The Urgency of Anti-Fascist Economics

For that suggestion, Weber, then 33, was ridiculed by everyone from far-right acolytes to crypto enthusiasts to Nobel Prize-winning economists. But in the years since, world events have borne out her warning, as inflation helped usher Trump back into power, along with far-right allies around the world.

In her new book, Anti-Fascist Economics: In Defense of Affordability, Dignity, and Democracy, Weber attempts not so much to start a conversation as to revive one. In the wake of World War II, economic thinkers like Karl Polanyi concluded that free market fundamentalism lays the groundwork for fascism. But these lessons have been ​“buried under decades of neoliberal hegemony,” writes Weber, who is currently an associate professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. In These Times spoke with Weber about her vision for a renewed anti-fascist economics in the age of Trump, climate catastrophe and a global affordability crisis. 

The conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

In the wake of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s stunning win in New York, ​“affordability” messaging is ubiquitous in U.S. politics. That’s a huge departure from the early years of the pandemic, when you were attacked publicly for urging government action to soften the impact of inflation. 

What do you make of this shift?

In 2021, when I began talking about the prices of essentials and that governments had a responsibility to keep those prices affordable, there was this massive hate storm.

But what I argued was very much in the spirit of the Mamdani campaign. I argued that we needed targeted price controls for the stuff that people can’t do without, which buys more time to adjust the structural issues that gave rise to the crisis in the first place. That’s what Mamdani’s administration is doing by enacting a rent freeze, and then also looking at the full toolbox of measures to ensure that there is enough housing supply.

Under neoliberalism, we tell people, ​“Democracy is the greatest of all systems, but when it comes to your basic needs, unfortunately there’s nothing that we can do for you but to subordinate you to the market.” I think it’s amazing how far the debate has shifted since Zohran’s win.

Now, of course, ​“affordability” has become ubiquitous and can refer to all sorts of things — including rebrands of standard trickle-down economics.

For me, the question is whether affordability will become a buzzword that will pass, or whether it will become a framework that actually tackles power relations and meaningfully revives democracy, which is necessary in fending off the threat of fascism. 

When we talk about an ​“affordability agenda,” are we talking about strengthening public power and the power of common people and workers? Or are we pursuing the kind of ​“affordability” where we basically use cash transfers, either in the form of tax cuts or subsidies for people to take on private credit? In both of these cases, we leave the economic structures exactly as they are. In fact, we end up subsidizing private profits rather than using public money to build up public capacity, to rebuild states that can act effectively in the interest of the majority of their constituents. 

Take the call to tax the rich. This is an important part of the conversation, but from where I stand, taxing the rich is not enough if it means keeping the system as it is and just recouping some of the extreme riches.

Your book delves into recent counterexamples to the global right-wing resurgence: Left-wing governments in Mexico and Spain that won reelection after taking action to protect people from Covid-19 cost shocks. 

And while the far right is ascendant in Germany, there’s an important exception. In September, the Die Linke party won a historic victory in Berlin after campaigning on rent caps and socializing corporate-owned housing. Talk about the global and historical picture for anti-fascist economics.

Just to provincialize New York a little bit, I think it’s important to remember that there are cities around the world pursuing an affordability agenda. In Mexico City, the local government is creating public markets to connect small farmers with urban consumers without a middleman. In Istanbul, they have ​“people’s kitchens” where low-cost, nutritious meals are being offered.

In Berlin, rents have risen by nearly 70% over the last 10 years. In 2021, there was a [non-binding] referendum where almost 60% of Berliners voted for the socialization of large real estate companies owning more than 3,000 flats. 

People have now voted for this again by making the left party the strongest force, so the democratic mandate is very clear. The reason why this is possible is that, in Germany, our constitution protects the socialization of the means of production in the interest of the common good. When the Federal Republic of Germany was founded [in 1949], there was a commitment to protect democracy against all sorts of threats, and a recognition that this also required economic tools. 

That was the spirit of ​“never again” after the war. And I think that is core to the idea of anti-fascist economics: that protecting everyone’s dignity requires an economic and material foundation.

Compare that to today, when we are seeing a massive backlash against the victory of Die Linke in Berlin that is truly shocking if you compare it with reactions to the victories of [Alternative for Germany], a right-wing extremist party with clear neo-Nazi elements. I think this tells us something about the ability of the center to embrace progressive solutions in a crisis of livelihoods.

Your recent research on energy inflation makes the case that the war in Iran is also a ​“redistribution machine” funneling profits to the rich. Talk about the relationship between affordability and fossil-fuel dependence?

First of all, this is a crisis that has been unleashed by an illegal war on the part of the U.S. and Israel, and now is taking the global economy hostage. There are many losers, and a small handful of very powerful winners.

Before the war, about 20 million barrels of oil, about one-fifth of global consumption, flowed through the Strait of Hormuz every day. It’s a choke point, and the immediate effect of its closure is constrained oil supply.

But what happens next: Oil prices have been exploding and generating record windfall profits for the big energy companies, and these profits very disproportionately benefit the rich. Our research shows that about 50% of fossil-fuel profits go to the top 1%, and the bottom 50% only get about 1%. So the profit increase is in itself a redistribution shock from the bottom to the top, and people at the bottom or middle of the income ladder spend much more of their income on energy, so they are literally squeezed twice.

We also find that the fossil-fuel sector presents the biggest point of vulnerability for price instability. The sector is so deeply baked into our system— across the whole economy, the stuff that we rely on relies on fossil fuels. And oil and gas prices are inherently volatile because there are these choke points in the infrastructure of production. So if we manage to transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy, we could actually prevent these kinds of redistribution shocks.

In other words, we could prevent the situation where small groups of people benefit massively from things that hurt the rest of us. And we could of course fight climate change, which is not some sort of a footnote to the affordability agenda, but should really be core to it.

Who do you hope will read Anti-Fascist Economics?

Anyone grappling with why we’re facing the rise of the extreme right and what we should be hoping for from our democratically elected representatives.

I’m also hoping to reach unions and union leaders. The inflation crisis was a massive redistribution shock to the disadvantage of labor. And even when unions are very successful with wage bargaining, when the prices of essentials shoot up, unions are fighting a losing battle. So I think we are in a situation where unions have to recognize that defending wages, defending the share that labor has in the economy, requires them to pay attention to the prices of essentials.

I also hope this perspective allows us to bring different movements together: from the antitrust movement to the labor movement to tenant unions and the consumer movement. To make how we organize the economy compatible with democracy, I think we need a big-tent approach. Whatever is moving the needle in favor of public power and securing the livelihoods of the many should be part of the conversation.