this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2024
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Both the left and right can be fascist.
I find it helpful to consider authoritarian/libertarian on a different axis to small government/big government.
Whilst I agree with your point about two axis, Fascism is Right-wing + Authoritarian and has nothing whatsoever of Left-wing in it.
Left-wing + Authoritarian would be the kind of Communism practiced in places like the Soviet Union - highly centralized and were people are supposed to obey the dictates of the Party.
Neoliberalism is Rightwing with a different form of Authoritarianism: whilst its practitioners claim it's Libertarian, their policies do things such as using Wealth in gate-keeping access to opportunities (via things such as Private Education) and similarly using Property Rights (mainly Land Ownership and related) to limit most people's access to what they require to satisfy their basic needs, de facto forcing them to produce wealth for the Asset Owners in order survive - it's Authoritarianism through removing people's freedom at a systemic level with access to all basic needs gatekept via Wealth and Asset Ownership so that everybody not born into the Asset Owner class has only the "freedom" to starve and be homeless if they don't want to work to create more wealth for the Asset Owner class, a more subtle use of force (as Force does get used, to enforce Property Rights) that the rather more direct "boot in the face" kind of Authoritarianism of Fascism.
Struggle sessions: left auth.
Authoritarian certainly. But Mussolini was fascist, but held left wing beliefs like welfare and relief for the poor and government intervention and ownership.
The rest I agree with.
US Libertarians should theoretically be closer to anarchy than authoritarianism but the need to group together distorts the thinking. Liberalism is probably a better counterweight for authoritarianism.
Welfare for the in-group is not (exclusively) left-wing. The Nazis had welfare for blonde blue-haired 'aryans' that produced lots of children. Also, neoliberal and conservative western governments love giving welfare to corporations and rich people. Even if your in-group is "all Romans" (in case of the ancient grain dole that Mussolini was inspired by) or "all Italians", if the motivation for welfare is to empower the in-group to exploit the out-group, it's right wing.
Government intervention and ownership are not (exclusively) left-wing. The original right wing - the monarchists in the French parliament - were pro-government intervention and ownership, with the government being embodied by the king. Government spending is consistently higher among Republicans than Democrats. Large ostentatious state projects with kickbacks for the in-group are bread and butter of pretty much every right wing government, from the massive Nazi government-owned holiday park Prora to the Space Launch System. Right-wing governments often forcefully nationalize projects run by the out-group, like Jewish shops in Nazi germany or Black Panther community support networks in the US.
The right wing may cloak themselves in the guise of the free market or of individual liberty or decentralization of power, or in the guise of community and centralization and rights that must be defended at the cost of freedoms. They will present themselves as underdogs and punks and outsiders or as rightful inheritors, powerful leaders, loyalists and patriots. Often they will switch narratives from topic to topic, going from underdogs fighting against the liberal elite who says you can't say slurs anymore to patriots bemoaning the lack of solidarity of people kneeling in protest at a flag.
The one thing that unites them, the one thing that is consistent, is to exploit and oppress the out-group to benefit the in-group.
Contrast communist authoritarianism and mass murder, which were generally justified as being for the good of all mankind.
We are agreeing that fascism is much more strongly associated with the authoritarian/liberal axis than the left/right axis.
No, you disagree with myself and pretty much all historical usage on the definition of "right-wing". Whether it's the original right wing in the parliament of the first French Republic, monarchists in general, 19th century British Tories, imperialists in general, ethno-nationalists, fascists, etc.
I'm not defining "right wing".
I'm saying fascists can also follow left wing ideas (e.g. Mussolini).
I think you're confusing the Authoritarianism elements with it being Left-wing, possibly because what you were taught was Authoritarianism was the Soviet Union and the Nazis, with the focus on the latter being all about their Militarism and violent Ethnic-purity policies (namely, the Holocaust) rather than their Economic policies.
I was born in a country - Portugal - which had Fascism and the Government did way more intervention and owned far more things than it does now, 50 years into Democracy.
Centralization of control is as common in Authoritarian Right-wing systems as it is in Authoritarian Left-wing ones.
Yes, my definition of left vs right is purely bigger government vs smaller government.
But I've just read another definition which is equality of decision making (left) vs hierarchical decision making (right).
How are you defining left vs right?
"The greatest good for the greatest number" is pretty much the defining principle of Left-wing in my view.
If you look at the stated policies (not to be confused with what the actual human beings claiming to support those do when they get Power) of the various ideologies within the Left-wing, it's not that objective that changes, it's how to go about maximizing it and the how far do people believe it can be maximized that differs.
Whilst you do see a number of left-wing ideologies which think the will of the individual should be entirely subservient to the State, others believe that it is a "greater good" for people to have more individual freedom than for people having to be entirely subservient to the State. This is the way in which the Authoritarian-Libertarian axis of Politics is expressed with the Left-wing.
Fascism specifically centers around a hierarchy based on race, ethnicity, place of origin, sex, gender, sexuality, or some other (for the most part immutable) characteristic of a person. It also may specify heavy corporatism (as what governments like Mussolini's Italy structured their economy around).
Leftism centers around abolishing all unjust hierarchies, including those that fascism relies upon. It is also anti-capitalist and, obviously, anti-corporate.
"Fascism" doesn't just mean "authoritarianism". Fascism doesn't even strictly need a state – it's mostly social and economic in its nature, and doesn't say anything about the structure (or existence) of government. Anarcho-capitalism, for instance, starts to decay into fascism, where there may be no "government", but rather private entities (like corporations and individuals) restricting or blocking the social and economic participation of certain groups based on a social gradient, or in general depriving people in those groups of rights (like enslaving, harming, or killing them, denying them food or healthcare, etc.). There are always enforcers of fascism, as it's an inherently unequal and oppressive ideology, but whether the oppressors' power ultimately comes from governmental organizations or non-governmental organizations doesn't matter. You could argue this does constitute authoritarianism, and I wouldn't disagree, but my point is that "big government" and fascism are entirely different concepts.
For the most part, fascism can be considered an ideology of emphasizing a supposed "former glory" of a nation or peoples, which co-opts socialist critiques of capitalism and twists them to emphasize immutable characteristics like ethnicity or masculinity as being the cause of economic woes, rather than class; Fascism, while taking significant influence from leftist ideology in its rhetoric, turns it on its head and repurposes it for the "Volk" (some population/identity based on generally immutable characteristics) rather than the worker. It ends in the dismantling of trade unions and other leftist structures, and an economy comprised of corporatoid organizations which is kept afloat by the constant drive for "purification" (the enforcement of a bigoted hierarchy) which never concludes, resulting in the gradual narrowing of who is included in the "in-group" (cannibalizing itself) after a certain point.
Leftism puts class warfare above all else, and while some leftists could incorporate fascist elements into their beliefs – that being, social conservativism, as elements like misogyny and homophobia aren't impossible to find in the belief systems of self-identified communists (mostly apologia for the errors of authoritarian communist governments) – the socioeconomic structure of socialism compared to fascism is so radically different that it's impossible to fit full-on fascism into a socialist structure. Fascism praxis perhaps may be observed as "welfare for a very specific class of peoples, reliant on the oppression of lower classes of peoples", where the "out-groups" are forced into to the lowest classes, and the "in-groups" who are of lower classes may see a limited amount of welfare. Fascism combines class-based hierarchies with "they're different than me"-based hierarchies; this very stark class division and exploitation of lower classes completely conflicts with core leftist ideology.
An excellent essay. And we agree that the simple left/right categorisation is woefully inadequate.
No they can't. Fascist is not a synonym for authoritarian.
Ok. I'll be more precise. Fascism is authoritarian, but not all authoritarians are fascist.
Mussolini was fascist, but held left wing beliefs like welfare and relief for the poor and government intervention and ownership.
At that level of discussion, a simplistic left-right characterization makes no sense.
What makes a fascist fascist is that they only defend welfare for the people they deem worthy and submit, who represent and strengthen the "nation". That is not "left".
What is usually called the left usually sees welfare as an end in itself and not exclusively as a means to strengthen the nation.
I think we are agreeing.
Left wing ideas are not fascist, but people with left wing beliefs can also hold fascist ideas (e.g. Mussolini).
It is a mistake to assume that only the right can be fascist.
ok, then we sort of agree, it is possible to be fascist "on the left" by putting the collective above all individual rights and wellbeing by force, where you would replace "the nation" with e.g. "the proletariat" instead, which you would not call fascist, would you? I mean, there is a name for it: Stalinism or marxism-leninism or communism, depending on who you're talking to.