The task now is to turn this moment of resistance into a sustained struggle against the structures of power that have made democracy increasingly subordinate to wealth, militarism, and corporate domination.
When Fascism Loses An Election But Gangster Capitalism Survives By Henry Giroux
I had recently decided to stop using “Christian colonial capitalist violence” because those words shut down conversation. And yet, here I am with a new version, gangster capitalism. Its not a new term, but it is highly appropriate for this moment in time.
Having recently realized I’ve been blogging since 2015, I’ve been reflecting on what that might mean. Quakers say ‘let your lives speak’ and in this globally, digitally connected world, writing blog posts was one way I was led to do so. I still remember the tension at the time when I pressed “Publish” for that first blog post. Thinking, people all over the world can see this. And argue or complain about something in it. Instead, you quickly realize you have no real way of knowing who reads your articles. And begin to wonder if anyone at all reads your work.
Fortunately for me, I’ve used writing as a way to try to find my way through ideas I don’t understand well. Which means that this writing is valuable to me, if no one else. At Scattergood Friends School, a Quaker boarding high school I graduated from in 1970, we were often reminded we were being educated with the tools to be life long learners.
I’m dwelling on this now for several reasons. Did all that writing have any value beyond my own processing of what was going on around the world? As summarized here, globally and in many different ways life is getting much more difficult. The massive imbalance of wealth has created massive misery.
And yet, I’m very concerned by the attitude of many, who seem to believe the recent elections might stop, or at least slow down the rate at which this country has moved toward militarism, austerity and authoritarianism.
Capitalism is an inherently unjust system. How can requiring money for all survival needs, and then making it difficult or impossible to acquire food, water and shelter be anything but evil?
Gangster Capitalism
Yesterday, Henry A Giroux at McMaster University expressed my concerns about the capitalist economic system.
The defeat of Trumpism at the ballot box, however historic, does not mean that the economic, political, and cultural forces that produced it have been dismantled.
When Fascism Loses An Election But Gangster Capitalism Survives By Henry Giroux, Counter Punch.
The possibility of genuine transformation will not emerge from the exhausted leadership of a Democratic Party unwilling to break with the capitalist order it serves. It will emerge from the streets, from organized workers, from young people refusing to be written out of history, and from collective struggles that reject the politics of fear, austerity, racial hatred, and disposability. Elections may interrupt the march toward authoritarianism—a crucial pedagogical function– but they cannot abolish the conditions-the myriad economic, political, and cultural forces-that make fascism possible. The task now is to turn this moment of resistance into a sustained struggle against the structures of power that have made democracy increasingly subordinate to wealth, militarism, and corporate domination. The future cannot be entrusted to political elites in suits, who promise to rescue democracy while preserving the economic order that is destroying it. The struggle is not simply to defeat one authoritarian leader, but to dismantle a system that makes authoritarianism possible and to build a world in which justice, equality, collective freedom, and human dignity become the foundations of democratic life.
November 8, 2026. Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy.
Leave a Reply