New Fascisms and the Crises of Empire: Lessons from the Americas

The 1970s witnessed debates about new fascistic forms of capitalist counterrevolution among militant intellectuals across the world. This article briefly maps some of the Latin American debates over the analytical and political pertinence of the category of fascism as applied to the military dictatorships of that time. It explores competing ideas of dependent fascism, fascism as project, and the counterinsurgent state, while homing in on two crucial lessons of the debate: (1) the centrality accorded to fascism as a historically and geographically specific product of imperialist crises, and (2) the notion that the fascization of the state may serve a transitional function in accelerating and consolidating processes of capitalist restructuring.