Fascism Is Not the Exception

In recent years we’ve spent a lot of time arguing about fascism – what it means, what it looks like, and how we would know if it had returned. That typically brings us back to the European fascism of ’30s and ’40s, with its uniforms, symbols, marches and camps.

But the philosopher Alberto Toscano, currently teaching at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, wants us to look beyond historical comparisons to think of fascism not as an aberration, but as an aspect of a much longer process of colonial domination.

He talks to Richard Hames about the uncomfortable connections between liberalism and fascism, drawing on ideas from Angela Davis, W. E. B. Du Bois and Theodor Adorno and thinking about racial fascism, conspiracy theory, climate denialism and the far-right in Israel.

Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis is available from Verso.

Photograph from Wikimedia Commons.