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Russia is a country that has been 'weimar'ed,' liberal democracy and capitalism failed it and what has resulted is the all too predictable aftermath. It is just a bit ahead of the curve. Granted, the actual instigators may be closer to home. Larry Summers did it. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 06:44 on Aug 10, 2013 |
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Aug 10, 2013 06:37
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As another poster said, I think it is much more likely the situation will be some type of "fascism-lite" sort of like Hungary is and certain ways Russia. In Spain and Italy it might be more accurate to say the fascists never really left considering how deeply reactionary the right is there and how they are currently dismantling the country piece by piece. Hungary isn't that different (and they were fascist). It is going to be probably get a lot more ugly, but it will probably involve right-conservatives, fascists and business interests working together to crush any open dissent.
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Aug 10, 2013 09:21
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OwlBot 2000 posted:I agree with ReV VAdAUL about the causes, but I think it's time for left-wing groups to get over the "counterculture" image. It's just not appealing to anyone, and while bad clothes, long hair, poor fitness and sporadic showering might have been radical in the 1960s, it's just harmful now. Look like competent, attractive people who have it together, and you'll have an easier time recruiting the same. From experience most people at protests I have seen just wear normal clothing they have from work. Do you think leftists groups need to buy a bunch of suits to get credibility? To be honest, when I hear complaining about dress, it is usually from left of center liberals who really aren't devoted to much in the first place. Recruiting attractive, well dressed people isn't the point, and trying "to win over" the public with some thin displays isn't going to work. Anyway during Occupy most of the "long hairs" are just there to have a good time or are just homeless literally had no where to go.
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Aug 10, 2013 10:13
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Pesmerga posted:This kind of bullshit, particularly the 'sporadic showering' stuff is just a right-wing talking point dressed up in slightly different language, like 'dirty, unwashed hippy/lefty'. If you want to talk about the power of symbols, organised groups of men with identical uniforms and things, that's one thing, but I sincerely doubt that people are really going 'oh, I must join Golden Dawn, they have such wonderful hygiene!' I don't know if Marxists in clean uniforms would play up too much on the local news either. Anyway you need some type of organization and purpose before you start dressing everyone up in a uniform.
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Aug 10, 2013 10:32
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Pesmerga posted:Oh, I wasn't suggesting that the left needed to get some swanky new threads. It was more that if we were discussing what attracts people (rather than media attention) to political movements, I can accept that symbols of power and unity do play a part, particularly to those who consider themselves disenfranchised and seeking a sense of identity. While laughing at the suggestion that the left has a unique and movement-crushing issue with personal hygiene. Yeah, I have to really question about the hygiene stuff as well, why does it need to be a priority at all? I guess it is just some culturally American thing to think all leftists=hippies, and hippies=dirty and people don't like dirty hippies. I wonder if it is sort of a result of Obama's style of conservative liberalism, that American progressivism has turned so far right, the emphasis is more on presenting a crisp attractive image than any actual substance. Well those symbols only got co-opted after they lost their power, the Soviet-chic stuff was a very 90s into the 2000s thing. New symbols aren't that hard to find. As far as unity, there will always be more disagreement about changing anything than keeping it the same.
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Aug 10, 2013 10:51
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ReV VAdAUL posted:I will say the EDL's utter lack of hygiene and composure is probably a factor in them not being more popular. The BNP when it managed to conceal it's awfulness behind suits and pretence at being a genuine political party did rather better at garnering support. UKIP lead by a posh man at least for a while did even better than that. I think the UKIP a great example of how racism and xenophobia being incorporated into "normal" politics only serves to poison a democracy even further and does more to further a slide to even more. The BNP/EDL are still fringe groups, just the UKIP is a more cleaned up version of it. That said, what works for the UKIP would be disastrous for actual leftists, who don't necessarily want to embrace the status quo (or a reversion from it). Basically if you want to recruit a bunch of racist middle class people, a posh dude in a suit works great. Back on point, national politics moving socially and economically further right will obviously only embolden the far-right as it has in Russia/Hungary. The neo-nazis didn't disappear when Putin started bashing gays or life got more economically difficult.
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Aug 10, 2013 11:16
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There is a fair point that Western Germany is an economic bubble supplied by their advantages in the Europe zone, basically the Western Germans have exported their fascism to the south and east. In addition, an argument can be made, East Germany is still "strange" because transfer payments never fully made up for the collapse of the East German social system.
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Aug 10, 2013 16:38
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Kurtofan posted:Politically they don't get much representation nationally thanks to the parliamentary system being a two round system per seats, but they are gaining influence and their rhetoric is depressingly common. A poll from May had Le Pen leading Hollande by 4% (latest on wikipedia), 24% of the country is substantial even if they haven't turned that support into seats because of France's voting system. Yeah, there really isn't anywhere in Europe that hasn't been hit by it, even Norway is starting to move in that direction.
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Aug 10, 2013 20:03
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Orange Devil posted:The fascists might be the ones pulling the trigger, but it was always the liberals who gave them the gun in the first place. Look at Germany in 1918 and again in 1933. Italy in 1922. Look at how the Republican side in Spain was split into a liberal faction still hand-wringing and trying to come to some kind of understanding while the anarchists and communists were already fighting for dear life. Granted, the Communists then stabbed the Anarchists in the back...although this was largely to benefit an alliance errr popular front with liberals. Basically, liberalism is toxic in the long term and will eventually facilitate the rise of strong-men. My theory is that 1945 to the 1989 was a lull largely created by the necessity of reform due to the Cold War and the aftermath of WW2. Basically, at that point, we picked up where the 1930s had left off.
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Aug 11, 2013 02:31
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Fojar38 posted:I'm not really that worried about Russia going fascist and starting World War 3. The Russian oligarchy has no interest in that kind of destabilizing effect and if it looked like fascist elements were becoming a threat they'd have no problem using the army to brutally crush them. Isn't that the issue, that the Russian government is already closer to fascism than the majority of the world? Gays in Russia aren't hunted down and killed by the government, but are deprived of freedom of speech and assembly. Fascists are winning, not with street marches but by being an appealing source of support for a rapidly growing unpopular government. That said, I don't think a fascist government or as others called it "para-fascist" government would go to war in this day in age, at least in the traditionalist sense. They would just fund a proxy war. Basically, ww2 can't happen because of nukes, but there can be plenty of Spanish Civil Wars. Nazis and fascists are seen as a threat to public order, but sadly their ideas are not.
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Aug 11, 2013 07:19
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To be perfectly honest, I would be Jobbik along with the Golden Dawn in that scenario. They just happen to support a specific variant of Hungarian fascism.
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Aug 11, 2013 08:12
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Antifa is basically a last ditch option when capitalism and liberal democracy has failed. Basically, Russia/Greece/Hungary are once-developed or socialized countries where that has already happened. I believe you can easily say those countries are at the point where either you fight them or you surrender because a return to "normalcy" isn't going to happen. The middle class in those countries has already collapsed or is well on the road to collapsing, there is no need to appeal to "comfortable people at home." One issue is the soft assertion that this may not happened in Western Europe and North America, and to be honest I don't buy it. The Tea Party or the UKIP even the FN are not at quite that level yet, but is a matter of time and eventually the right edge will become harder. (Also, Neo-confederates can easily be rolled as precursors to more open fascism.) Basically the answer to the question: it's a simple waiting game.
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Aug 12, 2013 04:18
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Fojar38 posted:Yes, who could forget about that bastion of capitalistic liberal democracy that is Russia in the 20th century. You forgot the 1990s my friend.
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Aug 12, 2013 04:54
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Omi-Polari posted:I hear you. What I'm saying is: neo-Confederates and their ilk would be more dangerous in a society that tolerated organized and extra-legal paramilitary violence. That is the thing, a liberal society is not sustainable under capitalism, eventually it will eat itself and fascists will be the rather inevitable result. So while under a reformed capitalist system (social democracy/fdr-style fordism) violence will be minimized, once reformism breaks down, violence will arise. Every bit of austerity moves the doomsday clock a little more in that direction. Read inbetween the lines in the news, and you can see how the "necessary reforms" in Europe and North America only push their populations closer to that line.
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Aug 12, 2013 05:34
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quote:Maybe so. But I think a society can weather such a crisis if, as Griffin puts it: "the sense of nationhood was in the main highly stable, if nationalistic aspirations were generally sated, if the legitimacy of existing constitutional arrangements was widely taken forgranted, [and] if liberal taboos against violence or radical change were well entrenched." I would counter they are all meaningless in the face of economics. The West, as long as it stays on its course, it will see those taboos inevitably erode.
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Aug 12, 2013 05:52
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The fact that clowns like the LDPR still get a considerable percentage of the vote isn't a good sign. Granted, nationalism is sort of expected in a country like Russia all things considered.
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Aug 12, 2013 19:14
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Well generally that happens when democracy has failed, there are parties but people feel like they are just "dumping" their vote into whatever party seems marginally more to their interests (usually at a shallow level). That said, before you say this is totally unlike the West, I can't say I am too jazzed about future American elections.
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Aug 12, 2013 20:13
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Basically, Fascism's solution to turmoil is a return to an artificial period of cultural greatness without major changes to pre-existing power structures. It is revolutionary in only the sense it does want to change society culturally but only to limited extent since it is bound attachment to past norms. Women are usually portrayed as perfect wives and mothers, reinforcing norms that already existed in order to establish a previous era of "greatness." There was a left strain of Nazism at one time, but it was purged very quickly after Strasser was expelled in 1930. The Nazis left the capitalism structure almost entirely untouched into the last years of the war when they had no choice to nationalized critical industries or face even quicker defeat. Mussolini had a similar relationship with Italian industry, as did Franco.
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Aug 15, 2013 07:07
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LP97S posted:The level of Nazi control over industries during World War Two was absolutely pathetic. When Albert Speer was appointed Minister of Armaments and War Production in early 1942, he was shocked to discover that major armament plants were only working one shift, when compared to the round the clock shifts for industry of nearly every other country involved in the war. In a way it makes sense, because the traditional emphasis of right-wing ideology is on culture versus the left-wing emphasis on economics. Hitler revolution was a cultural counter-revolution against what he saw was the decadence and the chaos of the the Weimar period. Economic change was either accidental or heavily resisted until they had no other choice. I see Franco fitting in a very similar framework (looking at how Spanish society was restructured after the civil war) even if it gained power by virtue of being a military leader not a politician. I don't see any neo-fascist/neo-nazi parties changing economic structures in any meaningful sense either even if they despise the EU.
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Aug 15, 2013 08:06
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OwlBot 2000 posted:So how true are the fears of John "Gimli" Rhys Davies, the EDL and their compatriots that "white" Europeans will be a minority within the next century, and/or extinct within the next few centuries? There is no escape from Eurabia. The birthrate of most immigrant population closes to that of the rest of the popular fairly quickly within a generation or two. In addition, the proportion between visible minorities and "whites" in Europe is still very small. Basically, Europe is dealing with an issue that America has been grappling with since its founding (and its still here). Also, Sliders was one of my favorite bad 1990s scifi shows, so that news made me sad. (Also, Jean Reno is pretty right-wing too, and John Carmack is deep libertarian/conservative FYI.)
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Aug 15, 2013 08:18
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Yeah, modern-day China needs a massive amount of imports, including from the US, Canada and especially Australia. Moreover, their supply lines are easy to blockade and Russia doesn't really care about helping them out at this point. Thats the thing, China at this point needs international trade than the developed world needs it. Basically can't wage a war without collapsing their economy. And no, there is no way for them to "call in all that debt."
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Aug 31, 2013 09:22
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NikkolasKing posted:Can I ask a tangentially-related question? I was just reading the several posts on trying to quantify and qualify what fascism exactly is and it got me thinking about this. Fascism never has had the same firm ideological basis as Marxism and has traditionally been heavily influenced, especially regarding neo-fascism, by national circumstances. Also because Marxism is harder to argue against because of the historical faults of capitalism. Also, Marxism also hasn't survive in a "united public form." Also the historical records at least of Stalinist Russia are relatively open, the disagreement is over estimated numbers that go beyond recorded deaths (like excess deaths).
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Sep 8, 2013 04:16
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A Sloth posted:Where as in this thread I have seen people claim their is no violence inherent in Marxism-Leninism specifically, which is just not true. Marxism-Leninism is not the only form of Marxism or Communism.
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Sep 8, 2013 05:20
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A Sloth posted:But has been a common strain of Communist ideology, gets a free pass and has had people say it is not violent in this thread. Did I say it was the only sort? Also the OP has listed the UK governments anti illegal immigration campaign as fascist which is laughable. Honestly, violence is regularly used to achieve many political objectives, including liberal ones. The issue isn't necessarily the use of violence but the extreme it is used and for what result. In addition, you could say that most capitalist states use the violence or the threat of violence to maintain itself. Stalin and Mao were extreme uses of violence but in the case of Stalin there is at least some argument be made about utility, which frankly doesn't happen in Fascism. Hitler's violence produced very little benefit. Obviously, it is much tough to make that argument about the cultural revolution.
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Sep 8, 2013 05:46
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rudatron posted:Liberals are more than capable of excusing or denying crimes committed by their regimes or allies (Iran-Contra, pinochet, any of the african famines, etc). If you stand there, cross your arms and say "they don't count" then you're denying them - if you talk about how times have changed, then you're just distancing yourself from them! Marxism has an economic base for its reasoning that is based on history, while Fascism has a cultural and an emotional base that is almost always a hisorical. Mussolini's Italy had nothing to do with the Roman Empire, and Hitler's regime has very little to do with the "First and Second Reichs" beyond some monarchist holdouts. History is a means to an end, rather than a part of a body of evidence to support a theory. In addition, there are still frequent academic battles amount of deaths attributed to communism including famine and excess deaths which aren't in other circumstances like British India.
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Sep 8, 2013 07:30
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Fojar38 posted:Yeah, people applying Marxist philosophy to their political systems has resulted in nothing but utopias, right? Ultimately, the faults of capitalism and Fascism are unavoidable, the same can't be said of Marxism. At best, capitalism can be reformed when a strong Marxist world prescience exists.
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Sep 8, 2013 08:26
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Fojar38 posted:How do you know that? Seems like history had demonstrated that communism is heavily predisposed to authoritarian tyranny and its idealism is easily and almost unavoidably perverted to such ends. Democratic Socialist governments like Allende, and even authoritarian Communist governments like Cuba which have been considerable improvements over what they have replace and have higher standards of living than their neighbors. Also "pink tide" countries like Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador to some extent. Also, the most reformist systems of Europe happened to be ones that at least pretended they wanted evolutionary socialism (even if they didn't). You could say USSR outside the Stalinist period was authoritarian but had is own benefits which were preferable to the capitalist option. Basically, Stalin and Mao aren't the end all of all socialism. That said, there aren't examples of unreformed capitalism not only abusing people but eventually leading to its own type of authoritarian. 1890s America could be argued to be considerably authoritarian in nature even if there were free elections for white men. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Sep 8, 2013 |
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Sep 8, 2013 09:10
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-Troika- posted:Your white guilt is your own problem, buddy. The question I was responding to was "why is fascism looked down on so much more than communism" not "why is fascism looked down on so much more than communism and oh by the way how many people does Owlbot 2000 think died of capitalism". Let's not talk about the agricultural trade policy of the British Empire then either.
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Sep 8, 2013 09:15
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Sakarja posted:That's moving the goalposts considerably. You wrote that "Ultimately, the faults of capitalism and Fascism are unavoidable, the same can't be said of Marxism." That's not the same as saying that some socialist governments improved the quality of life in their respective countries, or that they were superior to the regimes they replaced. And besides, it's hard to see on what basis many of the examples you provide could possibly be described as Marxist. The unique fault of capitalism and fascism is the application of violence, that exists really in all states or organized societies to varying degrees (and most of the time it is more severe than many assume it is, especially in liberal societies). It is economic exploration, and by extension sexism and racism (which is purposeful in capitalism). Fascism is an evolution and embrace of the honest faults of capitalism. Marxist societies can have faults but economic exploration is not one of the fundamental ones. And Marxism can't be limited only to Marxist-Leninist/Maoist states even if you don't acknowledge the work of democratic socialist parties in South America. The goalposts of only traditional state socialism really shouldn't be accepted.
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Sep 8, 2013 16:49
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Fojar38 posted:Again, all you need to do is look at history to see that Marxism involves violence as well. It is very common for Marxist ideologues to advocate violence as a means of overthrowing the state, and your argument that somehow prejudice and exploitation would vanish under a Marxist system is laughable; you're arguing that under a Marxist system some very fundamental aspects of the human condition would radically change. This is why many people don't take Marxists seriously. When it comes down to it they tend to promise the sun, moon, and stars via magical means. This is why one of the biggest arguments against Communism is the "looks good on paper" one. Yes, there is violence in Marxist societies, but economic exploration is not an implicit part of the way they are organized compared to capitalist/fascist societies. Once you start talking about more mixed economic states it becomes less clear, but parties that try to honestly address economic exploitation are at least fighting in that direction even if capitalism still goes on. Exploitation wouldn't necessary vanish but the whole point of Marxism unlike capitalism/fascism is to eliminate it rather than tolerate it or encourage it. As far as "only looks good on paper," capitalism and fascism doesn't even past that test to begin with. Sakarja posted:Economic exploitation, sexism and racism all predate capitalism, and are perfectly capable of existing under any political and economic system, including various forms of socialism. And they're not necessarily any less purposeful in other societies. Granted, Marxism has a way of explaining about how that developed. Exploitation did not begin with capitalism, it was part of a history process in which capitalism is a distinct phase. Also, there is clear arguement to be made that capitalism and by extension fascism encourage racism and sexism by their very nature in a way Marxism or other forms of leftism do not by virtue of ensuring immutable exploitation. quote:All societies have faults. The question was if the faults of Marxism are avoidable, unlike those of capitalism or Fascism. Economic exploitation can (and did) exist in Marxist societies. Even if it couldn't there'd still be plenty of other faults to address. And what does “fundamental” signify in this context? Personally, I think there are many routes to a class-less society rather than a strict Marxism-Leninist/Maoist methodology (by your interpretation, the USSR wouldn't be Marxist under Lenin because of the early years of the NEP). In fact there isn't a clear historical line in these examples to say this is when the USSR became a Marxist society or not. Was the USSR only Marxist under Stalin or only after 1927? Also, dismissing hybrid societies is throwing out a lot of history for political sake even if there existed private ownership. What caused these societies to become more successful than unreformed capitalist ones? Sorry, I thought these posts were worth responding to even if it is stuck on the same Marxism topic. Btw, in utopian Fascist society, economic exploitation, sexism and racism would still exist even if you killed off all the undesirables. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 00:20 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 00:15
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Others have already answered this adequately, but I would like to lend my weight as well to the idea that this is one of what I've argued previously in this thread are the many internal contradictions of fascist "thought." I'd go further and extend the idea of endless martial struggle to the neo-Fascist groups, albeit in different language and forms that lend more to street violence and what we'd term domestic terrorism against whatever hated out-group is in their crosshairs at the moment, then to more classic armed struggle by men in uniform. Despite this difference in form, the function remains the same; you see the same sort of "we must preserve the strength of our blood and toughen it up against the weakening effects of decadent/effeminate modernism" sentiments laced with violent implications in modern fascist groups as you do the classical ones, they just have somewhat different avenues for their violent struggles than did their fore-bearers (and some do retain the same, especially with regards to Israel and what they'd very much like to do to it). Granted, a large part of the heterodoxy of Fascist thought is that it is based largely on imagined culture, and is there those particularist. Hungarian neo-fascists have their own native brand of fascism to harken back to, and their own historical and cultural motives for example their own brand of revanchism. There will be of course many similarities with other fascist movements, but it is more difficult to great a ideological basis for certain individual cultural elements of those movements.
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Sep 9, 2013 00:35
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Captain_Maclaine posted:Oh I don't disagree, and furthermore we shouldn't also ignore that fascists tend to be collosal assholes which makes intergroup solidarity that much more unlikely on top of the problem of identity chauvinism. For recent examples of both problems, we need look no further than the clownshow that was the 2012 Alliance for European National Movements conference. The cultural primacy that makes up the better part of Fascism can make cooperation more difficult simply because there can only be some many dominate cultures at one time. Not everyone is can be on top. That isn't to say there aren't divisions between Marxists but that is almost always on a ideological level rather than the natural result of cultural emphasis. quote:Would you care to go deeper...? Two different definitions of reactionary, to react to present society to form a method of improving society or to react to present society by moving to previously established cultural morays and economics. Marxism falls under the first one and fascism under the second one. (Granted, I think the second use if by far the more common more, while the first one seems ad hoc.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 01:08 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 01:02
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Sakarja posted:I take no issue with the claim that Marxism attempts to explain the origins of racism. The problem is statements to the effect that bigotry is the defining characteristic of capitalism, or its sine qua non. And even if we were to agree 100 % that the roots of bigotry are to be found in exclusively in economic exploitation, that is no guarantee that abolishing exploitation (easier said than done) will result in the removal of bigotry from society. It may not, but Marxist and other leftists movements produce a roadmap to attempt it, the same can't be said for capitalism or fascism. While the end of economic exploitation may not end bigotry, it is certain that retaining it will allow bigotry to continue to exist. quote:I agree that there’re many routes, it’s just that only one of them has ever been successful up until now. I wouldn’t have any problem characterizing the early USSR as Marxist, since it was the product of a proletarian revolution and was ruled by the dictatorship of the proletariat (both according to their Leninist definitions). The NEP was simply a tactical retreat in the face of economic disaster. All doctrines have to make concessions to reality of some kind once they go from opposition to authority. The problem with the countries you mentioned is that they fail to meet any of the criteria required for us to call something Marxist, if the word is to have any meaning beyond “welfare reformism and revolutionary rhetoric”. It needs to be said that "economic disaster" of course was at the end of fighting a horrendous civil war, several foreign invasions and being economically and diplomatically frozen out by the West. In addition, while the other societies may not be called truly Marxist, the fact that they are at least attempting to move in that direction is of note and so are the consequences of that direction. quote:As for “Fascist utopia” I’m not at all sure that it’s commonly accepted that Fascist movements strive towards to a utopia in the same way as Marxists do. There is of course no shortage of utopian and apocalyptic themes in Fascism, but there's also this. So while I don’t disagree with you that bigotry and exploitation would still exist in a Fascist “end state”, I’m not exactly sure how we should go about defining the latter. I would take for example what they individually defined as their hopeful end state, as these end states were tied to their political, military and cultural dreams for their nations. Hitler's new order was a fairly detailed outcome that was rather explicit in what it hoped to accomplish in the future. Mussolini had the outlines of his dream as well. Obviously, these absolute certainly wouldn't be a true end states because the nature of fascism is rather produced by political necessity and the desire for an imagined golden age. That said, in the farther dreams of the New Order, economic exploitation/racism/sexist would not only be around but the very definition of daily life. quote:After WWII, although I guess it’s possible to include the popular fronts as an example. I don’t think there’s room for any doubt that Fascism carries far more stigma these days than socialism or communism. At the very least it should be perfectly obvious that socialists are tolerated to a far greater extent than fascists in academia, politics, the media etc. Depends on the circumstances, based on some experience at Georgetown University, supporting socialism, much less communism is completely verboten the point that there is a considerable grey area of which is less acceptable. Maybe not outright Nazism, but lets say grey areas like certain regimes the US has supported in South America. In many fields of American academia have moved significantly to the right, actual Marxists are very very rare nowadays.
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Sep 9, 2013 09:05
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Sakarja posted:Is it really a practicable roadmap though? Isn’t it more accurate to call it the dream that bigotry (along with all other forms of social conflict) will simply disappear once we abolish economic exploitation and the division of labor? And there are plenty of crackpot libertarian and conservative explanations of how government, not capitalism, is responsible for racism. In that sense one could say that there exists capitalist roadmaps to “end racism”, however shallow and intellectually bankrupt they may be. It is a roadmap that at least has some positive results to point to, at least to me that makes it more realistic than the liberal/fascist alternatives. Remember, much of liberal reformism was a response to Marxism in the first place and its disappearance isn't accidental. quote:There’s no reason to get defensive about the performance of the Bolsheviks and War Communism. I was simply making the point that they chose that road out of necessity and that the NEP didn’t “disqualify” them as Marxists. The issue under discussion was if the faults of Marxism can be avoided. The countries you mentioned might well be attempting to move in that direction, but unless they can actually be considered Marxist, they tell us nothing about whether its faults are avoidable or not. The history needs to be laid out before a discussion can take place, there are plenty of different versions of the events of that period. The issue is creating a hard line between the two where only discussion can happen regarding the orthodox state socialism rather than other attempts at democratic socialism (Chile) or even anarchism (such as Catalonia during the Spanish Civil War). I do think states attempting at that path have something to say even if they have only moved so far in that direction. I think the division is arbitrary especially since many leftists wouldn't considering some of those states truly Marxist. It seems that definition really hinges on Marxist-Leninism and influences. Granted, a similar problem could be said of edge cases like Pinochet and to some even Franco/Salazar in regards to Fascism. Even if you don't think Franco's Spain was fascist, you could certainly see the results of elements of his policy and how it fits in the larger scheme of things. quote:I agree, and the point that there’s really no such thing as a Fascist end state was the one I was trying to make. Sure we could look at the empires that they hoped to build, but that’s hardly comparable to the Marxist “end of prehistory”. I don’t think we actually disagree about the faults of Fascism being unavoidable. It is far more of a hodgepodge of ideas than the route of Marxism, but it does show their eventual vision. If anything it shows how limited the future of Fascism is, basically they win and return everything to the way it "should have been" and thats about it. quote:I guess so, but I’d still argue that socialism and communism is tolerated to a far greater extent than Fascism. And regardless of how few Marxists remain in US academia, it still seems perfectly safe to say that there are more of them than there are Fascists. It gets murky when talking about edge cases like Pinochet though, remember the Chicago boys advised him and American academia has only moved to the right then. Honest Fascism is over course not really heard of, but admiration for right-wing authoritarianism is less and less rare as time goes on. Left-wing authoritarians are obviously not as highly regarded or even left-wing non-authoritarians. As far as libertarianism, I think it is more an natural evolution of liberal capitalism than strict Fascism. Fascism is anything a reaction to cosmopolitanism brought by liberalism while libertarianism eventually pushes for the eradication of regulating mechanism to establish a society controlled by "pure market forces," a type of society as the other have pointed out that is beyond the realm of law or even liberal democracy. Ultimately, it leads to a very similar place through a different route. Market totalitarianism? Ardennes fucked around with this message at 10:35 on Sep 9, 2013 |
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Sep 9, 2013 10:29
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Omi-Polari posted:I agree with a lot of this particularly regarding U.S. and allied support for quasi/proto-fascist movements in Latin America and Europe, but you don't want to let communist states entirely off the hook either. North Korea was a Soviet allied state that was and still is outright national socialist (maybe even more so than any state the U.S. and NATO ever armed and equipped) in everything but name and the color of the flag. I'm not sure liberal states ever signed anything as heinous as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. But historically I suppose it was true during the 1920s and during the Cold War. Although to be honest North Korea had been moving off and doing it's own thing for a while. It is telling that most of their military and civilian technology seems centered at best in the 1970s. Also admittedly, China has been supporting them in other ways and it can't really be considered communist since Deng. As far as the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, it was a treaty of non-aggression while at least corporations in capitalist countries had been cooperating with the Nazis for a while and their neutrality during the Spanish Civil War was pretty telling as well. Basically everyone was looking the other way for Hitler. Granted, aggressive authoritarian capitalism could be DIA code for China.
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Sep 9, 2013 11:16
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Sakarja posted:While I agree that this connection obviously existed, I think that Marxist (and leftist radicals in general) make rather too much of it. Yes, to a considerable extent the reformisms of the 19th and 20th centuries were responses of the ruling classes to the pressure of movements invoking Marxism and threatening revolution. But they were also achieved by trade unions and parties that were not associated with Marxism in any way, movements that had no revolutionary ambitions, that worked within the liberal democratic framework and were denounced as revisionists or worse by contemporary Marxists. Even if they didn't have revolutionary ambitions did not mean they weren't Marxist, you're defining Marxism as solely revolutionary Marxism which might be convenient but it isn't true. quote:The thing that sets the orthodox apart is that they actually practiced something recognizable as Marxism. If we are to include Spanish anarchists then we’ve changed the topic. If we include everything from reformism to anarchism then we’re discussing socialism in the most general sense, not Marxism specifically. In that case we need to establish what separates a socialist state from one that is liberal. In short, what is the “socialist minimum”? Or maybe it’d be better to just end this derail here. Thats the thing I think the topic should have a broader approach than to only talk about "pure" Marxism (only revolutionary Marxism) or pure Fascism (I don't agree that Franco wasn't a fascist). If there isn't common agreement about definitions then there isn't much to talk about. My point isn't about how necessarily "pure" Marxist and Fascist states need to be compared but that the routes of Marxism and Fascism need to be compared as ideologies. Also, I think it is important to bring other types of leftism and right-wing authoritarianism that are edge cases. quote:My argument that liberal society is more tolerant towards socialists than Fascists isn’t primarily about authoritarian regimes or their leaders during the Cold War. It’s about individuals and institutions within liberal societies that openly espouse socialist views or advocate socialist revolution. It’s about academics and other writers who attempt to develop socialist doctrine and defend it against criticism; that apply historical materialism and Critical Theory or elements thereof in their work. It’s about people who defend the historical record and contemporary practices of socialist or semi-socialist states etc. They tolerate them because they don't have any power and have already pretty much vanished from at least American academia. You don't fear something that doesn't exist, same with open Fascists. Also, I have no idea where your point is leading, unless you think Fascists are unduly ostracized or Marxists should be more ostracized than they already are.
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Sep 9, 2013 19:08
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Btw, the assertion that Stalin wasn't attempting to establish alliances with France and the UK is completely false, there are clear sources that there was a long and sustained effort to create a real alliance but both of them gave Soviet officials the cold shoulder. Also, Stalin was clearly planning for a war against Germany by the mid-1940s, he thought Hitler would have taken his time and at least crushed the British before a Soviet-Nazi war happened. A large part of his stubbornness about the start of Barbarossa was that he couldn't believe Hitler would have pushed up the time table that far since it didn't make any sense to fight a two front war. As far as the allies appeasing Hitler, it isn't that far off even if you think the pact was more selfish. Britain and France not only allowed Hitler to obtain a considerable amount of terrible with almost no shots fired, they burned their bridges with the Soviets and exposed how passive they would be during an actual conflict. Got to remember that part of the reason Stalin was paranoid was he thought the West would attempt another invasion of the Soviet Union, the little know warscare of 1927 confirmed in his mind the West was out to get him. If he involved himself a war with Germany in an offensive situation, he fully expected the West to turn the tables on him.
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Sep 9, 2013 19:21
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Sakarja posted:My point is that, according to socialists their own doctrine poses a genuine (potential) threat to capitalist society, while Fascism is merely a tool, agent or deformed version of capitalism. Doesn’t it then follow that socialism, not Fascism should be the “super-taboo”, as NikkolasKing put it. This argument hinges on the assumption that the powers that be in liberal society can control the discourse and political consciousness of their subjects to a great extent. But that seems to be a fairly universal ingredient of modern day socialism. I think your emphasis is on Nazism, it is very very unpopular to be a Nazi and the word fascist obviously bring the image of Hitler (maybe Mussolini). I supect you are reducing Marxism to Stalin/Mao and Fascism to Hitler, thats dubious oversimplification. Right-wing authoritarianism that could very well considered outright fascist or at least proto-Fascist is making inroads in Europe, and neo-confederate/extreme right wing attitudes aren't at all uncommon in the United States. You might call them "pure" Fascist but at the moment they are doing better than even broadly leftist movements. It isn't popular to be a Nazi, but it isn't so much a problem if you're a neo-confederate or a fan of the National Front.
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Sep 9, 2013 20:50
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A Buttery Pastry posted:Russian organizational skill must have been quite impressive, able to react to events in September '41 as early as November '39! It isn't a secret, that Stalin's annexations were a part of a lead up to a eventual war with Hitler, granted he thought those new borderlands would absorb the brunt of those attacks rather than quickly be bypassed. The Bolsheviks had been paranoid about how close the Finnish border was to Leningrad for a while, whether that was justified or not is a question. From their perspective the Finnish government at that point was a White government that had beaten Bolshevik supported Finns around the era of the civil war. As history would turn out the Finns would only go so far, and refused to completely surround Leningrad when give the chance.
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Sep 10, 2013 00:13
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iCe-CuBe. posted:Hint: liberals aren't the ones turning this thread, and every other thread on this loving forum, into a discussion about communism. Communism came up all the time in the past, it is just that causal dismissal is becoming less causal.
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Sep 10, 2013 06:30
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