Scandinavia has generous, in my opinion often too generous, welfare states. They have also virtually eradicated poverty in their societies. And they have global capitalist brands like IKEA, Volvo, Lego and Maersk Line. These "socialists" developed Skype. Scandinavia is "socialist" to a wild-eyed free market fanatic, and not rationally so: Sweden and Denmark rival Britain and the US in "friendly for business" in most rankings.

Equally silly is labeling all these parties as "fascists." Google the term. They are certainly populist and often xenophobic. And I do not support them. But, guess what, there are grave problems with Muslim immigrants to European countries. Perhaps you consider that a "fascist statement." Of course it is not. Statistics document that young Muslim males are far more likely to be involved in violent crimes than their share of the population should suggest. Í am unimpressed with your article so can't be bothered to provide links to the statistics but you can find them through google. "Honor" killings (of young women) were an unknown phenomenon before there were significant Muslim populations. In Britain and Denmark, there have been blatant attempts to establish "sharia zones." THIS probably has something to do with why these parties have enjoyed a surge. The thing to do about it is to acknowledge that there ARE real problems with Muslim immigrants in Europe and to deal with it, through education, insistence that people applying to be granted citizenship swear allegiance to the concepts of democracy, equal rights and personal freedom, punishing violent offenders and going after people who commit "honor" killings like the murderers they are and punish them accordingly.

But you like to use generalizing labels and thus make your little contribution to muddling the debate. I want Muslims to enjoy equal rights with everyone else in Europe. But labeling anyone who points out that there are real problems, as a "fascist" will not remove support for them but only poison the debate. Demos has the wrong man on this job. Mr. Barlett, with your demagougish style, unfortunately, you are not helping. Only flashing your own "ohh, me so goody, me so enlightined " feathers. Stop that, grow up and then, rejoin the debate as a mature mind.

It seems like the whole reflection of Jamie Bartlett flew way over your head, Morani. I believe that quite contrary to "muddling the debate" he shines a light unto it that almost no one cares or dares to bring.

At the most, you could argue that the title was poorly chosen (I am not sure if authors have something to do with choosing titles, and it is not the first time that FP goes wrong with its titles).

In a nutshell, what Bartlett is saying, is that it is not a good idea to label/discard the young populist as fascists, because their are not, and that their values/ demands stem from valid worries. If someone should grow up, mature, and particularly read carefully, I do not believe it is Bartlett.

Jaime Bartlett, thanks for article.

I should “declare” or “disclose” at the outset that I, generally speaking, tend toward a “neo-Marxist” world-view and am probably most convinced by Immanuel Wallerstein and his school of World Systems Analysis amongst contemporary thinkers and analysts.

Judging from your article you are not only familiar with the Marxist analysis of fascism but are providing evidence which you contend works against it.

Firstly, I’ll attempt to provide a summary of the Marxist analysis of fascism.

Secondly, the only counter-evidence to your basic thesis which I’ll provide here are admittedly very weak, but nonetheless may prove to be of interest in your work. Namely you-tube musical videos of a neo-fascist band from Berlin called Triarri and you-tube channels which provide links to other videos.

Your last article for FP was on Anders Breivik and your think-tank deals with violence and extremism. I think you have an immensely naïve view about the strength of liberalism and its attendant communicative rationality.

1/Fascism has been called a "scavenger ideology" because it appropriates various right-wing tropes to its central purpose — the building of a violent extra-parliamentary movement intent on doing the job of protecting the nation/culture that the State is seen as too weak or too infiltrated by the Centre and the Left to do. Liberal Democracy is viewed as being inefficient and ineffective to authoritarian aristocrats who know better how to rule the Nation and as subversive of their greater wisdom.

2/You have a culturally deterministic view of globalization underpinning the explanation of why there has been a violent right-wing reaction to the recent period. I think the problem lies much more in the hollowing out of society in terms of the neoliberal project and its failure to recapture the sustained growth of the post-WWII boom. That is, it lies more deeply in a failure to accumulate adequately. With the Great Recession we are seeing sections of the middle class who got something out of neoliberalism's best days crashing to the ground hard. This opens a space for fascist movements to build.

Because liberal democracy depends on private property rights as the basis of the limited "freedoms" it grants, it is particularly ill suited to defending against fascism in a situation of what Gramsci termed as “organic crisis.”

3/I think what confuses discussion of fascism is that it appears to be two kinds of movement at once; one tied in with the elites (and their shadow elements) in political and economic structures that are hegemonic, and one that is extra-parliamentary. But the thing about fascism is that despite its plebeian character, it has always been a movement designed to strengthen capitalism, not oppose it (whatever noises fascists make about being anti-capitalist, they are not anti-systemic).

So in places like Italy sections of the fascist movement can be in coalition government as part of a longer-run strategy of subverting normal liberal democratic governance with an extreme authoritarianism designed to make the nation state the organiser of every aspect of social life (hence the destruction of independent civil society organisations in places like Italy and Germany before WWII). They have also relied on rogue and criminal sections of capital to bankroll their activities.

Berlusconi, his Mafia connections and the deeply corrupted and infiltrated Italian judiciary, security forces, capital and finance sectors are exhibit number one. Recall that the Italian “Years of lead” occurred roughly a generation or two ago and many of the IDC “survivors” and their descendants are still alive and kicking.

A fascist ascendancy to taking state power in their own hands requires that the mainstream bourgeoisie is convinced that they must turn to them. For the latter to happen, (1) the crisis must be bad enough and the bourgeoisie unable to resolve it by normal means, and (2) a mass extra-parliamentary fascist movement must show in practice that it can smash the Left, the oppressed and workers' organisations to help the bourgeoisie resolve that impasse.

My point about scavenger ideologies is that there is no clear ideological line between the conservative Right (and even some liberals) and fascists. Rather, it is the nature of their practical project that distinguishes them. Put another way, fascism is not just another authoritarianism, but just looking at the ideas of its adherents won't explain what the difference is.

Finally the music of Triarri. Note well the Far-right sentiments expressed in the comments which follow the videos and the calls which the posters often make of the necessity for violence and for war. You yourself admitted to weakness of your FB survey method. I think it could just be as well a case of far-right sociopaths pretending to behave themselves.

Also on these listeners’ You-tube channels, you will see posted videos of soccer violence, street marches etc. You will no doubt have viewed the even more disturbing videos which You-tube were forced to remove of actual murders eg. White Russian violence against, and murders of, Chechen immigrants to cities like Moscow including of elderly Chechen women; psychopathic fascists fighting and murdering each other.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6WeU2vg0KQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RxswjVF5T_s

"Do not rejoice in his defeat you men,
For though the World stood up
And stopped the bastard,
The bitch that bred him is in heat again."

Bertold Brecht.

I think the most critical sentence in this article (which is really interesting by the way, thanks for posting), is this
Our research also offers a glimmer of hope. We found that those online activists who were also active offline -- by voting, demonstrating, or being part of a political party -- were more democratic, had more faith in politics, and were more likely to disavow violence. This is powerful evidence that encouraging more people to become actively involved in political and civic life, whatever their political persuasion, should be Europe's top priority. That is impossible if liberals condescendingly deride all populists as ignorant bigots rather than fellow citizens with whom we share a common moral core.
The big change in the millenial generation is the movement towards not just bickering, complaining, picketing etc (all Occupy movement jokes aside) but in actually taking passions and political leanings and doing something about it. They're not just complaining about the average starting salary of a Wall Street employee they're creating website and petitions and movements to change the income gap. They're not just posting about inequality but actually volunteering and helping people. I realize not all of them are a 'they' and that some are just sounding off in online message boards. But I feel like the fact that people, on both the left and right, are actually voting in droves for once is a great sign.

The whole article was rather pointless.

Firstly, why post it under the title 'Europe's facebook Fascists' when the body of the article contradicts such a categorisation?

The idea that objecting to immigration and Islamisation means you are a Fascist was never taken seriously by anyone with the slightest hint of intelligence or common sense. The silent majority who resent the treasonous anti-European, pro-immigrant minority are simply growing tired of it and they will no longer be insulted into submission.

The only people who thought and still do believe that opposition to Islamism and destructive immigration entails racism or Fascism are a dwindling bunch of sad and increasingly detested lunatics with a retarded and completely irrational fetish for foreigners, most of whom hate them just as much as everyone else does.

If the writer doesn't think opposition to Islam and immigration is growing he has another thing coming. I was at school when I first realised what a grave threat these twin menaces pose to the future of European civilisation. In the three to four years since I have seen massive changes in public awareness and a huge growth in ambivalence towards immigration, multiculturalism and Islam. This trend will continue and there will be massive political ramifications.

Multiculturalism and political correctness are both suicidal, criminal dogmas. Their purveyors will be remembered as criminals far worse than the Nazis ever were. Maybe their trials, and executions, will be held in Nuremberg, just to emphasise that point.

While I applaud the author for considering this skewing effect on his data, I would suggest that the lack of solid one-to-one mapping of persons to Internet identities also can lead to a "garbage in- garbage out" result. In addition to the problem of 13,000 people self-selecting, there is a possibility that 1 person self-selected and was rabid enough to create 13000 instances of himself on Facebook through the magic of free email identities available through a host of providers.