Fascism and Crisis in Capitalist Society

Abstract

A central problem for students of capitalist society is to analyse the social consequences of crisis. What happens when the ruling class is weakened or experiences some threat to its hegemony? One development, but by no means an inevitable one, is the emergence of fascist politics within the context of an ongoing capitalism. Fascists are typically newcomers to power and rarely have their origins in the old ruling strata. Relations with old political and economic leaders are often tense, even hostile. Yet, lacking a revolutionary policy, fascist leaders come to depend on old sources of power and actually prop up capitalism during a period of weakness. In this respect, fascism has had very similar consequences to social democracy and the rise of the welfare