The Mass Psychology of Fascism

Trumpism, if it can be called that, is largely an upper-middle class phenomenon.  Its ideology is inherently in contradiction with the structure of capitalism.  While I would't call Donald Trump a fascist, the mass psychology of the middle class that brought Hitler to power is similar to the care dealership owning class of our own time.

Wilhelm Reich wrote The Mass Psychology of Fascism in 1933 to study middle class support for the National Socialist Party.  He wanted to dispel the notion that the middle class was tricked into voting for the Nazi Party.  Reich looked into their "psychic structure," or consciousness, to find what was genuinely appealing about fascism to the middle class.

What exactly is this "middle class"?  Is it a useful concept? In Weimar Germany, Wilhelm Reich focused his attention on what he called the lower middle class, which consisted of merchants, white collar workers, and farmers.  These were people who were paid for the commodities they directly produced.  It also included white collar professionals who were paid a salary.  Friedrich Krakauer's sociological study of white collar workers in 1930s Germany, The Salaried Masses looked at their habits in and outside of work for their interest in fascism.

In Reich's eyes, the middle class was the constituency that brought fascism to power.  What made the middle class so prone to reactionary politics?  Reich wrote:

The social consciousness of the official is not characterized by the fate he shares with his coworkers, but by his attitude to the government and to the "nation."  This consists of a complete identification with the state power, in the case of the company employee, it consists of an identification with the company.  

What is significant is that workplace solidarity was absent from the mind of the middle class.  Atomized, their struggle in the workplace was an individual one.  It focused mainly on career advancement.  This sort of careerism is exactly what Hannah Arendt described as the 'banality of evil' in her reporting on the trial of Adolf Eichmann.  The drive of individuals for career advancement were the motor of a chaotic Nazi state that often lacked clear directives and leadership.

The middle classes were particularly attracted to the extreme nationalism of fascism because they saw a particular form of solidarity in it.  Unfortunately, the solidarity they saw was based on ideas of racial purity and nationalism.  No doubt, Germany's status as a world power offered them the psychological wages of empire, the same feelings of superiority a master might have over his slaves.

Furthermore, Reich wrote:

Why is it that he does not develop a feeling of solidarity as the industrial worker does?  This is due to his intermediate position between authority and the body of manual laborers.  While subordinate to the top, he is to those below him a representative of this authority and enjoys, as such, a privileged moral (not material) position.

He was right to point out that the appeal of fascism was moral a moral one, rather than a material one.  In fact, the middle classes suffered enormously under the weight of monopoly capitalism, as scientific management entered the office and the weight of competition crushed farmers and shopkeepers. 

Wilhelm Reich went further to show how the middle class deluded themselves into thinking that their class position was truly distinct from the workers:

At first it is only the idea of being like one's superior that stirs the mind of the employee or official, but gradually, owing to his pressing material dependence, his whole person is refashioned in line with the ruling class.  Always ready to accommodate himself to authority, the lower-class man develops a cleavage between his economic situation and his ideology.  He lives in materially restricted circumstances, but assumes gentlemanly postures on the surface, often to a ridiculous degree.  He eats poorly and insufficiently, but attaches great importance to a "decent suit of clothes."  A silk hat and a dress coat become the material symbol of this character structure.

Trump's awful diet and obsession with a sublime aesthetics comes directly to mind here.  Fascism appeals to the middle class and in turn they resign themselves from the class struggle.  What is important here is that the appeal of fascism doesn't trick the middle class into working against their own interests.  Contradiction is at the hear of the middle class.  It's a life with distinction in appearance with the absence of economic advantage, struggling to make ends, with the satisfaction of always looking down on someone.  Satisfaction lies in the idea that everyone is a master.