Why the New Fight Against Fascism?

The Committee Against Fascist Economics (CAFÉ) was formally founded in 2017 to oppose the resurgence of Italian-style Fascism, whose economic policies were the hallmark of Benito Mussolini’s regime.  In 1934, Mussolini boasted of his accomplishments in nationalizing three-fourths of the Italian economy, declaring “Three-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state,”[1] which was in accordance with Karl Marx’s definition of socialism. In that speech, Mussolini was heralding Italy’s entrance into a state-owned-and-operated economy in what he referred to as both “state capitalism” and “state socialism.” This attitude matched Mussolini’s ideological credentials as a “Marxist heretic”[2] and revolutionary syndicalist who “fancied himself as the Lenin of Italy.”[3] In fact, according to historian Zeev Sternhell, Mussolini’s fascist ideology “was a revision of Marxism.”[4]

So what is the point to this history lesson?  The point is that such alarming ideals are suddenly reappearing across America, especially in California. These activists appear almost desperate to imitate Mussolini’s socio-economic policies by promoting government takeovers of private sector companies, forcing everybody to buy corporate products, banning inanimate objects, obstructing free speech (Antifa), soliciting high taxes, promoting welfarism, breaking windows of banks and businesses, physically attacking opponents, promoting heavy bureaucratic controls and shoving government intrusions into every crack and cranny of Americans lives. These fascist-socialists appear eager to follow Mussolini’s commandment to have “Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.”[5] Mussolini referred to this complete control by the state as “totalitarian”, which he believed would politicize everything “human.”[6]

The Committee Against Fascist Economics (CAFÉ) is dedicated to stopping the drive toward statism and fascist-socialism in order to protect the individual from abuses by a powerful state with the authority to nationalize, ban or subjugate anything and anybody.

CAFÉ, P.O. Box 22231, Carmel, CA 93922. Website: www.committeeagainstfascism.org   Rev. 1/2017, paper 1

[1] The Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification, by Gianni Toniolo, editor, Oxford University Press (2013) p. 59. Mussolini’s speech to the Chamber of Deputies on May 26, 1934

[2] A. James Gregor, Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979, p. xi

[3] Denis Mack Smith, Modern Italy: A Political History, University of Michigan Press, 1997, p. 284. (1919 campaign speech)

[4] Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution with Mario Sznajder, Maia Asheri, Princeton: NJ, Princeton University Press, 1995, p. 5

[5] Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, New York: Vintage Books, 1995, p. 243. Mussolini’s speech to Chamber of Deputies (9 December 1928)

[6] Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, New York: Vintage Books, 1995, p. 243. Mussolini’s speech to Chamber of Deputies (9 December 1928)