Deep Fascism and Deep Democracy

The essence of ideology.

A common critique of fascism is that it is not a real political ideology, but a hodgepodge of random, arbitrary, historically contingent policies. Fascism was whatever people wanted it to be.

Economically, many of the public works projects of Nazi Germany were drawn up in 1932 by Social Democrats. Fascism was anti-communist, but socialist. Fascism became anti-British as the war progressed, but initially, Hitler loved Britain and viewed it as a model. Mussolini was also initially allied to Britain prior to being sanctioned for his invasion of Ethiopia.

Religiously, “Austro-fascism,” Spanish Fascism, and Portuguese Fascism were extremely pro-Catholic, and Romanian fascists insisted that Christianity was the founding principle of fascism. On the other hand, fascism in Italy and Germany was hostile to the Catholic church. Himmler, Goebbels, Rosenberg, and Hitler’s top secretary, Martin Bormann, who determined access to Hitler, were anti-Christian.

Some fascists endorsed “traditional marriage,” but Mussolini had a Jewish mistress; Hitler refused to get married to his long term partner; and Goebbels and Himmler quietly endorsed polygamy. Fascists are supposed to be sexist, but Leni Riefenstahl was the greatest fascist filmmaker of all time.

Despite fascism being “antisemitic” on racial and blood-based grounds, Mussolini and Hitler were sympathetic to Semitic Arabs. Both Hitler and Mussolini promoted Bosnian and Albanian Islam in the Balkans as a counter to Yugoslavian independence. National Socialist propaganda referred to Turks as part of the European family.

Nazis promoted blonde-haired blue-eyed Nordicism, but preferred Italians over Slavs. Hitler opposed Zionism in Mein Kampf, but collaborated with Zionist efforts to promote Jewish emigration. Mussolini worked with Zionist founder Ze’ev Jabotinsky, whose troops served alongside Italy in Ethiopia.

A coin minted by Nazis to commemorate their visit to Palestine.

Fascism was right wing, left wing, centrist, inconsistent, radical, bourgeois, everything, or nothing.

Similarly, what does democracy mean? In one sense, democracy could mean populism. Yet since 2016, there has been a flood of caution that “populism is a threat to democracy.” What exactly does democracy mean in this context? Are these terms useless and without substance? If they do have substance, what is it?

Fascist and Democratic Class Structures

Fascism and democracy are distinguished by their class structure. Fascism is ruled by a warrior class, while democracy is ruled by priest-merchant coalition. Democracy opposes “authoritarianism.” No one calls themselves an authoritarian, but it means a warrior class with too much power: juntas, dictatorships, strong men, siloviki, warlords, gangsters, and mafias. Such regimes are supported by frat bros, jocks, athletes, bodybuilders, soldiers, killers, hunters, police, cops, security forces, mercenaries, outdoorsmen, fishermen, rednecks, hillbillies, conservatives, fighters, boxers, wrestlers, jarheads, thugs, mercenaries, and vigilantes.

The common thread between these enemies of democracy is their relationship with the physical body and violence. A fisherman seems innocent enough, but such activities are seen as suspicious by the most loyal democrats. Fishing in ancient times distinguished hunter-gatherer populations from neolithic populations, and this ancient prejudice carries through to the modern day.

Democracy is represented not by the “majority” in a numerical sense, but those elements dependent on the merchant and priest class. Academics, poets, theater kids, and LGBTQ folks. On the other hand, welfare users, immigrants, the disabled, bankers, financiers, and money lenders all depend on a mercantile distribution of wealth.

Wealth and Class Structure

The phrase “mercantile distribution of wealth” may sound redundant, but it is not. In warrior ruled societies, the richest men are soldiers, dictators, enforcers, adventurers, mercenaries, or conquistadors.

The rule of the Roman Republic was divided between senators, who were descendants of the military generals of Romulus, and the consuls, who were originally praetors, or military commanders. The Roman Republic overthrew the monarchy, not because it was too militaristic, but because the last legendary monarch was a socialist and feminist:

“Inspired by this woman’s frenzy [his daughter-wife, Tullia] Tarquinius began to go about and solicit support, especially among the heads of the lesser families, [..] he had been an abettor of the lowest class of society, to which he himself belonged, and his hatred of the nobility possessed by others had led him to plunder the leading citizens of their land and divide it amongst the dregs of the populace. All the burdens which had before been borne in common he had laid upon the nation’s foremost men. He had instituted the census that he might hold up to envy the fortunes of the wealthy, and make them available, when he chose to draw upon them, for largesses to the destitute.”¹

Over time, the senatorial families of Rome were removed from war, and became involved in economic pursuits. As a result, Caesar was able to seize power and renew warrior power. This power waxed and waned (being weakened during the reign of Heliogabalus) until the empire fell to Germanic chieftains. These chieftains hailed from tribes such as the Angles, Saxons, Danes, Jutes, Scandi, Rurikid, Goths, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, Burgundians, and Normans.

The descendants of these chieftains founded the western European royal and aristocratic families. Wealth and power was distributed according to warrior conquest, not according to an economized mercantile meritocracy.

The rise of the Lombard banking system in the 12th century represents again a decline of the warrior ethos of the aristocracy in favor of a mercantile ethos. The warrior aristocracy was replaced by the condottieri. This resulted in the Anglican confiscation of church properties, making land into “free property” to be bought and sold, rather a hereditary possession tied to a particular bloodline. This opened the door to a mercantile distribution of wealth — a wealth transfer away from the warrior class and their descendants to an ascendant merchant class. The merchant class no longer existed to serve the aristocracy, but overcame and replaced their masters.

Communism and Fascism

This anti-aristocratic ethos inspired republicanism and communism. The intellectual theorists behind liberalism were non-noble Protestants, and communism was influenced by secular and assimilated Jews: Marx and Ferdinand Lassalle (1848), Eduard Bernstein (1872), Alexandre Millerand (1885), Rosa Luxemburg (1886), and Trotsky (1897).

Jews were not attracted to Marxism out of ethnocentrism. Instead, Marxism offered Jews an opportunity to adopt the Christian moralistic-ethos without the historical baggage of the Christian crusade or pogrom. Marxism played the same role for assimilated Jews that Christianity played for Hellenized Jews, 1800 years earlier.

Against the mercantile economization arose antisemitism, among socialists such as Wilhelm Marr² and Richard Wagner; former Freemasons such as the Thulegesellshaft; atheists, pagans, and Nordicists. The volkisch movement preceded antisemitism as a response to the Napoleonic conquest of Germany and the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire. Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, father of gymnastics, believed that a culture of bodily excellence was necessary to make a nation strong, masculine, patriotic, nationalistic, and wehrhaft, “defensive.”

The fusion of the antisemitic and volkisch movements was German National Socialism. Other European fascist movements were reactions to communism. Iberian Fascists such as Franco believed in a restoration of the monarchy, while secular fascists such as Mussolini believed in a natural aristocracy which had the right to rule by its spiritual superiority.

Fascism, in the case of Franco, Mussolini, and Hitler, came to power with a militant ethos. Franco fought a war and Mussolini marched on Rome. Hitler’s Beer Hall Putsch with General Hindenburg failed in 1923, but he succeeded, through the intimidation tactics of the Sturmabteilung, to secure dictatorial power. The core cult of Nazi ideology, the SS, was dedicated to war.

Conclusion.

Pedantic studies of fascism align it with a particular economic, social, or religious program. Such studies are unconvincing and leave the reader wondering if fascism has any inner substance at all, or if it is simply a catch-all term for “bad ideas.”

A deeper and more essential study will reveal the inherent nature of fascism as a warrior aesthetic. Ancient Greeks can be fascist, Romans can be fascist, even non-white peoples can be fascist.

On the opposite end, “democracy” seems like a meaningless concept. If humans are a blank slate, and democracy means the will of the majority, then democracy could mean fascism, communism, liberalism — whatever the people want.

However, the warnings against the “populist threat to democracy” show that democracy cannot simply be a popularity contest, but has an inner essential ethos. That ethos is a rejection of the warrior class and its replacement by an economizing merchant and post-Christian priest class. Communism grew out of a democratic ethos, and capitalism as well.

The aesthetic connotations of fascism and democracy are the not byproducts, but the origins of those movements. Without this understanding, one is lost in a mire of semantic contradictions and hypocrisy, going nowhere.

The threat of fascism is in a warrior class capable of overthrowing the merchant and priest class by force. Attempts to “shore up democracy” include the degradation, humiliation, and replacement of the warrior class. This is now accomplished by bureaucracy, LGBTQ+, immigration, drones, and AI.

The battle between democracy and fascism will be determined by whether or not the merchant and priest classes can maintain control over these technologies. If not, a new condottieri may arise. Genetic engineering could overthrow centuries of democratic progress.³

1. Titus Livius (Livy), The History of Rome, Book 1. Translated by Benjamin Oliver Foster, 1919.

2. “Towards a Transnational History of Racism: Interrelationships between Colonial Racism and German Anti-Semitism? The Example of Wilhelm Marr,” in: Racism in the Modern World: Historical Perspectives on Cultural Transfer and Adaptation. Manfred Berg, 2011. Pages 122-139.

3. Such an upset would be similar in scale to the Black Sea Deluge and Saharan collapse of 5600 BC, the collapse of Sumer in 1739 BC, the Bronze Age Collapse of 1200 BC, the conquests of Alexander in 323 BC, the collapse of Rome in 476, and the Mongol invasions of 1206.

In the case of the Deluge and Saharan collapse, civilization did not “restart” until nearly 1600 years later in Egypt and Sumer. Sumer was completely destroyed as a culture. Other collapses, such as the Bronze Age Collapse, took 400 years before a new high culture emerged in Greece.

After the decline of the Greek kingdoms, the Greeks experienced a renaissance under the Byzantines, which then was destroyed by the Ottomans in 1453 and has not recovered since.

The Roman collapse was followed by the Italian Renaissance, which began as early as the Madonna del Bordone of Marcovaldo in 1261. However, after the rise of Spain, England, and France, Italy has never recovered to its former relative power in Europe.