Is Fascism Right Wing?

SmokeAndMirrors said:

And finally, when you get to a certain level of extremism, they're all pretty much the same thing. They may differ in their theoretical doctrine, but not as much as they would pretend, and the real-world results are usually pretty much the same.

Click to expand...

Yes.

The sematic battles we fight here is one thing. The reality of someone ending an innocent life - for whatever bleeping idiotic "right", "left", or "diagonal-in-the-sixteenth-dimension" reasons - that is something else entirely.

How about a million lives, a hundred million? At this point, our comprehension fails. We cannot even visualize (most of us) a million as a palpable quantity. A million human lives snuffed for no reason other than some wild ideological or economical speculation? Impossible. Could not have happened.

Right...

NoC_T said:

You'll forgive my sarcasm, Cyrylek. I indulge it in good faith.

Click to expand...

Sarcasm is an aristocratic trait. This doesn't imply any kind of approval or acceptance, but...there's no such thing as a sarcastic Communist or Nazi true believer...

Cyrylek said:

Sarcasm is an aristocratic trait. This doesn't imply any kind of approval or acceptance, but...there's no such thing as a sarcastic Communist or Nazi true believer...

Click to expand...

I consider that a profound compliment for several reasons. Cheers.

LowDown said:

So what are you claiming that Pinochet represents?

Click to expand...

Right-wing, violent statism...government intrusion, which you wildly claimed was not part of the political right.


I was responding directly to your post:

he one side you have an ideology that advocates central control of the economy and the monitary system, government health care, cradle to grave welfare, guaranteed employment, abolition of class differences, high and progressive taxation, and seizure and redistribution of land and wealth.

On the other side you have an ideology that advocates a free market with a minimum of government involement, a gold standard, no government involement in industry beyond policing, private charity, low taxes, respect of traditional class divisions, and respect and protection of private property.

There is simply no question that fascism belongs in the first classification above. To which do leftist ideologies belong?

All else is meaningless as ideologies only have meaning in terms of the policies they inspire and justify.

Click to expand...

You've laid out two "sides"...far too simplisitically (with some outright errors...notably, "a free market with a minimum of government involvement").

So I simultaneously disagreed with this assessment...but agreed with your final statement, which suggests that ideologies' meanings can only be ascertained by what they do, in the real world....not by the theorizing of what they are in political fantasy, as in the first part of your post.

In other words, your final (correct) statement flatly contradicts the rest of your post.

Because Pinochet--like all right-wing authoritarians--led extreme involvement in the "free market" [sic].

Murdering your leftist foes, imprisoning and torturing union leaders, killing peasants who demand more socialist-leaning policies (mostly mild, North-American style reforms, not Soviet communism)....is "government involvement in the 'free market."

You can't have more government involvement than using terror and murder to eliminate your political foes for the sake of the country's wealthy.

That's big Government statism. Very serious statism.

And of course leftwing tyrannical regimes have behaved similarly...many of them worse, in fact.

But my point is that the distinctions you draw are far from clear, and are the elevation of political-Economy theory over the objective reality.

All we have to do is experiment with your final sentence, see how it applies to various governments, to discover this.

Pinochet more closely resembled populist dictators like Saddam Hussein and Ferdinand Marcos.

Click to expand...

I'm inclined to agree, and this unfortunately explains not only the support, but the deep fondness he inspired among so many Western leaders and "free market" intellectuals like Hayek and Friedman.

Strucker said:

Right-wing, violent statism...government intrusion, which you wildly claimed was not part of the political right.


I was responding directly to your post:



You've laid out two "sides"...far too simplisitically (with some outright errors...notably, "a free market with a minimum of government involvement").

So I simultaneously disagreed with this assessment...but agreed with your final statement, which suggests that ideologies' meanings can only be ascertained by what they do, in the real world....not by the theorizing of what they are in political fantasy, as in the first part of your post.

In other words, your final (correct) statement flatly contradicts the rest of your post.

Because Pinochet--like all right-wing authoritarians--led extreme involvement in the "free market" [sic].

Murdering your leftist foes, imprisoning and torturing union leaders, killing peasants who demand more socialist-leaning policies (mostly mild, North-American style reforms, not Soviet communism)....is "government involvement in the 'free market."

You can't have more government involvement than using terror and murder to eliminate your political foes for the sake of the country's wealthy.

That's big Government statism. Very serious statism.

And of course leftwing tyrannical regimes have behaved similarly...many of them worse, in fact.

But my point is that the distinctions you draw are far from clear, and are the elevation of political-Economy theory over the objective reality.

All we have to do is experiment with your final sentence, see how it applies to various governments, to discover this.




I'm inclined to agree, and this unfortunately explains not only the support, but the deep fondness he inspired among so many Western leaders and "free market" intellectuals like Hayek and Friedman.

Click to expand...

This thread is about fascism and whether it is a leftist or rightist ideology. Ever since Stalin attempted to distance himself from fascism by calling it right wing scholars have characterized it that way, but to this day that remains nothing more than false Stalinist propaganda.

Pinocet was nothing like either Italian or German fascism except for the authoritarianism and militarism. The parallels between fascism and leftism remain the most compelling even if there are dictators and tyrants in the world who have embraced traditionally right wing policies. Regardless of what leftists always said their intentions were, all leftist governments were authoritarian and militaristic just like any other oligarchic and non-democratic government, so we have to look at their other policies to distinguish between them, fascism, and right wing authoritarians. When we do that there is no question that fascism is a lot closer to the left.

LowDown said:

This thread is about fascism and whether it is a leftist or rightist ideology. Ever since Stalin attempted to distance himself from fascism by calling it right wing scholars have characterized it that way, but to this day that remains nothing more than false Stalinist propaganda.

Click to expand...

Wow. You read some anti-left screed on the internet and internalized it, in a typical formulation.


Fascism was deemed of the political Right, first by the Doctrine of Fascism:

"We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century.

Click to expand...

And then by Mussolini, who, although he thought the traditional political positioning was ultimately not of the utmost importance, stated:

Fascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on the mountain of the center

Click to expand...

Whatever one thinks of the self-assessments, they were not Stalin's doing. Stalin was only agreeing with the fascists themselves.


In fact, scholars of fascism mostly consider it to have been a heady combination of left and right...and some view it as a kind of "radical centrism." (For the record, I do think that self-described "centrists" get off way too easy in discussions of political extremism.)

I have cited some of these scholars, none of whom appears obviously far to the left to my knowledge, and have done so again, here, below.

Even for those hold to the "left/right combination" view, which is probably quite accurate, they aver that is remains a mostly right-wing phenomenon...by virtue of its often quite extreme social conservatism...and by the fact that the overwhelming majority of people drawn to fascism come to it from a predisposed stance on the political right.

(Read the Stromfront forum with its jew-hating and black-hating vomit expunged....and you will find pretty typical and ordinary conservative talking points throughout.)

Pinocet was nothing like either Italian or German fascism except for the authoritarianism and militarism.

Click to expand...

I didn't say he was a fascist. I was responding directly to a claim about what "left" and "right" governments entail, and how they behave. I showed that Pinochet, like many other right-wing leaders (most obviously, though not restricted to, the southern regions), simply do not fit the mold of what Left and Right governments are, and what they do.


Here are the citations I mentioned. A small sampling, but you'll find the scholarship extrapolates generally. These fellwos were explciitly responding to Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" thesis, but again, what they cover spokes out into your claims as well. (In fact, the very reason you're holding the views you are is an indirect result of Goldberg's very poorly-received book, whether you're aware of it or not. "Internet memes," as they say.)

This absorption of the "liberal fascism" thesis dangerously distorts the public discourse precisely because, like so many other components of right-wing belief systems, it’s fundamentally untrue. As the four essays that follow make thoroughly clear, the historical record itself unequivocally repudiates Goldberg's thesis. As such, Liberal Fascism has distorted and polluted the public’s understanding of the nature of fascism, nearly to the point of rendering the word essentially meaningless.

Click to expand...

http://www.hnn.us/articles/122469.html

Once in power, the two fascist chieftains worked out a fruitful if sometimes contentious relationship with business. German business had been, as Goldberg correctly notes, distrustful of the early Hitler’s populist rhetoric. Hitler was certainly not their first choice as head of state, and many of them preferred a trading economy to an autarkic one. Given their real-life options in 1933, however, the Nazi regulated economy seemed a lesser evil than the economic depression and worker intransigence they had known under Weimar. They were delighted with Hitler’s abolition of independent labor unions and the right to strike (unmentioned by Goldberg), and profited greatly from his rearmament drive. All of them would have found ludicrous the notion that the Nazis, once in power, were on the left. So would the socialist and communist leaders who were the first inhabitants of the Nazi concentration camps.

Click to expand...

http://www.hnn.us/articles/122231.html

the core of the partial new consensus that has emerged since 1991 (partly, but only partly, as a result of my work in this field) is not that fascism was mainly right wing or left wing, but that it was and remains a revolutionary form of racism/nationalism, one whose sworn enemies include Soviet communism, pluralist liberal democracy and the multi-cultural, multi-faith society celebrated by ‘progressive liberals’.

Click to expand...

http://www.hnn.us/articles/122473.html

LowDown said:

This thread is about fascism and whether it is a leftist or rightist ideology. Ever since Stalin attempted to distance himself from fascism by calling it right wing scholars have characterized it that way, but to this day that remains nothing more than false Stalinist propaganda.

Click to expand...

Wow. You read some anti-left screed on the internet and internalized it, in a typical formulation.


Fascism was deemed of the political Right, first by the Doctrine of Fascism:

"We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century.

Click to expand...

And then by Mussolini, who, although he thought the traditional political positioning was ultimately not of the utmost importance, stated:

Fascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on the mountain of the center

Click to expand...

Whatever one thinks of the self-assessments, they were not Stalin's doing. Stalin was only agreeing with the fascists themselves.


In fact, scholars of fascism mostly consider it to have been a heady combination of left and right...and some view it as a kind of "radical centrism." (For the record, I do think that self-described "centrists" get off way too easy in discussions of political extremism.)

I have cited some of these scholars, none of whom appears obviously far to the left to my knowledge, and have done so again, here, below.

Even for those hold to the "left/right combination" view, which is probably quite accurate, they aver that is remains a mostly right-wing phenomenon...by virtue of its often quite extreme social conservatism...and by the fact that the overwhelming majority of people drawn to fascism come to it from a predisposed stance on the political right.

(Read the Stromfront forum with its jew-hating and black-hating vomit expunged....and you will find pretty typical and ordinary conservative talking points throughout.)

Pinocet was nothing like either Italian or German fascism except for the authoritarianism and militarism.

Click to expand...

I didn't say he was a fascist. I was responding directly to a claim about what "left" and "right" governments entail, and how they behave. I showed that Pinochet, like many other right-wing leaders (most obviously, though not restricted to, the southern regions), simply do not fit the mold of what Left and Right governments are, and what they do.


Here are the citations I mentioned. A small sampling, but you'll find the scholarship extrapolates generally. These fellwos were explciitly responding to Jonah Goldberg's "Liberal Fascism" thesis, but again, what they cover spokes out into your claims as well. (In fact, the very reason you're holding the views you are is an indirect result of Goldberg's very poorly-received book, whether you're aware of it or not. "Internet memes," as they say.)

This absorption of the "liberal fascism" thesis dangerously distorts the public discourse precisely because, like so many other components of right-wing belief systems, it’s fundamentally untrue. As the four essays that follow make thoroughly clear, the historical record itself unequivocally repudiates Goldberg's thesis. As such, Liberal Fascism has distorted and polluted the public’s understanding of the nature of fascism, nearly to the point of rendering the word essentially meaningless.

Click to expand...

http://www.hnn.us/articles/122469.html

Once in power, the two fascist chieftains worked out a fruitful if sometimes contentious relationship with business. German business had been, as Goldberg correctly notes, distrustful of the early Hitler’s populist rhetoric. Hitler was certainly not their first choice as head of state, and many of them preferred a trading economy to an autarkic one. Given their real-life options in 1933, however, the Nazi regulated economy seemed a lesser evil than the economic depression and worker intransigence they had known under Weimar. They were delighted with Hitler’s abolition of independent labor unions and the right to strike (unmentioned by Goldberg), and profited greatly from his rearmament drive. All of them would have found ludicrous the notion that the Nazis, once in power, were on the left. So would the socialist and communist leaders who were the first inhabitants of the Nazi concentration camps.

Click to expand...

http://www.hnn.us/articles/122231.html

the core of the partial new consensus that has emerged since 1991 (partly, but only partly, as a result of my work in this field) is not that fascism was mainly right wing or left wing, but that it was and remains a revolutionary form of racism/nationalism, one whose sworn enemies include Soviet communism, pluralist liberal democracy and the multi-cultural, multi-faith society celebrated by ‘progressive liberals’.

Click to expand...

http://www.hnn.us/articles/122473.html

cpwill said:

he one poster on these forums honest enough to identify himself as a fascist is pretty much clear on this point - which is why his actual identifier reads "progressive".

Click to expand...

Actually, his now reads 'Conservative.'

Strucker said:

Wow. You read some anti-left screed on the internet and internalized it, in a typical formulation.

Click to expand...

Gratuitous ad hominem noted.

Fascism was deemed of the political Right, first by the Doctrine of Fascism.

Click to expand...

Mussolini also continued to call himself a socialist. Hilter called himself a centrist. So much for cherry picking quotes. The important thing is the policies advocated.

Whatever one thinks of the self-assessments, they were not Stalin's doing. Stalin was only agreeing with the fascists themselves.

Click to expand...

No, this was pretty much a main theme of Stalinist propaganda. Hitler didn't agree with it, claiming he was in the political center. Also, more to the right or tending to the right isn't the same thing as being on the right. Yes Nazis were more to the right than Communists, but they were still on the left.

I have cited some of these scholars, none of whom appears obviously far to the left to my knowledge, and have done so again, here, below.

Click to expand...

Some of us are making the case that these authorities are wrong in their assessments, and we have said why. To just go back and appeal to those authorities is bogus.

Even for those hold to the "left/right combination" view, which is probably quite accurate, they aver that is remains a mostly right-wing phenomenon...by virtue of its often quite extreme social conservatism...and by the fact that the overwhelming majority of people drawn to fascism come to it from a predisposed stance on the political right.

Click to expand...

Extreme social conservatism? What about cradle to grave welfare, socialized medicine, guaranteed employment, abolition of class differences, etc., is conservative? Also, it's completely false that Nazis were drawn from the right. They came from the German left! Hitler started in the German Worker's Party which became the National Socialist Workers Party (there are some subtle clues in those names concerning the political ideologies of these organizations). Only a few conservatives joined them, and the aristocrats in particular were a center of opposition to Hitler. Many of them were hanged in Plötzensee Prison.

(Read the Stromfront forum with its jew-hating and black-hating vomit expunged....and you will find pretty typical and ordinary conservative talking points throughout.)

Click to expand...

No thanks, were not talking about neo-Nazis and anyone who writes about them should know that they are not the same as Nazis. Unlike the real Nazis, neo-Nazis don't seem to have any policies other than "get rid of all the non-Whites and gays and everything will be fine."

Like many consensus views the view that Nazis were on the right is simply wrong. Anyone who examines the question fairly can see it. Leftists recoil from the idea that the Nazis were on the left, but they recoil from just about every instance of left wing politics that has actually become manifest, too -- Stalinism, Maoism, etc. etc., so it's not unusual. They will go on and on about why Stalinism wasn't real communism, why the Communist Chinese were never really communists, and so on. It seems to be a characteristic of the ideology to love the dream of utopia and despise the concrete attempts made to achieve it.

HumanBeing said:

No, that's the logical outcome of representative governance and the artificial monopolies it brings.

Click to expand...

Which can be said is an outcome of capitalism which transforms into corporatism.

TheDemSocialist said:

Which can be said is an outcome of capitalism which transforms into corporatism.

Click to expand...

Uh, no, representative mass governance doesn't transform into capitalism. Quite the opposite, it suppresses capitalism and gives it a bad name by throwing artificial monopolies at it.

I'd argue capitalism transforms into whatever consumers choose if it's taking place in a voluntary free market economy, but that's just my opinion.

LowDown said:

Gratuitous ad hominem noted.

Click to expand...

Yes, unneccessary. My apologies.

Mussolini also continued to call himself a socialist.

Click to expand...

No..he originally did. He changed. Radically.

Hilter called himself a centrist.

Click to expand...

And as I've pointed out, there is a school of respected thought which maintains that fascism was centrist, albeit extremist. (The two terms are not exclusive to one another)

So much for cherry picking quotes.

Click to expand...

You made the claim that fascism's right-wing character was specifically and solely a result of Stalinist propaganda. Presumably you got this from somewhere (though you have yet to back it up)...which means you ignored other salient quotes...like the ones that predated what you claim Stalin invented. So much for cherry-picking.

The important thing is the policies advocated.

Click to expand...

Right. A mixture of right and left, to simplify slightly...a point made again and again, but which you refuse to countenance.

No, this was pretty much a main theme of Stalinist propaganda.

Click to expand...

No, as objectively demonstrated, Stalin did not come up with the notion of fascists as "right wing," which was your direct claim. The fascists and their intellectual supporters did.

Also, more to the right or tending to the right isn't the same thing as being on the right. Yes Nazis were more to the right than Communists, but they were still on the left.

Click to expand...

You keep saying it, but offer no evidence, except a litany of No True Scotsman fallacies.

Some of us are making the case that these authorities are wrong in their assessments, and we have said why. To just go back and appeal to those authorities is bogus.

Click to expand...

The virtual consensus view by serious scholars who have been working on this subject for decades is not absolute proof, I agree; but it's monumentally more than you have offered.

Also, you don't summon and then refute a single point they have made. Did you even read them? Or is your mind made up?

Also, it's completely false that Nazis were drawn from the right. They came from the German left!

Click to expand...

Wrong. They came from every point...and the capitalist class were only opposed to him in the beginning, with his inclusive "socialist" rhetoric. Once they realized that he was abolishing unions (a conservative favourite, even now) and was profoundly business-friendly, they eagerly joined ranks. Religious conservatives were happily aligned. Of course, leftists were too, initially....until they bercame the mortal enemy...domestically, I mean, not just with the Soviet situation.

Hitler started in the German Worker's Party which became the National Socialist Workers Party (there are some subtle clues in those names concerning the political ideologies of these organizations)

Click to expand...

Right...like The Democratic People's Republic of North Korea.

.

Only a few conservatives joined them,

Click to expand...

Where in the world do you get this stuff? you're going to have to source it.

No thanks, were not talking about neo-Nazis and anyone who writes about them should know that they are not the same as Nazis. Unlike the real Nazis, neo-Nazis don't seem to have any policies other than "get rid of all the non-Whites and gays and everything will be fine."

Click to expand...

I'm not arguing that they're not inclined to simpleton's hate. I'm saying that they are broadly conservative....even as they presumably support a few lefty shibboleths, as fascists and their offshoots always do.

And because that's part of the nature of fascists, you choose to latch onto one aspect and ignore the other. Why?

Like many consensus views the view that Nazis were on the right is simply wrong. Anyone who examines the question fairly can see it.

Click to expand...

You're dismissing a lot of scholarship--all of it "unfair," a view approaching conspiracy theory. And yet, I daresay you haven't even read, much less thought seriously about any of it.

And you're so far not offering any sources whatsoever....even though you've plainly read some things, as you are not simply reciting your own insights. (I know...because I've had precisely this debate with others, who also tend to be remiss about stating from where they got their information.)

Leftists recoil from the idea that the Nazis were on the left,

Click to expand...

Uh, so do the right-wingers who make the argument you're making.


But there's a distinction: I offer the uncontroversial, easily-demonstrated view that fascism indeed was made up of leftist politics, in concert with its rightwing politics.

You grant no such leeway.

So I think your recoil is sharper and more reflexive on this matter than is my own.

HumanBeing said:

Uh, no, representative mass governance doesn't transform into capitalism. Quite the opposite, it suppresses capitalism and gives it a bad name by throwing artificial monopolies at it.

I'd argue capitalism transforms into whatever consumers choose if it's taking place in a voluntary free market economy, but that's just my opinion.

Click to expand...

I was saying capitalism transforms into corporatism over time.

TheDemSocialist said:

Which can be said is an outcome of capitalism which transforms into corporatism.

Click to expand...

Wrong, statism is a central requirement of corporatism, not capitalism. Capitalism and corporatism are mutually exclusive. The more you have of one the less you have of the other.

TheDemSocialist said:

I was saying capitalism transforms into corporatism over time.

Click to expand...

You are confusing capitalism with statism. It's a common mistake.

Quik said:

You are confusing capitalism with statism. It's a common mistake.

Click to expand...

No im not. Im saying capitalism leads to wealth in the hands of the few then those wealthy will use state forces to protect their wealth via corporatism.

TheDemSocialist said:

No im not. Im saying capitalism leads to wealth in the hands of the few then those wealthy will use state forces to protect their wealth via corporatism.

Click to expand...

Free market capitalism and statism are mutually exclusive. You can't have free market capitalism in the same economy as state monopoly on education, currency, use of force, healthcare etc. By definition, these artificial monopolies exclude the possibility of a free market.

HumanBeing said:

Free market capitalism and statism are mutually exclusive. You can't have free market capitalism in the same economy as state monopoly on education, currency, use of force, healthcare etc. By definition, these artificial monopolies exclude the possibility of a free market.

Click to expand...

Im not saying free market capitalism exist at the same time im saying free market capitalism LEADS to corporatism.

TheDemSocialist said:

Im not saying free market capitalism exist at the same time im saying free market capitalism LEADS to corporatism.

Click to expand...

Hmm, interesting.

Presumably none of the corporatist entities started that way; most started as competitive, entrepreneurial capitalists.

But few people despise free markets more than successful capitalists.

As Canadian billionaire Kevin O'Leary said: "I'd be a commie if I could make a buck at it."

TheDemSocialist said:

Im not saying free market capitalism exist at the same time im saying free market capitalism LEADS to corporatism.

Click to expand...

Like I said before, free market capitalism leads to whatever consumers decide. If they don't want all the wealth in the hands of a few, they diversify the sources of the goods they purchase and give the money to someone else instead. Monopolies are almost always the result of government interference and/or manipulation. Without monopolies, capitalism is whatever consumers decide to make it

HumanBeing said:

Like I said before, free market capitalism leads to whatever consumers decide. If they don't want all the wealth in the hands of a few, they diversify the sources of the goods they purchase and give the money to someone else instead. Monopolies are almost always the result of government interference and/or manipulation. Without monopolies, capitalism is whatever consumers decide to make it

Click to expand...

Well, that's a sop to the free market theorists....the problem is, in reality, capitalists work diligently to fight it.

It's not because they're evil: it's a rational decision about the bottom line.

So the theory states it's all about "informed consumers making educated choices." What you've said above depends on this theory for its very life.

But the world of marketing and advertising spends multi-billions of dollars specifically--explicitly--to undermine that very theory. And with great success, I'd argue.

Jredbaron96 said:

Actually, his now reads 'Conservative.'

Click to expand...

:lol: viktyr's? now that's funny.

cpwill said:

:lol: viktyr's? now that's funny.

Click to expand...

It kinda is.

Goshin said:

I've seen too many people using different "versions" of common sense. :shrug:

Click to expand...

I'm inclined to believe that sometimes, for some people, 'common sense' is whatever works out best for them.

Strucker said:

Yes, unneccessary. My apologies.

Click to expand...

Your facts are wrong and your analysis is wrong. And then you go back to ad hominems.

The Nazis started as socialists and showed no inclination to change. Their socialist policies were not shibboleths as you term them but solid policies that they followed through with when the gained power, which is why the remained popular with the German people right up to the very end. They recruited mainly from the German left and were in competition with the communists and other socialists for members, or so Hitler himself claims in his book. Also see Burleigh, M. The Third Reich: A New History (New York, Hill and Wang, 2000) pp 131-133. It is essential to understand this about the Nazis because it explains so much. Attempting to airbrush this out of history as left leaning historians have done is a crime against the truth.

However, I can accept the idea that the Nazis drew on ideas from both the left and the right to the extent that we characterize militarism, nationalism, and reliance on capitalist economic and manufacturing expertise as right wing. Since the racism came as much from the German left as from anywhere I reject the idea that that is a right wing idea. But the Nazis were very serious about being socialists and proved it by adopting socialist policies as one of the first things they did. And no, they never lost that idea but referred to it as a cornerstone of their ideology and, again, followed through very handsomely with those socialist promises to the people. They criticized both capitalism and communisim but borrowed from both. What stood them apart from both was turning those policies to the service of the state, the nation, the volk, which was embodied by Adolf Hitler.

What makes me say that fascism is primarily leftist is its reliance on centralized state power, with all hands turned to the service of the state and the state taking care of everyone's needs, controlling everything. And one other thing which is now associated exclusively with the left these days, which is identity politics.