# Differences between fascism and socialism/communism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 6, 2013, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457 "2013-08-06T00:55:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/41 "2013-08-14T00:49:36Z")
There are really only two differences between fascism and communism: First, one is nationalist, the other is internationalist. Nationalist Communist dictatorships are more appropriately called fascist, regardless of what they call themselves. That’s why it was called national socialism. The other difference is that one controls the economy by ordering around the corporations. The other does so my trying to run the industries themselves. Communism has failed miserably everywhere. Today’s communist countries, at least the ones that aren’t basket cases, have transitioned to what is essentially fascism. As far as whether it’s right or left, that depends on what it’s being compared to. Compared to Communism, fascism is right-wing. Compared to contemporary American liberalism, it’s left-wing. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/42 "2013-08-14T01:26:24Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Compared to contemporary American liberalism, it’s left-wing. 😕 WTF?! ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/43 "2013-08-14T17:46:49Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > There are really only two differences between fascism and communism: First, one is nationalist, the other is internationalist. Nationalist Communist dictatorships are more appropriately called fascist, regardless of what they call themselves. That’s why it was called national socialism. > > The other difference is that one controls the economy by ordering around the corporations. The other does so my trying to run the industries themselves. There’s another difference. Communism has an ideology, based on the works of Marx, Engel, etc. Fascism has no academic pedigree at all. There’s no philosophy there, merely the audacity to seize power and wield it for nationalist goals. Of course, countries that call themselves Communist depart considerably from Marx’s philosophical principles, so this is more of a theoretical distinction than a practical one. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/44 "2013-08-14T18:16:23Z")
> [@Learjeff](#): > > There’s another difference. Communism has an ideology, based on the works of Marx, Engel, etc. Fascism has no academic pedigree at all. There’s no philosophy there, merely the audacity to seize power and wield it for nationalist goals. Well, there is **some.** Excerpts from a review by the late conservative Catholic intellectual John J. Reilly (I’d link to the whole thing, but his website went dark after he died) of [_Fascism: A History,_](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0140257004) by Roger Eatwell: > [@](#): > > The ideological component of fascism has often been neglected in favor of psychohistories of fascist leaders and morbid prose poems about national character. This is understandable, since one of the defining features of fascism is ideological syncretism. Usually, this has meant combining “socialism” with some form of nationalism, but even this minimum requires qualification. The study of fascist ideology is made even more difficult by the fact it was most systematically expressed where it had the least influence, in France and Britain. (Eatwell is not an admirer of British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley, but he does give him credit for producing the best thought-out fascist party-platform. The best platform so far, that is.) In any case, at the local level, fascism often had little theoretical content, beyond the privilege of beating people up with impunity. Nevertheless, fascism does have an intellectual history, and the phenomenon as a whole is not so diffuse as to defy definition. > > Fascism would not have been possible without Friedrich Nietzsche. There has been no lack of anti-theistic philosophers both before and after Nietzsche, but he is almost alone in honestly facing the consequences of living in a world in which everything is permitted. Most thinkers have sought to preserve some fragment of the intellectual structure that depended from the hypothesis of the Christian God, and so they appeal to reason or history or science. Nietzsche would have none of it. If the skies are really empty, then there are no imperatives. There is, however, life, which in the case of human beings expresses itself not just as biology but as the will. Now Nietzsche, unlike Schopenhauer and unlike many of his own followers, recognized the will is itself a composite entity. It is not a primary physical force, and it is not a god. It does, however, actually exist, and its exercise is all the meaning that life can ever have. Hm. Well, come to think of it, the exercise of the will **is** all the meaning that life can ever have. Not that that necessarily implies fascism; it is probably compatible with existentialism. > [@](#): > > The proposition that the meaning of life is the exercise of the will leads to two kinds of conclusions. The most obvious, and the most popular, is the cult of cruelty. Naturally, the street-fighters who normally figure in the public activities of successful fascist parties are rarely well-read in the literature of philosophical nihilism. Nevertheless, even the nihilist violence of the German SA and the Italian “squadristi” chimes with high theory. Fascism promotes ruthlessness for the same reason that it promotes conspiracy theories: for a fascist, nothing is going to happen unless some will makes it happen. One suspects this consideration is also a factor in the usual fascist suspicion of free markets. > > The other conclusion to which an ontology of the will leads is the transformation of politics into art. Whole societies become instruments for the expression of the will of elites, or often of a single great individual. In fascist theory, this is all that politics ever was, no matter what purportedly disinterested purposes the ruling elites of the past believed they served. The difference that Nietzsche made was that this reality could become conscious. > > \ > > The myths used to organize the elites were not necessarily those provided for the masses. The Nazi leadership in particular cultivated a sort of occultism (though if figures like Julius Evola are any indication, this enthusiasm was not absent from Italy, either). The people, however, were pushed with more conventional forms of nationalist xenophobia and pulled with quite prosaic promises of economic improvement and social welfare (promises on which both regimes could in large measure deliver). This difference of integrative principles was consistent with the fascist notion of society as an organic entity. Organism implies differentiation, so it was only proper that elites and masses be organized through different means. > > \ > > The distinctive thing about fascism, however, is that it has always been a doctrine for masters rather than followers. Eatwell has some very alarming things to say about the growth of “up-scale” fascism, of ideological resources for people who either belong to existing elites or would very much like to start one. This has been made immensely easier, at least in my own view, by the spread of relativist philosophies in the Nietzschean tradition in the last quarter of the 20th century, particularly at the elite schools. No matter the intent of the instructors, it always seemed singularly ill-advised to me to tell young people, who by virtue of native intelligence and social position were going to wind up running a fair slice of the world anyway, that life was really just about power. There is always some danger they might believe it. > > A sentiment that seems to find increasing currency is what might be called “Euro-fascism.” While fascist parties between the wars built their followings on nationalistic platforms, still from the very beginning fascism has always had a universalizing streak. Nietzsche pronounced himself a “good European.” In these days when political theorists speak in terms of the clash of civilizations, New Right theory seems to be moving in the direction, not of renewed hypernationalism, but of an integrating theory for the European Union. Eatwell notes that the EU as it stands is a disedifying entity, run by bland bureaucrats who are most concerned with setting standards for bottled jam. Current plans for future integration will go no further toward turning Europe into a true political community (that word again). Eatwell asks whether anyone is ever going to be willing to die for the Bundesbank. Maybe what Europe needs is a Sorelian myth to hold it together. Work is in progress. > > So, are we really just back where we started at the beginning of the 20th century, waiting for some crisis that will delegitimize the existing establishments and start the ball rolling again? One way to look at the 20th century is as one long recoil from the process of globalization. It was only in the 1990s, for instance, that international capital flows again reached the levels relative to the economies of the major countries that they had reached before the First World War. Similarly, it is only recently that international trade in general became as important as it was around 1900. What happened thereafter was that the governments of the leading nations sought to gain unprecedented control of their countries’ destinies. Partly this was accomplished by war, partly it was accomplished through the creation of command economies. Stalinism was simply Lloyd George’s “War Socialism” made permanent, something that happened in greater or lesser degree throughout the West. In every case, the goal was to replace the power of capital with the power of the will, whether the will was that of an electorate or of a would-be Nietzschean superman. When, starting in the 1980s, the military and economic systems of command began to be relaxed, the world economic system began to look again something like the way it had looked before these measures were implemented. The process of globalization began again. So did the attempts to stop it. > > It would be wrong to say that all attempts to stop globalization of economics and communications and culture are fascist. Most resistance to universalism comes from a positive desire to preserve local identities and traditions. Such things may or may not be worth preserving. The balance between the local and the universal is not something that can be dictated categorically. Fascist nationalism, in contrast, was perhaps just an improvisation, made necessary by the fact that nations states were the largest units that fascist elites could hope to control. At a deeper level of fascism is the ideal of the universal empire, of the whole world subject to a single will. The goal is repeatedly deferred only because it is obviously so much harder to achieve. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/45 "2013-08-14T19:02:54Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > There are really only two differences between fascism and communism: First, one is nationalist, the other is internationalist. There are more than two differences, as a cursory look at this thread should show. > [@](#): > > Nationalist Communist dictatorships are more appropriately called fascist, regardless of what they call themselves. That’s why it was called national socialism. First, there have only ever been ‘nationalist’ communist countries; while it has an international appeal and can thus be easily exported and in theory strives for a classless, nation less society, it has led no more to the elimination of countries than it has to the elimination of classes. During the Cold War the communist world was not a monolithic entity, and communist nations spent a good deal of time fighting each other. See the Sino-Soviet schism in general and the [Sino-Soviet border conflict](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Soviet_border_conflict) in particular, the [Sino-Vietnamese War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sino-Vietnamese_War), and the [Cambodian-Vietnamese War](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian%E2%80%93Vietnamese_War). Second, national socialism (NSDAP, the Nazis) was not actually socialist any more than the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was democratic or a republic, or the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is democratic or a republic. There really ought to be a word for referring to the Nazis as socialists. > [@](#): > > Communism has failed miserably everywhere. Today’s communist countries, at least the ones that aren’t basket cases, have transitioned to what is essentially fascism. By the definition your trying to give above, all communist countries have always been fascist. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/46 "2013-08-14T19:44:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Hm. Well, come to think of it, the exercise of the will **is** all the meaning that life can ever have. Not that that necessarily implies fascism; it is probably compatible with existentialism. Or, even with socialism, or Objectivism, or any system of thought that does not define the meaning of life in terms of service to God or something similar. Even Buddhism, perhaps. It all depends on the **content** of the will. ---
**Author:** ![Human\_Action](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ac91a4/32.png) [@Human\_Action](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Human_Action)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/47 "2013-08-14T19:55:26Z")
Doesn’t Objectivism define the meaning of life as perpetuation of life, as only life makes values possible? ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 14, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/48 "2013-08-14T23:39:58Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > 😕 WTF?! American liberalism is nationalist and pro-social democracy, although falling well short of socialism. Move it a distance further to the left and you get national socialism. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/49 "2013-08-15T01:23:05Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > American liberalism is nationalist and pro-social democracy, although falling well short of socialism. Move it a distance further to the left and you get national socialism. :rolleyes: Like if that virtually non veiled insult to liberals does not make your posts look more ridiculous here and elsewhere. > **[The Scholarly Flaws of "Liberal Fascism"](https://www.hnn.us/article/the-scholarly-flaws-of-liberal-fascism)** > > Jonah Goldberg tells us he wrote this book to get even.  The liberals started it by “insist\[ing\] that conservatism has connections with fascism” (p.  22).  Conservatives “sit dumbfounded by the nastiness of the slander” (p. ... > [@](#): > > Feeling oneself a victim is wonderfully liberating. Anything goes. So Jonah Goldberg pulls out all the stops to show that fascism “is not a phenomenon of the right at all. It is, and always has been, a phenomenon of the left” (p. 7). The reader perceives at once that Goldberg likes to put things into rigid boxes: right and left, conservative and liberal, fascist and non-fascist. He doesn’t leave room for such complexities as convergences, middle grounds, or evolution over time. Thus Father Coughlin was always a man of the left, and so was Mussolini (Giacomo Matteotti or the Rosselli brothers, leaders of the Italian left whom Mussolini had assassinated, would have been scandalized by this view). The very mention of a “Third Way” puts one instantly into the fascist box. > > That’s too bad, because there really is a subject here. Fascism – a political latecomer that adapted anti-socialism to a mass electorate, using means that often owed nothing to conservatism – drew on both right and left, and tried to transcend that bitter division in a purified, invigorated, expansionist national community. A sensitive analysis of what fascism drew from all quarters of the political spectrum would be a valuable project. It is not Jonah Goldberg’s project. > > \*\*The bottom line is that Goldberg wants to attach a defaming epithet to liberals and the left, to “put the brown shirt on [your] opponents,” as he accuses the liberals of doing (p. 392). He goes about this task with a massive apparatus of scholarly citations and quotations. But Goldberg’s scholarship is not an even-handed search for understanding, following the best evidence fully and open-mindedly wherever it might lead. He chooses his scholarly data selectively and sometimes misleadingly in the service of his demonstration. \*\* > > Jonah Goldberg knows that making the Progressives, Woodrow Wilson, Theodore Roosevelt and FDR the creators of an American fascism – indeed the only American fascism, for George Lincoln Rockwell and other overt American fascist or Nazi sympathizers are totally absent from this book – is a stretch, so he has created a new box: Liberal Fascism. The Progressives and their heirs who wanted to use government to rectify social and economic ills, and who, in Goldberg’s view, thereby created an American Fascism, acted with good intentions, rarely used violence, and had nothing to do with Auschwitz. Even so, they share an intellectual heredity and a set of common goals with the European fascists. So they go into the “Liberal Fascist” box. > > Liberal Fascism is an oxymoron, of course. A fascism that means no harm is a contradiction in terms. Authentic fascists intend to harm those whom they define as the nation’s internal and external enemies. Someone who doesn’t intend to harm his or her enemies, and who doesn’t relish doing it violently, isn’t really fascist. > > But the problems go much deeper. Pushing Liberalism and Fascism together requires distorting both terms. It doesn’t help that these are two of the most problematical words in the political lexicon. To his credit, Goldberg is aware that the term “liberal” has been corrupted in contemporary American usage. It ought to mean (and still means in the rest of the world) a principled opposition to state interference in the economy, from Adam Smith to Ronald Reagan. Goldberg sometimes refers to “classical liberalism” in this sense, and with approval. Unfortunately he has capitulated to the sloppy current American usage by which “liberal” means, usually pejoratively nowadays, any and all of the various components of the Left, from anarchists and Marxists to moderate Democrats. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/50 "2013-08-15T01:26:47Z")
Liberals want more central control. Conservatives want less. On the American political spectrum, that puts the totalitarian ideologies to the far left. To the far right is anarchy. Fascism is also a revolutionary ideology. American conservatism is the exact opposite of revolutionary. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/51 "2013-08-15T01:40:18Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Liberals want more central control. Conservatives want less. On the American political spectrum, that puts the totalitarian ideologies to the far left. To the far right is anarchy. Avoidance of what you just affirmed with no shame whatsoever. > [@adaher](#): > > Fascism is also a revolutionary ideology. American conservatism is the exact opposite of revolutionary. Good thing I did not refer to it when dealing with the right wing in Germany, once again, like in the other treads in elections you do depend on very peculiar definitions to make your points, only that in this case you really turned up to the 11th Godwin one. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/52 "2013-08-15T04:09:25Z")
In what ways is fascism right wing? In its centralized control of the economy? In its massive expansion of social welfare programs? In its massive public works programs? Fascism and communism and socialism all derive from the same family tree,and most fascists were former socialists themselves. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/53 "2013-08-15T04:40:30Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > In what ways is fascism right wing? In its centralized control of the economy? In its massive expansion of social welfare programs? In its massive public works programs? Hey, if you want to tell all that you are not reading the big cite from a historian I made before be my guest. (At the bottom there are other links to many others that also report how people that attempt to paint liberals as fascists are really clueless and ignorant of history.) > [@adaher](#): > > Fascism and communism and socialism all derive from the same family tree,and most fascists were former socialists themselves. And that does not show much of anything regarding your sorry accusation about the liberals in America. In Europe everyone knows that one can not really call Hitler an extreme conservative like the American ones, but it is even more clear that calling him liberal or socialist is **really dumb.** > **[Don’t ever call Hitler a socialist](https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2013/02/dont-ever-call-hitler-socialist)** > > By branding political extremists “socialists” or “conservatives” we allow them the entry into the mainstream that they crave. > [@](#): > > Anyone who has studied Hitler’s rise to power knows he was no socialist. He was an opportunist, even a political schizophrenic. Which served him well, because in a Weimar Republic struggling – and failing catastrophically – to come to terms with military humiliation, a crisis of national identity and an economic implosion, ideology was a moveable feast. Indeed, it was so moveable, it opened the door to Hitler’s rise to power. “Who cares what he thinks?” Germany said to herself. “He’ll do for now.” > > Pin the ideology on the Führer is a fun game. Actually, it’s quite a tasteless game. But we can all play it. “The government will not protect the economic interests of the German people by the circuitous method of an economic bureaucracy to be organised by the state, but by the utmost furtherance of private initiative and by the recognition of the rights of property,” Hitler told the Reichstag in 1933. Not exactly the words of a man about to break into a rendition of “The Red Flag”. > > But does it matter? Yes, it does, actually. Hitler wasn’t a socialist, nor was he a conservative. He was a political mutation. And to try to place him anywhere on the conventional political spectrum is not just to abuse history but to play a dangerous game with the future. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 4:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/54 "2013-08-15T04:42:51Z")
I can agree with that. that’s why no one should ever call fascism right-wing. Yet liberals do it, because if they don’t, then there’s no “evil” right-wing extremist ideology to counter what happened when socialism went too far. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/55 "2013-08-15T05:20:45Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I can agree with that. that’s why no one should ever call fascism right-wing. Yet liberals do it, because if they don’t, then there’s no “evil” right-wing extremist ideology to counter what happened when socialism went too far. Thank you for your 100% avoidance of what you are claiming here, we are dealing with your baseless claim that liberals are like fascists, do you take it back? And please do catch up, the main point I made was it was really silly to clean the hands of the right wingers in Europe. They did not disappear or remained neutral once the fascists came to power. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/56 "2013-08-15T05:23:02Z")
I never made the claim to begin with. I said that fascism was to the left of American liberalism, which is saying pretty directly that liberals are not fascists. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 5:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/57 "2013-08-15T05:51:09Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > I never made the claim to begin with. I said that fascism was to the left of American liberalism, which is saying pretty directly that liberals are not fascists. :rolleyes: Pro-tip adaher, that would barely work if you were talking about classical liberalism, _American Liberals_ \*\*are \*\*the left wing. But keep digging, you are welcome to do that. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/58 "2013-08-15T06:03:46Z")
And conservatives are the right wing. If you had said that fascism was to the right of conservatism, then that would not imply that conservatives are fascists either. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/59 "2013-08-15T06:36:11Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Liberals want more central control. Conservatives want less. On the American political spectrum, that puts the totalitarian ideologies to the far left. To the far right is anarchy. Somehow I suspect you would object to ZIP codes as “central control.” > [@adaher](#): > > Fascism is also a revolutionary ideology. American conservatism is the exact opposite of revolutionary. Was once. Not any more. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [August 15, 2013, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457/60 "2013-08-15T06:43:48Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > And conservatives are the right wing. If you had said that fascism was to the right of conservatism, then that would not imply that conservatives are fascists either. Your basic semantic mistake is that you seem to not be aware of what location or percentages are, a good number of European conservatives were also fascists, When you attempt to paint even the left wing that is to the left :rolleyes: of the \*\*American \*\*Liberals as fascists you are indeed digging yourself deeper. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/differences-between-fascism-and-socialism-communism/665457.md?page=4)