Let's talk about fascism

[romeothethird]

That's because Pinochet's version would be very, very good for established business interests. All other aspects of it are incidental.

The economic system of Pinochet's Chile was actually a big experiment by the Chicago school - and they considered it a success. I don't recall them being concerned about any of the force that had to be used to make it work.

 

[Sayyid]

In political science, corporatism does not mean rule by or in the interests of business corporations, it means a conception of society as an agglomeration of organic/functional sectors politically expressed. This idea figured heavily in Italian Fascism.

In the popular mind, it's become associated with an oligarchy of big business because of the collusion between the fascist state and major corporations which supported it in exchange for preferential treatment. This is not necessarily contrary to the original meaning of the word; but it is a more limited definition than intended.

That's because Pinochet's version would be very, very good for established business interests. All other aspects of it are incidental.

So would many aspects of fascism, undoubtedly. I believe Pinochet's Chile was essentially fascist, albeit of a milder type than the kind found in Depression-era Europe.

The economic system of Pinochet's Chile was actually a big experiment by the Chicago school - and they considered it a success. I don't recall them being concerned about any of the force that had to be used to make it work.

Despite professing to be libertarians, they had absolutely no moral qualms with co-operating with an authoritarian regime to further their policy goals and then later claimed they had delivered both economic growth and political liberalization to Chile.

 

[romeothethird]

Despite professing to be libertarians, they had absolutely no moral qualms with co-operating with an authoritarian regime to further their policy goals and then later claimed they had delivered both economic growth and political liberalization to Chile.

Yeah, they "delivered political" liberalization because eventually Pinochet could no longer wield power via the barrel of a gun and continue the economic growth.

 

[JABcomix]

Whoopsie. You already lost the argument. You went personal at the first opportunity.

For the rest of you, who would actually like to discuss the political philosophy known as "fascism," let me say that, in the final analysis, fascism is merely a sect of socialism. Any personal comments about me will be read as an admission on your part that I am 100% correct.

Here, how about this, Karen, you're stupid. So there.


Richard, you're my new best friend.

 

[Sayyid]

Yeah, they "delivered political" liberalization because eventually Pinochet could no longer wield power via the barrel of a gun and continue the economic growth.

You seem to be fairly knowledgeable. Have you ever studied politics?

 

[Karen Kraft]

You are not a woman, Karen. A woman is a female human. Unlike many Litsters, I'm convinced you are female -- but not that you are human.

Bill will be banished
By Hillary the manish
But fearing he might be called clannish
Bill quickly will vanish
To go off and learn French

 

[The_Trouvere]

You are not a woman, Karen. A woman is a female human. Unlike many Litsters, I'm convinced you are female -- but not that you are human.

Karen Kraft does not have the voice and the concerns of a young woman living in a cosmopolitan, liberal city like Los Angeles. Karen Kraft's voice and concerns are those of a cranky old man, who is somewhat more articulate than most of the wingnuts here, but whose posts are usually as vacuous and inane.

Nevertheless, I can believe Karan Kraft as a spoiled, arrogant, vain rich girl who is living off of daddy's money, and who is afraid that President Obama will raise her taxes.

 

[romeothethird]

You seem to be fairly knowledgeable. Have you ever studied politics?

Since you ask the question, I have to say that I study politics almost all the time.

 

[Karen Kraft]

Since you ask the question, I have to say that I study politics almost all the time.

It was the declining price of copper that brought on the recession that eventually spelled doom for Pinochet.

Spin does not change economics.

 

[romeothethird]

It was the declining price of copper that brought on the recession that eventually spelled doom for Pinochet.

Spin does not change economics.

Even the most brutal enforcer of "free-market" (i.e. crony) economics cannot predict or control human behavior. And the same economic philosophy that failed because of copper (I'll take your word for it) now has us in the United States of America paying taxes so that the money can be given to the banks, defense contractors and their cronies. But people in this country are so mesmerized by the entertainment media (which includes CNN, Fox News, ABC News, etc.) and so unwilling to look for the truth, that they just keep paying attention to the hand waving around instead of the one that has the coin palmed.

 

[Karen Kraft]

Even the most brutal enforcer of "free-market" (i.e. crony) economics cannot predict or control human behavior. And the same economic philosophy that failed because of copper (I'll take your word for it) now has us in the United States of America paying taxes so that the money can be given to the banks, defense contractors and their cronies. But people in this country are so mesmerized by the entertainment media (which includes CNN, Fox News, ABC News, etc.) and so unwilling to look for the truth, that they just keep paying attention to the hand waving around instead of the one that has the coin palmed.

Yeah, that sounds about right.

 

[ccwalt]

Fascism

I thought that was a Republican movement.

 

[richard_daily]

Yeah, they "delivered political" liberalization because eventually Pinochet could no longer wield power via the barrel of a gun and continue the economic growth.

Towards the end, Pinochet was facing a potential uprising. He managed to hold onto his last vestiges of power by defusing the anger, and selectively "disappearing" opponents until he no longer had the power to do so.

 

[ms_ann_thrope]

Towards the end, Pinochet was facing a potential uprising. He managed to hold onto his last vestiges of power by defusing the anger, and selectively "disappearing" opponents until he no longer had the power to do so.

Rory, why are you bumping your old threads?

 

[richard_daily]

Rory, why are you bumping your old threads?

Shut up, Ken, you already lost this argument.

 

[renard_ruse]

Fascism was nothing more than radical opposition to Communism in the early to middle 20th century European context. Nazism was not fascism though it incorporated elements of it.

Not really that interesting a subject, since it really didn't last very long historically. Gets far more coverage in history class than it warrants.

 

[ms_ann_thrope]

Shut up, Ken, you already lost this argument.

Politics, history and arguing with dead people is not my obsession.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Nazism was not fascism though it incorporated elements of it.

 

[Lancecastor]

Good post.

Agreed.

That Paul Wolfowitz guy along with the rest of Bush II's bunch hit every yes on the checklist.

 

[richard_daily]

It's always amusing when these people just make shit up, and expect it to be taken with any level of credibility.

 

[oxphocker]

Karen, as someone who studied history, econ, and political science quite a bit in college I have to say you are completely wrong in your assumptions. I took a semester class studying the Third Reich in depth and National Socialism IS a form of fascism.

Quoting from Ian Kershaw's, The Nazi Dictatorship p. 45:

The concept of fascism is more satisfactory and applicable than that of totalitarianism in explaining the character of Nazism, the circumstances of its growth, the nature of its rule, and its place in a european context in the inter-war period. The similarities with other brands of fascism are profound, not peripheral.

He goes on to talk about how it isn't incompatible with totalitarianism but that fascism is a better fit when you weigh all the components together. National Socialism IS a form of fascism...granted just taken to a further extreme with the racial component.

Instead of trying to throw opinions, insults, and political propaganda at each other, something refreshing would be actual scholarship. As for claims of calling the current republican establishment fascist, let's look at the list posted earlier:

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism
2. Disdain for the importance of human rights
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism
5. Rampant sexism
6. A controlled mass media
7. Obsession with national security
8. Religion and ruling elite tied together
9. Power of corporations protected
10. Power of labor suppressed or eliminated
11. Disdain and suppression of intellectuals and the arts
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
14. Fraudulent elections

Now let's overlay much of what has happened since 2001:
1. Using 9/11 (Bush) as reasoning for Afganistan/Iraq/War on Terror. Just look at all the rah rah America stuff that's been going on since 2001 by conservative outlets.
2. Gays, Minorities, and Women....enough said...
3. Gays, Minorities, Women, and Islamic Terrorism...
4. Again, the massive ramp up of the military since 2001.
5. Republican mishaps with women, affairs, etc...
6. Fox News/Rupert Murdoch
7. Patriot Act, TSA, Warantless Wiretapping, etc...
8. Jerry Falwell, Catholics/Protestant influence, Hobby Lobby, Chick-Fil-A, etc...
9. Weak regulation, recession of 2008, rolling back environmental protections, oil drilling and it's mishaps, etc...
10. WI, OH, FL, Right to Work movements
11. Cutting education funding, attacking teachers unions, general anti-intellectualism of conservatives...
12. Death penalty, Joe Arpaio, AZ, Guantanamo Bay, etc...
13. Revolving door between govt and corporations/military, CEO compensation, tax cuts, lack of ethical behavior, WI repub/dem standoff, etc...
14. Questionable results from Waukesha, WI area due to repub county clerk over multiple instances, suppression of voters, gerrymandering, voter ID laws, etc.

Now the claim could be made that democrats/liberals are involved in some of these as well and you'd probably have some points there, but in all the examples I just listed republicans either started, are actively involved, or were significantly involved in ALL cases. So by using that list as a starting point, I do think it is justifiable to make the claim that the current republican party are closer to fascists than other political groups in the US right now. Trying to call Obama a fascist just doesn't hold up to challenge.

Conservatives have claimed at several points that Obama has been an: Islamist, Communist, Socialist, Fascist, and more.... By definition, he cannot be all of these things and yet in the long term analysis it simply comes comes down to: He's not like 'us'! (You can define 'us' however you like). It could be that he's a minority, or not a republican, or whatever because it really doesn't matter. It's conservative wheel-spinning to try and tag him with ANYTHING to try and paint him in a bad light because he isn't subscribing to the republican platform. Time and time again he has tried to work with republicans to get some meaningful change and has incorporated many republican demand into legislation (which he never gets credit for btw) and they still dig in their heels because they didn't get their way in the election. But here's the real big surprise to conservatives, you're losing and it's only going to keep happening because the demographics are shifting and it doesn't matter how badly you gerrymander the house seats, demographics are going to win out. So while you scream in your beds at night over how Bama is taking our rights!!! Realize that you've done this to yourself, because instead of working together in a responsible manner you've chosen to radicalize instead and you'll lose for it.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Fascism was nothing more than radical opposition to Communism in the early to middle 20th century European context.

Oh, it was a lot more than that! See below. (See also Strasserism, a leftist faction of Nazism that was kind of like Marxist class-war doctrine, but combined that with antisemitism. Hitler put that down once and for all in the Night of Long Knives.)

Nazism was not fascism though it incorporated elements of it.

Quite the reverse -- Nazism was a form of fascism that added elements absent from Mussolin's version, most importantly antisemitic conspiracy-theorizing, and the theory that the dynamic of human history is the clash/competition between biological "races," counting nations as races.

Not really that interesting a subject, since it really didn't last very long historically. Gets far more coverage in history class than it warrants.

You'd be surprised. There are still some active fascist movements in Europe, and not there alone. See Fascism: A History, by Roger Eatwell.

From John J. Reilly's review of said book. (I can't link to the whole thing -- Reilly's webpage is gone since he died. )

The ideological component of fascism has often been neglected in favor of psychohistories of fascist leaders and morbid prose poems about national character. This is understandable, since one of the defining features of fascism is ideological syncretism. Usually, this has meant combining “socialism” with some form of nationalism, but even this minimum requires qualification. The study of fascist ideology is made even more difficult by the fact it was most systematically expressed where it had the least influence, in France and Britain. (Eatwell is not an admirer of British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, but he does give him credit for producing the best thought-out fascist party-platform. The best platform so far, that is.) In any case, at the local level, fascism often had little theoretical content, beyond the privilege of beating people up with impunity. Nevertheless, fascism does have an intellectual history, and the phenomenon as a whole is not so diffuse as to defy definition.

Fascism would not have been possible without Friedrich Nietzsche. There has been no lack of anti-theistic philosophers both before and after Nietzsche, but he is almost alone in honestly facing the consequences of living in a world in which everything is permitted. Most thinkers have sought to preserve some fragment of the intellectual structure that depended from the hypothesis of the Christian God, and so they appeal to reason or history or science. Nietzsche would have none of it. If the skies are really empty, then there are no imperatives. There is, however, life, which in the case of human beings expresses itself not just as biology but as the will. Now Nietzsche, unlike Schopenhauer and unlike many of his own followers, recognized the will is itself a composite entity. It is not a primary physical force, and it is not a god. It does, however, actually exist, and its exercise is all the meaning that life can ever have.

The proposition that the meaning of life is the exercise of the will leads to two kinds of conclusions. The most obvious, and the most popular, is the cult of cruelty. Naturally, the street-fighters who normally figure in the public activities of successful fascist parties are rarely well-read in the literature of philosophical nihilism. Nevertheless, even the nihilist violence of the German SA and the Italian “squadristi” chimes with high theory. Fascism promotes ruthlessness for the same reason that it promotes conspiracy theories: for a fascist, nothing is going to happen unless some will makes it happen. One suspects this consideration is also a factor in the usual fascist suspicion of free markets.

The other conclusion to which an ontology of the will leads is the transformation of politics into art. Whole societies become instruments for the expression of the will of elites, or often of a single great individual. In fascist theory, this is all that politics ever was, no matter what purportedly disinterested purposes the ruling elites of the past believed they served. The difference that Nietzsche made was that this reality could become conscious.

Hmmmm . . .

Come to think of it, the exercise of the will is the only meaning life can ever have.

But, there is more than one way to exercise the will, and not all ways involve asserting power-over-others.

Fascism is not quite coincident with the great man theory of history. Since human beings are social animals, the will is to some extent a social phenomenon. Thus, reality is an intersubjective construct, a fable that people make up amongst themselves. The construct is not entirely arbitrary. Most fascists have also posited a strong racial or biological element conditioning the way that leaders and their peoples behave. Still, even in highly racialized forms of fascism, the leader stands to the people as the will stands to the individual. Politics, then, is not an arbitrary art, but an art whereby the leader makes the unconscious will of the people explicit.

In addition to Nietzsche, the other seminal influence on fascism whom Eatwell discusses at length is Georges Sorel. Now Sorel is remembered as the chief theorist of socialist syndicalism, and like Nietzsche his thought has influenced people who are not fascist by any definition. Nevertheless, he seems to have been a primary source of the nuts-and-bolts of practical fascism, which was chiefly concerned with integrating restive populations of industrial workers into fragile national communities. (The widespread use of the word “community” to refer to classes of people who could not possibly know each other is mostly Max Weber’s fault, though to me it has long carried fascist undertones. Well, that is another story.)

Sorel’s socialism was of the sort that combined plans for the betterment of the masses with considerable contempt for their intelligence, indeed contempt for almost everything about them as they actually existed. Sorel believed that the masses could be integrated into a social force only through slogans and myths. Sorel’s favorite myth was that of the “general strike.” Actual general strikes, in which the whole of a country’s organized labor force walked off the job at the same time, have been tried a few times, with mixed success. The myth of the general strike, however, is like the vision of Judgment Day. It is the goal in whose name organizers organize, it is the reason to pay union dues. It is an ultimate threat, like the strategic doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction, that creates a world by defining its limits. It is not entirely dishonest; the leaders may believe it in a heuristic sense. Such subtleties, however, are not for the people they lead.

Perhaps the most striking thing about the political systems of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy was precisely their use of myth and symbol. (As Salvador Dali once remarked, Nazism was essentially surrealism come to power.) The widely-bought if sparsely-read “Myth of the Twentieth Century,” by the Nazi Party ideologist Alfred Rosenberg, seems to have used “myth” in a Sorelian sense, the myth in this case being the origin of the Aryan race in Atlantis and its leading role in later history. More generally, both the Nazi and the Italian Fascist regimes seemed to be exercises in government by grand opera. (Götterdämmerung and Don Giovanni, no doubt.)

The myths used to organize the elites were not necessarily those provided for the masses. The Nazi leadership in particular cultivated a sort of occultism (though if figures like Julius Evola are any indication, this enthusiasm was not absent from Italy, either). The people, however, were pushed with more conventional forms of nationalist xenophobia and pulled with quite prosaic promises of economic improvement and social welfare (promises on which both regimes could in large measure deliver). This difference of integrative principles was consistent with the fascist notion of society as an organic entity. Organism implies differentiation, so it was only proper that elites and masses be organized through different means.

<snip>

A sentiment that seems to find increasing currency is what might be called “Euro-fascism.” While fascist parties between the wars built their followings on nationalistic platforms, still from the very beginning fascism has always had a universalizing streak. Nietzsche pronounced himself a “good European.” In these days when political theorists speak in terms of the clash of civilizations, New Right theory seems to be moving in the direction, not of renewed hypernationalism, but of an integrating theory for the European Union. Eatwell notes that the EU as it stands is a disedifying entity, run by bland bureaucrats who are most concerned with setting standards for bottled jam. Current plans for future integration will go no further toward turning Europe into a true political community (that word again). Eatwell asks whether anyone is ever going to be willing to die for the Bundesbank. Maybe what Europe needs is a Sorelian myth to hold it together. Work is in progress.

So, are we really just back where we started at the beginning of the 20th century, waiting for some crisis that will delegitimize the existing establishments and start the ball rolling again? One way to look at the 20th century is as one long recoil from the process of globalization. It was only in the 1990s, for instance, that international capital flows again reached the levels relative to the economies of the major countries that they had reached before the First World War. Similarly, it is only recently that international trade in general became as important as it was around 1900. What happened thereafter was that the governments of the leading nations sought to gain unprecedented control of their countries’ destinies. Partly this was accomplished by war, partly it was accomplished through the creation of command economies. Stalinism was simply Lloyd George’s “War Socialism” made permanent, something that happened in greater or lesser degree throughout the West. In every case, the goal was to replace the power of capital with the power of the will, whether the will was that of an electorate or of a would-be Nietzschean superman. When, starting in the 1980s, the military and economic systems of command began to be relaxed, the world economic system began to look again something like the way it had looked before these measures were implemented. The process of globalization began again. So did the attempts to stop it.

It would be wrong to say that all attempts to stop globalization of economics and communications and culture are fascist. Most resistance to universalism comes from a positive desire to preserve local identities and traditions. Such things may or may not be worth preserving. The balance between the local and the universal is not something that can be dictated categorically. Fascist nationalism, in contrast, was perhaps just an improvisation, made necessary by the fact that nation states were the largest units that fascist elites could hope to control. At a deeper level of fascism is the ideal of the universal empire, of the whole world subject to a single will. The goal is repeatedly deferred only because it is obviously so much harder to achieve.

See also Neo-Nazism.

 

[richard_daily]

Bumping this for the people who need a clue.

 

[Rightguide]

Let's talk about the most destructive force in America today, the Democratic Party.

 

[richard_daily]

vetteman doesn't have a clue. Can anyone help him out?