Fascism: What It Is, What It Isn't, And How To Spot It

originally posted by: WineAndCheese9
a reply to: DJW001

I don't need a lecture on Fascism from a person who so often agrees with MSM and US government version of events.

Shaking my head big time

Thank you for participating. Does Benito say anything that reminds you of your idol Vladimir? Didn't Vladimir recently praise the Russian People for their ability to make sacrifices? Doesn't Vladimir Vladimirovitch make great show of attending Orthodox mass? Wasn't the mystic Alexandr "Call Me Rasputin" Dugin one of his advisers?

Continuing:

To summarize: Fascism emphasizes that it is an ethical and moral enterprise that alone can provide meaning to an individual's life. (The manifesto I have been quoting was written in the aftermath of the First World War, when traditional values had been overthrown by "Modernism," including the thought of Sigmund Freud. Fascism offered a riposte to Freud by providing an answer to the role of the Self.) It is simultaneously very traditional and revolutionary. Above all, it places the needs of the State above the selfish wants of the individual.

No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State.

This is an explicit denial of the freedom of association. Under Fascism, Trade Unions and opposition parties that are not directly (or covertly) controlled by the State are not permitted. This was the explicit goal of United Nations resolution A/C.3/69/L56/Rev.1. Fortunately, it did not pass.

Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered as it should be from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and ending to express itself in the conscience and the will of the mass, of the whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing, as one conscience and one will, along the self same line of development and spiritual formation. Not a race, nor a geographically defined region, but a people, historically perpetuating itself; a multitude unified by an idea and imbued with the will to live, the will to power, self-consciousness, personality.

[Emphasis mine. --DJW001]

This paragraph contains two ideas central to Fascism:

First, it denies the efficiency of the democratic process. It favors "quality" over "quantity." There is the explicit belief that some people are superior to others, and therefore better qualified to determine the course of everyone else's lives. This is in keeping with the "occult" teachings that underlie Fascist philosophy. This leads, inevitably, to the "Leader Principle": that a single gifted individual can have absolute power over the State: Mussolini in Italy, Franco in Spain, Hitler in Germany, and so forth.

Second, it posits that there is a semi-mystical thing called a "Nation" that transcends mere geography and ethnicity. It unites a group of people under the umbrella of the State through language and custom. It becomes the ethical duty of members of this Nation to serve the State, and of the State to strengthen and defend the Nation.

Fascism's concentration of power in an elite goes against what the latest research suggests is the best form of decision making, "the wisdom of crowds." The more observers, the better the observation. The more solutions proposed, the more likely a correct solution will be chosen. It was this concentration of decision making in the hands of a very few that resulted in the Fascist powers losing the war. Aids were afraid to tell The Leader news that would make him angry. This is a problem that plagues contemporary Fascist states as well.

The concept of "Nation" is a slippery one. It corresponds to the German concept of das Volk, and the Russian народ, Narod. It creates a bond between people who share a mutual language, traditions and customs transcending geography. In so doing, it sets up a distinction between "us" and "them." We must protect our own against Them. This is the pretext that Fascists use when they begin their military adventurism. Hitler had to defend "ethnic Germans" in Poland; Putin has to defend "ethnic Russians" in Ukraine.

Nationalism is one of the core values of Fascism. Nationalism, in and of itself, is not necessarily a bad thing. After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Europe became a patchwork quilt of areas ruled by petty aristocrats presiding over groups that were little better than tribes. Over the centuries, common languages and customs began to see these smaller areas unite under more powerful rulers, until, eventually, the outlines of modern nations could be seen, with certain languages predominating in particular geographic regions.

Nationalism arose in the Nineteenth Century as a movement to unite all the people of a geographical region into a coherent body politic, defining the nation state as a group of people rather than the area of land ruled over by an hereditary monarch. This form of Nationalism created the Europe that is only now being replaced by a form of trans-national Federalism. Needless to say, contemporary Fascists are opposed to Federalism.

ETA: The vagueness of the term "Nation" allows Fascists to include or exclude groups of people in self serving ways. Hitler's Master Race was superior to everyone, of course, but could pick and choose which "races" it chose to exterminate or form alliances with. Jews were sent to Death Camps; after the War, many Nazis moved to Egypt and Syria and became Muslims.

You skipped over my question. Where do mega-corporations fit in?

Maybe I should expand my question. What if mega-corporations become so powerful, they control the state like a puppet, and manipulate laws and citizens to serve profit. Would that be considered fascism, in you opinion?

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originally posted by: BlueMule
You skipped over my question. Where do mega-corporations fit in?

Maybe I should expand my question. What if mega-corporations become so powerful, they control the state like a puppet, and manipulate laws and citizens to serve profit. Would that be considered fascism, in you opinion?

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Technically, it would not be Fascism. In Fascism, the State controls the "private sector," not the other way around.

ETA: Obviously, it would not be a desirable situation, whatever one chooses to call it; it just wouldn't be Fascism.

a reply to: DJW001

What would you chose to call it?

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originally posted by: BlueMule
a reply to: DJW001

What would you chose to call it?

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Corporate Oligarchy. America has been on the brink of it since the last century. Recent Supreme Court rulings have pushed it closer. I don't want to discuss it further as it might throw the thread off topic.

a reply to: DJW001

Ok. Would you make a thread about it, once this topic has run its course?

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originally posted by: BlueMule
You skipped over my question. Where do mega-corporations fit in?

Maybe I should expand my question. What if mega-corporations become so powerful, they control the state like a puppet, and manipulate laws and citizens to serve profit. Would that be considered fascism, in you opinion?

👣

Well look at Russia mega corporation feed the state. Gasprom I'd a great example claim to be independent but the money goes to an oligarch and in turn he feeds it back to Putin. Putin job is to make sure the company always gets favor from the state to increase profits. Money becomes very focusesed to a few individuals and because of that you have an elite circle running the show .

Capitalists on the other hand do use money to control the government such as lower taxes etc. But they don't care about the government and don't try to foster it. Look at Walmart think they care what Obama does as long as he doesn't raise minimum wage or increase taxes.

a reply to: DJW001

Wasn't General Franco also a fascist.

Didn't italian peninsula have dictators before the caesar domination that were fascist.

Is China and the United States fascist? China being left wing fascism and the US being right wing fascist.

a reply to: John_Rodger_Cornman

He said America is on the brink of Corporate Oligarchy, not fascism. Corporations are like big giant sociopaths that are programmed to care about one thing only: profit.

www.telegraph.co.uk...



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a reply to: John_Rodger_Cornman

Wasn't General Franco also a fascist.

Correct; his regime met all the criteria and he even sided with the Axis.

Didn't italian peninsula have dictators before the caesar domination that were fascist.

Mussolini consciously imitated the Roman Empire.

Is China and the United States fascist? China being left wing fascism and the US being right wing fascist.

The determining factors have to do with the concentration of both power and property in the State. China went from Communism under Mao, wherein private property and production of goods was not permitted, to a system wherein power was concentrated in the State, but private enterprise was allowed. It has gone from Communist to Fascist. The distribution of power and property in America precludes it being Fascist; the State is ultimately less powerful than corporate interests. It is arguably becoming an oligarchy.

a reply to: DJW001

Wouldn't that be like China's state that controls their economy/yuan or the US state with the federal reserve system?

Quantitative easing and bailouts are fascist economic policies no?

a reply to: DJW001

ok.

USA is a corporate puppet state and China is a modern fascist regime. Megacorps have really overpowered the people of the USA.

At least we are not in "outer prison"/ marxist supermax like in north korea.

a reply to: John_Rodger_Cornman

Quantitative easing and bailouts are fascist economic policies no?

No, they are Keynesian. Rather than micro-managing the economy, central banks will sometimes act as the lender or consumer of last resort in order to stimulate the circulation of money. It is not intended to direct the economy as a socialist or Fascist government would, be merely maintain inflation and unemployment between certain constrained values.

ETA: Central banking techniques are applied in a predominantly free market economy.

a reply to: DJW001

ok.

Thanks for filling me in.

Why do anarchist hates Keynesian economics and love Austrian economics?

Hopefully, we still have the possibility nowadays to listen to those who really witnessed and endured the consequences of fascist regimes.

originally posted by: theultimatebelgianjoke
Hopefully, we still have the possibility nowadays to listen to those who really witnessed and endured the consequences of fascist regimes.

Yes, even the ones who still have hate in their hearts have the right to speak in a free society.

originally posted by: John_Rodger_Cornman
a reply to: DJW001

ok.

Thanks for filling me in.

Why do anarchist hates Keynesian economics and love Austrian economics?

I'm no anarchist, but in Keynesian economics, the idea is that you can take out huge loans and spend them to stimulate economic activity. The principle is true in a very limited way, but we've been more or less living in a Keynesian economics system. Like anything, when you borrow, borrow, borrow it gets to the point where the debt is punitive and you are actually creating a bigger problem than you solve.

Part of the budget problem in the US is the size of our existing debt system. We spend a sizable portion of every tax dollar just paying the interest on debt already incurred. Keynesian economics only makes that worse. Even Keynes made his assumptions based on a government that was more or less budget responsible and would go back to being budget responsible.

Another problem with our current system is that the Fed is simply printing money to service the debt. That money has nothing of value to back it, so it's worth is backed by pre-existing goods and services. That means that every dollar already in existence is now worth less become they have to share their worth with those new dollars. So the continued Keynesianism is creating dollars that are worth less for the rest of us making our costs for everything higher.

a reply to: DJW001

Excuse my blatant ignorance, but your previous reply did not allow me to acknowledge who was behaving in a typical fascist way in this particular case.

I managed to find a few examples according to your (excellent by the way) definition of fascism :

For Palestinian artists, freedom of speech is anything but guaranteed

Netanyahu threatens new TV station for Palestinian citizens of Israel

A court of non-convictions when the victim is Palestinian

High Court: Palestinians have no planning rights

That's just a few examples taken from the actuality of the last two weeks ...

a reply to: theultimatebelgianjoke

Yes, the current Israeli government has moved much too far to the right in response to Palestinian violence, don't you agree?