Uploaded December 2019 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
This video is an explanation of the quote "Fascism is capitalism in decay" which was allegedly said by Lenin but there is no source on this. I explain capitalism, fascism and the situation in which the quote was said and what it's original meaning was.
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
Transcript (At least as much as YT allows me to put here)
Fascism is capitalism in decay. You may have heard that quote already but what does it mean? And who said it? That seems like an easy question because the entire internet seems to be sure that it was the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who said this but that’s not quite true. I spent more time than I should have trying to find a source for this but there doesn’t seem to be one. From this I conclude that it wasn’t Lenin who said it, but someone evidently did so we’ll go with it.
I guess our first lesson today is: “Don’t claim Lenin said this”. Now that that’s out of the way let’s look at what it’s supposed to mean. For this we break it up into its components and talk about those for a bit. You should already be familiar with the words “is” and “in” if you watch English videos, so I’ll ignore those. The word “decay” means to gradually become worse in this context.
I explain this because a lot of my viewers are from non-English speaking countries and it’s not exactly the most common word is it?
The words “Fascism” and “Capitalism” are the interesting ones in this context. Capitalism can broadly be described as any economic system build on the grounds of the free market and private ownership of things like land and industry. We know it. We live in it. Nothing much new. Let’s move on.
Fascism is a political system in which the state has ultimate powers over everything, and civil liberties are kept at a minimum or don’t exist at all. Historic examples include Nazi Germany, imperial Japan and Italy under Mussolini. Who incidentally invented fascism or fascismo as it’s called in Italian. It’s derived from the Latin word “Fasces “which refers to a bundle of sticks.
The story goes: “A single stick breaks easily but a bundle of sticks is unbreakable” which shows us the first key feature of fascism. Unity and lack of individuality. Fascists unify under the banner of their group, usually a race of people, against all others. They claim to be the strongest people of them all and explain away any evidence to the contrary with some great conspiracy. They are naturally quite xenophobic and some of the worst things, humanity is capable of, happened under fascist regimes.
Fascist economies are usually oriented in a pseudo-capitalist way. The richest business owners become friends with the party leadership and get many great government contracts. The state prosecutes anyone who threatens the profit of the industrialists. That includes unions, socialists and foreign competition. Fascism isn’t really capitalist, but it keeps the main features like private property and wage labor. The free market exists in some fascist societies and not in others.
But how are those two things, fascism and capitalism, connected? And why did someone, remember it wasn’t Lenin, say that one follows the other? To understand this, we have to look at the history of capitalism like a Marxist. You could say that we are gonna do a Marxist analysis of the history of capitalism. In Marxism history and societies are understood by the systems of production they use. There are many ways you can organise production believe it or not.
For example, there was Feudalism in which people were born into their social role and all land belonged to the nobility while being worked by the peasants. This system started, it lived and then it ended. Then there was slavery and mercantilism both of which started, lived and then ended. And then came capitalism, it was introduced during the French revolution, lived through and caused the industrial revolution and then it died … well almost.
Of course, this sounds really weird to viewers from 2019 since we all know that capitalism didn’t die… at time of recording
This video is an explanation of the quote "Fascism is capitalism in decay" which was allegedly said by Lenin but there is no source on this. I explain capitalism, fascism and the situation in which the quote was said and what it's original meaning was.
Twitter: twitter.com/Viki1999Yt
Transcript (At least as much as YT allows me to put here)
Fascism is capitalism in decay. You may have heard that quote already but what does it mean? And who said it? That seems like an easy question because the entire internet seems to be sure that it was the Russian revolutionary Vladimir Ilyich Lenin who said this but that’s not quite true. I spent more time than I should have trying to find a source for this but there doesn’t seem to be one. From this I conclude that it wasn’t Lenin who said it, but someone evidently did so we’ll go with it.
I guess our first lesson today is: “Don’t claim Lenin said this”. Now that that’s out of the way let’s look at what it’s supposed to mean. For this we break it up into its components and talk about those for a bit. You should already be familiar with the words “is” and “in” if you watch English videos, so I’ll ignore those. The word “decay” means to gradually become worse in this context.
I explain this because a lot of my viewers are from non-English speaking countries and it’s not exactly the most common word is it?
The words “Fascism” and “Capitalism” are the interesting ones in this context. Capitalism can broadly be described as any economic system build on the grounds of the free market and private ownership of things like land and industry. We know it. We live in it. Nothing much new. Let’s move on.
Fascism is a political system in which the state has ultimate powers over everything, and civil liberties are kept at a minimum or don’t exist at all. Historic examples include Nazi Germany, imperial Japan and Italy under Mussolini. Who incidentally invented fascism or fascismo as it’s called in Italian. It’s derived from the Latin word “Fasces “which refers to a bundle of sticks.
The story goes: “A single stick breaks easily but a bundle of sticks is unbreakable” which shows us the first key feature of fascism. Unity and lack of individuality. Fascists unify under the banner of their group, usually a race of people, against all others. They claim to be the strongest people of them all and explain away any evidence to the contrary with some great conspiracy. They are naturally quite xenophobic and some of the worst things, humanity is capable of, happened under fascist regimes.
Fascist economies are usually oriented in a pseudo-capitalist way. The richest business owners become friends with the party leadership and get many great government contracts. The state prosecutes anyone who threatens the profit of the industrialists. That includes unions, socialists and foreign competition. Fascism isn’t really capitalist, but it keeps the main features like private property and wage labor. The free market exists in some fascist societies and not in others.
But how are those two things, fascism and capitalism, connected? And why did someone, remember it wasn’t Lenin, say that one follows the other? To understand this, we have to look at the history of capitalism like a Marxist. You could say that we are gonna do a Marxist analysis of the history of capitalism. In Marxism history and societies are understood by the systems of production they use. There are many ways you can organise production believe it or not.
For example, there was Feudalism in which people were born into their social role and all land belonged to the nobility while being worked by the peasants. This system started, it lived and then it ended. Then there was slavery and mercantilism both of which started, lived and then ended. And then came capitalism, it was introduced during the French revolution, lived through and caused the industrial revolution and then it died … well almost.
Of course, this sounds really weird to viewers from 2019 since we all know that capitalism didn’t die… at time of recording
