On my post yesterday about the burgeoning American police state, and interesting (and in the beginning, somewhat predictable) discussion about fascism and socialism and their totalitarian ends arose in the comments.
I will state at the outset what many of you have probably already surmised - while I write and speak with some baseline knowledge of the topics we discuss here, I am sorely inadequate on my actual depth of study on most of them. Aside from novels, which I read voraciously as a kid, I rarely picked up a book prior to about two years ago. Essentially, as a blog pundit, I’m winging it. I’ve begun chewing through a long list of nonfiction on topics as diverse as my interests will allow, but it’s slow going. In these cases, I defer to people who are better educated than I am.
Victor Morton is clearly one of those people, and he has a passion for what he knows. Often charging into comment boxes like the proverbial bull in a china shop, he rarely has a mainstream opinion on things. I find his insights valuable for that reason, even if he does have a bit of a habit of occasionally strong-arming the locals. On the topic of Fascism and Socialism, he offers this, which I think is worth consideration in the context of the current popular debate over the true meaning of these terms:
Sorry for the length of what follows, but this is a pet peeve of mine. The view that fascism is socialist is essentially amoral (and that’s its attraction to some) — i.e., it constructs the political spectrum upon the question “how big is government,” while dismissing the question of “what ends should government serve.”
As to why fascism/nazism (FN) belongs on the right and/or differs from socialism/communism (SC) on the left — I’d note that most of what I will say reproduces the left-right cleavages have been broadly reproduced everywhere in post-1789 West, including in the current US, with due differences for local issues and differences among political cultures. On the latter, that means I’d say that calling any post-WW2 Anglo-Saxon a fascist is a pile of crap. But anyway, to why FN is right and SC is left:
(1) FN is nationalistic and tribal and sees the volk as the basis of politics; SC is internationalist and cosmopolitan, with no place for ethnicity per se;
(2) FN, while secular, is often friendly to the church and the church has sometimes reciprocated (more so for F than N; there’s even a flavor called “clerical fascism,” e.g. Father Tiso or Dollfuss); SC is atheistic and almost always hostile to the church or religion absolutely, with the non-love returned;
(3) FN is bellicist, i.e., war is a good for its own sake as the ennoblement of men, and it views the military with awe; and while SC is often violent, it’s always a means to an end, and views the military with contempt as a source of reactionary values (until it can be reconstituted upon SC taking power);
(4) FN holds that the Enlightenment/1789 were some kind of Fall and, though modern itself, acted in the name of Throne and Altar and Tradition to restore an image of the past or its virtues and could and did work with traditional elites and aristocrats (this is all more true of F than N); SC is thoroughly progressive and views itself as the logical end of Modernity and the French Revolution, the executors of History bringing about the future eschaton and abolishing inherited tradition and traditional elites as superstition (”the last aristocrat strangled with the entrails of the last priest,” as the saying goes;
(5) FN had a place for private property, albeit not a liberal capitalist one, but something closer to syndicalism; SC is the per-se rejection of property;
(6) FN seeks to transcend economic class in the name of the organic nation or people, with the classes preserved but collaborating; SC seeks to abolish economic class in the name of proletarian internationalism and sees the classes as permanently at war (”all human history has been class struggle”);
(7) The two actual historical groups claim different intellectual antecedents — vitalism, other forms of modern irrationalism, Nietzsche, Gentile, DeMaistre, etc. for FN, versus economic science, rationalism, Marx, Engels, Mill, the Fabians, etc., for SC;
(8) FN’s summum malum is social decadence; SC’s is economic exploitation;
(9) FN were very traditionalist on matters of sex roles and the family; SC have always been feminist and sought to erase sex difference;
and lastly and perhaps most obviously:(10) FN practically defines itself as anti-communist, and took its actual full historical forms mostly after and in reaction to the Russian Revolution; even before the Spanish Civil War, and with the sole exception of the two-year Hitler-Stalin pact, SC routinely has painted its opponents as “fascist” and itself as leading the struggle against it.
If you have anything to add, or believe that this interpretation falls short, chime in. I found it quite interesting and sensible, but I’m more or less ignorant on this.
My only problem with Victor’s otherwise good list is that I think I would have put #4 first. The attitude toward 1789 (or perhaps more 1793, when Louis XVI was executed) is the pivot point between fascism and socialism, for the reasons Victor stated.
Another thing is that I think fascism is a lot fuzzier a target, as it has generally operated as an umbrella movement drawing together a lot of otherwise disparate groups who would otherwise have little to do with each other.
Finally–and this is crucial: fascism has always been a continental European phenomenon. The Anglo-American world has been very stony ground for genuine fascism, attracting only oddballs like Mosley in Britain and George Lincoln Rockwell in America. It’s a lot like choosing to wear lederhosen in Boston: you get a lot of funny stares, catcalls and disinvitations from polite society.
Socialism has had a lot more traction in America (think Debs), but was short-circuited by a far more moderate labor movement and social welfare programs.
Dale - several Latin American countries had Franco-esque facist regimes in the 20th century - Chile and Argentina chief among them. And there’s a very strong case for calling the Mexican government pre-Vincente Fox a “facist” government, although that’s debatable.
Incidentally, going through Victor’s checklist, it’s interesting to note that each characteristic is shared to some degree by the “patriotic right” (as opposed to the religious, or neocon right). Seriously, his list reads like a summary of the Rush Limbaugh show.
“Dale - several Latin American countries had Franco-esque facist regimes in the 20th century - Chile and Argentina chief among them. And there’s a very strong case for calling the Mexican government pre-Vincente Fox a “facist†government, although that’s debatable.”
I agree that Peron’s Argentina had some quasi-fascist overtones, and Pinochet’s Chile was Franco xeroxed.
But…
I don’t consider Franco’s Spain to have been fascist in any meaningful sense. Sure, it was repressive, nationalist, and had a (carefully-neutered) official fascist party, but Franco had no program other than preserving traditional Spain from its Red enemies. He was King without the crown, the authoritarian Regent of Spain.
The strongman dictatorships of South America were even less fascist, falling into a sad pattern established by the wars of independence from Spain.
I’d argue that Mexico under the PRI was, for all intents and purposes, communist with slightly better business sense.
And thus we see why I felt out of my league while sitting in a Lone Star Steak House with both Victor and Dale.
First of all, Steve, my apologies for perceived strong-arming. In a combox, there’s no “back off” social glances.
I agree with nearly everything Dale said. My listing was not intended to be “in order of importance,” just the order they came to my mind, and (4) is probably the most important — in fact, differences over the French Revolution are the defining core of subsequent Western politics, not just fascism and socialism. Also, I only glanced off the point, but it is important to note much of my characterizations of both FN and SC, in their pure forms, presuppose continental political cultures, and that Anglo-Saxon political culture has been largely immune to fascism. There’s a variety of reasons that I don’t want to write another 10-point post on, except to note that one reason among others is the point Dale makes about our socialists — that they’ve been rather moderate, Fabians rather than Marxists, reformers rather than revolutionaries. Political extremism feeds off itself.
The one point I would disagree with Dale is that I don’t think classifying Franco’s Spain as fascist is problematic. Sure, he never established a totalitarian state and ruled at the head of a coalition in which the actual fascist party was one member among others. But both of those things were true of Mussolini’s Italy as well, which actually voted Il Duce out of power during wartime by a democratic vote of the Grand Council.
And I’m curious why exactly asdaf thinks I sound like Limbaugh. I can pretty much assure you that Rush, to the extent he thinks of such things and like many with a libertarian streak, sees politics as based on the “bigness of government” question that I was precisely taking pains to rebut. You’re not wrong that much of the features of fascism that I identify are also characteristic of contemporary American paleocons, but that’s because they are characteristic of the post-1789 Right generally (my whole point, in fact).
And thus we see why I felt out of my league while sitting in a Lone Star Steak House with both Victor and Dale.
Jay, you think that’s bad? When we met for lunch, we discussed film. Alone.
He never even mentioned Michael Bay.
And by “alone” I mean that I didn’t have Dale to be the liason between normal guy pretending to be smart and actual smart guy.
“And I’m curious why exactly asdaf thinks I sound like Limbaugh. I can pretty much assure you that Rush, to the extent he thinks of such things and like many with a libertarian streak, sees politics as based on the “bigness of government†question that I was precisely taking pains to rebut. You’re not wrong that much of the features of fascism that I identify are also characteristic of contemporary American paleocons, but that’s because they are characteristic of the post-1789 Right generally (my whole point, in fact).”
I don’t think you sound like Limbaugh, just that all of the characteristics of facism that you site are to some degree shared by contemporary (not paleocon) conservatives, save perhaps the point about private property.
Correct … and all the characteristics of communism that I cite are to some degree shared by contemporary liberals, for exactly the same reason.