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Fascism Versus Socialism
May 13, 2009 | Welcome2thejungle

Posted on 05/13/2009 12:17:08 PM PDT by Welcome2thejungle

One term that is quite freely bandied about in political discussion without evidently much thought is fascism. While fascism is related to socialism, they should be thought of as cousins, not twins. Both ideologies originated in Europe and both ideologies advocate an all-powerful centralized government. But there are significant differences.

Socialists generally speaking are internationalists who work with eachother across the globe. Fascists are ardent nationalists.

Socialists favor government ownership of the means of production, whereas fascists have no problem with private ownership so long as corporations are compliant with government objectives.

Socialists are ardent secularists and generally disdain organized religion. Fascists often seek and receive the support of the Church and encourage religious participation.

Socialists love social engineering, collective farms and kibbutzes. Fascists are generally socially conservative, support the military, law and order, and traditional family structures.

The archetype fascist, IMHO, was Spain's General Francisco Franco. He was socially conservative, supported the private sector, the military, and the Church.

Is BHO a fascist? In a word, no. He does favor government ownership of the means of production. How many shares of AIG, Citigroup, GM, Chrysler, etc. does the federal government now own? He clearly wants to take over what's left of our private health care system and other industries as well including the automative and energy industries. He hates America and cannot be considered a nationalist in way shape or form and has nothing but contempt for the traditional Church. He also detests the military and is weak on law and order issues as well. He can in no way be described as a social conservative. BHO is clearly a socialist, not a fascist.

While I am not an advocate of fascism, from a conservative point of view it is far more benign than socialism. The late Ambassador, Dr.Jeane Kirkpatrick, found this to be true as well.

Given the choice between Franco and BHO, for me, I would pick General Franco any day over the week over the Marxist radical currently occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.


TOPICS: Politics
KEYWORDS: vanity
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To: Welcome2thejungle
It can be hard to go from actual, historically-existing forms of government to ideal models.

Socialists generally speaking are internationalists who work with each other across the globe. Fascists are ardent nationalists.

I guess so. But you have to take into account that fascism and socialism have some of the same roots. That doesn't meant that they're the same thing or that they don't have connections to other philosophies.

Theory and practice also differ. Stalin was an "internationalist" in theory, but in practice, he certainly wasn't indifferent between various countries: he favored the big one that he controlled.

Whether Hitler really was a nationalist is also something people argue over. He certainly looked like one at the beginning of his rule. But by the end, he was aiming at something far bigger than Germany.

Socialists favor government ownership of the means of production, whereas fascists have no problem with private ownership so long as corporations are compliant with government objectives.

Fascists weren't opposed to starting up state-owned enterprises. And they certainly did expropriate some enterprises -- Jewish or foreign ones, certainly.

Social Democrats don't appear to have any problem with private ownership "so long as corporations are compliant with government objectives." Look at Sweden.

If Obama or other politicians today are socialists, that doesn't mean that they won't tolerate private or corporate property, just that they want control of aspects of its operation and profits.

Socialists are ardent secularists and generally disdain organized religion. Fascists often seek and receive the support of the Church and encourage religious participation.

Up to a point. But there are religious socialists. And fascists' relations with established churches may be more a matter of practicality, rather than of theory. Mussolini and Hitler weren't exactly other worldly or Christian in their thinking.

Socialists love social engineering, collective farms and kibbutzes. Fascists are generally socially conservative, support the military, law and order, and traditional family structures.

Others have brought up the objection to this quite well. Not every military dictator was a fascist. And Franco, though not a fascist, was a centralist. Basques and Catalans wouldn't call him respectful of their traditional institutions.

I'm not saying that you're wrong. Just that any generalization is going to have exceptions. For one thing, you have to compare one form of totalitarianism with another. Comparing a totalitarian group with one which contains totalitarians and non-totalitarians will give questionable results.

I'd certainly prefer to have lived under a typical Latin American or European dictatorship than under Stalin or Lenin. Throw Hitler into the picture, and things get complicated. He was as bad as Stalin, if not worse.

A country like today's Sweden, though "socialist," probably is better than either fascist or a communist states were. Whatever its vices, there is still a measure of personal freedom there that fascist or communist states didn't allow.

21 posted on 05/13/2009 1:43:25 PM PDT by x
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To: Phlyer

That is true under the Obama fascism, but it wasn’t exactly true under the original fascism. The old fascism was based on favoritism that killed competition and controlled prices. It wasn’t based on benefit to the people. It was based on benefit to the state. The state and people are not the same entity in a fascist regime. That’s the difference.

Under Obamism the unions and the state are the same entity. Obama is determined to “return the wealth” to the workers from whom, he “feels” it was stolen. Plainly Obama wants a redistribution of wealth, transfering the ownership to the unions, but controlled by the government. That’s why it’s neither true socialism nor true fascism. Obama seems to think that the real entrepreneurs will work for next to nothing to the benefit of the unions. Obama can’t even find people to work for his administration, how does he think he’s going to find people to run “private” industry for the government and unions?


22 posted on 05/13/2009 1:54:44 PM PDT by Eva (union motto - Aim for mediocrity, it's only fair.)
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To: Eva
The state and people are not the same entity in a fascist regime. That’s the difference.

It appears that the main difference between your point of view and mine is theory versus practice. In theory, there is a difference between in the system labeled socialism and the system labeled fascism. In practice, the difference disappears

For example, in theory, "the people" own everything equally in socialism, but in practice in all the places it's been implemented, the annointed government bureaucrats end up with a lot more than the ordinary people (including, for Mao Zedong, young virgins for him to infect with syphillis). In effect, the socialist system rulers and their cronies (the 'nomenclatura' of Stalin's time) end up with essentially the same sort of special privileges and control as their fascist equivalents. And in particular, they make decisions based on benefit to the state (which is to say - benefit to themselves), not benefit to the people generally.

In the same way, in theory socialism has an international flavor, while fascism was nationalistic. However, in practice, Hitlerism was not so much nationalistic as racist - regardless of whether the 'racially pure' lived in Germany or the Sudetenland, or Czechoslovakia. And in practice, there was never a member of the ruling Politburo in the USSR who was not of the 'great Russian' race.

There is a similar distinction without a difference between socialism and communism. In theory, after a socialist government ensures that each has been given according to his need, and assigns each to provide according to his abilities, "the state will wither away." In practice, once the rulers of a socialist state gain power, they never give it up. They may call themselves 'communist' but they are in fact 'socialist.'

In theory, each system is distinct. In practice, the distinctions never turn out to make any difference.

The only real distinction that matters is whether rights and authority are individual or collective. In socialism, fascism, and communism, there are no individual rights for ordinary citizens (though the rulers and their cronies always seem to do pretty well). The rulers may hide their dictatorship behind various facades, but the facade only disguises - it doesn't change the basic nature of the system.
23 posted on 05/13/2009 2:26:47 PM PDT by Phlyer
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To: Phlyer

I haven’t been explaining this very well. What I am trying to say is that in true fascism, the people own NOTHING, not even in name only. In socialism, the people nominally own everything. In Obamism the people, nominally own or have the right to own everything, but Obama still expects the the private entrepreneur to contribute at the same rate, but under heavy regulation. Obamism is like something directly from Atlas Shrugged. I expect Obama to enact a anti-dog eats dog rule at any time.


24 posted on 05/13/2009 5:40:59 PM PDT by Eva (union motto - Aim for mediocrity, it's only fair.)
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To: Eva
Well, I won't disagree because you're talking about 'true' fascism or whatever - which I would characterize as the 'theory.' And I'm talking about economic approaches that 'in practice' are not really enough different from each other to matter.

And Obamism is the same as any of those. His choice would be to take this nation into socialism (whether called fascist, communist, socialist, or 'progressive' doesn't matter to me).
25 posted on 05/13/2009 6:33:54 PM PDT by Phlyer
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To: Phlyer

I think that the difference is between European ideology and US style ideology. A European poster, last week, said that the difference is that the European model lacks the antipathy of the union worker for the owner/management. They aren’t trying to make any retribution for past perceived injustices, as is present in the US model and Obamism. Obama thinks of his economic ideology as a type of restorative justice.


26 posted on 05/13/2009 6:43:04 PM PDT by Eva (union motto - Aim for mediocrity, it's only fair.)
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To: Eva
Obama thinks of his economic ideology as a type of restorative justice.

Now you're talking motivation, and you may be right. But I'll stay with my position that: Regardless of motivation, the end result is the same - totalitarian socialism.

You can either assume they are too stupid and naive to see that their approaches always end up providing them with more power - so their motivations may indeed be something other than acquiring power - or you can be cynical and assume that regardless of what they claim their motivation to be, they are just pursuing power.

From my perspective, as a lowly peon in the mass of 'mere' citizens, it doesn't really make any difference. They are taking away my rights and authority and concentrating it in the hands of 'the state' - which is their own hands.

An interesting thread was posted today. http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2250737/posts
27 posted on 05/14/2009 7:38:26 AM PDT by Phlyer
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