- cross-posted to:
- tankie@lemmy.ml
- main@hexbear.net
- cross-posted to:
- tankie@lemmy.ml
- main@hexbear.net
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I’ve been warning Americans for years now that the “social democracies” you see in Europe are just a small step away from fascism at any given time.
Especially in places like Denmark, Sweden, Finland and yes, as we see now, the Netherlands, there is some of the most widespread racist, Euro-chauvinist and outright fascist sentiment just under the surface, barely concealed by the veneer of the welfare state and “progressive” virtue signaling.
I have come to the conclusion that Nordic social democracy may be closer to fascism than even the most brutal Reaganite/Thatcherite neoliberalism and the most batshit insane evangelical conservatism.
You may think i’m exaggerating but spend some time listening to how a lot of the people living in these supposedly “most civilized, most enlightened countries on earth” talk when they think no outsiders are listening and you will find the way they talk about non-white immigrants is not that different from the most racist white evangelical communities in the US.
Except that unlike the racists in the US these northern Europeans also have a history with fascism and many of them look fondly back on Nazi occupation since it was more lenient on them than anywhere else. They collaborated more willingly than almost anyone else in Europe with the exception of the Baltics and western Ukraine.
What they really want is a social welfare state for white Europeans only, and specifically northern Europeans because they look down on the Italians, Spanish, Slavs, Greeks, etc. as basically not even real Europeans, just good for cheap seasonal labor. Their biggest nightmare is having to share their precious social democracy with Muslims or other non-white immigrants.
Is it any surprise then that you get electoral results like this now that the good economic times are gone, there is less wealth to go around and they are starting to panic about their cushy standards of living dropping? Of course it won’t save them even if they do manage to make their fantasies of kicking all the immigrants out a reality, because Europe as a whole is still bleeding out from the self-inflicted wound of trying to decouple from Russia.
I truly hope our comrades in these countries are organized and prepared for the struggle to escalate, and that they are still doing their best to try and raise class consciousness and get at least a part of the population to overcome these fascistic impulses that have been inculcated into them by their chauvinistic societies.
socialdemocrats when you mention muslims, refugees or gypsies: UNGA BUNGA DEATH TO THE DIFFERENT PEOPLE
I am also trending toward this thesis, although I wouldn’t underestimate the chauvinism of the Germans and French either and I suspect Italy to some extent also, but I’m less informed on the situation there.
Yes but it manifests differently in the bigger EU countries you mentioned due to the fact that they are more advanced along the path of neoliberalism and thus their populations have less privileges to lose. They have also more diverse populations than the Nordics which helps to create a somewhat more cosmopolitan attitude as opposed to the petty parochialism and obsession with cultural and racial purity you see in more ethnically and culturally homogenous countries.
In the bigger European countries the problem comes more from their institutions and political elites complete capture by the Atlanticists and the EU bureaucracy which serve as a tool for Washington to exercise control over Europe. Which is why i don’t expect similar results in the next elections in Germany or France, not yet at least. It would be unwise to break the liberal facade and wake people up too much by allowing say an AfD like party or a LePen to take power.
These sorts of political forces are more useful as a permanent boogieman to keep the liberal voters in line, kind of like how the threat of another Trump like figure getting elected keeps Americans voting Democrat.
I can see that. I’m unsure where New Zealand and Australia fit within this continuum of Nordic <———> bigger European countries, but you’ve made me think—
- NZ and Aus had decent welfare states like the bigger European countries.
- That welfare provision has been eroded.
- What was provided, and what little is still provided, is due to the fruits of imperialism/settler colonialism.
- That’s the main problem with progressive liberals: they want to bolster or reintroduce greater social welfare provision at the expense of hyper-exploited ‘out of view’ communities.
- The progressive liberals are little shits because they’re essentially saying they’re willing to sacrifice the global south/colonised population to prop up their welfare states.
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- The problem is, it’s hard to argue to the ‘labour aristocrats’ in these countries by saying, ‘Your privilege comes from said exploitation’; because they look around and say, ‘What privilege? It’s all gone!’
- These labour aristos might often be willing to scapegoat immigrants, etc, to keep hold of their privilege, but first they have to fight the bourgeoisie to reintroduce many of those privileges.
- And half the workers are willing to fight alongside immigrants for those privileges, many of whom won’t be keen on doing it if it means asking the government to spend more on bombs that will land wherever they emigrated from.
- There appears to be a contradiction at the left-edge of neoliberalism that splits the ‘fascist vote’.
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- Not so in the Nordic countries. They still have strong welfare provision. They don’t have to fight their bourgeoisie for a welfare state (maybe they have to fight to keep it; but the classic combination of humans and inertia mean this is easier than fighting to change the status quo, as elsewhere in the ‘international community’.
- Which means there may be a more natural alliance between the workers and rulers of the Nordics.
- The Nordics managed to export their contradictions and keep them out the country.
- Unlike the more strongly neoliberal states, which exported their contradictions up to the 1960s, then imported a different set from the 70s onwards.
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What about the US? I’m unsure where this fits as it already seems to be fascist, so… But at the same time, contradiction-wise:
- The US is kind of a mixture of the two, Nordic and e.g. New Zealand/France.
- On the one hand, there’s a welfare state or high enough incomes for half the US population to live at least as well as in the Nordic countries.
- On the other hand, there’s nothing for the other half.
- So the US is roughly half hard core worker-bourgeois allies and half fighting for even less than what is available in NZ, Australia, and bigger European Countries.
This is all very loose so feel free to point out all the holes.
I think that is a more or less accurate summary. You’ve seized on one very important point which i would like to further emphasize, namely that it is easier in countries with a larger (non-European) immigrant population to build a working class bulwark against fascism and to radicalize workers toward realizing the necessity to overthrow capitalism altogether rather than just turn the dial back to more social democracy (which is not possible anyway due to the declining rates of profit, the contraction of empire, etc.). This is why fascists perceive immigrants, particularly those who do not “fit in” and will not or cannot be assimilated into the national identity and culture as especially threatening (as exemplified by even the most “liberal” Europeans’ unhinged, borderline genocidal aversion to the Roma people).
In the case of the US there is a very interesting contradiction present because on the one hand it is the imperial capital and has settler colonial mentality deeply imprinted on its national identity, but at the same time there are possibly more groups that are rife for radicalization there than in any other part of the imperial core. From indigenous groups to the black and latin american minorities, the US is in the most real sense of the term a prisonhouse of nations. In addition to that the US has one of the least bribed and most exploited working classes compared to the rest of the imperial core. I see a lot of potential for building a revolutionary coalition. The two main obstacles to overcome are the pernicious liberal-individualist indoctrination and the settler national mythology, and these are both primarily ideological and not material factors.
New Zealand and Australia share some characteristics of the US as they are also settler colonies with all the internal contradictions that creates, but in other ways they are also very different and resemble more a country like France where there is an ongoing neoliberal slide but one that has not yet been fully completed.
It makes sense Social Democracies were created by fascists and liberals as a placating method against labour movements and socialism.
because Europe as a whole is still bleeding out from the self-inflicted wound of trying to decouple from Russia
Free-market geopolitics.
Just wait until the US orders them to start decoupling from China. Never have i seen a political class more subservient and more willing to commit national suicide simply in order to please another country than these people who we have in power in Europe (with very few exceptions, and most of those are shitty too, if for entirely different reasons) at the moment. To simply call them comprador leaders is not enough at this point. Even US installed latin american puppet dictators were not as blindly obedient and as indifferent toward the interests of their own nations as the likes of the current German/EU leadership.
Is it even possible to decouple from China? Also id disagree with your statement about latin american puppets lol
If anyone will try to find out, it’s the European bourgeoisie.
It’s pretty depressing how predictable this all was. The right were clever enough to take an anti war stance from the start while the left predictably shat the bed by aligning with the libs. Now that everyone is sick of the war and their standard of living collapsing, the right is seen by many as being the only principled alternative to the libs while the left has largely discredited itself. What’s worse is that anti immigration and fiscal responsibility rhetoric is playing very well with the public.
I expect to see liberal governments to keep falling across Europe, and right wingers will feed off each other and keep gaining momentum in the process. We can already see AfD rapidly growing in Germany and Le Pen in France. There are a few outliers like Slovakia that will go left, but I expect the general trend will unfortunately be hard right.
like in the 1930s. People tired of economic hardships look for alternative parties, and since the left ones have been repressed by socialdemocrats and conservatives, the fascists are the only visible alternative.
yup
BRING IT BRUH MOTHERFUCKING BLONDE DYED HAIR LOOKING AH
Since you’re the resident Benelux leftist, what’s your take on this, and how it came to be? Any insight as a person that has lived in the Netherlands?
So the previous 13 years we had more or less the same government led by Mark Rutte and his VVD. It’s been 13 years of neoliberal budget cuts, privatization and increasing inequality. Healthcare was brought down, housing became unaffordable for both renters and buyers, climate policy is non existing, we have huge problems with enormous farms and their impact on the environment while nothing gets done about it. In those 13 years, the government stepped down four times, only to be re-elected with the same parties.
And then we have migration.
Our refugee centers did not escape the budget cuts. They were hit hard and as a result they are understaffed and concentrated in just a few spots. People sleep outside, first in the open and then in tents. Refugees and asylum seekers have no real prospects and it caused some of them to cause trouble in the places they stay at.
The last time the government fell was because they could not agree on how to solve the asylum crisis. And for this elections, the VVD decided to run on an anti immigrant campaign and it dragged the other parties with it, because that was the hot topic. And this was a gift for the PVV. Suddenly, everything was caused by migrants or muslims or non whites or ‘the left wing policies of the last 13 years’ (which do not exist, we had right wing governments). PVV can play the blame game as no other. It only had to put minor restraint on overly racist talk in their campaign. And it worked.
A strong left in The Netherlands does not exist, unlike Belgium with our marxist party and huge unions. The big Green/Labour fusion seems to only target city folks who are generally more progressive than people outside the big cities. The vast majority of towns and cities have PVV as their biggest party now. The left failed in every campaign they launched. They did not manage to convince people that left wing policy is the best for them, especially after 13+ years of neoliberalism. Their problems are real problems too. Healthcare is shit. Public transport is shit and expensive. Housing is broken. We have an asylum crisis. And the left did not reach out to them. Instead, a fascist party managed to convince them and now they believe all their problems are cause by migrants, muslims and left wingers.
