Naomi Wolf: Secret Libertarian

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
41

I believe Fascism and Communism to be fractured versions of the same ideology (Marxism). This would explain why they were so at odds.

For example, when a church congregation splits over some issue. The older traditional people on one side (communists) and the new people in the congregation trying to modernize things (fascists). The Fascists relocate to the building next door and you are left with 2 starkly similar churches trying to persuade all the same people to their congregation. And yes they would both probably bad mouth each other, though they aren’t that different.

42

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
entheogens wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:

It makes the argument that Fascism originated from communism and the politics of the left. Things like that Mussolini and Hitler were both originally communists and Mussolini claimed he was one till his death.

Mussolini was a socialist at one time. He was never a communist and Hitler certainly was not. Anything remotely Leftist was wiped out under their regimes. Check out what Hitler did to trade unions and left-oriented academics. Same goes for Mussolini.

In any case, we can find cases new and old of people switching from one tendancy to another. For example, Christopher Hitchens used to be a Trotskyist and now is a neocon. The same can be said about David Horowitz. Yet, we would not conclude that Marxism gave rise to Neoconservatism.

Obviously, I would need to read the book to check what other supporting facts are given but, honestly, those you provide sound spurious to me.

There was also a stark similarity between what was happening in Germany, Italy and here in the US. It goes so far as to point out that the US could be considered the first fascist state under Woodrow Wilson and later escalated by FDR. With the Blue Eagle program, the first department of propaganda, est.

That is a peculiar argument. I know that the free marketers
on here don’t like FDR, but to claim that he was a fascist seems more than far-fetched.

Yes, both Hitler and Mussolini had deep roots in socialism (though Hitler didn’t claim to belong to any specific economic philosophy).

Both however used all inclusive government ownership and regulation combined with a socialist economy while trying to carryout the philosophies of Marx in their country.

Marx’s philosophy gave birth to both fascism and communism.

Ass for unions:

“Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.” --BM

Mussolini claimed not to destroy them, but relocate their power to the state.

This really should be considered an ultimate goal of communism as well as total collective ownership would go beyond just the workers in a particular sector.

Edit: I forgot to mention one of the Early fascist slogans, “First brown, then red”. Witch furthers the point that they hated each other because they were fighting over the same segment of the population. [/quote]

Corporatism, which was what Mussolini advocated, was very different from communism. You can kind of say fascism springs from socialism, but then you have to also say that both of them, and classical liberalism as well, spring from 1789.

I suspect Goldberg wrote his book mainly so that he could call liberals fascists and thus delegitimize them and their arguments. As others have noted, the tactic of labelling your opponents “fascists” was once the tool of the radical Left, and was spurned by conservatives. And Jonah Goldberg is maybe the last person I’d go to for intellectual history.

43

No, the corporatism that he advocated were governmental organizations that controlled different aspects of life. It may be a slightly different administrative structure than communism, but it isn’t that different.

44

Haha. You’re having fun with this, arent you?

45

Fascism is unquestionably the progeny of Socialist movements - it stems from the same impulses, being:

  1. Someone with power is oppressing a class of victims

  2. The victims need deliverance of that oppression through the state

  3. The means to accomplish this deliverance was social revolution

Nazism added an element of race to the mix, but essentially kept the Marxist meme.

I think Goldberg takes it too far, as there is something distinctly different about American liberalism from European movements, even as it has take a turn towards creating an essentially unlimited administrative state.

46

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Fascism is unquestionably the progeny of Socialist movements - it stems from the same impulses, being:

  1. Someone with power is oppressing a class of victims

  2. The victims need deliverance of that oppression through the state

  3. The means to accomplish this deliverance was social revolution

Nazism added an element of race to the mix, but essentially kept the Marxist meme.

I think Goldberg takes it too far, as there is something distinctly different about American liberalism from European movements, even as it has take a turn towards creating an essentially unlimited administrative state. [/quote]

But then, so has American “conservatism”, and even worse, a turn towards an invasive and potentially dangerous national security state.

47

In an oversimplified model of things, (classical Marxist) socialism and fascism are similar in that they both advocate a powerful state, but the similarities pretty much end there.

Of course, this doesn’t even take into account the myriad varieties of socialism, which may or may not advocate a powerful central government.

Of course, taking these things into account would complicate your analysis and render your conclusions dubious at best, so I don’t realistically expect you to.

48

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:

But then, so has American “conservatism”, and even worse, a turn towards an invasive and potentially dangerous national security state.[/quote]

Incorrect - government always expands to a certain extent in times of war for obvious reasons. That doesn’t automatically qualify it as “fascism” when a conservative administration is the one responsible.

That is part of the problem of kneejerk mislabeling - “government expansion” isn’t the tripwire for “fascism” or “socialism”. The important question is “to what end is the government expanding?”.

If the US government consumed 100% of our GDP - all of our resources - to fight an alien invasion threatening to destroy us all, that would be quite an overarching state, but it wouldn’t be “Socialism” or “Fascism” as a matter of course.

That doesn’t mean that Socialist and Fascist states haven’t used external (or internal threats) as pretexts to grow the state, but that is exactly the point - they were pretexts to a different goal.

49

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

In an oversimplified model of things, (classical Marxist) socialism and fascism are similar in that they both advocate a powerful state, but the similarities pretty much end there.[/quote]

Nope - a “big state” is merely a means to some other end. Socialism and Fascism both advocate using a “big state” to eliminate the exploitation and oppression of a given set of people who need to be delivered from that status - the proletariat, the German race, Edward Said’s “Other”, etc.

That flows directly from the basic Marxist framework - a violent purge is needed to free the oppressed from their oppressor, and a state that mandates “equality” and puts people in their proper place is needed.

The most important aspect of Socialism is its aim, and how it plans on accomplishing those aims are secondary. Socialism is concerned with the “fair” distribution of certain social and material goods. Socialists and Fascists share that same impulse - and Hitler’s Jews were Marx’s capitalists.

Now I remember why I usually skip your posts.

50

Fascism will come under the flag of getting rid of religion in the US.

Look at all the fear and hatred in this very thread.

All you stupid fuckers need is for someone in government to start playing to your fear and glaring ignorance, and we will indeed be on our way to a fascist state.

Reid and Barry will take your 401K’s and you stupid fucks will cheer it on - especially if they kill a christian or two in the process.

51

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Fascism is unquestionably the progeny of Socialist movements - it stems from the same impulses, being:

  1. Someone with power is oppressing a class of victims

  2. The victims need deliverance of that oppression through the state

  3. The means to accomplish this deliverance was social revolution

Nazism added an element of race to the mix, but essentially kept the Marxist meme.

I think Goldberg takes it too far, as there is something distinctly different about American liberalism from European movements, even as it has take a turn towards creating an essentially unlimited administrative state. [/quote]

Yes, there certainly were differences in what was happening in the US. But, I think you are underestimating many of the similarities at least originally in the movements. I think the makeup of the population of the US forced differences in the movement.

The movements happened about the same time had many similar characteristics, and leaders that were at least sympathetic to each others causes.

To me the largest difference between the socialism of communist and fascists is the rallying, motivating force used to mobilize the population. For communists it was unity and revolution of a class of people (ment to carry to the whole world).

For fascists it was unity and revolution of country and nationality, an entitlement of Italians, rather than an entitlement of workers. Germany was similar to this as they united around Germany as a race (and mystical religion) not a nationality. It was this difference that manifested as Nazism rather than Italy’s fascism. It also causes the differences in resulting administrations. It’s why Italy preserved (to an extent) corporations and business structures. Because after all even wealthy Italian’s were part of an Italian movement, where in communism wealthy had no part in a workers revolution.

It is also in this characteristic that the US movement shared with Italy. FDR made it increasing illegal to be unpatriotic. He attempted to transform the state into an unquestionable entity. If you questioned the state the men would come and take you away.

It’s also in this characteristic that the modern “conservative” (read republican) movement shares in common with fascism.

The arguable difference in today’s movement is whether the patriotism is the means or the end. For the Marxist a crisis is a means to motivating the population to obey and grow the power of government. In that case the crisis is a means. Today republicans would argue that the patriotism is the means to winning the war on terror.

So if you believe republicans to be using the war to drive patriotism and grow the government then I would label them fascist. If you believe that they are using the patriotism and the growth of government to win the war, then I would not label them fascist.

However, a war doesn’t have to be the crisis, it can be anything. You can ask the same questions of todays liberals regarding the economy and things like global warming. Are they using global warming to grow government or attempting to grow government to solve global warming? Though global warming at least doesn’t really sound fascist or communist as it is a different motivating force that includes every person in the world as a whole.

Whatever carrot they dangle in front of the population to coax them into action, they are all siblings whose ultimate goal is the same.

What made Fascism, Nazism, and Communism different when manifested? Their motivating forces allowed those in power different liberties.

Mussolini through nationalism became relegated to visibly having to do “best” for all Italians or the movement ceased to make sense.

Hitler had to do “best” for his race, but was free to do whatever he wanted to other races.

Communists became only able to do “best” for the workers of the world preventing them from using the same means as the fascists or Nazis.

Mussolini and Hitler found what they thought were better more feasible rallying cries around which to build Marxism. They didn’t think you could economically sustain a worldwide government around solely workers. If you take the same idea and stretch it around a nation as a whole you are more able to economically sustain socialism by preserving the business structure over top of the working class.

But that’s just my take on things.

52

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:Nope - a “big state” is merely a means to some other end. Socialism and Fascism both advocate using a “big state” to eliminate the exploitation and oppression of a given set of people who need to be delivered from that status - the proletariat, the German race, Edward Said’s “Other”, etc.

That flows directly from the basic Marxist framework - a violent purge is needed to free the oppressed from their oppressor, and a state that mandates “equality” and puts people in their proper place is needed.[/quote]

Except that the aims are very different. Fascism is a very nationalistic, corporatist, militaristic ideology that gives little regard to individual rights. Socialism’s aim is the liberation of the individual from the oppression of capital. The similarity in the real-world comes from their both espousing strong, single-party control, which is pretty much always a recipe for disaster.

The means of accomplishing those aims are of primary importance. How could you think otherwise? By saying that the aim is the only thing that is important, you’re saying that the only concern is to “eliminate capital’s exploitation of labor,” which is quite a nebulous goal on its own.

53

[quote]rainjack wrote:All you stupid fuckers need is for someone in government to start playing to your fear and glaring ignorance, and we will indeed be on our way to a fascist state.
[/quote]

Oh, you mean like “Oh my God! The Muslims are going to kill us all if we don’t invade Iraq!” and “Torturing people at Guantanamo and suspending due process helps us BEAT THE BAD GUYS!”

Oh the irony. Let me guess, now Rainjack will curse some, and tell me how much smarter he is than me. yawn

54

[quote]GDollars37 wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:
entheogens wrote:
DoubleDuce wrote:

It makes the argument that Fascism originated from communism and the politics of the left. Things like that Mussolini and Hitler were both originally communists and Mussolini claimed he was one till his death.

Mussolini was a socialist at one time. He was never a communist and Hitler certainly was not. Anything remotely Leftist was wiped out under their regimes. Check out what Hitler did to trade unions and left-oriented academics. Same goes for Mussolini.

In any case, we can find cases new and old of people switching from one tendancy to another. For example, Christopher Hitchens used to be a Trotskyist and now is a neocon. The same can be said about David Horowitz. Yet, we would not conclude that Marxism gave rise to Neoconservatism.

Obviously, I would need to read the book to check what other supporting facts are given but, honestly, those you provide sound spurious to me.

There was also a stark similarity between what was happening in Germany, Italy and here in the US. It goes so far as to point out that the US could be considered the first fascist state under Woodrow Wilson and later escalated by FDR. With the Blue Eagle program, the first department of propaganda, est.

That is a peculiar argument. I know that the free marketers
on here don’t like FDR, but to claim that he was a fascist seems more than far-fetched.

Yes, both Hitler and Mussolini had deep roots in socialism (though Hitler didn’t claim to belong to any specific economic philosophy).

Both however used all inclusive government ownership and regulation combined with a socialist economy while trying to carryout the philosophies of Marx in their country.

Marx’s philosophy gave birth to both fascism and communism.

Ass for unions:

“Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade-unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.” --BM

Mussolini claimed not to destroy them, but relocate their power to the state.

This really should be considered an ultimate goal of communism as well as total collective ownership would go beyond just the workers in a particular sector.

Edit: I forgot to mention one of the Early fascist slogans, “First brown, then red”. Witch furthers the point that they hated each other because they were fighting over the same segment of the population.

Corporatism, which was what Mussolini advocated, was very different from communism. You can kind of say fascism springs from socialism, but then you have to also say that both of them, and classical liberalism as well, spring from 1789.

I suspect Goldberg wrote his book mainly so that he could call liberals fascists and thus delegitimize them and their arguments. As others have noted, the tactic of labelling your opponents “fascists” was once the tool of the radical Left, and was spurned by conservatives. And Jonah Goldberg is maybe the last person I’d go to for intellectual history.[/quote]

Classical liberalism may have led to 1789, but began to merge into utilitarianism/altruism after it.

55

[quote]entheogens wrote:

That is a peculiar argument. I know that the free marketers
on here don’t like FDR, but to claim that he was a fascist seems more than far-fetched.

[/quote]

Maybe you should look at the statements of his own administration, you might be in for a surprise.

Back then, every “intellectual” was either socialist or fascist, classical liberalism was seen to be a brutal relict of the past.

Keynes wrote his books in part to save capitalism and he actually meant that.

Hell yeah, they were fascists.

56

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
entheogens wrote:
Umberto Eco has written an essay on “Ur Fascism” which summarizes quite well the elements of fascism:

<<In spite of some fuzziness regarding the difference between various historical forms of fascism, I think it is possible to outline a list of features that are typical of what I would like to call Ur-Fascism, or Eternal Fascism. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it.>>

Read essay at-

http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html

Yeah, one of the biggest problems with discussing fascism is a lack of a solid definition. Depending on how you define it shifts the perspective on who is fascist.

I find it hard to correlate what went on in Germany with what happened in Italy. The 2 were very different movements motivated and resulting in different focuses. I tend to consider Italy the “most” fascist with Mussolini the guy who wrote the rules on fascism, and label Nazi Germany as Nazism which was controlled by Hitler, but really had no set of rules.[/quote]

The link is in the midst of the 19th century.

A lot of sociological, philosophical and political movements were heavily influenced by economics, hence Marx and Utilitarianism.

Utilitarianism even has its name from an economic idea “utility” and Bentham even searched for a “util”. What he was effectively searching for was the cardinality and commensurability of utility functions which would have enabled him to distribute “happiness” in order to maximize it.

The idea that the state could, or should maximize happiness in society is what ties them all together.

Suddenly the state had an active role to serve a higher cause, whether that be a race, or class, or people and economic planning was one of the means to do that.

All of the 20st century quasi religions have utilitarian if not altruist underpinnings.

This is what they share with the still basically utilitarian nature of todays left.

edit: and right. and center.

except Ron Paul, PBUH

57

[quote]rainjack wrote:
Fascism will come under the flag of getting rid of religion in the US.

Look at all the fear and hatred in this very thread.

All you stupid fuckers need is for someone in government to start playing to your fear and glaring ignorance, and we will indeed be on our way to a fascist state.

Reid and Barry will take your 401K’s and you stupid fucks will cheer it on - especially if they kill a christian or two in the process.

[/quote]

If that is true, it has already begun, because there is a campaign to declare that all religions are dangerous delusions that lead to violence.

Since it is the tenet of utilitarianism to maximize happiness, should we not get rid of something as dangerous as religion when we ban something as harmless as weed?

How many people has marijuana killed, but religion?!?

However, I think that you overlook that when such an argument is even possible for weed, cocaine, prostitution or gambling you already ARE living in a fascist state and now they are coming for you.

58

[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

Except that the aims are very different. Fascism is a very nationalistic, corporatist, militaristic ideology that gives little regard to individual rights. Socialism’s aim is the liberation of the individual from the oppression of capital. The similarity in the real-world comes from their both espousing strong, single-party control, which is pretty much always a recipe for disaster. [/quote]

The “corporatist” approach isn’t different - “corporatism” in fascist-speak means to nationalize and consolidate industry to eliminate the tension between capital and labor…precisely the same mechanics and goals of socialism.

As for “militaristic”, socialism is just as militaristic, largely because those with power - Marx’s capitalists - won’t give up their monopoly on power without a fight. This is, of course, no different from fascism, which must eliminate the “oppressors” by force.

Socialism and fascism have similar general aims. I don’t think they are identical, and never said they were. But they are ideological siblings, and fascism has no relation to classical liberalism/American conservatism, which share neither the philosophical assumptions nor the general aims of these Marxist (and to some degree Rousseau-ian) offspring.

The means matter, I never said otherwise - but the ideologies are defined by what they want to accomplish, not so much by how it happens.

So what? What defines socialism are its core assumptions about what needs to be accomplished, and socialism shares many of the same basic assumptions as fascism.

59

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
So what? What defines socialism are its core assumptions about what needs to be accomplished, and socialism shares many of the same basic assumptions as fascism.[/quote]

no its because you blur the lines when you dont take into account the inclusive perspective needed to understand Marxism or any other system.

so to the proles/workers, their revolution is communism, to the upper classes its fascism because they’re not in power any longer and are the repressed. and vice versa.

a lot of talk goes around about communism being about big govn’t, but if you’ve bothered to read any Marx (for any reason), communism is supposed to lead to no state govn’t. That never happened in russia, china, cuba becuase they aren’t true communist states obviously. oranges may be fruits but they aren’t apples.

and given hitler killed off the communist leaders and organizers and shut down everything, it would be inaccurate to label him so. and the same with socialist.

if you try to extrapolate communist/socialist ideas and fail to mention why its in the favor of the workers, youre just taking it out of context.

its not merely revolution for X class to be oppressors over Y & Z classes. Its specific, workers, not germans, not whites, not nonjews ect.

60

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

Except that the aims are very different. Fascism is a very nationalistic, corporatist, militaristic ideology that gives little regard to individual rights. Socialism’s aim is the liberation of the individual from the oppression of capital. The similarity in the real-world comes from their both espousing strong, single-party control, which is pretty much always a recipe for disaster.

The “corporatist” approach isn’t different - “corporatism” in fascist-speak means to nationalize and consolidate industry to eliminate the tension between capital and labor…precisely the same mechanics and goals of socialism.

As for “militaristic”, socialism is just as militaristic, largely because those with power - Marx’s capitalists - won’t give up their monopoly on power without a fight. This is, of course, no different from fascism, which must eliminate the “oppressors” by force.

Socialism and fascism have similar general aims. I don’t think they are identical, and never said they were. But they are ideological siblings, and fascism has no relation to classical liberalism/American conservatism, which share neither the philosophical assumptions nor the general aims of these Marxist (and to some degree Rousseau-ian) offspring.

The means of accomplishing those aims are of primary importance. How could you think otherwise? By saying that the aim is the only thing that is important, you’re saying that the only concern is to “eliminate capital’s exploitation of labor,” which is quite a nebulous goal on its own.

The means matter, I never said otherwise - but the ideologies are defined by what they want to accomplish, not so much by how it happens.

So what? What defines socialism are its core assumptions about what needs to be accomplished, and socialism shares many of the same basic assumptions as fascism.[/quote]

I just think it’s a little questionable to talk about what “socialism” is and would do when it’s really a whole group of seperate ideologies. Not totally seperate, of course, but there’s quite a bit of variance.