from Black Agenda Report
The nationalist passions that overtook Italy and Germany in the 20th century, leading to World War II, are often described as “the triumph of the irrational.” Indeed, studies of the literature produced by Nazis and Italian fascists, like Ludo Abicht’s The Sword, the Pen, and the Swastika, reveal emotionally charged collections of symbols with little logical connection and little purpose but to drive the reader into irrational frenzy. Like the marches and flags, they channeled the innately human longing to be part of something larger than oneself into extreme violence and ultimately, global catastrophe.
In Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism, the late Dr. Michael Parenti demonstrated that fascism was and is actually very rational. It very rationally serves the interests of capital, as it did in both Italy and Germany, where capitalist elites were struggling to maintain rates of profit and the threat of socialist or communist revolution was greater than elsewhere in Europe.
Italy’s corporate capitalists needed to push back the gains achieved by workers movements. They needed state subsidy and tax exemptions instead. Irrational nationalist fervor and military mobilization enriched war profiteers, and turned working people away from organizing in their own real interests. The “triumph of the irrational,” was just as much the triumph of capitalist propaganda. ..
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