Global capitalism and twenty-first century fascism: A US case study

Race and Class

Volumn 53, Issue 3, 2012, Pages 4-29

  Robinson, William I ^a   Barrera, Mario ^b  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

Anti immigrant movement; Capitalist crisis; Christian right; Globalisation; Militarisation; Neo fascism; Oath keepers; Patriot movement; Sb1070; Tea party; Transnational capital

Indexed keywords

EID: 83455173408     PISSN: 03063968     EISSN: 17413125     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/0306396811425983     Document Type: Article

References (61)

1. For our view on the nature of the new global capitalism and its crisis, see, inter alia, William I. Robinson, A Theory of Global Capitalism: production, class, and state in a transnational world (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004); Robinson, Latin America and Global Capitalism (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Robinson, 'The crisis of global capitalism: cyclical? structural? systemic?', in Martijn Konings (ed.), Beyond the Subprime Headlines: critical perspectives on the financial crisis (London, Verso, 2010). Robinson has emphasised four interrelated and mutually constitutive dimensions to what we term the crisis of global capitalism. The first is a crisis of social polarisation worldwide, of social reproduction. The second is a crisis of over-accumulation. The third is a crisis of state legitimacy and political authority (or domination). And the fourth is a crisis of sustainability or an ecological crisis.
2. Philip Aldrick, 'Davos WEF 2011: wealth inequality is the "Most serious challenge for the world"', The Telegraph, 26 January, electronic edition, downloaded on 2/1/2011 from: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financetopics/davos/8283310/Davos-WEF-2011-Wealth-inequality-is-the-most-serious-challenge-for-the-world.html.
3. On the structural and potentially systemic nature of the current crisis, see, in particular, Robinson, 'The crisis of global capitalism', op. cit.
4. Mike Davis, Planet of Slums (London, Verso, 2007).
5. Karl Polanyi, The Great Transformation, second edition (Boston, Beacon, 2001).
6. Claus Offe, 'Structural problems of the capitalist state,' in K. Von Beyme (ed.), German Political Studies, Vol. 1, (London, Sage, 1974), pp. 31-57.
7. Redistribution is still possible at the nation-state level when distinct class and social forces (such as in Venezuela) take control of, and transform, the neoliberal national state. Even then, however, the larger global system and the structural power that transnational capital is able to exercise over the direct power of national states severely constrains redistributive projects, unless, in our view, such projects: 1) are transnational, as, in Robinson's words,'neither Keynesianism nor socialism are any longer possible in one country' (Robinson, A Theory, op. cit.); 2) move beyond redistribution to effect a more fundamental transformation in class/property relations.
8. Nicos Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes, (London, Verso, 1973).
9. Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism (New York, Vintage, 2005), esp. pp. 78-80.
10. Two classical Marxist texts on twentieth-century fascism are
11. Franz Newmann, Behemout: the structure and practice of National Socialism, 1933-1934 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1942, republished by Ivan R. Dee Publishers, Chicago, 2009, with an introduction by Peter Hayes)
12. R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution (1934, reprinted by Rockville, MD, Wildside Press, 2009).
13. Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (New York, Henry Holt, 1941, 1969).
14. Fromm is not alone in emphasising the socio-psychological dimensions of fascism. Hannah Arendt and Wilhelm Reich, among others, have done so as well.
15. Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York, Benediction Books, 2009 [1951]).
16. Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism (London, Souvenir Press Ltd, 1997 [1933]).
17. Reich, The Mass Psychology of Fascism., p. 216.
18. Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: the new face of power in America (Boston, South End Press, 1980).
19. Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: the new face of power in America., p. 230.
20. Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: the new face of power in America., p. 198.
21. Alfonso Gonzales, 'The 2006 Mega Marchas in greater Los Angeles: counter-hegemonic moment and the future of El Migrante Struggle', Latino Studies (Vol. 7, no. 1), pp. 30-39.
22. Inter alia, Jane Mayer, 'Covert operations: the billionaire brothers who are waging a war against Obama', New Yorker (30 August 2010).
23. the documentary Billionaire Tea Party, directed and produced by Taki Oldham and released by Larrikin Films, 2010
24. website at http://www.billionairesteaparty.com/.
25. On these details,
26. Robinson, 'The crisis of global capitalism', op. cit.,
27. William I. Robinson, 'Global capital leviathan,' Radical Philosophy, (No. 165, January-February 2011), pp. 2-6.
28. For these details, see Gross, op. cit., pp. 244-245.
29. Nelson Lichtenstein, The Retail Revolution: how Walmart created a brave new world of business (New York, Metropolitan Books, 2009),
30. esp. chapter 5, 'Unions keep out'.
31. Karl Marx, Grundrisse: foundations of the critique of political economy (New York, Penguin, 1993 [1858/1939]).
32. Tom Petruno, 'Corporate giants awash in cash as economy picks up', Los Angeles Times (24 March 2010), pp. A1+A8.
33. The ILO reported that in the late twentieth century, some one-third of the global labour force was unemployed. International Labor Organization (ILO), World Employment Report 1996-97, (Geneva, ILO/United Nations, 1997).
34. Ruth Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: prisons, surplus, crisis, and opposition in globalizing California, (Berkeley, University of California Press, 2007).
35. Inter alia, Tara Herivel and Paul Wright (eds), Prison Nation: the warehousing of America's poor (New York, Routledge, 2003).
36. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: mass incarceration in the age of color blindness (New York, New Press, 2010).
37. William I. Robinson, 'Aqui estamos y no nos vamos: global capital and immigrant rights', Race & Class (Vol. 48, no. 2, 2006), pp. 77-91.
38. Ghassan Hage, White Nation: fantasies of white supremacy in a multicultural society (New York, Routledge, 2000), p. 9.
39. Southern Poverty Law Center, 'Immigrant backlash: hate crimes against Latinos flourish', Intelligence Report (No. 128, winter 2007), p. 1.
40. Southern Poverty Law Center, Intelligence Report (No. 141, spring 2011).
41. Department of Homeland Security, US Government, Rightwing Extremism: current economic and political climate fueling resurgence in radicalization and recruitment (7 April 2009).
42. On the US state integrating Iraq into global capitalism, and on militarised accumulation more generally,
43. Iinter alia, William I. Robinson, 'Beyond the theory of imperialism: global capitalism and the transnational state', Societies without Borders (No. 2, 2007), pp. 5-26.
44. Robinson,'The crisis of global capitalism', op. cit. On the privatisation of warfare,
45. Inter alia, Jeremy Scahill's noted work, Blackwater: the rise of the world's most powerful mercenary army (New York, Nation Books, 2008),
46. Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine: the rise of disaster capitalism (New York, Picador, 2008).
47. On the CCA-SB1070 link and related details, see the journalistic exposé by
48. Laura Sullivan, 'Prison economics help drive Arizona immigration law,' National Public Radio, 28 October 2010, print version downloaded on 11/16/2010 from http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741
49. Catalina Nieto, 'The for-profit con to criminalize immigrants', 4 January 2011, Commondreams, http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/01/04-12, and accessed on 5 February 2011.
50. Tom Barry, 'The national imperative to imprison immigrants for profit', Center for International Policy, Americas Program, posted at CIP Americas Program webpage on 3/10/2009 and accessed on 16/11/2010 at http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/1662
51. Inter alia, Tanya Golash-Boza, 'The immigrant industrial complex: why we enforce immigration policies destined to fail', Sociology Compass (Vol. 3, 2009), pp. 1-15.
52. Bruce Ackerman, 'A less political military,' Los Angeles Times (21 June 2010), p. A9.
53. Project on Defense Alternatives, 'The Pentagon and deficit reduction', PDA Briefing Memo #47, Washington, DC, Commonwealth Institute, 1 March 2011, p. 1.
54. Project on Defense Alternatives,'An undisciplined defense: understanding the $2 trillion surge in US defense spending', Washington, DC, Commonwealth Institute, 18 January 2010.
55. Tom Hayden, 'War never-ending', Los Angeles Times (28 March 2010), p. A31.
56. Stan Goff, 'Sowing the seeds of fascism in America,' Truthdig (internet magazine), posted on October 3, 2006, and accessed on 7/21/07 from http://www.truthdig.com/dig/item/200601003_white_supremacism_sexism_militarism/.
57. Donald K. Williams, God's Own Party (New York, Oxford, 2010), pp. 177ff.
58. Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the war on America (New York, Free Press, 2006), pp. 10-12.
59. Peter Montgomery, 'The Tea Party and Religious Right movements: frenemies with benefits'. Paper presented at the Conference on the Tea Party Movement, University of California at Berkeley, 22 October 2010, pp. 9-10.
60. Polling data presented by Montgomery show that'47 per cent of those who consider themselves part of the Tea Party movement, and 57 per cent of Tea Partiers who identify as Christians, say they are also part of the Christian conservative or Religious Right movement'.
61. Sing C. Chew, The Recurring Dark Ages: ecological stress, climate changes, and system transformation (Lanham, MD, AltaMira Press, 2007).