At the beginning of the twentieth century, classical colonial capitalism, characterized by the direct military-economic expansion of European powers, gave way to corporate oligarchic capitalism. The main players in the global economy are multinational companies, followed by international financial institutions. Forms of dependence, mechanisms of coercion, and methods of profit-making are evolving. Under these conditions, the German «Third Reich» emerged, aiming to colonize Eastern Slavic territories under the banner of Nazi ideology.
The economics of Nazism has been relatively understudied, but one should immediately note a feature of it, clearly manifested in the Third Reich, which is superrationalization of production through the utilization of «second-rate human material». This approach was based on the slave labor of 13 million prisoners in concentration camps1, and «Ostarbeiter», and effectively amounted to an overt revival and legitimization of slave-owning practices. It is important to emphasize here that in Germany, it is not widely accepted to speak openly and loudly about the resettlement of the «Ostarbeiter» and, in general, about crimes committed in the East.
Another significant feature of the Nazi economy was the close cooperation between the leadership of the «Third Reich» and industrial monopolies and financial circles, with the latter actively supporting the Nazi Party. In Germany during the 1930s and 40s, large capital was represented by industrial giants Krupp and Thyssen, who were the main sources of financing for the NSDAP.
Thus, the political and ideological structure of Nazism had a solid liberal-capitalist foundation. However, this was not the entire picture; ideological grounds were also included. The renowned article-speech by the Russian philosopher Vladimir Ern, titled «From Kant to Krupp», traces the trajectory of liberal educational thought from the moral maxims of Immanuel Kant to the radicalization of the political regime and its alliance with monopolies in the early twentieth century. Vladimir Ern writes: «Under the veneer of German culture, predatory and bloodthirsty claws suddenly emerged. <...> I am convinced, firstly, that the violent uprising of Germanism is predetermined by Kantian Analysis <...> The uprising of Germanism as a military takeover of the whole world, as the violent world hegemony of manu militari, is thus rooted in the depths of the phenomenalist principle established in the first edition of the Critique of Pure Reason <...> If German militarism is the natural offspring of Kant's phenomenalism, collectively carried out in terms of history by an entire race, then Krupp's tools are the most inspired, the most national and most vital offspring of German militarism. German madness takes scientific, methodological, philosophical forms and finally breaks down in a militaristic rampage»2.
The third characteristic of the Nazi economy was its hyperinflationary trajectory. Hitler's Germany, not only militarily and politically but also economically, was geared towards the onset of a major war. Consequently, under Reich Minister of Economy and President of the Reichsbank Hjalmar Schacht, excessively high inflation rates were permitted, transforming much of the economy into financial «bubbles» while creating conditions for a swift and robust economic breakthrough. Germany's economic activity was heavily reliant on loans, with the national debt skyrocketing several times from 1933 to 1939. This strategy was pursued in anticipation of even more pronounced wartime inflation and the extraction of resources from occupied territories (including through the use of forced labor from «subhumans» («Untermenschen»)). The war was expected to yield significant profits and offset all unjustified «loans» taken by the German leadership from its own economy.
It is instructive to compare Germany's economic trajectory in the 1930s with the approach adopted by contemporary American liberal policies and note the striking similarities. It is worth examining the discrepancy between the consumption levels of the US population and the productive capacity of the American «real sector», as well as the significant role played by unlimited money printing and non-repayable loans in the United States. These expenditures are financed both by capital extraction from peripheral countries (a cornerstone of the colonial economy of neoliberalism) and by ongoing hybrid conflicts, which enable the United States, like Hitler's Germany, to generate substantial profits from military contracts, high-value natural gas trade, land acquisition at reduced prices, and other ventures.
The superrationalization of production, achieved by Germany through the utilization of forced labor, is mirrored in the current Atlanticist project through a system of global labor division (where goods are manufactured inexpensively in third-world countries but sold at premium prices in Western markets), sanctions policies, the relocation of actual production to countries with extremely low labor costs, and coordinated actions of financial monopolies.
This phenomenon is facilitated by «globalization», which entails the super-monopolization of the economy and cultural hegemony. Consequently, a highly monopolized global economy fosters a «market society» characterized by values such as status consumption and commodity fetishism.
Racism and Nazism serve as the socio-cultural justification for this process, which always demands sacrifices in favor of the «new order» and its beneficiaries. This principle has remained unchanged since ancient times, when proponents of republican freedoms often relied on a dozen or more slaves.
The fourth characteristic is the pseudo-enlightenment «mission» of Nazi-racist projects.
The connection between national-racial and socio-economic factors in Nazism is inherent. Peoples have historically been and are currently oppressed primarily on economic grounds, followed by cultural subjugation. However, in terms of ideology, this ratio is typically presented inversely. Oppression is frequently framed (and marketed) as payment for the services rendered by a more developed nation, which purportedly undertakes to «civilize the savages». Rudyard Kipling's era referred to this historical «literacy project» as the «white man's burden». Today, essentially conveying the same sentiment, it is expressed as «paying for an economic master class», insinuating imminent cataclysms in the future: tariff hikes, industrial closures, national currency devaluation, acquisition of national assets by foreign corporations (with examples such as the Bidens – father and son – being particularly striking), and ultimately, the debt pit of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), from which future generations will need to extricate themselves.
Hitler's occupation, under the Master Plan for the East (Generalplan Ost), also promised the population of the occupied territories the establishment of a proper Aryan order and authentic European culture in place of what was perceived as chaos, arbitrariness, and degradation supposedly brought by the power of commissars and «Judeo-Bolshevism». Meanwhile, everything possible was extracted from the occupied territories: from laborers to cultural artifacts and even fertile soil.
The more the economic periphery submits to the centers of capital, the more pronounced the deliberate preservation of backwardness and underdevelopment becomes in peripheral countries.
The centers of liberal capitalism cannot coexist with the rest of the world as equal partners, given that the consumption level of Western society far surpasses its production capacity: the US debt alone stands at 31.5 trillion dollars, and the combined debt of eurozone countries amounts to 12 trillion euros, or 13 trillion dollars, respectively. In such a scenario, economic neocolonies are expected to willingly accept their subordinate status, meaning they must be prepared to occupy an unfavorable position in the global division of labor, relegated to the bottom of production and exchange chains, such as serving as raw material suppliers or assembly centers for electronic devices. Consequently, capital is siphoned out of these neocolonies, often redirected towards investments in securities of dominant economic entities rather than being reinvested in national science, education, and industry.
The objects of expansion inevitably serve as a resource base and a catalyst for development for first-world countries and transnational actors. This dynamic is accurately described by scholars of the world-system analysis school within the framework of concepts such as «center-periphery», «unequal exchange», «unequal specialization», and «hierarchy of commodity chains»3.
Immanuel Wallerstein, a prominent figure in this field, has consistently highlighted «the correlation between 'class' and 'ethnic' rankings, on the one hand, and the allocation of certain political rights to various 'class' and 'ethnic' groups, on the other hand. Lower groups... form a 'class-ethnic lower stratum'»4. And further: «The axial division of labor between the core and the periphery (of the world economy – note by A. Shchipkov) possesses both class and ethnic dimensions. At the global level, unlike at the national level, these dimensions swap places: the ethnic hierarchy becomes particularly evident. The underdevelopment of the Third World is frequently attributed to cultural and educational factors...»5.
It is characteristic that the phases of the processes in the global economy also influence the adjustment of racial boundaries. In Wallerstein's terms, this is «the constant redefinition of ethnic groups in the capitalist world system in accordance with its needs. As a result, yesterday's 'Mediterranean people' become today's Europeans, the Japanese (once deemed leaders of the 'yellow horde') are now considered 'honorary whites', and who knows – perhaps today's Swedes might one day be viewed as 'pale-faced barbarians' again. Ethnicity and race in the capitalist world system are constantly changing their status definitions. During economic recessions and contractions, entire nations are pushed out as ethnically inferior; during periods of growth and expansion, some of them are let back in»6. Simultaneously, «in the context of weak peripheral states, the primary expression of class interests or solidarity of status groups becomes racial, ethnic (national), and linguistic affiliation. The racial and ethnic dimensions of social relations in CWE (the capitalist world economy – note by A. Shchipkov) are institutionalized»7.
This very process – the institutionalization of an authoritarian economic model in the form of the idea of racial and ethnic superiority – is the economic model of Nazism and racism.
The issue of the social base of the Nazi economy is extremely important. The popular statement in leftist circles that the social environment of Nazism is the «maddened middle class» proved its validity both in the 20th century (Germany) and in the 21st century (Ukraine, Belarus). It is notable that the same middle class, accustomed to living on tick, is also the cornerstone of the liberal economy. Therefore, it is often, and quite rightly, referred to as the «economic gendarmerie of liberalism».
Herbert Marcuse, a representative of the second generation of the Frankfurt School, wrote in the 1960s that the repressive apparatus of a liberal society forms a fascizoid type of consciousness – a «one-dimensional person»8. This thesis highlights a trend that was noticed at the beginning of the 20th century: Nazism and liberalism share the same social base – the middle class.
Out of habit, fascists are often sought among skinheads and football fans, and while many do exist in these groups, they do not form as conscious and economically cohesive a force as white-collar workers, small entrepreneurs, and the liberal intelligentsia. This is why Nazism and fascism were so widespread in Germany, Northern Italy, England, and later in the USA and other countries with high levels of consumption, urbanization, and a significant proportion of the middle class in the social structure.
Today, the fascization and lumpenization of the middle class are linked to its fear of impoverishment during the global crisis – the fear of declining incomes and the gradual merging with the broad masses of the proletariat and the «lower classes» in general. The state can maintain the consumption levels customary for these people only by going against the interests of the rest of the population. This forces a certain part of the middle class to go all in – that is, to movements like the Maidan – and demand from the state the introduction of an economic dictatorship and a liberal–authoritarian regime of government in the interests of this middle class. Of course, this type of dictatorship is achieved through even deeper globalist integration and the surrender of state sovereignty.
The shift of the middle class to the right naturally aligns with the technocratic ideas of a digital society. These models are supported by the ideology of technocratism, which is close to transhumanism. This should not be confused with the phenomenon of technological progress; instead, it is an integral part of the Nazi-racist ideological bloc with its expertocracy, dehumanization, and administrative conspiracy of the global governing class. When we talk about technocratism, we do not mean the progress of science and technology, but rather the opposite process: the spread of the technosphere beyond the limits of material and objective reality to encompass the person, their thinking and psyche, and the subordination of cultural meanings and the logic of social communications to the technosphere.
Transnational digital feudalism is developing partly in confrontation but more so in symbiosis with its predecessor – transnational financial capitalism. This illustrates a combined way of life that contradicts the usual rigid ideas about economic «formations» (cf. the concepts of the «downward spiral» and the «pendulum movement of history»).
An important feature of digital capital is the possibility of development without bank loans, which allows it to gradually capture significant positions in the economy. However, this does not negate its adaptation to the laws and principles of the older economic structure.
Within the framework of digital feudalism, an external identity of a person is created through individual data and digital traces left by actions in a digital environment. This radically changes the entire socio-cultural landscape.
One of the most important institutions of digital feudalism are social platforms for mass management and related algorithmic communities that replace traditional social groups («collectives»). Social platforms allow the management of individuals directly, without using intermediaries such as public organizations.
Access to information of various levels becomes the main capital in a digital society. At the same time, access to high-quality information with a high applicability index is limited, causing an increase in information inequality. The human psyche (but not the personality or the person themselves) becomes as valuable as information itself, being considered primarily as an object of informational influence.
In the context of digital feudalism, the right is reinterpreted as «opportunity» or «access» in contrast to the capitalist interpretation of the right as «absence of prohibition». The level of information sources, rather than their quantity, is now crucial for an individual's ability to make rational choices, which devalues the concept of «freedom of speech» completely and definitively.
The culture of digital feudalism also generates the «imperative of innovativeness» – the requirement for constant variation in forms of socialization and permanent reassembly of human identity. This strengthens the postmodern «game consciousness», relativity, and simulation. Therefore, individuals in a digital feudalism society are forced to regularly «reinvent themselves» and change their social roles. This is related to the well-known term defining people of the digital age – digital nomads.
The COVID-19 pandemic has played a significant role as a catalyst in society's movement towards a new technocratic (this time «digital») model that is part of modern Nazism and social and cultural racism.
2024 ãîä
