The Seeds of Fascism

Mary Tracy
Aug 22, 2017 · 8 min read

I wonder what I could possibly say, as the world appears to spiral further out of control. What is left for me to say? For those of us who have been saying for years “this is fascism”, “fascism is right here”, “this is fricking fascism, we are living in it, damn it!” there is little we can say that we haven’t said already. Worst of all, we have to contend with the fact that warning the world that fascism was coming didn’t actually achieve much.

All this time I would frame these… micro bursts of evidence of fascism as issues that affected “me”, because I am *insert oppressed status here*. My friends, who aren’t poor, never seemed to stir much at the sight of this evidence. I would stand in the place of those viciously singled out for their poverty, or their disability, and say “look at what is happening, this is clearly fascism”. But nobody would take notice. Oh, people would “agree”, but… But there are careers to pursue, bills to pay, festivals to attend, holidays to go to, family members and colleagues to impress, etc, etc.

I’m framing this as “me” vs “them”, and it’s not fair. I am just cranky and resentful because I’ve been crying “fascism” for years, only to be ignored by everyone. Now that everyone is coming to accept “omg, fascism” I want to say “I told you so”.


A few days ago the media, no doubt bereft of news due to Parliament recess, decided to commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the banking crisis. It was very brief, of course, a few squibs here and there. It’s over now. The media has forgotten and so have the people.

I have not forgotten. I graduated from University the year the recession started. I remember it well. My adult life, my career prospects, my financial future, all have been blighted by the banking crisis.

Most people’s ideas for the causes behind the present rise of fascism are rooted in racism and social relations.

My ideas are more pedestrian than that. I believe, quite plainly, that fascism is the result of financial inequality. Simple.

At this point a lot of people would claim that those men marching down Charlottesville are not “poor” by any account. Some people say they have college degrees. Some say they earn close to 6 figures a year. All I know is that their understanding of history is patchy, their grammar flawed and their leaps of logic random.

I say their income is meaningless to this debate. Here’s why: over the past few decades, though especially in the last one, the wealth from most of the economy has been concentrated on a teeny tiny elite, a 0.1% of the population. People none of us ever interact with. It’s simple really: there’s less and less money to go around, and people never see those growing wealthier and wealthier. They only see more brown faces, more Muslims, more college educated activists speaking out for the rights of women and minorities. And these alt-right-ers make a misguided leap of logic.

This is the first time in history when the ultra-wealthy are truly outside of the public eye. We see “famous” people, but we classify them as “famous”, not “wealthy”. People used to know the lord who got the wealth they farmed, or the king who got the wealth they mined. The factory owner to dressed in the wealth they produced. And so on.

My worry is that activists keep treating the rise of fascism as a flaw in personal mindset. These are individual people who are… wrong, and who need to understand things “correctly”.

Oh, of course, activists know the history of white supremacy. And still, the only solution being proposed is for individual people to “own their privilege” and to be actively anti-racism.

It’s not that these solutions are “wrong”, it’s that they are… too small.

I’ve been saying for years that without a strong focus on the economy, and wealth disparity, we are going to see things get worse and worse. And for the longest time, I subconsciously believed that they would only get worse for me. See, I am on the “poor” end of the spectrum, as poor as it’s possible to be without actually being homeless. I thought that rising inequality meant I would be worse off, and only I. I knew things were getting worse for “society”, in an abstract way; I knew that wealth inequality was tearing at the social fabric more and more. I just never imagined the fabric would actually “split”. My friends appeared to be doing fine, and the stories of disabled people suffering deprivation not seen since Victorian times were… well, they were removed. I sit alone in my poverty, while my friends, though not wealthy, muddle along with nicer jobs and fuller wallets. It was a strangely comforting idea: yes, things are bad, but just for me. Everyone else is doing fine.

I couldn’t have imagined the rise of Fascism, even though I kept saying, to nobody who would care, “this is fascism”. When disabled people are treated with such contempt, when the poor and vulnerable are consistently seen as “less worthy than”, this is the very seed of fascism.

Fascism is not, as most people think, the active hating of Jews. It’s the active hatred of those deemed “less than”. The Nazis killed a lot of people. Roma, disabled people, homosexuals, trade unionists.

In a system where wealth is equated to worth, and those less wealthy are considered “less than”, you have the brewing conditions for the rise of Fascism. When Ian Duncan Smith tweets about the UK receiving “low value” people, this is the seed of fascism.


I wonder if I have this… “sacrificing” tendency in me. I want to take all my suffering and make it about “me”, so as to spare other people from it. I don’t want anyone else to go through the desperate, hopeless feeling of powerlessness that comes from having gone to University, emerged with a degree, and failed utterly to get a job doing anything that might require intellect or knowledge.

I don’t want this reality that affects me to affect anyone else. So I make it about “me”. I see that it only affects me, and so I suffer, in silence. It must be because I am “flawed”.

To make this a symptom of the modern world would mean, intellectually, sending the young college kids I worked with down the same path of despair I walk. They have a plan: go to University, then get a good job. I don’t want to be the person telling them that if it didn’t work for me, it might mean it won’t work for them. No, I rather make it about me. Yes, I failed at getting a “good job” or even a “decent one”, but that doesn’t mean this will happen to anyone else.

And yes, I am aware of the state of the economy. I read a lot about the economy. But still. I go to work at this cafe and I see the young bright things working at the company and I think “see? they are doing just fine, it’s me who’s inherently flawed”.

I never see people like me, the highly educated who have not amounted to much. They must exist, though. And I’m determined to find them.


Thinking of ourselves as different to others, intrinsically different. That is also the seed of fascism.

There isn’t one among us who has not tried to get self-dignity by taking it from someone else. We all do this, we all put others down to lift ourselves up, in our eyes at least. Dignity, honour, self-respect, these are core values promised by Fascism; the lie is that they can be “taken” from others. When I say that we all do this I truly mean we *ALL* do this. Activists look down upon those who are not “woke”. Feminists look down upon feminine women. I look down upon people who waste their lives on meaningless pursuits, rather than educate themselves or work to reach their goals. This… effort to reposition ourselves “above” another just so we can feel good about ourselves, that too is the seed of Fascism.


I was on the phone with my friend yesterday, sobbing because my life is going nowhere and I am a Complete Failure(tm). Consider this: I am well acquainted with how inequality works, how wealth is created, how the system is designed to “keep out” those who are likely to challenge it (ie: me). In other words, I have a wider socio-political context for what is going on. And yet, there I was, inconsolable, because I do not have a safe job with a contract and decent pay, because no publication will pick up my work, because nobody seems to care that I am intelligent and hard-working. There I was. I know why this happens, I know that the “system” is to blame, and yet, I suffer this personal tragedy as if it were a direct result of my basic brokenness.

Just imagine if I didn’t know, if I was experiencing all this pain, despair, confusion, and I had no context to make sense out of it. What would I do? Who would I blame? As it is I find myself blaming middle class people who “don’t get it”, even though, rationally, I can see it’s not fair, or accurate. Who would I blame if I didn’t know? If all the certainties about life I grew up with were crumbling around me, much as they are, but I didn’t understand Capitalism, and I had never heard of Charles Eisenstein… Who would I blame? Why isn’t my life working out? Where is everybody? Why do we no longer care about our neighbours?

Perhaps I would blame the people I am taught to blame, the immigrants, the refugees, the blacks… The “different”. Perhaps I too would fall into the trap of thinking someone stole my dignity. Who was it??? Was it you, pretty woman my age on the other side of the cafe counter, who has clearly never had to lift an arm to make a living, hands covered in jewelry, hairdo from the hairdresser, and a badge that reads “Baby on Board” pinned to a fancy coat, on fancy clothes that one could only need when working at an office not moving much at all? Was it you who stole my opportunity, my dignity, my meaningful work and my goddamn salary??? Give it back!!!

There you have it, the seed of fascism.

Perhaps there’s a way to stew on your own failure, honourably. Perhaps there is a way to be broken, but to collapse with dignity.

Perhaps it’s that strength of spirit that stops us from falling into Fascism.

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Mary Tracy

Written by

Writer, meaning seeker, meaning maker. Advocate of the poor, lost, heartbroken. Revolutionary spirit. Writes at turnwiddershins.co.uk. #spirituality #politics

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