Fascism

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Fascism is overloaded (means different things to different people/groups)[1], with a brutal history, so no one wants to be associated with it. Thus the side that it came from is going to do everything they can to obfuscate and pretend it came from "others". But fascism is more than an ad hominem attack: we can clarify conflicting meanings, and look at real history and motives. Just know that while some of us can handle the truth, reasonable intellectuals aren't usually found on internet forums or Facebook feeds.

Issue Lie Truth
Fascism

National Socialist Workers Party.

Fascism is a right-wing ideology, and the Republicans are fascists. (Other than they have nothing in common, weren't conservative, traditionalist, for individualism, separation of powers, they still had virtually nothing in common with the American right: ideologically). Fear the right, they're literally Hitler. The National Socialists were a branch of crony-socialism and unionism called Syndicalism, they were anti-banking, believed in big-central government, high regulation and taxation, collectivism, central planning, social programs, they were for BDS (Boycott, Divest and Sanction the Jews), and for gun-control. You can have a hard time telling one of their speeches from the far left. Really hard.

Summary

  • When Marx's Communism (revolutionary socialism) failed to deliver on its promises, the far-left ideologies started fracturing. One branch believed that instead of having disruptive revolutionary socialism and killing all who opposed them (called Marxism/Communism), they could get to socialism incrementally by temporarily allowing private business, as long as it was doing what the authoritarian/state dictated. They also believed that between full Socialism (the state owning all property), and capitalism (individuals owning all the property) was their Third Position: where business and private property was allowed, if it was in service of the state.
    • They saw themselves as moderate Progressive Democratic Socialists who didn't need to seize ownership of the means of production and all property rights, as long as controlling them through taxes/regulation/laws/intimidation (political correctness) was working.
  • They believed that Socialism/collectivism (state planning and control) lead to better organization, output, social justice -- thus their new model was more advanced than western liberalism (individualism and traditionalism).
    • This was often what their long speeches and ceremonies were about: the superiority of their beliefs in their collective, and attacking those that didn't agree. (In Germany, the superiority of the collective tied in with the Law of Jante, racial/anti-semitic spin). Omit the racist elements, and Hitler/Il Duce speeches would be right at home at an Occupy, Black Lives Matters, or Bernie Sanders rally.
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  • Their symbol is a bundle of sticks tied together (often with an axe in the middle) representing "all of us are stronger than any of us" and collective power[2]. (Others often used a bundle of arrows lashed together, representing the same things).
  • Their philosophy, origins and leadership, all came from the left: Socialist, Unions (Syndicates), progressivism, haters of existing society (and especially its bourgeois aspects: "eat the rich").
  • Fascists despised the status quo and were not attracted by a return to bygone eras (conservatism), they were about moving forward and having hope and change (e.g. the opposite of right-wing movements).
  • They had nationalistic tendencies of anti-immigrant/anti-competition for labor as many left-wing movements of the day did.
  • They frequently used pseudo-science to rationalize their quest for power (the Green New Deal of their day was Eugenics and the Gini Coefficient). They say global problems that could be fixed with top-down command-economies being governed by a "brain trust" of political elites.

The only way to claim fascism was right-wing is to ignore all those ways that they are left wing, to misunderstand or use inverted measures of right/left, or to myopically measure based on some other obscure right-left dimensions that the general public doesn't think of (to intentionally mislead them). Thus those who claim fascism is right-wing, virtually always fall somewhere on the fool<->fraud spectrum.

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2019.07.16 Ukraines Supreme Court -
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Ukraine's Supreme Court has upheld a law that equates Communism to Nazism, and bans the dissemination of its symbols. The law has prompted angry protests from Moscow, but the court said the "communist and Nazi regimes" used similar methods of "implementing repressive state policies, "and attacked "freedom of the press, opinion, or conscience." The differences between revolutionary socialism and evolutionary socialism (Fascism) are indistinguishable to its victims.

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Democratic National Socialism - Babylon Bee hits the satire out of the park by claiming the Nazi's want to be called the Democratic Nazi's now, as if the word democratic makes it all better. Democratic Racism, Democratic Censorship, Democratic Genocide, Democratic Rape, which of those things is made better by putting Democratic in front of it? And the same goes for Democratic Socialism, whether it is Democratic National Socialism, or Democratic Globalist Socialism makes little difference to the people being oppressed.

Democratic Socialism - The Democratic Socialists had their convention, and it was a point of personal privilege outrage party. People were getting triggered by the use of gendered pronouns, the amount of background chatter and they objected to the "tactical" use of the term "democratic" in "democratic socialists," as a way to market the socialist ideology to Americans. Yet no one objected to use of the term comrade, despite those most associated with the term killing many millions of people last century.

Digital Kristallnacht -
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Before he's even inaugurated, Joe Biden's supporters demanded and acted on Digital Kristallnacht: attacking conservatives on Social Media in order to find unity for the cause and spreading hate and division in the name of healing. The least historically informed will think I'm being absurdly hyperbolic... it was only 7,000 digital businesses that were destroyed instead of physical ones damaged, but the black-hearted idea is the same, "if you disagree with us, we will put you in a digital reservation / concentration camp and remove you from our version of civilized society". This polarization (and Biden's silence) sets up the ultimate litmus test: do you support this, or are you an American? The President of Mexico (Lopez Obrador) spoke out immediately against it as did Russian Dissident Alexei Navalny , showing they are more American than Joe Biden, his supporters, and the majority of the American media who supported it or remained silent. Anyone that is not outraged over Big Tech's Executive Order 9066 and the digital interment of the Trumpanese, is not a good person.

European Totalitarianism - A few things about Europe (and totalitarianism). The left (populists) believed the “others” (or the Rich Jews) were conspiring to take over Europe. The mid-17th century was the transition from classist feudalism (peasant and nobility) to nation states (government and workers). Generally, workers and Christians saw money lending as unsavory, having to do with religious biases and ignorant bigotries around interest rates (usury) and not understanding basic economics (like the time value of money, or risk-reward ratios). Europe was ripe for classism (resenting the rich), resenting finance/bankers, other tribes: Jews were all of these. Anti-semitism, classist envy and religious bigotries all blur into the same thing for them. The U.S. culture evolved mostly from European descendants and picked up a lot of those biases.

Fallacies about Fascism - Since modern leftist movements don't like their ties to fascism, they use a lot of fallacies and distractions to obfuscate that truth. Their favorite fallacy is the "No true Scotsman" fallacy (appeal to purity):
  • This purity fallacy is demonstrated with:
    • "Fascists couldn't be Socialists because they did/didn't do something". Ironically, applying purity standards to fascism would mean fascists are far less true right-wing, conservative, capitalists than they are left-wing. But you don't get leftists approval by applying equal standards or using critical thinking.
    • Fascists weren't quite as far-left as Communists/Socialists, therefore they were to the right of them (e.g. "right-wing"). That doesn't change they were to the left of center, or any American movements in the day (or today).
    • Fascists attacked socialist/communists, thus they can't be true socialists. Which is like saying any family member or spouse that fought with you, isn't your true family member/spouse. However, the norm is that when one socialist group gains power they consolidate their power by purging/de-legitimizing their competition (including the other branches of socialism). Also ignored by the biased is that the Fascists attacked conservative or the old establishments with even more gusto than they did the communists/socialists. If attacking a group makes them the opposite, then they definitely weren't right-wing or conservatives.
    • True Socialism" has never been tried - every time Socialist regimes collapse, the left claims, "that wasn't true Socialism". And they get back to theoretical socialism and how far the country had to diverge to make practical socialism work at all. So Marxism (Revolutionary Socialism) and Fascism (Hyrbid-Socialism), are forms of pracitcal socialism, but are disowned because they failed. But they're all just mildly divergent branches of collectivism, controlling the means of production (business), and redistributing wealth (controlling individuals). In the name of Social Justice the state controls everything and will provide from cradle to grave, as long as you do exactly what the state demands. The rest is just implementation details.
    • Fascists were militant, imperialistic, nationalistic and racists, thus they couldn't be progressives/socialist. This is the left trying to pretend their side has no flaws/unsavory views, thus any flaws prove they were not true socialists. Which is like saying a Christian can't be a murderer because Christianity doesn't condone murder. (Just ignore the Christians that do commit murder all the time), and the American left (of the day, and some today) are/were militant, imperialistic, nationalistic and racist and that doesn't make them less progressive, socialist, or left-wing. Affirmative Action is fundamentally racist and widely supported by the left, that doesn't make anyone who supports affirmative action a right-winger.
  • The other side is more like fascists than we are! - few will name how the fascists are "right-wing" because when they do, we can recognize that's not how we use left/right in America. So they hand wave with, "everyone knows" (begging the question), or appeal to authority (some pedigreed academic who says so). Yet, as soon as you look at why they're calling them "right-wing", you see through the ruse.
    • Left-Right inversion - the left and right mean opposite things in different countries/cultures just like conservative means going back to more libertarian freedoms in America, but it means going back to more Totalitarian Communism in Russia. The debate on this in Wikipedia's fascism's talk section was epic: the editors admitted intentionally misleading people (using wrong versions of the term) and refused to clarify.
  • There is one dimension where Fascism is right wing (and a dozen where it's false). If you see left-right based ONLY on whether you are using government power to fight against inequality versus accepting natural order (that in a diverse society, inequality and specialization are unavoidable), then the Fascists/Nazi's were too pragmatic: they accepted that meritocracy would allow some to rise. Of course that's a few fallacies in one:
    1. All leftist governments support some rising, just on party merits instead of economic ones: they replace economic inequality (via meritocracy) with greater inequality through politocracy (those more politically connected get special privilege, wealth and power). So they aren't really against inequality, they just support some kinds of it. And they end up more elitist and classist than what they replaced. No champion of Socialism goes into it thinking they're going to be a Doctor who now makes as little as the field hand, they do it thinking they'll be part of the political elite and the "brain trust".
    2. They do the same with power. The sell the demo-version of Socialism as a way to eliminate the powerful and claim that they're egalitarian (left-wing). But no Socialist country has or can exist for long without centralizing power and authority, and becoming authoritarian (right wing). The lure of Socialism itself is usually arrogant children (of all ages) thinking they know more than everyone else, and if they had the power to rule, they'd make things my fair, by first naming themselves (or their leaders) the benevolent God-Emperor to fix things.
    3. the only way to combat inequality with the government is by using inequality to grant special privileges or punishments based on which groups/individuals they favor. So they're begging the question by saying that they aren't leftist because they changed what leftist means (they weren't fighting the exact causes, in the exact same way, that leftist today would choose to be fighting it, thus that couldn't have been how leftists did it in the past). So if you completely ignore all the parts that leftists want you to, and you only recognize inequality the way they tell you to, then (and only then) is fascism is right-wing.

Fascism's History -
  • The idea of Socialism goes back to the Persian (Zoroastrian Priest) Mazdak (524), the 3rd Century Mauryan Empire of India, or even Aristophanes Greek (Athenian) comedy Assemblywomen (391 BC), if not before and communal tribalism. It's an old idea, that has never works (for long), which is why it was mocked 2400 years ago in Athens.
  • It was re-popularized with the French Revolution (1789) and the idea of eating the rich. Which also ended in the disaster that has been France: a fallen under-achieving and bitter empire.
  • Karl Marx's and Friedrich Engels preyed on this new populist ideas by writing their propaganda pamphlet, The Communist Manifesto in 1848: just in time for the "Spring of Nations" a series of revolutions in Europe. They later wrote a discredited economic propaganda book, Das Kapital in the 1860s.
  • For a while, this coalesced the Socialist movements around Marx's Communism, but as Marx's predictions were falling like 750,000 dead Soviets under Stalin's purges, and capitalism had not crumbled as predicted (and was thriving), there was a fracturing of the movement. The schism was between the denialists who ignored the evidence against Marx and stuck with Revolutionary Socialism (Marxism/Communism/Leninism), and the new incremental Socialists (Fascists) who wanted a better way to get to centralized authority (command economy) without the disruption of a revolution. They invented their "3rd Position" on property rights, as the plan for how to migrate an economy to Socialism.
  • The Fascist Leadership all came from Socialism (a branch that supported crony-socialism and unionism called Syndicalism), and their goals were all Socialist, but instead of a revolution led by the workers (where the leadership would install friends and family of the party to run the industries/sectors), they believed in Democratic Socialism (progressive reform into Socialism), where the leaders would be voted into power and would tax/regulate/control businesses, and let the ones that followed orders continue as proxies for the government, instead of seizing the means of production from the start. (Less disruption to economies). The rallying cry was "first brown, then red" as in Fascism (Brown) was an incremental step towards the ultimate goal of Socialism (Red).
  • Their symbol (and the word "Fasces") is a bundle of sticks tied together, often with an ax in the middle, representing "all of us, are stronger than one of us" and collective power. Their primary belief (symbolized by Fasces) means collectivism (the State) over the individual (western liberalism/individualism). They did big rally's as a way to bind people to that collective community (to tolerate and cheer the tyranny of the majority).
  • National Socialism was the German branch of Fascism, that added in the cultural components of Germany (anti-semitism and more imperialism), but that was not required to be fascist since Italy and other Fascists didn't subscribe to either.
  • Fascists despised the status quo and considered themselves progressive (forward-looking), and were not attracted by a return to bygone eras. In other words, they were the opposite of conservatism or right-wing movements.
  • The progressive left in America supported the fascists, and the fascists borrowed the left's ideas and celebrated them back... until the war. After the war, the left needed to distance themselves from their brethren, so in the 1950s and 1960s, they invented the canard that Fascists/National Socialists were a right-wing movement: even though the Fascists had nothing in common with the right wing. So they pretended that left wing authoritarianism was something that doesn't exist (it does), and pretended that all authoritarianism was right wing (it isn't).
The left was so successful at subverting the truth that when you point this stuff out today, the miseducated will ignore the history or facts presented and attack the informed/educated as out-of-their minds.

Fascist Leaders - When you look into any of the leaders or voices in the fascist movement, they were all Socialists. They varied from Marxists, Leninists, or branches and factions -- but they were a pro-union, workers movements, whose rhetoric was virtually indistinguishable from other socialists unless you were deep in the weeds of how to govern to achieve socialist nirvana. Here are some key names:
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    Giovanni Gentile - The "philosopher of Fascism", who ghost-wrote Benito Mussolini's, "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism”, as well as many other books on the topic. He was a follower of Hegel and Marx, a member of the Fascist Grand Council in 1925, and the last president of the Royal Academy of Italy. A devout Socialist and believer that the state belonged ahead of the individual.
  • Corrado Gini - The guy who wrote the book on economic fascism and invented the Gini Coefficient believed in the state above individuals, was a proponent of Eugenics (popular among the statist left). [3]
  • Benito Mussolini - a lifelong Socialist. While he hand limited power in Italy (due to governmental structure), when he was made President in Exile, he immediately nationalized the businesses, privatized the wealth, and enacted every Socialist reform possible. The only reason he hadn't done that in Italy before then, was because of the limitations of power.
  • Adolf Hitler - he never called himself or his party Fascists (though he attributed a lot to them), he was always a National Socialist, and all his plans were to enact socialism, just incrementally: first win the War with the help of private business, then Socialism.
For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism (Classical liberalism always signifying individualism) it may be expected that this will be a century of collectivism, and hence the century of the State. —Benito Mussolini, "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism,” Jane Soames authorized the translation, Hogarth Press, London, 1933, p. 20.[2] Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State . . . . It is opposed to classical Liberalism . . . . Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual. (p. 13) 1935 version

Fascist Quotes - These are a bunch of quotes from the worlds famous Fascists on what they thought about Socialism, Guns, or Social Justice -- just to remind people that they were left-wing activists, they thought of themselves as Socialists, and they had similar policies and ideologies as the progressive left in America.
  • " Title: Chief editor for Avanti, the most powerful Socialist paper in Italy " ~ Benito Mussolini
  • " The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative." ~ Benito Mussolini
  • " Democracy is a kingless regime infested by many kings who are sometimes more exclusive, tyrannical and destructive than one, even if he be a tyrant." ~ Benito Mussolini
  • " It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity." ~ Benito Mussolini
  • " [fascism is a] merger of state and corporate power " ~ Benito Mussolini
  • " We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty" ~ Benito Mussolini
  • " For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State " ~ Benito Mussolini
  • " We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." " ~ Adolf Hitler
  • " National Socialism is the determination to create a new man. There will no longer exist any individual arbitrary will, nor realms in which the individual belongs to himself. The time of happiness as a private matter is over " ~ Adolf Hitler
  • " [My task is to] “convert the German volk (people) to socialism" " ~ Adolf Hitler
  • " I have learned a great deal from Marxism … as I do not hesitate to admit " ~ Adolf Hitler
  • " What Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism failed to accomplish we shall be in a position to achieve. " ~ Adolf Hitler
  • " We must “find and travel the road from individualism to socialism without revolution " ~ Adolf Hitler
  • " While not a quote, "Forward" has long been a term used by unions and socialist/left leaning orgs (and now by the President) as their slogan. Again, this is the opposite of conservatism, which they play as "Backward" (towards tradition). " ~ Obama Campaign Slogan
  • " Unity in faith is theocracy; unity in politics is fascism. " ~ Maajid Nawaz
  • " Fascism was a counter-revolution against a revolution that never took place. " ~ Ignazio Silone
  • " A revolution without firing squads is meaningless. " ~ Vladimir Lenin

Is Socialism left-wing or right-wing? -
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Some will claim, "Socialism/Communism is a left wing ideology". Which is sort of true, in theory (it is egalitarian). In practice, it is right wing (authoritarian).
  • Assuming left-right on the individual/authoritarian dimension, in theoretical socialism, individuals vote on everything and get a say, thus it is individualist and left-wing. But theoretical socialism, only exists in theory. Since you can't vote on everything, you need to put a command-hierarchy (authority) in place, and practical socialism, people only vote on their leaders and they decide everything: so it is autocratic and right wing.
  • Another dimension is that left wing ideologies support using government power to fight against inequality or accept natural order (and accept that inequality is unavoidable). Theoretical Socialism rises to power promising to fix income, racial, gender or class inequality (left wing). But the only way to combat inequality with the government is by making things less equal/fair and granting special privilege or punishments based on which groups/individuals the public or political class favors at the time. There's a truism that no American leftist supports Socialism expecting to become a farm worker, they all expect to become part of the ruling/political class. Practical Socialism replaces a semi-merit (or luck) based natural-order system, with an artificial political order system -- and they end up more classist than before, just status is granted based on political connections instead of money/business ones. That's right-wing authoritarianism.

Anyone that thinks Socialism is left wing (egalitarian) is a rube or someone that is thinking only of the theory, and not of every attempt at application.


Isn't fascism a right wing ideology? -
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Fascism is categorized by some as "right wing", because in Europe (historically), left and right isn't liberalism vs. conservatism, it often means individualism (left) vs. authoritarianism or collectivism (right). So by that definition, British and American Liberalism (Libertarianism) was considered left wing, and Fascism was right wing because it was authoritarian and collectivist (not individualist) - but that means Socialism and Communism are right wing well. While in America, our terms reversed: individualists (libertarians, classical liberals, conservatives) tend to pool on the right, not the left, so the terms/meanings/roles are directly reversed. If Fascism is right wing in Europe, it's left wing in America (or they were using a different dimension to compare it on. The same way in America, Conservatism means go backwards: back when we had less government control, but in many European countries, conservatism can mean going back to when they had Monarchs and more authoritarian control. These terms don't translate as well as some people think. There's a lot of other ways to look at right versus left wing: none of them show fascism to be a purely right wing belief system, while all show it to be a strongly left wing one (by American definitions).

Nationalism - The left spits "Nationalism" like it's a bad thing. There's Tribalism, Nationalism, and Internationalism (globalism). I find nationalism the least offensive and most tolerant of the three: the former has no tolerance for people outside their tribe/clique, the latter has no room for people outside their ideology. But, "Hitler was a Nationalist". No, Hitler was a progressive, collectivist, statist, authoritarian, imperialist and socialist, but the head of the National Socialist Workers Party was not very nationalist at all, otherwise he would have preferred staying inside his borders, instead of pulling a bunch of foreigners into it (through land acquisition).

Political Spectrum -
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There's confusion over what is left or right wing, and it means different and often opposing things in the U.S. versus the rest of the world. So if anyone says, left or right wing, I want to know, on which spectrum are they talking about:
    • Authoritarian/Liberal/Anarchist : traditionally authoritarian means right-wing. In the U.S. left-wing authoritarianism is far more common than right.
    • Collectivist/Moderate/Individualist : traditionally individualism is left-wing, while in the U.S. it is right-wing.
    • Progressive (Postmodernist)/Moderate (Modernist)/Traditionalist: traditionally this didn't map to left or right, in the U.S. it's mostly progressive left and traditional right.
    • Tribalist/Nationalist/Globalist: traditionally this didn't map to left or right, in the U.S. the right still has all three while the left purged most non-globalists from their ranks.
    • Isolationist(Pacifist)/Moderate/Interventionist(Militarist) : traditionally this didn't map left/right. While the left pretends they are the isolationist/pacifist, in practice, they've been as bad or worse.
    • Secular/Agnostic/Religious: traditionally this didn't map left/right. In the U.S. the left has purged more of their religious from their leadership, leaving more diversity on the right.
    • Social Justice/Realist/Hedonist: traditionally this didn't map left/right. In the U.S, the left thinks they're about Social Justice and the others are just selfish, but it's really just arrogance, myopia and hypocrisy. How is stealing from and controlling others not hedonistic? Both sides want to help the downtrodden: the right by equality opportunity (and more of it), the left by equality of outcome (punishing success and rewarding failure). While the left vilifies the right as greedy, the right gives more to charity, and in the U.S. most crime is by leftists in leftist cities/regions.

Road to Serfdom - F.A. Hayek pointed out in Road to Serfdom that Marxist socialism and fascism had similar roots. He wrote: "There is a great deal of truth in the often heard statement that Fascism and Nazism are a sort of middle-class socialism-only that in Italy and Germany the supporters of these new movements were economically hardly a middle class any longer. It was to a large extent a revolt of a new under-privileged class against the labor aristocracy which the industrial labor movement had created. There can be little doubt that no single economic factor has contributed more to help these movements than the envy of the unsuccessful professional man, the university trained engineer or lawyer, and of the "white collared proletariat" in general, of the engine driver or compositor and other members of the strongest trade unions whose income was many times theirs. Nor can there be much doubt that in terms of money income the average member of the rank and file of the Nazi movement in its early years was poorer than the average trade unionist or member of the older socialist party-a circumstance which only gained poignancy from the fact that the former had often seen better days and were frequently still living in surroundings which were the result of this past."

Third Position - Fascisms view of individuals and property rights:
  • Communism/Socialism is the idea that you have no property rights, (only the state does: e.g. everything is "communal"), and thus it is the state's job to redistribute its property (wealth) fairly amongst the people
  • Capitalism (in the extreme) is the idea that only individuals have property rights. You can pool those rights briefly with government or corporate agencies (and let them be stewards of that private property). But property as a concept is reserved for individuals.
  • Fascism was the Third Position that business (and the individuals) could have property rights, but only as proxies for the state (if they were doing what the state decided was in the public/national good).
Thus everyone was part of the collective (a ward of the state). You could have corporations, businesses and private property, but only if they were putting the interests of the state first (as defined by the political class). Mussolini described it as a "merger of state and corporate power", over the individual (anti-libertarianism). (The same rhetoric and position as the Occupy Movement). Today we'd call it Crony Capitalism, or a regulatory state -- private business being the proxies of government, along with government subsidies to support them (Solar Power, Electric Cars, subsidies like that). So capitalism is an individualist (libertarian) ideology, while Communism, Socialism and Fascism are all collectivist (authoritarian) ideologies.

Conclusion

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The following points never get addressed by those that call Fascist/Nazi's right-wing and ignoring the left-wing alignment:

  • The "right" values individualism which was opposed by fascists.
  • The progressive movement of the 30's actively supported the National Socialists and other fascists, because their ideological alignment.
  • Modern progressivism value collectivism and statism, which is aligned with fascism in the following areas:
    • regulatory fascism; more government control, pro-centralized authoritarianism (federalism), a coupling of government and business (like healthcare or green energy), high regulation/tax state, that picks winners and losers.
    • economic fascism (against capitalism): being anti-bankers and anti-rich
    • anti-libertarian fascism: willing to sacrifice free speech for a good cause (safe spaces, speech codes, persecuting climate heretics), being anti-individual and willing to give up 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 10th amendment rights with regards to gun-control.
  • Even the techniques and rhetoric used to rise to in power; appeals to youth, pro-change, pro-government, pro-authoritarian (to protect us from industrialists), big symbolism, the use of propaganda (and vilification of the opposition / "the big lie"), control of the media (suppression of free speech and gun rights), intimidation (political correctness), and soaring rhetoric speeches that brought political prominence to Obama, Occupy and Black Lives matter (as well as Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders), is nearly identical to these same techniques used by Hitler/Mussolini in their rise and retention of power/popularity.

Thus the right (in America) sees fascism as a left wing movement for many valid reasons.

However, our progressives see the fascists were nationalist (patriotic), highly militaristic/imperialist and culturalist/racist (pro-eugenicists) that helped motivate the fascists. All true, but narrow definitions of what fascists stood for, and missed points like:

  • the Italian fascists weren't racist, the French weren't fascist but were racists) -- little correlation
  • the American progressive left (at the time) was racist, militaristic, nationalistic: more than the right was
  • even today, progressives are selectively all of them, their just blind to their own flaws:
    • affirmative action is racism to try to make up for an "injustice", just like the Nazi's did against the Jews. Favoring one group over the others (for whatever reasons) is the ethic -- changing which groups are favored and why, doesn't change the ethic.
    • community organization and government social involvement programs is the same means as the brown shirts
    • Super-nationalism (U.N.) and multiculturalism are substitutes for the old-Nationalism (a subtle retargeting, not complete flipping of ideology). Whether we use our military directly, or advocate giving its power to the super-state (U.N.), doesn't change the imperialistic nature of imposing our will on other sovereign nations. Whether I kill you, or pay someone else to, the abstraction shouldn't lessen the crime/morals.

So the rationalizations are the same, even if the victims/degrees are different. Their motives for sacrificing our liberty to Federal Government is irrelevant to the argument of authoritarianism, is still authoritarian. In the end, we had individualism before, and the progressives want to displace it with authoritarian-federalism (or super-statism) -- and if the individual doesn't fit the new collective, they lose.

Most of all, it is nearly impossible to point out that someones views are economically fascist without them taking it personally and their emotions taking over. To them it's a personal attack, and they shut down the reasoning centers of their brains, and the visceral and emotion parts take over. (You called me a name!). Thus, I find these discussions too intellectual for most to consider rationally. By the points they care about, the similarities to their side doesn't matter, and the softer similarities with the other side matter more to them. In their provincial enclaves, and by their ethnocentric (and egocentric) view of the world, they're not fascist -- and anyone that says otherwise can be ignored. And they will still use the term freely to describe those they don't agree with, in the name of open-minded tolerance.

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📚 References

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Books on fascism

Socialism
Socialism.jpg
Socialism has been the most tried, and most failed government system, next to it's older brother (Tyranny). There have been many, many communes (cults, utopias). Some were small (like Zoar, Ohio), others were large (USSR, China, Nazi Germany, etc). Virtually all of them ended poorly.
Memes-Fascism
Memes about Fascism, National Socialism or Democratic National Socialism. Memes-Fascism : 19 items
Memes-Socialism
Memes about Socialism. You know that thing that's never been tried, every time it's been tried and failed? Memes-Socialism : 42 items