[grokcodec]

Define technofascism lol.

Fascism was laid out by Mussolini in the 1920s - it amounts to the idolatry of the state.

"All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." B Mussolini

Also defined as Corporatism: the union of state and corporate power.

Which country do you think is closer to Mussolini's model ?

[vitally3643]

Buddy, you should take a real hard look at US policy this past decade or so. We've got secret police kidnapping citizens in broad daylight and shipping them off to other countries. We tarriffed the entire world, threatened to take over Greenland and Canada and waged an unprovoked war in Iran (and lost, badly). And let's not forget the mass surveillance of citizens, suppression of constitutional rights to speech and assembly, voter suppression, and an actual factual literal coup attempt.

The US is the bad guy on the world stage right now. If you can't see that then you're part of the problem. Dunno what to tell you. Read a book, maybe?

[grokcodec]

It appears you are unable or unwilling to answer my question: which country, US or China, is closer to Mussolini's model?

[pegasus]

"Mussolini's model"...

Wikipedia has a whole page on the definition of Fascism [1]. Also worth reading is Umberto Eco's article on this subject, which also has its own wikipedia page [2].

Spoiler alert: it's not as simple as you imagine.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitions_of_fascism [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism

[atwrk]

To anyone having read about Mussolini, Italy's economy and political landscape in the 20s onward, his model of corporatism etc, the answer is obviously clear: the US. China also is authoritarian, of course, but the societal structure sharply differs from Italian fascism.

[ebcode]

It’s a tie.

[shoobiedoo]

these "secret police"-- did they only operate recently?

[pegasus]

That's just one surface feature of how fascism manifests at the level of economic policy, it doesn't capture the essence of the movement. You wouldn't expect Mussolini to have the introspective capacity to actually understand those murky depths, let alone the intellectual honesty to put that capacity to work, would you?...

I recommend Umberto Ecco's essay "Ur-Fascism" [1] if you want to get a more accurate picture of what fascism is. It might make you reconsider which of these two countries fits the pattern better, at least at the moment.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ur-Fascism

[plastic-enjoyer]

I think the term 'techno' in 'technofascism' is doing the work here, because--just as you claim that historical fascism is the idolatry of the state--technofascism is the idolatry of technology and intelligence. Modern accelerationism, as espoused today by people like Marc Andreessen in his Techno-Optimist Manifesto, is really just another rehash of Italian Futurism, which was closely intertwined with Italian Fascism and one of its intellectual foundations. It was, essentially, a progressive ideology. The idolatry of the state does not vanish, but rather gets transformed and re-imagined as a technology, e.g. network states, platform governance, companies that function as sovereign entities. The idolatry shifts from the nation-state to the infrastructure that replaces it. Also, you don't need to look far to answer your own question about corporatism, as you defined it yourself. Now, who's currently moving between Silicon Valley boardrooms and government offices?

[chungusamongus]

Fascism is not merely idolatry of the state. That is simply its ideological mask, its method for currying the favor of its base. To say that this is what fascism is at a fundamental level is to mistake its superstructure for its base. But how is Fascism structured? How does society reproduce itself? Is there a fascist mode of production? No. The state mobilizes its population so as to target scapegoat(s) while simultaneously expanding in order to secure the spoils of war. Without scapegoats, there is no Fascism. And a state requires social cohesion to mobilize its base. Thus without cohesion there is no Fascism. At minimum, social cohesion requires the ability to sustain and motivate a critical mass of the population. Thus Fascism requires the continued maintenance of the capitalist mode of production in order to persist, but it simultaneously undermines capitalism due to A. the continued need for war machines and B. the need to punish a scapegoat, which both siphon value from the rest of the economy, thus dooming the entire enterprise. This is why fascism burns out and leads to doom for all parties involved wherever it has been tried. Any definition of fascism that ignores this is historically inaccurate and practically useless.

[andrekandre]

  > At minimum, social cohesion requires the ability to sustain and motivate a critical mass of the population. 

yep, and its right in the name/symbol: the fasces

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasces

[sph]

Fascism was strongly influenced by Futurism and its optimism for a machine-powered future where technology will bring forth utopia and order.

It’s no wonder than Thiel & co. are rediscovering Futurism, and blind faith in the machine is basically what Silicon Valley is all about.