Daniel Loick, Vanessa E. Thompson (2026). Surplus fascism: Reflections on current tendencies of abandonment in Germany and beyond. New German Critique, 53(1), 203–223.
In this essay, Daniel Loick and Vanessa E. Thompson develop the thesis that current authoritarian and fascist developments worldwide should not be understood as political exceptions or mere reactions to short-term crises. Rather, they were structural responses to profound changes in modern capitalist societies and emerged from them, particularly the increasing production of so-called “surplus” population groups. For the grave structural inequalities of the global political economy can no longer be simply contained through consensual mechanisms. Here, fascism does not appear as a contrast to the existing system, but as an intensification of its internal logics and a deepening of existing power relations.
The starting point of the analysis is the observation that right-wing and authoritarian movements construct very similar enemy images internationally. Migrants, refugees, poor or unemployed people, feminists and queer individuals, as well as political opponents, are portrayed as a threat to a supposedly natural social order. These commonalities suggest that such political developments cannot be explained primarily in national terms, but rather stem from global social and economic dynamics. Crucial to this is the notion that certain groups are “too many” or socially superfluous.
For a theoretical explanation, we draw on Karl Marx’s concept of “relative overpopulation.” Accordingly, capitalist modes of production necessarily generate people whose labor is no longer needed. Technological development, economic competition, and structural inequalities lead to growing segments of the population being permanently excluded from social participation. These people are not only economically marginalized but are increasingly constructed and perceived as a social burden or threat. The promise of fascist politics lies in eliminating these superfluous groups through deportation, criminalization, organized neglect, or even physical extermination.
Currently, several crisis processes are intersecting: a crisis of capitalist overaccumulation, a crisis of nation-state integration, the transformation of traditional gender orders, and the ongoing ecological crisis. Fascism emerges as an affective and political reaction to a situation in which more and more people see themselves threatened by the danger of becoming superfluous themselves. Drawing on Marxist and critical theory, psychoanalytic approaches, and radical Black and anti-colonial critiques, we argue that authoritarian subjects repress their own fears of real or symbolic loss of status by marking other groups as “abject” or reprehensible. The punishment of these groups generates a sense of moral superiority and control. Violence and exclusion thus function not only as political strategies but also as emotionally gratifying practices that stabilize a threatened self-image.
Politically, this dynamic is particularly evident in the expansion of state punitive and control mechanisms. Tighter migration policies, intensified policing, the criminalization of protest movements, or the increasing control of public spaces are forms of a carceral politics aimed at managing, isolating, or displacing surplus populations. Examples in the German context include the repression of the Palestine solidarity movement and the intensifying racist expulsion of refugees and migrants.
If we understand fascism not as the opposite but an extreme form of the liberal-capitalist status quo—one that, through state and economic practices, repeatedly prepares people for their disposability—then it cannot be combated by merely defending existing political institutions. Since the production of “surplus” is inherent in the capitalist system itself, anti-fascist politics cannot rely solely on integration or reform. Instead, we propose an abolitionist perspective that abolishes the capitalist social system, fundamentally rebuilds social institutions, and is guided by the experiences and struggles of marginalized groups. Such a politics aims to create social conditions in which no one is superfluous anymore.