Ask Lemmy

The west has been in the imperialist stage of capitalism for a bit more than a century. As was described back then, this is a parasitic, moribund stage of capitalism. It's parasitic in an obvious way, but what's most interesting is the moribund factor. Imperialism essentially becomes the dominant factor in a capitalist economy once it fully saturates the national economy, when monopoly bank and industrial capital begin consolidating into finance capital, and when these groups must expand outward, not just can.

The reason this is moribund is because it hollows out industrialization, seeking cheaper labor in the global south. It also seeks more specualtive than real returns, and sharpens the divide between rich and poor on an international scale, even if temporarily it reduces inequality in the national level (see FDR's New Deal, before imperialism began decaying and Reaganomics forced austerity to preserve superprofits). What's happening now is a sharp rightward turn in response to this system breaking down as the global south develops and gains independence from neocolonialism, giving them agency in how the world is run and tools at their disposal not purely linked to the west.

It's the protracted death of imperialism that is forcing many people into austerity in the west, which drives reaction. Everyone trying to blame it on foreigners and propaganda are missing the point, the actual material system the west runs on is dying away as has already been predicted before by analyzing the very mechanisms of capitalism.

Centrist governments aren't doing shit to fix the problems people are having because they've been bought by billionaires. Far right is something different and it's pointing at "problems" that hateful morons find easy to solve. The result is a lot of people checked out of engaging with politics because it feels pointless and a lot of hateful morons checked in because there's finally someone talking their language.

The current system no longer works for an average citizen. Current and future generations can't expect a higher standard of living than our parents had while the environment gets destroyed all around us. This disillusionment with current ruling class leads people to support anti-establishment candidates which tend to be far right populists. It's still possible for socialists to provide a valid alternative but in many countries the left is too fragmented and/or too focused on the wrong issues.

Big money and hostile, foreign interests. That's basically it, you'll find Russia pushing a lot of far right candidates and the oligarchs convinced techno-feudalism will work.

That's a question for the ages for sure. I'm worried it's going to get quite a bit worse before it gets better.

As far as I can tell, there are multiple ongoing components to what's going on.

There is definitely some Russia-driven agitprop going on, with the apparent aim of weakening the West through division. But on its own I think it's not a sufficient explanation, for two reasons. The same research showed that Russia is also pushing left-aligned agitprop points to increase division. And Russia was not similarly involved in the 1930's, which nevertheless saw a somewhat similar trajectory.

But it's still a factor either way of course.

The main force, I think, is the collapse of capitalism. That capitalism is its own self-destruction mechanism has been observed for centuries; it's kind of one of the main takeaways from Das Kapital. With the ceaseless rise of wealth capture by the ruling classes, discontent rises correspondingly among the general population, and the beige centrist neoliberals that tend to occupy power seats in most democracies keep onboarding more and more far right talking points in an apparent effort to keep this discontent from getting an actual left wing government elected: drawing false equivalency between left and far right policies, forming coalitions with the far right to prevent even a mildly left wing party from forming a government, etc.

The latter seems particularly driven by the flow of donor money from the wealthy elites.

But it also looks like in many countries, the national media are disproportionately captured by said wealthy elite, who also increasingly push the same far right societal framing for the same core reason.

Historically speaking, this private capture of wealth and power does not stop on its own, and it goes to some pretty bad places before it gets better. It's bleak as hell, but we can take hope, I think, from another historical observation: it always gets better, eventually.

Till then, take care of each other, y'all.

The insanity of the far left

this will likely be downvoted to hell but it's true

Growing wealth inequality combined with global migration; mix in tech companies that need social division and antagonism to survive, and a healthy dose of foreign interests trying to break down rivals, and here you are.

Too many things honestly. Hidden racism, normalizing "if you can do it, you should do it" with unshakable faith that "the system will take care of itself" and the belief that "white culture is supposed to be the one on top".

So now the world is going to shit, EU and US (ie "the west") is panicking now. The rest of the world is starting to take over in technology, science and other things.

So what is the solution that people has decided? Fascism!

The other (for OG nazi it was socialist then jews then eastern europeans but today it is muslims then immigrants then people of color) is destroying our (read white colonialist) values so "we must use force against our enemy", "we must be not be soft", "it is the woke left mafia that is helping the other" so on and so forth...

Propaganda. The elite get people fighting a culture war instead of seeing what’s really happening: the continued funneling of wealth to the few.

I assume politics goes through generational pendulum swings.

Without wanting to be controversial….

Society tends to swing back and forth wildly, attempting to find communality. Gay people were openly oppressed, then accepted, then granted legal equality in marriage, then some adoption agency starts giving gay couples a boost up the waiting list - and somebody completely loses their head and the reverse process begins.

We went from housewife who knew her place (/s) to “believe all women” in less than 3 generations. Some people can’t cope with the change of pace or seeming over-correction.

Again, immigration: they should stay over there. We actually do need some medical staff and shop keepers. Wow, their food is nice. He was born and grew-up here and is one of us. I look like I’m the foreigner in my own high street. Send them all back.

If society goes too far, or too quickly, one way then there tends to be a knee jerk reaction back there other way.

Conservatism has always been popular, because a lot of people like the status quo. WHEREVER THAT MAY BE AT THAT MOMENT IN TIME. The fact that conservative values change over time is immaterial.

Lots of stuff but in general bad economic conditions and lots of propaganda to point fingers. It amazes me how badly right wing goverments want immigrants out, yet without them they wouldn't have a fraction of the success they had. If anything, they will employ policies that make the divisions more stark and immigrants more predisposed to not being able to adapt.

Changes in the media landscape. Up to the 1990s, mainstream media in Western democracies were dominated by intellectuals, who are typically against racism and fascism. This gradually changed as media became more commercialized and sensationalist, a change that rapidly accelerated with the advent of social media, which is completely flooded by hate speech.

Economic reasons are often proposed, but this explanation falls flat considering the lack of a significant economic downturn since the 1990s, and the fact that we have seen fascists massively gaining popularity even in societies that are among the most prosperous in human history. This is especially obvious in Germany, where in East Germany (where the fascist strongholds are) the economic situation has in fact dramatically improved since the 90s.

Wealth and power.

Unscrupulous rich people benefit from the far right, so it is to their advantage to amplify it in media and technology.

There is real and legitimate discontent and disillusionment with the political mainstream, and they're steering those people towards the far right by feeding the public lies that are plausible on the surface and provide an easy target for blame.
They're supported by opportunic charlatans who can get rich by being the mouthpiece.

It's money. Of you're ever unsure it's money. It's always tax breaks for the rich and hating minorities. It's always money. All the time.

Standard of living is going down, via cost of living crisis, not being able to pollute like we did in the past, and billionaires taking all the productivity increases. People don't understand why, they can't accept the situation, so they get angry, find an outgroup to blame it on, which the right says they'll fix by getting rid of the outgroup.

Wealth concentration, information manipulation and concentration, lack of education and media literacy. We’ve slowly pulled back the taboo of being a Nazi.

Economic issues stemming from Covid. Hatred of minorities fueled by misinformation

So we've got:

• Trump winning seemingly out of nowhere so people trying to emulate that
• just good ol racism
• "white erasure"
• conservative backlash against progress feeling like it's "their turn"
• the Christian doomsday evangelicalist people who want to jump start the rapture by manipulating the wars and politics in the middle East while also controlling everyone in their own country
• the tech bros who think a different apocalypse is going to happen, partially because of a fandom for a Harry Potter fan fic, who are trying to either make real AI as soon as possible or just ditch the rest of humanity to live in a bunker
• good ol sexism
• good ol homophobia n transphobia
• capitalism
• dude deciding to get a sandwich, which led to Nazis.
• Leftists not being able to get their shit together/following through with things, especially in the US which led to point 1.
• social media trying to make money off of what should be free using algorithms that oopsie radicalize people and not oopsie on purpose radicalize people.
• did I mention the Nazis?

That's just off the top of my head, and from what little I know in the States. Also I wasn't kidding about any of these.