I haven't read Jonah Goldberg's book, and frankly, am not likely to, so I won't comment on the contents. But I have watched the Will Wilkinson Bloggingheads with Mr. Goldberg, and his defense of the title therein is well, kind of silly and pointless.
Jonah Goldberg once made one of the more interesting throwaway remarks about fascism I've ever seen, to the effect that when he is confronted by liberals ranting about fascism, he likes to ask "Other than the genocide, what is your disagreement with the fascists"--usually to blank and confused stares. The point being that genocide is not actually a tenet of fascism, merely something that was done by one fascist state, and that those who rant about "fascists" in government almost never have any knowledge of the actual history of the political movement.
But his definition of fascism is not ultimately much more satisfying than "Right wing governments I don't like." In my limited reading on the subject, it seems clear that the intellectual heritage of fascism is at least 50% from the left--but Goldberg has erased the right wing elements of its paternity, such as nationalism and militarism. While it is true that the attributes commonly used to define fascism--the nationalism, the racism, the collective Will of the People embodied in a great leader--can make it hard to exclude Josef Stalin, that doesn't mean one can't distinguish Communist Russia from Nazi Germany. It is possible to develop meaningful criteria that fit Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, but not Mao's China or Stalin's Russia, and two of the main ones were an explicitly central obsession with ethnic purity, and a co-opting of traditional, generally conservative social institutions. Goldberg has largely defined those elements out of fascism in order to disguise its right wing heritage.
The fascist ideal, which I'd liken to the dream of making every citizen behave like a cell within a mighty body, driven by a Great Leader functioning as the brain, was in many ways a new and pernicious vision. But the constituent parts, such as ferocious group loyalty, xenophobia, an antipathy to individualism, and the hunger for a charismatic strongman, were certainly not. Chopping off the bits that you think aren't so bad in order to use what remains to label your political opponents is bad faith.
While I will go so far as to concede that phrases like "politics of meaning"--implying that interaction with the state, devoid of any particular purpose, is supposed to elevate and ennoble our otherwise drab lives--have a creepy whiff about them, it is silly to call Woodrow Wilson a dictator, or Hillary Clinton a fascist. It seems particularly disingenuous to note that fascist is not the same thing as evil, and then act all bewildered when your political opponents get upset about being labeled a fascist. There are plenty of evils that are not fascist, and one could theoretically have a fascism that didn't involve a police state or oppression of minorities, just as one could theoretically have a communism that didn't involve famines and thought crimes. But in modern America, the association it has picked up is "evil", and it's not really such a useful term that we need to "rescue" it.
The name "Judas" does not mean "traitor" in Hebrew, and there were undoubtedly all sorts of nice chaps by that name running around Israel in the early BCs. Nonetheless, the associations the name has picked up since then mean that if you call someone a "Judas", you cannot reasonably expect to get out of it by saying "Oh, I didn't mean Judas Iscariot, I meant Judas ben Eliezer. Wine merchant, lived in Bethlehem around 75 BC. Nice guy, saved thirteen kittens from a hungry wolf."
"It is possible to develop meaningful criteria that fit Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, but not Mao's China or Stalin's Russia, and two of the main ones were an explicitly central obsession with ethnic purity, and a co-opting of traditional, generally conservative social institutions."
Is the "obsession with ethnic purity" really a general feature of fascism though? It wasn't initially a feature of Italian fascism, until Mussolini was finally convinced to embrace it by Hitler in the late 1930's. And, as far as I know, it wasn't a central feature of postwar fascist governments in Chile, South Korea, or Taiwan. Like genocide, it appears to be a feature of Nazism (and, of course, Stalinism) rather than a feature of fascism.
but Goldberg has erased the right wing elements of its paternity, such as nationalism and militarism.
No, he doesn't. What he does is demonstrate that nationalism and militarism aren't "right-wing".
Goldberg makes the point in his book that militarism was an approach repeatedly used and endorsed by left-wing politicians of the early and mid 20th century, with Woodrow Wilson and FDR being the two most obvious American examples (FDR in particular started large paramilitary labor organizations). He cites William James' "Moral Equivalent of War" as key. The same tactic of militarizing societal goals can still be seen on the left, e.g. in the recent calls to institute a draft for a new new program of public service.
He also points out that there are plenty of examples of nationalism on the left, such as Stalin, Mao, Chavez and Castro, all of whom explicitly cast their revolutions (in the latter three cases) and their opposition to outside enemies (in Stalin's case) in explicitly nationalistic terms. Nationalism is "right-wing" only in the sense that it stood in opposition to Communist and Socialist internationalism -- but of course one can be opposed to those two things and still be firmly on the Left.
I agree that it's silly to call modern liberals "fascists." It's quite reasonable to call them socialists, though, and I will stick with that.
It's also reasonable to point out that the conservative/libertarian superordination of the individual over the state is diametrically opposed to the total subordination of the individual.
Hillary is not a fascist. She is, however, alarmingly contemptuous of personal freedom and all too willing to use state power. "It takes a village to raise a child," she tells us. We need a "sharing society," she argues, not an "ownership society." And we cringe.
Is the "obsession with ethnic purity" really a general feature of fascism though?
No, it wasn't. As Goldberg points out in his book, Jews were actually overrepresented in the Italian Fascist movement for most of its history. Hitler's obsession with racial purity was, in Mussolini's view, idiotic. Fascism was about national and cultural unity. That often intersected with racism (since most nations of the time were monoracial, or at least mostly so), but racism itself isn't key to fascism.
"Oh, I didn't mean Judas Iscariot, I meant Judas ben Eliezer. Wine merchant, lived in Bethlehem around 75 BC. Nice guy, saved thirteen kittens from a hungry wolf."
Hilarious, I will be appropriating this rhetorical device and using it as much as possible.
Correction, that should have read,
"It's also reasonable to point out that the conservative/libertarian superordination of the individual over the state is diametrically opposed to the total subordination of the individual in both fascist and communist theory."
Incidentally, for an intelligent discussion of the influence of certain fascists (and forerunners of fascism) on modern left thought, read Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. It's interesting to see how much influence Nietzsche and Heidegger have had on left-wing American academics.
I don't think Franco tried to rid Spain of minorities, but he did ban minority languages.
Since today is word day, why does "liberal" (when referring to economic philosophy) mean the opposite in the US as it does in Europe?
Fascism:
I always used a definition I saw on a prewar Nazi poster: One people, one nation, one leader.
Nial Fergusen wrote a book on the violent 2oth century. He included the first inaugural address of FDR. It sounded like FDR supported a lot of the economic ideas of Hitler. FDR and Hitler both blamed the bankers and capitalists. I do not think FDR was a Fascist. My father said fascism and communism were both very popular ideas during the Great Depression.
Wilson I am confused about. I read that he imprisoned over 100,000 opponents to US entry into WWI, but he was not an anti-Semite. He was anti black. He did impose a draft that might not have been necessary to prosecute the war.
I distinguish between Stalin and Hitler by considering Hitler a national socialist and Stalin as an international socialist.
The most cogent, powerful and complete response to Jonah's book is found here, and actually comes from The American Conservative.
I agree that it's silly to call modern liberals "fascists." It's quite reasonable to call them socialists, though, and I will stick with that.
Jesus.
OK, what about modern liberals can be called even remotely "socialist" while preserving any original meaning of that term whatsoever? Please, name a single prominent liberal politician in national office or a gubernatorial position who advocates nationalizing our nations industry. Name a prominent or powerful liberal politician who believes that the state should own and control all natural resources, and decide their distribution among the people? What prominent liberal advocates large-scale land redistribution? Is Ted Kennedy calling for the government to seize control of Orange County and divide it among the poor? Does Dennis Kucinich advocate the abolition of private property? Is Russ Feingold suggesting that workers should be assigned jobs by the government?
To call contemporary American liberalism "socialist" is only to display ignorance of what socialism meant historically and still means today internationally. An American liberal is at most a moderate in the large majority of first world countries.
rwe, why does "conservative" get a slash right there with "libertarian" in your reply? Modern day conservatives and liberals more or less only disagree on which facet of your life should be sublimated entirely to the will of the state, not whether it should be or not. To that end is exactly Megan's point here--Fascism wants to control every asset of an individual's life, and liberals and conservatives have no right to sit back and sling mud about the other side's priclivities while using reducio ad absurdium definitions to neatly exclude themselves from the fray.
I am in the process of reading Goldberg's book and so far it is as he states in the introduction - not an academic approach to revisionist history but rather an extended essay with some footnotes. It is easy to read but connects a lot of dots much too easily.
It is also heavy on the effect that the Progressive era had on giving the nanny state its license to tell Americans how they should live. Since the New Deal and government experiments in socialism followed fairly closely it is not too much of stretch to see his point - even if you don't agree completely.
It also reminds one of Murray Rothbard but without some of the zeal. I think all of us would agree that Mussolini and the other dictators are really secondary to the question of whether there is an effect on America going forward.
Like a lot of revisionist history, it will take time to ripen and is unlikely to be useful in anything more than casual converation. Having said that, when you're conspiring with others of the same persuasion, it will be gospel.
"By their fruits ye shall know them."
Any attempt to engage with Goldberg's arguments is guaranteed to produce absolute nonsense. It's a mistake to think that they are 'confused'; rather, they are constructed so as to maximize confusion.
Stop paying attention to him.
rwe wrote:
"Incidentally, for an intelligent discussion of the influence of certain fascists (and forerunners of fascism) on modern left thought, read Allan Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind. It's interesting to see how much influence Nietzsche and Heidegger have had on left-wing American academics."
uh rwe, Nietzsche was not a Nazi. He was just German, mmmkay?
Hey an conservative academics love Carl Schmitt. He was a fascist.
Hmmmm...your opinions about books you haven't read is quite interesting. In an anthropological way.
Megan, this seems like you are contributing to a "Informational Cascade" that will become "the consensus" about this book. Watching this happen in real time is one of the more depressing things I have seen in the blogosphere.
I am reading the statements of people I respect that are directly contradicted by the actual book that I am reading. These opinions are all uniformly dismissive, or snarky, or seem to be trying to ride the current wave of discussion around the net. Why are people so afraid of this book?
I have found it quite interesting, quite honest, and an interesting lesson in early 20th century politics that I had never been exposed to before. I hope that you can find time to read it, and then tell us your informed opinion.
-Donut
Have you read any criticisms of the book, Donut? Click the link I posted about, to The American Conservative.
Referring to the Nazis as Fascists started as Soviet propaganda, did it not?
The confusion over identity has a literary past.
The Good Soldier Svejk and his Fortunes in the World War by Jaroslav Hasek:
Schweyk in the Second World War by Bertolt Brecht:
Megan: You say ...
I haven't read Jonah Goldberg's book, and frankly, am not likely to, so I won't comment on the contents.
... and then go on to comment on the contents.
Or at least to comment on what you think the contents would be had you read it, based on a one-sentence answer in a 'tv' interview.
It is possible to develop meaningful criteria that fit Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy, but not Mao's China or Stalin's Russia, and two of the main ones were an explicitly central obsession with ethnic purity, and a co-opting of traditional, generally conservative social institutions.
Well, that would be an interesting exercise, and I'd love to see you do it, but it's likely to be harder than you think, given that (a) Mussolini wasn't concerned so about ethnic purity and, for most of his time in power, protected Jews, some of whom held responsible positions in his government; (b) the Maoists were quite aggressive in pushing the dominance of the Han Chinese over other ethnic groups like the Tibetans.
Goldberg has largely defined those elements out of fascism in order to disguise its right wing heritage.
Which is exactly the opposite of the discussion in all of Chapters One and Two of the book.
Look, I'll buy you a copy of the damn book myself if you tell me an address. But don't embarrass yourself commenting on a book you haven't read.
What I find most amusing about the entire phenomenon surrounding this book is the knee-jerk anti-intellectualism on the books supporters. I cannot even think of a scholarly book on Fascism or Nazism where the author was ignorant of Italian or German. Scholars--real scholars--use primary sources to conduct original research. It is one of the basic requirements for publication. If Goldberg's book is offering a original argument--which he claims it is--and if it is a work of revisionist history (another claim), then I wonder where he gets the new information on the Fascist and Nazi regimes to show that they were actually left wing.
The alternative is, Goldberg simply provided a synthesis of secondary works that argue that fascist movements were left wing. It needs to be said that that position--to the extent that there are scholarly works that support his case--is in the minority.
OK, what about modern liberals can be called even remotely "socialist" while preserving any original meaning of that term whatsoever? Please, name a single prominent liberal politician in national office or a gubernatorial position who advocates nationalizing our nations industry.
So then, do we exclude the proposals to alter the healthcare industry, extreme union gong-banging, and wealth disparity propaganda from the point-falsification candidates? Or are the proposals to "do something" about those not "real" socialism because we needn't bother extrapolating outward to the second- and third-order effects that would surely result if those went as far as many US liberals apparently wish them to?
The original meaning of the word "socialist" has largely been replaced by the word "communist". Modern socialism very much exists and has a meaning reasonably consistent with how it was used here: generally socialist intentions, but with fluffier buzz words.
Charlie--
Do you see the gap in your argument? You wrote: "t (a) Mussolini wasn't concerned so about ethnic purity and, for most of his time in power, protected Jews, some of whom held responsible positions in his government." This is the kind of stupid (sorry) reasoning that supports Jonah's positions. So Mussolini protected jews. Therefore he wasn't concerned with ethnic purity. Your logic leaks like sieve.
Italian Fascists were extremely racist--just not nearly as anti-semitic as the Nazis. Their targets were Libyans and Ethiopians, not Jews.
I'm sorry, but that's just factually, historically incorrect. Look at the question above, where someone asks why liberal has the opposite meaning in Europe. The reason is because Europe has actual socialists; the split, relative to the US, is between the left, and the really left.
Say what you will about the tenets of liberal fascism -- at least it's an ethos.
I wonder where he gets the new information on the Fascist and Nazi regimes to show that they were actually left wing.
You don't need new information to argue that, you only need old information and a new perspective. That is, you need to shake up the old understanding of "right wing" and "left wing."
Rickm,
As far as I could tell from the quote you cited, rwe was not calling Nietzsche a Nazi. He called him a forerunner of fascists. There is no doubt that Nietzsche's philosophies heavily influenced Nazism, however, lots of philosphies get cited in the aggrandizement of power- they are used as easy justifications, whether the demogogue believes them or not.
Megan,
Fascism, naziism, communism, socialism all can be thought of as variants of *collectivism*, which I would define as any ideology that holds that some "collective" is superior to individuals, or that individuals have no worth next to the collective. Naziism defined the superior collective as the German or Aryan Race. For Communism it was the Proletariat. For socialism it was "society".
All strains of Individualism (as opposed to collectivism) hold that there are, at least, some parts of the individual's life where the individual is supreme, and no collective or other individual has the authority to force him.
As Hayek described in *The Road to Serfdom* (still one of the most brilliant books I've read), all collectivisms eventually require a "Supreme Leader" to set the goal that the collective is supposed to achieve. Democratic and Parlimentary procedures simply can't choose any but the most limited goals for a "people" as a whole.
As for Nietzsche and Heidegger, while they both predated Naziism etc, they both had a profound influence on them.
Thanks
Strictly speaking, Fascism has 100% left wing roots. It was former socialist Benito Mussolini's invention. He defined it:
And, of course, the 'Liberalism' he's talking about isn't the same liberalism of today's Democrats in the U.S. I haven't read Goldberg's book, but Hayek made the same argument--and was vilified for it.
Freddie,
Liberals in the US and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans have socialistic agendas. They tend to distribute government benefits and power in differing directions oftentimes, but both fit the definition a good part of the time. Jack, above, hits the nail on the proverbial head.
Patrick,
Actually, Mussolini did not write that. But whatever, anyone who claims that "Fascism has 100% left wing roots" is beyond hope.
Did you really just expound at blog length about a book you haven't read?
Megan,
Buy or borrow the book, start reading it, and then start commenting. You don't know or read enough history, and this would be a great place to start. I love your blog, but you shouldn't continue coasting on a comic book version of world history. It doesn't matter if you don't read this book in particular, but you've got to start reading more and deeper stuff if you want to continue growing intellectually.
I think I agree with Megan's basic point. I haven't read the book either, but I have seen multiples interviews with Goldberg about it, including the Bloggingheads one. In general, I like Goldberg, andread many of his columns. The book seems unnecessary, and makes a case that doesn't really need making.
His points seem to be that:
1) In the early 20th Century, Progressives and fascists drew from the same mix of ideas that were in circulation at the time. Selective quotes can show support of some progressives for Mussolini or others.
2) Sixties Leftism continued to have a fascination with the state and charismatic leadership.
3) Modern liberals like Clinton continue to believe that the state should have a centralizing role in society, and that the state can provide meaning in people's life.
Point one seems only slightly useful. Ideas about central planning were hard to escape in the early 20th century, so the fact that people draw on them is unsurprising. Moreover, it matters greatly in what way you interpret certain ideas. It's not enough to say that both the American left and Mussolini drew upon Dewey as an inspiration. It matters how they drew on those sources. It's like saying that both the Confederates and Lincoln looked to the Founding Fathers for their political ideas.
The Leftism of the sixties and seventies was an incoherent stew of mostly bad ideas, some radically collectivist, some radically individualist. It was hardly fascist, in any meaningful sense.
The Former First Lady wants an expnded role for government in the economy and people's lives. Calling her a socialist seems like an exaggeration.
If you want to say that some folks on the left are statists, or collectivists, okay, you can make a case. Hayek long ago made the point that the totalitarian regimes of the right and left were more alike that they knew. Goldberg seems to think he has some great point beyond that, and I'm at a loss for what it is. Fascist doesn't seem to apply.
This seems like an awfully thin basis for a book thesis. The Judas analogy is rather apt. "Fascist" is just one of those loaded words that have lost meaning in the modern context, and should probably be retired for 50 years.
And, as far as I can tell, Megan is not commenting on Goldberg's book, but rather on his defense of the title, which he aired in the Blogginheads segment.
It has struck me, from reading some of Goldberg's reaction to the book's critics, that the cover is extremely inapt. Goldberg's thesis depends upon decoupling fascism from its Nazi incarnation and examining it as a broader phenomenon.
So putting a Hitler mustache on the cover was probably not a good idea. Though it may have been the publisher's.
My old pals Freddie and rickm are after me again. Well, I'll respond to this:
As the always sensible Yancey Ward pointed out, I never claimed that Nietzsche was a Nazi. He died in 1900, before there was a Nazi movement. I only implied that he he was a "forerunner" of fascism. Some of his ideas had a profound influence on Nazi thought. He himself would very likely have disdained both Italian and German fascism as mob movements but it isn't hard to see why Mussolini and Hitler found passages like this conegenial:
And Heidegger, at the time the leading interpreter of Nietzsche's works in Germany, himself endorsed and joined the Nazi Party. I have spent a lot of time studying Nietzsche works because I think he presented the strongest and most interesting challenge to the Platonic and Aristotelian tradition in philosophy, and I do not mean to besmirch the man. But anyone who thinks doesn't see the link between some essential features of his thought and Naziism doesn't understand either one.
The reason why Jonah's book has been met with such merriment around the blogosphere is that it is a hacked piece of babbled tripe that this idiot actually thinks is a *scholarly work*.
Oh, and for those of you who want to give dear Jonah a pass because he hasn't gone off and looked at the primary sources nor read 95% of the material out there on his topic (because it hasn't been translated into English): there is such a thing as doing your homework.
It's like a crank being convinced that he's come up with the great super-duper Grand Unified Theory that will totally and indeed disprove Einstein and you discover he hasn't even learned F=ma.
Freddie,
You are right that many of the anti-growth, anti-business and anti-business policies advocated by the American left don't qualify as socialism. I'd argue that they are worse. The government's ownership stake in corporations -- a central aspect of socialism -- offers an incentive not to hobble those businesses too much. Sometimes this incentive is ignored, for ideological reasons, or to placate labor groups, but nevertheless it's there. A shareholder in Total or Petrobras has less to fear from a French or Brazilian politician than, say, a shareholder in ExxonMobil would have to fear from a Democratic President here.
When did nationalism become a "conservative" element?
No, seriously. Nationalism was opposed to conservatism in Europe. The conservatives opposed the French revolutionaries, Napoleon Bonaparte, the nationalist revolutions of 1848, Napoleon III, the unification of Italy, etc., etc. The conservative regimes in Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia collapsed as a result of the first World War, but the conservatives continued to exist and call for their restoration.
So, let us look at Hitler, who began his political career right then. Did he restore the Hohenzollerns to the throne in Berlin, the Hapsburgs to Vienna, and so forth? Was he a great patron of the Prussian nobility? Or did he put commoners in charge of government, break traditional institutions to his will, and unify the German-speaking peoples into one nation?
Did Mussolini restore the Papal States? Did he adopt a constitution that empowered the King to rule in defiance of parties and electorates? How about Franco? Uh-huh.
Fascism had nothing in common with European conservativism. Fascism was Bonapartist, not conservative, and accordingly sprung from Europe's left, not its right. The claim that anything that wasn't Marxist was "conservative" was political propaganda by Marxists to anathematize competing factions of the left, never a factual description of actual intellectual history.
Lunatic-
Well for one, conservatism does not equal right wing. While Fascists were not conservative, by contemporary European standards, that does not mean they were right wing.
If you are going to compare Nazism and Fasicsm to the American political spectrum, then I think its worth noting National Review's encomia toward Franco and their treatment of the Eichmann trial.
You could also read Arnold Kling's review here, which has the advantage that he's actually read the book.
You wrote: "t (a) Mussolini wasn't concerned so about ethnic purity and, for most of his time in power, protected Jews, some of whom held responsible positions in his government." This is the kind of stupid (sorry) reasoning that supports Jonah's positions. So Mussolini protected jews. Therefore he wasn't concerned with ethnic purity. Your logic leaks like sieve.
Well, no, actually the logic is solid. Megan asserts, essentially, "for all totalitarians, fascists are inherently concerned with ethnic purity and communists were not." Racism, first of all, doesn't mean "concern with ethnic purity"; that's a red herring.
Mussolini's regime may well have been racist; that doesn't mean they attempted to purify the "Italian people", and the fact that they weren't uncomfortable about Jews until more or less forced is evidence of that. Ergo, a counter example. There were other apparently fascist states like the Franco government in Spain who also didn't make much of a point of "ethnic purity" --- look up who rescinded the expulsion of the Jews by Ferdinand and Isabella. Similarly, the Maoist treatment of non-Han Chinese and the Soviet treatment of their ethnic minorities was pretty harsh; certainly if the behavior of the Mussolini fascists countes as looking for "ehtnic purity" then these examples do too.
Basically, Megan makes a universally-quantified hypothesis, for which I've noted two existentially quantified counter-examples, and I note it's unlikely her universal assertion can survive a challenge by those counter examples. Perfectly logical. (I recommend Irv Copi's text.)
Or, you and Megan could read the damn book because Jonah makes a lengthy argument on this that it's hardly fair to criticize based on what someone heard someone else say about the book based on an interview that lasted a dozen minutes.
I do love the idea that no one can have any opinions on the history of a given area without knowing the language. How is one to ever be able to write anything about WWII or the Cold War? But that's obviously the point - deny your opponents the opportunity to comment by requiring them to have 4 or 5 languages.
To compare and contrast Fascism from Communism one would need German, Russian, Italian, and Chinese, along with English, and probably French and Spanish. So 2 alphabets, one set of ideograms, and 6 languages. That's the work of decades simply to read all the major primary sources, not including interesting stuff in other European languages.
The Atlantic is rotting your brain and your integrity. There is nothing so shabby as to proudly announce how you will not read a book and how it's obviously useless.
I am truly interested to see your elucidation of the differences between Stalinism, Hitlerism, and Maoism. Mao didn't have any Jews to kill, but seems to have won the genocide contest nonetheless. Outside of a difference in uniforms an cuisine, I'm really at a loss as to how they differ in the slightest. Especially from a libertarian critique. But you've been absorbed the leftist mass of journalism. At least you still know Krugman is full of it, but that will probably not last the year.
"Socialism" has changed over time. Sometimes it was used interchangably with communism. At other times it meant a belief in government ownership of the means of production--at least in some industries.
But it has evolved. Socialists retreated from "the commanding heights" of the economy and focused their efforts instead on large scale redistribution of wealth. Now socialists in the developed world want high and progressive taxation to fund big government welfare programs. They also favor extensive regulation of industry--which is an indirect form of control. In the case of health care--which is a very large part of the American economy--they actually do want direct government control.
What really matters is the degree of government control over the economy. When the government sector approaches 50% of GDP, it's clear to me that you have a "mixed economy." Not communist, not capitalist, but socialist. That's the case in Sweden, for example, and in other European countries. There "liberalism" is used in its original sense to denote the ideas of Smith, Hayek and Friedman and is used pejoritively.
Hey-
Actually, I said that if one is going to revise the current scholarly view of a topic, one is probably going to be, at the very least, familiar with the primary sources of a topic. Goldberg is not--so he is either not offering new information to support his argument, or interpreting secondary works to support his thesis. If he is doing something new (which he claims) he is doing it with no new information, no new facts.
Rickm: is Goldberg trying to change the prevailing scholarly view, or the prevailing popular view?
Is any serious history department going to assign this book to students? I doubt it. He's attacking the casual popular association of Nazi = right, Commie = left.
In what sense is there serious scholarly attention devoted to discovering if Hitler was "right-wing" or "left-wing"?
Rob-
I would argue that Goldber is trying to change the prevailing popular view of Fascism. He's succeeding, I think. However, he is claiming that his argument is new, original, and has never been made before. That means he intends his work to be above and beyond just a synthesis of secondary works.
As for your last question, there is (or rather, was) a lot of discussion regarding the nature of fascism and how to define it, and where it resided on the political spectrum.
Re: In my limited reading on the subject, it seems clear that the intellectual heritage of fascism is at least 50% from the left
This really depends what you mean by "the Left". If you're talking about the 19th century radically modernist, anti-traditionalist and largely European (and Continental) Left, then you have a point. If you talking about Anglo-American liberalism, the above is nonsense.
rwe believes that the following quote by Nietzsche was "congenial" to fascism:
"Every enhancement of the type man has been the work of an aristocratic society and it will be so again and again--a society that believes in the long ladder of an order of rank and difference in value between man and man, and that need slavery in some sense or other..."
Do you know which societies Nietzsche was referring to with this statement? The Greek nation states, maybe also Rome. Does that mean the Greeks were proto-fascists? No, obviously not. But I'm willing to bet if you looked hard enough at the socio-political structure of Greek society circa 600-100 BC, you could probably find some elements that Hitler might have found "congenial" to fascism, whatever that means.
Look, it's true in a very banal sense that many of Nietzsche's writings were used and abused by prominent Nazi intellectuals to justify their political programmes. The more important truth is that the Nazis' interpretation of Nietzsche's corpus was wilfully blinkered. This has been demonstrated over and over again by some of the foremost Nietzsche scholars, notably Walter Kaufmann, who wrote what was then (and probably still is) the defining book about Nietzsche's texts. Just because you believe that some of Nietzsche's writings were "congenial" to Naziism doesn't make them so.
In answer to Goldberg's question, how about:
1. Militarism of the state
2. Loss of personal privacy
3. Right-wing authoritarianism
4. Class stratification
5. State coziness with religious authorities
6. Rigging of elections (and later, no elections)
7. Permanent underclass
8. State coziness with big industries
9. Organized, legalized corruption of high officials
10. No due process
11. Arbitrary incarceration of citizens
12. Loss of free speech and expression
Someone should preserve this list. Seriously. People should write down this list, email it, spread it, publish it, keep it saved on their hard drives, so that the next time Goldberg asks his fatuous question, we have a 12-point answer available immediately.
Since I often criticize Megan, I should note I agree with her here.
I also think it is fair for her to comment on something she saw, even if she has not read the book.
Goldberg's supporters appear to argue that increasing state power is the key issue linking modern liberalism and fascism. I am curious what believers in Goldberg's arguments make of Bush's view of presidential powers (e.g. to torture, to ignore laws, to indefinitely detain US citizens ...).
Tom
Charlie from Colorado wrote: "I haven't read Jonah Goldberg's book, and frankly, am not likely to, so I won't comment on the contents.
... and then go on to comment on the contents."
This has been Goldberg's favorite defense. "You can't critique my book without reading it first......"
And yet, you can. One need not crack Erik Von Daniken's "Chariot of the Gods" to say the premise is a joke. Right?
Re: the Maoists were quite aggressive in pushing the dominance of the Han Chinese over other ethnic groups like the Tibetans.
Was this Maoist doctrine or was it simply something they inherited from 30 centuries of Chinese imperial history doing exactly that. I would argue the latter. And similarly in the case of Russia: its oppression of its Altaic and Causacsian minorities (Stalin's Georgian origin notwithstanding) was simply the survival of Tsarist norms under new masters.
Re: A shareholder in Total or Petrobras has less to fear from a French or Brazilian politician than, say, a shareholder in ExxonMobil would have to fear from a Democratic President here.
This is nonsesne. For anybody who has been paying attention at all, Democratic politicians like to suck at the corporate teat too, albeit they may favor different specific corporations than their GOP rivals. Case in point: with a few exceptions the Democrats roled over and played happily dead when the disastrous bankruptcy "reform" was enacted in 2005 at the behest (liberally greased with $$$) of the banking industry. The Democrats have not seriously challenged Big Business (as a whole) since the days of Truman and FDR. Even JFK and LBJ were mostly just rhetoric, but generally fairly biddable when money talked.
Re: Did Mussolini restore the Papal States?
Um, Vatican City?
But overall the Euroepan Traditionalist Right supported both Mussolini and Hitler, if only out of fear of Communism.
The confusion here is due to the fact that Continental Europe had not one but two ideological axes: a Left-Right axis and a Modernist-Traditionalist one. So you really had four different political fields. The Nazis and Fascists inhabited the the Modernist Right quadrant; they were able to draw support from the Traditionalist Right to overcome the left two quadrants, especially the Modersnist Left quadrant, inhabited by the Marxists. (The Traditionlist Left quadrant, inhabited by today's Christian Democrats, was fairly weak in that era and easily squelched.) Yes, the Nazis and Fascisti were on the Right, but as modernists not Throne-and-Altar groupies
Of course....maybe Von Daniken makes some really great points about how aliens helped inspire Stonehenge, Mayan pyramids, and the Nazca lines.
But you're right, I should read the book before I comment on it though...
Immoralist, it might seem hard for you to believe, but I don't agree with everything Walter Kaufmann says.
If you actually read my comment then you know that I said this:
Everything in that satement is true. The Nazis were heavily influenced by Nietzsche. In my judgment, Nietzsche would have depised Naziism. And yet, it is not hard to see why the Nazis found some things to like in Nietzsche--the defense of slavery, the rejection of traditional Christian moral standards (or indeed any absolute moral standards), the Heraclitian belief that "War is the father of all things."
And that's why Martin Heidgger was both a Nietzschean and a Nazi. He agreed with Nietzsche that Plato and Aristotle had made a fundemantal metaphysical error. Like Nietzsche, he rejected "being" in favor of "becoming." And like Nietzsche again he thought there was no permanent moral truth, but rather a collection of ever changing moral systems.
Heidegger welcomed Naziism as a means of smashing a decaying moral and politcial system in Europe and creating something nobler and more "authentic." He wanted a violent "transvaluation of all values," and hoped that the Nazis could offer that. To be fair, he later became disenchanted with Naziism. But he was a serious man, and a serious student of Nietzsche, and his political affiliation with the Nazis is the clearest manifestation of the link between the two.
I do want to add, though, that Kaufman is right that Nietzsche clearly had disdain for anti-semitism.
Anyway, I brought this all up as a kind of footnote. I was saying that I didn't think much of Jonah Goldberg's intellectual effort here, though it was interesting to note that some of the same people who influenced the Nazis had also exerted a strong influence on the left at American Universities.
The whole discussion of left-wing versus right-wing is rather silly, considering how often those terms have changed anyway. It is fairly ignorant of history to pretend that nationalism was "right-wing" in 19th century and early 20th century continental Europe, for example, unless you're claiming that the Habsburgs were left-wing, and Giuseppe Garibaldi of Italy was right-wing, along with (earlier) the founders of the Dutch Republic, and those in the Austrian Netherlands who revolted against Habsburg rule. Woodrow Wilson's support of national determination in Europe made him a strong proponent of the idea of the nation-state, a fundamental part of nationalism, and I wouldn't call him right-wing.
It's certainly true that Marxists specifically criticized nationalism (especially theoretically as opposed to when in power), and most classical liberals did as well (again, moreso when not in power). But so did many traditionalist conservatives in Europe strongly oppose nationalism. There have been times and places when nationalism has been right-wing, and times when it has been left-wing.
Fascism is, to me, understood as a type of nationalistic collectivism. That applies to many on the Left and the Right, from all across the reductionism one-dimensional spectrum. Both Trotskyists and libertarians are among the few to be really immune from the charge, albeit for different reasons.
The USA, in contrast to Europe, has long had a strong embrace of nationalism on both its Left and Right, made stronger by the national myth of a nation-state that transcends mere ethnic ties. (Not that that myth has always been practiced.) So any collectivism in the US is more likely to be like fascism than internationalist socialism, IMO.
State coziness with religious authorities
See Joe T., this is why people talk about ignorance of fascism.
Describes Franco and his relationship with the Church fairly well. (We'll try to avoid a discussion about whether Franco was "less fascist" or totalitarian than the others.) Doesn't describe Nazi Germany well. Doesn't really describe Mussolini's Italy either. True, the preceding Italian governments had all been strongly anti-Catholic Church, and the Lateran Treaties were signed, but Mussolini's Fascists were anything but "cozy" with the Pius XI and the Catholic Church, particularly after 1931 and the encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisogno attacking fascism as worshiping the state and interfering with the Church. (Catholic Action, the Church youth groups, were dissolved by the state shortly before then.) More criticism came later. The Catholic Church under Pius XI signed a concordat with the Nazi Germany as well, but strongly attacked them in encyclicals after the guarantees were broken; the encyclicals and speeches attacked the racism and anti-Semitism of the Nazis. See Mit Brennender Sorge for information.
The Catholic Church also came to an agreement with the French state during Pius XI's reign, in 1924 (see the encyclical Maximam Gravissimamque) and then later in 1926 condemned Action Francaise. That doesn't mean that the 1920s French Third Republic was "cozy" with religious authorities.
We don't tend to say that the Nazis were "cozy" with Communists because of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, and that went a lot further than the Catholic Church's concordat's ever did.
Everything in that satement is true. The Nazis were heavily influenced by Nietzsche. In my judgment, Nietzsche would have depised Naziism. And yet, it is not hard to see why the Nazis found some things to like in Nietzsche--the defense of slavery, the rejection of traditional Christian moral standards (or indeed any absolute moral standards), the Heraclitian belief that "War is the father of all things."
I think you're putting the cart before the horse. I don't think the Nazis were so much influenced by Nietzsche's writings as they were seeking philosophical support for their political agenda. In order to do this, they had to wilfully misinterpret what Nietzsche wrote by cherry-picking quotes here and there and disregarding the context in which they were written. I think this misinterpretation was entirely deliberate and opportunistic.
I won't dispute your analysis of Heidegger's beliefs regarding Nietzsche, since I'm no expert, but I will remark that your analysis suggests that Heidegger's temporary embrace of Naziism was just as opportunistic as the Nazis' appropriation of Nietzsche. I don't see how this connects Nietzsche to Naziism in any meaningful way, though.
As for Goldberg's book, I haven't read it, and therefore I won't comment on it.
"Italian Fascists were extremely racist--just not nearly as anti-semitic as the Nazis. Their targets were Libyans and Ethiopians, not Jews."
Exactly. From what I've read on the Jewish members of the Fascist party they were intent, even before any alliance with Hitler, on their co-identity as both Jews and Italians. They were not really another race or seen as such by the Fascists of that time. They were ethnically devoted to Italy/Europe and its culture.
In comparison Communists were more internationalist and believed in fomenting revolutions. The Maoists stated that they were liberating Tibet from feudalism and superstition. More importantly the evidence is that in many to most cases that is what believed they were doing in Tibet. (I can think them wrong and deluded while still conceding they often believed what they were saying) Bringing in Han people was the way to modernize these backward and suffering people. The Fascists on the other hand tended to say they were expanding their Empire and testing their strength. If they made any claims of doing it to help Ethiopians or Albanians they didn't do so at any near the level or sincerity as the Chinese to Tibet.
A list of 12 points contra Goldberg was given above. The list is useless, as a moment's reflection ought to have shewn:
1. Militarism of the state
Not unique to fascism. See Soviet Communism, also East Germany. Or, for that matter, North Korea.
2. Loss of personal privacy
Not unique to fascism. See East Germany.
3. Right-wing authoritarianism
The "right-wing" isn't all that helpful in this context. But Communist and socialist governments have all been rather authoritarian, with a few Western European exceptions (e.g. France under Mitterand).
4. Class stratification
Communists have at times worked very hard to delineate classes very strictly so they know whom to exterminate. See, e.g. Stalin and the Kulaks.
5. State coziness with religious authorities
Not unique to fascism. See, e.g. Stalin's revival of the Russian Orthodox Church during WWII, and subsequent Communist cooperation with/control of the clerical hierarchy.
6. Rigging of elections (and later, no elections)
Not unique to fascism. I mean, this is kind of obvious. Communism.
7. Permanent underclass
Strictly speaking, Nazi Germany didn't want a "permanent" underclass, since they wanted to exterminate them. This is more on point for Communism, since everyone became the underclass. Except for the masters of the party and the people connected with them.
8. State coziness with big industries
Well . . . does control count? Because socialism wins there too.
9. Organized, legalized corruption of high officials
To legalise something I guess you have to have an actual functioning legal structure, so in most cases, this is not something I can pull out Communism! to rebut.
10. No due process
See Communism.
11. Arbitrary incarceration of citizens
Uh, Communism again.
12. Loss of free speech and expression
Communism FTW!
Italy's adventures in Africa were no more fascist than France's or Britain's. Colonialism isn't fascism.
In comparison Communists were more internationalist and believed in fomenting revolutions. The Maoists stated that they were liberating Tibet from feudalism and superstition. More importantly the evidence is that in many to most cases that is what believed they were doing in Tibet. (I can think them wrong and deluded while still conceding they often believed what they were saying) Bringing in Han people was the way to modernize these backward and suffering people.
Yes . . . bringing in settlers . . . to displace them and . . . take their land . . . and kill tens of thousands in a bloody war of conquest . . .
Yes, I can see why you think they were "sincere."
I find it kind of hard to believe, since in 1951, pretty much all Chinese could remember how it was when the Japanese did the exact same thing to them, in the Greater East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. The Japanese said the kinds of things you say. And of course, they were lies. Well intentioned thoughts, sincerely held by a few. But belied utterly by the conduct of the army and the colonists.
It strains credulity to suggest that the Chinese Communists actually believed their rubbish propaganda, at least with regard to Tibet.
if we're going to worry so much about failed Political movements of dead eras, maybe we should knot up on this one, too:
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
Interesting post from John Thacker. Yes, it's foolish to try to slot fascism into a simple, unchanging left-right continuum. With regard to the endlessly repeated point that, after all, Nazism was National SOCIALISM, here's what Goebbels had to say in a speech, "Lenin or Hitler?", delivered in 1926:
"The Socialism that we want has nothing at all to do with the international-Marxist-Jewish levelling out process. We want Socialism as the doctrine of the community. We want Socialism as the ancient German idea of destiny."
Traditional conservatives share with socialists the notion that the community is the necessary supportive context for the flourishing of the individual. And for Marx and Engels, the ideal society, after the state has withered away, is "an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all" -- which seems to make the flourishing of the community dependent upon individual freedom.
I pass on this link to a useful piece about the nature of fascism:
http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html
Re: mijnheer
I pass on this link to a useful piece about the nature of fascism:
I enjoy Eco's writings and read him with respect. But I wonder how useful this really is. After all, the very first thing he suggests is that Ur-fascism has a cult of tradition, in which bits of lore from all kinds of sources are held to have a sliver of truth and we have to reconstruct it from those fragments. Or something. And I guess that matches up with, say, the Ahnenerbe, under the Third Reich. But this --
As a consequence, there can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message.
does not, at least if we give these words their ordinary meaning, correspond to German fascism at all. German fascism, which brought us the jet engine and the ballistic missile, and the core of the American and Soviet space programmes. The regime for which Heisenberg laboured to develop the atomic bomb. This is not a regime which denies the advancement of learning.
His later comment that the embrace of technological progress and industrialisation and all the other tangible artifacts of the modern world (even standing at the forefront of technological progress and industrialisation, we might add) is nevertheless not an embrace of modernism itself does suggest that his commentary is uninterested in learning, in the sense of learning "about the natural world" (or, for that matter, human cultures in the natural world, as with the Ahnenerbe expeditions to explore Tibet and so on). But honestly, that possible interpretation of Eco's words seems to constrain "learning" to such a narrow field -- things we do not learn from the study of either the natural world or human culture -- as to be almost useless.
And on this --
The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.
I'm not sure how well that matches up with the historical record in Italy. On the one hand, yes, the Fascists split from the Socialists because they wanted to join the allies against the Central European Empires. And practically speaking, that meant fighting to expel the Hapsburg forces from pieces of Italy. We could see that as an "expel the intruder" mentality. But I think the idea that Eco is getting at is somewhat different from that.
And lastly, his little quote from Roosevelt -- a man who incarcerated thousands of Americans without trial, who had six men seized on American soil and executed without trial, and who bullied the Supreme Court into ratifying the whole sordid exercise -- is sadly ironic.
The rest of what Eco says seems right to me. But I cannot help but wonder whether it seems "right" to me simply because it accords with my prejudices, rather than because it actually is a correct diagnosis of fascism. After all, the points I note above suggest some possible divergence between his hypothetical "Ur-Fascism" and fascism as it has actually appeared in history.
I think one major issue here is in defense of Goldberg's title is... the source of it!
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0403/is_3_50/ai_n12413258/
HG Wells used it in (or around) the 30's to describe how he wanted to see society organized as a liberal fascist elite of 'enlightened Nazis' ruling over a liberal utopia.
That seems like plenty defense there, especially as a jumping off point into the roles of European fascism in influence America's New Deal and post New Deal left...
Megan, read the book. It's apparant you have a lot to learn. For instance, you write, "it is silly to call Woodrow Wilson a dictator... a fascist." But as even fair-minded lefty reviewers have noted, the Wilson chapter was both surprising and informative. I have to say, assuming you know everything about an era of history, that you can learn nothing more from reading a book is a little jarring.
I haven't been reading the site long, but I've come to expect more from you.
Also, your post has a lot of straw man arguments standing in for things you think Goldberg says rather than things he actually says.
Again, I expected more.
But his definition of fascism is not ultimately much more satisfying than "Right wing governments I don't like."
Finally Megan's editors told her to punctuate like American fascists, not British.
"This is nonsesne. For anybody who has been paying attention at all, Democratic politicians like to suck at the corporate teat too, albeit they may favor different specific corporations than their GOP rivals..."
Well for starters, if Obama is elected, he is going to raise the capital gains tax from 15% to 28%, so that's going to hurt shareholders of any corporation. And of course my initial point about ExxonMobil -- only one of the largest U.S. corporations by market cap -- versus Total and Petrobras is entirely correct. Similarly, a shareholder in Sanofi-Aventis has less to fear from French politicians than a Pfizer shareholder has to fear from Democrats in the U.S.
rickm - anti-liberal academics of all stripes love carl schmitt.
in general though the fascists did come from the left as an ethno-nationalist alternative to marxist doctrine but they took a hard swing to the right once they were in power (see: night of long knives/that bit about how the italian fascists decided that maybe it wasn't such a good idea to nationalize all the church property once people started listening to them.) but the socialists we are comparing here (the fascist & the communist kind) were doctrinally anti-liberal and were such a hard left/right/whatever (taxonomies rarely work out) group that zealously wanted to impose their own crazy secularized interpretation of christian eschatology in the here and now (or rather the there and then,) that its kind of an invidious comparison to make these days since we're all basically liberal. there's not exactly a huge political debate over what class of people we're going to send off to prison camp for re-education these days. and its not going to happen, no matter who gets elected. obviously, if there are readers in the DPRK i'm not talking about you.
@gbl3:
"I distinguish between Stalin and Hitler by considering Hitler a national socialist and Stalin as an international socialist."
Right... because "Communism in one country" is very international. Or not.
Stalin was an expansionist. That's not the same as an internationalist. The Nazis tried to expand their territory too.
Taeyong, thanks for the rebuttal.
Certainly, communism can be accused of most of sins I originally enumerated.
At bottom, though, the fundamental difference between communism and fascism is that communism at least pays lip service to democratic ideals (albeit much a much different set of ideals than enshrined by liberal democracy). Fascism doesn't even make this pretense.
Remember that there have been far more self-proclaimed communist governments extant (at least through the 20th century) than openly fascist ones like Franco's Spain, Mussolini's Italy, or Nazi Germany. (Somoza's Nicaragua and Pinochet's Chile were arguably fascist, and the colonels' regime in Greece was arguably crypto-fascist, but they aren't generally included in the fascist roster).
So we have a lot more examples of "communism" to look at. Unfortunately, a great argument can be made that no communist regime either living or dead has been fully faithful to Marx's vision, which embraced a radical form of popular rule, and never contemplated aberrations like the KGB, the Stasi, the Gulags, etc. Those creations were simply not part of Marx's worldview and had nothing to do with his "scientific socialism".
So what you're doing is comparing a perversion of Marxian ideology with what we know empirically, and have experienced undeniably, as by-the-book fascism.
I would say that's a very specious and disingenuous attempt at a comparison.
Megan: excellent post.
Wish I'd gotten into discussion earlier. The only thing I'd like to toss in, in case no one has, is that it's triflingly easy to make the case that Stalin was a right-wing dictator.
Thanks to all. This blog post and all your responses have convinced me to go to Amazon to purchase the book and read it for myself.
Joe T., Taeyong:
Joe T. has the right of it here: his list is a valid 12-point response to Goldberg's question. All of the points listed are ugly features of Fascism, and the fact that they are shared with Communism doesn't make them less so. Goldberg's point in asking this question was to demonstrate that many of the people shreiking about "Fascists" in modern America have absolutely no idea about what actual Fascist movements believed, aside from anti-Semitism and couldn't produce Joe T.'s list without a lot of time to think. (Note that anti-Semitism was hardly limited to Nazi Germany, though it's ugliest manifestation was there)
The source of Megan's quote: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjYzZjYwYjYyNmY4OWJjZjExMjAzMWY3MzY0NjkxNzY=
(My favorite throw-away observation in the article, though Megan's is a good one, is: "If you honestly think John Ashcroft or elected Republicans in general are Nazis, then you are either a moron of ground-shaking proportions or you are so daft that you shouldn’t be allowed to play with grown-up scissors."
The book seems unnecessary, and makes a case that doesn't really need making.
It's a very necessary work of popularization. The case doesn't need making to anyone who's read Hayek, but most people in this country haven't read Hayek.
By his examples, he was clearly discussing empirical communism. Communists get no credit because Joe T. thinks their lies are more pleasant. Also curious how these "perversions" arise in every actual communist state. I think this was all adequately covered by Homer Simpson.
Jesus.
OK, what about modern liberals can be called even remotely "socialist" while preserving any original meaning of that term whatsoever?
...[lots of examples]...
To call contemporary American liberalism "socialist" is only to display ignorance of what socialism meant historically and still means today internationally. - Freddie
I suppose you work yourself up into similar high dudgeon over the historical meaning of "fascist" whenever someone refers to Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft et. al. as such?
Megan,
I'm typically a fan of your blog so I am disappointed eagerness to parse Goldberg's claims without having read the book.
I have read the book and can say confidently that you don't demonstrate any understanding of or insight into any of his arguments. I don't want to go point by point but please don't dismiss my criticism because I really do intend it as a friendly scold.
Perhaps you should do your reading or simply reserve judgement.
Unfortunately, I can't help but feel that your lack of understanding of the history of fascism and the origins of the left/right distinction discredits your thoughts on other subjects for which I am less studied and would appreciate your insights.
Goldberg is hardly the originator of the liberal fascist argument. I recommend Stephen Hick's "Explaining Postmodernism" as an insightful chronicle of the philosophical trends that inform progressivism, fascism, communism, socialism, and inconveniently, the modern liberalism as practiced by the Clintons.
I'm wondering why the guy quoting Mussolini's "Doctrine on Fascism" didn't get around to quoting the part where he says:
"Granted that the XIXth century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the XXth century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the " right ", a Fascist century."
Fascism is called a right-wing movement because it was a right-wing movement, from start to finish. Yes, Mussolini was a socialist prior to denying socialism and founding fascism. But then he denied socialism and founded fascism, a movement "tending to the 'right'". To argue otherwise is to ignore the facts of history.
Which -ism is it? But, it's not that -ism from the Left, it's that -ism from the Right!
BFD~
the only two -isms we should be wondering about are : Statism v. Individualism , and which, of the two, is ascendant..
Patrick Henry taught us all the 'Politcal Triangulation' we need to know, we lose sight of that, at our peril. From the 'Right', or from the 'Left', the rope still is. And, still does strangle Liberty.
The only thing that motivated Goldberg to write this book was the constant comparison of the American right to Nazis by the American left. Goldberg's purpose is essentially to debunk this ridiculous claim by advancing the reverse.
I'm prepared to stipulate that fascism--and for that matter communism--doesn't have much to do with the mainstream American left.
If the left is prepared to say the same thing about the right, then we can stop having this stupid debate.
Rob-
I think one difference is that those on the left who attempted a serious argument that Bush is a fascist were not, say, popular op-ed writers or editors at the leading liberal weekly magazine.
rickm said: Actually, Mussolini did not write that., referring to a quote claiming to be from Mussolini's Doctrine of Fascism.
Okay, rick. You say Mussolini didn't write that. Show us. If it's a forgery or false attribution, surely you can point that out somehow, yes?
The WFF translation seems to differ from others available on the web, but its content appears to be accurate (ie, the ideas expressed are the same, only the translation into English has changed).
For instance, Oakeshott's translation says "Fascism is a religious conception in which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual and raises him to conscious membership of a spiritual society" and "Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence.".
What Patrick quoted is well-supported; if you claim Mussolini didn't say what was quoted, I'm left with these alternatives:
1) You refer only to the fact that it's in translation, and therefore your objection is without any use to the topic at hand, or
2) You refer to the fact that it was ghost-written and signed off by Mussolini, which is likewise irrelevant, since a) he took credit for it and b) it was still a founding document of his movement, respected by him and his followers, or
3) You're simply wrong and trying to avoid that Mussolini's words (in the sense of being presented by him as from him, and as actually motivating his docctrine of Fascism) do, in fact, support Goldberg.
I'm going with #3, and a side of #2.
It is no valid objection, in an argument about Fascism, to say "Mussolini didn't really write his Doctrine of Fascism; it was ghost-written!" - since the debate is not one on textual authorship, but one of the definitions and worldviews of the Fascists, which on all evidence did in fact coincide with the Doctrine, regardless of it being ghost-written or not.
Rickm,
No, they were people like famous novelists (I'm thinking of Buckley's famous threat to Vidal), congressmen, opinion leaders like Jesse Jackson, etc. I suppose if we dragged a net through the archives of The Nation we might come up with something, too.
Sigivald-
Patrick Sullivan wrote: "It was former socialist Benito Mussolini's invention. He defined it [from the doctrine of fascism]" I replied that Mussolini didn't write that. Giovanni Gentile did.
And what I wrote was a valid objection to Sullivan's claim, and we were talking about textual authorship.
Megan,
Read the book. Agree or don't agree based on what he's written and not a web discussion of the book. I like and respect your writing and more importantly your thinking. But, as a long time reader, I was disappointed to read another dismissal of this book by someone who hadn't read it.
As a suggestion, borrow a copy from a friend (or enemy) and read the first three chapters covering the less controversial Mussolini and Hitler stuff. Forget about the comparisons to modern liberals if that is too big a leap. I'd love to hear your take on the whole book of course but I'm willing to meet you half way.
Don't you love it when you only hear from long time readers when they have a beef?
Jimmy,
Um, every piece of evidence I have found indicates that Goldberg's book is intellectually unserious and a waste of paper.
Do you really think it is "less controversial" that Hitler was a leftist? Really?
Rickm,
After reading the book, I found the argument that fascism was a movement of the left convincing and uncontroversial. I am more than willing to entertain arguments to the contrary from people who can engage the argument actually made instead of the argument that people think is being made.
I even found the argument that the basis of modern-day liberalism is in many ways fascist to be fairly convincing. But, I think this argument is much more controversial mostly due to the possibility that it could effect today's political conversation (you know, the conversation all of are invested in instead of the one that is historically interesting but arcane?).
Jimmy-
The argument that fascism was a movement entirely of the left is controversial because it goes against nearly the entire body of scholarly writing on the subject of fascism. I have read numerous scholarly works on fascism--I don't need to read a regurgitator of tripe's book to enlighten me about fascism, especially when his linguistic skills preclude him from introducing new information.
If he's repeating someone else's argument, then I'll read someone else's argument firsthand. If he is making a new argument, then he is doing so with no new information.
Wow, lots of sound and fury here.
Don't bother reading Goldberg's book. He's just trying to tap into Ann Coulter's wingnut welfare stream. It'll work, too.
If you want to see rebuttals of Goldberg's "revisionist history," Sadly, No did a fine job.
One of my favorite authors, David Brin, has written extensively on the uselessness of the terms "right" and "left" in modern American political discourse. Those terms were invented to describe political divisions in Revolutionary France, not USA 2008:
He's great. Tool on over to http://www.davidbrin.com , he's even got some things to say to libertarians on how to make your movement more appealing to "mainstream America."
Congratulations, Ms. McArdle- By leaping head-first into this particular high-click pigpen, you have just done your part to ensure that the blogosphere as a whole, up to and including the Atlantic, becomes nothing but an extension of the hyperventilating tabloid set. Enjoy the mire.
Rickm wrote: Um, every piece of evidence I have found indicates that Goldberg's book is intellectually unserious and a waste of paper.
Well, if you think that, then it's probably worth reading (even if it only turns into a $17 circus ticket). I was debating the past two days whether I wanted to spend the time and money on this one, but that did the trick! Order has been placed, and your help is much appreciated.
Well,
I'm thankful I'm not ignored.
LiberalRob,
In the first chapter of Liberal Fascism, Goldberg does in fact discuss the French revolution as the original source of the left/right distinctions.
It's simple really. "Fascist" is shorter and nastier-sounding than "Totalitarian", and even that isn't a terribly good word for "ideology of people that idolize the state and want to run our lives".
Perhaps we could agree to distinguish between Fascism and fascism like we distinguish between Libertarian and libertarian?
Rickm,
I will admit to being less that cozy with the entire body of scholarly work on fascism. What I am familiar with is Goldberg's argument and a fair amount of history (in English as I am, alas, unilingual). As I mentioned, I found his argument convincing based on what I know and what he wrote. If you have something specific from his book you'd like to refute, I'm all ears.
Of course the free-est markets in the world in 1943 were in the fascist states. Goldberg seems to have missed that & fascism's hatred of unions & protection of the monied interests, in addition to its xenophobic, ultraconservative, militaristic, nationalism.
Since it is acceptable to critique a book not read, I didn't read the book and thought it excellent.
I like Megan, but her decision to join in on this newfound sport of pyschic book reviewing, not to mention to fall for the same lame psyhic "critiques," well, it's a turnoff. For goodness sake, Megan, read the book!
In the movie, The Big Picture, Martin Short plays Kevin Bacon's agent and has one of the movie's great lines -- he points to a big stack of movie scripts on a coffee table and recommends one in particular saying:
Megan, I watched the Wilkinson interview all the way through and I'll bet you didn't -- you clicked on the shortcut links and watched a few minutes of excerpts. Am I right? It's OK you can 'fess up.