In our previous post we argued that the state as a structure will always encourage fascist ideas. The state requires obedience and strong borders to function, and this is far more compatible with fascism than it is with liberalism, socialism, or even conservatism. However, while fascism may be the ideology that best aligns with the needs of the state, this does not fully explain its ability to embed itself in our society. If everyone within our society held anti-fascist attitudes then any fascist tendencies inherent in the state would result in rebellion instead of a slow drift towards fascism. We need to look at how the structure of the state not only encourages fascist ideas, but creates people who are open to those ideas.
The ways in which the state does this are similar to the ways in which capitalism does. Among the capitalist class profit must come before everything else, including commitment to any kind of ideals. People and ideas are evaluated only by their potential to make profit, and any capitalist who does not tend towards this approach will end up outcompeted by other capitalists with less scruples. The political class and the technocrats that actually manage most of the hierarchies within both business and government face a similar pressure to cast aside ideals. At the top of the state hierarchy political parties or factions are in competition with each other over positions of power, and those parties or factions that hold any ideals above taking power are at a disadvantage against those willing to do whatever is necessary to win.
This creates a class of rulers who are conditioned to see the people below them as disposable to their needs, and the needs of the hierarchy that empowers them. Ideas that are not useful for securing power or profit are seen as impractical distractions to be ignored. Those climbing either state or corporate hierarchies in order to secure better pay and conditions for themselves face increasing pressures to put power or profit ahead of everything else as they progress, weeding out anyone who is not willing to engage with the system on those terms. This creates a ruling class that is ripe for adopting a fascist ideology; they have no scruples beyond the pursuits of power and profit.
The structure of state and capital also incentivise fascist attitudes among those at the bottom of society. Workers exist in a position that encourages them to see themselves as in competition with each other for jobs and promotions, and to see fulfilling their boss’s desires as the key to securing their own safety and comfort within the economy. Again, people are in a similar structural position as citizens look to the government to provide them with the infrastructure and services they need, and other potential claimants on government resources are competitors. Just as fascism exploits fear of migrants and “undesirables” taking jobs, it also exploits fear around those same people taking welfare.
This encourages the lower classes to adopt ideas that give them special claim to economic or political support from capitalists and politicians. This can manifest as demands for better treatment when raised by oppressed groups, but when raised by sections of the lower class that already have some kind of privilege it results in ideas that are easily compatible with fascism; appeals for preferential treatment on the basis of nativeness, whiteness, gender, straightness, legality, and the rejection of others on the basis that they are foreign, black, queer, criminals, or just weird.
In order to oppose this we must not only oppose fascism as an ideology, but build structures in our workplaces and our communities that discourage fascist attitudes. We need to focus on working from the bottom-up, along lines of free association and consensus, based on the idea that people should look to their peers for support instead of looking up their rulers. In organisations built along these lines, people are encouraged to see each other as potential collaborators instead of competitors, to discuss and understand each other’s desires as people instead of dismissing each other as stereotypes, and to bridge divisions in order to cooperate – instead of attempting to leverage them for preferential treatment, because there is no one at the top who can grant that preferential treatment, only a web of equals supporting each other.
As a practical example of this, take workplace organising when compared to climbing a workplace hierarchy; be that workplace a government department or a capitalist corporation. If someone is looking to secure their wellbeing through promotion, then they must look to the desires and preferences of their superior above those of their co-workers, and find reasons as to why they are more deserving than their co-workers. On the other hand, if someone is looking to secure their wellbeing by organising with their fellow workers against management through strikes and other workplace direct action, their wellbeing is based on the ability of everyone within the workplace to come together as a collective regardless of what divisions may exist among them.
Combined with the conclusions of our last post, this means that we need to not only build organisations independent from the state that can put pressure on it, but build them in a way so that they provide a different lived experience compared to the hierarchies of the state. We need a movement that is bottom-up and anti-authoritarian in order to promote a more accepting and egalitarian ethic within society. Just the best strategy to oppose fascism is inherently anarchist, so are the best organisational structures.
The Eclipse 
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