Talk:Fascism/Archive 18

message: Fascism is not actually a general term. It refers to a specific movement in Italy in the interwar period. Because of this, the terms Fascism and Fascist are proper nouns, and are always capitalized. I'm not sure how else to deal with a long article that has a completely wrong scope. Generalcp702 15:34, 26 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Not entirely. The term Fascism, or sometimes Italian fascism or Italian Fascism, refers to a specific movement. However, the term fascism is also a general term for highly authoritarian, corporatist, nationalist and anti-left governments or groups, and their beliefs. The distinction is blurred alightly, fascism (the term if not the ideology) is derived from Fascism, and Fascism is certainly a type of fascism. The issue is confusing even to scholars of the subject. However, this article deals with the general term referring to what is generally seen as a far-right ideology; the article on capital-F Fascism is located at Italian fascism. -Switch t 09:16, 27 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Fascism is not a general term 

message: This was added, I think by Joe Carson after the comparing fascism to socialism discussion. It seems a little strong, especially considering the minority viewpoint involved. Shall we remove it?Felix-felix 14:39, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Article has a left-wing bias. For example, there is a whole section on anti-communism and nothing on anti-liberalism and anti-conservatism. Until that bias is removed POV tag should remain. -- Vision Thing -- 19:52, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Neutrality Tag

message: It's probably important to note in this article that when Mussolini was saying he was on the "Right" and at the same time saying he was against "liberalism" that back then classical liberalism was considered to be on the left. Otherwise it doesn't really make sense, because I think a lot of people today see laissez-faire as being on the right. That wasn't always the case. "Liberalism" is by definition of the Left. It's just that those that considered themselves on the left were for laissez-faire, wherease those today that consider themselves on the left or "liberal" in the U.S. are interventionists.Anarcho-capitalism 03:10, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You are trying to interpret European political terms from an American perspective, which is why it does not seem to make much sense to you. When Mussolini said he was on the Right, he was talking about the long tradition of European conservatism, the conservatism of "king, fatherland, family". Present-day Europeans do not see laissez-faire as being on the right, they see nationalism as being on the right. Which is exactly how Mussolini saw it. And "liberalism" is not necessarily associated with outright laissez-faire, but all those who call themselves liberals are generally less interventionist than those who call themselves anything else. If Americans choose to use political terms differently from the rest of the world, that is their problem. -- Nikodemos 03:26, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ignore my comment about U.S. usage. It's not really relevant to my point. In worldwide terminology, liberalism was considered to be on the left back then. Mussolini was against the left. He was against classical liberalism. To be on the Right was to be a conservative and opposed to liberalism (what we call today "classical" liberalism). "Classical liberalism" (the laissez-faire philosophy) was simply called "liberalism" back then and, of course, was considered to be on the Left.Anarcho-capitalism 03:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Liberalism was not considered to be on the left in the 1920s.  That just isn't true.  It was in the center.  And no, "classical liberalism", as defined today, is most certainly not identical to "liberalism" in the 1920s, although there are certainly similarities.  But a liberal party like the German People's Party was most certainly never considered to be on the left in Weimar Germany, for instance.  It was clearly a party of the center-right, as, for instance, its support for Hindenburg for president in 1925 pretty clearly shows (the party's monarchism in its early years doesn't help, either).  john k 05:39, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: To clarify, it's just not true at all that laissez faire was considered to be the left in, of all times, the 1920s.  This might be considered to have been true in the mid-19th century.  But, er, socialism?  Communism? Those were big in the 1920s, and being opposed to them was big in fascist rhetoric. john k 05:42, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It was in the process of being redefined during that time, sure. The liberalism he was talking about was laissez-faire liberalism of Adam Smith and such. Laissez-faire philosophy (classical liberalism) used to be considered Left in the 19th century. By the time Mussolini was talking about being on the Right and against liberalism, at the very least we know that he did not considere laissez-faire liberalism to be on the right. You could be correct that he considered it to be in the center at that time, but I doubt it. I don't know for sure without sources. I'll look around.Anarcho-capitalism 06:24, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Your logic is flawed here.  Mussolini was on the right, but that does not prevent him from being opposed to other groups on the right.  Fascism has, in general, often been at odds with traditional conservatism, for instance.  On the other side of the spectrum, various left wing groups have frequently detested one another, while still tacitly understanding (if not publicly admitting) that their opponents are also on the left.  I agree that liberalism was not exactly on the right in the 1920s, but it was certainly not on the left either.  Opposition to liberalism in this case mostly meant not so much liberalism's economic agenda (which fascist regimes intermittently pursued, quietly) but the political meaning of liberalism - representative government, freedom of speech, that kind of stuff.  Usually this was accompanied by rhetoric about liberalism's economic policies (stolen from Marxists, usually), but in practice fascist economic policy wasn't all that different from that pursued by the liberals of the day (note that Hitler's first main economic advisor was Hjalmar Schacht, an old liberal). And by no standard was liberalism  on the left in this period.  Socialists and Communists were the left.  Some of the more left-wing liberals might be considered to be on the left, but only barely, and not really very much. john k 19:25, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: IMHO it is best to avoid this talk about left and right, if cannot be properly explained. Quotes of course cannot be changed. Left and right and centre are changing all the time between different times and different countries. "Liberalism" is not by definition on the left - in the 19th century it always was in the centre (at least in Europe) between Conversativism and Radical Democracy and Early Socialism. Str1977 (smile back) 19:34, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Indeed. Except I'd amend to say "continental Europe." john k 21:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually, classical liberalism was considered to be the Left and I just found a source. According to Jeff Riggenbach in an article called "The Mighty Flynn" in Liberty Magazine, speaking of liberalism in the U.S.: liberals were accepted members of the Left before 1933. Yet, without changing any of their fundamental views, all of them, over the next decade, came to be thought of as exemplars of the political Right."Anarcho-capitalism 20:31, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I thought we were talking about continental Europe, not the United States. john k 21:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: The original Left were laissez-faire liberals. In the French ssembly in the late 18th century, the conservatives sat on the Right and the laissez-faire liberals sat on the Left. "But the worst thing about the rise of the socialist movement was that it was able to outflank the classical liberals "on the Left": that is, as the party of hope, of radicalism, of revolution in the Western World. For, just as the defenders of the ancien régime took their place on the right side of the hall during the French Revolution, so the liberals and radicals sat on the left; from then on until the rise of socialism, the libertarian classical liberals were "the Left," even the "extreme Left," on the ideological spectrum. As late as 1848, such militant laissez-faire French liberals as Frédéric Bastiat sat on the left in the national assembly. The classical liberals had begun as the radical, revolutionary party in the West, as the party of hope and of change on behalf of liberty, peace, and progress. To allow themselves to be outflanked, to allow the socialists to pose as the "party of the Left," was a bad strategic error, allowing the liberals to be put falsely into a confused middle-of-the-road position with socialism and conservatism as the polar opposites."  Anarcho-capitalism 20:53, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: To describe Jacobins as "laissez faire liberals" is accurate, but misleading.  There's a lot more to the radical presocialist left than liberal economics - which were not even a defining feature, as there were always proto-socialist types to be found in the ranks of the left.  Calling early 19th century radicals "laissez faire liberals" is to elevate economic views to an importance they did not have at the time.  It was the political views of these radicals - pro-universal suffrage, republican, and so forth, that made them radical, not their economic views, which they more or less shared with a variety of more conservative liberals. François Guizot was as much a classical liberal as anyone, and he can hardly be considered to be on the left.  john k 21:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Bastiat was a laissez-faire liberal economist on the Left.Anarcho-capitalism 21:38, 13 January 2007 (UTC)

text: "In the early 19th century, for example, free market doctrines were the province of radical liberals on the left while conservatives espoused – as some of them still do – agricultural protection and a large economic role for the state."  Samuel Brittan Financial Times 14/07/06 Anarcho-capitalism 21:16, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The early 19th century, not the early 20th century.  john k 21:30, 13 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Liberalism and Rightism