• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Is Fascism Right Wing?

Is fascism left or right wing?

  • Left

    Votes: 18 20.2%
  • Right

    Votes: 46 51.7%
  • Neither

    Votes: 16 18.0%
  • Description sucks

    Votes: 9 10.1%

  • Total voters
    89
In school, I was taught that fascism was not in fact right wing, but compared to American Government, it was very much left wing. Our history class taught that the Nazi party of Germany had a meeting with the Communist Party of Germany to discuss a number of things starting on what slogans would be and what category they would say they were. Fascists were very much left wing, but they looked like right wing extremists compared to the communists, so they decided to call the communists left wing and call the fascists right wing to avoid confusion.
Fascism is left wing because you cannot own a business or large home if you don't toe the line that the ruling party draws.. If you don't toe the line, they take your business and give it to someone who will. It is far right of either communism or socialism in that it allows private property at all. In socialism the government owns all the business and makes sure that everyone is paid equally, and in communism the gov't owns everything and makes sure that everyone has everything they need.
So fascism is far right of communism but still pretty far left of American conservatism. It's somewhere in the middle.

Fascism - a one party dictatorship - I think both the left and right want this, but for their party and not the other.

forcible suppression of the opposition - Hmm, IRS, EPA, OSHA, scandals, but Nixon did the same as did LBJ. Still not left or right, but both parties seem to like this idea. How many on this site want to end Limbaugh's, Hannity, Madow or Shultz's career of spouting the party line on their shows because they have a different political philosophy.

Private economic enterprise under central governments control - this one is all left. Yep, definitely left.

Belligerent nationalism, racism and militarism. Probably both parties again as each party views the other party as being unpatriotic, racism, the divide the people up into groups, by race, sex, religion and more to divide and conquer in the search for votes, to make one group hate another group if that brings in more votes, yep, both parties again. Militarism - it is the same song and dance, a war under my parties president is good and a war under the other parties president is bad.

I suppose fascism is neither left or right, Republican or Democrat, but I think both parties dream of being in power and in control like any fascist would.
 
Because the "left-wing", statist component is strong on both sides. The "supposed beneficiaries" - that's about slogans and marketing.
How in the world did statism become a left-wing thing? Right wing govts control of economics/production has happend, as has left wing.



In political science, statism (French: étatisme) is the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.
 
Um, possibly only the basic ideas of freedom for workers, but I'm a liberal have have no illusions about Stalin..

Well, thank god for that, in the second decade of the 21st century. The left in the 1920-1940s had plenty of "illusions".

I hope you don't think that the fights in the streets of Berlin in '32 were just imaginary...

Elementary struggle for power. Stalinists had exterminated Trotskyites at some point - doesn't mean there was some big ideological difference.

what do you think Marxism and Leninism was? Hint: It was Communism..

Yes, and it played no visible role during the February Revolution. Lenin himself wasn't even in the country. The rise of Bolsheviks had started around July.



Freeing workers from the monarchy and the bourgeoisie....was totalitarianism?.

You mean - making all workers powerless slaves of the State, murdering millions of them, dispossessing peasants, etc ?
And yes, Lenin and Trotsky were every bit as totalitarian - in theory and in practice - as Stalin.
 
No, it is just you that is confused, you keep jumping over the basics ideas.

Please, read my first posts on this thread (##14, 19). I am not jumping over anything. I am explaining why I call things what I call them, and why I think that the standard nomenclature makes no sense.
 
Last edited:
What difference does it make if it's left or right 'wing'?

It is what it is.

What's next - is a banana left wing or right wing? A tree? The common cold?


'Definition of FASCISM

1
often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition'


http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism
 
And how do we go about doing that?


You had the option to vote for Ron Paul or Dennis Kucinic or Ralph Nader and you refused. No excuses.

Public financing of elections.

Make political ad time a condition of fcc liscensing under existing PSA structure. Include the top three parties, distribute time by lottery.

Overhaul the mechanics of the lobbying process to better address the "redress of grievances" without biasing towards money.

Look at the structural issues at the heart of OUR COUNTRY'S problems and address them.

And your list of people I didn't vot for is inaccurate. I DID vote for nader once and would vote for kucinich if he ran where I live. I distrust the market fundamentalism of libertarianism, BECAUSE it fosters corruption of government.
 
OR we can reduce the size and influence of the government. The problem isn't who is buying the government, its that the government has that much power in the first place.

The people who preselect our candidates.have done so for decades. We have the government THEY paid good money for.

They will never present candidates to us that will change that.

We have to retake the govt FIRST.
 
Well, thank god for that, in the second decade of the 21st century. The left in the 1920-1940s had plenty of "illusions".
No one suffering under Stalin had those illusions, but as usual, this guilt by association is all you have for US liberals.



Elementary struggle for power. Stalinists had exterminated Trotskyites at some point - doesn't mean there was some big ideological difference.
Elementary means basic...so yes, basic differences between the German fascist and German socialists/communists in 32. You just defeated your point.



Yes, and it played no visible role during the February Revolution. Lenin himself wasn't even in the country. The rise of Bolsheviks had started around July.
"Communism had no role in the Russian Revolution".......WOW, OK!





You mean - making all workers powerless slaves of the State, murdering millions of them, dispossessing peasants, etc ?
Again, you just keep on tying Stalin to the neck of Marx. It is akin to saying Jefferson democracy is crap because we had Nixon.
And yes, Lenin and Trotsky were every bit as totalitarian - in theory and in practice - as Stalin.
LOL....of course Lenin was, except for the fact that he died before he could have any real totalitarian power......and of course Trotsky was...even though Stalin forced him out and eventually murdered him...before he could again display his totalitarian powers.
 
Please, read my first posts on this thread (##14, 19). I am not jumping over anything. I am explaining why I call things what I call them, and why I think that the standard nomenclature makes no sense.
Again, you are still just flat out wrong when you say that liberalism wants LESS social freedoms.

It is a simple error you really need to correct.
 
What difference does it make if it's left or right 'wing'?

It is what it is.

What's next - is a banana left wing or right wing? A tree? The common cold?

Well, this is semantic dispute, of course. But semantic drift may be a dangerous thing. For example, when the word "liberal" was appropriated by American social democrats in 1930s, it amounted to a successful propaganda coup, and the lasting (still, as we can see) confusion among friends and foes.
 
Half correct, liberal/left has generally wanted more control of economics, but on the social scale want more individual freedoms. Right/conservatives on social issues have trended toward less individual freedom, more towards authoritarianism.
Now I see where you F'ed up....you equated statism....with liberalism.

Good grief.

In political science, statism (French: étatisme) is the belief that a government should control either economic or social policy, or both, to some degree.
 
Again, you are still just flat out wrong when you say that liberalism wants LESS social freedoms.

It is a simple error you really need to correct.

Liberalism, by definition, wants MORE social - and economic - freedoms.

The problem with American word usage is that "liberalism" is used, most illogically, to label socialists and social democrats. Some of them want more social freedoms, some do not. Those who do not fall under my definition of "The Left".
 
Liberalism, by definition, wants MORE social - and economic - freedoms.
NO NO NO....that is "libertarianism", NOT liberalism.



The problem with American word usage is that "liberalism" is used, most illogically, to label socialists and social democrats. Some of them want more social freedoms, some do not. Those who do not fall under my definition of "The Left".
You need to stop using YOUR definitions in a discussion of poli-sci. Statism is not liberalism, libertarianism is NOT liberalism.
 
Now I see where you F'ed up....you equated statism....with liberalism.

Good grief..

It was you conflated "liberal" with "left", not me. I prefer to think of myself as liberal, in the continental European fashion.

As for equating "statism" with the left-wing policies - well, that's what "left-wing" means to me, based on what every left-wing government in history did so far.
 
Last edited:
NO NO NO....that is "libertarianism", NOT liberalism.
Sure it is. Classical liberalism, from Condorcet to Mill to Bastiat to Hayek. American "liberalism", on the other hand, is a misnomer of the local brand of moderate socialism.

You need to stop using YOUR definitions in a discussion of poli-sci.
.

In case you didn't notice, this is a thread about OUR definitions.
 
In school, I was taught that fascism was not in fact right wing, but compared to American Government, it was very much left wing. Our history class taught that the Nazi party of Germany had a meeting with the Communist Party of Germany to discuss a number of things starting on what slogans would be and what category they would say they were. Fascists were very much left wing, but they looked like right wing extremists compared to the communists, so they decided to call the communists left wing and call the fascists right wing to avoid confusion.
Fascism is left wing because you cannot own a business or large home if you don't toe the line that the ruling party draws.. If you don't toe the line, they take your business and give it to someone who will. It is far right of either communism or socialism in that it allows private property at all. In socialism the government owns all the business and makes sure that everyone is paid equally, and in communism the gov't owns everything and makes sure that everyone has everything they need.
So fascism is far right of communism but still pretty far left of American conservatism. It's somewhere in the middle.


I know you've been taught it is all about left and right, but the truth is that all this "left" and "right" stuff, and the traditional left-right "scale", is just made up bull****.

The 3D version makes more sense, typically with economic freedom on one axis and political freedom on the other, but even it is just a CONSTRUCT... a representation of something based on various assumptions.

In reality, people and their views are complicated, and so are societies and governments... too complex to easily fit on any scale or matrix.


Fascism is neither left nor right, it is just Fascism. Authoritarianism and totalitarianism are terms indicating government control. Fascism tends to be authoritarian, and often dictatorial. So do the more extreme versions of Socialism or Soviet and Red Chinese Communism.



Fundamentally there are two kinds of government: Limited and Unlimited. Limited governments have some kind of checks and balances and built-in limitations to keep them in check. Unlimited governments have NO limit to how authortarian or totalitarian they can become except "how much will the people put up with before they revolt?"
 
It was you conflated "liberal" with "left", not me. I prefer to think of myself as liberal, in the continental European fashion.
I don't know why you think the world revolves around your definitions. Hint: It doesn't. It is generally accepted that "the left" is a move towards liberalism.

As for equating "statism" with the left-wing policies - well, that's what "left-wing" means to me, based on what every left-wing government in history did so far.
And again, this all comes from YOUR personal bias, you have twisted the meanings to suit yourself. Statism is practiced to some degree by both left and right govts.
 
It's traditionally considered right-wing by historians and political scientists due to its nationalistic and militaristic nature.

Note that throughout recent political history the definition of "right-wing" has not been "less government." And the definition of left-wing is not necessarily "more government." That is a false dichotomy that many libertarians have manufactured in order to obscure debate.
 
Sure it is. Classical liberalism, from Condorcet to Mill to Bastiat to Hayek. American "liberalism", on the other hand, is a misnomer of the local brand of moderate socialism.
Now you are equating libertarianism to "Classical Liberalism", whatever bub, it becomes clear just how self centered your vocabulary is.



In case you didn't notice, this is a thread about OUR definitions.
No, actually, it is not. It has become that, but it isn't, it was started from the premise of what the OP was taught (incorrectly).
 
Classical liberalism is a philosophy committed to the ideal of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and free markets.[1]

Classical liberalism developed in the nineteenth century in Western Europe, and the Americas. Although classical liberalism built on ideas that had already developed by the end of the eighteenth century, it advocated a specific kind of society, government and public policy required as a result of the Industrial Revolution and urbanization.[2] Notable individuals who have contributed to classical liberalism include Jean-Baptiste Say, Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo.[3] It drew on the economics of Adam Smith, a psychological understanding of individual liberty, natural law and utilitarianism, and a belief in progress. Classical liberals established political parties that were called "liberal", although in the United States classical liberalism came to dominate both existing major political parties.[1] There was a revival of interest in classical liberalism in the twentieth century led by Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman.

In the late 19th century, classical liberalism developed into neo-classical liberalism, which argued for government to be as small as possible in order to allow the exercise of individual freedom. In its most extreme form, it advocated Social Darwinism. Libertarianism is a modern form of neo-classical liberalism.

The term classical liberalism was applied in retrospect to distinguish earlier nineteenth-century liberalism from the newer social liberalism. The phrase classical liberalism is also sometimes used to refer to all forms of liberalism before the twentieth century, and some conservatives and libertarians use the term classical liberalism to describe their belief in the primacy of economic freedom and minimal government. It is not always clear which meaning is intended.
 
In other areas of the world, Fascism was a part of the right-wing. The United States has never known Fascism. The right-wing of our political arena is a proponent of small government. The left wing, however, is a proponent for big government. Fascism is massive government, therefore, Fascism in the US would be a left-wing idea.
 
Wow, an entire thread of people trying to distance their own political ideologies from Nazis. It's a Godwin-based proposition in the first place. That's why the left/right scale doesn't really work too well. DemSocialist is right to put it in the economic/social scale, which puts fascism as highly authoritarian and highly centralized in the beneficiaries of its efforts. A few people have a lot of control and only those few people benefit. Pretty much it's all bad. Meanwhile, Cyrylek has a bizarre definition that basically labels any central authority at all as "left", which has nothing to do with any actual movements or their descriptions of themselves. It's just a person labeling himself as right wing and everything he dislikes as left wing. Left and right are not based simply on big government vs small government, nor based on religion vs non-religion, or some other single issue scale. It's much more complicated than that. I would label fascism as right wing based on its authoritarian nature, but I recognize that anarchy would be personal freedom taken to the extreme, so more personal freedom doesn't always mean good. I consider a socialist system good, despite its greater authority than some other systems, and I would consider socialism left. So, I think a single left/right scale is pretty useless to us. Republican and Democrat work, because we have polarized our politics into two parties, but that's really a poor choice on our part. Most ideas are more complicated than R vs D.

Fascism is essentially the polar opposite of what I advocate as a socialist. It centralizes authority far beyond what I consider a reasonable level, removing checks and balances, voting, civil rights, and responsibility of the government to the people. All power is given over to a small group of stagnant people. Fascism is essentially a modern form of monarchy and aristocracy, though less based on inherited ownership of land. Very little power is retained by the people. Far too little, in my opinion. And then a fascist government also centralizes the benefits of that government.

The biggest problem with both the Nazi and Soviet governments for a discussion like this is that they were so centralized that regime and government type are inseparable. The Nazi government made no provisions to account for a different party taking power in the future. They were just as much about securing power for the singular group in power as the actual textual tenets of fascism and communism. Removal of this element would make a huge difference in evaluating the government systems. A truly democratic fascist system might be a wholly different animal. I think that fascism is necessarily anti-democratic, but communism done correctly requires democracy.

The difference between communism and fascism, essentially, is the intended recipients of the strong centralized power. In fascism, it is merely a few people at the top, while communism attempts to disseminate those benefits. None of our prominent communist regimes have actually tried to do that, but this thread is about fascism, so we'll leave that for another time. Fascism attempts to control everything for the purpose of benefiting the state over the people, which tends to mean the people in charge of the state. The way that the Nazis did this necessarily equated the one political organization in power with the people in charge. It would be very interesting to see a communist or fascist system play out with multiple political parties and organizations, but as I said above, I think fascism is necessarily prohibitive of that kind of democratic control.

As a socialist, I believe that the state IS the people, and that protecting and supporting the people is the primary directive upon a good government. So, I find fascism completely antithetical to my positions as a supporter of democratic and socialist systems.
 
Last edited:
In other areas of the world, Fascism was a part of the right-wing. The United States has never known Fascism. The right-wing of our political arena is a proponent of small government. The left wing, however, is a proponent for big government. Fascism is massive government, therefore, Fascism in the US would be a left-wing idea.
Libertarians have some of the most twisted sets of definitions I have ever seen. They see laws meant to protect the individual from social and economic harm (from Dems) as "big govt" while they ignore the huge surveillance bureaucracies created primarily by the right wing....and then try to label the left as the fascists.

The US does know fascism, all one has to do is to visit Stormfront to see fascism in the US. With that, all one has to do is to right down the basic ideas presented there and compare them to the major parties in the US.
 
In school, I was taught that fascism was not in fact right wing, but compared to American Government, it was very much left wing. Our history class taught that the Nazi party of Germany had a meeting with the Communist Party of Germany to discuss a number of things starting on what slogans would be and what category they would say they were. Fascists were very much left wing, but they looked like right wing extremists compared to the communists, so they decided to call the communists left wing and call the fascists right wing to avoid confusion.
Fascism is left wing because you cannot own a business or large home if you don't toe the line that the ruling party draws.. If you don't toe the line, they take your business and give it to someone who will. It is far right of either communism or socialism in that it allows private property at all. In socialism the government owns all the business and makes sure that everyone is paid equally, and in communism the gov't owns everything and makes sure that everyone has everything they need.
So fascism is far right of communism but still pretty far left of American conservatism. It's somewhere in the middle.

You need to stop looking at the political spectrum as a line. It's a circle, anarchy being in one point on the circle and fascism/communism side by side on the opposite point on the circle.
 
In other areas of the world, Fascism was a part of the right-wing. The United States has never known Fascism. The right-wing of our political arena is a proponent of small government. The left wing, however, is a proponent for big government. Fascism is massive government, therefore, Fascism in the US would be a left-wing idea.

In the US, anarchists are extreme right wing, theocrats are extreme left wing. :roll:
 
Back
Top Bottom