Barry Biddulph reviews Richard Seymour, Disaster Nationalism, Verso, 2024.
Richard Seymour does not view the rise of extreme nationalism, the politics of Trump, Orban, Modi, Le Pen and Bolsonaro through the lens of classical fascism in Italy in the 1920s and Germany in the 1930s. He avoids the mistake of superimposing the historical pattern of the past on the very different historical and political context of today. Instead, he provides a wealth of detail into what he describes as Disaster Nationalism.
However, Seymour immerses himself to such a depth in the dark psychology of extreme nationalism that he loses sight of the possibility of successful resistance to the rise of the extreme- right, let alone the prospect of a socialist alternative. In Seymour’s bleak outlook Disaster Nationalism is marching triumphantly along a road towards a new form of fascism without any effective working class resistance. In Seymour’s opinion, “nowhere does it confront a powerful trade union movement or even a robust Social Democracy, let alone a revolutionary threat.”
The rise of the Far Right has yet to face a revolutionary mass opposition, but it has encountered resistance which is not visible to Seymour. One example is the challenge to Le-Pen by the French Popular Front. A one-sided emphasis on the rise of Le Pen does not shed light on the balance of class forces which do not entirely favour the right. Tens of thousands have taken to the streets against Trump in the US in various left-wing causes. And Seymour did not anticipate tens of thousand of workers demanding democracy in Hungary. Recently we have seen electoral setbacks for the right in Canada and Australia. Seymour’s pessimism is misplaced.
For Seymour, Disaster Nationalism is so powerful it resembles a contagious infection. Workers are vulnerable to the fascist virus. Seymour is confident a new kind of fascism is crystalising around Trump and other right-wing strong men. Trump is an outrider for fascism. But he is less confident, to put it mildly, about the possibility of a Socialist alternative crystalising around any fight-back. There is a sense of inevitability about a Far-Right victory in any capitalist crisis in his assessment of nationalism. Seymour is in a dark political space.
Seymour takes a psychological view. Fascism is a latent temptation from which no-one is exempt. We all have the fascist germ within us. This is the temptation to dominate others. Fascism is in our human DNA; it’s part of the human condition. But fascism was born in a political and historical context. It was the child of the Blood and Iron of capitalist rivalry during the imperialist war of 1914-1918. Rather than reduce fascism to a human attribute in general it should be understood in the context of capitalist barbarism and capitalist economic crisis.
Seymour is fixated on psychology: “the basic passions which drive the left, can always under pressure of sufficient stress and decay in the atmosphere of defeat be perverted and introverted into their Fascist opposite.” This implies any socialist opposition is bound to fail. To prevent false hopes Seymour reminds us that the fascist flag flew over working-class neighbourhoods in Germany in 1933. But the Nazi victory was the political outcome of the refusal of the leadership of the German Communists and Social Democrats to offer a way out, to offer a solution to the capitalist crisis of 1929-1933. That is to say, revolution.
Seymour is certainly over-impressed with the rise of Far-Right nationalism. It should be taken seriously, but nationalism can be resisted. We can be optimistic. But Seymour reminds us that there has been no better time to be a fascist since 1945 than today. He does not believe that the politics of class will be powerful enough to halt the forward march of the Far Right. He claims we cannot be passionate about bread-and-butter issues. Class is about economics, not passion.
Seymour emphasis that workers do not vote for their material interests. Everything including employment, health, and even workers’ lives can be sacrificed to scapegoat the immigrant bringing our nation down. This has been a feature of recent politics. But on the other hand millions of workers have voted for the left. In a fairly recent election thirteen million people voted for Corbyn. Again, Seymour presents a partial picture. Even democracy conspires against the left. According to Seymour, “features of democracy lend themselves to ethnic nationalist fury in which class antagonism is transposed into a zero sum ethnic struggle.”
The rise of ethnic nationalism is related to a crisis of working-class representation. Traditional establishment organisations have failed to defend the material interests of the working class in the context of austerity and the cost of living crisis. It has to be said, Seymour has a middle-class point of view. Many young workers would love to have secure employment and afford their own home. Many pensioners would love to afford to switch on their central heating. But class politics includes a political dimension. A strike of doctors and nurses to defend the NHS against government pay policy and cuts is a political cause as well as economic battle.
Seymour does not expect a rise in collective struggle against the Far Right. The workers feel shame and individual failure instead of collective anti-capitalist anger. There is currently a historic low level of class struggle, but things can rapidly change, as in the past. However, Seymour make the dubious historical claim that we are entering a “cycle of national revanchism, long standing pathologies of cruelty and deprivation, built into everyday life.” It isn’t class politics, stupid.
But collective identification is not one loyalty or attachment. For example, the years 1914-1917 saw a huge shift away from nationalism among workers in Russia. There was also the the revolutionary wave in Europe in 1918-1923. Workers went to war against exploitation, alienation, and nationalist barbarism. So Seymour’s views notwithstanding, nationalism does not always triumph over class. In any case, his category of Disaster Nationalism is a theoretical overstretch. Zionism and genocide in Gaza is not an integral part of the rise of the Far Right. Its nature and origins predate the rise of the Far Right. More importantly fascism is resistible.
Fascism it is not our fate.