it's a great i mean fascism is always presents itself as revolutionary so the tea party it's uh. you know far far i mean i think we do have a right wing revolutionary tradition uh. ex you know gold water for instance extremism in the name of liberty so is no sin at all so we have we have this tradition uh. but yeah fascism fascist politics in in balls revolution remaking reber the idea we were once great we've been humiliated uh. we've been humiliated by the elite we need to defeat the elite and reemerge and remake ourselves is great again that is classic fascist politics that is palengenic ultrhenationalism uh. in grip and phrase and phrase compared with uh. most other democracies the united states has a very narrow range of political options for the voter and is is that one of the problems because if you look at for example the french team we were talking about lapin uh. the spectrum goes all the way from lapin uh. across two parties to the left of the french socialist party yeah so uh. so i'm it goes outside my range range of scholarly expertise to discuss whether you are parliamentary system or what kind of system might blunt the kinds of forces that we're seeing world wide i mean i think we're seeing these forces we're seeing these forces arise in all kinds of different systems uh. you know sweeten the sweeten democrats of the last i checked with the most popular uh. party in sweeten and that's a far right party so i'm not sure that that that you can play i think it is a problem in the united states that the two party system but i'm not sure that and it's and the republican party in what's been a problem is that the as the democratic party is move further and further to the right as they have since clinton since nineteen ninety two where the democrats now occupy the position that you know the the uh. the ass who would have been or say the uh. say they would have in germany that their they're the center right party the only oxygen that's left is on the far right and that's where the republicans have moved and i think you know rather than it being the fault of the two party system it's the fault of bill clinton and the rest of the democratic party who moved so far to the right to capture the republican vote that they force the republican party to become a neo-fascist party and yet if you go back far enough the democrats with a party of slavery and of segregation in the south and you had anarex think political it species the liberal republicans exactly you had the southern democrats and liberal republicans to expect species that's right uh. so if we look at the situation today uh. it's a little perplexing to an outsider uh. to see that biden claimed so much of the black vote uh. and yet his record on uh. on segregation wasn't great at all uh. compared to sanders who was actually arrested during the civil rights uh. demonstrations uh. and also sanders position on a universal health care was something that biden always opposed and has surely been vindicated by the present health crisis in the u_s yes uh. i'm not i think that there would have been a different outcome though again this is not speaking as a scholar just speaking as a concern citizen uh. there would have been a different outcome i had coven nineteen happened earlier uh. when coven nineteen revealed the kind of structural problems in the united states that the sanders campaign had highlighted uh. but i so uh. so there's that and i also think that uh. black voters are pragmatic voters they looked at the situation and they said will do social art is america gonna vote for a socialist jewish person and said no we really want to be trump uh. black voters in the united states are i think very pragmatic voters and i think they made a pragmatic choice if you look at policy black voters supported sanders on his policy preference uh. they uh. they didn't support by the but i think they really want trump out of office and they voted for a more pragmatic choice and by the leading by double digits right now uh. so you can't really argue that they made the more pragmatic choice now the problem is will by the just exacerbate the conditions that let the trump in the first place and what's your thinking on that uh. i'm very worried about it i'm very worried worried about it i mean history sygge i mean we have to look at who is advisers are but it's gonna be larry summers and rom a manual and and the he just published a an editorial in u_s_a_ today about police violence and racial injustice that was deeply deeply ignorant and problematic and and not at all responding to the calls on the on the street for a defunding the police just basically saying giving lip service to the problem talking about body cameras and three hundred million dollars which is nothing for community policing i mean the claim of defunding the police is let's not put more money into the police let's instead put take these titanic budgets that are going to law enforcement if you look at cities across the united states there are titanic budgets going to law enforcement they'd dwarf education budgets the defund the police movement is saying move that money out that's the rule of the wrong priorities when when you when you have this massive amount of money in law enforcement and you're defunding everything else from health care to education what you're going to get is a situation where police are the people turned to when you have a mental health crisis at home when you have when you have anything happen it's the police are gonna come in and you know and they've been militarized so he gave in so the defund the police movement says let's reorder our priorities as philipate begoff the uh. the scholar at john j_ college said he said you know when you call the emergency number nine one one what we want what we want to happen is that it is a mental health crisis uh. mental health professionals show up not police uh. that's the goal and by the just you know it's completely tone deaf cluelessness in the seditor was really problematic and i hope he doesn't have that tone deaf cluelessness on the economic policy and all down i hope what i hope happens is that the sanders campaign uh. said that was a bit more and i mean what i would hope most of all is that it was a bit more and would be vice president is vice presidential candidate but uh. barring that i hope that progressives are given a significant role in his administration if he wins but you know uh. i'm in agreement that trump has got to go certainly i mean uh. a term like defunding the police could really be turned easily to the advantage of the president couldn't you could say look at these crazy people they want to they want to take the police away from this uh. people have been saying this for weeks that's what the administration's trying to do of course they're trying to use the slogans that mean one thing and give them a different interpretation however if you look at the numbers uh. despite what lots of overconfident people are claiming on social media despite what we're being told by so many people who are confidently asserting that these slogans will backfire uh. black lives matter is one of the most popular political organizations in america right now the approval rating for black lives matter is way more than the approval rating for the republican party the democratic party donald trump joe biden the police all of these predictions of uh. doon uh. have backfire and that's why i never make such predictions because you know social movements and social change are are very tough to predict and that does feel like a sea change doesn't it does feel like a sea change i mean six years ago black lives matter was represented as disdain driss movement now there's a multi-racial coalition of young people in the largest protests in u_f_ history and we all have our theories about it my theory which is unsurprisingly related to my views on fascism is that people see now it's our racial divide it's our history of and present of incredible racial discrimination uh. it's our prison system it's our militarized police allows for demagogues to rise it allows donald trump in twenty sixteen ran against black lives matter donald trump ran talking about cities burning by the way the crime rate in the united states has been a historic lows for a decade for ten years we've had historically low crime rates so donald trump ran in twenty sixteen against uh. the large-scale black lives matter protests and i think people are seeing that fascism demagoguery only gains purchase when you can appeal to racism and so if we don't want leaders like donald trump again we have to address our long-standing history and present of racial injustice in terms of neoliberalism you have a spiraling rich poor gap that feeds into a lot of the of the political firm that you're seeing now i suppose that the average american would have difficulty articulating neoliberalism even though it's been in place for so long could you imagine a situation for example in poland where after thirty five or so years of communism no one knew what communism was right you mean that it's almost like the air we breathe exactly yes and without people like actually knowing it as a term and a particular direction right what happens uh. is that with ideology generally in neoliberalism is no exception indeed it's a paradigm is that ideology makes you think ideology in al-Tusza's terms has no past that makes you think this is how it is always been and always will be think how long monarchy last but i mean what would people have said if you said hey let's get rid of monarchy people would have said that's absurd how could you run a country without a king uh. or queen uh. you know it seems when you live in under a particular ideology that that's how it's always been and always will be and it is no different with neoliberalism i mean an example sort of humorous and tragic example now is you know i wrote a piece in july twenty nineteen in the new york times calling to abolish ice immigration custom enforcement people people just went not they still talking about about a abolish ice how could you do that it well ice is was created in two thousand three the idea that that ice is is is central to the identity of the united states well you know we manage for well over two hundred years without it so but this idea that once something is there you can never you know it can never be altered yeah that's the problem of ideology yeah i guess my point before was that a lot of the unhappiness the social unhappiness in democracies generally uh. is really about the spiraling rich poor gap that lack lack of opportunity for people at the bottom of the heat and uh. although it's not articulated as an anti neoliberal attack authoritarian forces have been able to harness that discontent and appear to be more on the side of the people economically yes uh. that's right though uh. i in my how fascism works i'm tempted by that line and certainly the right line i think in a cut in in the country like the united states though notice that black americans haven't been tempted by fascism black americans haven't used the fact that uh. neoliberalism has ravaged the economy and handed all the wealth to the wealthiest among us black americans and uh. latinos have not used that as a as a reason to abandon democracy it's only white americans so it can't be the full explanation since otherwise trump would want a lot of black americans and also if you look internationally it's for example sweeten as i mentioned sweeten the sweeten democrats are the most popular party right now or last i checked in in sweeten but it's not like sweeten has suffered deprivations of neoliberalism or or has institutions that have failed so it's a partial explanation that's a very good point let's look at the fascist personality uh. very well described i think by the frankfort school the adornos billham right uh. from and such people which i guess still uh. has some pool today doesn't it the base for authoritarian leadership has almost invariably come from the frighten provincial areas rather than the big cities isn't that the case yes chapter nine of my book how fascism works is called sottam and gamora and uh. and that's about this kind of move in fascist politics that the authoritarian represents the home the hardland the people in the in the hard land against the decadence of the cities chapter two of mine comps hitler's mind comps called my study in struggles in viana and he describes v_n_s filled with foreigners and different languages and jews jews and more jews the city is always the enemy with its bankers and foreigners and race mixing and homosexuality and the author in the politics fascist politics extolls the hard land extolls the farmers debate in brazil jayer bolson aro probably the leader today who's most obviously channeling fascist ideology uh. he is his base of supporters the farmers he's constantly extolling them constantly i mean he's he's burning the rain forest more than they want to burn in the rain forest all because he he wants to go overboard in his support for farmers so it's this politics of the rural pure hardland the not sees as i discuss in that chapter of my book the not sees uh. emphasize the farmers as the soul and heart the regeneration that they wanted to create sometimes untempted to think that uh. the ultimate thing that divides people is on the one hand those who attracted by diversity and who actually celebrate differences and those who are threatened by it because that it that informs their attitudes towards people who live differently sexuality race education even art a whole range of things just by whether they enjoyed a diversity or whether it's an appalling thing for them so this goes back to the social psychology literature that emerges from the authoritarian personality uh. in social psychology there's a a long history of looking at people who uh. have an authoritarian outlook as people who are fearful of change who are who are there there are different social psychology tradition so in john jost views uh. conservatives are system justifiers they want to justify the initial system i don't think that's a the right uh. description for the kind of fascist authoritarianism we're seeing because as we discussed earlier revolutionary it seeks to overturn the system it's anti-establishment uh. i think what what's going on is that you create this panic fear for outside for so-called outsiders for so-called foreigners you say they're going to your traditions are under threat your traditions are not just under threat your traditions have already been buried by these foreigners who've been let in the elites have let in the foreigners to destroy your traditions you need a strong man you need a strong man to regenerate your traditions to place them again at the center of the nation so the fascist is speaking to the traditional social conservative and saying i will be your strong man and making them panic that afraid that their way of life is being destroyed and consent representing democracy liberal democracy not as a as a method of living that allows all of us to live the way we want uh. but as a as a method that involves the destruction of tradition that's a really good way to end at jason and i think you very much for your time you've given us some uh. some wonderful insights to mullover and i'm sure uh. this interview will be listened to many times by the sort of people you'd hope would hear it thank you so much i really appreciate the opportunity to have this discussion