Every time the middle classes are compressed, the social bases of fascism emerge. Then, politicians and businessmen who have not been more successful in being accepted by the traditional elites rise up, as new leaders of the radical right.
Simmel, who formulates German social psychology, uses the concept of “conformity” to describe the relationship between the leader and those who are led, where the led want to be led in order to relinquish responsibility for their social action. That sometimes the master is “the slave of his slaves”.
It was like that in Germany with Hitler. The middle classes were crushed by the hyperinflation of 1922 and its economic consequences. Hitler, rejected by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in his desire for an artistic life, becomes the leader of the absurdity of Nazism in Germany.
Albert Speer, one of the formulators of Nazi ideology, wrote at their trial at Nuremberg that “Hitler and Goebbels were, in fact, shaped by the crowd itself. Certainly, the masses roared to the rhythm of the baton of Hitler and Goebbels; Personal discontent caused by the collapse of the economy was replaced by a frenzy that demanded casualties. By attacking their opponents and defaming Jews, they gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions.
In Brazil, the middle classes were reduced to nothing during the decade 2010-2020. Bolsonaro, after being arrested for planning to blow up the water supply system of the city of Rio de Janeiro in 1986, as a manifesto against the low salaries of the military, was elected councilor of Rio de Janeiro, then federal deputy, suffering the lack of prestige of the “lower clergy” of the National Congress and being elected president with the bankrupt mass of the Brazilian middle classes.
The same thing is happening in the United States. The middle classes are being put to the test with the decline in their purchasing power. Trump, a successful businessman, but not very well accepted by the New York elite, came to power by taking measures against the principles of the nation, those of freedom and the market, with political authoritarianism.
Anger grows. It is the victory of hatred against reason, in the (dis)soul of fascism.
And so humanity walks.
Ricardo Guédés holds a doctorate. Doctor of Political Science from the University of Chicago and author of the book “Economy, War and Pandemic: The Age of Despair”
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