Author | Bertram Gross |
---|---|
Country | United States |
Publisher | M. Evans & Company |
Publication date | June 1, 1980 |
Media type | Print (hardcover) |
Pages | 419 |
ISBN | 0871313170 |
Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America is a book written by Bertram Gross, American social scientist and professor of political science at Hunter College. The book was published on June 1, 1980, by M. Evans & Company as a 419-page hardback book containing 440 quotations and sources. It examines the history of fascism and, based on the growth of big business and big government, describes possible political scenarios for a future United States. [1] [2] [3] According to a 1981 review in the journal Crime and Social Justice, the book is described as "timely" on a subject requiring serious consideration. It is about the dangers of fascism, focusing primarily on the United States, but being aware that monopoly capitalism needs to be understood internationally since capitalism "is not a national mode of production". [4]
In 2016, the book prompted the following response right after Donald Trump was elected President of the United States: "The next wave of fascists will not come with cattle cars and concentration camps, but they'll come with a smiley face and maybe a TV show. [...] That's how the 21st-century fascists will essentially take over". [5]
According to Jason Epstein, editor, publisher and book reviewer for The New York Review of Books , "Friendly Fascism [...] reflects what seems to be a widespread feeling among liberals as well as conservatives that democracy in America has played itself out: that soon Americans won’t be able to govern themselves". [1] According to Gaddis Smith, professor emeritus of history at Yale University and an expert on American foreign relations, the book is an "insightful lament over the growth of centralized power by business and government in alliance under the direction of faceless managers who [...] are replacing democracy with a form of benevolent fascism". [6] Writing on behalf of Eclectica Magazine , reviewer Dale Wharton comments that the book offers "faint hope of averting neofascism", but as a possible offset suggests raising aspirations, notably by "setting forth clear lofty goals, broad enough to embrace a great majority". Help may come from insiders since "bubbling upward from all levels of the Establishment are longings for fulfilling employment disconnected from consumer exploitation, environmental degradation, or militarism". [3]
Reviewer Dennis Phillips notes in the Australian Journal of Law & Society that Gross wrote Friendly Fascism before Ronald Reagan had become President of the United States, but Reagan's United States, presumed in part to be a result of neofascist techniques described in the book, had "proven Bertram Gross to be an amazingly astute prophet . [...] The evidence for this [in the book] is stunning". [2] According to a book review in the journal Crime and Social Justice by Gregory Shank of the Institute for the Study of Labor and Economic Crisis, "Friendly Fascism [...] is written to alert readers to a clear and present danger in the current trajectory of American politics". [4]
More recently in 2016, the book prompted the following response from Michael Moore right after Donald Trump was elected President: "The next wave of fascists will not come with cattle cars and concentration camps, but they'll come with a smiley face and maybe a TV show. [...] That's how the 21st-century fascists will essentially take over". [5]
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and/or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
"The Manifesto of the Italian Fasces of Combat", commonly known as the Fascist Manifesto, was the initial declaration of the political stance of the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento the movement founded in Milan by Benito Mussolini in 1919 and an early exponent of Fascism. The Manifesto was authored by national syndicalist Alceste De Ambris and the futurist poet Filippo Marinetti.
Giacomo Matteotti was an Italian socialist politician. On 30 May 1924, he openly spoke in the Italian Parliament alleging the Italian fascists committed fraud in the 1924 Italian general election, and denounced the violence they used to gain votes. Eleven days later, he was kidnapped and killed by Fascists.
"The Doctrine of Fascism" is an essay attributed to Benito Mussolini. In truth, the first part of the essay, entitled "Idee Fondamentali", was written by the Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile, while only the second part "Dottrina politica e sociale" is the work of Mussolini himself.
The history of fascist ideology is long and it draws on many sources. Fascists took inspiration from sources as ancient as the Spartans for their focus on racial purity and their emphasis on rule by an elite minority. Fascism has also been connected to the ideals of Plato, though there are key differences between the two. Fascism styled itself as the ideological successor to Rome, particularly the Roman Empire. From the same era, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's view on the absolute authority of the state also strongly influenced fascist thinking. The French Revolution was a major influence insofar as the Nazis saw themselves as fighting back against many of the ideas which it brought to prominence, especially liberalism, liberal democracy and racial equality, whereas on the other hand, fascism drew heavily on the revolutionary ideal of nationalism. The prejudice of a "high and noble" Aryan culture as opposed to a "parasitic" Semitic culture was core to Nazi racial views, while other early forms of fascism concerned themselves with non-racialized conceptions of the nation.
The "Manifesto of Race", otherwise referred to as the Charter of Race or the Racial Manifesto, was an Italian manifesto promulgated by the government of Benito Mussolini on 14 July 1938. Its promulgation was followed by the enactment, in October 1938, of the Racial Laws in Fascist Italy and the Italian Empire.
Class collaboration is a principle of social organization based upon the belief that the division of society into a hierarchy of social classes is a positive and essential aspect of civilization.
The Republican Fascist Party was a political party in Italy led by Benito Mussolini during the German occupation of Central and Northern Italy and was the sole legal representative party of the Italian Social Republic. The PFR was the successor to the National Fascist Party but was more influenced by pre-1922 early radical fascism and anti-monarchism, as its members considered King Victor Emmanuel III to be a traitor after his signing of the surrender to the Allies.
Italian fascism, also classical fascism and Fascism, is the original fascist ideology, which Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini developed in Italy. The ideology of Italian Fascism is associated with a series of political parties led by Mussolini: the National Fascist Party (PNF), which governed the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 until 1943, and the Republican Fascist Party (PFR), which governed the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Italian fascism also is associated with the post–war Italian Social Movement (MSI) and later Italian neo-fascist political organisations.
What constitutes as a definition of fascism and fascist governments has been a complicated and highly disputed subject concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets debated amongst historians, political scientists, and other scholars ever since Benito Mussolini first used the term in 1915. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall".
The National Fascist Party was a political party in Italy, created by Benito Mussolini as the political expression of Italian fascism and as a reorganisation of the previous Italian Fasces of Combat. The party ruled the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 when Fascists took power with the March on Rome until the fall of the Fascist regime in 1943, when Mussolini was deposed by the Grand Council of Fascism. It was succeeded, in the territories under the control of the Italian Social Republic, by the Republican Fascist Party, ultimately dissolved at the end of World War II.
Bertram Myron Gross was an American social scientist, federal bureaucrat and Professor of Political Science at Hunter College (CUNY). He is known from his book Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America from 1980, and as primary author of the Humphrey–Hawkins Full Employment Act.
Fascist movements in Europe were the set of various fascist ideologies which were practiced by governments and political organizations in Europe during the 20th century. Fascism was born in Italy following World War I, and other fascist movements, influenced by Italian Fascism, subsequently emerged across Europe. Among the political doctrines which are identified as ideological origins of fascism in Europe are the combining of a traditional national unity and revolutionary anti-democratic rhetoric which was espoused by the integral nationalist Charles Maurras and the revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was an Italian dictator who founded and led the National Fascist Party (PNF). He was Prime Minister of Italy from the March on Rome in 1922 until his deposition in 1943, as well as Duce of Italian fascism from the establishment of the Italian Fasces of Combat in 1919 until his summary execution in 1945 by Italian partisans. As dictator of Italy and principal founder of fascism, Mussolini inspired and supported the international spread of fascist movements during the inter-war period.
Fascism has a long history in North America, with the earliest movements appearing shortly after the rise of fascism in Europe. Fascist movements in North America never gained power, unlike their counterparts in Europe.
Corporatism is a political system of interest representation and policymaking whereby corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, come together on and negotiate contracts or policy on the basis of their common interests. The term is derived from the Latin corpus, or "body".
Propaganda in Fascist Italy was used by the National Fascist Party in the years leading up to and during Benito Mussolini's leadership of the Kingdom of Italy from 1922 to 1943, and was a crucial instrument for acquiring and maintaining power and the implementation of Fascist policies.
Richard James Boon Bosworth is an Australian historian and author, and a leading expert on Benito Mussolini and Fascist Italy, having written extensively on both topics.
Fascist mysticism was a current of political and religious thought in Fascist Italy, based on Fideism, a belief that faith existed without reason, and that Fascism should be based on a mythology and spiritual mysticism. A School of Fascist Mysticism was founded in Milan on April 10, 1930. Active until 1943, its main objective was the training of future Fascist leaders who were indoctrinated in the study of various Fascist intellectuals who tried to abandon the purely political to create a spiritual understanding of Fascism. Fascist mysticism in Italy developed through the work of Niccolò Giani with the decisive support of Arnaldo Mussolini.
Fascist Italy is a term used to describe the Kingdom of Italy governed by the National Fascist Party from 1922 to 1943 with Benito Mussolini as prime minister and dictator. The Italian Fascists imposed totalitarian rule and crushed political opposition, while promoting economic modernization, traditional social values and a rapprochement with the Roman Catholic Church.