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Hungarian elections are coming up at the start of April. In the Eastern Europe thread I said that it looks like the fascist party, Jobbik, is going to get a mediocre result, but it seems like it's enjoyed a precipitous rise in support over the past week or two. Some polls are putting it at almost 20% support now among decided voters -- for reference, it got 16.7% in the last elections in 2010. I'm not sure what's caused this, but I doubt it's to do with their ongoing weird "hold cats in publicity photos" campaign. They've been running a bit of a Janus-faced campaign this year. Last election it was all about immediate radical change, campaign videos with riot footage set to dramatic music, and open paramilitary activity. This time around their national campaign has gone for a much softer look, focusing on defending the traditional family, securing a future for children, etc. Their regional chapters have been playing to the base, though:  For reference, that symbol is the Arrow Cross, essentially the Hungarian equivalent of the swastika. Hungary actually had two regimes during the Second World War: one was an authoritarian regime led by Regent Miklós Horthy, but Horthy was an old-school reactionary who was never entirely sympathetic to fascism and Hitler eventually got fed up of him after he made overtures to the Allies in 1944. Germany invaded, Horthy was overthrown and replaced by a much more radical fascist regime under Ferenc Szálasi, the Arrow Cross guy, which oversaw the full extension of the Holocaust into Hungary. Most of the time the far right in Hungary will affirm Horthy and disavow Szálasi, but the Arrow Cross has been making more of an appearance with Jobbik's rise.
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Mar 1, 2014 05:12
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Zohar posted:Hungarian elections are coming up at the start of April. In the Eastern Europe thread I said that it looks like the fascist party, Jobbik, is going to get a mediocre result, but it seems like it's enjoyed a precipitous rise in support over the past week or two. Some polls are putting it at almost 20% support now among decided voters -- for reference, it got 16.7% in the last elections in 2010. The Arrow-Cross facilitated one of the largest and quickest mass murder in history. Hungary up had largely refused to export its Jews to concentration camps, after the Nazi coup against Horthy, there was a mass round up of the entire Jewish population.. quote:The first transports to Auschwitz began in early May 1944 and continued even as Soviet troops approached. The Hungarian government was solely in charge of the Jews' transportation up to the northern border. The Hungarian commander of the Kassa (Košice) railroad station meticulously recorded the trains heading to Auschwitz with their place of departure and the number of people inside them. The first train went through Kassa on May 14. On a typical day, there were three or four trains, with between 3,000 and 4,000 people on each train, for a total of approximately 12,000 Jews delivered to the extermination facilities each day. There were 109 trains during these 33 days through June 16. (There were days, when there were as many as six trains.) Between June 25 and 29, there were 10 trains, then an additional 18 trains on July 5–9. The 138th recorded train (with the 400,426th victim) heading to Auschwitz via Kassa was on July 20.[58] Another 10 trains were sent to Auschwitz via other routes (24,000+ people) [the first two left Budapest and Topolya on April 29 and arrived at Auschwitz on May 2],[59] Zohar, personally, I don't know what I am worried about more, the fact that Jobbik is seeing a rebound in the polls or the fact that Fidesz is still doing quite strong and with certainly will have a strong majority. The latest poll you were talking about still had 49% of Fidesz and based on the constitutional changes they have already made, they are going to have no problem holding on to their majority. They may have slightly less of a percentage of the vote than they had in 2010 but with the electoral system the way it is, they very well may be make further constitutional changes. You have a situation where both Jobbik and Fidesz does quite well and almost 70% of the vote (49% Fidesz, 19% Jobbik) is taken up by hard and far-right parties.
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Mar 1, 2014 05:25
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They might "only" be far-right populists, and not outright fascists, but the Danish People's Party is doing rather well. Here's a pretty up-to-date poll on who people would vote for if the election was tomorrow: A: Social Democrats B: Radical Left C: Conservatives F: Socialist People's Party I: Liberal Alliance K: Christian Democrats O: Danish People's Party V: Liberals (literally Left) Ř: Unity List/Red-Green Alliance Quoting myself on their postions: A Buttery Pastry posted:As I mentioned, there is some dissent in the lower ranks of some of the parties, but you're pretty much right. From Left to Right: I also made a graph, since that's much easier to grasp at a glance.  You would think the Social Democrats would be trying to do something to reverse their plummeting support, but they don't seem to have any intention of doing that. Their most recent projects have been selling shares in our largest energy company to Goldman Sachs, planning to sell Nets Holding*, and pushing for the privatization of public schools. I know social democrats aren't supposed to be proper socialists, but they're not even pretending anymore. Like, every party on their supposed right (economically) is praising them now, where normally you would expect some sort of "drat socialists!!" rhetoric no matter the actual policies. No wonder the Danish People's Party is gaining as much as they are, at least they're willing to say no to (some of) that poo poo, and the Social Democrats have moved so far right on the immigrant rhetoric anyway that the jump probably doesn't seem that great to many people. e: Though as I wrote in another thread, I think the shift towards the Danish People's Party also makes sense in terms of national myths/Danish history since 1864. *Who are responsible for pretty much everything related to debit cards, bank transfers, and secure access to public institutions when doing taxes, or seeking government assistance and so on. Well, "secure" access, the poo poo uses Java, so it's kind of a security risk in the first place, but I doubt having Goldman Sachs or Bain & Company buying it is going to do any favors to the Danish public. A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 12:40 on Mar 1, 2014 |
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Mar 1, 2014 12:34
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Sort of on-topic, but off topic. I just found this quote!Ludwig Von Mises, 1927 posted:It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history
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Mar 3, 2014 12:01
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And it cannot be stressed enough that Danish People's Party is explicitly state racist, and bears identifiable fascist traits, and has a history of cooperation with neo-nazi hoooligans on the street. Hell, it's only a month ago they suggested stopping all immigration and asylum from muslim countries, again.
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Mar 3, 2014 12:12
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duck monster posted:Sort of on-topic, but off topic. I just found this quote! Strange Charm fucked around with this message at 12:22 on Mar 3, 2014 |
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Mar 3, 2014 12:19
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socilest butthomo posted:It's one of my (least) favorite Mises quotes. It raises the question of what kind of relation libertarianism and fascism have. I am absolutely not convinced that the two have nothing to do with each other, as fascists and libertarians have both stuck up for each other at one point or another. I'm also not convinced that the answer is simply “they are both reactionary,” but I'm not sure how and where they overlap. Its a historical thing. Both are anti-communist, and once upon a time being angry at communists was the most important thing. This explains why in Australia the "liberal party" is the conservative party. Back at the time of Menzies (just post war or something) the Labor party had a strong communist faction who had sympathies with moscow etc. This lead to a coalition of both small-l liberal parties who saw communism as a threat and conservative parties to try and fight labor (totally unnecessary, internal struggles in the labor party pretty much killed the communist faction dead) and this became the "Liberal party" dedicated to fighting communism. You'll find similar strange coalitions around the world. Mises' position was that although he didnt fully aprove of the authoritarian impulse in fascism he thought it was justifiable as a means to smash the left. He hoped however the fascists would volentarily give way to liberalism after communism was fully dead. Indicating that mises really was the intellectual midget that history ultimately painted him as.
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Mar 3, 2014 13:14
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duck monster posted:Indicating that mises really was the intellectual midget that history ultimately painted him as. Well are any of the libertarian "intellectuals" anything more than intellectual midgets?
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Mar 3, 2014 15:14
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duck monster posted:Its a historical thing. Both are anti-communist, and once upon a time being angry at communists was the most important thing. It's important to keep in mind that libertarians like Mises also frequently had no problem with monarchs coming back or other things like that. Vast swathes of Europe at the time were still pissed that WWI had gone and ruined their less-than-liberal pseudodemocracies, and were all about having a return of strong monarchs and restricted democracy, where the rich had their "rightful" far greater political action then the filthy commoners. Meanwhile the US, Canada and a few countries like France had had a much easier time of not having fascists internally as a serious threat, because liberal democracy of a sort was a long-running status quo that their conservatives feverishly clung to. Where a conservative of Berlin in 1928 might see a return to a much less democratic state as a return to their social position just 15 years prior; a conservative of New York only saw a hassle and potentially a loss of standing when he couldn't get his way by donating to the right people.
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Mar 3, 2014 16:21
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KomradeX posted:Well are any of the libertarian "intellectuals" anything more than intellectual midgets? Karl Popper is at least semi-identified with libertarians, and yeah, he was pretty smart.
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Mar 3, 2014 16:23
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Obdicut posted:Karl Popper is at least semi-identified with libertarians, and yeah, he was pretty smart. Popper has been appropriated by libertarians but the most that can be said about him in that regard is that he was an anticommunist and had personal connections to neoliberals like Hayek and Friedman through the Mont Pelerin Society. He explicitly advocated for government regulation of the market, cf The Open Society: "Here we are clearly faced with an important problem of social engineering: the market must be controlled, but in such a way that the control does not impede the free choice of the consumer and that it does not remove the need for the producers to compete for the favour of the consumer."
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Mar 3, 2014 16:31
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Fascism and "free market libertarianism" are a lot more closely related than liberals care to admit. First, if you want to understand libertarianism, try replacing any instance of "government" in their rhetoric by "democracy". Libertarians usually understand that they need private property to be enforced: they need the police, they need a justice and prison system, they need a military, etc... They just don't want these institutions to be democratic or answerable to the people in any way: they want them to be privately controlled by an oligarchy of capitalist supermen (which they fantasize themselves to become members of). Another point is the idea of the "free market" as a place where "equality of opportunity" rewards those who deserve it. When you look into this it basically becomes a social-darwinist roundabout way of justifying things like institutional racism and sexism. Women/non-whites get paid less than white men? The unbiased free market has proven their inherent and natural inferiority: they deserve to starve unless they let themselves be enslaved by us white dude captains of industry. Obsession with "Meritocracy" is almost always an obsession with justifying the status quo or creating just-so stories for why the ruling class deserves to enslave everyone else (appointed by god himself, chosen by the invisible hand of the market, genetic Aryan superiority, etc...) Libertarians, just like monarchists or fascists, basically hate any form of democracy or popular rule. They are authoritarians who believe that the mighty deserve to rule over the rest. (I would personally add most liberals to that list, who worship a fetishized ideal of democracy but are often deathly afraid of any real manifestation of it.) Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 16:42 on Mar 3, 2014 |
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Mar 3, 2014 16:35
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Well there is that China Miéville article is which is says that Libertarianism is an ideology that while useful for the ruling class is very much a product for the middle class who has peeked add gat as success goes and so the blame shifts a potential critique of the system to blaming the government. I would think a very similar situation to fascism and is relation to the conservative elietes. Though fascism was much more noxious and couldn't be contained like libertarianism, though with all the Tea Party groups that went rogue from the Republican party maybe it's not as controllable as thought.
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Mar 3, 2014 17:04
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Bob le Moche posted:Libertarians, just like monarchists or fascists, basically hate any form of democracy or popular rule. They are authoritarians who believe that the mighty deserve to rule over the rest. (I would personally add most liberals to that list, who worship a fetishized ideal of democracy but are often deathly afraid of any real manifestation of it.) "Real" democracies (that is, populism) frequently see the majority trampling upon the rights and needs of a minority. As a minority myself, I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that we should prostate ourselves before the altar of populism. If not for minority rights being protected at the cost of "real" democracy I would be uneducated and doing the lowest of manual labor. Does your analysis of libertarianism re: fascism take this in account? I'm having difficulty seeing where leaving situations up to majority-rule benefits disadvantaged or numerically minority groups. Isn't much of fascism specifically predicated upon appealing to populist sentiments? Wouldn't a democratic approach still allow room for fascist elements to rise up? I'm slightly fuzzy on my WWII era history but both Hitler and Mussolini were democratically elected, right?
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Mar 4, 2014 03:16
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duck monster posted:Sort of on-topic, but off topic. I just found this quote! Yeah the guy really was a person who only supported liberty when it suited him. When it came to his opponents though he openly called for violence against them. Really he puts to rest in my mind any argument that libertarianism isn't just as totalitarian as communism. Also the man was a huge fan of imperialism, really there is a fine line between fascism and libertarianism and I would say its that the fascists are more honest that they are willing to hurt, and murder people to maintain a status quo. A sociopath posted:
Crowsbeak fucked around with this message at 03:49 on Mar 4, 2014 |
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Mar 4, 2014 03:29
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Brannock posted:Does your analysis of libertarianism re: fascism take this in account? I'm having difficulty seeing where leaving situations up to majority-rule benefits disadvantaged or numerically minority groups. Isn't much of fascism specifically predicated upon appealing to populist sentiments? Wouldn't a democratic approach still allow room for fascist elements to rise up? I'm slightly fuzzy on my WWII era history but both Hitler and Mussolini were democratically elected, right? Yes, though their concentration of power (in Hitler's case) came from emergency powers that were over time strongarmed into law and the new status quo. See the Enabling Act. Being worried about "real" democracies is less of a concern in the representative-democracy system, where theoretically the representatives are able to ignore the dumb mob poo poo that would otherwise get support in plain democracies. Of course, this often doesn't go as planned, which is why most modern-day democratic states also explicitly make provisions to protect minorities. I think Bob le Moche's comment on liberals worshipping democracy is related to the sacred and immutable nature ascribed to democracy which is generally just empty sentiment. The GOP in America (and closer to home, the Liberal Party in my native Australia) would both trumpet the merits of democracy, but I'm sure if you gave them the chance their "democracy" would just be voting on who from their party gets to lead the one-party state. Granted, that's a belief that often overlaps to center or some left parties, but the "born to rule" nature that often accompanies the right-leaning elite seems to make them particularly susceptible.
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Mar 4, 2014 03:34
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Brannock posted:"Real" democracies (that is, populism) frequently see the majority trampling upon the rights and needs of a minority. As a minority myself, I'm very uncomfortable with the idea that we should prostate ourselves before the altar of populism. If not for minority rights being protected at the cost of "real" democracy I would be uneducated and doing the lowest of manual labor.
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Mar 4, 2014 04:10
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Yeah that's a good point, but by "democracy" in this sense I mean something that goes much further than our modern conception of parliamentary liberal democracy by majority rule (which is exactly what I criticize as being undemocratic). What I'm trying to get at is the idea of the common people actually having control over their lives and the power to shape their own future. "Minority Rights" as in gay marriage for example, though important, are merely a concession by the ruling class to minorities rather than any real empowerment. Minority rights are not self-determination, they do not change the fundamental structures of power which remain thoroughly undemocratic and keep the underprivileged minorities in a position where such rights need to be "granted" to them. Hate against minorities, historically, has always been an instrument of control by the ruling class, "The invention of the white race" is a well-known book about the subject but many historians and cultural critics have written on this. One analysis of fascism is that it is precisely what happens in times of extreme crisis in a liberal democracy with inequalities of power (ie capitalist control of the economy). It is the eventual final end-point of the long series of efforts by the super-privileged ruling class to protect themselves against the potential threat of the electoral process being used to weaken their hold on power. The "divide and conquer" method of fostering hate and scapegoating is the tried and true way of diverting popular discontent by pitting the people against one another, distracting them from the real cause of crisis (exploitation by the ruling class). See the recent rise of anti-Muslim hate in the west, anti-LGBTQ hate in Russia, etc... After WW1 there was a strong left-wing, egalitarian, internationalist, and pacifist movement in Germany (in fact it can be argued that this is why Germany had to leave the war. It is certainly why Russia did.) The various efforts by the established power structure in Germany to silence, counter, and distract from that movement is what eventually led to the Nazis taking over.
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Mar 4, 2014 06:27
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rudatron posted:Elitist rule is not more likely to protect minorities than popular rule, history has shown that. The liberal hatred of 'mob rule' basically comes down to dis-empowering the poor at every opportunity. Sometimes it is. There's no shortage of examples where minorities enjoyed greater security under openly authoritarian regimes than under the ostensibly more democratic and egalitarian regimes that replaced them. Sometimes an authoritarian police state can actually benefit minorities by it's ability and willingness to ignore and suppress the prejudices of the majority. And there are of course plenty of recent examples where the collapse of authoritarian regimes led to brutal, large-scale persecution of local minorities. Bob le Moche posted:Yeah that's a good point, but by "democracy" in this sense I mean something that goes much further than our modern conception of parliamentary liberal democracy by majority rule (which is exactly what I criticize as being undemocratic). What I'm trying to get at is the idea of the common people actually having control over their lives and the power to shape their own future. "Minority Rights" as in gay marriage for example, though important, are merely a concession by the ruling class to minorities rather than any real empowerment. Minority rights are not self-determination, they do not change the fundamental structures of power which remain thoroughly undemocratic and keep the underprivileged minorities in a position where such rights need to be "granted" to them. There are also examples where minority rights have been implemented and enforced by elitist governments (both democratic and authoritarian) in the face of popular recalcitrance and resistance. I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think you're oversimplifying things. quote:Hate against minorities, historically, has always been an instrument of control by the ruling class, "The invention of the white race" is a well-known book about the subject but many historians and cultural critics have written on this. One analysis of fascism is that it is precisely what happens in times of extreme crisis in a liberal democracy with inequalities of power (ie capitalist control of the economy). It is the eventual final end-point of the long series of efforts by the super-privileged ruling class to protect themselves against the potential threat of the electoral process being used to weaken their hold on power. That is a rather simplistic analysis of fascism. For one thing, it does very little to explain why fascists are far more successful in some countries than others (except through comparing the severity of the crises, I suppose). If the "degree" of capitalist control of the economy is used as a predictor, then it's very difficult to explain why fascists have generally been more successful in countries where capitalism is less developed and entrenched (there are of course exceptions). The same goes for the "degree of liberalism". And describing fascism as an "effort" by the super-privileged is an exaggeration, if not erroneous. It's true that the elites in certain countries were willing to endorse and collaborate with fascist movements, sometimes quite enthusiastically, but they didn't create them.
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Mar 4, 2014 22:00
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Sakarja posted:Sometimes it is. There's no shortage of examples where minorities enjoyed greater security under openly authoritarian regimes than under the ostensibly more democratic and egalitarian regimes that replaced them. Sometimes an authoritarian police state can actually benefit minorities by it's ability and willingness to ignore and suppress the prejudices of the majority. And there are of course plenty of recent examples where the collapse of authoritarian regimes led to brutal, large-scale persecution of local minorities. I mean Syria is probably the best example of that at the moment, where there is a very real chance that all of the non-Sunnis will die if Assad falls.
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Mar 4, 2014 23:00
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Ardennes posted:Zohar, personally, I don't know what I am worried about more, the fact that Jobbik is seeing a rebound in the polls or the fact that Fidesz is still doing quite strong and with certainly will have a strong majority. The latest poll you were talking about still had 49% of Fidesz and based on the constitutional changes they have already made, they are going to have no problem holding on to their majority. They may have slightly less of a percentage of the vote than they had in 2010 but with the electoral system the way it is, they very well may be make further constitutional changes. There's certainly not much difference between them nowadays, here's the conclusion of an opinion piece published today in the leading right-wing newspaper, which is generally understood to be a Fidesz mouthpiece (my translation): quote:Those responsible have still not realised that it is not just they, the deliverers of this ideology, who have failed, but the ideology itself. The Hungarian government, with the leadership of Viktor Orbán and the use of its two-thirds majority, has broken the nightmarish tyranny of the left-liberals, deceptively called 'democracy' by the globalists. The point of the piece is to justify restrictions on press freedom on the basis that the 'lackey left-liberal media' is creating an 'orgy of hate' and spreading anti-Hungarian propaganda in foreign media.
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Mar 5, 2014 00:26
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Sakarja posted:That is a rather simplistic analysis of fascism. For one thing, it does very little to explain why fascists are far more successful in some countries than others (except through comparing the severity of the crises, I suppose). If the "degree" of capitalist control of the economy is used as a predictor, then it's very difficult to explain why fascists have generally been more successful in countries where capitalism is less developed and entrenched (there are of course exceptions). The same goes for the "degree of liberalism". Well there certainly isn't a consensus about the mechanisms of how fascism comes to be, and a lot of ink has been spilled over this debate. This is the only explanation that really makes sense to me, though, and if anything it is at least an improvement over the naive views of "German cultural values" and "charismatic leader mind-controls everyone via hypnotic speeches". I would say that the severity of the crises is certainly a factor in whether things ever get that far, but I think there's also a lot of subjectivity about what gets labeled as fascist and what doesn't. For some reason or another this is a label that we tend to reserve for European countries, even though I would argue that historical events in some Asian countries for example could be understood through a similar light. Maybe one other reason fascism happens in some places and not others is that unlike Italy or inter-war Germany, most nations in the world tend to be integrated into a more traditional imperialist system. Most countries are either subjugated colonies which are denied self-determination and where nationalism tends to be liberation-oriented, or they form the "core" of the empire where stability is made possible through imperialist exploitation of other nations: everything that we consume, what makes possible our way of living, is produced under slavery-like conditions by people who are not citizens and do not possess the same rights as we do, and under crisis we will side with the ruling class in protecting this imperialist system. This allows liberal "democracy" to continue to exist for the ones lucky enough to be citizens without ever becoming a threat to the power elite. Sakarja posted:And describing fascism as an "effort" by the super-privileged is an exaggeration, if not erroneous. It's true that the elites in certain countries were willing to endorse and collaborate with fascist movements, sometimes quite enthusiastically, but they didn't create them. Ah I do not intend at all to make the argument that fascism is the desired end goal of a ruling class conspiracy or anything like that. It's much more banal: just the outcome that eventually results from a series of short-term efforts, such as efforts over time to oppose any real labour or egalitarian movement that could threaten existing power structures, and efforts to undermine democratic institutions and assert control over state policies, to centralize ownership, to deal with the crime problem by militarising the police in order to avoid addressing inequality, etc... We've been seeing a lot of this kind of thing in Western countries lately with the whole "austerity" business, and it's not too far-fetched to connect that to the rise of fascism. Bob le Moche fucked around with this message at 00:50 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Mar 5, 2014 00:46
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computer parts posted:I mean Syria is probably the best example of that at the moment, where there is a very real chance that all of the non-Sunnis will die if Assad falls. That is less because of any inherent quality of the Assad regime and more because of Assad actively turning the country into the bloodiest region on earth.
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Mar 5, 2014 04:24
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Bob le Moche posted:Maybe one other reason fascism happens in some places and not others is that unlike Italy or inter-war Germany, most nations in the world tend to be integrated into a more traditional imperialist system. Liberalism was new to Germany and Italy, while at the same time, these were two countries that had claims of being the "losers" of World War 1. This was worsened by liberal policies of deregulation, again in Italy, which in the immediate post-war period exacerbated the economic crisis that had befallen the country. This sense of a national crisis, combined with economic crisis, combined with weak and failing liberalism, and combined with the anomie unleashed by modernity and technology was a soup in which fascism thrived. Fascism didn't just promise a declarative answer to the various crises, but it provided a sense of meaning for people who felt adrift in the sea of existential ennui that befell modern societies in the 20th century. On the other hand, within the older liberal political systems like the U.K., France and the U.S., there was less oxygen for these movements. It's hard to imagine a fascist leader coming to power in the U.S. today even with the most severe austerity because liberalism is so entrenched. There's judicial and administrative processes going back 200 years. It's hard to imagine landowners recruiting black-shirted squadristi to run off bands of communist rebels. The other thing that fascism did (and that liberalism in Germany and Italy failed to do) was use all the resources of modern mass politics to its advantage. Hitler and Mussolini were excellent propagandists and were quite innovative. Obama's election campaigns, with billion-dollar budgets and speeches inside huge football stadiums, is a kind of political theatre a fascist leader could only dream about, but here it's being deployed in the service of American liberalism and it's hard to imagine any rival revolutionary movements amounting to anything against it. Today, the greatest fascist danger would arguably be in Russia and Eastern Europe. I'm not sure how serious the economic crisis is, but there is national crisis (as seen in Russia) and failed liberalism. However, at least for now, instead of fascism we've seen the emergence of a softer form of authoritarian populism represented by Putin.
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Mar 5, 2014 05:06
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I'd add one more thing: Just because it's a danger in Russia and Eastern Europe doesn't mean it's inevitable. Why didn't Spain go fascist? It had all the ingredients including a sense of national humiliation wrought by the final collapse of empire in 1898. But you had a military junta instead of the fascist Falange. Russia in the 1990s-2000s was (/is) a wonderful environment for fascism. But we've seen the establishment of a dictatorship of the FSB, not Alexander Dugin or Eduard Limonov or whoever. So even when you have all the ingredients doesn't mean fascism will be successful.
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Mar 5, 2014 05:18
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 goons: What do the FN think about the French Revolution? Since they're on the part of the political spectrum named for guys against the Revolution, but at the same time they're French nationalists (dur) and I imagine the Revolution is kind of a thing amongst those types.
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Mar 5, 2014 05:40
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Omi-Polari posted:Why didn't Spain go fascist? It had all the ingredients including a sense of national humiliation wrought by the final collapse of empire in 1898. But you had a military junta instead of the fascist Falange. In short? For all we may rightly fault the man, Franco always knew the way the wind was blowing, and as a classic conservative nationalist saw early on that while it was occasionally useful to hitch his cart to the fascist horse, he knew not to let that horse get the bit between its teeth. This is of course a very perfunctory explanation of the exceedingly complicated political situation in the 2nd Spanish Republic.
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Mar 5, 2014 05:51
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Omi-Polari posted:I'd add one more thing: Just because it's a danger in Russia and Eastern Europe doesn't mean it's inevitable. Why didn't Spain go fascist? It had all the ingredients including a sense of national humiliation wrought by the final collapse of empire in 1898. But you had a military junta instead of the fascist Falange. It doesn't mean it has to be successful, but certainly there is a trajectory to Russian society that is leading to a more and more robust far-right and strong nationalist feelings in the general population. It isn't necessarily a linear track, but most likely the result of progressively authoritarian governments to arrest at least the "feeling of decline." In Russia, Putin took power because for a while he seem to at least slow the decline of Russia, he won the 2nd Chechen War and increased prices for energy swelled the economy, at least on paper. In relative terms, at least compared to the 90s, he seemed to have fixed things. However, his regime did in fact little to actually repair what was going wrong with Russia and economically depended on a bubble that absolutely was going to pop. Now, there is obviously trying both peaceful (Sochi) and non-so peaceful (Crimea) measures to shore up support but ultimately the results will likely make things even worse. So where does Russia go from here? It could very well be that there is a return of relative democracy (comparable to the Spanish second republic?) then the rise of the far-right? However, I think both Russian and Ukrainian society in the term/medium term will become even more radical than before. In Ukraine, there is the (slim) hope that eventually the West will rescue it, in Russia who knows.
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Mar 5, 2014 05:57
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Ardennes posted:It doesn't mean it has to be successful, but certainly there is a trajectory to Russian society that is leading to a more and more robust far-right and strong nationalist feelings in the general population. It isn't necessarily a linear track, but most likely the result of progressively authoritarian governments to arrest at least the "feeling of decline." In Russia, Putin took power because for a while he seem to at least slow the decline of Russia, he won the 2nd Chechen War and increased prices for energy swelled the economy, at least on paper. In relative terms, at least compared to the 90s, he seemed to have fixed things. It should also be noted that most people don't realize how incredibly hosed up the 90s were in Russia. We're literally talking a situation that's pretty close to a full collapse of civil society as we know it here. Thus it isn't surprising in any way that there's a strong sentiment of revanchism in Russia today.
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Mar 5, 2014 11:02
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Cerebral Bore posted:It should also be noted that most people don't realize how incredibly hosed up the 90s were in Russia. We're literally talking a situation that's pretty close to a full collapse of civil society as we know it here. Hey but at least you got Pizza Hut! http://youtu.be/fgm14D1jHUw Most people where I am don't realize what you're saying because it completely contradicts the dominant narrative of the West exporting freedom and the free market saving the Russian people from the communist bread lines.
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Mar 5, 2014 14:45
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Bob le Moche posted:Well there certainly isn't a consensus about the mechanisms of how fascism comes to be, and a lot of ink has been spilled over this debate. This is the only explanation that really makes sense to me, though, and if anything it is at least an improvement over the naive views of "German cultural values" and "charismatic leader mind-controls everyone via hypnotic speeches". The problem is that it doesn't really explain very much. Only in an extreme minority of cases have capitalist crises actually been accompanied by the rise of significant fascist movements. And those have mostly occurred in the periphery of Europe, not in the most advanced capitalist economies. So while it's definitely a factor, I think would be a mistake to use it as the basis of an explanation of fascism. But I agree that there's a lot of subjectivity involved with the use of fascism as a label. It can be difficult to separate fascism from other forms of Right-wing authoritarianism, and there's no obvious set of criteria that everyone agrees upon. Another problem is that fascism is a very popular smear, which confuses the issue to a great extent. quote:Maybe one other reason fascism happens in some places and not others is that unlike Italy or inter-war Germany, most nations in the world tend to be integrated into a more traditional imperialist system. Most countries are either subjugated colonies which are denied self-determination and where nationalism tends to be liberation-oriented, or they form the "core" of the empire where stability is made possible through imperialist exploitation of other nations: everything that we consume, what makes possible our way of living, is produced under slavery-like conditions by people who are not citizens and do not possess the same rights as we do, and under crisis we will side with the ruling class in protecting this imperialist system. This allows liberal "democracy" to continue to exist for the ones lucky enough to be citizens without ever becoming a threat to the power elite. Sure, historically some of the countries where the fascists were most succesful were either latecomers to the imperialist game, stripped of their empires after WWI or both. quote:Ah I do not intend at all to make the argument that fascism is the desired end goal of a ruling class conspiracy or anything like that. It's much more banal: just the outcome that eventually results from a series of short-term efforts, such as efforts over time to oppose any real labour or egalitarian movement that could threaten existing power structures, and efforts to undermine democratic institutions and assert control over state policies, to centralize ownership, to deal with the crime problem by militarising the police in order to avoid addressing inequality, etc... We've been seeing a lot of this kind of thing in Western countries lately with the whole "austerity" business, and it's not too far-fetched to connect that to the rise of fascism. Ok, then I misunderstood you.
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Mar 5, 2014 16:02
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Sakarja posted:But I agree that there's a lot of subjectivity involved with the use of fascism as a label. It can be difficult to separate fascism from other forms of Right-wing authoritarianism, and there's no obvious set of criteria that everyone agrees upon.
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Mar 5, 2014 18:48
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Omi-Polari posted:It might be arbitrary but I'd argue fascism is totalitarian while other forms of right-wing authoritarianism are not. Right-wing authoritarians don't mess with the social and economic structure too much. They leave people in poverty and leave wealth in the hands of the few. They put traditional gods on a pedestal. And most importantly, they don't interfere with people's daily work-family lives too much. If you keep your head down, don't get involved with politics, and just go about as normal, the state won't mess with you. Your life is miserable, but it's always been miserable, so you're accustomed to it. People don't flee these countries in huge numbers. Where fascism has revolutionary ambitions and aims for the total transformation of society. It's inexact, but if Russia was fascist you'd expect Nashi to be mandatory for all youths between ages 17-25. National socialism certainly does have that ambition though.
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Mar 5, 2014 19:09
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Typo posted:I'm not even sure if Fascism wanted a total transformation of society, I don't recall (and correct me if I'm wrong) Fascist Italy having a large number of refugees until the war went badly.
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Mar 5, 2014 19:18
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Perhaps the fact that the Italian state never managed to subdue the mafia had something to do with that? As long as the state isn't the sole authority, ideas of using it to fundamentally transform society might not take root in the same way.
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Mar 5, 2014 19:24
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Typo posted:I'm not even sure if Fascism wanted a total transformation of society, I don't recall (and correct me if I'm wrong) Fascist Italy having a large number of refugees until the war went badly.
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Mar 5, 2014 19:25
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Omi-Polari posted:I'd argue fascist Italy had that ambition, but was never able to implement it on the scale of the Nazis. The Catholic Church, in particular, remained a powerful institution with a lot of influence over rural life.
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Mar 5, 2014 19:27
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Typo posted:This is interesting, I was under the impression that Mussolini was particularly effective at suppressing the mafia.
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Mar 5, 2014 19:36
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Typo posted:That is very true, did Mussolini ever try to move against the Church in the same way the Nazis did? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/02/05/how-the-catholic-church-got-in-bed-with-mussolini.html There's also a joke I heard about fascist Italy. Mussolini sends a political officer to a sardine cannery that's being corporatized to check the political loyalties of the workers. The officer shows up and meets with the manager. The officer asks him: "What are the political loyalties of your workers?" The manager answers: "Well, about 1/3 of them are communists, 1/3 of them are socialists, and 1/3 are members of various minor parties." The fascist officer is shocked. "What!? Are none of them fascists!?" The manager replies: "Yes, comandante. All of them." Fascist propaganda just hadn't taken. People still retained their earlier loyalties while professing surface allegiance. There's also that purported statement from Stalin: How many divisions does the Pope have? The answer is, well, more than you think. Mussolini's ambition was still to create a new Roman Empire with programmatic, totalitarian control over everyday life. It just wasn't able to overcome these institutions (namely the old Roman Empire, ho ho). Where Franco, for instance, never had that ambition. A larger point I'd make, also, is that I'm wary of Marxist-influenced theories of fascism because I'm not sure you can easily predict what will happen, or that fascism is the inevitable result of some specific economic circumstances. I might be mischaracterizing the argument but that's long been central to several Marxist theories on this. I think it's necessary to include those circumstances in your analysis, but even in Italy you see fascism take power but actually get hobbled quite a bit, and the result was a sort of half-assed fascism. The far right is a powerful force in Russia, but there's nothing that proves that Russia will inevitably turn into a fascist regime. Or people now saying Putin=Hitler (not Marxists, in this case). It's really a case of history blinding people as much as it reveals and treating events a priori without engaging with what's happening now. BrutalistMcDonalds fucked around with this message at 20:06 on Mar 5, 2014 |
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Mar 5, 2014 19:51
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The Marxist theory of fascism is that it's basically the ultimate idealistic politic. At a time of crisis in capitalism, when everything's in flux and there is going to be a radical change some way or the other, fascism is the panic button that capitalist society uses to save a measure of itself. Further, fascism arises from the social structure enforced by capitalism, with notions like nationality, ethnicity, to a certain degree religion being taken to their logical conclusion; under normal operation it's another pressure valve for dissent, basically. There's little hard determinism in Marxist ideology, which is a point I get the impression that a lot of people miss. There's a lot of "soft" deterministic attitudes (e.g. most or all social phenomena can be reduced, in the end, to material phenomena and put in a schematic framework), but there's nothing inevitable about fascist takeovers, just like there's nothing inevitable about any given revolution. I guess you could say that the realisation of fascism or something like it (i.e. totalitarian idealistic corporatism) was inevitable given capitalism. Marxism claims that capitalism produces first the conditions for fascism to exist, and that fascism will then seize various crises to try to seize power. The only controversial bit of that should be that fascism is an inherently capitalist problem, which I'm not necessarily sold on myself.
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Mar 5, 2014 21:01
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