Understanding the Emergence of Authoritarian Capitalist States: Looking Backward to See Forward

Abstract

This paper examines how contemporary analysts can use the analytical legacy of earlier Marxist writers on fascism and authoritarianism to understand the present. I argue that the emergence of dictatorial rule in a capitalist society once organized by parliamentary institutions can best be interpreted as a response to an intensifying crisis of representation within parliamentary democracy. These crises come as changing material conditions disrupt systems of patronage and support that had previously integrated or embedded populations into a deceptively stable capitalist growth process. This analysis draws on Marx’s original analysis in The Eighteenth Brumaire, Gramsci’s and Trotsky’s writings during the interwar period, and the early postwar analysis of Nicos Poulantzas. The article does not find the state monopoly capitalist tradition of this era to be particularly useful for understanding present (or past) periods of capitalist authoritarianism. JEL Classification: B1, B2, B3, B5