Is Fascism Right Or Left?

The Coach's Team ^ | 12/14/17 | Dinesh D'Souza

[Huaynero]

“...always looked somewhat at Fascism from an economic perspective (government directed industry; fascism, government owned industry; socialism) so this description above makes more sense to me.”

I agree with your view. It’s how I finally was able to distinguish the difference in two near polar opposite brands of socialism.
Just don’t ask how long it took me to get there!

[<1/1,000,000th%]

Left

[Chickensoup]

Leftist Totalitarian Fascists.

And I am sticking to it.

History proves it, China, USSR, Vietnam....and the beat goes on....

[mjp]

fascism is a type of statism. It is left.

[spel_grammer_an_punct_polise]

“sory about the misssspellingsss ;-)”

OK, we forgive you this time. Just be very careful in the future! ;-)

[zeestephen]

Re: “...[Communism and Fascism] hate each other because they are fighting for the same audience.”

That’s an interesting insight.

Thanks for posting.

[Crucial]

Fascism is Left as it involves greater government control of the private economy and the government. The far Right would end up as anarchy or no government involvement at all in society.

[RedStateRocker]

Thanks

You saved me the post. Any definition needs to start with they guy who coined the term.

As both the Third Reich and China have shown, fascism can actually work pretty well in economic terms.

[huckfillary]

The two ends of the political spectrum are liberty/individualism and tyranny/statism. Both socialism and fascism are forms of statism. History is not the struggle between right and left nor the haves and have-nots. History chronicals the struggle between liberty and tyranny, or if you prefer, individualism and statism.

[BroJoeK]

from the article:

"Leftists can’t acknowledge their man, Gentile, because that would undermine their attempt to bind conservatism to fascism.
Conservatism wants small government so that individual liberty can flourish.
The left, like Gentile, wants the opposite: to place the resources of the individual and industry in the service of a centralized state.
To acknowledge Gentile is to acknowledge that fascism bears a deep kinship to the ideology of today’s left.
So, they will keep Gentile where they’ve got him: dead, buried, and forgotten.

But we should remember, or the ghost of fascism will continue to haunt us. "

For more see Dinesh D'Souza's book:

The Big Lie, Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left

[rlmorel]

I really do enjoy his work. One of my favorites is “What’s So Great About America?”

I have “The Big Lie” too...great book!

[Fhios]

The more I’ve thought about it the more I’ve come to the conclusion that Fascism describes how you deal with the opposing faction or party, the populace, and whether you create special benefits for the political Bureaucratic branches.

[Ambrosia]

Think of it as a CLOCK with 6 being center, and going counterclockwise is RIGHT and Clockwise is LEFT. Twelve (12) is where each extreme ends up! So each extreme meets it’s insanity at 12....both being similar! Somehow Facism seems to be a 12, and both poltical extremists, whether left or right, end up there!

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Thank you. I struggled with a comment on this, but you got right to the point.

[dfwgator]

The Left hates Nazis because they betrayed the glorious Russian Revolution by attacking Mother Russia and Stalin. Therefore, anyone who disagrees with the Left must be a Nazi.

They use the term "Fascist", not "Nazi". Because the term "Nazi" implies that they are fellow socialists.

[Heartlander]

What is Left? What is Right?

What Is Left? What Is Right? It is extremely unfortunate that the writers on political philosophy today have undertaken to measure various issues in terms of political parties instead of political power. No doubt the American Founding Fathers would have considered this modern measuring stick most objectionable, even meaningless.

Today, as we mentioned, it is popular in the classroom as well as the press to refer to "Communism on the left," and "Fascism on the right." People and parties are often called "Leftist," or "Rightist." The public do not really understand what they are talking about.

These terms actually refer to the manner in which the various parties are seated in the parliaments of Europe. The radical revolutionaries (usually the Communists) occupy the far left and the military dictatorships (such as the Fascists) are on the far right. Other parties are located in between.

Measuring people and issues in terms of political parties has turned out to be philosophically fallacious if not totally misleading. This is because the platforms or positions of political parties are often superficial and structured on shifting sand. The platform of a political party of one generation can hardly be recognized by the next. Furthermore, Communism and Fascism turned out to be different names for approximately the same thing ~ the police state. They are not opposite extremes but, for all practical purposes, are virtually identical.

The American Founding Fathers Used a More Accurate Yardstick

Government is defined in the dictionary as "a system of ruling or controlling," and therefore the American Founders measured political systems in terms of the amount of coercive power or systematic control which a particular system of government exercises over its people. In other words, the yardstick is not political parties, but political power.

Using this type of yardstick, the American Founders considered the two extremes to be anarchy on the one hand, and tyranny on the other. At the one extreme of anarchy there is no government, no law, no systematic control and no governmental power, while at the other extreme there is too much control, too much political oppression, too much government. Or, as the Founders called it, "tyranny."

The object of the Founders was to discover the "balanced center" between these two extremes. They recognized that under the chaotic confusion of anarchy there is "no law," whereas at the other extreme the law is totally dominated by the ruling power and is therefore "Ruler's Law." What they wanted to establish was a system of "People's Law," where the government is kept under the control of the people and political power is maintained at the balanced center with enough government to maintain security, justice, and good order, but not enough government to abuse the people.
The 5,000 Year Leap - W. Cleon Skousen

[piasa]

The problem with the left-right thing is it’s not a straight line- more like a circle...so he far left and far right share adjacent points.

[rlmorel]

Hm...That seems like a valid point, given the discussion!

[ought-six]

Fascism is a brother of socialism. Both are socialist philosophies, with the difference being that fascism allows for privately-owned business to still operate, but only to the extent that they produce what the state dictates. Socialism has a more direct state involvement with business.

[PIF]

The left uses both terms interchangeably - most of them have no clue historically or linguistically about either word - its just what they say when confronted - Nazis, Fascists does not matter to them. Besides, the difference between the two terms is nearly insignificant as they are both socialist movements.