‘Fascism is a tool of capitalism in crisis’

From January 9 to 11, the World Festival of the Antifascist International took place in Caracas, Venezuela. More than 2,000 national and international guests from more than 100 countries, as well as other Venezuelan cities, attended the event. Among them were representatives of social movements, political parties, cultural and popular organizations, intellectuals, indigenous peoples, youth, students, workers, parliamentarians, communicators and other personalities. The mega activity was carried out within the framework of the Inauguration of Nicolás Maduro, who on January 10, was sworn in as President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela for the period 2025-2031, and also served as an example of international support for the continuity of the Bolivarian Revolution under the leadership of Maduro. Another important event that surrounded the Festival was the Inauguration of Donald Trump this January 20.

The Italian-Argentine philosopher Rocco Carbone, who has delved into the discursivities and political and cultural processes of Latin America, was born in Cosenza, Calabria, in southern Italy, but has lived for more than 20 years in the Argentine capital, Buenos Aires. Carbone studied at the Università degli Studi della Calabria. He received his doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Zürich, Switzerland, and currently teaches at the National University of General Sarmiento (UNGS) and is part of the prestigious world of Argentine scientific research center CONICET.

In addition to the aforementioned International Fascist Festival, Carbone participated in other activities carried out in Caracas within the framework of the Inauguration of President Nicolás Maduro, such as the January 9 March; the Swearing-in on January 10; and, the III World Communication Congress of the University of Communications (LAUICOM) held on January 11, among others. In that sense, Harici was able to talk with the Italian-Argentine philosopher about what fascism is, who is Argentine with Javier Milei as its president, and what is coming for Latin America and the world with the arrival of Trump to the White House.

Venezuela has just celebrated the International World Anti-Fascite Festival. Can you give us a definition of what fascism is and how it is expressed today?

The first thing I would tell you is that fascism is never something new, fascism is always old. With this I want to tell you that I am a little reluctant to talk about neofascism, but rather the word fascism convinces me more. I know that, at least in Argentina, where I have lived for more than 20 years, and also in the rest of Latin America this is a difficult word. It is a difficult word from political theory, from political action, for different reasons. But, without a doubt, when we say fascism we are referring to the Italian experience, to the German experience of the 20th century, which were experiences that extended more or less between the 20s, 30s and 40s. But if one theorizes this word a little, in the 20th century we see fascism in different places, that is, fascism in the 20th century was an international force. We find fascism, for example, in Great Britain, where in the 1920s and 1930s there was the British Union of Fascists, led by Oswald Mosley, a guy who had trained with Lord Keynes, the key to economics who was part of a brain of the Blackmore Group.

For example, in old China in the 1930s, within the Kuomintang of the Chinese Nationalist Party, founded by Sun Yat-sen, there also existed a dual power apparatus called the Blue Shirt Association, which was an apparatus fascist type military politician. If we think about Our America, for example, in Cuba governed by Gerardo Machado y Morales, the greatest fact against that political experience is that he persecuted a great militant who was part of the student movement and the Cuban labor movement, Julio Antonio Mella. Being an avid writer, in some of his texts, which we can read today because they have been preserved, Mella called Machado Morales “the tropical Mussolini”, that is, Mella identified Machado as a fascist. Then Mella had to exile himself from Cuba and went to live in Mexico and Machado had him murdered.

And if we think about Argentina in the 1930s, the so-called “Infamous Decade”, there was an Argentine fascist party recognized by the Italian fascist party that had a mass experience, especially in the city of Córdoba, where it was led by a relatively important Argentine Thomist philosopher, Nimio Juan Manuel de Anquí.

And why do I say all this? Because everything that is in history, everything that is in the political history of the world and in the political history of Latin America, at some later point, that history can be reactivated again. And it seems to me that this is happening today in Our America with different expressions of politics that if we call it right or extreme right or extreme right, we say absolutely nothing, because that is an insufficient descriptive expression.

So it seems to me that using these categories says nothing, for example, about the Venezuelan opposition, about Milei, about Bolsonaro. And it seems to me that this word, fascism, has indeed been reactivated. Now you ask me to give a definition of fascism, and I believe that we can think of fascism in many ways, we can think of it in relation to statehood, but we can think of it as political power without necessarily linking it to the nation-state.

Regarding Javier Milei, you have just released a book about the type of fascism that the Argentine president characterizes. Tell us a little about that.

Yes, the book is precisely called “Flamethrower: Milei and Psychotizing Fascism.” Fascism is a psychotizing power because it is a power that tends to drive the citizen, the free organizations of the people, the political parties, and politics crazy… Fascism is a power that discursively, but also politically, when it makes policy, always says two things at the same time and these things contradict each other.

In the case of Milei we can see it clearly, for example, when he was in the middle of the presidential campaign, Milei said that the current Minister of Economy, his Minister of Economy, Luis Caputo, was a criminal and a thief, because he had requested a loan from the IMF for 45 billion dollars, which became an enormous Argentine external debt. But then, when Milei won the presidential election, he chose Caputo as economy minister and now praises him.

Well, there we effectively see a power that narratively says two things at the same time that deny each other. That is why I say that it is a psychotizing power, that is, a power that tends to drive the citizens crazy. And, from my point of view, that psychotizing style basically tends to at least inhibit the popular response to fascism. That is the psychotizing element, the permanent contradictory element, that activates fascist power. We also see it in the permanent development of policies.

In the case of Milei, before becoming president he was briefly a deputy, and when he was a parliamentarian he voted in favor of the elimination, for example, of a tax that is the Income tax (also called the tax on great wealth). Milei voted against that entry, because for him, the Argentine State is a kind of evildoer, it is a kind of thief. The State is a kind of criminal because it taxes the citizens. However, now that he is president he is reinstating the income tax. Once again we see a contradictory policy that balances between a denial and an affirmation.

I believe that in this way we can understand fascism: as a kind of latent political force that is present in the life of people, as a kind of small person (a dwarf) that is – to a greater or lesser extent – in each one. of us and that, appropriately stimulated, grows again.

This January 20, the White House has a new tenant. What can we expect from Trump’s international policy towards Venezuela and Latin America?

Klara Zetkin in her 1923 text: “Fight against fascism. And how to defeat it”, argues that fascism is “a tool of capitalism in crisis.” In that sense, Trump is the head of state who represents the maximum expression of capitalism, and when capitalism is in crisis (in fact, Trump feels that the United States is in crisis, is in danger) to surf that crisis and stay afloat, capitalism expands. a much more radical tool than capitalism itself: fascism. It seems to me that this is a great definition to understand what we are talking about when we talk about fascism, because as we said before, that word activates historical comparisons, which can confuse us or divert us a little. And it seems to me that if, on the contrary, we connect it with the rationality of capitalism, especially the capitalism in crisis that we are experiencing in the 21st century, that is, a capitalism that has many dimensions, there is a productive capitalism, analog capitalism, there is another platform capitalism, financial or digital, there is another type of capitalism, specifically in Latin America, the narco capitalism.

And capitalism at this moment is going through a transition phase, because there is a dispute for the hegemony of capitalism between the old US imperialism and new emerging countries, such as the BRICS. I am referring to Russia, I am thinking of China, India, Iran, which are disputing that hegemony, that leadership. 

And so, because capitalism is closely linked to imperialism, the United States feels the pressure of that crisis. Trump has expressed it several times, for him American power is in crisis, in decline. So in different places in the Western world, forms of fascism are activated so that capitalism stays afloat, stays alive and reaffirms itself in this moment of transition from one hegemony to another hegemony, which we still do not know what it will be. Let’s say, this neo-hegemony or hegemonism is still uncertain, but it seems to me that the world is moving towards it, therefore, it seems to me that we must effectively understand it under that paradigm: fascism as a tool of capitalism in crisis.

As to how Trump’s arrival at the White House may affect Venezuela, this is also a bit uncertain. But the obvious thing is that the Trump administration needs an antagonist. If Israel and Gaza reach a prolonged peace agreement, beyond the circumstantial ceasefire, and if Trump manages to end the war in Ukraine. The United States will exert greater pressure and interference against Venezuela. Trump is acting psychotically against the Chinese government, his main enemy in the fight to maintain global hegemony. That is why thinking about a “reasonable capitalism” is nonsense, which is why people must unite and organize.

What do we do?

Imagining and organizing a new world, alternative to the power schemes of powers that do not fight to achieve something but rather covet everything that exists is the task of participation and struggle for the forces of emancipation that vibrate in the ideas of social justice. and egalitarianism. National and popular forces with the Latin American perspective of the great Homeland. Because, what is a town, after all? It is not a fixed or eternal idea but an idea that names and summons the possibility of being constituted in each historical stage. That idea indicates less a large number, a large conglomerate, or a conspicuous number of people mobilized than a fluctuating community experiencing an epiphany. A revelation of power, of knowledge, of beauty, of shared knowledge. A social bond, a hug. An experience: a constitutive part of what one is and without which one cannot be, nor continue to be. From Our America it must still be possible to imagine and organize an emancipatory action – spliced ​​with the dimensions of multipolarity and the BRICS – constituted around a popular slogan: Make Antifascism Great Again, on the 80th anniversary of the subordination of archaeological fascism at the hands of the revolution.

Notes

“Flamethrower. Milei and psychotizing fascism” (2024) by Rocco Carbone. In this essay, the Italian-Argentine philosopher maintains that “fascism is a highly psychotizing or maddening political power. And this characteristic is expressed very well in Milei, because Every time Milei speaks he says two things that clash with each other, for example: First he said: ‘Pope Francis is the representative of the evil one on earth’ and then, when he makes a trip to Rome and visits the Vatican, he says: “The Pope is the most important Argentine in history.” In this text, Rocco invites us to resist and combat this political power because “fascism does not imply an idea different from our own, but the death of all ideas.” And he concludes that “Fascism is a tool of capitalism in crisis,” a thought previously postulated (1923) by the feminist and German communist deputy Klara Zetkin (1857-1933) in the text “Fight against fascism. And how to beat it.”

In “Mafia capital: The hidden logics of power” (2019) the philosopher maintains that: “Organized crime (now nationalized) has a very broad advantage over Argentine democracy and its laws.” In his text, Rocco reviews Latin American history and the recent radicalization of neoliberal governments. It also describes the development of the Mafia, from its origins and how: “in just two generations it stopped being a regional and rural organization to become another, made up of modern, cosmopolitan and refined businessmen, with doctorates, capable of expressing themselves and doing things.” His work has been published in many languages.