But Marx is a century out of date, and he never imagined what is happening today. The Bourgeoisie have little to fear from a revolutionary proletariat, their new nemesis is the financial elite, an offshoot of their own class, those who own nothing except equities.

USA, Russia, the Phillippines, Turkey, Egypt, plus all the countries that were already there. And there are strong fascist movements in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Greece…I could go on. Even if they aren’t all successful, there’s certainly a wave of it sweeping the world.

There’s probably all kinds of reasons, each country is different, but its still too much to ask of coincidence. What do they all have in common? We can’t blame this on the Comintern, or Soviet meddling (although RUSSIAN meddling seems to be playing some role in it). Neither can we reflexively blame Capitalism and Imperialism. What the hell is going on?

Maybe there is something else going on that I’m missing, but I think I know what is happening. The years of promise, prosperity, peace and democracy that followed World War II are over. We’ve peaked. The sweet spot is past us. The Cold War is over, and so is the world Communist movement. The only thing I can see is what you brought up in an earlier post. Automation, technology and the spread of world capitalism and globalization of trade is making the world’s middle class unnecessary. Countries with large and strong middle classes are watching them shrink, and become less powerful and influential. Countries with small but growing middle classes are seeing them wither away altogether. The future is moving to a bipolar, bimodal distribution of wealth, much like what happened between the 19th and 20th centuries. That’s what provoked the rise of fascism (and Soviet Communism) in the first half of the 20th century.

Its starting to sink in that if you’re not middle class, you’re never going to be middle class, and if you’re middle class now you won’t be in the future, and your kids won’t get there either. And if you are prosperous and powerful now you had better get ruthless in a hurry if you want to stay that way.

In the more traditional populations this will lead to religious fundamentalism or apocalyptic fanaticism; in more secular societies, good old fashioned nationalism, nativism, racism, and fascism…i.e.,the dictatorship of the middle class.

Of course, our conservative brothers have already come up with a simple solution to the problem: cut corporate taxes and regulation, get rid of the welfare system and the trade unions, make government smaller and we’ll all become software engineers or entrepreneurs, or get rich working for one.

Maybe it’ll be the dictatorship of the middle class, but you can bet your sweet ass the middle class won’t be the ones in charge.