Larry Keiler's Public Library

"Rural development" was the Bank's response to the agricultural crisis. The centerpiece of the strategy was increasing the productivity of small farmers through the delivery of "technological packages" and upgrading agricultural support services like credit systems. Rural development, however, had implications that went beyond improved efficiency.

As McNamara explained to the Bank's board of governors, the strategy would "put the emphasis not on redistribution of income and wealth — as justified as that may be in our member countries — but rather on increasing the productivity of the poor, thereby providing for an equitable sharing in the benefits of growth." In short, rural development was partly counterinsurgency, directed at defusing the appeal of the revolutionary movement among the restive rural masses.

"Rural development" was the Bank's response to the agricultural crisis. The centerpiece of the strategy was increasing the productivity of small farmers through the delivery of "technological packages" and upgrading agricultural support services like credit systems. Rural development, however, had implications that went beyond improved efficiency.

As McNamara explained to the Bank's board of governors, the strategy would "put the emphasis not on redistribution of income and wealth — as justified as that may be in our member countries — but rather on increasing the productivity of the poor, thereby providing for an equitable sharing in the benefits of growth." In short, rural development was partly counterinsurgency, directed at defusing the appeal of the revolutionary movement among the restive rural masses.

Besides Third Position fascism, the other major ideological influence on the National-Anarchists is the European New Right, especially the thinker Alainde Benoist. National-Anarchists have adopted his ideas about race, political decentralization, and the “right to difference.”

Benoist founded the think-tank GRECE, and has spent his life creating an intellectually respectable edifice for a core of fascist ideas. Like Southgate, Benoist loudly proclaims that he is not a fascist, but scholars such as Roger Griffin disagree. Griffin says that the New Right “could by the end of the 1980s be credited with the not inconsiderable achievement of having carried out a ‘makeover’ of classic fascist discourse so successfully that, at least on the surface it was changed beyond recognition.” 32

Benoist extended the notion of an alliance of European nations with the Third World against their main enemies: the United States, liberalism, and capitalism. But against the fascists who desired a united Europe under a super-state, Benoist instead calls for radical federalism and the political decentralization of Europe. Roger Griffin describes this vision as:

The pluralistic, multicultural society of liberal democracy was to give way, not to a culturally coordinated, charismatic, and, in the case of Nazism, racially pure, national community coterminous with the nation-state, but to an alliance of homogeneous ethnic-cultural communities (ethnies) within the framework of a federalist European “empire.”33

Benoist also incorporates many sophisticated left-wing critiques, sometimes sounding like a Frankfurt School Marxist. Today he denounces capitalism, imperialism, liberalism, the consumer society, Christianity, universalism, and egalitarianism; he defends paganism, “organic democracy,” and the Third World. He questions the role of unbridled technology and supports environmentalism and a kind of feminism.34 He also rejects biological determinism and embraces a notion of race that is cultural.35 Southgate follows practically all of these positions, which are not necessarily present in Third Position.

Because of these views, the European New Right is very different from the U.S. New Right, whose Christianity and free market views are anathema to the Europeans. The Europeans are closer to the paleoconservative tradition in the United States, and connect with The Rockford Institute, publisher of Chronicles.

The danger National-Anarchists represent is not in their marginal political strength, but in their potential to show an innovative way that fascist groups can rebrand themselves and reset their project on a new footing. They have abandoned many traditional fascist practices—including the use of overt neo-Nazi references, and recruiting from the violent skinhead culture. In its place they offer a more toned down, sophisticated approach… Their cultural references are the neo-folk and gothic music scene, which puts on an air of sophistication, as opposed to the crude skinhead subculture. National Anarchists abandon any obvious references to the Hitler or Mussolini’s fascist regimes, often claiming not to be “fascist” at all.

Like the European New Right, the National-Anarchists adapt a sophisticated left-wing critique of problems with contemporary society, and draw their symbols and cultural orientation from the Left; then they offer racial separatism as the answer to these problems. They are attempting to use this new form to avoid the stigma of the old discredited fascism, and if they are successful like the National Bolsheviks have been in Russia, they will breathe new life into their movement. Even if the results are modest, this can disrupt left-wing social movements and their focus on social justice and egalitarianism; and instead spread elitist ideas based on racism, homophobia, antisemitism and antifeminism amongst grassroots activists.