Re: Gramsci on fascism

["Bryan A. Alexander" <bnalexan@xxxxxxxxx>]

Some responses to Louis:

Bryan Alexander
Department of English
University of Michigan
**********************

On Wed, 6 Dec 1995, Louis N Proyect wrote:

> On Mon, 4 Dec 1995, Bryan A. Alexander wrote:
>
> >     A second requirement for the rise of fascism is a crisis of the
> > ruling class.  When "the task of running the productive forces
> > [progressively] slips out of the control of the productive forces" (216)
> > and "these people, who are currently in charge politically, are not and
> > never will be in charge economically" (217), extraordinary plans and
> > practices appear and breed.  There is the fantasy of the "Unknown
> > Leader," a caesar who will appear *from nowhere, or from outside the
> > system* and fix all problems rapidly, "solving the riddle and killing the
> > sphinx."  There is the option of a coup d'etat from the right and center
> > (213-4).  Above all is fascism.
>
> Louis: I want to re-direct the list's attention to our discussion on
> fascism. I plan to direct more extended remarks to Bryan's contribution,
> but want to immediately zero in on the paragraph above. Gramsci says that
> fascism emerges when the ruling class is in crisis. This is deeply
> important. Crisis is a word that is much over-used on the left, but this
> certainly describes the Italian ruling-class immediately after WWI.
> Fascism is a movement that arises out of crisis. Are we in that kind of
> situation today? Do figures like Clinton and Dole, the *preferred*
> candidates of the US ruling class, express a crisis of the ruling class?
> I will have more to say about Bryan's extremely important contribution,
> but this struck me right off the bat.

        We need to get a good sense of what "economic crisis" means, an
idea of when the quantitative horrors of capital multiply far enough to
become the qualitatively different category "crisis."
 >
> On another front, I have been getting regular reports from Esa Davis on
> neo-populism. She had expressed interest in reporting on the militias, etc.
> She is temporarily un-s*bscribed for reasons that have nothing to do with
> disgust with the discussion on the l*st or the out-of-control behaviour
> (!) of some of its participants. So is Francisco Gomez, who will also be
> sending in a report on the ideology of fascism. I will act as
> intermediary for these two generous and thoughtful folks and look forward to
> continuing input from them.

Greetings to Esa and Francisco!
>
> One last thought. I notice that Tim Wolforth has once again tried to
> start a discussion around US armed participation in Bosnia...
> I would strongly urge the people who battled ideologically with Tim
> Wolforth and Leo Casey some months ago to instead focus their attention
> at the matter at hand. Especially since 3 of the list members who were more
> actively involved in the Yugoslavia discussion are assigned to report on
> fascism: Bryan, Matt D, and Chegitz.

Every point of our discussion can be brought to bear on the Wars of
Yugoslav Succession.  Re: this post - does the Yugoslav economy of
1980-1992 qualify as "crisis"? for example.  *But* please subordinate
this discussion to the fascism one: those of you who followed by frantic
posts on FY know what it means for me personally to argue for this.
Fascism is a matter crucial enough to our times to demand separate
elucidation, with exemplary support.

>
> I seem to remember that Tim Wolforth, a while back, was harping on the
> idea that the militias were fascist. Perhaps he might direct his
> considerable intellectual and political energies to this topic while
> everybody's attention is invested in it at at the moment.
>
And these can serve as other examples.


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