Fascism operates through micro-organizational molecular power rather than centralized bureaucracy

Evidence

In A Thousand Plateaus, Deleuze and Guattari argue that part of the nature of fascism is a “proliferation of molecular focuses in interaction, which skip from point to point, before beginning to resonate together…” (Deleuze and Guattari, 1986:214). This comment might well have been made about the lateral connectedness found in cyberspace. Rather than seeing fascism enshrined in a totalitarian bureaucracy, they argue that fascism was and is manifest in the microorganization of everyday life. The power of fascist culture here is in its “molecular and supple segmentarity, [with] flows capable of suffusing every cell… What makes fascism dangerous is its molecular or micropolitical power, for it is a mass movement: a cancerous body rather than a totalitarian organism” (pp. 214-15). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 2536

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the Deleuze-Guattari concept of fascism as ‘molecular micropolitical power’ — a ‘cancerous body rather than a totalitarian organism’ — directly applicable to networked extremism.
• XREF: This molecular/micropolitical model of fascism maps onto the chapter’s earlier discussion of net-Nazi arborescent essentialism and contemporary research on networked radicalization and decentralized extremism. — connects to: Fascism replaces blind market mechanisms with conscious domination — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 560