Are Fascism and Liberalism Partners in Capitalist Crime?

“Gabriel Rockhill, 'Are Fascism and Liberalism Partners in Capitalist Crime?' ”, Jan 28, 2024 (this youtube posted on Apr 13, 2024) , A bit less than an hour-long Lecture by Gabriel Rockhill, followed by over an hour of Q & A, Critical Theory Workshop, Overall length of video 2:11:40, length of Rockhill's lecture about 55 minutes ending at 57:20 at < https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vnn_bWDmizw >.

~~ recommended by dmorista ~~

Introduction by dmorista: Excellent discussion of the hand-in-glove relationship between the operations of Capitalist Bourgeois “Democracies” and the rise of far-right fascist movements and actual governments throughout much of the world. Rockhill looks at the wide spectrum of coercive operations of the Capitalists including violent operations by para-military forces as compared to formal state repressive forces. Includes excellent discussions and analysis of current events in the U.S., Ukraine, Israel / Palestine. Rockhill also discusses the differences and similarities of the roles of Donald Trump, and his coterie of far-right Republicans, and Joe Biden, and his gaggle of somewhat less right-wing Democrats.

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ABSTRACT According to the dominant ideology, fascism constitutes an exceptional break with the protocols of liberal democracy, which has only happened at rare moments in the history of the West, such as in Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany. Liberalism is thereby postulated as a bulwark against fascism, an idea that’s been consolidated through the massive perpetuation of a historical narrative regarding the supposed democratic defeat of Nazism in WWII. This presentation will critically interrogate these assumptions by re-examining the historical relationship between liberal democracy and fascism. Have they always been opposed to one another, or do they sometimes work in concert as two capitalist ideologies? Is it really the case that liberal democratic governments in the imperial core serve as safeguards against fascism? If so, what are we to make of their imperialist foreign policies, their colonial histories, their general tolerance toward fascists, and their current domestic practices of draconian policing, mass incarceration, the militarization of borders, and the empowerment of vigilante militias? In addressing these and parallel questions, this talk will seek to develop a refined dialectical understanding of fascism and liberalism as capitalist modes of governance that are often partners in crime, while also avoiding any simplistic, ultra-leftist conflation between them.