unforgettable movie, huge cultural impact. Wouldn't call it fascism though, it was free market capitalism, with the private sector corporation Omni Consumer Products (OCP) fulfilling the role of a valiant but bankrupted state
If you focus more on the kind of world Robocop occurs in rather than the plot, it's easier to see elements of it. Robocop is celebrated in-world for his violence (see, those normal cops weren't able to be violent enough without head-to-toe bulletproof armor and full-auto pistols) as a solution to social frustrations (high crime and corporate greed) and reinforces their hero culture through his sacrifice. There's even a secret conspiracy/plot between those two frustrations and a sub-plot about labor organizing.
But, at the end of the day, it's hard to have an action-focused cop movie without some of these things so we're sort of desensitized to it.
Starship Troopers (also directed by Paul Verhoeven) is even more on the nose about it. The plot itself is just a goofy sci-fi military movie but the human culture in it is absolutely terrifying.
The contrast between the two was kind of the point of the movie though.
> Windrip's administration, known as the Corpo government, curtails women's and minority rights, and eliminates individual states by subdividing the country into administrative sectors. The government of these sectors is managed by Corpo authorities, usually prominent businessmen
more than just displaying a fascist culture in the movie, this was a piece of art that a fascist culture would make. The acting is horrible, the casting of soap actors made sure of this, the glamorization of violence ignoring the horrible costs etc. It’s an incredible film. And courageous by Verhoeven.
I actually think that “meteor” that blew up Buenos Aires was a false flag, I didn’t see any bug meteor launching facilities, or even how they could target and launch something like that.
In support of the whole thing being a false flag, it would explain the sheer incompetence with which the war is prosecuted... a modern infantry unit would likely fate much better than Our Heroes did. Seeing it as a deliberately harrowing experience for social purposes where the technologically-superior humans are actually in full control the whole time would be an interesting twist. But, again, this would be a lot more solid if Hollywood didn't have a track record of unironic bad tactics across the board.
Do we know how Heinlein treats the episode, if at all?
“ The "Bug War" has changed from minor incidents to a full-scale war during Rico's training. An Arachnid attack that annihilates the city of Buenos Aires alerts civilians to the situation; Rico's mother is killed in the attack.”
I’ll read it but right now I remain suspicious
Nevertheless, by the time Robocop starts, that fictional US is no longer capitalist in my opinion. It clearly WAS a market economy, and that’s why OCP is there, but now the government has suffered state capture… and while that can happen from free market capitalism, it’s very much a post-capitalist condition. The market is no longer functional, because OCP has acquired such unchecked power to exert coercive force that they replace the government that is supposed to monopolize such things. The government of Robocop’s Detroit is so broken it can’t run its own police force, so it turns the job over to OCP which has all kinds of weapons and killer robots. Capitalism requires private property rights, which is failing in Robocop - no one can feel secure in anything. They can get robbed in their stores, at home, or walking down the street — and anyway, no matter how good a job Robocop does, OCP is still going to forcibly acquire all the land, knock down the old city and displace everyone to build a new town where OCP is the landlord of everything. This is more reminiscent of feudalism — OCP is the crown, and the crown owns all the land, but it delegates responsibility to nobles, who extract value for their own interests (like the corporate bad guy selling the right to operate drug monopoly in the new city to the criminal bad guy).
Obviously, Robocop is a work of fiction, and any resemblance to real persons or events is entirely coincidental… right? :)
While this is not "the" definition, but it at least provides insight: what a communist POV on fascism is.