Marco Antonioli (editor of Semi sotto la neve) and Elia Rosati (Unimi) discuss the book with the author. Vittorio Sergi (translator) will be present as an interpreter.
Fascio-Capitalism (Edizioni Malamente, 2024) #
What if fascism did not disappear at the end of World War II, nor could it be confined to ultra-nationalist politicians, but instead became something more pervasive that envelops our societies in the form of cultural expressions and psychological states? This is the disturbing thesis developed in a libertarian Marxist and Situationist key by Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen, who argues that late capitalism has produced empty and interchangeable subjectivities. In the fragmentation of consumer society, these represent the breeding ground for a new type of fascism, pervasive and banal. The overt and declared fascism of new right-wing parties thrives on the pervasive fascism found in social media and everyday life. The fear of being left behind and becoming losers fuels resentment against foreigners and all forms of otherness, which are perceived as a threat to the besieged national community. The new fascism nurtured by late capitalism will not completely abolish liberal democracies but will settle for dominating society by attacking its hollow shell. In Italy, this is exemplified by the Meloni government.
Mikkel Bolt Rasmussen is a professor of Political Aesthetics at the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen. In Italian, Agenzia X has published his Trump’s Counter-Revolution: Fascism and Democracy (2019) and After the Great Refusal. Contemporary Art on the Brink of Catastrophe (2021).