Prologue to the English Translation

The text below was written for the third issue of Nuevo Ciclo, a magazine of socialist theory published in the Spanish state by the Socialist Movement. The goal was to contribute to the debate on the desirability (or even the possibility) of an "antifascist economic policy" as advocated by Isabella Weber and colleagues in the context of the rise of the far-right in Europe and the world. The text was written in Spanish and has been translated into English for this publication. The original Spanish version can be found at the Marx XXI website.

Given the scope, it is worth noting some particularities of the Spanish context. The far-right in Spain, represented by the party Vox (and to a lesser degree Aliança Catalana in Catalonia), has been gaining ground in recent years and has joined governments as junior partners of the national-conservative People's Party (PP) in some regions. After a dip in support in the 2023 elections, Vox has stood at a stable 15-20% of the vote for the past 2 years. The party's supporters have been particularly vocal in their nostalgia for the Franco dictatorship, which ruled Spain from 1939 to 1975. The first part of this text analyzes the German and Italian interwar experiences in contrast to the Spanish autarky unleashed by Franco's regime, which was pursued for around 20 years until the 1959 Stabilization Plan. Contrary to the advocates of the far-right, the Spanish case shows that Francoist economic policies were not only disastrous for the Spanish economy, but also for the regime itself, which had to seek support from the IMF in order to survive.

It is worth noting that Vox is a somewhat peculiar case in the European far-right, as it has two distinguishable factions: an ordoliberal wing that advocates for free-market policies (chief amongst them tax cuts, deregulation, privatization and a strong opposition to pensions and other benefits), and a more traditionalist wing that advocates for an interventionist economic policy (including strong support for the agricultural sector and a generous welfare state for "native" Spaniards). The policies of the two factions are, of course, not mutually exclusive, but discussing the vicissitudes of these two factions over the last few years is beyond the scope of this text. Our point is that both policy portfolios are equally disastrous for workers in Spain, as they both lead to a further concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the capitalist class, while leaving workers with less and less bargaining power and a lower standard of living.

The second part of the text deals with "antifascist economic policy" itself. The main argument of this section is that Weber's policies reframes longstanding demands of socialist organizations in a way that is more palatable to the general public, but ultimately fails to provide a concrete and actionable program for combating the far-right. Among the problems identified are that:

• This position relies on a very narrow definition of "antifascism" that excludes any form of class struggle or revolutionary politics. As such, it is limited to advocating for policies that can be implemented within the framework of capitalism.
• The policies are constrained by the logic of capitalism and the need to maintain the profitability of capital, which limits their potential for transformative change. Only a revolutionary program that seeks to overthrow capitalism can actually advance many of the policies outlined.

As a result, the "antifascist economic policy" advocated by Weber and colleagues seeks to mitigate the worst excesses of capitalism, rather than a revolutionary program that seeks to overthrow capitalism altogether. It is no better than a Keynesian program with additional price controls; it does not seek to fundamentally transform the economic system. Alas, this will lead to frustration among workers, with limited options for improving their living conditions.

In the context of Spain, the left-wing coalition Sumar had advocated in its 2023 electoral manifesto for a 4-day workweek, rent control, and the building of over 2 million homes, among other changes that could now be reframed as "antifascist economic policies". Yolanda Díaz (all-but-in-name leader of Sumar and Minister of Labor for the past 6 years) also aimed to undo the labor reforms of the previous PP government in 2022, which had been a major source of discontent for workers. Standing at 26 deputies in the Spanish parliament (after obtaining 12% of the vote in the 2023 elections) and holding 5 ministries in the current government, Sumar has utterly failed to deliver on any of these promises and has only generated disillusionment among its (former) voters. Like Podemos before it, its main role in government has been to back up PSOE's policies and to act as a scapegoat for the government's failures. The obsession of both Podemos and Sumar with staying in government despite their failure to deliver on their promises has been a major factor in their decline; as the quote says, “if you dance with the devil…” Yet it is no surprise that Sumar now stands at 6% in the polls and will be superseded by a new coalition of left-wing parties for the 2027 elections, in the now fourth installment of a Groundhog Day franchise (first Izquierda Unida in 1986 as a federation of the Communist Party of Spain and parties against NATO accession, then Unidas Podemos in 2016 as a coalition of Podemos and Izquierda Unida, and later Sumar in 2023 as a union of Sumar itself, Podemos, Izquierda Unida and smaller regional parties).

Nonetheless, it is important to note that Weber's argument of using an "antifascist economic policy" as a way to combat the appeal of the far-right is not necessarily incompatible with a revolutionary program. It can be argued that a well-outlined program beyond mere "affordability agendas" can be a useful tool for building support for a revolutionary program, as it can help to demonstrate the potential benefits of such a program to the general public. However, it is important to recognize that the policies advocated by Weber and colleagues are not sufficient on their own to combat the far-right, and that a revolutionary program is necessary to achieve meaningful change.

Fortunately or unfortunately, right after the text was sent to the printer, Weber announced the publication of her new book Anti-Fascist Economics, expected October 2026. Given the timing, we were not able to incorporate any insights from the book into this text, but we look forward to reading it and engaging with its arguments in the future. The renewed interest in the idea of economic policies from the left (i.e. those that seek to combat wealth inequality, environmental collapse) has also led to the publication of Mariana Mazzucato's The Common Good Economy and Aaron Benanav's Beyond Capitalism. We believe that these books will provide valuable insights into the potential for economic policies to combat the far-right and to advance a more just and equitable society; and that socialists should engage with their arguments in order to develop a more comprehensive and effective program for advancing our goals.

Introduction

History never repeats itself, but it often rhymes. Capitalist governments have intensified their offensive against the working class: broken supply chains, rising cost of living, social cutbacks, and higher military spending all make up a scenario of progressive deterioration of the conditions of the working class. If any political movement has been able to capitalize on the general frustration at this deterioration, that one has been the radical right.

This text argues that the loss of economic power among the middle classes –and, to a lesser extent, the working class– is the driving force behind the rise of reactionary politics in the West; this loss of economic power is the result of inflation, unemployment, and austerity. In historical perspective, interwar Fascism shows two sides of the same coin: austerity politics were the cause of the rise of the right in Germany, whereas in Italy they were the consequence of the rise of the right, while Francoist autarky shows how far-right governments brazenly use economic policies for class interests. Thus, the first aim of this text is to state the economic bases of Fascism in the last century. The second aim is to apply these lessons to the present: even though the current radical right is not the same as classical Fascism, it replicates the pattern of capitalizing on the general discontent by liberal austerity, blending it with economic nationalism and fiscal discipline. Against the partial proposals of an “anti-fascist economic policy”, we propose salvaging their useful contributions to elaborate, from a Marxist perspective, a programmatic structure useful as an alternative to the radical right's populism. Thus, we will structure this text around the following line of reasoning:

1. Austerity is both cause and consequence of the rise in popularity of the radical right. When it is out of office, it engages in demagoguery about improving living conditions, but when it rises to power, it relaunches the cycles of accumulation.
2. Against right-wing populism, liberal and progressive governments can only offer half-measures subjected to the structural limitations of capitalism; their failure nurtures the electorate's frustration.
3. The minimum-maximum program must be raised as a strategic alternative to both blocs: on the one hand, articulating economic proposals which capitalize on frustration, and which make socialism into an attractive political option against Fascist populism; on the other, by politicizing the distributive conflict, against the governmentist left's smoke and mirrors.

Crisis and fascistization

Germany and Italy

Neither austerity nor authoritarianism are isolated phenomena; rather, they are interconnected processes that respond to economic crises and social tensions through fiscal discipline and working-class repression. In Germany, Nazism did not precede austerity, but rather emerged from it as its political product.^[1]

The Weimar Republic's crisis was an accumulative one: the hyperinflation of 1923 –which destroyed the savings of the middle classes– was followed by a five-year period marked by an obsession with monetary stability, and, finally, by the deflationary turn that followed the crash of 1929. The policies of conservative chancellor Heinrich Brüning –public spending cuts, income tax increases, and wage contractions– aimed to restore the confidence of foreign creditors and preserve the value of the German mark. Between 1928 and 1932, unemployment quadrupled, and the state gave up on its ability to protect wages and jobs. Applied through emergency decrees which circumvented parliament, austerity not only failed at reviving the economy, but also undermined the regime's legitimacy. In this vacuum, the NSDAP was able to present itself as an "anti-establishment" alternative, capable of channeling the resentment of the ruined middle classes, as well as that of sections of the working class left unprotected against a state which was seen as powerless and technocratic.^[2]

In Italy, the order of the factors was the opposite: Fascism came first, and austerity was one of its chief instruments.^[3] From 1922 onwards, Mussolini's regime rolled out an economic policy consistent with an openly class-based view of economics, influenced by Vilfredo Pareto and the Italian elitist tradition. The social conflict of the Biennio Rosso was recast as proof of the inability of the working class to sustain accumulation, legitimizing a statist intervention focused on protecting neither employment nor demand, but rather on transferring income toward capital. Austerity –social spending cuts, massive layoffs in the public sector, regressive taxation, and wage suppression– was not a circumstantial response to a specific crisis, but rather a structural strategy of economic restructuring: if the working class is unable to save up and invest –activities that are fundamental macroeconomic processes–, income must be taken from workers and transferred to capitalists, who do possess a greater investment capacity, in order to stimulate economic growth.

Unlike Weimar, where these policies ended up destabilizing a liberal regime, they were implemented in Italy by an authoritarian state which had already dismantled the mechanisms of political pluralism. These measures got the explicit support of national and international economic institutions, among which the British and American stood out by facilitating the incorporation of Italy into the gold standard in 1927, and by channelling investment while ignoring Fascist violence.^[4]

In spite of these political differences, both cases share a common structural logic: austerity operated as an authoritarian solution to the contradictions of a capitalism in crisis. Fiscal adjustment and monetary discipline implied a deliberately asymmetric distribution of the costs of the crisis, protecting capital while the losses were socialized among the workers. The centralization of power was key in both processes. In Weimar, Brüning's emergency decrees normalized the emergency government and reduced the leeway of the Länder, two tendencies the Nazis went on to maintain; in Italy, the replacement of local governments by the Fascist podestà eliminated any local counterweight. In both contexts, austerity was not just an economic policy, but also a political mechanism that criminalized social conflict and posed coercion as a requirement for economic rationality. Finally, the relationship between austerity and Fascism was extended abroad through economic nationalism and imperialism. In Germany, the inability of austerity to sustain employment, as well as internal demand, pushed the Nazi regime toward autarky, rearmament, and territorial expansion as a release from the growth restrictions. In Italy, the lack of raw materials together with the weakness of its production structure made a purely exporting model unfeasible, motivating colonial projects in Libya and Somalia. In both cases, imperialism was not an ideological deviation, but rather a logical extension of policies first applied internally through austerity. Foreign expansion promised to level out population surpluses, secure resources, and sustain accumulation, without reverting to wage suppression or dismantling the social state. Thus, austerity and authoritarianism prove to be tightly intertwined as coherent political replies –albeit deeply destructive– to economic crises that are managed at the expense of the working class.

The failure of autarky in Spain

The most fully developed example of a Fascist economic policy can be found in the first two decades of Francoism, from 1939 to the Stabilization Plan of 1959, when the regime openly acted as a class government focused on relaunching capitalist accumulation and enriching the elites aligned with the dictator.^[4] If anything, the most surprising part of the process was the sheer ineptitude of the Francoist clique regarding economic issues: unlike Fascist Italy or Nazi Germany, where economic policy was delegated to technocratic experts, in post-war Spain, the key ministries remained in the hands of military personnel and engineers (among which Luis Alarcón, Minister of Industry, stood out), and the National Economy Council itself, a consultative body composed of 20 members, but which had only four economists.

The goal of the Ministers up to 1945 was export-oriented growth. The brilliant idea promoted by Alarcón was to import raw materials (such as steel or rubber) at laughable prices, so as to replace imports later in a second phase. This raised a series of questions Francoism was unable to answer: How was import substitution going to take place, when the Iberian Peninsula has always been relatively poor in resources? Where were those cheap imports going to come from in the midst of a world war, with Great Britain in particular under a trade blockade? With what industrial base could automobiles be manufactured on a large scale, given the Spanish manufacturing industry's backwardness? What would be the influence of the change in industrial –and, when the time came, monetary and social– policy on inflation, living costs, and wages?

All these economic measures ended up collapsing under their own weight. The government, partially isolated once Mussolini and Hitler fell, applied a regressive and pro-cyclical fiscal policy, which was unable to rebuild the capital destroyed by the war, and embarked prematurely on the import-substitution industrialization without any solid base, which forced it to keep importing expensive oil and capital goods, while directing uncompetitive manufactured goods - what kind of European would want a Seat 1400, when he could buy a Renault 4 or a Citröen 2CV for the same price?– towards domestic consumption stagnating due to low wages and little mechanization. This was coupled with an equally erratic monetary policy: despite a very high inflation –between 8 and 10% per year–,^[5] the interest rates remained artificially low in order to support industry and reduce debt, all while the obsession with not devaluing the peseta –which was intended to facilitate the export of Spanish products– and the use of multiple exchange rates –low rates for key imports, and much higher rates for all other transactions– kept the economy artificially closed, structurally damaging the productive structure.^[6]

Alarcón was also the architect of the Comisiones Reguladoras de la Producción (Production Regulation Commissions), regulated by the Labor Fuero. Who formed these Commissions? The representatives of industrial capital, of course. The industrial policy of Spanish dirigisme, much like all other past and future dirigiste experiences, didn't look out for the interests of the working class, but rather for the interests of the capitalists. One notable fact of these experiences of capitalist dirigisme is that one-third of the Instituto Nacional de Industria (National Institute of Industry), destined toward reindustrializing the country, were direct transfers to the Empresa Nacional Calvo Sotelo, which aimed to convert –with little success– the abundant supply of oil shale in Spain into fuel. Of course, Calvo Sotelo was led by members of the Francoist clique; unlike what today's supporters of autarky seem to believe, Francoist industrial policy served the capitalist elites, to whom tremendous funds were transferred.

How did this affect the Spanish working class? The high inflation eroded workers' wages, and made the middle classes' saving efforts impossible. Estimates give us a highly diverse picture: it took over a decade to bring wages back to 1936 levels, with a timid growth in the 50s, weighed down by macroeconomic imbalances. Autarky met an abrupt end in July 1959, when the government inched closer and closer to technical bankruptcy, due to currency shortages. The opusinos [taking name from the Opus Dei, a Catholic organization that played a key role in the Francoist regime], a small enlightened elite led by Ministers Ullastres and Navarro Rubio (likely the first two economic experts to take office in two decades of Francoism), faced by the inability to continue importing oil without taking out loans from the International Monetary Fund, imposed a Stabilization Plan. Facing the dilemma between falling back to subsistence and opening the economy, Franco opted for liberalization and exchange rate unification, which, after an early shock, allowed for the integration of Spain into global capitalism, entry of foreign capital, and the abandonment of the middle-income trap, thus finally ending the autarchic period. Even so, wages failed to follow broader European upward trends until well into the 60s, converging –in terms of trends, not absolute figures– during the Transition, though only in certain regions.^[7] Where are we today?

Authoritarianism and Austerity

These historical cases show us three different varieties of the economic bases of fascistization in Europe, varieties that share economic repression of the working class, the renewal of capitalist accumulation cycles, and austerity as a means of disciplining capitalists and workers. Although today's governments tend toward global integration, the general turn toward economic nationalism is reminiscent of the interwar period in that it combines economic stagnation, a crisis of legitimacy among the elites, and a search for national solutions to structural problems.^[8] The reappearance of economic adjustment policies, along with the proletarianization of the middle classes, provides fertile soil for authoritarian, exclusionary discourses; for instance, 65% of Reform UK voters deem their main concern to be the cost of living.^[9] Throughout the whole of Europe, economic insecurity results in declining voter participation, as well as in a need for protection, which the right wing knows how to exploit.^[10] Empirical evidence shows that, during the debt crisis, a 1% public spending cut increased the far-right's vote share by 3% for the next five years.^[11]

For context, the 4.7% of GDP fiscal adjustment in the Spanish state would have meant a 15% increase of Vox's vote share. The key difference with the past century is that, nowadays, these rightward tendencies operate within denser supranational frameworks, which limits (but doesn't eliminate) the possibility of a full fascistization.

In Germany –once again–, the economic policy of Scholz (SPD-FDP-Greens, 2021-2025) and Merz (CDU-SPD, since 2025) shares common patterns with the last Weimar governments. First of all, Scholz was unable to increase the debt brake margin (Schuldenbremse), reducing the federal government's borrowing ability, as well as public investment in clean energy technologies, which would have been an important fiscal stimulus that aimed to decouple from the Russian gas supply. At the same time, the liberals in the FDP insisted on cutting back social programs from 2024 onwards in order to limit expenditure. Ultimately, even though the government, as a whole, committed to limit budget growth for social ministries, financial disputes led to the government's 2025 implosion. For his part, Merz has managed to make an exception for the Schuldenbremse regarding spending in defense and security-oriented infrastructure, all while, in order to maintain a balanced budget, there will be cuts in public sector employment (of nearly 10% for the following 4 years) and social policies, especially unemployment benefit restrictions. The fact that these austerity measures have coincided with the rise of the far-right AfD in Germany is unlikely to be a coincidence.

A similar process has taken place in France, where the budget cuts carried out by Hollande and Macron have sparked frustration that the National Front has capitalized on, alongside the economic slowdown, solidifying its support among voters who no longer view the French "social anesthesia state" as a safety net.^[12] Even though LePenism has funneled discontent toward identitarian nationalism, more than toward demanding economic rights, should the next resident of the Élysée Palace be Bardella (heir of Le Pen and potential 2027 presidential candidate, courted on a daily basis by French employers), he will come face to face with the macroeconomic imbalance caused by five decades of stagnation.

The measures implemented by Meloni, in power since 2022 and soon to be the longest-serving post-war Italian government, have brought with them an out-and-out attack on the Italian working class. Fiscal discipline has reduced budgetary expenditure from 7.2 to 3.4% of the GDP by privatizing assets equivalent to 1% of the GDP and cutting social benefits included in the Reddito di Cittadinanza, as well as restricting access to immigrants, the primary beneficiaries, by requiring 10 years of residence. The Decreto Lavoro 48/2023 has reformed contract law by allowing long-term (over 12 months) temporary contracts, a measure that has been met with opposition from the main trade unions. Furthermore, despite a decrease in unemployment, from 8% to 6%, such a decrease has been attained through precarious part-time jobs, with an annual GDP growth of 0.5% (a low figure that relies on European funds), and real wages stagnating despite fiscal stimulus measures.

However, it is Trump's second government that is currently serving as a testing ground for far-right economic policies. The expansion of tax cuts brought by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which will result in a decrease in state revenue during the next 10 years, has been compensated with 2026's "skinny budget", which, in turn, reduces spending in social policies, health research, and environmental programs. What may look like a minimum state approach is thwarted with an increase of more than 15% in domestic security and national defense spending, consolidating the pattern of selective austerity: welfare state contraction, combined with a state strong in its coercive and geopolitical functions.^[13] This design isn't oriented toward fiscal consolidation, strictly speaking (federal deficits continue to rise), but rather toward an ideological recomposition of public spending, one in which tax reductions for high-income earners and companies are financed by cuts to public services and the reallocation of resources toward security and defense to protect national economic interests. In addition to these austerity policies, there are populist measures such as limiting large funds' ownership of real estate assets (without specifying how) or erratic proposals regarding housing costs, with Trump even going so far as to claim he wants to make it more affordable, but also aiming to increase prices so that those already owning property do not see their wealth eroded.

An anti-fascist economic policy?

Isabella Weber, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, likely agrees with most of the analysis we have laid out so far.^[14] Weber's main concern is the reappropriation of economic populism by the far-right against the status quo. The far-right hopes that the austerity policies of liberal and social democratic governments will result in a discontent similar to the one that led to the electoral rise of the Nazis, but ultimately defends a similar economic project to that of Italian Fascism, which redistributes economic benefit from workers to businesses. Even so, the radical right –particularly in France and Germany, and to some extent in the Trumpist vote in 2016– has been able to infiltrate working-class districts using a discourse that appeals demagogically to the working class by fusing nativism and populism.

Similarly, Vox launching a political strategy in the deprived Southern Madrid is a natural step in its overarching political strategy.^[15]

At the core of anti-fascist economic policy, there are two proposals: price stabilization as a shock measure against inflation, and labor policies aiming to increase wages.^[16] On top of these, some may add the defense of public services or the fiscal prosecution of large fortunes. These ideas are not new, nor much less heterodox; the initial objective of Biden's economic policy –infrastructure investment and social spending funded with an increase of taxes on high incomes– was to provide a fiscal stimulus to U.S. demand which, in turn, could combat the economic populism of the GOP.^[17] However, the inability of Bidenism to contain the increase in the cost of living, along with the Trumpist anti-immigration rhetoric, ended up costing him the 2024 presidential election, a tendency which we will most likely end up seeing in the rest of Western countries.

Both measures, as proposed by Weber, are cross-class in form and substance: the reforms would aim to improve the situation of both workers (whose wages keep stagnating while the cost of living continues to skyrocket), and businesses (which, according to Weber, also find themselves suffocated by supply chain problems and would benefit from an increase in consumption resulting from higher wages), and would need the support of broad sectors of the population to reach parliaments. As heir of a long line of heterodox economists, Weber doesn't see the economy as a zero-sum game consisting of exploiters and exploited, but rather as a system which, when well-planned and giving each part a "fair" slice of the pie, can lead to common benefit. In the current context of generalized stagnation and limitations on increasing productivity, even a moderate redistribution faces structural limits: capital is forced to pressure down on wages and intensify international competition, dynamics which constitute, respectively, the two sides of economic nationalism: the escalation of the tension between capital and labor inwards, and open competition between capitals outwards.^[18]

Let's imagine, as a counterfactual, an anti-fascist economic policy of a Keynesian nature able to curb the electoral rise of Nazism. Debates regarding the viability of a Keynesian intervention after 1929 tend to ignore that Germany (1) was subject to the gold standard, limiting its monetary policy; (2) was dragging so much debt that a prolonged intervention would be unsustainable, and (3) depended on the reluctance of the United States to exercise its hegemonic role. Is it then possible to think that a government could contain Fascism as a mass political movement through price controls and wage improvements without breaking with capitalism? The three restraints that the Weimar Republic was subjected to resonate today: dependence on global systems, such as the WTO, unsustainable debt, and a hegemon that shies away from its role as the leading actor in the global economic order. The Keynesian counterexamples tend to fall into two categories: either a break with the world economy and a turn toward austerity, as in the Latin American CEPAL (or, as a less flattering example, the failure of early Francoism); or a dirigiste industrial policy compatible with global insertion, as in post-war France. In both cases, the state mediates between capitalists and workers to protect the national community.

Weber, like many progressive economists, understands austerity as a technical error with catastrophic consequences, an error coming from the mistake in technocratic calculations. There are none so blind as those who will not see: austerity is a conscious political decision of a declining capitalist regime. Trying to stop this tendency without trying to overcome the capitalist order is a valiant but ultimately futile effort. Another mistake would be misunderstanding the role of the capitalist state, believing it to be a neutral tool without a marked class character. The anti-fascist commitment of Weber and co. is commendable, and we could even celebrate the creation of a widespread consensus against austerity and attacks against the welfare of the working class; but, as socialists, we can't stop the incessant criticism against a political program that errs in a fundamental way. Now, can this economic agenda win elections? It seems so. Zohran Mamdani, candidate of the Democratic Socialists of America for mayor of New York, has gone from being an unknown small-time politician at the beginning of 2024 to surprising everyone in the Democratic primaries by garnering 57% support, and ultimately winning the November 2025 elections. His initial electoral program was based on tackling the rising cost of living: stabilization of housing prices, public supermarkets, free daycare, free buses, and a $30-per-hour increase in minimum wage by 2030. To carry out these measures, taxes on ultra-rich New Yorkers would be increased, such as the pied-à-terre tax. To these, new measures were added later on, such as the construction of 200,000 protected housing units before 2035, and the rezoning of wealthy districts to increase construction density. In order to pay for these constructions, bonds worth $70 billion, a value equivalent to the net debt issuance of the Spanish state every year –barely €55 billion– would be issued.^[19] Ambitious policies, to say the least.

Mamdani's tenure as mayor of New York, a city with over twice the population of Madrid (8.5 million compared to 3.5 million) and 15 times its monthly budget ($100 billion versus $6.5 billion), will be a double experiment for anti-fascist economic policies. The first, an empirical one, will consist in studying the effects of the measures on different indicators of quality of life. Will price controls make housing more affordable? Will public supermarkets stabilize the prices of essential goods and improve access to nutritious food? Will free daycare (to which $1 billion will be allocated during the first four years) increase the city's fertility, as well as women's participation in the job market? The second experiment, which we find much more interesting, will be to see the resistance the Mamdani cabinet will meet when enacting these measures: our hypothesis is that, without popular support nor an effective control over the legislative power, a weak executive won't be able to execute these measures in a satisfactory way.

Conclusion

To programmatically address this question we cannot fall into the trap of chasing opinion polls, nor can we simply take up slogans from the popular movement without further consideration. A proper Marxist program would clarify the tasks of the proletarian revolution... - Donald Parkinson^[20]

What can we say about anti-fascist economic policy, then? Some of the measures proposed by Weber and Mamdani are historical demands of socialist movements. They are also impossible to carry out under capitalist governments, which leads to implementing watered-down versions like the Spanish 2022 labor reform, postponing them like the 4-day working week, or directly forgetting about them as with almost the entirety of Sumar's electoral program, including rent control or the creation of 2 million social housing units. The illusion of voters who trusted in a few reforms turns into frustration, the boundary between strictly socialist demands and liberal-progressive policies blurs, and meanwhile the disappointment with broken promises feeds a reactionary surge. If a minimum-maximum program is possible in the near future, it is not as a set of policies that can be implemented under capitalist governments, but rather as the program of a force politically independent from the bourgeoisie, oriented toward disputing power and not simply administering it. In that sense, the minimum section cannot be reduced to an inventory of economic reforms, but must be articulated as a political-economic program of radical democratization, whose objective is to raise the social, organizational, and political power of the working class without closing down class conflict. These must also be a series of concrete measures that make socialism an appealing alternative able to oppose the reactionary demagoguery and the smoke and mirrors of governmentist left parties. Such measures must not be dictated by opinion polls, but must rather be oriented toward the socialist strategy: the ultimate goal of a minimum program is to serve as the tool for the development of a revolutionary party that can end Fascism and capitalism. It's not about what the party expects from the capitalist state, but about what it demands from it before its destruction, as pointed out by Marx and Engels immediately after the spring of 1848.^[21]

In its economic dimension, the lines of action of the minimum program would be (1) immediate material improvements that increase the social power of the working class, (2) economic policies that directly contradict the framework of the capitalist state and the discipline of the state, (3) socialization and democratic control of strategic sectors –such as finance, housing, energy, transportation– as condition for any sustainable redistributive policy. (4) radical reform of the employment regime that displaces power from employers to the workplaces, and (5) expansion of universal public services (absorbing the strategic sectors) not as a social safety net, but as the infrastructure of a planned economy. In no case do these policies constitute a gradual path for overcoming capitalism, but rather the necessary threshold for a break with the economic power that feeds both liberal austerity and the authoritarian solutions of Fascism.^[22]

In practical terms, this means that contemporary anti-fascist economic policy cannot be limited to replicating isolated wage improvement or price control proposals, such as those proposed by Weber, because, although these measures may seem popular, implementing them within a framework of capitalist governments inevitably leads to watered-down variants or to them not being fulfilled. Failure to implement the proposed measures fuels discontent among the parliamentary left's forces, which, being unable to improve the living conditions of the working class, breeds frustration and feeds reactionary discourse. The problem doesn't lie in those measures carried out in isolation, but in the political position from which they are pushed: a pro-government left, integrated into the bourgeois power bloc, which is structurally incapable of applying them; a politically independent force, on the other hand, may use them to organize and politicize the conflict. The minimum program doesn't seek to prove its technical viability, but rather to evidence the limits of the capitalist state, and to mobilize the working class. When out of government, Fascism feeds on the combination of economic crisis and political frustration. When it comes to power, it can only offer authoritarianism and austerity, while keeping the power of capital intact and legitimizing competition between workers as an inevitable destiny. In the face of this situation, an anti-fascist economic policy can't be reduced to isolated popular demands, nor to palliatives within the capitalist framework. Ultimately, the only way to crush Fascism is socialist revolution: the program serves as a tool to advance in that direction. The revolution must instrumentalize a minimum program that combines the radical democratization of power with the construction of proletarian sovereignty over production and distribution, establishing the emancipation of all workers as its horizon.

1. Empirical studies on the determinant factors of the rise of Nazism in Germany have flourished in the last years in the fields of economy and economic history, in part thanks to the access to new data and the usage of statistical techniques. Among recent works, notable ones include: Gregori Galofré-Vilà et al., “Austerity and the Rise of the Nazi Party,” The Journal of Economic History 81, no. 1 (2021): 81–113; Shanker Satyanath et al., “Bowling for Fascism: Social Capital and the Rise of the Nazi Party,” Journal of Political Economy 125, no. 2 (2017): 478–526; Sebastian Doerr et al., “Financial Crises and Political Radicalization: How Failing Banks Paved Hitler’s Path to Power,” The Journal of Finance 77, no. 6 (2022): 3339–72.

   ↩

2. For a vast description of Nazi economic policy, see Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction (Penguin, 2007).

   ↩

3. In The Capital Order, Carla Mattei describes these processes of Italian Fascism as contrasted with austerity in Great Britain: both the empire, which served as the cradle of liberalism, and a country lagging behind in every conceivable way, adopted similar austerity policies through career economists and technocrats.

   ↩

4. Among the secondary sources regarding these two decades, the following stand out: Josep Fontana, “La Utopía Franquista: La Economía de Robinson Crusoe,” Cuadernos de Historia Del Derecho 1 (2004): 97–103; Manuel-Jesús González, La Economía Política Del Franquismo (1940-1970) (Tecnos, 1979); Jordi Catalán, “Franquismo y Autarquía, 1939-1959: Enfoques de Historia Económica,” Ayer, no. 46 (2002): 264–83; Fernando Guirao, Spain and the Reconstruction of Western Europe, 1945-57 (Macmillan UK, 1998).

   ↩

5. See Stefano Battilossi et al., “Spanish Stock Returns, Growth, and Inflation, 1900–2020,” The Economic History Review, 2025.

   ↩

6. Or that’s what the gravity models of trade say; see Rodolfo G. Campos et al., “Autarky in Franco’s Spain: The Costs of a Closed Economy,” The Economic History Review 76, no. 4 (2023): 1259–80.

   ↩

7. Miguel Artola Blanco, “Were Wages Stagnant for Decades? A Revision of Labor Costs and Net Earnings in Spain (1900–1960),” Labor History 66, no. 3 (2025): 356–80; Miguel Artola Blanco et al., “Wealth in Spain 1900–2017 a Country of Two Lands,” The Economic Journal 131, no. 633 (2021): 129–55.

   ↩

8. See Richard Saull, “Capitalist Development and the Rise and ‘Fall’ of the Far-Right,” Critical Sociology 41, nos. 4–5 (2015): 619–39.

   ↩

9. See the report “Who supports Reform UK and why? (2025)” by HOPE not Hate.

   ↩

10. See Luigi Guiso et al., “Economic Insecurity and the Demand for Populism in Europe,” Economica 91, no. 362 (2024): 588–620.

    ↩

11. See Ricardo Duque Gabriel et al., “The Political Costs of Austerity,” Review of Economics and Statistics 108, no. 1 (2026): 145–61; Thiemo Fetzer, “Did Austerity Cause Brexit?,” American Economic Review 109, no. 11 (2019): 3849–86.

    ↩

12. See Jonah D. Levy, “From the Dirigiste State to the Social Anaesthesia State: French Economic Policy in the Longue Durée,” Modern & Contemporary France 16, no. 4 (2008); Alexis Moraitis, “Waking Up from Anesthesia: Decline and Violence in France.,” Brooklyn Rail, 2022.

    ↩

13. Lili Pike and Rishi Iyengar, “What Trump’s New Budget Says About U.S. Foreign Policy,” Foreign Policy, May 2, 2025.

    ↩

14. As a reference, I will take Weber's article "To defeat the far right, we must adopt an anti-fascist economic policy", published in The Nation. I will use Weber as embodiment of a recent school of thought in Germany, where it became popular through the Institute of New Economic Thinking–France, with some sections of the Paris School of Economics at its head, including Thomas Piketty and Gabriel Zucman, as well as the International Tax Observatory as a whole, and the U.S., in Berkeley, a progressive stronghold where Zucman is also based. Zucman's work on international coordination of capital and high-income taxes to avoid and prosecute tax evasion would be especially relevant for the public funding of Keynesian anti-fascist economic policies.

    ↩

15. Regarding the specific case of Spain and Vox's economic policy, see Lorien Gómez et al., “Vino Viejo (y Rancio) En Odres Nuevos. Austeridad, Desarrollismo Autoritario y El Nuevo Programa Econó- Mico y de Vivienda de Vox,” Contracultura, 2025.

    ↩

16. See Meg Jacobs and Isabella M. Weber, “The Way to Fight Inflation without Rising Interest Rates and a Recession,” The Washington Post, August 9, 2022.

    ↩

17. With little success, as explained in Jamie Merchant, “The Economic Consequences of Neo-Keynesianism,” The Brooklyn Rail, 2023.

    ↩

18. For an extensive review of this issue, see Jamie Merchant, Endgame (Reaktion Books, 2024).

    ↩

19. Cf. the 2024 report on fixed income by BME Exchange.

    ↩

20. Donald Parkinson, “The Revolutionary Minimum-Maximum Program,” Cosmonaut Magazine, 2021.

    ↩

21. For a historical review of the political dimension of the program, we refer to Nahia Santander, “La Batalla Por La Democracia,” Marx XXI 4 (2025).

    ↩

22. For a deeper discussion on the tension between the minimum program and gradualism, see Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “A Draft of Our Party Programme,” 1899; Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “Revision of the Party Programme,” 1917; Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, “Speech Closing The Debate On The Party Programme,” 1919, all available at marxists.org.

    ↩