butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Of course i wouldn't. What are the other two you're thinking of? (And it's not the chararacter of the leaders poltics that are key anyway).
Could the BNP ever get into government?
- Thread starter Silver_Fox
- Start date
Of course i wouldn't. What are the other two you're thinking of? (And it's not the chararacter of the leaders poltics that are key anyway).
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
You could make the case that Peron's Argentina was fascist. He was a huge admirer of Mussolini and his was certainly a corporatist, nationalist project.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Much of western-europe after WW2 was based around corporatist-nationalist aims and structures. I don't believe Peronism can be classified as fascism - it's main base was the unions and organisations of the working class for starters and it relied on a free-floating populism that had none of the wider internationaly aggressive aims of Italy or Germnay. of It's interesting in that it did have many of the characteristics of classcial fascism but in much milder forms, but i think that really only highlights the dnagers of a sort of tick-box approach to the question. Or maybe with the idea of a generic fascism at all.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Peron made a very interesting speech to business leaders in which he outlined how his approach to co-opting workers and worker movements into the state was good for business, that you had to give concessions to neutralise the communist threat. His working-class base was not the free communist or anarchist unions, which were quickly outlawed, but the newly Peronist unions. The price of the concessions Peron made was the destruction of militant unions.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Then the tories are fascist and so are labour! Neither Mussolini nor Hitlercame to power through the support of the unions and w/c organisations - Peron did. Massive difference IMO.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I would argue that the populism of Peron was not free-floating. It was really quite prescriptive – his was a nationalist project in which he himself defined what was truly Argentinian and what wasn't. He had no international aims, but then again Griffin makes a virtue of the BNP's lack of international aims. Do international aims define fascism?
I agree with you that it's largely irrelevant really, but Peron's Argentina at the very least exhibited a lot of fascist traits, and when push came to shove, he was fully prepared to enforce his vision of a new country with authoritarian measures, including purging the unions and jailing communist and anarchist activists.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Again, that was the standard tri-partite talk that was common globally in the decades from 1930-70. I think that he was nearer to the Swedish model where the unions (yes, even the peronist formed ones) act as the intermediaries/transmission belt between the state and the social protections the state offered. A real two way process unlike in germnay or Italy. And yes, of course he wasn't brought to power by the radical unions - they had massively mis-read the mood of the wider working class.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
That's simply the political history of South America in the 20th century though isn't it? The only difference being Peron's personal popularity within the w/c whilst doing these things.
On international aims, yes, i do think aggressive foreign policy is a crucial part of fascist regimes.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Of course, Argentina was different from most of Latin America in that it had a large w/c in the first place. It's Peron's w/c support that gives his regime its fascist character. Authoritarian, nationalist, corporatist populism. What he didn't manage was to successfully co-opt conservative forces in Argentina, and that ultimately led to his downfall. Maybe that is how he falls short of fully fledged fascism, but probably not for the want of trying.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
But there's exactly the difference - Mussolini and Hitler came to power after crushing the w/c (directly in the first case, or as the benificiary of that crushing by weimar democracy and the SDP in the second), Peron came to power through the w/c. The w/c support is what makes it defintively not facsist IMO.
Anyway, getting rather esoteric here and there's football on in a bit - and i'm a bit fascisted out right now
Anyway, getting rather esoteric here and there's football on in a bit - and i'm a bit fascisted out right now
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Me too, actually. Time to think about something else.and i'm a bit fascisted out right now
no because they are overtly pro capitalist and pro state .. fascism claims it is not
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
A definition of fascsim as something that divides the w/c is not good enough. Come on. There's hundred of things that do that.
Pickman's model
sunset spires and twilight woods
football support, for a start.
yes but as a political movement with the sole aim to do that it is unique .. name me another political tendancy of which that is the function of
football race gender music whatever .. these are NOT politcal movements
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
trade unionism is not a 'political movement' in the same way at all and technically trade unionism can be transmuted into industrial or class unionism unlike fascism .. and what other function does fascism have then???
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Simple, having a mass base does not equal having mass w/c support. There are other classes than the w/c. For example, the nazis had a membership in their various organisations in the multi-millions, yet the w/c were under represented and on thw whole remained wedded to the SDP and the KPD.
You've also totally taken those quotes out of context as they were arguing that the organisations of the w/c supporrted Peronism and brought him to power, you'd have a hard job arguing the same of Mussolini or Hitler.
You've also totally taken those quotes out of context as they were arguing that the organisations of the w/c supporrted Peronism and brought him to power, you'd have a hard job arguing the same of Mussolini or Hitler.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Modernise the state, complete national integration, establish a new foreign policy, complete the national market, direct internal development etc Reducing it to having a sole function is just a political way of saying that fassism is anything nasty. Sure that's one function, but if you're going to look at how fascism functioned for capital then you have to look a bit further.
kyser_soze
Hawking's Angry Eyebrow
And that cunting thing in Italy where you buy your ticket and have to validate it before getting on the train. Bastardos. Bet that was a let-over from Mussolini...
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Say why and how then.
Maj0r Tom
New Member
Rod Sleeves
New Member
First of all the BNP are not currently a fascist organisation, certainly their structure and membership is not explicitly fascist, though leading members definitely are, it is racist, nationalist, and populist however.
Secondly I don't think we are going to get a fascist government any time soon, I do think that a deteriorating economic and ecological situation combined with increased social and racial unrest, and improvements in technology could quite possibly lead to increasingly unpleasant and reactionary authoritarian democracy. This would be where opposition would be allowed within increasingly narrow systemic constraints, where opposition outside those boundaries would face ever increasing repression - a bit like Russia or Malaysia, but different because it would be British.
This would be most likely introduced by the Conservatives or Labour with the support of the other two main parties, and with little (but some) opposition from within their own ranks.
I don't actually think it's written in stone, or that it is happening now - it's just one possibility over the next ten to twenty years or so.
As others have said I don't think the BNP are going to form a government, but they will (and already are to some extent) push the whole political system to the right. But I don't think they are racialising politics like Le Pen did in France - British politics were successfully racialised by multi culturalism, they are merely taking advantage of that new multi cultural consensus to push their own white supremacist and nationalist vision.
Secondly I don't think we are going to get a fascist government any time soon, I do think that a deteriorating economic and ecological situation combined with increased social and racial unrest, and improvements in technology could quite possibly lead to increasingly unpleasant and reactionary authoritarian democracy. This would be where opposition would be allowed within increasingly narrow systemic constraints, where opposition outside those boundaries would face ever increasing repression - a bit like Russia or Malaysia, but different because it would be British.
This would be most likely introduced by the Conservatives or Labour with the support of the other two main parties, and with little (but some) opposition from within their own ranks.
I don't actually think it's written in stone, or that it is happening now - it's just one possibility over the next ten to twenty years or so.
As others have said I don't think the BNP are going to form a government, but they will (and already are to some extent) push the whole political system to the right. But I don't think they are racialising politics like Le Pen did in France - British politics were successfully racialised by multi culturalism, they are merely taking advantage of that new multi cultural consensus to push their own white supremacist and nationalist vision.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
"A mass base" doesn't refer to "the masses", but to volume. The Nazis, for example, had a large base because they drew massive support from the German middle-classes and from the German equivalent of the British yeoman: The peasant land-owning farmer.
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