In Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis, Alberto Toscano unpacks the rise of contemporary far-right movements that have emerged amid capitalist crises and appropriated liberal freedoms while perpetuating systemic forms of violence. According to Dimitri Vouros, Toscano’s penetrating, theoretically grounded analysis is an essential resource for understanding and confronting the resurgence of reactionary ideologies.

Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis. Alberto Toscano. Verso. 2023. 

Observing the leftwing populism that emerged after the 2007 financial crash, a perceptive critical theorist may have predicted that this hope-inspiring movement would quickly be reintegrated into the neoliberal order. They might further have predicted that a counter-revolution would arise in the vacuum left by the failed leftist movement and as a reaction to continuing economic difficulties. Indeed, in the last decade the rise of the populist right has been both steady and near universal.

[Toscano] sets out to explain why the spectre of the extreme right is not merely haunting us, but gaining political purchase across the globe

In Late Fascism, Alberto Toscano, who has been instrumental in the resurgence of Marxist and materialist sociocultural analysis over the past twenty years, offers an important theory of fascism for our current historical juncture. He sets out to explain why the spectre of the extreme right is not merely haunting us, but gaining political purchase across the globe. The measured, lapidary style of Toscano’s argument, which draws on the 20th century’s “rich archives” of antifascist thought (155), most of it Marxist or marxisant, treats the deep, structural aspects of the political often ignored by other analyses. He does this by leaning on a style of literary-philosophical excavation and elucidation more often found in classical critical theory like that of Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin.

One of the marks of fascism is to amalgamate seemingly incompatible positions. Indeed, it is a complex phenomenon, “scavenging the ideological terrain for usable materials”, including many currents on the left (155). Toscano does not follow mainstream political theory in conflating fascism with totalitarianism, command economies, and brute force. He argues that late fascism is “disanalogous” with historical fascisms. Instead, he focuses on the implicit forms of violence and repression – colonial, racial, sexual, and gender-based – that inform late fascism. This kind of hidden violence becomes especially noticeable, and acute, when capitalism faces financial and other crises.

As well as developing the idea that reactionary ideologies emerge out of capitalist crisis, notably as the co-option of working-class movements by the right as soon as the opportunity arises, Toscano notes the role capitalist exchange relations play in the epistemological foundation of fascist-adjacent ideologies. Yet the most original thesis in the book is that the touted freedoms of liberalism and free-market capitalism are also appropriated by late fascism. In fact, late fascism is only nominally attached to liberal ideals such as “individual action” and “free speech”. Its claim to be on the side of the individual and their political agency is clearly false, its objective really being to reproduce prior forms of subjection and create new forms of subjugation. Jessica Whyte has also suggested a similar dissimulation in the neoliberal support for human rights.

The rapid rise of this ideology may also be tied to online culture, although Toscano avoids elaborating on the political ramifications of this development. Instead, he gives a historical outline of classical Marxist arguments against reactionary thought and movements. As the subtitle of his book indicates, understanding the ideology of the far right must include a theory of the systemic reproduction of colonialism, racism and sexism. Toscano writes, “Whoever is not willing to talk about anti-capitalism should also keep quiet about anti-fascism” (158). Yet understanding fascism as a tendency within capitalism that merely continues what critical theory calls “identity thinking” is part of a critical venture “inseparable from the collective forging of ways of living that can undo lethal romances of identity, hierarchy and domination that capitalist crisis throws up with grim regularity” (158).

Understanding the ideology of the far right must include a theory of the systemic reproduction of colonialism, racism and sexism

Four key ideas explain late fascism. Firstly, it “cannot be understood without the “fascisms before fascism” that accompanied the imperialist consolidation of a capitalist world-system”, namely, the political and economic domination of the world by Europe, peaking in the 18th and 19th centuries, made possible by the material exploitation of its various colonial strongholds. Secondly, it can only be understood “across axes of race, gender and sexuality”. Thirdly, it includes the “desire for ethnonational rebirth or revanche stoked by the imminence of a threat projected as civilizational, demographic and existential”. Lastly, it involves “the production of identifications and subjectivities, desires and forms of life, which do not simply demand obedience to despotic power but draw on a sui generis idea of freedom” (156-57). These four aspects of late fascism are developed in some detail with a breadth that will satisfy anyone interested in the history of antifascist thought and resistance.

Each chapter provides a different window onto the ideology of fascism and explains why understanding it is imperative. The first chapter looks at the temporally destabilising aspects of fascist ideology, with its archaisms, anachronisms, and wrong-headed projections of majestic, uncorrupted futures. The second focuses on the dynamics of capitalism and race, mainly how the Black liberation struggles of the 1960s provide a template for understanding the racial nature of capitalism, with its continuing repression of minorities and punitive carceral system. The third chapter provides an overview of how the populist right appropriates the classical liberal understanding of individual freedom and toleration for its own purposes. It inverts such individualism, supporting the dominant narrative of equality; namely, the freedom to accumulate property and social power (the latter being skewed along racial and sexual lines, ie, white, male or heteronormative).

The fourth chapter, the most difficult, looks at the political subterfuge manifested by the “real abstractions” within a totalised exchange society. The references to Alfred Sohn-Rethel and Henri Lefevbre are especially illuminating. These latter two authors argue that capitalist ideology views everyday social relations upside down, as first pointed out by Marx in his theory of commodity fetishism and alienation. The central point is that the ends of capital and profit are prioritised over labour, the labourer being merely a commodity on the market, and ensuring capital accumulation.

Toscano demonstrates how the ‘scavenger ideology’ of fascism, which draws on Romanticism, political decisionism, a fascination with technology, and even socialism, is a pressing danger.

The fifth chapter deals again with temporality but this time through the philosophical understanding of “repetition”. Toscano singles out and censures Martin Heiddeger’s fundamental ontology”, which is concerned with “being” and the naturalised historical subject, as leading to a reactionary, “counter-revolutionary” politics. Toscano demonstrates how the “scavenger ideology” of fascism, which draws on Romanticism, political decisionism, a fascination with technology, and even socialism, is a pressing danger. This danger is magnified by its ability “to weaponise a kind of structured incoherence in its political and temporal imaginaries, modulating them to enlist and energise different class fractions, thereby capturing, diverting and corrupting popular aspirations” (110).

Based on a reading of the writings of the Italian Germanist and mythologist Furio Jesi, the sixth chapter deals with the far right’s version of the philosophy of religio mortis, a fascination with myth, sacrifice, and death, but updated for a technological (and now digital) era. Drawing on the idea of a “micropolitical antifascist struggle”, as found in the works of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, and Michel Foucault, the last chapter deals with the ambivalent erotics of fascist ideology, arguing that the libidinal introjection of violence reinforces various forms of social power. Here, Toscano also draws on the feminism of Maria Antonietta Macciocchi, claiming that the Nazi “antipolitical politicization of women” (148) resonates with current modalities of “fascist feminism” that seek “to violently secure and affirm a normative, if not necessarily heteropatriarchal, figure of woman, and which invests desire and libido in its narratives about the imminent threat of the erasure of women and even feminism by ‘gender ideology’ and ‘transness’” (150).

Toscano’s archaeology of 20th-century antifascist theory is an essential springboard for understanding the current political moment. It is a boon for those thinkers and activists interested in human emancipation and the struggle for real, rather than merely abstract, freedom. It alerts them to the threat posed to such projects by that deeply prejudicial ideology that arises alongside capitalism in crisis – late fascism.

This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Image credit: Alexandros Michailidis on Shutterstock.

Deal in spring 2022 scuppered by US and UK

Oleksandr Chalyi, left, at the GCSP event

The Ukraine war could have been ended more than a year and a half ago, according to a senior Ukrainian peace negotiator – and the deal had the personal approval of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

Ambassador Oleksandr Chalyi told a Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP) event that the deal was ‘concluded’, but was postponed ‘for some reason’:

As Canadian journalist Aaron Maté has pointed out, another top Ukrainian peace negotiator has said that the UK and US prevented the agreement being put in place because they did not want Ukraine to agree to neutrality. All the many thousands of lives lost since could have been saved, as well as the huge financial cost of continuing the war, which has been used by the Ukrainian regime to ban opposition parties and take over Ukraine’s newspapers and broadcasters.

Canadian political scientist Ivan Katchanovski responded to the revelation:

Wow! Ukraine Ambassador Chalyi, who participated in peace talks with Russia in Spring 2022, states that “we concluded” “Istanbul Communique” & “were very close in… April to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement” & that Putin “tried everything possible to conclude agreement with Ukraine.”

He says that it was Putin’s “personal decision to accept the text of this communique.” Such peace deal framework to end war was also confirmed by head of Ukrainian delegation, officials close to Zelensky, ex-Israeli PM, ex-German chancellor, Putin, Turkish FM, former US officials & Arestovych. First five stated that deal was blocked by US/UK.

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In The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World, Tim Marshall analyses the geopolitical dynamics and consequences of space exploration. According to Gary Wilson, the book is an illuminating insight into the political geography of space and the dynamics between world powers as they continue to expand the space frontier.

The Future of Geography: How Power and Politics in Space Will Change Our World. Tim Marshall. Elliott & Thompson. 2023.

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While Tim Marshall’s previous works have firmly established him as a prominent authority on the politics of geography, in this new book he enters uncharted territory: an appraisal of the geopolitical dynamics and consequences of space exploration. In a series of earlier books Marshall considered the impact of geography on the possibilities and limitations of the projection of national power in some of the world’s political hotspots. The Future of Geography breaks new ground by probing how major world powers’ activities in space may come to shape the future of world politics in (until recently) ways which could not have been envisaged.

The Future of Geography begins with the premise that space is rapidly becoming an extension of earth, representing the latest arena for intense human competition. Although the book explores the space activities and objectives of a wide spectrum of states and other actors, Marshall makes clear from the outset that there are three main players to be aware of: China, the US and Russia.

Space is rapidly becoming an extension of earth, representing the latest arena for intense human competition.

The book is structured into three parts. The first of these is relatively brief and consists of two chapters which serve to provide useful context for the more substantive treatment of space activity found in part two. In chapter one Marshall traces interest in space back to the earliest recorded historical periods, noting that there is a long history of “studying stars,” stone circles and similar (phenomena perceived as otherworldly or mysterious). Beginning with the Babylonians, he charts astronomical advances through Greek and Roman times into the twentieth century, referencing the scientific contributions of the likes of Copernicus, Galileo and Newton along the way. In the second chapter, Marshall identifies the origins of modern space exploration in Germany’s wartime rocket development programme, before proceeding to explain the importance of the Cold War in generating further advances in space as part of the arms race between the US and the Soviet Union. A string of Soviet “firsts” in the 1950s and early 1960s, culminated in Yuri Gagarin being the first man in space, which lead to huge surges in American space budgets as they raced to put the first man on the moon.

A string of Soviet “firsts” in the 1950s and early 1960s, culminated in Yuri Gagarin being the first man in space, which lead to huge surges in American space budgets as they raced to put the first man on the moon.

Part Two of the book represents its substantive core. In its six chapters, Marshall first explores some of the general difficulties and tensions generated by modern space exploration, before appraising the space policies of the world’s major players in this arena. The geography of space cannot be understood in earthly terms and scales, but in chapter three Marshall presents a series of numerical markers which permit the reader to gain some sense of the enormity of distances in space. Although NASA regards space as beginning at 80 km, the International Space Station is located 400km into space, while medium and higher earth orbit extend the area for potential exploration yet further. Noting that over 80 countries have satellites in space, Marshall posits that “the idea that space is a global common is disappearing.”

Most existing international space treaties are regarded as outdated, products of the Cold War that fail to account for technological advances and the expansion of states with space-related aspirations.

This leads into chapter four’s consideration of efforts to regulate space by legal mechanisms. Most existing international space treaties are regarded as outdated, products of the Cold War that fail to account for technological advances and the expansion of states with space-related aspirations. At best, current space activity is governed by a series of non-binding, ad hoc agreements. Marshall lays out the various sources of potential scope for conflict or disagreement, including questions raised by the activities of private bodies in space and increased space debris from the deployment and destruction of satellites. While the need for new legal regimes to regulate and foster cooperation in space activity is accepted, such developments are hindered by the fact that the major three space powers agree on little.

China’s space programme is more militarised than the others and, despite being a slower starter in space exploration, now seeks to rival the International Space Station.

The following three chapters consider in turn the space policies of the three big space powers. China’s space programme is more militarised than the others and, despite being a slower starter in space exploration, now seeks to rival the International Space Station. It is the only country operating its own space station and is working with Russia on the creation of moon base. China established various “firsts” in space during the first decades of the twenty-first century, is home to over a hundred private space companies and has developed plans for the years ahead, including launching over 1,000 satellites within a decade. Within the US, space investment has fluctuated over time in accordance with its relative popularity. However, in 2019 the US launched a 16,000 strong Space Force and has invested heavily in early-warning satellites and laser weapons. While planning a lunar gateway space station, the US has collaborated increasingly with private firms such as Space X, the first company into space and which was contracted to build a lunar landing module. In contrast to initiatives taking place in China and the US, Marshall suggests that Russia’s “best days in cosmology look to be behind it.” However, Putin has sought to reinvigorate Russia’s space programme as tensions have increased between Russia and the West in recent years. Its efforts depend heavily on its cooperation with China, with Russia regarded as the junior partner in the alliance to undermine US superiority.

Putin has sought to reinvigorate Russia’s space programme as tensions have increased between Russia and the West in recent years. Its efforts depend heavily on its cooperation with China.

The emphasis on the big three powers should not overlook the fact that an increasing number of states have invested to some extent in space activity. A brief survey of some of these takes place in chapter eight, which considers the move towards regional space blocs, such as the US allied European Space Agency, within which Italy, Germany and France have all been major players. While states as varied as Japan and India, Israel and the UAE are all referenced in this overview, Marshall notes that nobody comes close to challenging the big three.

In the book’s final part Marshall ponders some of the possibilities for the future of space exploration. The penultimate chapter sees him present some hypothetical scenarios, which illustrate some of the potential sources of future conflict. He highlights the danger of pre-emptive strikes in space and potential for escalation of conflict in such a scenario, while the biggest threat is considered most likely to arise from competition between the US and China. The book concludes by acknowledging the commercial opportunities which exist in space, while observing the various practical difficulties which may limit the extent to which they represent realistic propositions.

The Future of Geography makes an important contribution to understanding the political geography of space exploration and its impact on relationships between the world’s major powers.

The Future of Geography makes an important contribution to understanding the political geography of space exploration and its impact on relationships between the world’s major powers. It is not always easy to engage with some of the space jargon deployed, which presumes a certain amount of knowledge of space terminology and factual knowledge. There is also scope for the impact of space activity on international relations to be drawn out in more specific terms on occasion, to more effectively illustrate the possible real-world effects it may come to have. However, in a challenging and problematic arena of international political activity, the book offers insights which further the appreciation of the political geography of space exploration and provide illuminating food for thought as to what the future of space may hold.

This post gives the views of the author, and not the position of the LSE Review of Books blog, or of the London School of Economics and Political Science. The LSE RB blog may receive a small commission if you choose to make a purchase through the above Amazon affiliate link. This is entirely independent of the coverage of the book on LSE Review of Books.

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