Thomas Fazi je eden najbolj progresivnih politoloških mislecev sodobnega časa na levici. Leta 2017 sta skupaj z ekonomistom Williamom Mitchellom objavila knjigo “Reclaiming the State: A Progressive Vision of Sovereignty for a Post-Neoliberal World“, ki je bila zelo pred časom. To je bil čas začetka masivnega trenda vzpona populizma na zahodu. Osrednja teza knjige je, da politične demokracije ne moremo imeti brez ekonomske demokracije in da slednje ne moremo imeti brez nacionalne suverenosti. Mnogo pred Covidom in vojno v Ukrajini sta predvidela trende k avtoritarnosti na nadnacionalni ravni, ki so tendirali k zmanjševanju osebnih pravic in širitvi represije. EU sta videla kot institucijo, ki služi za podrejanje držav prek skupnih politik prisiljevanja članic v škodljive politike (kot je politika varčevanja, monetarna politika itd.). In seveda kot podaljšek Nata in kot institucijo, ki drži evropske države v podrejenosti Ameriki. “Vzeti nazaj državo” je bil njun poziv k večji nacionalni suverenosti držav, ki edina lahko legitimira ekonomske politike in s tem tudi politično demokracijo. Brez tega drsimo v avtoritarnost, represijo in militarizacijo … in razpad EU. Kajti na določeni točki bo revolt v evropskih državah narasel do točke, ko bo napolnil jadra populistom, in to desnim, in ti bodo naredili konec EU.

In to je razlog, zakaj bom na naslednjih volitvah volil za stranke, ki se bodo zavzemale za suverenost – slovensko in evropsko.

Reclaiming the State offers an urgent and prescient political analysis and economic program for the Left who are strategizing for these uncertain times. Many of our assumptions—about ideology, democracy, trade, and globalization—are being thrown into doubt, deposed by populism, nationalism, and racism. In response to these challenging times, economist Bill Mitchell and political theorist Thomas Fazi propose a reconceptualization of the sovereign state as a vehicle for change. They offer a progressive view of sovereignty based not on the demonization of the other, but as a way to bring the economy back under democratic control. With nationalism gaining support across the United States with each passing week, Reclaiaming the State provides innovative ideas to mobilize and reenergize a tired, divided Left.

Spodaj je Fazijevo razmišljanje 8 let kasneje ob izidu nemškega prevoda knjige.

A lot has happened since the book was first published in 2017, but I feel the book’s core thesis remains as relevant as ever: there can be no economic democracy without political (i.e., national) sovereignty, nor can there be a genuine political democracy without economic (i.e., national) sovereignty.

Furthermore, our argument that democratic sovereignty is impossible within the institutional straitjacket of the EU has only grown more relevant and urgent in the face of the EU’s escalating authoritarianism. Since 2017, the inherently anti-democratic, authoritarian and militarised nature of the EU has become ever more explicit. The EU’s full-throated support for NATO’s aggressive geopolitical agenda, its economic war against dissenting member states and its enthusiastic participation in the global rearmament drive have revealed its true character: not a peace project, but an imperial infrastructure for disciplining nations and peoples. The EU has effectively been an appendage of NATO — an enforcer of austerity, militarism and transatlantic dependency.

At the same time, our call for a stronger national state is likely to be viewed as even more controversial than five years ago. When the book was first published, its central thesis — that reclaiming national sovereignty was a necessary precondition for restoring democracy and economic self-determination — ran counter to much of the prevailing wisdom on both the left and the right. At the time, the primary obstacle to this project was the pseudo-progressive declination of the neoliberal consensus: a decades-long ideological straitjacket that equated state power with authoritarianism and reactionary politics.

Today, the terrain has shifted dramatically. The past several years have witnessed the acceleration of trends that were already latent: the expansion of state repression, the militarisation of political life and the hardening of an authoritarian post-liberal order. These developments have followed a clear sequence. The Covid-19 pandemic was the first turning point, ushering in a new era of emergency politics, widespread censorship and the normalisation of executive overreach. The Ukraine war entrenched this logic further, with dissenting voices subjected to criminalisation, deplatforming and media blacklisting. Now, the West’s uncritical support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza — met with mass protests and unprecedented state crackdowns — has exposed once and for all the violent foundations of the liberal international order.

This escalation in repression has had an unintended consequence: it has fuelled deep and growing scepticism of the state, particularly among those segments of the population most disillusioned with the status quo. In many cases, this disillusionment has driven people to the so-called populist or nationalist right. This shift is not merely a product of cultural backlash, but of a genuine political vacuum — one largely created by the disappearance of any real working-class left.

In such a context, arguing for a renewed, democratic and economically interventionist role for the state becomes more difficult than ever. A political vision centred on national sovereignty and popular economic control inevitably implies a “stronger state”, but also one that is much more responsive to popular demands — yet the state, as it exists today, is widely (and understandably) perceived as an enforcer of elite interests, not a vehicle for collective emancipation. This is the central challenge facing any attempt to “reclaim the state” today.

Vir: Thomas Fazi