Antifascist economic policy | Now comes the economic antifa

Among neoliberals: Isabella Weber on the podium at “80 Years of Handelsblatt” and “100 Years of WirtschaftsWoche”, June 2026 Photo: IMAGO/Mike Schmidt The economist Isabella Weber has touched a nerve. Economist Rudi Bachmann calls her a “quack” on the “X” platform. For Thomas Neuhauser, press spokesman for the President of the Austrian Federal Council, the “crazy Weber” is a “deplorable joke.” And for the economist Jan Schnellenbach, it shows a “degree of technical ignorance at which the fun stops.” Weber just wrote a book in which she calls for an economy that aims at people's well-being and not profit.

In view of the right-wing trend, climate catastrophe, war and economic crisis, a number of economists have attempted to formulate a left-wing alternative to the prevailing politics. Tom Krebs's book "Capital and Crisis" has been published, Marianna Mazzucato has presented "A capitalism that benefits everyone" and Isabella Weber is currently presenting her book "Antifascist Economic Policy". All three are prominent, are close to the red-red-green camp and rely on radicalized versions of social democratic market regulation, including price controls, industrial policy, public services and state participation. Goal: break the right-wing trend, secure supplies, end the crisis. The question remains open as to whether this can be reconciled with the prevailing economic system - and if not, what conclusion can be drawn from it.

Weber's starting point is the observation that the neoliberal policies of the so-called "center" parties have increased people's insecurity and that this "economic insecurity is driving voters into the arms of the extreme right." According to Weber, an “inadequate provision of basic goods such as education, health services and public infrastructure” has “laid the ground for immigrants to be made into scapegoats.”

So the right is profiting from the misery. Theoretically, the left could do that too. However, for far too long she has “failed to get voters who reject the status quo on her side with a clear vision of hope for the majority of people.” Weber wants to deliver this vision with “anti-fascist economic policy,” whereby economic policy in this context encompasses the entire organization of production and distribution.

To explain Weber's concept, it is first worth taking a look at how economic policy is usually pursued by the political center. The central goal is “economic growth”. Everything is dependent on him. “Economic growth is not a statistical quantity, but rather it is the prerequisite for the prosperity of our country,” says Chancellor Friedrich Merz (CDU).

The central driver of this growth is investment: A company invests, buys machines, factories and people, has production and sales and makes a profit, which it reinvests in order to continue growing. This movement produces the profit, revenue from suppliers, wages and taxes from which the state is financed. Because of their central importance for growth, according to economist Clara Mattei, companies have powerful leverage to influence governments. Only if companies are satisfied with the situation will they decide to invest. Conversely, “anything that could undermine confidence in the economy must be carefully avoided, as it could cause an economic crisis.”

The "centre's" economic policy is therefore primarily about improving investment conditions, currently through reforms such as social cuts, which result in further loss of security for people. The center is agitating the population for this program: “I have the feeling that the people in our country are also prepared to make sacrifices,” said Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil (SPD). Everyone is called upon to put their particular interests aside and look at what is “best for the country.”

Is this an argument against capitalism or just for competition control and wealth taxes?

Weber counters this dependence of life on “growth” and return on capital with her concept. A first and central point for them is the "reconquest of essential goods": "A decent life requires access to healthy food, adequate accommodation, local and long-distance transport, communication and health care." This access simply has to be given and must not be hindered by profit interests. One should not “allow things that we cannot do without to be controlled by a handful of corporations.”

At Weber, price controls are an essential means of securing essential goods – “affordability”. Corporations are currently in a position to exploit supply crises, such as those with oil, to make huge extra profits, which leads to cost shocks for consumers. According to Weber, these extra profits could be prevented through price caps and state storage or skimmed off through excess profits taxes.

For Weber, price regulations are only an emergency instrument and do not alone solve the supply problem. However, they create time to organize the production and distribution of goods differently. For Weber, industrial policy plays an important role here. Instruments include public investment, regulation of production, state participation in companies or the complete provision of goods by the state. »Appropriate coordination and planning is required for each sector, taking into account the physical, social and economic conditions.«

In addition, Weber's concept includes the redistribution from rich to poor, the strengthening of workers' rights and "the participation of employees in company management when it comes to production conditions, investment decisions and profit distribution." In addition, there is comprehensive public provision: "Extensive government investments in care from cradle to grave would create jobs in a collapsing service sector."

Overall, anti-fascist economic policy proceeds gradually. The first thing is to secure the essential goods: it can “create a dynamic by proving the feasibility of the concept and consolidating the political will.” From there you can “work your way into the remaining structures, layer by layer: production and circulation of goods and services; macroeconomic stability and employment; the ecological foundations and ultimately a peaceful world order." Weber does not accept the objection that this program cannot be financed and refers to the famous sentence by the economist John Maynard Keynes from the 1940s: Everything that we can actually do, we can also afford. “The only thing that matters is what material resources are available,” says Weber.

So far, so friendly. However, apart from the political implementation of the program, some crucial questions remain unanswered.

Weber's progressive economic policy sees itself as "anti-fascist." However, that doesn't seem necessary. Individual parts of their program could also be implemented by right-wing governments in order to pacify the population. Hungary under Victor Orbán was the country that has made extensive use of price controls in recent years.

Weber's concept appears desirable given the provision of goods - regardless of current legal trends. The fact that she explicitly promotes her concept as a means against fascism suggests that she also wants to convince the parties in the political center of the necessity of her proposals. Only left-wing politics, the message goes, can save democracy and stop fascism, which is why the parties should join the center. However, reality shows that the center also suffers from the success of the right. However, their political content and programs are much more similar to the right than to anti-fascist economic policy. Weber's appeal to the center - from the Greens to the SPD to parts of the CDU - is therefore likely to go unheard. In her fight, she will probably have not only the right as opponents, but also the center, which is using patriotism to agitate people to make sacrifices for the location because there is no alternative.

All measures of anti-fascist economic policy "are united by the principle that the economy exists to meet the needs of people and not the other way around," writes Weber. “Market, profit and growth are merely means and not an end.” In doing so, it goes diametrically against the logic of the prevailing system, in which profit is the purpose and the satisfaction of needs is merely a by-product of capitalist growth. On the one hand, Weber is aware of this systemic contradiction: As long as "the profit motive of capitalist corporations forms the highest organizing principle of supply," this is "incompatible with any serious idea of ​​democracy," she writes. "The choice is between the universal rule of the market - which is really the rule of profit - and the rule of the people."

In many other places, however, it remains unclear to what extent anti-fascist economic policy really sees itself as a fundamental break with capitalism. Sometimes the problem in the book is “profit” itself, other times it is “profit fundamentalism,” i.e. just too great an importance for profit. Sometimes it is the profit motive of companies that prevents the supply, which would suggest that it should be overcome. Elsewhere, however, it is merely “excess profits” that excess profits taxes are sufficient to combat. Sometimes the “market” is criticized, sometimes just the fact that this market is dominated by “giant corporations” and “ultra-rich individuals” – is this an argument against capitalism or just for competition control and wealth taxes? Is the subjugation of social labor to profit production the problem or just unemployment and low wages?

In view of these ambivalences, the obvious question arises: How should we react if the goals of anti-fascist economic policy - the good life for everyone - are not compatible with the needs of a capitalist location and its companies, which are in increased competition with other locations for solvency on the world market? The most visible signs of this would be a comprehensive capital flight from the anti-fascist location and a stop to the inflow of investment capital, resulting in rising interest rates, a falling currency and a decline in growth leading to a crisis. In short: What if Keynes's statement "What we can do, we can afford" is true, but not in the prevailing economic system, in which almost everything we can "do" depends on someone generating a surplus?

It also remains unclear what the gradual implementation of their anti-fascist economic program will actually look like. It only becomes concrete in the first step, securing essential goods through price controls and similar measures. However, the crucial phases – the reorganization of the entire production and distribution – only follow afterwards. Weber says little about them. What is noteworthy at this point is that she does not further discuss the numerous past attempts to install a controlled market in her book. From their failure one could perhaps learn what contradictions arise between returns and supply that cannot be eliminated by simple bans. But the real socialist Eastern bloc, Yugoslav workers' self-management, Latin American attempts at import substitution or the current debate about democratic planning play no role for Weber, and the global retreat of social democracy seems to her to be merely the result of a neoliberal error and not a result of radicalized crisis competition.

It is always easy to criticize writings for leaving out certain points - every book does that. In Weber's case, however, this is a serious shortcoming, as she not only wants to provide a radical criticism of the existing situation, but also to show concretely that a different way of doing business is possible. Here, however, she remains too general and makes it all too easy for her critics to attack her with the argument that her program is utopian, unfinanceable and not feasible. Maybe that's even true - but only under capitalism.

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