But Walton gets fascism badly wrong; she apparently sees it as a form of extreme conservatism, which is laughably inaccurate. It’s actually more like Leninism.

“Aristocratic” or establishmentarian fascism is a contradiction in terms. The archetypical fascist party specialized in giant columns of guys in colored shirts, brawling in the streets, and winning elections, not intrigue in salons.

Fascism, in the countries where it actually came to power or came close to it, was always a _mass movement_ of plebian radicalism aiming at overturning old hierarchies and establishing new ones. They invariably hated the old order, and were very suspicious of big business unless firmly under their control.

The usual fascist leader or militant was like Mussolini or Hitler — a declasse type, typically a lower-middle-class ex-soldier, often with a background in extremist politics, on the left or right. The Nazis used to say that the best National Socialists were the ones who’d been saluting the red flag before they put the white circle and black swastika in it.

And a large chunk of the fascist appeal was its hostility to established elites; this was quite genuine, as those who thought they could “use” Hitler found out — Fritz Thyssen, for example, or the Prussian army officers who ended up hung on meathooks. It’s notable that the only Germans who actually tried to kill Hitler were Junkers, military aristocrats.

They’d always despised the “Bohemian corporal” and the feeling was mutual, though they each found the other useful for a while.

In the 30’s right-wing types often incorporated fasionable fascist symbols and vocabulary — as did liberals and progressives like H. G. Wells, notoriously. (He gave a speech at Oxford in the 1930’s calling for a new breed of “liberal Nazi”.)

But that didn’t make, say, Franco a fascist. He was a perfectly ordinary ultra-reactionary Iberian cauldillo, and chose the moment to betray the (genuinely fascist) Falange with exquisite precision. Most of their militants ended up dying in the war, or with the Blue Division of volunteers he sent to Russia.

(Hitler, after a meeting with him in which he vainly tried to get Franco to enter the war on the Axis side, said that he’d rather have three teeth drilled than spend another hour talking to Franco.)

Walton wasn’t writing about “traditional” fascism. She’s was writing about the repressive attitudes of the wealthy elite, and I can name any number of members of the “elite” who were in sympathy with Hitler — Lindberg, Joe Kennedy, Errol Flynn. Members of that equivalent class in Germany thought they could control HItler — they were very, very wrong.

Corporatism is a huge part of modern fascism, and we are seeing that in spades when we have lobbyists for industries _writing_ the legislation for those industries. Which screws over workers and consumers.

And before I get accused of being a fuzzy headed socialist let me remind everyone that I am a capitalist — I manage a natural gas and oil company for crap sake. But I also think companies and the owners of those companies need to remember that they are a part of the country and the community, and have an obligation to the greater good as well as to their share holders.

Didn’t know Errol Flynn was a fascist. As for corporate fascism, it’s certainly possible. Though right now I feel like we’re headed more toward corporate feudalism. Every CEO for himself!