(no subject)

[fpb]

Anyone who thinks that I was too harsh about Jonah Goldberg's repulsive and politically motivated rewriting of my own country's history ought to read today's Thomas Sowell column, where it is taken entirely at its own valuation and highly recommended as summer reading for the children of conservatives. This unhistorical, culturally imperialistic propaganda, that distorts my country's and my continent's history in the service of provincial American concerns, is going to enter the bloodstream of a whole American party, If it has not already done so. This will increase further the mutual incomprehension between USA and Europe, because you cannot stand on your two hind legs and inform anyone who knows anything of continental history - France, Italy, Germany, etc. - that Nazism and Fascism were "left wing". This sort of rubbish, especially if spoken with the arrogance of Goldberg and Sowell, will increase European contempt for American viewpoints and culture. Do we really need this sort of trash further complicating our already difficult relationship, and all for the sake of a few Republican votes in the next election?

Comments

[superversive.livejournal.com]

The term ‘left-wing’ in American discourse does not mean what it means in Europe. In America, which never possessed either a landed aristocracy nor an ethnic nationality, there has never been any significant collectivist-nationalist movement of the kind that forms the extreme Right in Europe. All forms of collectivism are ‘Left’ in the U.S., and by that standard it is quite correct to describe Fascism and its various offshoots as left-wing.

I must say that in functional terms, this manner of dividing the political spectrum has more to recommend it than the twentieth-century European system, in which the extreme Left and the extreme Right pursued indistinguishable policies, differing for the most part only in their rhetoric. In practice, for the great majority of people, there is little to choose between a totalitarian state founded upon class-hatred and a totalitarian state founded upon race-hatred.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You may ask the great Italian and German industrialists whether they found the Nazi and Fascist policies so indistinguishable from Communism. You cannot speak so glibly of the difference between a form of government which not only safeguarded private property but exalted the figures of industrialists and one which wanted them dead and free enterprise suppressed.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

That’s only because a police state founded upon class-warfare persecutes different people from one founded upon race-warfare — or at least, it goes after a different set of victims first.

As for safeguarding private property, the case of I.G. Farben is instructive. The Nazis were quite content to let industrialists alone, as long as they obeyed orders. But they were quick to make an example of any industrialist who did not run his firm as an instrument of state policy. There was nothing resembling free enterprise in Nazi Germany. In fact, all companies with a capital less than a certain figure — I seem to recall offhand that it was something like 100,000 marks — were simply outlawed, and the formation of new companies was strictly regulated. The corporatist structure of Fascist Italy (though never really implemented) was supposed to turn each major industry into a compulsory cartel. Monopoly firms carrying out the orders of the state are not socialist in the ordinary sense of the word, but they are not free in any sense of the word.

You must also remember that there was a radical wing in the Nazi Party, led at first by the Strasser brothers and later represented by Goebbels, which did want German industry nationalized immediately the Nazis took power. Hitler stopped them only because he wanted rearmament above all else, and he knew from the Russian experience that shooting the factory-owners was a quick way to wreck the economy. In effect, he left the same people running German industry because they knew how to do it and Party hacks did not: a lesson that Lenin did not live long enough to learn, and Stalin came too late to profit by. Late in the war, Hitler expressed regrets that he had not listened to his radicals, nationalized heavy industry, and purged the officer corps as Stalin did.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

That does not begin to compare with Communist state capitalism.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

All forms of collectivism are ‘Left’ in the U.S.

Except when they're not, of course. Nixon expanded the welfare state and supported affirmative action, Reagan drastically increased federal spending in real terms, Bill Buckley supported national service, many people in the current administration support expansive notions of executive power, and the current Republican nominee brags about serving "for patriotism, not for profit." It was the American Right that supported segregation and school prayer, while the ACLU advocates for broader First Amendment rights.

To the extent that the US political spectrum differs from Europe's, it's because both sides generally accept the broad-sense liberal consensus of flexible labor markets, liberal free-speech rights, and private ownership of industry. Our political debates center around whether the minimum wage should be $8.50 or $0, not whether the government should own the telecoms.

In short, the degree of collectivism a political movement espouses isn't a very reliable indicator of its position on the political spectrum. I don't think those terms pick out a well-defined set of ideological principles, especially over time. Instead, they refer to family resemblances and historical origins. That's why we call the Labour party "democratic socialist" even though they've long since given up any pretense of wanting collective ownership of the means of production.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

Merci bien.

[superversive.livejournal.com]

If you’re comparing Nixon and Reagan with either the Communists or the Nazis, you’re out to lunch. As Orwell said, all such arguments amount to saying that half a loaf is the same as no bread. The political spectrum is just that — a spectrum — not a binary disjunction. Nixon, in American terms, was a long way to the Right of any party (democratic or not) that described itself as Socialist; Reagan was to the Right of Nixon; Buckley was to the Right of Reagan; and the current administration, except in foreign policy, is not on the Right at all.

[goreism.livejournal.com]

Where did I compare Nixon and Reagan to the Communists or Nazis?

You claimed at all forms of collectivism are "Left" in the States. I responded that the degree of collectivism a political movement espouses isn't a reliable indicator of its position on the political spectrum. Nixon was more "collectivist" by any measure than the modern-day Labour party, whether you look at marginal tax rates, government spending, or tariff barriers. But we call Labour "left-wing" and "socialist," and call Nixon a man of the Right.

The reason is that the words "Left" and "Right" aren't defined in terms of policy positions, especially over time. They're not short-hand for describing how collectivist a movement is. The American Right has often been just as "collectivist" as the Left—only in different ways.

[dustthouart.livejournal.com]

You can't really think that Goldberg et alia are calling Fascism and Communism left-wing for that reason, can you? No, they are calling them left-wing because they wish to call all bad and unpopular political philosophies left-wing.

I think this is a horrible idea for many reasons, not least of which that the concept that going into opposite extremes can have identical results is a profound truth that every person needs to carry in his or her heart. To lie and say "Well they are all left-wing and we right-wingers have no such tendencies" is dangerous.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

And I heard it said - by a convert from the left. Immediately after, I found an atrocious instance of mob behaviour in a right-wing site. This was my comment: http://fpb.livejournal.com/278501.html.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

BTW, I would remind you that the USA, in the thirties, sprouted a good few perfectly orthodox Fascist movements: the Bund, the followers of Gerald Smith, and those of Father Coughlin. In fact, this is the reason why outdated leftist nightmares ascribe to all popular conservative preachers the desire to create their own stormtroops; because in the dark backwards and abysm of time, when feminists were feminists and men smoked, the most popular right-wing preachers in America did exactly that. Both Smith and Coughlin were full of Jewish conspiracies, hatred for Roosevelt, admiration for Hitler and Mussolini (Coughlin especially remained an unrepentant Mussolini fanboy to his death, and was still in the seventies publishing newsletters extolling Fascist notabilities such as Rachele Mussolini), and IIRC, it was one of them, not Hitler or Goebbels, who invented the slander that Roosevelt was Jewish and his real name was "Rosenfeldt". Of course, lots of water has flowed under the bridge since; and even the old leaders now outgrown by a more mature and politically adept conservative movement, such as Falwell and Oral Roberts, were far on the right side as compared to these lunatics. But Fascism with its uniforms and flags did find a home in certain areas of the US, and I assure you that these were not the trades unions or the progressive movements.

[luckymarty.livejournal.com]

The left-right spectrum is largely useless as a tool of analysis, and has done a great deal of actual harm in distorting not just thought but actual political alliances. It has several competing definitions, far more often assumed than stated, within American political discourse. I doubt that there's a more stable definition in Europe.