Posted on 05/29/2023 2:05:10 PM PDT by ChessExpert
The difference between fascism and communism is roughly the difference between maroon and burgundy. It’s about half a baby step.
Mises, in his brilliant analysis of them, referred to “German socialism” and “Russian socialism.”
If you like classical music, call it “Variations on a Theme of Socialism.”
Giovanni Gentile, who was one of Mussolini’s chief advisors and essentially his ghostwriter, is basically the founder of fascism, and he argues that it is not only a form of socialism, but its most viable form.
Diseased minds reject this responsibility and rely on a totalitarian government to provide the goods and services that their careless and nonproductive lifestyles would otherwise deny them. This is, of course, accomplished at the expense of the productive.
Whether seen in a fascistic or socialistic light, it's all totalitarianism to me.
Late modernity rejects early modern liberalism but not its rationalism, so they seek a hyper-rational illiberal state, of either a leftwing or a rightwing variety. The leftists believe in a cosmopolitan, universal class structure that justifies any action to combat it including eliminating any "bourgeois" rights. The right believes that society can be perfected only through ethno-nationalism that also justifies any action including the suppression of "bourgeois" rights.
What's happening in the US is that the left has seized on "racism" as a useful cudgel to create an all powerful state while the oligarchs have realized that funding social communism gives them cover to continue looting the country. So the US has a confusing mix where the left appeals to ethnicity while the oligarchy is rewarded with monopolies and corporate fascist public-private cooperation like the Big Tech censorship programs.
What fascism fundamentally does differently than pure socialism is that it leaves the running of industry etc in the hand of those more likely to have suitable skills rather than in the hands of political operators and other apparatchiks.
By definition that makes it more likely to survive as a system than the delusional true believers could manage.
But fascism is vile not for being the most moderate form of socialism but because it is a form of socialism in the first place.
Fascism or socialism: a tone deaf kazoo band playing death metal very badly ... which is playing hardly matters.
Communists and Fascists - Two rabid dogs fighting over the same bone.
Nominally. But all the major decisions are in the hand of the state.
“Anyone with a brain would understand that.”
HUH? :)
Picasso was also a communist right? Eliot is really non-political, and for good reason. He did say that he was a monarchist. But what he was getting at is that he longed for a day when Europe was united as a Christian culture. He knew that was gone; and he give us a way to cope with that reality.
That’s a good and interesting way to read those!
But do keep going with Eliot’s Christian era, and finish with Four Quartets.
The payoff will be immense.
Four Quartets is....well it’s impossible to overstate or state accurately its importance.
It’s second only to the Bible for me.
And it is the perfect capstone/response/conclusion to all of Eliot’s life, thought and poetry which came before.
Modernism, in the form of modern architecture and abstract expressionist art wasn’t hostile to modern capitalism.
The modernism of Eliot may have picked up on some of the weaknesses of modern secular “bourgeois” capitalism, which led to what we have now.
I find the poems very mystical, spiritual, and profound.
Public-private partnerships re essentially and inherently fascist.
The late Eric Mari Ritter von Kuenheldt-Leddihn also claimed to be a monarchist.
"Inside Every Progressive Is A Totalitarian Screaming To Get Out" —David Horowitz
So now we're stuck with the enormous dead weight of an administrative state working hand in hand with crony capitalist oligarchs.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.