Groucho Marxism

The political situation across the Western world is looking pretty grim right now. In the US, far-right populist and wingnut Donald Trump recently began his second term as president and seems even more unhinged now than he did the first time round. In the UK, Nigel Farage’s far-right populist political party, Reform, is currently ahead in the polls and has been for some time. In Italy, Georgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy, another far-right populist party, has been in power since 2022. In fact far-right populist parties are either in power or are very close to it in most European countries. This has led many to speculate that the West might be sliding into fascism. But are we really, or is this just hyperbole?

In order to answer this question we first need to define what we mean by ‘fascism’. The word comes from the Italian fascismo, which in turn comes from the Latin fasces, a word used for bundles of axes and rods carried before the magistrates of the ancient Roman Republic as representative of their power of life and death. This doesn’t tell us much about what fascism is but does at least tell us where it was invented. Fascism arose in Italy in the 1920s as a last-ditch response by the capitalist class to prevent a socialist revolution, a very real possibility at that time. It was subsequently adopted by the capitalist class in Germany in the 1930s for exactly the same reason. Workers in both countries had suffered immensely during WWI and both countries were therefore ripe for revolution.

This tells us how fascism arose historically and also points to a working definition. The usual definition given for fascism is something along the lines of: a right-wing, authoritarian, nationalist ideology characterized by centralized, totalitarian governance, strong regimentation of the economy and society, and repression of criticism or opposition. There are two problems with this definition in my view. First, it doesn’t pay sufficient attention to how fascism has arisen historically; and second, it is far too long! A pithier and more historically accurate definition of fascism is: a nationalist ideology designed specifically to crush a workers’ revolution. The nationalist element is key as fascism works by dividing the working class into in-groups and out-groups, and a divided working class is much easier to contain.

In light of this definition, can we say that the West is heading towards fascism? There are two ways to approach this question. On one hand, you could argue that there is little possibility of a workers’ revolution happening in any Western country any time soon, so the conditions that have given rise to fascism historically do not currently exist. Seeing as we have defined fascism as an ideology designed specifically to crush a workers’ revolution, it therefore seems to make little sense to worry about this ideology taking hold at present. Proponents of this view might argue that the election of far-right populist parties is by no means inevitable. In the UK, for example, Reform may be ahead in the polls, but the next general election is not for another four years and a lot can happen between now and then.

On the other hand, you could take the fact that far-right populist parties keep getting elected in Western countries as evidence that the ruling classes in these countries genuinely fear a workers’ revolution. A critic might argue that these countries are democracies and therefore the people in these countries decide who gets elected; but this is an extremely naive view of how Western ‘democracy’ works. In reality, people are forced to vote for parties that sit within a narrow band of acceptability determined by the ruling class. As evidence for this, we only need to think about how the media-political establishment in the UK reacted when there was a possibility of a party from slightly to the left of this narrow band of acceptability gaining power.

Still, our critic might say, there is nothing forcing people to vote for far-right parties – they could still vote for one of the other parties on offer. But when people’s material conditions deteriorate, they naturally look for alternatives outside of the status quo. The ruling class, understanding this, normalizes and promotes far-right parties to draw people in and prevent them from looking for alternatives elsewhere. Recall how in the US, the big tech oligarchs obsequiously lined up to support Trump’s recent presidential campaign. Or how in the UK, the supposedly impartial BBC has consistently given a platform to Farage and his various far-right populist projects whilst demonizing left-wing politicians with similarly broad public support.

The advent of social media and AI as made the ruling class’s life a lot easier in this regard. It is well known that social media leads to an ‘echo chamber’ effect, whereby peoples’ beliefs become entrenched when they encounter information or opinions that reflect and reinforce their own pre-existing views. And the rise of AI has facilitated a tsunami of misinformation which amplifies these echo chambers even further, making it extremely easy for the ruling class to spread and normalize far-right ideas. Taking all of this into account, things may seem pretty bleak; but perhaps there is some reason for optimism. We must remind ourselves that technology like social media and AI is agnostic and can be used for good as well as evil.

I think we socialists should take a leaf out of the capitalists’ book and start making better use of social media and AI to spread our ideas. The fact that the ruling class seems to fear a workers’ revolution should give us encouragement, as it suggests that people are looking for alternatives to the status quo. If we can find a way to get through to these people then who knows, the revolution might come sooner than we think.