Thursday, January 24, 2013
Are Fascism and Socialism the Same? Whole Foods CEO John Mackey and Other Ignoramuses Believe so.
By Tom Kando
Although I didn’t write the January 18 post “Obamacare, Fascism and Brown Rice,”, I’ll piggy-back on it. It gives the professor (me) a chance to give a short introductory lecture in political science and history.
Those who try to equate fascism and socialism, or speak of the two in one breath, show appalling ignorance of politics and history. Ever since Obama became president, some on the Right have tried to paste the “fascist” label on him and on his policies, and they have used the terms “fascist” and “socialist” interchangeably. Many in the Tea Party have done this, as have people like Mike Huckabee, Sean Hannity, Glenn Beck and other loons, and now John Mackey. I already wrote about this preposterous distortion of reality in my March 16, 2010 post "Is America Going Fascist and Gay?"
As I wrote nearly three years ago, these folks have things upside down. Anyone who knows anything about 20th century history knows that fascism and socialism have always been each other’s worst enemies, as in the Spanish Civil War, the war between Nazi Germany and Russia, and many other conflicts. I know, I know, there was the Molotov-Ribbentrop “monster pact” of 1939, when the Nazis and the Soviets tried to collaborate. And yes, “Nazi” means “National Socialism.” But don’t be mistaken: Fascism/Nazism and Socialism are each other’s opposite: The former is on the Right, and latter on the Left. And the distinction between Right and Left remains very meaningful, today in America as much as it was in 20th century Europe.
If John Mackey took a course in Political Science 101 he would learn that:
1. Fascism is an expression of middle-class discontent.
2. Marxism and other forms of socialism are expressions of lower-class and working-class discontent.
3. Hitler was brought to power by Fascism.
4. The Russian Revolution was Marxist.
5. Fascism is nationalist: The Nazis were vehemently opposed to internationalism. They quit the League of Nations.
6. Marxism and Socialism are internationalist.
7. Fascists believed that God was on their side.
8. Marxism is atheist.
9. Fascism is militaristic.
10. Fascism is racist.
11. Fascism is homophobic. Before his onslaught on Jews, Hitler exterminated the gays.
12. Fascism is for traditional family values (Only three roles for women: Kinder, Kuche und Kirche).
13. Fascism is cosy with the conglomerates. Remember Krupp, Siemens, IG Farben and all the other corporations that supported the Nazis.
14. Fascism wants to return to the past, which it glorifies.
15. Socialism is geared to the future, sometimes a utopian future.
Granted, some forms of socialism such as Soviet Marxism have gone deeply astray, but to accuse Obama and his policies of being fascist is absurd. He is a centrist social democrat. The accusation reminds me of when Joe McCarthy called Eisenhower a communist. It is lunacy.
Also, it is the pot calling the kettle black. TheTea Party and Right-wing Republican Obama detractors themselves have much more in common with classical European fascism than anyone since father Coughlin in the 1930s and Joe McCarthy in the 1950s: If fascism comes to America, it’ll be precisely these folks who bring it on: Look at the list above: They are on the right; they are overwhelmingly white middle-class; they are nationalists; they are deeply religious; they support military intervention; they hate the country’s first black President; they are anti-gay; they are pro-life and pro traditional family values; they support the corporations. They long to return to America's alleged past glory days. The Tea Party and the “Take-America-Back” folks remind me of the angry white middle-class which brought Hitler to power in Austria and Germany. leave comment here
23 comments:
You are correct, thank you for clarifying the issue and for explaining exactly what these two labels do in fact designate. All the people out there who lack any sense of history are very confused by the way these terms have been carelessly thrown around.
Korzybski warns us in his excellent General Semantics to beware of using the same name to describe different things. Our choice of words can determine how we think and can mislead us.
Thank you.
I just hope that I am not only preaching to the choir. It would be good if some people at Fox News read what you and I are saying.
Why would people who deny climate change and evolution care about using the terms "fascism" or "socialism" correctly? As long as those terms have the desired emotional effect on the ignorant conservative base, the speaker has accomplished the goal of painting Obama as a sinister figure out to destroy the country.
I'm afraid you are right.
Socialism and fascism are the same if you care about individual rights.
If you think that Big brother knows best and the individuals are worthless disposable scum then you will fight over trivial differences of if corporate - government cooperative of fascism is better then the government ruling it all of socialism
“The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. "
http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/mussolini-fascism.asp
Definition of SOCIALISM
any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
So Between Mussolini the Italian fascist Dictator and merriam Webster
It appears that Fascism and Socialism are essentially the same.
Both see wee the little people as disposable replaceable fluff --
I don't see the value in defending the American left against charges of fascism by comparing the differences between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. This has nothing at all to do with socialism in the US in 2013. Using this line of reasoning a person could suggest that socialism is more evil than fascism because Stalin was responsible for more deaths than Hitler.
A better argument could be made by pointing out how popular our socialist programs are. Bush tried to privatize Social Security at the height of his popularity and with a Republican Congress, he fell flat on his face. If Obama is a 'fascist', then so are the majority of voters, including the majority of Republicans who support SS & Medicare.
It's also valuable to point out that a country with one of the most libertarian economies in the world, Switzerland, provides universal health care through the private sector. The rules for coverage are far more socialist than Obamacare, these companies are not even allowed to make a profit on the minimal coverage dictated by the government.
Googling a Wikipedia or Webster definition is what’s passed off as scholarship these days. Martintfre does not understand that Socialism is a profoundly multifaceted topic. I’ll just mention Rousseau, Utopian socialists such as Saint Simon, anarchists like Bakunin, anarcho-syndicalists, Kropotkin’s “altruistic” socialism, Jean-Jaures, American socialists such as Henry George and Edward Bellamy, the contemporary British Labor Party...I could go on and include Plato and the Gracchi brothers in antiquity. It is preposterous to try to dispose of the issue with one Mussolini quote. Try reading Joseph Schumpeter’s "Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy," at least, or "Socialist Thought," by Fried and Sanders, or any of thousands of other books written on the subject.
Kyzipster’s comment is less absurd, although he is also wrong: I do not “compare” the USSR and Nazi Germany. I merely remind readers of some historical facts. I mention that Soviet Marxism went terribly astray and that its pact with the Nazis was called the “monster” pact precisely because it was between two monsters.
But why throw out the baby with the bathwater? Capitalism has also made grievous errors, yet we have not discarded it. As I indicate in my reply to Martintfre, socialism is vast, complicated, and many of its strands are benign.
The bottom line is that no economic or political system should be permitted to err on the side of collectivism OR individualism. Conservative Americans are guilty of the latter.
There can exist "Big Brother," i.e., the federal, capitalist-dominated U.S. government, and "Little Big Brothers", i.e., state governments with a tyranny of their own, be it capitalist-dominated, or as it was in the early to mid-1800s in the U.S. south. I don't recall individual rights being respected then, that is if you weren't white, male, rich, and had a superiority complex. And that was true after Emancipation, but in a more discreet form sometimes, compared to previous rights abuses.
Martintfre: But you sure don't like a little person. It's a tragedy Stalinism existed, since that became a kind of decipherer for those ideas you're not keen on.
Both Nazism and fascism are the biggest enemies of those ideas you don't get. Reexamine what socialism means. Get rid of the Stalinism, and the Cult of Maoism as well, and there will be a more essential meaning.
Fordham and Merriam Webster's dictionary on the matter? Perhaps these sources are duped by the Stalinist interpretation, among other things? I believe that Mussolini did say that fascism involves a "corporatist state."
And disposibility has occurred when everyone and everything are looked at as commodities, where labor hired cheaply (really no choice for laborers being commodities), and disposed when no longer needed. What they produce (one reason labor is superior to capital) can be bought cheaply, but then disposed of when it's no longer in vogue (rather than reasonably gauging its practicality). Either way, both have wound up on the junk heap of capital.
Do you disagree?
Tom Kando I don’t think you are 100% right in your definitions but you are 100% right-on in the need to have definitions rather then using words to paint evil on anyone one wants to argue with. Thanks for bringing thought back to the table.
Kando gives an important clarification with two obviously different ideologies, that needs to be consistently put out there.
I would add that "Soviet-style Marxism" was actually a victim of Stalinist-style perversion.
Kando gives an important clarification with two obviously different ideologies, that needs to be consistently put out there.
I would add that "Soviet-style Marxism" was actually a victim of Stalinist-style perversion.
Tom- And I think this is you not Madeline - I believe your repetition of 13 assertions is a bit too simple. You seem to conflate the ideas of Mackey and some of the people who attended some conference in the mid-west including Glenn Beck and others. That is neither accurate nor reasonable.
More importantly - polite and exact distinctions between fascism, socialism and marxism are possibly appropriate in classes on political science (which I have taught) but rarely useful in viewing history.
Here are a couple of questions - 1) Was Marx (Karl not Groucho) from a lower class background? How about Lenin? Even how about Mao? If you believe those three most important leaders of the closest approximation to Marxist regimes were from the lower classes then you do not know your history.
2) Was Hitler an expression of middle class discontent or more appropriately was he an expression of discontent with the Versailles treaty?
3) Was Pol Pot a fascist - he was responsible for massive genocide aimed both at his own people and ethnic minorities in his cruel and brutish regime.
4) If fascism is an expression of middle class values - then why was one of Hitler's base of support from the conglomerates you mention in #13?
5) What was the name of the party brought to power under Hitler - hint if you guess the Fascists you're wrong - it was the National Socialists.
Fundamentally, from my perspective, while I think it is often said that Fascism and Socialism are the left and right extremes - that is just nonsense. Both regimes control the means of production. Both regimes use genocide. Both regimes attempt to limit individual choices.
You comment on the ranges of "socialist" thought. As JPII said in a homily in an audience I had with him in Rome in 2000 - the danger of academics is "endless meanderings in erudition" - At some point I read most of those goofballs you mention when I was doing either undergraduate or graduate study. None of them actually had the opportunity to put their pure theories into practice (although George for example, who I would not describe as a socialist, became quite popular. George began as a Republican and then became a Democrat).
The American system was founded on what one commentator calls the American Trinity - Liberty, e pluribus unum and in God we trust (look at any American coin to see those inscriptions). I am not sure how you would differentiate the regimes of Hugo Chavez, Assad and Castro - except that you can be pretty sure that they do not like any of those three principles.
Tom, You are right to point out that fascism and socialism are different things. Primarily in the first case property is privately owned and the second property is owned by the state. But those you criticize are correct in that they have some similarities, for example social decisions are made by the state. Thus Hitler could call his reich "National Socialism," which might seem an oxymoron in your understanding of socialism. However, Hitler told corporation what they could and could not do, so in that sense private individuals were unable to determine their own fate. Under Stalin, private individuals were not able to determine their own fate either. In this case both systems become totalitarian.
The use of broad ideological terms stimulates stereotypes depending on your cultural experiences and education. Wittgenstein saw such language as overlapping circles of meaning.
The way these terms get used often depends on what you want and what you fear, so Martintfre and the Tea Party folks are correct if one is speaking about freedom and human rights, but wrong if you are talking about the system of ownership of property.
Most of what Gordon says is reasonable.
On the other hand, Jonathan makes many errors:
(1) like Martintfre, he confuses everything (Socialism = Marxism = Maoism = Pol Pot = Assad = Fascism = Chavez = etc.).
(2) He dismisses people like Plato and Rousseau as “goofballs.” A tit-for-tat would be to dismiss Thomas Jefferson or Alexander Hamilton as goofballs, which would be as idiotic.
(3) In typical conservative anti-intellectual fashion, he ridicules “ academic erudition.” But isn’t
“erudition” a synonym for “knowledge”? Isn’t knowledge mankind’s ONLY hope to stay away from the abyss? Without knowledge, we are doomed. The rejection of science and fact-based knowledge is conservatism’s most dangerous aspect.
At the risk of appearing “erudite” and citing Pulitzer Prize winning “goofballs,” I recommend a couple of additional sources:
Regarding Jonathan’s anti-intellectualism, see Richard Hofstadter, “Anti-Intellectualism in America life,” and his “The Paranoid Style in American politics.” To help him distinguish between different forms of totalitarianism, check out William Kornhauser’s “The Politics of Mass Society” and Hannah Arendt’s “The Origins of Totalitarianism.”
Hi, Tom
This was a good one! Actually, they are all pretty good.
Yours,
My opinion is that the USA cannot understand what fascism is or was. For Europens, fascism is(was) the terrible way.Socialism was similar in its methods.
I agree with Starr.
One thing we hardly do anymore, is to distinguish between Socialism (good) and Communism (bad.). For much of the 20th century, that distinction was recognized as important. To this day, most European countries have socialist parties that are reasonable, democratic, and often in charge (France’s current ruling party, Britain’s Labour Party, Germany’s Social Democrats, etc.). And then there have always been the communist parties, in control of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for decades, and with strong representation in Western Europe after World War Two. It was always clear that communism was a dictatorial extremism, a mirror image of fascism, whereas (Western European style) socialism was a progressive and democratic alternative to the political Right. Today, in American politics, this nuance is absent.
Nice to see Korzybski cited here. We could use some of this sanity.
Fascists have tried to confuse their opposition by using the term socialism. Socialism was very popular in Germany in the 1920s so the Nazis adopted the term as part of their name. But the first thing the NAZIs did was to smash labor unions, kill socialists and communists, and impose a corporate driven government. The NAZI party was a creation of german, american, and British corporations who needed a political force to oppose the growing socialism around the world.
Fascism is the corporate control of the state.
Socialism is the worker control of the state.
Those are two opposite things. There will never be a perfect fascism or perfect socialism. There will always be mixed political systems. Right now, we are way too far over on the side of fascism. The US and most of the world needs a lot more socialism.
Tom - Please - at least read the stuff I write.
The end result of totalitarian systems - whatever the name is the same - the limited ability of individuals to determine their own lives. The systems have lots of different names - but from my perspective they have the same result. What is the difference for a citizen between Castro and Assad? In the end both regimes control individuals and both fail economically. In the end the terms right and left are meaningless to describe either Marxism or Socialism.
Indeed I am not a fan of Plato but I in no way describes him as a "goofball" - I think I specifically mentioned Henry George - who was indeed a goofball.
Marxism, if you read the history is not an expression of lower class discontent - Marx was an elitist who lived off the kindness of others. Naziism used internationalism when it suited them - just as the communists did. Fascism is militaristic - Marxism is not? Socialism is geared to the future? What future? The 13 statements are mostly gross over simplifications.
Most importantly - how would you describe the corporate cronyism that has been rampant in the Obama administration? What term would you use?.
Finally, I do not deride erudition however as the quote I offered suggests - many academics degrade the strength of universities by engaging in endless meanderings of erudition. The point of JPII was that instead of trying to find truth (a big part of the Republic) many academics construct word games - meanderings of erudition. I do not deride erudition but I do deride the meaningless word games that many academics use to pass the time.
IN the end there are two differences between John Mackey and people like Henry George and some of the other writers you mention. First, John Mackey has actually produced something that made people's lives better. Whole Foods opened opportunities for consumers that were not present before. Second, the ideas of Henry George and people like Marx, Lenin and others actually hurt people individually and collectively.
Response to Jonathan:
What is totalitarian about the British Labor Party, the French, Dutch, German and Scandinavian social democrats, the Democratic Party in the US? These are the Western world’s socialist parties today. Which freedoms have been lost in these countries, ruled by socialist parties? Or in the US, under Obama?
A wag once said that “the perfect is the enemy of the possible,” or something like that, meaning that by expecting Democratic policies to solve all of our problems immediately, we conclude that they are total failures.
But the verdict is in: Social- democratic policies, while imperfect, produce greater justice and well-being for a majority of the people, whereas supply-side economics and other similar approaches have done nothing but increase poverty and a steady deterioration in the quality of life for most Americans - for over 30 years by now. This is the road to perdition.
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