The political economy of neoliberal fascism: designing alternatives to contemporary barbarism

This article examines liberal and Marxist analyses of fascism, critically delineates debates about the “return of fascism”, and considers whether fascism can emerge repeatedly over time and in different political and geographical contexts. Interdisciplinary Marxist analyses are generally best placed to interpret the rise of fascism because of their materialist basis and their interdisciplinary and integrative approach, bringing together concepts and arguments from economics, politics, sociology, international relations, and geography. This interdisciplinary and historically well-founded basis allows us to suggest that a specific form of neoliberal fascism is emerging today, in the context of the systemic crisis of neoliberalism as a dominant system of accumulation.

KEYWORDS:
Fascism; Marxism; neoliberal fascism; democracy; neoliberalism