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Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism and the Politics of Crisis
How do we understand the return of fascism today?
In a world shaken by ecological, economic and political crises, the forces of authoritarianism and reaction seem to have the upper hand. How should we name, map and respond to this state of affairs?
Late Fascism turns to theories of fascism produced in the past century, testing their capacity to illuminate our moment and challenging many of the commonplaces that debate on this extremely charged term devolves into. It can be tempting for any contemporary assessment of fascism to reach for historical analogy. Fascism is defined by returns and repetitions, but it is not best approached in terms of steps and checklists dictated by a selective reading of Italian Fascism or National Socialism.
Rather than treating fascism as an unrepeatable phenomenon or identifying it with a settled configuration of European parties, regimes, and ideologies, Toscano approaches fascism as a problem and a process, one that is intimately linked to capitalism's demands for domination. Drawing especially on Black radical and anti-colonial theories of racial fascism, Late Fascism makes clear the limits of identifying fascism simply with the political violence of bygone European regimes. Developing anti-fascist theory is a vital and urgent task. From the "Great Replacement" to campaigns against critical race theory and "gender ideology", today's global far-right is launching lethal panics about the threats to traditional political, sexual and racial regimes. Late Fascism allows us to rediscover some truly inspiring anti-fascist thinkers, rooted in their turn in largely anonymous collective practices of worldmaking against domination, traditions of the oppressed that remain a resource for those set on dismantling the hierarchies and segregations that the partisans of Order and Tradition seek to revive and reimpose.
In a world shaken by ecological, economic and political crises, the forces of authoritarianism and reaction seem to have the upper hand. How should we name, map and respond to this state of affairs?
Late Fascism turns to theories of fascism produced in the past century, testing their capacity to illuminate our moment and challenging many of the commonplaces that debate on this extremely charged term devolves into. It can be tempting for any contemporary assessment of fascism to reach for historical analogy. Fascism is defined by returns and repetitions, but it is not best approached in terms of steps and checklists dictated by a selective reading of Italian Fascism or National Socialism.
Rather than treating fascism as an unrepeatable phenomenon or identifying it with a settled configuration of European parties, regimes, and ideologies, Toscano approaches fascism as a problem and a process, one that is intimately linked to capitalism's demands for domination. Drawing especially on Black radical and anti-colonial theories of racial fascism, Late Fascism makes clear the limits of identifying fascism simply with the political violence of bygone European regimes. Developing anti-fascist theory is a vital and urgent task. From the "Great Replacement" to campaigns against critical race theory and "gender ideology", today's global far-right is launching lethal panics about the threats to traditional political, sexual and racial regimes. Late Fascism allows us to rediscover some truly inspiring anti-fascist thinkers, rooted in their turn in largely anonymous collective practices of worldmaking against domination, traditions of the oppressed that remain a resource for those set on dismantling the hierarchies and segregations that the partisans of Order and Tradition seek to revive and reimpose.
225 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
107 people are currently reading
2345 people want to read
About the author
Alberto Toscano
52 books35 followersGiornalista e analista politico, laureato in Scienze politiche a Milano, ha lavorato per importanti testate italiane e francesi, tra cui L’Unità, ItaliaOggi, Il Giornale, France 5, LCI e La Croix. Vive a Parigi dal 1986, dove è anche docente universitario a Bordeaux e alla Sorbona.
Ha ricoperto ruoli di rilievo in associazioni della stampa europea e ha ricevuto numerosi riconoscimenti, tra cui onorificenze da Jacques Chirac e Giorgio Napolitano. È stato protagonista di iniziative culturali e teatrali, e collabora attivamente con media italiani e francesi.
Ha ricoperto ruoli di rilievo in associazioni della stampa europea e ha ricevuto numerosi riconoscimenti, tra cui onorificenze da Jacques Chirac e Giorgio Napolitano. È stato protagonista di iniziative culturali e teatrali, e collabora attivamente con media italiani e francesi.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
December 31, 2023
a brisk survey/metacommentary of 20th century theories of fascism. up front: your reading will be colored by expectations; this is decidedly *not* a manual or guidebook or history. it is a work of critical/political theory, and though Toscano is a wordy writer, he also seeks a precision concerning these comparative theories that you won't find elsewhere. the chapters examine not just the inter- and post-war marxisms which sought to re-evaluate the relationship between political and libidinal economy, nor do they stop at the 1970s debates on 'new fascism.' it is to Toscano's credit that he is willing to juxtapose these more familiar debates with those brought out by the Black radical tradition - and then to further demonstrate that, say, Angela Davis and Cedric Robinson do not have isomorphic theories of fascism's forms and emphases. this makes the book far more useful to thinking the contemporary moment than the variety of 'ideal type' theories of fascism (or critiques of the concept) - the point of the book is to enable us to see what is new and different in our particular moment as much as what seems to be a repetition of the past. sadly, the book remains a bit "continental" despite its engagement with the (US) BRT - there has been so much good theorizing on these topics, stretching back through the 20th century of course, from South Asia, Brazil and Latin America more generally, and South Africa that would have been germane to fold in. for instance - a juxtaposition/extension of how Guattari mobilizes (and shifts) his understanding of microfascism in the Molecular Revolution in Brazil lectures/notes would have been compelling (to me, at least!)
November 1, 2025
Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism, and the Politics of Crisis (2023) by Alberto Toscano.
Probably my read of the year. No: definitely my read of the year ❤️
Unlike most of the liberal rubbish that's out there, the book (in the tradition of Marxist theories of fascism) makes the very important point that fascism emerges within, not against, liberal modernity, radicalizing mechanisms already present in liberalism.
In the book, Toscano critiques mainstream liberal anti-fascism for treating fascism as irrational extremism, rather than confronting the ongoing violence of liberal capitalism itself. This moralistic stance allows liberal democracies to externalize fascism — projecting it onto others (past regimes, the Global South, or populist outsiders) — while ignoring their complicity in its conditions.
Toscano rejects the idea that fascism represents a total break from liberalism or a simple relapse into barbarism. Instead, he sees fascism as a pathology internal to liberal capitalism — a response to its crises, contradictions, and failures to deliver on equality and democracy. The liberal order’s commitment to property, hierarchy, and racialized exclusion already lays the groundwork for fascist politics.
Building on the great tradition of Black Radicalism, Toscano shows that racial capitalism is the shared foundation.
Both liberalism and fascism depend on racial hierarchies to stabilize capitalist rule. Toscano argues that the “racial state” — whether liberal or fascist — organizes inequality and legitimizes violence in the name of progress, civilization, or national unity. Thus, fascism radicalizes mechanisms that liberalism already uses more subtly.
When liberal democracies face economic or social breakdown, their own institutions often mobilize authoritarian, nationalist, and racist tools to restore order and protect capital. Toscano traces this dynamic from colonial governance and slavery to neoliberal austerity regimes, showing how fascism is not an alien intrusion but a “reaction within the system".
The book coins the idea of “late fascism” as a dispersed, structural logic — not always tied to mass movements or dictatorships. Today’s surveillance capitalism, border regimes, and punitive security states manifest fascistic functions through liberal institutions: managing crises of legitimacy and inequality through exclusion and repression, while maintaining formal democracy.
So while I struggled through the book (I think I've become a bit stupid from watching dating shows, no longer able to follow more complex arguments), the concept of "late fascism" has really filled an important blank in terms of making sense of the present.
There's also a fairly mind blowing two-part The Dig podcast episode "The Fascist Police State" with Toscano from 18/22 September, where the concept of late fascism is being discussed vis-a-vis Trump II - the link between capital, the carceral state and fascism is pretty in your face under Trump II (building on racial capitalism entrenched by the Democrats).
Probably my read of the year. No: definitely my read of the year ❤️
Unlike most of the liberal rubbish that's out there, the book (in the tradition of Marxist theories of fascism) makes the very important point that fascism emerges within, not against, liberal modernity, radicalizing mechanisms already present in liberalism.
In the book, Toscano critiques mainstream liberal anti-fascism for treating fascism as irrational extremism, rather than confronting the ongoing violence of liberal capitalism itself. This moralistic stance allows liberal democracies to externalize fascism — projecting it onto others (past regimes, the Global South, or populist outsiders) — while ignoring their complicity in its conditions.
Toscano rejects the idea that fascism represents a total break from liberalism or a simple relapse into barbarism. Instead, he sees fascism as a pathology internal to liberal capitalism — a response to its crises, contradictions, and failures to deliver on equality and democracy. The liberal order’s commitment to property, hierarchy, and racialized exclusion already lays the groundwork for fascist politics.
Building on the great tradition of Black Radicalism, Toscano shows that racial capitalism is the shared foundation.
Both liberalism and fascism depend on racial hierarchies to stabilize capitalist rule. Toscano argues that the “racial state” — whether liberal or fascist — organizes inequality and legitimizes violence in the name of progress, civilization, or national unity. Thus, fascism radicalizes mechanisms that liberalism already uses more subtly.
When liberal democracies face economic or social breakdown, their own institutions often mobilize authoritarian, nationalist, and racist tools to restore order and protect capital. Toscano traces this dynamic from colonial governance and slavery to neoliberal austerity regimes, showing how fascism is not an alien intrusion but a “reaction within the system".
The book coins the idea of “late fascism” as a dispersed, structural logic — not always tied to mass movements or dictatorships. Today’s surveillance capitalism, border regimes, and punitive security states manifest fascistic functions through liberal institutions: managing crises of legitimacy and inequality through exclusion and repression, while maintaining formal democracy.
So while I struggled through the book (I think I've become a bit stupid from watching dating shows, no longer able to follow more complex arguments), the concept of "late fascism" has really filled an important blank in terms of making sense of the present.
There's also a fairly mind blowing two-part The Dig podcast episode "The Fascist Police State" with Toscano from 18/22 September, where the concept of late fascism is being discussed vis-a-vis Trump II - the link between capital, the carceral state and fascism is pretty in your face under Trump II (building on racial capitalism entrenched by the Democrats).
November 19, 2023
Alberto Toscano's book "Late Fascism: Race, Capitalism, and the Politics of Crisis" challenges conventional understandings of fascism, that associate fascism primarily with the kind of political violence experienced by past European regimes, offering instead a nuanced perspective that transcends historical boundaries.
Toscano’s main argument is that the traditional framework for identifying and understanding contemporary fascism is insufficient. Mussolini's and Hitler's Germany, he argues, were not isolated phenomena but rather crystallisations of a broader historical process. The association between fascism and a monolithic, bureaucratic state, as dictated by Italian fascism or national socialism, is insufficient to comprehend modern fascism. Instead, Toscano proposes that we should see fascism as a changeable process formed by racial and colonial capitalism and one that is intimately linked to capitalism's demands for domination.
Toscano's analysis of far-right movements, particularly in the U.S., extends beyond historical fascist regimes. Drawing inspiration from Black radical and anti-colonial theories, he explores the intersection of fascism, settler colonial formations, and extreme neoliberalism. By drawing on the insights of figures like Angela Davis and George Jackson, whose work sheds light on the racial dynamics and power structures that underpin far-right movements, Toscano exposes the racialised nature of political violence, emphasising the systemic targeting of marginalised communities.
To gain a deeper understanding of their complexity, Toscano examines the underlying political economy of far-right movements. He suggests that these movements arise from a sense of white homogeneity and the fear of annihilation and victimisation among privileged groups. Toscano introduces the concept of "repressive egalitarianism" within fascism, highlighting its foundations in an identity of subjection and a brotherhood of hatred. This notion challenges the notion that fascism is solely about the domination of one group over another. Instead, Toscano argues that fascism operates through a reproduction of power dynamics, sustaining itself by suppressing and eliminating those who are different or deemed as "other."
While Toscano does not explicitly discuss the relationship between fascism and feminism, his analysis of fascism could potentially be extended to consider gender hierarchies. Historically, fascists have generally argued that women's primary function was domestic and reproductive, expecting women to produce the future citizens, soldiers, and mothers of the race. The position of women in contemporary far-right parties is not dissimilar, promising to respect the advances made by women but attacking feminists and advocating policies that would actually remove many gains.
Fascism is a contentious topic that continues to shape the political landscape around the world. By understanding its historical roots and contemporary manifestations, we can actively fight its influence and work towards a society that embraces diversity and equality.
Toscano’s main argument is that the traditional framework for identifying and understanding contemporary fascism is insufficient. Mussolini's and Hitler's Germany, he argues, were not isolated phenomena but rather crystallisations of a broader historical process. The association between fascism and a monolithic, bureaucratic state, as dictated by Italian fascism or national socialism, is insufficient to comprehend modern fascism. Instead, Toscano proposes that we should see fascism as a changeable process formed by racial and colonial capitalism and one that is intimately linked to capitalism's demands for domination.
Toscano's analysis of far-right movements, particularly in the U.S., extends beyond historical fascist regimes. Drawing inspiration from Black radical and anti-colonial theories, he explores the intersection of fascism, settler colonial formations, and extreme neoliberalism. By drawing on the insights of figures like Angela Davis and George Jackson, whose work sheds light on the racial dynamics and power structures that underpin far-right movements, Toscano exposes the racialised nature of political violence, emphasising the systemic targeting of marginalised communities.
To gain a deeper understanding of their complexity, Toscano examines the underlying political economy of far-right movements. He suggests that these movements arise from a sense of white homogeneity and the fear of annihilation and victimisation among privileged groups. Toscano introduces the concept of "repressive egalitarianism" within fascism, highlighting its foundations in an identity of subjection and a brotherhood of hatred. This notion challenges the notion that fascism is solely about the domination of one group over another. Instead, Toscano argues that fascism operates through a reproduction of power dynamics, sustaining itself by suppressing and eliminating those who are different or deemed as "other."
While Toscano does not explicitly discuss the relationship between fascism and feminism, his analysis of fascism could potentially be extended to consider gender hierarchies. Historically, fascists have generally argued that women's primary function was domestic and reproductive, expecting women to produce the future citizens, soldiers, and mothers of the race. The position of women in contemporary far-right parties is not dissimilar, promising to respect the advances made by women but attacking feminists and advocating policies that would actually remove many gains.
Fascism is a contentious topic that continues to shape the political landscape around the world. By understanding its historical roots and contemporary manifestations, we can actively fight its influence and work towards a society that embraces diversity and equality.
January 27, 2024
The chapters of this book represent a series of essays around Marxist theories of fascism. Their quality is variable, from pretty strong to poor. The book spends no time on the more classical, political-economic theories of fascism associated with the Communist International and its theoreticians. This already is a significant problem, as it disregards all classical Marxist efforts to understand fascism in its time. Instead, Toscano leaps straight to a dense discussion of time, relying on Adorno, Horkheimer, and Bataille. If you're not already acquainted with their ideas (I wasn't), you're in for a tough time. If you're not willing to give a sympathetic hearing, this probably isn't the book for you. Personally, I just found this chapter difficult to wade through and lacking in the kinds of materialist reasoning which ought to characterise Marxist writing.
Next, Toscano moves to Black Radical theorists of fascism, and he does a better job at considering differential experiences of domination and the continuities in liberal and fascist regimes. The third chapter, on fascist ideas of freedom, also makes an interesting case - picked up again later - that fascism does not simply base its appeal on fantasies of repression and restriction. Through these chapters, he also begins to make a compelling case that the ideological inconsistencies and incoherence of fascism is integral to its strength, rather than being a weakness. While these arguments are often simply drawing together others' ideas in a new form and context, they are fairly worthwhile.
From Chapters 4-6, however, I was unable to derive almost any new insights. These were a chore to slog through and doubled down on the worst elements of the previous essays, touring through thinkers and theories without deriving especially clear and insightful arguments. And, still, political economies remain absent.
Chapter 7 turns to feminist theories of fascism, and fascism's libidinal elements. Here Toscano becomes readable again, and actually makes a pretty good case for the centrality and complexity of fascism's gender ideology.
The conclusion is handily the clearest and most effective part of the book, where 4 key theses are advanced which, while not in themselves hugely revelatory, are suggestive of the ways that the contemporary wave of reaction can be usefully parsed through the lense of fascism (without mechanically applying the label or making untenable analogies).
Overall, there are some genuinely worthwhile essays here (not least the very brief conclusion). But it doesn't achieve anything as ambitious as offering a theory of contemporary reaction, and sections are really rough going.
Next, Toscano moves to Black Radical theorists of fascism, and he does a better job at considering differential experiences of domination and the continuities in liberal and fascist regimes. The third chapter, on fascist ideas of freedom, also makes an interesting case - picked up again later - that fascism does not simply base its appeal on fantasies of repression and restriction. Through these chapters, he also begins to make a compelling case that the ideological inconsistencies and incoherence of fascism is integral to its strength, rather than being a weakness. While these arguments are often simply drawing together others' ideas in a new form and context, they are fairly worthwhile.
From Chapters 4-6, however, I was unable to derive almost any new insights. These were a chore to slog through and doubled down on the worst elements of the previous essays, touring through thinkers and theories without deriving especially clear and insightful arguments. And, still, political economies remain absent.
Chapter 7 turns to feminist theories of fascism, and fascism's libidinal elements. Here Toscano becomes readable again, and actually makes a pretty good case for the centrality and complexity of fascism's gender ideology.
The conclusion is handily the clearest and most effective part of the book, where 4 key theses are advanced which, while not in themselves hugely revelatory, are suggestive of the ways that the contemporary wave of reaction can be usefully parsed through the lense of fascism (without mechanically applying the label or making untenable analogies).
Overall, there are some genuinely worthwhile essays here (not least the very brief conclusion). But it doesn't achieve anything as ambitious as offering a theory of contemporary reaction, and sections are really rough going.
April 7, 2024
A suggestive survey of historical theorizations of fascism. And, imo, best treated as that rather than a cohesive theorization of our contemporary ‘late-fascism.’ Many single chapters shine. Considering the overall motion of the book, I was disappointed by Toscano’s movement from racial and imperial fascisms to more psychoanalytic understandings of fascism through gender and sexuality. This is because these earlier theorizations, particularly by black radical thinkers account for the relation between capital, fascism, and racialization, whereas Toscano’s account of the latter theories are less interested in the relation between the violent enforcement of gender and sexual norms and capitalism or imperialism, though there’s plenty that Toscano could draw on. In favoring psychoanalytic explanations in the homestretch, Toscano shades out the historical, material, and economic. We need both. The result is an emphasis on symptoms and psychic phenomenologies (tho fascinating). Which, I think, gets us back to an individualized, paranoid monitoring for the signs of fascism rather than an understanding of how fascism is produced through forms of relationships that constitute a system and how existing systems order relations in violent, extractive ways. So I find myself looking for accounts of contemporary fascism that can more directly knit together the co-constitutive relation between, say, the state, capital, resurgent domestic gender and sexual oppression and racialized imperialist violence. It would also be useful to run some of the accounts of fascism Toscano’s gathers and synthesizes with a thicker class analysis—particularly given that a number of contemporary and historical studies have demonstrated the origins and reproduction of fascism in the petit-bourgeois and capitalist classes.
August 4, 2025
Su estilo es un tanto arido y enrevesado, difícil de seguir por momentos. A veces un poco demasiado ecléctico. Es difícil ver la relación entre sus capítulos. Pero todo ello lo logra salvar Toscano, a mi gusto, en apenas los últimos seis párrafos de la conclusión, donde realiza una síntesis magistral y hace que la obra sea realmente un conjunto. Personalmente, me ha servido para abrirme el apetito a líneas de pensamiento muy poco familiares para mí. Muy bueno si quieres bibliografía.
April 21, 2025
Wow - a lot to chew on in a short book (158 pages). It’s like the class notes and syllabus for a course on heterodox theories of fascism. This book's goal is not to prove whether Trump/Le Pen/Bolsonaro/whoever is "really" fascist or not; it refreshingly sidesteps the interminable debates over definitions. Drawing on a dizzying set of references and thinkers, the book is a series of chapters examining fascism and its relationship to a particular concept: history ("Out of Time"), race/colonialism ("Racial Fascism"), freedom ("Fascist Freedom") abstraction ("A Phantom with Limbs of Steel"), time ("Rushing Forward Into the Past"), myth ("Ideas Without Words") and sexuality ("Cathedrals of Erotic Misery"). He ends with a definition of anti-fascism that I liked: anti-fascism “is not just a matter of resisting the worst, but will always be inseparable from the collective forging of ways of living that can undo the lethal romances of identity, hierarchy and domination that capitalist crisis throws up with such grim regularity.”
Knocking off one star because Toscano’s writing can be annoyingly (and unnecessarily) jargony, and because he’s too indulgent of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari for my taste. But overall, one of the most stimulating books I've read in a while.
Knocking off one star because Toscano’s writing can be annoyingly (and unnecessarily) jargony, and because he’s too indulgent of Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari for my taste. But overall, one of the most stimulating books I've read in a while.
December 17, 2025
I'm gonna be honest. we need to stop theorizing the shades of fascism as new insights into it's generality. the rejection of Umberto eco style systems and embrace of a loose deluzian schizo analysis is really too much for the majority to wrestle with and is certainly not a required erudition to communicate the ideas of Eros and sexual power around fascistic thought. Leaves the praxis minded Marxist feeling incredibly empty handed
November 7, 2025
okay i REALLYYYYY debated what to give this book, but i’m settling on a 3. i read it for a reading group connected to my critical theory class and it definitely provoked lots of good conversations & was very relevant to the modern social & political climate, but i had a really hard time tracking what his main point was literally ever. it felt like a collection of a lot of random interjections (most of which were quite interesting, if underdeveloped) that were never connected to make a bigger picture. it’s definitely a good book to get you thinking about fascism, but im STILL not sure exactly what his overall point was… so yeah! read at your own risk i suppose :)
June 18, 2025
“Fascist movements capture, divert, and regiment surplus social energies — unrealized wishes for a better life, memories of precapitalist folkways, unproductive and excessive desire.”
August 17, 2024
More of a literature review than a book, although a well researched and written literature review at that. An attempt to avoid simplistic analogies and diagnostic checklists between the classical interwar European moment and our present political conjuncture, Toscano attempts to map fascism as a process (of racialised terror, libidinal investments, nationalistic counter-revolution/reform) rather than a discrete system.
Toscano develops some poignant and evocative phrases and concepts to describe and analyse fascism. There is fascism as an anti-political politicisation, fascism as a phobia for abstractions (namely finance capital), fascism as an asynchronous temporality (archaic myth combined with accelerationism), fascism as a reflexive affirmation of neoliberal authoritarian potentialities, fascism as an anti-state statism, fascism as the petty bourgeois fantasy of private property without finance capital, and fascism as the creator of false totalities (the nation, community, fatherland etc). Poetic and perceptive, but not always coherent. Perhaps the book would’ve worked better if it was framed as a series of essays, rather than a contiguous argument.
Indeed, despite the authors point that we need to look beyond the interwar European fascisms to gain a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary reaction, the book is mostly filled with analysing a very familiar roster of fascist regimes: Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany. Moreover, despite the survey of both famous and forgotten 20th century theories of fascism, classical Marxist interpretations are almost missing entirely, which is a curious elision, given they had a lot to say about the politics of reaction in response to organic crisis.
Toscano develops some poignant and evocative phrases and concepts to describe and analyse fascism. There is fascism as an anti-political politicisation, fascism as a phobia for abstractions (namely finance capital), fascism as an asynchronous temporality (archaic myth combined with accelerationism), fascism as a reflexive affirmation of neoliberal authoritarian potentialities, fascism as an anti-state statism, fascism as the petty bourgeois fantasy of private property without finance capital, and fascism as the creator of false totalities (the nation, community, fatherland etc). Poetic and perceptive, but not always coherent. Perhaps the book would’ve worked better if it was framed as a series of essays, rather than a contiguous argument.
Indeed, despite the authors point that we need to look beyond the interwar European fascisms to gain a more comprehensive understanding of contemporary reaction, the book is mostly filled with analysing a very familiar roster of fascist regimes: Mussolini’s Italy and Nazi Germany. Moreover, despite the survey of both famous and forgotten 20th century theories of fascism, classical Marxist interpretations are almost missing entirely, which is a curious elision, given they had a lot to say about the politics of reaction in response to organic crisis.
December 8, 2024
Five stars for chapter 2. I would recommend literally everyone read it and the conclusion. The rest of the book had quotes that made me gasp in recognition and sections that made everything click into place but also 80% of it was academic gobbledygook. I just don’t think you have to write like that to make your point. I got something out of it, but I also think people could give it a miss.
August 5, 2025
"This late fascism, coming after hollow prophecies about the neoliberal neutralisation of the political, is a kind of second-order or reflexive affirmation of neoliberalism’s authoritarian underside. It is sustained by the blurring of the borders between liberal conceptions of freedom and individualism (as market freedom, freedom to own, freedom from interference with individual sovereignty) and what we could term fascist visions of freedom (freedom to dominate, to rule) – both drawn to aggressive imaginaries of competition or ‘fitness’ and a repulsion for solidarity, care, vulnerability."
June 1, 2025
Dit boekje leest als een bijzonder ingewikkeld maar bijzonder interessant essay. Ik moet het nog een keer, of misschien nog wel twee keer lezen om het in zijn volledigheid te kunnen begrijpen en waarderen. Toch een aantal dingen kunnen oppikken over de continuïteit en discontinuïteit van het fascisme van toen en nu. Dit tezamen met de actualiteit van het onderwerp maakt het toch wel een must read.
March 25, 2024
A really thoughtful provocation. Although a lot of it went over my head - I lack the education in Psychoanalysis and Frankfurt School theory and Toscano isn't very patient with the lay reader. However, there are bits throughout that have stayed with me and definitely helped me broaden how I think about Fascism.
July 13, 2024
Excellent analysis of contemporary discourses regarding fascism, with an excellent balance between historically and theoretically grounded approaches and a very convincing focus on how central race and gender remain to any conceptualization of fascist movements.
November 24, 2024
3.5. Dnf tho :)
July 3, 2024
its alright
Read
July 1, 2024I wanted to get a quick update on recent critical thought regarding fascism considering the never-ending rise of the right in the country I live in, throughout the Europe, and the world, and that is what I got. Sort of. Good to see, I guess, that Foucault, Deleuze and Guattari are still actual, though I did hope something new had appeared in the meantime. It was good to see too that transness/queerness is included as one of the foci around which contemporary fascism coheres as I was wondering if Toscano would get to it considering how the book started.
March 15, 2025
"Whoever is not willing to talk about anti-capitalism should also keep quiet about anti-fascism."
An elegant, very generative exploration of fascism's less publicized dimensions, traversing multiple temporalities and theoretical iterations. Toscano sidesteps the trap of historical analogy by unsettling the ahistorical preconceptions embedded into the framing itself. "Classic" European interwar fascisms - your resident resistance historian's favorite bullseye and cue to pen long eulogies to the imperiled freedoms of a supposedly anti-authoritarian neoliberal democratic order - were neither in theory nor practice simply the capture of liberal society by bureaucratic totalitarian regimes that snuffed out, in one unitary blow, all individual freedoms. A common thread running through all varieties of fascism, in fact, is the (illusory) psychic reward inherent to participation in it, a politics of desire that promises freedom in the form of an invitation to avenge "the theft of the enjoyment of theft." Society appears only laden with confirmation of this claim, from the mega SUVs tagged with "don't tread on me" license plates to paeans to mass consumerism in spite of (or perhaps because of) its staggering climate impact.
Such attempts, as desperate as they are fraudulent, to reclaim "lost freedoms" are of course grounded in fantasies of martyrdom and civilizational decay, imagined as the imminent genocide of white people by hordes of racialized, gender-nonconforming migrants. Interestingly, the traditional unit of analysis in leftist accounts of fascism - class - finds itself slightly decentered here, as Toscano emphasizes the cross-class affective magnetism of fascist aesthetics and temporalities, which salvage diverse facets of contemporaneity to present fascism as modernizing yet restorationist. An important intervention, since through its very mutation and continuous self-contradiction, late fascism is a project of broad appeal. It is even increasingly multiracial because of the mass desire for inclusion through exclusion that it attends to. Crucially, whether or not it can or wants to include all of its adherents in the sharing of power derived from planetary plunder is rather irrelevant to its success; what matters is the illusion of warding off apocalypse and reinstating an already receded past. The way forward is to embrace the real thing and not its simulacrum: real anti-capitalism and real anti-statism.
An elegant, very generative exploration of fascism's less publicized dimensions, traversing multiple temporalities and theoretical iterations. Toscano sidesteps the trap of historical analogy by unsettling the ahistorical preconceptions embedded into the framing itself. "Classic" European interwar fascisms - your resident resistance historian's favorite bullseye and cue to pen long eulogies to the imperiled freedoms of a supposedly anti-authoritarian neoliberal democratic order - were neither in theory nor practice simply the capture of liberal society by bureaucratic totalitarian regimes that snuffed out, in one unitary blow, all individual freedoms. A common thread running through all varieties of fascism, in fact, is the (illusory) psychic reward inherent to participation in it, a politics of desire that promises freedom in the form of an invitation to avenge "the theft of the enjoyment of theft." Society appears only laden with confirmation of this claim, from the mega SUVs tagged with "don't tread on me" license plates to paeans to mass consumerism in spite of (or perhaps because of) its staggering climate impact.
Such attempts, as desperate as they are fraudulent, to reclaim "lost freedoms" are of course grounded in fantasies of martyrdom and civilizational decay, imagined as the imminent genocide of white people by hordes of racialized, gender-nonconforming migrants. Interestingly, the traditional unit of analysis in leftist accounts of fascism - class - finds itself slightly decentered here, as Toscano emphasizes the cross-class affective magnetism of fascist aesthetics and temporalities, which salvage diverse facets of contemporaneity to present fascism as modernizing yet restorationist. An important intervention, since through its very mutation and continuous self-contradiction, late fascism is a project of broad appeal. It is even increasingly multiracial because of the mass desire for inclusion through exclusion that it attends to. Crucially, whether or not it can or wants to include all of its adherents in the sharing of power derived from planetary plunder is rather irrelevant to its success; what matters is the illusion of warding off apocalypse and reinstating an already receded past. The way forward is to embrace the real thing and not its simulacrum: real anti-capitalism and real anti-statism.
May 10, 2024
Brings together a lot of ideas in the zeitgeist into a coherent set of connections. It's mostly on point though I am not as committed to Historical Materialism as the sole nexus to with which everything must connect. I'm also a bit frustrated by how it makes some moves to speak to a more globalized situation but ultimately says little about the world beyond the West. How does "Christianity" or "Chattel Slavery" explain the rise or appeal of Modi and the BJP? Why does China not figure in a discussion about Neo-Liberalism (or it's association with belligerent chauvinism?) If this is a trans-historical phenomena with its origins in deep time before capitalism then it must be understood globally. The categories presented here are too particular to the the West to be the right hermeneutic for Fascism (the global movement) but they're pretty good for Fascism (the Gringo movement).
Extra points for realizing that this is all Heidegger's fault.
Extra points for realizing that this is all Heidegger's fault.
February 5, 2025
This book is really important and insightful for our moment, which is why it’s such a shame that it is written and translated in such a horribly abstract, unclear manner. Every paragraph reads like one of those samples from Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language.” The not-un construction appears regularly. I’m an academic so I trudged through it. Most people won’t. And they need to.
I’m not saying it needed to be a popularizing work. But even as academic work, the book is too opaque and jargon-laden. The book often fails on a diction/syntax level. A shame.
I’m not saying it needed to be a popularizing work. But even as academic work, the book is too opaque and jargon-laden. The book often fails on a diction/syntax level. A shame.
August 25, 2025
Le forze dell’autoritarismo e della reazione sguazzano nel nostro mondo in crisi, alzano la voce e fanno incetta di proseliti. I temi forti della destra globale sono gli stessi più o meno ovunque e anche l’obiettivo dei vari leader è comune: restaurare terribili gerarchie politiche, sessuali e razziali nel nome di una visione del mondo manichea, pericolosa e non così lontana dal fascismo di Mussolini e dal nazismo di Hitler. Se il “tardo fascismo” del nostro tempo è un'ideologia della crisi e del declino, Alberto Toscano vuole aiutarci a riconoscere teorie e pratiche del fascismo storico in quello che è il mondo di oggi.
Rifacendosi in particolare alle teorie radicali del pensiero nero e anticoloniale - a me del tutto sconosciute - l’autore spiega perché le semplici analogie del nuovo col vecchio possono essere un limite: il fascismo è infatti un processo mutevole, basato sul capitalismo razziale e coloniale, che precede e sopravvive alla sua cristallizzazione novecentesca; è una minaccia che continua a evolversi nel presente. Il fascismo di oggi è in gran parte svuotato (anche se con importanti eccezioni) del movimento di massa e dell'utopia; è un fascismo privato, che non reagisce alla minaccia di una politica rivoluzionaria ma conserva la fantasia razziale della rinascita nazionale e la diffusione di un discorso pseudo-classista. L'agitazione fascista di oggi mette in scena una parodia del cambiamento sociale (il malessere sociale viene rivolto ad uno o più capri espiatori, quasi in un invito alla caccia del Nemico) che sfrutta il disorientamento dell'individuo oggi come negli anni Trenta. L’estrema destra di oggi mescola antistatalismo selettivo (è con le istituzioni solo quando conviene) ed etno-nazionalismo (ah, i simboli, quanto piacciono!): la loro è una controrivoluzione senza rivoluzione, nel senso che non esiste davvero una minaccia per il capitalismo. Il neofascismo è misogino tanto quanto quello passato e la sua ossessione anti-trans è associata alle teorie sulla fine della famiglia, come l’immigrazione è associata alla teoria della grande sostituzione.
Interessante il forte parallelismo tra fascismo e capitalismo, connessi dal discorso su razze e razzismo. Lo stato neoliberale è, per sua natura, uno stato razziale: le pratiche razziste sono una delle tante infrastrutture su cui il capitalismo si definisce (senza i poveri e gli sfruttati non ci sarebbe capitalismo). Al contempo il populismo autoritario si fonda sull’idea di selezionare una parte della popolazione e definirla “popolo”, lasciando fuori il resto (migranti, poveri, ma anche giovani e donne).
Non proprio un testo divulgativo, né di semplice lettura, ma ha il pregio di affrontare un tema particolarmente importante con una solidissima bibliografia e con un’attenzione alle parole che ormai è rarità. Ci ricorda che per capire il presente bisogna conoscere i fascismi nati prima del fascismo storico (imperialismo, capitalismo) ed essere consapevoli che sono atti fascisti le oppressioni etniche, di genere, di classe e, in generale, tutta la controviolenza preventiva rivolta ad un generico Nemico.
Rifacendosi in particolare alle teorie radicali del pensiero nero e anticoloniale - a me del tutto sconosciute - l’autore spiega perché le semplici analogie del nuovo col vecchio possono essere un limite: il fascismo è infatti un processo mutevole, basato sul capitalismo razziale e coloniale, che precede e sopravvive alla sua cristallizzazione novecentesca; è una minaccia che continua a evolversi nel presente. Il fascismo di oggi è in gran parte svuotato (anche se con importanti eccezioni) del movimento di massa e dell'utopia; è un fascismo privato, che non reagisce alla minaccia di una politica rivoluzionaria ma conserva la fantasia razziale della rinascita nazionale e la diffusione di un discorso pseudo-classista. L'agitazione fascista di oggi mette in scena una parodia del cambiamento sociale (il malessere sociale viene rivolto ad uno o più capri espiatori, quasi in un invito alla caccia del Nemico) che sfrutta il disorientamento dell'individuo oggi come negli anni Trenta. L’estrema destra di oggi mescola antistatalismo selettivo (è con le istituzioni solo quando conviene) ed etno-nazionalismo (ah, i simboli, quanto piacciono!): la loro è una controrivoluzione senza rivoluzione, nel senso che non esiste davvero una minaccia per il capitalismo. Il neofascismo è misogino tanto quanto quello passato e la sua ossessione anti-trans è associata alle teorie sulla fine della famiglia, come l’immigrazione è associata alla teoria della grande sostituzione.
Interessante il forte parallelismo tra fascismo e capitalismo, connessi dal discorso su razze e razzismo. Lo stato neoliberale è, per sua natura, uno stato razziale: le pratiche razziste sono una delle tante infrastrutture su cui il capitalismo si definisce (senza i poveri e gli sfruttati non ci sarebbe capitalismo). Al contempo il populismo autoritario si fonda sull’idea di selezionare una parte della popolazione e definirla “popolo”, lasciando fuori il resto (migranti, poveri, ma anche giovani e donne).
Non proprio un testo divulgativo, né di semplice lettura, ma ha il pregio di affrontare un tema particolarmente importante con una solidissima bibliografia e con un’attenzione alle parole che ormai è rarità. Ci ricorda che per capire il presente bisogna conoscere i fascismi nati prima del fascismo storico (imperialismo, capitalismo) ed essere consapevoli che sono atti fascisti le oppressioni etniche, di genere, di classe e, in generale, tutta la controviolenza preventiva rivolta ad un generico Nemico.
April 3, 2025
Late Fascism is Alberto Toscano's exploration of fascism. He deliberately eschews historical analogy, making it clear that this is not another checklist to determine if a particular regime earns the name. Motivated by the contemporary right wing shift across the globe, but acutely aware that today's "late" fascism is not identical to any past examples, Toscano wants to revisit overlooked and underappreciated theories of fascism. He holds up each of these theoretical frameworks like a lens which reveals a different aspect of fascism.
There are four "interlocking dimensions of the history and experience of fascism" that he focuses on.
1) The strategies and ideologies of fascism were often crafted in the laboratory of colonialism. In the racist justifications for brutality. In the accumulation by dispossession. In the camps and killing fields. He argues that we cannot understand today's fascism without studying the "fascism before fascism" which created the capitalist world.
2) Learning from the black radical tradition, he emphasizes that fascist practices can be meted out against subsets of the population. Even liberal democracies can harbor elements of fascism in a sort of racial dual-state. The prison system and police brutality are key areas of study.
3) Fascism is grounded in a perceived threat of a "civilizational, demographic, or existential" nature. This doesn't have to be socioeconomic (although some fascists mistakenly believe communist revolution is imminent). It could be racial replacement, cultural suicide, etc.
4) Fascism is not understood by its supporters as despotic state power. It creates identities and perceptions that allow a subset of the population to experience a strange freedom as participants in a monopoly of violence. Deputized to carry out acts of terror, they are free in the sense that they can act as petty tyrants.
This book opened my eyes to different antifascist theoretical traditions, be they racial, sexual, etc. Some parts were very challenging, especially the one on the fascist politics of time and Heidegger. Recommended for antifascist readers who already know the basics and want to expand the scope of their investigation.
There are four "interlocking dimensions of the history and experience of fascism" that he focuses on.
1) The strategies and ideologies of fascism were often crafted in the laboratory of colonialism. In the racist justifications for brutality. In the accumulation by dispossession. In the camps and killing fields. He argues that we cannot understand today's fascism without studying the "fascism before fascism" which created the capitalist world.
2) Learning from the black radical tradition, he emphasizes that fascist practices can be meted out against subsets of the population. Even liberal democracies can harbor elements of fascism in a sort of racial dual-state. The prison system and police brutality are key areas of study.
3) Fascism is grounded in a perceived threat of a "civilizational, demographic, or existential" nature. This doesn't have to be socioeconomic (although some fascists mistakenly believe communist revolution is imminent). It could be racial replacement, cultural suicide, etc.
4) Fascism is not understood by its supporters as despotic state power. It creates identities and perceptions that allow a subset of the population to experience a strange freedom as participants in a monopoly of violence. Deputized to carry out acts of terror, they are free in the sense that they can act as petty tyrants.
This book opened my eyes to different antifascist theoretical traditions, be they racial, sexual, etc. Some parts were very challenging, especially the one on the fascist politics of time and Heidegger. Recommended for antifascist readers who already know the basics and want to expand the scope of their investigation.
August 19, 2024
This book is not a coherent theory of (late) fascism and its relation to capitalism. This wasn't the author's intention though: it's more like some metacomments on contemporary debates on fascism in the 21st century. There are two insights I particularly liked: First, fascism shouldn't be historically evaluated with interwar European regimes as the 'benchmark'. Rather, in capitalism there's always a fascistic tendency that interrelates with particular contexts. He makes this point clearly by focusing on the work of black scholars, who gave first hand experiences of minorities experiencing fascistic oppression in American society, revealing how liberal democracy and fascism can co-exist according to position within that society, contrary to liberal views on what fascism is. Focus on the prison system is key here. Second, Toscano righfully stresses that alt right movements today have a nostalgia to the Fordist system first and foremost, thereby clearly having a different historical perception than fascism in the '30s, which was an odd mix of traditional values in a modern vision for the future of their country. Altright today is more conservative, and specifically nostalgic to a system that was designed to prevent the rise of fascism again. I think putting the Fordist system as the economic and political horizon of contemporary fascism is key to analyse its anti-migration policies (keeping "parasites" out of the welfare system) and economic policy (disciplining the welfare system in order to keep it up and running for the white working and middle classes).
Still, despite these valuable insights, chapters are only related to each other in an associative way, and I really regret the lack of engagement with the core questions of what fascism is exactly, and its relation to capitalism.
Still, despite these valuable insights, chapters are only related to each other in an associative way, and I really regret the lack of engagement with the core questions of what fascism is exactly, and its relation to capitalism.
February 7, 2025
A very pertinent exploration of how fascist ideas survive and spread due to the very loose attachment to dogmatism of those who propagate them (loved the "ideas without words" point) The essay on the march on Rome was particularly strong and eerily reminiscent of current events while brilliantly aware of the shortcomings of historical analogies. We must not look at historical accounts of fascism as a means of confirmation of cliches such as "those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it" but exactly as an important awareness point for the strength of fascism, which is its ability to morph and adapt as the spiritual movement it really is, as opposed to a mere political ideology. While each essay analyzed fascism from a different perspective it was overall a fascinating look into the fascist concept of freedom in political and economic movements - German freedom with its roots in ancient Germanic models of community in contrary to the "dry and abstract" Judeo Roman laws. A brilliant polemic with Arendt's "Origins of totalitarianism" on the matter of freedom as defined by fascist thought. A breath of fresh air among the baby brained, reductive takes on fascism as mainly a political ideology with the never ending focus on tyranny of a singular man in country x, bringing to the forefront what's really important to remember today, for everyone who wishes to really get to the root of why fascism persisted, and has been in consistent rise ever since WWII - it emerged as a form of state-led anti-statism (to present one of many brilliant quotes from this collection "capitalism saving capitalism from capitalism, creating the mirage of a capitalism without capitalism') and its temporalities, as with any movement that depends on ideas without words, are its biggest assets.
February 21, 2024
A rather good book that challenges many of the cliches that we think of when analyzing fascism such as creating points of analogy between Italy and Germany of the 1920s and 1930s with the present. Smartly, Toscano combs through anti-fascist Black and anti-colonial writings to explore how fascism differentially applies itself over different populations. Also, he is discovering some of the core assumptions that define fascism across a vast period. He is highly attuned that fascism of the present moment differs from earlier historical conjunctures. Yet, he is also challenging more monolithic notions of fascism as state power by exploring the libidinal ways that fascism insinuates itself into our very beings, which he expertly does exploring issues of gender and sexuality in the seventh chapter.
Sometimes the book can get a bit esoteric, lost in its analysis of obscure texts that most likely weren't needed to make a rather salient point. Chapter 5 slogs into an interminable analysis of Heidegger, which, quite honestly, could have been jettisoned. Nonetheless, the book offers some core understandings of how we must understanding the specific historic present moment of late fascism along with its continuities of "fascism before fascism" that plagues working class communities, poor communities of color, and settler-colonialism that defined the nation state.
Sometimes the book can get a bit esoteric, lost in its analysis of obscure texts that most likely weren't needed to make a rather salient point. Chapter 5 slogs into an interminable analysis of Heidegger, which, quite honestly, could have been jettisoned. Nonetheless, the book offers some core understandings of how we must understanding the specific historic present moment of late fascism along with its continuities of "fascism before fascism" that plagues working class communities, poor communities of color, and settler-colonialism that defined the nation state.
January 21, 2025
a pesar de las credenciales de toscano, late fascism tiene poco y nada de marxista, algo que por otro lado es muy congruente con el estado de la izquierda contemporánea. hijo de su época, arranca con un epígrafe de polanyi, autor al que vuelve varias veces.
toscano afirma que no se propone definir fascismo, sino examinar que rendimiento tienen algunas teorías de distinto alcance que lo tomaron como objeto cuando se las aplica sobre la extrema derecha contemporánea, aunque es bastante escaso lo que tiene para decir sobre el presente.
también dice buscar lecciones para la formación de un anti-fascismo; un proyecto malogrado desde el principio: una reacción contra una reacción, algo a una distancia máxima de una salida positiva del agujero. toscano cita a badiou, pero leyéndolo uno se pregunta que pasó con el acontecimiento y su sujeto fiel.
hay un intento declarado pero ejecutado a medias de integrar teóricos centrados en los aspectos raciales y colonialistas del fascismo. eso, junto al ensayo sobre la relación del fascismo con la temporalidad y la historia son lecturas interesantes, pero que no contribuyen a dar una imagen de un fascismo contemporáneo.
me dio más a revisión bibliográfica que a un ensayo con algo que decir.
toscano afirma que no se propone definir fascismo, sino examinar que rendimiento tienen algunas teorías de distinto alcance que lo tomaron como objeto cuando se las aplica sobre la extrema derecha contemporánea, aunque es bastante escaso lo que tiene para decir sobre el presente.
también dice buscar lecciones para la formación de un anti-fascismo; un proyecto malogrado desde el principio: una reacción contra una reacción, algo a una distancia máxima de una salida positiva del agujero. toscano cita a badiou, pero leyéndolo uno se pregunta que pasó con el acontecimiento y su sujeto fiel.
hay un intento declarado pero ejecutado a medias de integrar teóricos centrados en los aspectos raciales y colonialistas del fascismo. eso, junto al ensayo sobre la relación del fascismo con la temporalidad y la historia son lecturas interesantes, pero que no contribuyen a dar una imagen de un fascismo contemporáneo.
me dio más a revisión bibliográfica que a un ensayo con algo que decir.
December 3, 2025
Want to reread this at some point, as a lot of it went over my head (especially the stuff on Heidegger). The analysis of the temporalities of fascism - time for fascism, time of fascism, time in fascism - was especially brilliant. Toscano wants to move the popular conversation on fascism away from analogies, check lists, and definitional debates to attend to the 'fascisms before fascism' - settler-colonialism, chattel slavery, racial capitalism - and to break away from the conception that liberalism and fascism are somehow entirely opposed, drawing on Black radical and anti-colonial theories of fascism, and incarcerated thinkers in the U.S., who teach us that "political orders widely deemed liberal-democratic can harbor institutions that operate as regimes of domination and terror."
"Whoever is not willing to talk about anti-capitalism should also keep quiet about anti-fascism. The latter, capaciously understood, is not just a matter of resisting the worst, but will always be inseparable from the collective forging of ways of living that can undo the lethal romances of identity, hierarchy, and domination that capitalist crisis throws up with such grim regularity."
"Whoever is not willing to talk about anti-capitalism should also keep quiet about anti-fascism. The latter, capaciously understood, is not just a matter of resisting the worst, but will always be inseparable from the collective forging of ways of living that can undo the lethal romances of identity, hierarchy, and domination that capitalist crisis throws up with such grim regularity."
January 5, 2025
This book could also be rebaptized as incipient fascism. Sadly, it is a timely intervention providing, in the form not of a systematic account but through a series of loosely interconnected chapters acting as various analytical lenses, ample material to understand the emergence of fascisms in out present day. Critical of frameworks that pit liberalism, totalitarianism and fascism against each other, as well as the tendency to discuss fascism as a mere historical phenomenon obeying an idealtype, the author stresses the racial and colonial dimensions and origins of fascism. Sometimes dense and a bit overwrought, this is nonetheless an essential and original and in our current moment highly useful review of the literature on fascism.
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