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Several libertarian-oriented blogs have had interesting discussions of whether the Obama administration is taking us down the road to (economic) fascism. Tom Palmer, Will Wilkinson and David Henderson have all raised the issue.
Paying attention to that discussion is National Review's Jonah Goldberg, whose book Liberal Fascism caused quite a stir when it came out last year. Goldberg has a blog post exploring what he sees as sudden libertarian interest in this question even as many libertarians were lukewarm to dismissive of his book.
I reviewed the book for The Independent Review and was more favorable to it than many libertarians. The review is not online yet, but will be in a few months here. In a later post, Goldberg and I exchange thoughts on why libertarians might have been so lukewarm to his book, with me arguing that it was because the book didn't sufficiently recognize the fascist tendencies on the contemporary right. A number of libertarians have drifted farther from the right in the last decade (recall the number of libertarians who said they'd vote for Obama), and I would argue that it's because Big Government conservatism under Bush began to unfurl some fascist tendencies of its own.
Feel free to enter the conversation here or at the other blogs noted at the outset.
I guess I'm going to have to ask you to explain the difference between right wing and left wing.
Jeff Riggenbach -
4/4/2009
Mussolini, like almost all politicians, was an opportunist who would embrace whatever doctrine or program he believed would advance his career. In this sense, he was a man of neither the right nor the left. He was merely a mafioso writ large.
The actual program he imposed on Italy in the 1920s was a rightwing program, yes.
JR
Crawdad -
4/4/2009
Mr. Gregory,
Completely agree with you about Bushians and Obamanians. I believe, though, that most of the neocons are former leftists who, while having undergone some form of politically conservative awakening, still don't really get the classical liberal, Constitutionally based philosophy. However, that was not what Golderg's book was about.
Simply put, he was just arguing that fascism grew out of leftist roots not conservative roots. His argument, I think, was well supported and documented. Mussolini was a man of the left. Hitler was a man of the left. Though they may have strayed from some aspects of socialist doctrine they remained men of the left until their bloody ends.
Those things you list for the Bushians, for instance, aggressive, unspeakable murderous war, surveillance, torture, the leader principle and the police state, all fit rather well within the leftist paradigm as evidenced by Stalin, Mao, Minh, Pol Pot, Castro, etc.
Any book or essay that further clarifies the history of these ideas is welcome in my world.
Crawdad -
4/4/2009
So you're saying Mussolini was a man of the right?
Anthony Gregory -
4/4/2009
Because leftists, no matter how totalitarian their impulses on taxation, service, political correctness and environmentalism, are no more fascist than the Bush Republicans like Goldberg who have advocated aggressive, unspeakable murderous war, surveillance, torture, the leader principle and the police state. For some reason, calling Bush a fascist was considered un-PC, inaccurate, unAmerican or a hate crime. But the Bushians and Obammunists are all fascists, and we should say so.
Jeff Riggenbach -
4/2/2009
"The simple and sad fact is the term 'fascist' has long been only associated with the right in popular culture."
The fact is simple, but hardly sad. Fascism should be associated with the right.
"The reality though is that its roots are firmly in the progressive movements of late 19th and early 20th centuries."
And these movements were on the right, not the left. Reread Rothbard's "Left & Right: The Prospects for Liberty."
"That this history has been erased in large part, especially among laypeople, needed to be addressed and Goldberg has done us a favor by bringing it to light."
Goldberg would do us a much more valuable favor by burying his head a couple of feet underground and leaving it there.
JR
Joshua Lyle -
4/2/2009
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
-- Benito Mussolini, as quoted in Crossing the Rubicon (2004) by Michael C. Ruppert and Catherine Austin Fitts (taken from Wikiquote)
William Marina -
4/1/2009
That was already true with one wing of the New Deal in the 1930s. The New Dealers in the US occupation of Japan in 1946 brought the Japanese bureaucrats from Manchukuo to run the Finance Ministry, where they remained for years. These people were great admirers of H.H.G. Schacht, who espoused the Nazi economic equivalent of El Duce's views. And, see R.A. Brady, Business as a System of Power (1943).
Aeon J. Skoble -
4/1/2009
Nice exchange, great issue. As predicted by Orwell in "Politics and the English Language," the word "fascism" now only means "stricter than I like" or else just "right wing authoritarian." But of course, there actually is, you know, a theory the word is meant to describe. It's not esoteric: Mussolini's "Doctrines of Fascism" is available online and in some of the better political philosophy textbooks. The argument there follows the Hegel-Marx line very neatly, except substituing "nationalism/ethnicity" for "class" and eschewing materialism for a more spiritual idealism. Goldberg is completely correct to note that lots of what passes for leftism these days -- esp. the communitarian movement -- is in fact derived from fascist ideas. But yes, you're completely right also to remind Goldberg that what passes for conservatism these days is not what Burke had in mind and also has fascist tendencies.
William Marina -
4/1/2009
If one is going to discuss the above, it might be better to use the term Corporatism, which has long been discussed by scholars.
If one means by Fascism an intolerance for dissenting views, some of the best examples I have known are Randians!
Crawdad -
4/1/2009
Steve,
I personally never understood why many in Libertarian circles were so critical of Goldberg's book. He set out to describe the leftist/progressive European roots of fascism. I think he backed up his arguments well with plenty of footnotes and facts.
That there is a fascistic bent on the far right was not the subject of his work. Maybe Spain's experience could begin a good exploration of how it manifests on that side of the political spectrum.
The simple and sad fact is the term "fascist" has long been only associated with the right in popular culture. The reality though is that its roots are firmly in the progressive movements of late 19th and early 20th centuries. That this history has been erased in large part, especially among laypeople, needed to be addressed and Goldberg has done us a favor by bringing it to light.
