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To: gcruse
So, if Nazism is leftist, and Facism is a communist invention, what form of government lies to the extreme right?

In Europe the old monarchical system counted as the right. A restorationist or legitimist Bourbon or Orleanist would probably count as an "extreme rightist," at least before Nazis and fascism complicated things.

The whole left-right schema has a lot of problems.

First of all, those monarchies were not so conservative in the days when they were accumulating power, and absolutism was not a form of conservatism.

Secondly, the Nazis-right, Communists-left dichotomy is dubious. It grew out of the street fighting of the Twenties and Thirties. The Nazis were not classic rightists, but neither were they model socialists. Their ideology, like Mussolini's fascism, was a mixture of right-wing and left-wing elements, that was tagged rightist because of the street combat, not because of a detailed analysis of their program. Given that Strasser and other more socialist Nazis were purged, though, simply labeling the NDSAP left-wing or socialist would also be an oversimplification.

Perhaps it's time more than anything that matters: socialist, nationalist and social darwinist ideas were far stronger from, say 1870 to 1980, than they were before or since. Ideas that we now unhesitatingly identify as right or left like eugenics or nationalization were stronger at various points on the political spectrum then, than they were at almost any point since, save on the very fringes of political debate.

But then, the whole one-dimensional left-right scheme is itself an over simplification. Political scientists have tried to give it more substance and explanatory power by making it a two or three dimensional model. Libertarians also like the two dimensional grid. One sci-fi writer labels his axes: "Attitude toward the State," and "Attitude toward planned social progress".

113 posted on 02/19/2002 2:59:46 PM PST by x
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To: x
My favorite continuum I first heard back in the '70s.
The line runs from freedom on one end to security on the other. Works 4 me.
118 posted on 02/19/2002 3:57:56 PM PST by gcruse
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To: x;KC Burke;TLBSHOW;Temple Owl;snopercod
The Twenty-Five Points of Hitler's NAZI Party (website: The History Place(tm))
 " ... we demand:
11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.

16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.

17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.


139 posted on 02/21/2002 9:07:36 AM PST by First_Salute
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