Talk:Fascism/Archive 13

message: Moving the chart was a good compromise. Sam [Spade] 01:45, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nolan chart 

message: Does the PRC as it exists today fall within the definition of a fascist state? I am thinking about adding it to the list of nations as I beleive that it is a near perfect fit. Comments and feedback please. 21:36, Sep 8, 2004 (UTC) 
[Unless I'm mistaken, the above is TDC, although he didn't sign it -- Jmabel 00:32, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)]
     If you were the same anonymous that posted the publiceye article on fascism, and you thought that criteria was fitting (as I thought it was more or less sound)then by that definition, no.  Ok, I have an account I realized as I tried to log in.  But what's that shortcut for signing the name with the official UTC stuff?
Capone 9-8-04
* Just use 4 tildes: ~~~~ -- Jmabel 00:32, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
Responding to the anon remark above (which I believe was TDC:
:I think a reasonable case could be made either way. I don't think just adding it to a list would be useful, but relevant cited quotations on both sides of the question probably would. 
:Certainly it had many of the standard characteristics: much of the wealth in private hands, but in the context of a rather centrally directed economy; lack of democracy; militarism; irredentist nationalism. On the other hand, it clearly got there by a route where its intellectual heritage is in State Communism rather than the states historically known as fascist, and teh word "Fascist" carries connotations of an intellectual heritage as well as a form of government and society. Also, the present-day PRC is not very big on the cult of personality. But my opinion doesn't belong in the article as such: if you want to follow this up I strongly urge citing relevant, reasonably authoritative sources. -- Jmabel 00:32, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
Ardent nationalism basically sums up every nation I can think of on the face of the planet at present.  It makes sense that a nation would extol the virtues of itself, right?  The PRC does not have a cult of personality, does not glorify male youth as fighters, does not glorify female youth as future incubators.  Mysticism is missing from official Chinese pronouncements too.  Also missing is the stated goal of said society.  Left Totalitarian regimes like China see a future where a hierarchy of work-production, and distribution can be overcome once production is more automated with robotics and technology and economic scarcity can be overcome.  Allowing private property is a means towards an end in the case of China (market socialism).  Right Totalitarian regimes see hierarchy as the natural and permanent order of things, and the existence of private property is not a mean to an end, but the end to be preserved within itself.  A broad definition of fascism which would more correctly have to be termed corporatism if we say that mysticism, gender roles, and ideological heritage/stated aims aren't necessary conditions, then that would also allow us to place countries like the U.S since the 1930's, social-democratic Germany, and Keynesian Japan in that category.
The main difference between fascism and capitalist-democratic or more benign corporatist states is the right for trade unions and combinations to engage in collective bargaining and even work stopages (strikes) against the immediate consent of the state or business.  
Unions have this right in China today, to a limited extent, as in the U.S to a limited extent.  On an economic basis, Germany may be considered more corporatist or economically interventionist than the U.S, but politically the citizens have more rights to protest and engage in collective bargaining or form new unions.
Unless I can be swayed from this line of thought, and I am open to it, I will mercilessly edit out grouping the PRC as fascist.  
Capone 19:44, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: "On an economic basis, Germany may be considered more corporatist or economically interventionist than the U.S, but politically the citizens have more rights to protest and engage in collective bargaining or form new unions." I hope you mean Germany today. If you are saying this about rights to protest, etc., in Nazi Germany you are off your rocker. -- Jmabel 22:24, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)
Right, I was speaking of both China and Germany in the present, market-socialist China and capitalist-social-democratic Germany.  Sorry if that wasn't clear to others.  But all this aside, I may indeed still be off my rocker!
Capone 23:59, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: China

message: I see that the section "Fascism and Christianity" has been changed to "Fascism and the Roman Catholic Church". That does seem to fit in with the material currently there, but certainly the Iron Guard were closely tied to the Romanian Orthodox Church; I'm guessing that there are other analogous situations in other non-Roman-Catholic countries, but I don't know much about this. Does someone else? -- Jmabel | Talk 23:12, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)
:Yes, indeed, it was not just the Roman Catholic church but in some cases various Orthodox churches (but it gets tricky because Orthodox churches are technically Catholic). A new book argues that the Nazis enjoyed the support of the Protestant church, but its claims are controversion. 
Richard Steigmann–Gall, The Holy Reich: Nazi Conceptions of Christianity, 1919–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
Might be better to have the main heading "Fascism and Christianity" and add some material about the Iron Guard, then cite Steigmann–Gall. --Cberlet 23:15, 20 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christianity/Roman Catholicism 

message: "Semi-capitalist"? You must be joking. You're begging the question by defining capitalism as only existing under democracy and thus ruling out any non-democratic states as possibly being capitalist, despite the fact that Chile, South Korea, Taiwan etc (and for that matter apartheid South Africa) had fully free markets and booming capitalist economies. Chile was a lab for the Chicago School and a leader in deregulation and privatization followed by Thatcher and Reagan. Just because you don't like the fact that several police states were successfully *fully* capitalist doesn't mean you can rewrite the definition of capitalism to exclude this from being possible. Don't let your dogma interfere with reality. AndyL 19:22, 5 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Semi-capitalist?

message: what about usa? l see a lot of elements of the italian, german fascism in the u.s. right now.
:Elements and echoes, perhaps. A very good essay on this subject is by Neiwart: "The Rise of Pseudo Fascism." http://dneiwert.blogspot.com  We might link it.
:Another very good essay is by Umberto Eco.  
:A not very good essay is by Lawrence Britt, who finds 14 things shared by Nazism and the U.S. today and then implies that means the U.S. is fascist.  This would get a F on a logic exam.
:These last two are linked in the article.  
:There is a lot of hot rhetoric about this matter, but few serious scholars of fascism see anything but elements and echoes of fascism in the U.S. --Cberlet 14:10, 22 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  USA FASCISM 

message: This is a controversial subject, and just rewriting lines that leave the rest of the text nonsensical is just vandalism. Pinochet was hardly a socialist. --Cberlet 19:50, 4 Feb 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: "fascism is socialism" claim