This is the first document summarizing the MLM definition of fascism I found. It explicitly says the US is not fascist. It points to the ability of the people to speak, publish, organize, and assemble.
I am sitting in the US accessing information directly critical of the ruling regime using a search engine run by one of the most intensely capitalist corporations in existence, which I think shows there is not suppression of oppositional thought.
Yes, it is the same document I read a few years ago.
It explicitly states that the United States is not fascist.
But it also says: The fifth principle: Fascism and bourgeois democracy are theoretical extremes or archetypes; all real regimes contain elements of both types of bourgeois government.
However, I believe the relevant principle is the seventh one and its generalization: the laws passed by Trump against our trans comrades or migrant workers are fascist; the same applies to the law Biden signed depriving railway workers of the right to strike, or the economic and military aid provided to Israel to exterminate the working class of Gaza.
Those fascist laws were the work of the two major U.S. liberal parties, and anyone who does fascist things is usually called a fascist. BTW, I’m not MLM, but I think that their definition, with the generalization, covers the common usage of fascism.
For reference:
**The Seventh Principle: Individual laws or actions by the bourgeois state can be categorized
as fascist if they correspond to the sorts of laws or actions typical of the fascist theoretical
archetype, and whether or not they occur in a regime which we overall categorize as fascist.**
Strangely enough, there is a very common tendency to resist calling laws which are characteristic of
fascist countries “fascist laws”, when applied to laws in a country which is overall correctly called a
bourgeois democracy. The idea seems to be that there can only be fascist laws in a totally fascist regime!
This is complete nonsense.
There are in fact many laws and government policies characteristic of fascism in even the most
democratic bourgeois state, and it is by no means wrong to label them as such. In fact it is very important
to label them as such, as part of the continuing struggle against fascism.
As we said earlier, every actual bourgeois regime has a mixture of fascist and bourgeois democratic
elements. That means that of necessity there are always fascist laws, restrictions, policies, actions and the like on the part of the state. And these fascist elements should be labeled for what they are, and firmly opposed.
Are all repressive laws properly viewed as fascist laws even under a bourgeois democracy? This
might depend to some degree on what is meant by a “repressive law” in the first place. But if the term
refers to a law that actually restricts or prohibits what would otherwise be properly considered some
democratic rights of the working class and masses, then yes, it can and should just as well be called a
fascist law too. I see no reason to support the notion that there are “two categories” of the suppression of
democratic rights: “ordinary repression”, and “fascist repression”. That would echo back to the old notion
that something should only be called “fascist” if it brings all the horrors of Nazi Germany to mind. If
there are two distinct categories, “repressive laws” and “fascist laws”, on just what grounds do we decide
that a particular law is one or the other? There would need to be some principle which leads us to make
the appropriate choice.
Moreover, if we arbitrarily decide to call a law or policy a fascist one only if it occurs in a fully fascist
country, this would then force us to say that identical laws, with identical results, are fascist in one
country and merely “repressive” in another country! Wouldn‟t that amount to using a euphemism for the
law in the bourgeois democratic country? Wouldn‟t it be sort of a cover-up or implicit apology for the
bourgeois democratic country? It seems much better to simply say that if a law or policy is a fascist one in
a fascist country, then it is a fascist one anywhere else too.
I have a pretty weird analogy but I’m going to make it anyway. It’s a bit like the difference between sexually suggestive art and pornography. Every article of clothing a person takes off, the more sexual the image becomes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that nudity is inherently pornographic (think Michaelangelo’s David). How the nudity is presented and the context of the situation can make something pornography.
In the same way, restrictive laws can be steps towards fascism, but they have to be taken in the greater context and require malicious intent. Gaza is undoubtedly imperialism. But is it imperialism to expand the territory of the nation, like Hitler taking Poland? I would say not with Biden at least. Trump has joked about building beach houses on the Red Sea.
https://massline.org/Politics/ScottH/Fascism-MLM-Conception.pdf
This is the first document summarizing the MLM definition of fascism I found. It explicitly says the US is not fascist. It points to the ability of the people to speak, publish, organize, and assemble.
I am sitting in the US accessing information directly critical of the ruling regime using a search engine run by one of the most intensely capitalist corporations in existence, which I think shows there is not suppression of oppositional thought.
Yes, it is the same document I read a few years ago.
But it also says: The fifth principle: Fascism and bourgeois democracy are theoretical extremes or archetypes; all real regimes contain elements of both types of bourgeois government.
However, I believe the relevant principle is the seventh one and its generalization: the laws passed by Trump against our trans comrades or migrant workers are fascist; the same applies to the law Biden signed depriving railway workers of the right to strike, or the economic and military aid provided to Israel to exterminate the working class of Gaza.
Those fascist laws were the work of the two major U.S. liberal parties, and anyone who does fascist things is usually called a fascist. BTW, I’m not MLM, but I think that their definition, with the generalization, covers the common usage of fascism.
For reference:
**The Seventh Principle: Individual laws or actions by the bourgeois state can be categorized
as fascist if they correspond to the sorts of laws or actions typical of the fascist theoretical archetype, and whether or not they occur in a regime which we overall categorize as fascist.**
Strangely enough, there is a very common tendency to resist calling laws which are characteristic of fascist countries “fascist laws”, when applied to laws in a country which is overall correctly called a bourgeois democracy. The idea seems to be that there can only be fascist laws in a totally fascist regime! This is complete nonsense.
There are in fact many laws and government policies characteristic of fascism in even the most democratic bourgeois state, and it is by no means wrong to label them as such. In fact it is very important to label them as such, as part of the continuing struggle against fascism.
As we said earlier, every actual bourgeois regime has a mixture of fascist and bourgeois democratic elements. That means that of necessity there are always fascist laws, restrictions, policies, actions and the like on the part of the state. And these fascist elements should be labeled for what they are, and firmly opposed.
Are all repressive laws properly viewed as fascist laws even under a bourgeois democracy? This might depend to some degree on what is meant by a “repressive law” in the first place. But if the term refers to a law that actually restricts or prohibits what would otherwise be properly considered some democratic rights of the working class and masses, then yes, it can and should just as well be called a fascist law too. I see no reason to support the notion that there are “two categories” of the suppression of democratic rights: “ordinary repression”, and “fascist repression”. That would echo back to the old notion that something should only be called “fascist” if it brings all the horrors of Nazi Germany to mind. If there are two distinct categories, “repressive laws” and “fascist laws”, on just what grounds do we decide that a particular law is one or the other? There would need to be some principle which leads us to make the appropriate choice.
Moreover, if we arbitrarily decide to call a law or policy a fascist one only if it occurs in a fully fascist country, this would then force us to say that identical laws, with identical results, are fascist in one country and merely “repressive” in another country! Wouldn‟t that amount to using a euphemism for the law in the bourgeois democratic country? Wouldn‟t it be sort of a cover-up or implicit apology for the bourgeois democratic country? It seems much better to simply say that if a law or policy is a fascist one in a fascist country, then it is a fascist one anywhere else too.
I have a pretty weird analogy but I’m going to make it anyway. It’s a bit like the difference between sexually suggestive art and pornography. Every article of clothing a person takes off, the more sexual the image becomes, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that nudity is inherently pornographic (think Michaelangelo’s David). How the nudity is presented and the context of the situation can make something pornography.
In the same way, restrictive laws can be steps towards fascism, but they have to be taken in the greater context and require malicious intent. Gaza is undoubtedly imperialism. But is it imperialism to expand the territory of the nation, like Hitler taking Poland? I would say not with Biden at least. Trump has joked about building beach houses on the Red Sea.