Fascinating. The real violent people here are the Left, honestly. They are attacking the fascists and Nazis, and the fash are mostly just fighting back from what I can tell. However, some of the Revolutionary Front fighters say that they have gotten death threats from the fascists, so it looks like both sides are ramping up the violence.
It’s fascists/Nazis and Communists/socialists, the Right and the Left, fighting in the streets of Europe. In other words, it’s 1920’s and 1930’s Europe (Germany especially) all over again. History is once again repeating itself.
A Marxist analysis would say that this situation of Hard Right and Hard Left always arises in any capitalist system during a time when the capitalist system is in crisis. They would say that capitalism inevitably leads to oligarchy, the rich inevitably get richer and the poor inevitably get poorer until sooner or later extreme inequality leads to a crisis. In other words, it is inevitable that capitalism will experience periodic crises.
It’s not even a bug of the system. It is actually supposed to work that way! Every time we have an economic crisis in this country, listen to Ron or Rand Paul talk about what is happening. They will simply say that this is part of the natural (boom and bust) business cycle that will correct itself sooner or later, since capitalism is a self-regulating mechanism. Do you understand what they mean when they say that? When they talk like that, they are saying that periodic crises are an unavoidable fact of the capitalist system and that these crises are not bugs at all, but instead they are features!
And in the late 20’s, Herbert Hoover spoke exactly the same way. My father said Hoover advocated doing nothing about the Depression because he did not want to upset the natural rhythm of the business cycle. In other words, the Depression wasn’t awful, it meant the system was working as intended!
In other words, when capitalism is in crisis, that is “how the system is supposed to work” – well, part of the time anyway.
So capitalism inevitably leads to oligarchy and a crisis, and Marxists would add that capitalism inevitably leads to fascism at some point or another, as a fascist response is one of the unavoidable consequences of a capitalist economic crisis.
So capitalism inevitably leads to fascism sooner or later. However, I would also add, optimistically, that capitalism inevitably leads to some form of socialism too. The rich get richer and richer, and the poor get poorer and poorer, and in addition to the fascist response, there is also an inevitable Left, socialist or Communist response, the consequences of which are often welded into society via legislation.
Note that the Depression led to both socialist/Communist and fascist responses in the US. The fascist response was rather muted, but Father Coughlin and Mr. Lindberg sure were popular there for a bit. My mother remembers Father Coughlin on the radio. She says that every time you turned on the radio, there he was.
The Left response was melded into society as the New Deal, aspects of which continue to be part of our somewhat socialist society to this very day.
So the situation in Sweden at the moment is replaying Germany of the 20’s and 30’s all over again. If you want to understand the current fighting, go back and study the street fighting during that era.
I do not have much more to add here except that my political development is finally to the point where I not only understand this fighting, but I realize that it is actually normal, natural and inevitable given the economic situation. I shrug my shoulders and say, “Well, of course.”
It sure feels nice to have that sort of understanding of political reality. There is a real sense of mastery that comes with that. Further, you end up a lot calmer because you realize that all of these things are happening for logical reasons.
Whereas before, the world seemed chaotic, unpredictable and irrational. So many things seemed to happen for no reason. This feeling causes fear, insecurity and anxiety.
But with a sense of mastery over political developments, comes instead a feeling of peace that things are not happening for no reason anymore.