In addition to provoking the devastation of the economies of almost every country in the world, neoliberal globalization is generating, as a consequence of its failure, the advent of nationalism and, in its wake, the possibility of the advance of fascism.

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NATIONALISM AND FASCISM AS ANSWERING TO THE FAILURE OF
NEOLIBERAL GLOBALIZATION
Fernando Alcoforado*
Two events in recent times demonstrate the advance of nationalism in the world in
response to the failure of neoliberal globalization. The first concerns the fragmentation
or dismantling of the European Union and the second relates to the election of Donald
Trump to the United States Presidency. The Brexit that led to the removal of the United
Kingdom from the European Union and Donald Trump's inaugural speech to the United
States presidency are the expression of the failure of neoliberal globalization in the
world. The facts of reality demonstrate that few gain from neoliberal globalization,
among which are the globalized financial system that gains astronomical profits thanks
to the absence of global economic and financial regulation and few peripheral countries
such as China, India, South Korea and other Asian countries that can attract foreign
investment thanks to cheap labor and favorable domestic legislation. On the other hand,
they lose with the neoliberal globalization the central capitalist countries (United States,
European Union and Japan) and other peripheral countries that face problems of
deindustrialization, increase of unemployment, economic stagnation and increasing
public indebtedness.
The European Union is threatened with fragmentation or dismantling as a result of
living with internal structural imbalances with rich countries with surpluses and with the
other countries with chronic deficits. One of the problems that have a negative impact
on the evolution of the European crisis is that there is excess liquidity in parts of the
euro area, and there is a lack in others. The fragmentation of the European Union should
intensify, economically and financially, by the interruption of the transnational flows of
goods, services and capital with large mismatches between currencies that could cause
multiple deficits among the member countries of the European Union. The consequence
of all this is the increase in unemployment and social tensions that are intensifying
throughout the European Union. The most vulnerable members of the Eurozone
(Greece, Italy, Spain and Portugal) have for some time been facing the risk of economic
and financial disruption that may lead to social unrest and political dysfunction that may
lead them to withdraw from the European Union. An example of this phenomenon is
Catalonia, one of the most important autonomous regions of Spain, which accounts for a
fifth of the national economy, where the feeling of independence, now powerful, is now
buoyed by the feeling that Spain is failing.
The lack of response to the economic crisis generated by neoliberal globalization calls
into question the legitimacy of the European Union that is threatened with
fragmentation. And the most serious is that there is no plan to overcome the crisis. After
50 years of unification, Europe is threatened by the risk of a reverse process: that of its
fragmentation. The Eurozone crisis, which threatens to divide the bloc between
countries that have managed well their finances and those who have failed to adopt the
single currency (the Euro), now regional nationalisms are now gaining momentum as a
result of the economic crisis. Meanwhile, in societies in southern Europe, the solution to
the crisis is not envisaged, but more recession and unemployment. What happens in
Greece, Portugal and Spain cannot be explained without this deep economic and
financial crisis affecting the capitalist world system and the European Union that
imposes immense sacrifice on its peoples to save banks from bankruptcy with the
adoption of politics of austerity adopted by the member countries. The hopelessness of

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the people of the European Union and the excessive social tension existing in it can lead
to the end of the European Union and threaten the political and institutional order in
force in each of the countries of the region.
Donald Trump made clear his disgust at neoliberal globalization in his inaugural White
House speech when he said that for many decades the United States enriched foreign
industry to the detriment of American industry, made other countries rich, while the
wealth, strength and confidence of his country dissipated on the horizon, that "one by
one, factories closed and left our territory, without ever thinking about the millions and
millions of American workers who were abandoned. The wealth of our middle class
was taken from their homes and then redistributed all over the world". Trump's
nationalism is marked in his speech by stating that "from this day on, it will be only
America first, America first" and that it will protect the United States from the
devastation caused by countries that steal their businesses and destroy their jobs and that
"we will bring our jobs back. We will bring back our wealth". Trump said he will follow
two simple rules: buying American products and hiring Americans. There will be
progress in protectionism in the United States to be adopted by the Trump government
with the aim of defending American businesses and jobs that will cause the same to
occur in the world as a counterpart. Mass deportation of immigrants is expected to occur
especially among Hispanics who live illegally in the United States for Trump to secure
jobs for US workers.
It should be noted that the nationalism that is now expanding in Europe and the United
States is a typical phenomenon of the 19th century that represents the feeling of
belonging to a culture, a region, a language and a people, or a race, having first
appeared in France under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte and in the War of
Independence of the United States of America. Unlike the European national states that
formed in the 16th and 17th centuries, the 19th century National States identified their
sovereignty in the contingent of citizens who made up the nation, not the monarch. For
this reason, the tendency towards the republican political regime became common
during this period. Besides these characteristics, there is also an indispensable element
for the understanding of nationalism: the formation of the national army by ordinary
citizens, and not by aristocrats and mercenaries, as was the case in absolutist states. The
Napoleonic army, for example, was the first large national army composed of people
who fought for the "French nation" and identified themselves as members of a single
"national body" of one country.
Italian unification and German unification in the 19th century and the rise of totalitarian
regimes of extreme nationalist bias, such as Nazism and Fascism in the 20th century,
took nationalism as an ideology. In addition to provoking the devastation of the
economies of almost every country in the world, neoliberal globalization is generating,
as a consequence of its failure, the advent of nationalism and, in its wake, the possibility
of the advance of fascism. Robert Paxton, an American historian, states in his book The
Anatomy of Fascism (New York: Vintage Books, 2005) that fascism emerges in pursuit
of some kind of nationalist renewal that is currently occurring. Fascists come together to
restore a broken social order, as always using themes such as unity, order and purity.
Reason is rejected in favor of passionate emotion. It is always rooted in the restoration
of national pride lost by the resurrection of the traditional myths and values of culture
and in the purification of society from the toxic influences of foreigners and
intellectuals who would be guilty of the misery of the nation. This is the case in the
United States threatened of compromising the American way of life and losing its

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global hegemony to China and of the countries of the European Union in the face of an
insurmountable economic crisis. According to Paxton, fascism only grows in an
environment of a mature democracy in crisis as is the case of the United States and the
countries of the European Union.
* Fernando Alcoforado, member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011),
Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012),
Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2015) and As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo
(Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016) .