Discussion
Pluralistic: Austerity creates fascism (13 Apr 2026)
weirdmantis69: That's weird Canada had austerity in the 90s and we didn't get fascism.
dosinga: Austerity does not create fascism. The examples in the article are just all wrong. Even if you call Trump and Orban fascists, they did not follow austerity. The reaction to the financial crisis was the largest fiscal and monetary interventions in history. Orban consolidated power by spending and state expansion, not austerity. True austerity in Greece, Spain, Portugal of recent times led to new parties, but those countries are politically doing surprisingly well.
energy123: Inflation is arguably a causal driver of fascism, like in the Weimar Republic, which is made worse by loose fiscal policy. Biden's ARP added significantly to inflation according to a central bank analysis and inflation was one of the main reasons he lost the election to a populist.
ModernMech: I'm confused, is Cory under the impression that the fascism isn't already here? America is well underway on the that project. Frankly the fascism was plenty apparent after 9/11, when the Bush years entrenched a permanent security state through endless-war powers (AUMF), mass surveillance (Patriot Act/NSA spying), expansive detention and torture regimes (CIA black sites like Guantanamo), a huge domestic enforcement bureaucracy (DHS/ICE), and tax cuts that concentrated wealth upward, cuts to education and healthcare. These are the exact things the current-day fascists are using to choke us now.People are only upset today because it's affecting white folk more directly, when back then it was aimed at Muslims. We warned you all back then about this, we warned again in 2016, we warned again in 2024, and yet here we are, knee deep in fascism. Maybe we'll be neck deep soon but let's not pretend this is just starting or about to start because of AI.
energy123: Words have meaning, I don't think any serious scholar would agree with you that the US in the early 2000s was a fascist state. It lacked the societal regimentation, the autocracy, the personality worship, the aesthetics of order, the totalitarianism of the state, the subservience of religion and the individual to the state. It's an absurd proposition.
soco: Fascism rise is also associated with perceived inequality rising. So if Canada didn't have a class of folks profiting immensely while others were hit, less fascism.
bitwize: Marcuse wrote in the 1960s that the only way to prevent another Hitler from rising is to give the left free rein and cage and muzzle the right. So by extension, anyone who supports rightists being able to spread their ideas freely, let alone implement them with real political power, is a fascist in effect even if they disclaim identification with Hitler's or Mussolini's political philosophy.
ModernMech: I think the other way to say this is every time the right is given free reign to implement their ideas with real political power, they end up implementing fascism. Therefore, we might prefer to temper that by not allowing them to have free reign. This does not imply giving the left free reign, as there's ample room for consensus under this model.
burnt-resistor: Fascism's causes are many and situational; economic depression is one risk among many. "X causes Y" is too often an oversimplification most times, especially when lacking overwhelming quantitative supporting evidence.
java-man: Oh really? Just ask any Black person.Did we have the segregation well into the 50's? Did we bomb entire city blocks? Do we regularly have police swarm, main, and kill protesters?
stasmo: The US does not respond with austerity during a crisis, it responds with ever larger economic stimulus by printing money at the central bank. The next crisis will be no different. There is zero political appetite for austerity so it will not happen in the US.
austin-cheney: That is only mostly true. In practical terms the opposite of austerity is inflation, and consumers really don't like paying more for things knowing they are becoming dramatically poorer. Austerity is challenging to measure, but debt and inflation are not.At some point the music stops and a lot of people will be left without a chair. That's when austerity becomes a rally cry.
bigbadfeline: > That is only mostly true. In practical terms the opposite of austerity is inflationWeimar says inflation creates fascism too. Not surprising because scientifically speaking, any sufficiently developed inflation is austerity by another name.
