The ‘Fascist’ Allure: Why Many Workers are Turning from Left to Right?

Katedra Socjologii Ekonomicznej i Spraw Publicznych WS UW serdecznie zaprasza na wykład on-line profesora Davida Osta. Wykład odbędzie się 23 maja (poniedziałek), godz. 14:45, w języku angielskim, dyskusja po polsku i angielsku.
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In recent years many blue-collar workers formerly affiliated with the political left have been turning towards the right, not in one democratic capitalist countries but in most. Understanding politics as the mobilization of anger, I explain this from a “supply-side” perspective concerning the changing offers available to workers from both left and right political parties. On the one hand, there is a “new right” on offer, which is not really new. Most observers call this new right “populist” but that misses its similarities with the fascist tradition, whose key innovation was not violent repression but the break from both conservative elitism and pro-capitalism, and an embrace of the “dominant-essence” masses (those possessing the ascriptivefeatures of a given country’s dominating identity) previously wooed only by the left. The left enjoyed spectacular successes after World War II, but began losing influence over dominant- essence workers for three reasons: its success enabled workers’ children to enter the middle class, it responded affirmatively to the anti-colonial and anti-racist movements of the postwar era, and it began representing minorities and the new professional middle class. When economic crisis again began hurting dominant-essence workers, the left had moved, or was seen as having moved, to representing others, opening up workers of the dominant identity to appeals of right- wing populism. Illustrating examples from the United States, Poland, and France are provided. In the end, both fascism and contemporary right-wing populism are conceptualized as iterations ofwhat I call “REN PILL” movements: right-wing exclusionary nationalist populist illiberalism.