On Fascism and Big Business

Solid distillation of Marxist understandings of “fascism.” Ultimately, “fascism is capitalism in decay,” and it reclaims power through authoritarian measures, postponing (liberal) democracy and giving power back to wealthy businessmen and landowners. Although this is a fair interpretation, it seems incorrect to me and I think most scholars today agree that the Marxist view of fascism to be misguided. It’s more important to view fascism as an offshoot of ultranationalism (after all, materialism is not the sole way of understanding the world, idealism is important too!) that tries to “regenerate” the nation, looking back towards a mythical golden age. In that regard, Roger Griffin seems to understand fascism better than Guérin does here.

Nonetheless, this is a good attempt to grapple with such a difficult question as fascism was spreading across Europe.