Reddit reviews How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them
We found 3 Reddit comments about How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
The answer to your question does seem easier than it is. Because there are several traditions or schools of thought on how to define fascism. I myself worked through some primers on this the last couple of months.
A good start in my opinion are the 14 points by Umberto Eco:http://www.openculture.com/2016/11/umberto-eco-makes-a-list-of-the-14-common-features-of-fascism.html
The US-academic Jason Stanley recently published his book on a purely ideological definition, but basically expands on Eco's points:https://www.amazon.com/How-Fascism-Works-Politics-Them-ebook/dp/B0796DNSVZ
From what I learned through mostly the work of german marxists is the following:
Fascism is more than just a military dictatorship, because it is based on a mass movement and mass support. Fascism is always anti-communist and it's prime goal is to crush the worker movement. Domestically fascism crushes any opposition and favours big business (but in order to come to power panders to the bourgeoisie and the workers with pseudo-anticapitalis rethoric). In regards to foreign policy fascism strives to build or expand the empire and to conquer other nations in order to subjegate other people and to exploit ressources to feed it's own capitalist war machine.
In absence of fascism, capitalism works pretty well as long as bourgeois parlamentarism can solve the issues in favor of big business. That's why fascism is the last resort for capitalists in times of crisis when the worker movement poses a threat...when a simple return to the good old days does not seem realistic anymore.
Petty bourgeois might join the working masses if they see a chance of success, of victory on this side of the struggle. But if e.g. social democracy fails the petty bourgeois or the workers movement is weakened (or both) then the "middle classes" join the more active, the more "vital" seeming fascists.
Therefore, US-goverments including Trump now certainly in part deploy fascist politics like US Border Control, mass surveilance, mass incarceration, segregation, racism, etc. etc. But according to what I learned so far, the US is not yet a fascist state simply because there are still remnants of democracy. The US is by all accounts an oligarcy. But fascist, I say it's not.
Amazing. Read this book, it's really easy, and super interesting. I will read any book you propose in exchange: "How Fascism Works"
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0796DNSVZ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1
Maybe this will help you on your journey to recovery.