Today, much of the global core seems to be sliding towards fascism. In the USA, the liberal establishment is paralysed by the rise of Trump. In the UK, both Labour and the Tories have reacted to the rise of Reform not by opposing its ideas, but pandering to them; and this seems to be the common tactic of the established political parties across Europe. Now more than ever, there needs to be a radical response to the far right.

This radical response requires understanding the basis of fascism and why supposedly liberal and social democratic societies keep failing to offer meaningful opposition. The traditional socialist account of this problem is that fascism develops out of capitalism as it decays and fails to resolve its internal contradictions. While this explanation is not necessarily wrong, it is also not necessarily complete, and we think that it is also important to examine how the state structure also plays an important key role in encouraging fascism.

The modern state has two requirements that it needs above all else in order to function:

1. Obedience from its agents and citizens: The power of any dictator, oligarchy, or democratic parliament is dependent on this obedience; without which, the state will collapse. No political elite has the ability to enforce its will over an entire country without the obedient cooperation of the state hierarchy, and even then a state will struggle to impose its will in the face of widespread disobedience from its own citizens. This fact is what makes revolution possible and forces states to compromise when they face widespread internal resistance.

2. Borders: Borders are the boundaries that define where one state’s authority ends and another starts; without an ability to define and maintain those borders, state authority is fatally undermined.

These requirements mean that any state must encourage ideals that support obedience and borders – any ideology that holds ideals which conflict with these two things is a threat to the strength and stability of the state. Many modern ideologies sit awkwardly with these needs: liberal support for freedom and universalism, socialist support for equality and internationalism, and even principled conservatism’s support for local traditions and religious solidarity all represent ideological commitments that can conflict with obedience to the state and strong national borders.

Fascism, on the other hand, is perfectly compatible with the requirements of the state. Absolute obedience to a strong leader and the social norms they dictate are part of the package of fascism. Fascism also brings with it a violent nationalism that super-empowers the state border regime. On top of this, fascists revels in the idea of using force to suppress their enemies, freeing the state apparatus to take whatever measures it deems necessary – up to and including the genocide of entire populations – to beat society into a form that best maintains its power.

This does not mean that all those who are involved in maintaining the state are fascists, but instead that the needs of the state constantly pressure its rulers, agents, and supporters in a fascist direction. The principled liberal, socialist, or conservative will always face a tension between their ideals and the requirements of the state, and therefore be forced into uncomfortable compromises. Non-ideological state technocrats and amoral grifters will always see a practical appeal to fascistic ideas and policies to empower them. From both the practical perspective and the perspective of having ideals that match your actions, drifting towards fascism is the path of least resistance for those who maintain the state, unless there is an even stronger pressure pushing people onto other paths.

This has important implications for anti-fascist strategy. Firstly, the state can never be relied on as a tool to fight fascism. Analyses of fascism that only understand it as a reaction to the collapse of capitalism often make the mistake of seeing social democratic reforms or Leninist revolution as a potential counter-strategy against fascism, but as such strategies empower the state they only re-enforce one of the wellsprings of fascist ideas. The modern global resurgence of fascism has as much to do with the collapse of social democratic and Leninist parties into increasingly fascistic authoritarianism, as it does the contradictions of capitalism.

In the short term, we need to build institutions outside of the state that can create anti-fascist pressure to push back against the fascistic tendencies of the state. The politicians, technocrats, and agents of the state need to be put in a position where they are forced to accept compromises between the needs of the state and the needs of their subjects because they fear the level of resistance and disruption they will face if they do not. In the long term, we need to abolish the state if we want to defeat fascism. As long as the state exists, it will always require obedience and control of its borders – and that requirement will always be a structural basis from which fascist ideas will develop. Such a strategy is inherently anarchist, in that it organises outside and against the state, with the ultimate aim of replacing it.