The Global Slide Towards Fascism

[Sy Borg]

It appears that fascism is on the rise throughout the world. It is not something I would have expected or predicted with globalisation. The political shift has taken me, and presumably many others, by surprise.

The question is why? China and Russia's regimes are clamping down. The US, the UK and Australia have growing fascist scenes, as have all of Europe. Some democracies, like Turkey's, have fallen to authoritarianism. Corruption reigns in Africa, the Middle East, South and Central America and SE Asia.

Rapidly growing populations do not help. Governments increase immigrant numbers to create the illusion of growth. Greater numbers means more chaos. More chaos leads to more complaints, and that leads to more controls. And then more controls, because controls bring in revenue and make population control simpler, at least once you put aside pesky human rights and environmental protections.

Democracy is increasingly ineffective due to the influence of mass media. It (especially the Murdoch stable of news outlets) inflames the natural tensions that occur in large societies. Media moguls have significant are connections with other billionaires, including fossil fuel barons. They have much to gain by widening divisions and keeping people fighting amongst themselves.

This highlights a flaw in democracy. Studies have shown that the average guesses of multiple people tend to be more accurate and reliable than those of individuals. So that's a plus for democracy. But does that number need to number in the millions to work? I'd say not. Many people are utterly uninformed, voting based on appearance and voice.

Those seeing autocracies as the answer, though, need to consider how any dictator can be kept accountable. It is no accident that almost of the societies that made great progress have been democracies. Each system had enough accountability to encourage civic-minded policy. Take away accountability and you get hubris and corruption. Every dictator goes bad, without exception.

Any other thoughts on the world's movement towards fascism and authoritarianism? Do you see any way (or point) of fixing democracies at this stage?

[Papus79]

Mark Blyth did a video back in late 2016 called 'Global Trumpism'. He did predict Trump's victory and also saw Trump as being quite far from an isolated phenomena.

For as much as I love listening to Mark on economics he can be tricky to follow, but the Elephant graph gives something of a quick and dirty synopsis. You pretty much have the working class making less and less money, having a harder and harder time making ends meet, and they notice that their politicians are doing very little aside from talking about how great things are as well as burying what are quite often real social issues with accusations and cudgels.

The good side of globalism - there's a fair chance that bringing the developing world up to speed can significantly help the stress on the environment (ie. no long in survival mode - with something like an average income of $5,000 per year you actually have enough to be able to care about the environment) and another perk would be fewer shell states for terrorist groups to recruit in, drastically decreasing birth rate as the rest of the world finds itself in the same childhood mortality and cost of raising and educating children situation as the west is right now.

The downside - it seems like the above was heavily marketed but there was little or no plan to actually keep the west from falling into disrepair or keep the problems of massive wealth drain from western countries from having serious social tolls. When people are on hard times or feel like the elites they have are useless they often turn to both left and right-wing populist parties, and Mark gives ample examples of both in his lecture and how this was shaping up across much of western Europe.

[Papus79]

Add - automation is also killing jobs even faster apparently than outsourcing, and yet there seem to be all kinds of sociological reasons (let along fiscal) as to why it seems like we'd fight to the bitter end against implementing a universal basic income.

[Felix]

In scary, uncertain times the average person is willing to sacrifice "a little" personal freedom for the sake of security, but the problem is that it's not a great leap from losing some to losing a lot of freedom. As the blues song goes, "you don't miss your water 'til the well runs dry."

To quote Ben Franklin: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." A deal with the Devil never ends well.

[Steve3007]

Perhaps the more pertinent question might be: Why did the temporary Enlightenment concepts of liberty, democracy and tolerance of opposing views emerge? Aren't these concepts something of an aberration and isn't the more authoritarian rule of a single, central strong-man, using the populist appeal of small-scale, short-term self-interest (divide and rule), the norm back towards which the world is now reverting?

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

As Lincoln implies here, in the US explicitly, this idea that human beings can cooperate with each other as equals and tolerate each other's differences on a scale of millions of people always was an experiment, to be tested. Maybe that experiment is now simply coming to an end and the results are starting to come in.

[NickGaspar]

We are experiencing an Economic melt down for more than 10 years. In en effort to avoid total collapse , the economic lobbies demand their projected profits of their failed investments from the taxpayers while accusing ''out groups" for this.
That is a common tactic always used before every major world conflict. First the economic crisis, then fascism and finally..... rebooting (war).
For the first time we can not have a major world war between western nations and that is because of nuclear weapons. So we are experiencing a catastrophic economical war inside the American (2007) European boarders and some conflicts against weak countries (Syria, Afghanistan etc).
Democracy was never effective, or better, Democracy was never the political system of choice. Representation and Democracy are conflicting terms by definition. Population's can not be heard through a handful of representatives, that is an insane concept and more insane is the label we use(Democracy).

The main cause of this mesh is our 2300+ yo pseudo philosophical solutions (politics and economics). We use those failed ancient "solutions" when we should be using the most successful puzzle solving method we got...Science.
Our problems are technical , not political or economical. We have the technology to produce all the essential goods,but epistemology to organize our societies and distribute those goods.
Politics and economics are the methods we use to "justify" why those goods must be distributed unevenly but those methods create phenomena like Fascism, economic crises,wars etc.

[Pantagruel]

I think it is time for a new paradigm. National boundaries have been eroded by massive immigration, globalization, and telecommunications. I'm in favour of an enlightened regionalism, strong local governments acting to best local effect in concert with truly global and universal(izable) ideologies.

[h_k_s]

It appears that fascism is on the rise throughout the world. It is not something I would have expected or predicted with globalisation. The political shift has taken me, and presumably many others, by surprise.

The question is why? China and Russia's regimes are clamping down. The US, the UK and Australia have growing fascist scenes, as have all of Europe. Some democracies, like Turkey's, have fallen to authoritarianism. Corruption reigns in Africa, the Middle East, South and Central America and SE Asia.

Rapidly growing populations do not help. Governments increase immigrant numbers to create the illusion of growth. Greater numbers means more chaos. More chaos leads to more complaints, and that leads to more controls. And then more controls, because controls bring in revenue and make population control simpler, at least once you put aside pesky human rights and environmental protections.

Democracy is increasingly ineffective due to the influence of mass media. It (especially the Murdoch stable of news outlets) inflames the natural tensions that occur in large societies. Media moguls have significant are connections with other billionaires, including fossil fuel barons. They have much to gain by widening divisions and keeping people fighting amongst themselves.

This highlights a flaw in democracy. Studies have shown that the average guesses of multiple people tend to be more accurate and reliable than those of individuals. So that's a plus for democracy. But does that number need to number in the millions to work? I'd say not. Many people are utterly uninformed, voting based on appearance and voice.

Those seeing autocracies as the answer, though, need to consider how any dictator can be kept accountable. It is no accident that almost of the societies that made great progress have been democracies. Each system had enough accountability to encourage civic-minded policy. Take away accountability and you get hubris and corruption. Every dictator goes bad, without exception.

Any other thoughts on the world's movement towards fascism and authoritarianism? Do you see any way (or point) of fixing democracies at this stage?

Herodotus, Plato, and Socrates did not trust democracy either.

Democracy proved to be flawed even in Athens where it was invented.

You Greta are correct that we are going through a Fascist phase. Athens went through the same phases back and forth with democracy as well. It's nothing new to world history. Just fairly recent again as of 1776 since it was last snuffed out in ancient Athens by King Philip from Macedonia and his successor kings.

Athens' ultimate fate was to be conquered and ruled by these Macedonian kings, first by Philip, then Alexander, Cassander, etc.

Only Sparta in Greece remained free from the Macedonians. Athens and its democracy bent to the will of the Macedonians and then to the will of the Romans.

The Romans admired the Spartans, and so the Romans let the Spartans remain a free city within the Roman Empire. For the Romans, Sparta became like a luxury resort, like Monaco is today for us.

The Spartans then remained free until A.D. 396 when the Visigoths invaded them. This is almost as long as the Western Roman Empire, which fell in A.D. 476.

Democracy is not immortal. Neither is Fascism. These two swing back and forth between themselves.

Modern Fascism is more like Aristocracy -- currently the Trump financial empire in the USA. Although Trump is not the richest man in America he certainly is one of them. And like Adolf and like Mussolini he is a political genius cut from the same cloth.

So I don't believe that modern democracy is completely over with, but it does seem like modern fascism is taking over worldwide for now.

[h_k_s]

I think it is time for a new paradigm. National boundaries have been eroded by massive immigration, globalization, and telecommunications. I'm in favour of an enlightened regionalism, strong local governments acting to best local effect in concert with truly global and universal(izable) ideologies.

I wish the USA had not wasted so much treasure in Viet Nam from 1955 through 1975 , and had instead conquered Mexico.

[h_k_s]

Perhaps the more pertinent question might be: Why did the temporary Enlightenment concepts of liberty, democracy and tolerance of opposing views emerge? Aren't these concepts something of an aberration and isn't the more authoritarian rule of a single, central strong-man, using the populist appeal of small-scale, short-term self-interest (divide and rule), the norm back towards which the world is now reverting?

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.

As Lincoln implies here, in the US explicitly, this idea that human beings can cooperate with each other as equals and tolerate each other's differences on a scale of millions of people always was an experiment, to be tested. Maybe that experiment is now simply coming to an end and the results are starting to come in.

If enough parts of the USA split off at the same time, reunification such as during the U.S. Civil War would be impossible.

The new regions would be the Northeast, the South, the Midwest, the Intermountain West, and the West Coast.

If all of these regions of States agree that Wash. D.C. is useless, and they all split off at the same time, that would be the end of the USA as we know it. The US States would then become isolationist within their regions again, like the 13 Colonies were before, and like the split of the USSR the former USA would disappear as a world power.

[h_k_s]

In scary, uncertain times the average person is willing to sacrifice "a little" personal freedom for the sake of security, but the problem is that it's not a great leap from losing some to losing a lot of freedom. As the blues song goes, "you don't miss your water 'til the well runs dry."

To quote Ben Franklin: "Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." A deal with the Devil never ends well.

I would give up everything except my guns and habeas corpus.

[h_k_s]

Add - automation is also killing jobs even faster apparently than outsourcing, and yet there seem to be all kinds of sociological reasons (let along fiscal) as to why it seems like we'd fight to the bitter end against implementing a universal basic income.

Automation is simply modernization and enhanced productivity.

But someone still needs to build and repair those automation machines.

What has been killing us has been the exportation of jobs to China, to the rest of East Asia, and to Germany. That's what has got to stop. Trump is right about that. Thank goodness for modern Fascism trying to reverse this.

[h_k_s]

Mark Blyth did a video back in late 2016 called 'Global Trumpism'. He did predict Trump's victory and also saw Trump as being quite far from an isolated phenomena.

For as much as I love listening to Mark on economics he can be tricky to follow, but the Elephant graph gives something of a quick and dirty synopsis. You pretty much have the working class making less and less money, having a harder and harder time making ends meet, and they notice that their politicians are doing very little aside from talking about how great things are as well as burying what are quite often real social issues with accusations and cudgels.

The good side of globalism - there's a fair chance that bringing the developing world up to speed can significantly help the stress on the environment (ie. no long in survival mode - with something like an average income of $5,000 per year you actually have enough to be able to care about the environment) and another perk would be fewer shell states for terrorist groups to recruit in, drastically decreasing birth rate as the rest of the world finds itself in the same childhood mortality and cost of raising and educating children situation as the west is right now.

The downside - it seems like the above was heavily marketed but there was little or no plan to actually keep the west from falling into disrepair or keep the problems of massive wealth drain from western countries from having serious social tolls. When people are on hard times or feel like the elites they have are useless they often turn to both left and right-wing populist parties, and Mark gives ample examples of both in his lecture and how this was shaping up across much of western Europe.

The USA needs to stop being the World's policeman. That's why our own infrastructure is failing. We are wasting all our treasure on war and nothing on infrastructure.

[Sy Borg]

Thanks for the replies. All are good but I don't see His Majesty King Donald I as a political genius, just more unscrupulous, which gives him more options than others (ditto Hitler and Mussolini). Such operators are like a boxer who is happy to win the heavyweight championship by kicking his opponent in the balls and paying the referee to turn the other way.

Trump is the beneficiary of Murdoch's political power and the gerrymandering that has turned Congress into an single party organisation. Old boys with big fossil fuel connections like Murdoch are not going to let go of their advantages just because some poor people and animals will die. They will prop up anyone who keeps the petrodollars flowing.

Sorry, I don't want this to be just about the US and His Majesty, but this oft-repeated claim that he's some kind of genius is more than a little contestable IMO.

Trouble is, the US has "united" in its name. A nation with the word "united" will necessarily have come about after an earlier conflict. The winners forced the losers to operate under their "united" banner. So, while the American Civil War is now centuries old, as with the Middle East, old tensions have proved more resilient than is usually assumed.

All it takes is for someone to lose a family member, friend, property or their pride in the conflict. They pass their resentments to their children, and they pass it down again. If the disaffected are poorer than the "winners", then they will have more children, increasing the number of dissidents even long after the war is over. So, if a democracy is born of conflict, the danger of renewed fighting may not fade, and may even increase over time.

Thus, the Iraq democracy project was doomed from the start. It's clear that "losers" in such battles do not quietly go away but they regroup.

The answer to all of this is, ironically, the art of making deals. Cooperation. To aim for win-win solutions rather than engaging in zero sum hardball "negotiation" using raw power, the current approach of all superpowers on the world stage. The latter is a short-term approach for the above reasons.

Somewhere in this melee, people need to find trust and goodwill. It now appears that that will only happen when all is quiet again, and cleanup operations commence to remove the bodies from streets. 7.8 billion people and rising. There is only one way things can go now, sadly. As mentioned earlier, fascism seems to be one of the stages leading to this "correction".

[Papus79]

Automation is simply modernization and enhanced productivity.

But someone still needs to build and repair those automation machines.

What has been killing us has been the exportation of jobs to China, to the rest of East Asia, and to Germany. That's what has got to stop. Trump is right about that. Thank goodness for modern Fascism trying to reverse this.

It won't be enough though. Pretty much anything that has repetitive and memorized skills, including radiology and law, is in the cross-hairs.

At best there's the suggestion that 85% of the jobs of 2030 don't exist yet, and even if there were that many it's going to be quite the chaotic gig economy and it'll be a mystery as to how we'll keep that many people as fluid and mobile to not have the populace constantly consumed in trade reeducation even to the point that things become so unstable that hardly anyone can own a home anymore. We're headed toward quite precarious times.

The USA needs to stop being the World's policeman. That's why our own infrastructure is failing. We are wasting all our treasure on war and nothing on infrastructure.

Tulsi Gabbard would strongly agree with that, and somewhat ironically on the topic of globalism - elevating the developing world could help a lot with that. We just need to make sure we don't lose our own home countries to political insanity from either the far left or far right.