I don't need to look up the historic left-right distinction, I know it very well. It was absolutely about power.
No, you merely interpret it as being about power because that is apparently how you view all of politics. And that interpretation is wrong anyway: the left does not consistently represent people without power. In any case, the left-right distinction can be interpreted in many other ways; your interpretation is not definitional.
I will repeat myself, so you don't miss it this time: 'Mussolini did denounce "supercapitalism" at one point, but this was mostly about seizing more power.
Mussolini's fundamental ideology was "everything within the state, nothing outside the state"; that is obviously incompatible with "capitalism" (in the sense of free markets), since under capitalism, it is individuals and the market that make decisions about how to allocate resources and who to reward. Mussolini also acted on his beliefs, since he implemented "state capitalism" and achieved massive state ownership of corporations. Ditto for Hitler. Therefore, both fascists and socialists stated that they were anti-capitalist, and they both acted on their political program by dismantling free markets and imposing state control on the economy. They even achieved the same disastrous outcomes.
that fascism doesn't really have a consistent economic policy,
Why should they? I said fascists and socialists are characterized by both being anti-capitalist, not that they had the same economic systems. There are many ways of being anti-capitalist. For example, socialists and Italian fascists were anti-capitalist by transferring ownership of large corporations to the state, while Nazis were anti-capitalist by directing big corporations how to operate. Both socialists and fascists generally tolerate small businesses and small private enterprises.
I would challenge your assertion that inequality stems from differences in abilities and culture, but I don't care.
Obviously you don't, because you have already made up your mind.
My question about why social justice was impossible to achieve was rhetorical - I was illustrating that you can always find a deeper reason for something if you look for it.
The reason for why social justice isn't going to work is not particularly deep, it's basic economics. It comes down to the fact that people like me tell people like you to go f*ck themselves when you want to take our stuff and redistribute it more fairly.
They may not have free market capitalism, but crony capitalism is still capitalism.
I didn't bring "capitalism" into this discussion, you did, for the same reason socialists and their ilk always do: to mislead people. The correct term for "capitalism" is "free market economy", and the correct term for "crony capitalism" is "rent seeking" (if it's legal) or "corruption" (if it's illegal).
Free market economies make people wealthy and free. Rent seeking and corruption make people poor and oppressed. Russia does not have a free market economy, but it does have plenty of rent seeking and corruption.
Conservatives and classical liberals advocate free markets and strongly oppose rent seeking.
Its history (eugenics, segregation, scientific racism, among others), as well as its ideology (redistributive policies, government indoctrination and propaganda, etc.).
Would you rather regression?
Progressivism is about progress in the same way that socialism is about being social, modern liberalism is about liberty, or communism is about community: an empty promise. All these ideologies pick a desirable goal, apply that goal as a label to their political ideology, and then promise that they will use state power to make that goal happen if only you put their experts in charge.
Or, to put it differently, just because some yahoos create an ideology called "X-ism" doesn't mean that their ideology is henceforth the only way to accomplish "X" and we should support them in perpetuity if we desire "X".
Or what is good progress to you? Or is no progress good?
You know, the usual: increasing material wealth for everybody, better education, technological progress, and (most importantly) freedom from coercion and oppression.
What I like to see is the promise and policies of the Enlightenment realized; progressivism (despite its name) returns people to pre-Enlightenment dependence on the state.
but why is social justice impossible to achieve? And what causes that?
Social justice is impossible to achieve because inequality is an essential part of human nature: people differ greatly from each other in abilities and culture, hence they are going to have vastly different outcomes. Furthermore, (neo-)Marxists not only fail to recognize that, they make the mistake of ascribing the existing inequality in society to power structures.
The left-right scale is about power and where it resides - at the top or at the bottom. It's not about progressive vs. conservative, it's not about revolutionaries vs reactionaries (which is basically just another way of saying progressive vs conservative).
I said Historically, the left-right distinction..., which is a fact you can look up. Your view, that it is about power, is the view of neo-Marxism and critical theory; that's not a mainstream view, and more importantly, it's not a tenable view because the (neo-)Marxist analysis in terms of power is not internally consistent or consistent with reality.
Also, fascism is not anti-capitalistic. I don't know where you got the idea that it was...
From the writings of fascists. You can read up on it, but here is a pretty clear statement from one of the founders of fascim: "We are enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system! And with my inclination to practical action it seems obvious to me that we have to put a better, more just, more moral system in its place, one which, as it were, has arms and legs and better arms and legs than the present one!"
Fascists were explicitly tolerant of small businesses and individual property, but socialists have been as well, so this is not a significant distinction.
Mussolini did denounce "supercapitalism" at one point, but this was mostly about seizing more power.
So when fascists state an economic viewpoint that gains them public support it is "mostly about seizing more power", but when (neo-)Marxists do it, it is somehow genuine? What's the difference? I mean, after getting into power while denouncing capitalism, both fascists and (neo-)Marxists go on to create totalitarian states and state monopolies.
The Liberal party was using a form of modern liberalism at the time, which would be considered centre right, much like the 1930s Democrat mainstream of the1930s. Not very fascist.
I didn't say it was "fascist", you did that. What I claimed was that the liberal party was "progressive".
Progressivism is a deplorable and destructive political movement, but for all its faults, it is distinct from fascism, and nowhere have I claimed otherwise.
You still seem eager to ascribe labels or behaviour to those you oppose politically that do not match reality or history.
You seem eager to put words in people's mouths and then accuse them of "ascribing labels or behaviour that do not match reality or history".
Private property does not exist in animals in the sense that humans have it. It's a false equivalence. Animals defend territory I some instances, but generally on an individual basis with relatively evenly matched teeth and claws.
All you are revealing there is your total ignorance of animal behavior.
Whilst the concept of private property can exist without government your ability to hold onto property is limited if there is an imbalance of power. Thus without structures to enforce the rule of law then much like a mugging in a park the unnamed individual loses to the gang with knives
And what prevents the private park owner from hiring security guards to keep private park visitors from being safe? Whether in my home, at work, or most places where I go for recreation, it is private security, not government police, that protects me and my property. In fact, the police are pretty much completely useless when it comes to property crime: they rarely prevent it, rarely investigate it, and even more rarely recover it.
When societal groups are small then family relationships can dominate,but in larger groups government of some form emerges to ensure rights.
In larger groups mechanisms merge to ensure rights; those mechanisms are frequently non-governmental even today.
I thought you had already told me what i believe, so went would i stage my views. Well, i have but you told me i couldn't it and was wrong, so went should i bother to restate it?
Your statement of your political beliefs seems to amount to "I value everything that's good and oppose everything that's bad, I am for moderation when moderation is called for, and strong action when strong action is called for." I merely pointed out that that's not a meaningful statement of political beliefs, it is simple empty posturing, which it obviously is. Based on that feedback, you could clarify a statement a statement of your political positions, but you haven't done so.
It would likely take Russia several generations to transition to capitalism if they tried, because it takes decades to create the institutions, networks of trust, and markets necessary for capitalism to work. It only takes a couple of years to destroy them.
That incentivizes consumers to reduce their carbon footprint, and the entire supply chain to shift to non-fossil fuels at every level, as it would give them an immediate price advantage over their competitors. Profit margins would shrink accordingly, but absolute profit would remain unchanged.
Let's assume that's true: companies make the same total dollar amount in profits. Does that mean that "the economy hasn't been harmed"? No, because money isn't the same thing as wealth.
Let's say that you have $200000 to build a home. In order to improve sustainability and safety, the government mandates that all the fixtures and pipes in your home be gold plated, meaning that the plumbing alone will cost you $50000 instead of $5000. "The economy" won't be harmed in the sense that you will still be spending $200000 on a home and you will own a $200000 home, but your home now needs to be about 25% smaller, meaning that your wealth actually was harmed, while the gold plating isn't worth $50000 to you.
There are other negative effects of what you suggest, but let that suffice: "tax and redistribute" very much harms the economy in multiple ways.
Increased temperature increases the rate of natural greenhouse gas stores - there's far more ecologically sequestered carbon and methane than humans would use in centuries - if our emissions warm the planet sufficiently, those reserves start being released faster than anything we've done.
Which part of Positive feedback with carbon emissions can't produce a tipping point because temperature depends logarithmically on carbon concentrations. was too hard to understand?
And your magnitudes are absurd too: you are claiming that there is much more carbon sequestered in surface soils and clathrates than there is in fossil fuel reserves, which makes no sense.
Global climate is a bistable system - push it far enough and you hit the tipping point where the process becomes self-accelerating until it reaches the opposite state.
You have been unable to support the idea that there is a "tipping point".
A greenhouse world *might* be more hospitable, assuming we could avoid the global deserts, but the transition is going to be murder
We know what a greenhouse world looks like: it is warmer, wetter, and milder, with fewer deserts. And the transition would take thousands of years.
In other words: it's extremism that's the problem, rather than the left or the right, per se.
Extremism is a symptom, not a cause. The root of the problem is that social justice is impossible to achieve by any means. Ideologies promising to deliver social justice through the state often start out near the center and then become more and more extremist as they find it impossible to deliver on their promises. The problem is usually accelerated by the fact that, in addition to not being able to deliver the promised social justice, as the state expands, it becomes more and more corrupt and the economy falters as individuals are less and less incentivized to work. Left unchecked, a totalitarian, poverty-stricken, mass murdering state is the inevitable outcome, each and every time.
This is why it's been argued that the left-right scale should really be more of a circle
Well, people have certainly argued that, but that's only because attempts by the left to distance themselves as far as possible from fascists have made a farce of the left-right scale. Historically, the left-right distinction was simply one between revolutionaries vs reactionaries, and later between people who wanted social change and progress vs people who wanted to protect private property and free markets. With either historical definition of left-right, fascism clearly ends up close to socialism, since, whatever their other differences may be, both are revolutionary and anti-capitalist ideologies.
You shocked me for a second there, when I thought you were actually quoting. But I guess you've proven me wrong - it's Marxism, not Fascism, which you know nothing about.
As in any quotes, portions that have been modified are in square brackets, so you shouldn't have been shocked. If this shocks you, you need to read more.
I was pointing out that the sentence works equally well for both, since every thing that sentence states for fascism is equally true for Marxism.
Oh, and I know quite a bit about Marxism, having spend part of my youth under its "tender mercies". What is your experience with Marxism?
Strong government regulation - either by direct ownership (left) or private ownership (right) is authoritarian.
You're saying that the left/right distinction is primarily one of public ownership vs private ownership? Sorry, that doesn't make sense. Both the American left (including Sanders) and democratic socialists in Europe support widespread public ownership, both for individuals and businesses. That distinction is also not historically correct and it doesn't conform to mainstream definitions.
A definition that I think captures the left-right distinction well is: The Left seeks social justice through redistributive social and economic policies, while the Right defends property rights and free markets. Another quite different definition would be The left seeks social change, the right seeks to preserve the status quo. Fascism and socialism both end up on the left according to either definition.
That European left leaning governments 'allow' private ownership makes them moderate, not confused. That they regulate this to some extent makes them moderate or centrist. Not confused. That they have other policies in other areas makes them 'left' and not moderate/centrist as they would appear if we just look at property ownership. Also not confused. That the US has strong private ownership makes them right. Not confused. That they have much less regulation makes them less authoritarian. Not confused.
If you want to turn that into a political argument, you'll have to define what you mean by "strong/weak regulation and strong/weak ownership". They don't correspond to any phenomena that I have observed in either Europe or the US.
Because pretty much every expert agrees that the tipping point will be somewhere between 400 and 800ppm.
So you can't produce any evidence of a "tipping point", yet the experts agree that there is a tipping point? What experts? What tipping point? I mean, how would such a "tipping point" even work? Positive feedback with carbon emissions can't produce a tipping point because temperature depends logarithmically on carbon concentrations.
There's also historical temperature norms - all of human history has occurred within one icehouse period, our species has never seen a greenhouse world.
And during that time, we have experienced massive climate change and temperature swings. Furthermore, transition to a "greenhouse world" would take thousands of years; the ice caps simply can't melt any faster. That's plenty of time for adaptation.
We're currently on track to make the transition to a greenhouse world occur much faster than normal, possibly within only several centuries.
It's unlikely that humans can push the world into a greenhouse world. I think if we could, we actually should do it.
But the necessary government interventions would cast the world into a massive global economic depression and poverty
That's just speculation
No, it's not, it's sound economic prediction based on tons of empirical data.
You think the Liberal Party in the UK in 1910 was close to fascism????
I said what I meant: the liberal party in the UK was a progressive party, just like the Democratic party was in the US. Progressives in both the US and Europe were the primary proponents of eugenics and forced sterilizations. Eugenics and forced sterilizations were viewed as the rational application of science by the state for the purpose of achieving social progress, the core progressive credo. Keynes was certainly a Liberal Party representative; how about Galton?
And while I don't know enough about UK political figures at the time, American progressives generally viewed Mussolini and Italian fascism favorably. Furthermore, the race policies advocated and implemented by American progressives were used directly as the basis for Nazi Germany's race laws. Whether that means that the UK Liberal Party was "close to fascism" is something you have to decide for yourself. They were certainly progressives.
When I found out about the history of progressivism and verified it with original sources, however, I became so utterly disgusted with the progressive movement and the associated political parties that I became an independent and a classical liberal.
It defines what it was, for those people, at that time. What it became and how it is interpreted historically also adds to that.
You are saying that fascism in practice was different from what fascism promised. The same is true for socialism. In fact, if we go by outcomes, fascism and socialism seem pretty much indistinguishable.
There's no confusion unless you continue to try to use only a left/right distinction and then go on to claim that they are the same.
I never claimed that "socialism and fascism are the same". I said that they are both "leftist ideologies". There are many left wing ideologies (socialism, communism, progressivism, social democracy, etc.), just like there are many right wing ideologies (libertarianism, conservatism, theocracy, monarchy, etc.). Within that spectrum, I think fascism belongs on the left, not on the right.
In Italy, support for the fascists from landowners and capitalists was out of a concern for the growing labour movements and socialist organisations.
So you agree with me then: socialism and fascism differ in the groups defined a struggling. Pointing out that that made fascism attractive to the bourgeoisie is an aside. We see the same mechanisms today where moderate left wing policies are also attractive to the bourgeoisie and the wealthy in the US.
They are. Both are left. Public control with private ownership is mild-to-moderate left (or centrist). Public ownership is harder left. Private ownership and control is right.
Well, then you agree with me as well on that point.
Since fascism both advocated and implemented public control with private ownership, it should therefore be "mild-to-moderate left" in your own words.
The confusion resolves itself when you observe that the US spectrum is shifted right of center with respect to most 20th century definitions of same.
That's a common trope. It used to be true when the Democratic party was (briefly) fairly liberal on both social and economic issues. Over the last decade, the Democratic party has become a party similar to the Greens in Europe. Republicans are generally far more politically liberal than European Christian Democrats in their policies (though not necessarily their personal views).
The Left seeks social justice through redistributive social and economic policies, while the Right defends private property and capitalism.
Do you agree?
It seems to me that under that definition, socialism and fascism as ideologies are both clearly left wing ideologies (whatever differences you may see between them). Do you have a rational argument why fascism shouldn't be classified as left wing under that definition?
Fascism itself has different definitions and different influences depending on period and location.
I think there is a large common core, defined by Gentile, Mussolini, Hitler, and their parties in their massive writings. That defines what fascist ideology is.
Nazis have elements from both the left and right.
And that's an important point to be made, since the "extreme left/extreme right" language wrongly suggests that the two ideologies are diametrically opposed, and that's what most people tend to believe. So, if we want to learn from history, we need to dissect which parts socialism and fascism have in common and where they differ. The primary differences are (1) class struggle vs national struggle, and (2) public ownership of the means of production vs public control of the means of production. I see little other difference between the two, but if you know of any, please state them.
Now (1) is what made fascism more palatable to Europeans than socialism. And (2) is actually not that big of a difference in reality: socialist party functionaries act like wealthy industrialists in fascist societies. What's confusing about the left/right terminology is that Democrats and progressives identify as "left" but actually generally advocate public control of the means of production instead of outright public ownership.
Both are totalitarian/authoritarian. Their similarity lies on a different (often orthoganl) axis.
I gave the differences: socialism defines history as a class struggle, fascism defines it as a struggle between nations. Furthermore, socialism adopts public ownership of the means of production, while fascism nominally retains private ownership and merely asserts public control of the means of production.
Now, the traditional left-right distinction was between either revolutionaries and monarchist, or people who want rapid change vs people who want slow change.
Can you explain why fascism ought to be on the side of monarchists and people who want slow change, instead of the side of revolutionaries and people who want rapid change?
I don't think it's quite fair to say corporatism is leftist. It can come from either side.
I didn't. I pointed out that corporatism is an aspect of left wing ideologies, not that it is exclusive to it.
From the left it's a partnership in control, from the right it's a competitor to control.
(1) The economic model of socialism is state ownership of corporations, run for the purpose of a fair distribution of wealth.
(2) The economic model of fascism is strong regulation of privately owned corporations, regulated for the purpose of a fair distribution of wealth.
The reason this is so endlessly confusing to many people is because parties like Democrats and European social democrats advocate some form of (2) while identifying as leftists or "democratic socialists". That's why it makes more sense to view both socialism and fascism as variants of political leftism.
The other common objection to (1) and (2) is that people say that fascist governments benefit industrialists (which is true), and hence cannot be socialist. But that is comparing outcome to ideology. Both fascism and socialism create plutocracy in practice, yet both fascism and socialism claim to want to achieve economic fairness.
The economic model of the American right is private property and free markets with no political consideration given to fairness. That clearly is diametrically opposed to both socialism and fascism.
Totalitarianism exists across the political left-right axis
I'm glad we agree on that.
You're begging the question by defining it as solely a left-wing phenomenon
Well, let's see, I wrote: Seems to me they were implemented in the same way in fascist Germany, fascist Italy, the USSR, China, and most other socialist countries. If one were honest...
So you agree then that "fascist Germany, fascist Italy, the USSR, China" were all "solely a left wing phenomenon"? Glad we settled that!
The Nazis tied themselves to indrustrial titans like Porsche, Krupp and Henschel, they were high ranking party members who wrote polities in favour of themselves. Alfred Krupp was an SS member from 1931... Why would one of Germany's most wealthy industrialists join a socialist party?
Why do wealthy industrialists in the US support the Democrats and even self-proclaimed socialists? Why did Patty Hearst join the Symbionese Liberation Army? For the same reasons: the sex is good, or they actually believe in the ideology and don't mind sacrificing personal wealth, or they want to increase their power by joining the government, or they don't have a choice (after 1933, German industrialists didn't have a choice).
You don't have a clue what the Nazi's did.
I know exactly what the Nazis did; my parents barely survived the Nazi regime.
We were comparing political ideologies and stated objectives of fascism and socialism. It's patently obvious that neither fascism nor socialism actually are capable of delivering on their promises.
If you want to compare what fascists and socialists actually do in practice, you'll find that they behave the same way too: economic ruin, control of the media and educational systems, mass starvation, death camps, the creation of an extremely wealthy ruling elite, and the oppression of everybody else.
That is, not only is fascist ideology closely related to socialist ideology, fascist regimes operate pretty much the same way socialist regimes do.
This comes up a lot, the problem seems to be that no one really knows what fascist means.
Oh, that's easy: fascism is a political ideology formulated by Giovanni Gentile and implemented in the 1930's by Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany. All three of these people have left extensive writings on what fascism is and how they implemented it. So you can find out exactly what it means.
Fascism is at the extreme right of the left-right political spectrum
From your link: "Opposed to liberalism, Marxism and anarchism, fascism is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum." Indeed, it usually is placed there. We are talking about whether it ought to be placed there.
Go down a little further in the article, and you get to the meat:
[Fascists / Marxists] believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and they regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for [armed conflict / class struggle] and to respond effectively to economic difficulties
The emphasis in the Third Reich wasn't on the socialism, but on the nationalism
The emphasis of the Third Reich was the same as that of socialists: government control of the economy and personal lives with the intent of creating a better society.
(aka "Aryan supremacy"... not even all whites were created equal in their eyes)
So you understand then that Jews were in fact German nationals. In fact, the Nazis committed the genocide not over nationality, but because they believed that Jews were hurting the nation; the same reason progressives in the US used to justify segregation, forced sterilization, and eugenics.
For how far off the mark you are, you might as well be telling us that concentration camps were really just compassionate end-of-life care.
For how far off the mark you are, you might as well be telling us that Soviet death camps were tropical vacation spots and that the Cultural Revolution was an arts festival.
Seriously bringing up that bullshit about Hillary and Byrd?
I stated a simple historical fact: the Democrats were literally the party of the KKK. You may argue that they have "repudiated" that, but the historical fact remains.
Slashdot Mirror
No, you merely interpret it as being about power because that is apparently how you view all of politics. And that interpretation is wrong anyway: the left does not consistently represent people without power. In any case, the left-right distinction can be interpreted in many other ways; your interpretation is not definitional.
Mussolini's fundamental ideology was "everything within the state, nothing outside the state"; that is obviously incompatible with "capitalism" (in the sense of free markets), since under capitalism, it is individuals and the market that make decisions about how to allocate resources and who to reward. Mussolini also acted on his beliefs, since he implemented "state capitalism" and achieved massive state ownership of corporations. Ditto for Hitler. Therefore, both fascists and socialists stated that they were anti-capitalist, and they both acted on their political program by dismantling free markets and imposing state control on the economy. They even achieved the same disastrous outcomes.
Why should they? I said fascists and socialists are characterized by both being anti-capitalist, not that they had the same economic systems. There are many ways of being anti-capitalist. For example, socialists and Italian fascists were anti-capitalist by transferring ownership of large corporations to the state, while Nazis were anti-capitalist by directing big corporations how to operate. Both socialists and fascists generally tolerate small businesses and small private enterprises.
Obviously you don't, because you have already made up your mind.
The reason for why social justice isn't going to work is not particularly deep, it's basic economics. It comes down to the fact that people like me tell people like you to go f*ck themselves when you want to take our stuff and redistribute it more fairly.
I didn't bring "capitalism" into this discussion, you did, for the same reason socialists and their ilk always do: to mislead people. The correct term for "capitalism" is "free market economy", and the correct term for "crony capitalism" is "rent seeking" (if it's legal) or "corruption" (if it's illegal).
Free market economies make people wealthy and free. Rent seeking and corruption make people poor and oppressed. Russia does not have a free market economy, but it does have plenty of rent seeking and corruption.
Conservatives and classical liberals advocate free markets and strongly oppose rent seeking.
Its history (eugenics, segregation, scientific racism, among others), as well as its ideology (redistributive policies, government indoctrination and propaganda, etc.).
Progressivism is about progress in the same way that socialism is about being social, modern liberalism is about liberty, or communism is about community: an empty promise. All these ideologies pick a desirable goal, apply that goal as a label to their political ideology, and then promise that they will use state power to make that goal happen if only you put their experts in charge.
Or, to put it differently, just because some yahoos create an ideology called "X-ism" doesn't mean that their ideology is henceforth the only way to accomplish "X" and we should support them in perpetuity if we desire "X".
You know, the usual: increasing material wealth for everybody, better education, technological progress, and (most importantly) freedom from coercion and oppression.
What I like to see is the promise and policies of the Enlightenment realized; progressivism (despite its name) returns people to pre-Enlightenment dependence on the state.
Social justice is impossible to achieve because inequality is an essential part of human nature: people differ greatly from each other in abilities and culture, hence they are going to have vastly different outcomes. Furthermore, (neo-)Marxists not only fail to recognize that, they make the mistake of ascribing the existing inequality in society to power structures.
I said Historically, the left-right distinction..., which is a fact you can look up. Your view, that it is about power, is the view of neo-Marxism and critical theory; that's not a mainstream view, and more importantly, it's not a tenable view because the (neo-)Marxist analysis in terms of power is not internally consistent or consistent with reality.
From the writings of fascists. You can read up on it, but here is a pretty clear statement from one of the founders of fascim: "We are enemies, mortal enemies of the present capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, with its injustice in wages, with its immoral evaluation of individuals according to wealth and money instead of responsibility and achievement, and we are determined under all circumstances to abolish this system! And with my inclination to practical action it seems obvious to me that we have to put a better, more just, more moral system in its place, one which, as it were, has arms and legs and better arms and legs than the present one!"
Fascists were explicitly tolerant of small businesses and individual property, but socialists have been as well, so this is not a significant distinction.
So when fascists state an economic viewpoint that gains them public support it is "mostly about seizing more power", but when (neo-)Marxists do it, it is somehow genuine? What's the difference? I mean, after getting into power while denouncing capitalism, both fascists and (neo-)Marxists go on to create totalitarian states and state monopolies.
I didn't say it was "fascist", you did that. What I claimed was that the liberal party was "progressive".
Progressivism is a deplorable and destructive political movement, but for all its faults, it is distinct from fascism, and nowhere have I claimed otherwise.
You seem eager to put words in people's mouths and then accuse them of "ascribing labels or behaviour that do not match reality or history".
All you are revealing there is your total ignorance of animal behavior.
And what prevents the private park owner from hiring security guards to keep private park visitors from being safe? Whether in my home, at work, or most places where I go for recreation, it is private security, not government police, that protects me and my property. In fact, the police are pretty much completely useless when it comes to property crime: they rarely prevent it, rarely investigate it, and even more rarely recover it.
In larger groups mechanisms merge to ensure rights; those mechanisms are frequently non-governmental even today.
Your statement of your political beliefs seems to amount to "I value everything that's good and oppose everything that's bad, I am for moderation when moderation is called for, and strong action when strong action is called for." I merely pointed out that that's not a meaningful statement of political beliefs, it is simple empty posturing, which it obviously is. Based on that feedback, you could clarify a statement a statement of your political positions, but you haven't done so.
Russia isn't capitalist
It would likely take Russia several generations to transition to capitalism if they tried, because it takes decades to create the institutions, networks of trust, and markets necessary for capitalism to work. It only takes a couple of years to destroy them.
Let's assume that's true: companies make the same total dollar amount in profits. Does that mean that "the economy hasn't been harmed"? No, because money isn't the same thing as wealth.
Let's say that you have $200000 to build a home. In order to improve sustainability and safety, the government mandates that all the fixtures and pipes in your home be gold plated, meaning that the plumbing alone will cost you $50000 instead of $5000. "The economy" won't be harmed in the sense that you will still be spending $200000 on a home and you will own a $200000 home, but your home now needs to be about 25% smaller, meaning that your wealth actually was harmed, while the gold plating isn't worth $50000 to you.
There are other negative effects of what you suggest, but let that suffice: "tax and redistribute" very much harms the economy in multiple ways.
Which part of Positive feedback with carbon emissions can't produce a tipping point because temperature depends logarithmically on carbon concentrations. was too hard to understand?
And your magnitudes are absurd too: you are claiming that there is much more carbon sequestered in surface soils and clathrates than there is in fossil fuel reserves, which makes no sense.
You have been unable to support the idea that there is a "tipping point".
We know what a greenhouse world looks like: it is warmer, wetter, and milder, with fewer deserts. And the transition would take thousands of years.
Extremism is a symptom, not a cause. The root of the problem is that social justice is impossible to achieve by any means. Ideologies promising to deliver social justice through the state often start out near the center and then become more and more extremist as they find it impossible to deliver on their promises. The problem is usually accelerated by the fact that, in addition to not being able to deliver the promised social justice, as the state expands, it becomes more and more corrupt and the economy falters as individuals are less and less incentivized to work. Left unchecked, a totalitarian, poverty-stricken, mass murdering state is the inevitable outcome, each and every time.
Well, people have certainly argued that, but that's only because attempts by the left to distance themselves as far as possible from fascists have made a farce of the left-right scale. Historically, the left-right distinction was simply one between revolutionaries vs reactionaries, and later between people who wanted social change and progress vs people who wanted to protect private property and free markets. With either historical definition of left-right, fascism clearly ends up close to socialism, since, whatever their other differences may be, both are revolutionary and anti-capitalist ideologies.
As in any quotes, portions that have been modified are in square brackets, so you shouldn't have been shocked. If this shocks you, you need to read more.
I was pointing out that the sentence works equally well for both, since every thing that sentence states for fascism is equally true for Marxism.
Oh, and I know quite a bit about Marxism, having spend part of my youth under its "tender mercies". What is your experience with Marxism?
No, merely according to the references you found on the same page as my definition. The definition is clear:
Fascism seeks social justice; it is one of its primary objectives.
Fascism strongly limits private property.
Fascism is strongly opposed to capitalism.
So, on what basis is fascism on the right according to that definition?
You're saying that the left/right distinction is primarily one of public ownership vs private ownership? Sorry, that doesn't make sense. Both the American left (including Sanders) and democratic socialists in Europe support widespread public ownership, both for individuals and businesses. That distinction is also not historically correct and it doesn't conform to mainstream definitions.
A definition that I think captures the left-right distinction well is: The Left seeks social justice through redistributive social and economic policies, while the Right defends property rights and free markets. Another quite different definition would be The left seeks social change, the right seeks to preserve the status quo. Fascism and socialism both end up on the left according to either definition.
If you want to turn that into a political argument, you'll have to define what you mean by "strong/weak regulation and strong/weak ownership". They don't correspond to any phenomena that I have observed in either Europe or the US.
So you can't produce any evidence of a "tipping point", yet the experts agree that there is a tipping point? What experts? What tipping point? I mean, how would such a "tipping point" even work? Positive feedback with carbon emissions can't produce a tipping point because temperature depends logarithmically on carbon concentrations.
And during that time, we have experienced massive climate change and temperature swings. Furthermore, transition to a "greenhouse world" would take thousands of years; the ice caps simply can't melt any faster. That's plenty of time for adaptation.
It's unlikely that humans can push the world into a greenhouse world. I think if we could, we actually should do it.
No, it's not, it's sound economic prediction based on tons of empirical data.
I said what I meant: the liberal party in the UK was a progressive party, just like the Democratic party was in the US. Progressives in both the US and Europe were the primary proponents of eugenics and forced sterilizations. Eugenics and forced sterilizations were viewed as the rational application of science by the state for the purpose of achieving social progress, the core progressive credo. Keynes was certainly a Liberal Party representative; how about Galton?
And while I don't know enough about UK political figures at the time, American progressives generally viewed Mussolini and Italian fascism favorably. Furthermore, the race policies advocated and implemented by American progressives were used directly as the basis for Nazi Germany's race laws. Whether that means that the UK Liberal Party was "close to fascism" is something you have to decide for yourself. They were certainly progressives.
When I found out about the history of progressivism and verified it with original sources, however, I became so utterly disgusted with the progressive movement and the associated political parties that I became an independent and a classical liberal.
You are saying that fascism in practice was different from what fascism promised. The same is true for socialism. In fact, if we go by outcomes, fascism and socialism seem pretty much indistinguishable.
I never claimed that "socialism and fascism are the same". I said that they are both "leftist ideologies". There are many left wing ideologies (socialism, communism, progressivism, social democracy, etc.), just like there are many right wing ideologies (libertarianism, conservatism, theocracy, monarchy, etc.). Within that spectrum, I think fascism belongs on the left, not on the right.
So you agree with me then: socialism and fascism differ in the groups defined a struggling. Pointing out that that made fascism attractive to the bourgeoisie is an aside. We see the same mechanisms today where moderate left wing policies are also attractive to the bourgeoisie and the wealthy in the US.
Well, then you agree with me as well on that point.
Since fascism both advocated and implemented public control with private ownership, it should therefore be "mild-to-moderate left" in your own words.
That's a common trope. It used to be true when the Democratic party was (briefly) fairly liberal on both social and economic issues. Over the last decade, the Democratic party has become a party similar to the Greens in Europe. Republicans are generally far more politically liberal than European Christian Democrats in their policies (though not necessarily their personal views).
I think this definition is a pretty good one:
Do you agree?
It seems to me that under that definition, socialism and fascism as ideologies are both clearly left wing ideologies (whatever differences you may see between them). Do you have a rational argument why fascism shouldn't be classified as left wing under that definition?
I think there is a large common core, defined by Gentile, Mussolini, Hitler, and their parties in their massive writings. That defines what fascist ideology is.
And that's an important point to be made, since the "extreme left/extreme right" language wrongly suggests that the two ideologies are diametrically opposed, and that's what most people tend to believe. So, if we want to learn from history, we need to dissect which parts socialism and fascism have in common and where they differ. The primary differences are (1) class struggle vs national struggle, and (2) public ownership of the means of production vs public control of the means of production. I see little other difference between the two, but if you know of any, please state them.
Now (1) is what made fascism more palatable to Europeans than socialism. And (2) is actually not that big of a difference in reality: socialist party functionaries act like wealthy industrialists in fascist societies. What's confusing about the left/right terminology is that Democrats and progressives identify as "left" but actually generally advocate public control of the means of production instead of outright public ownership.
I gave the differences: socialism defines history as a class struggle, fascism defines it as a struggle between nations. Furthermore, socialism adopts public ownership of the means of production, while fascism nominally retains private ownership and merely asserts public control of the means of production.
Now, the traditional left-right distinction was between either revolutionaries and monarchist, or people who want rapid change vs people who want slow change.
Can you explain why fascism ought to be on the side of monarchists and people who want slow change, instead of the side of revolutionaries and people who want rapid change?
I didn't. I pointed out that corporatism is an aspect of left wing ideologies, not that it is exclusive to it.
(1) The economic model of socialism is state ownership of corporations, run for the purpose of a fair distribution of wealth.
(2) The economic model of fascism is strong regulation of privately owned corporations, regulated for the purpose of a fair distribution of wealth.
The reason this is so endlessly confusing to many people is because parties like Democrats and European social democrats advocate some form of (2) while identifying as leftists or "democratic socialists". That's why it makes more sense to view both socialism and fascism as variants of political leftism.
The other common objection to (1) and (2) is that people say that fascist governments benefit industrialists (which is true), and hence cannot be socialist. But that is comparing outcome to ideology. Both fascism and socialism create plutocracy in practice, yet both fascism and socialism claim to want to achieve economic fairness.
The economic model of the American right is private property and free markets with no political consideration given to fairness. That clearly is diametrically opposed to both socialism and fascism.
I'm glad we agree on that.
Well, let's see, I wrote: Seems to me they were implemented in the same way in fascist Germany, fascist Italy, the USSR, China, and most other socialist countries. If one were honest...
So you agree then that "fascist Germany, fascist Italy, the USSR, China" were all "solely a left wing phenomenon"? Glad we settled that!
Why do wealthy industrialists in the US support the Democrats and even self-proclaimed socialists? Why did Patty Hearst join the
Symbionese Liberation Army? For the same reasons: the sex is good, or they actually believe in the ideology and don't mind sacrificing personal wealth, or they want to increase their power by joining the government, or they don't have a choice (after 1933, German industrialists didn't have a choice).
I know exactly what the Nazis did; my parents barely survived the Nazi regime.
We were comparing political ideologies and stated objectives of fascism and socialism. It's patently obvious that neither fascism nor socialism actually are capable of delivering on their promises.
If you want to compare what fascists and socialists actually do in practice, you'll find that they behave the same way too: economic ruin, control of the media and educational systems, mass starvation, death camps, the creation of an extremely wealthy ruling elite, and the oppression of everybody else.
That is, not only is fascist ideology closely related to socialist ideology, fascist regimes operate pretty much the same way socialist regimes do.
Oh, that's easy: fascism is a political ideology formulated by Giovanni Gentile and implemented in the 1930's by Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany. All three of these people have left extensive writings on what fascism is and how they implemented it. So you can find out exactly what it means.
From your link: "Opposed to liberalism, Marxism and anarchism, fascism is usually placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum." Indeed, it usually is placed there. We are talking about whether it ought to be placed there.
Go down a little further in the article, and you get to the meat:
See how close they are?
The emphasis of the Third Reich was the same as that of socialists: government control of the economy and personal lives with the intent of creating a better society.
So you understand then that Jews were in fact German nationals. In fact, the Nazis committed the genocide not over nationality, but because they believed that Jews were hurting the nation; the same reason progressives in the US used to justify segregation, forced sterilization, and eugenics.
For how far off the mark you are, you might as well be telling us that Soviet death camps were tropical vacation spots and that the Cultural Revolution was an arts festival.
I stated a simple historical fact: the Democrats were literally the party of the KKK. You may argue that they have "repudiated" that, but the historical fact remains.