I have always thought that a right wing extremist would be an Anarchist (no government infringing on anyone’s liberty).
Basically, a right-wing extremist is only considered a fascist by a left-wing extremist (the same way a left-wing extremist is considered a communist by a right-wing extremist). It’s a vicious circle…
I don’t know that it’s “considered” right-winged any more than being a bible-beating zealot is “considered” left-wing. It’s more of an insult, isn’t it? IMHO it’s infered like this: liberalism=socialism=fascism.
Wait, I mean that the other way around, wings-wise, don’t I? And when have you ever heard a conservative be called a fascist? I’m so confused…
As they’ve been practiced historically, there’s not much difference between fascism and communism. But in the early part of the last century when fascism appeared on the scene its relationship with the communists was antagonistic, so the two movements became identified as opposites (kinda sorta along the lines of whatHail Ants said), with the commies being left-wing and fascists being right wing. As you’ve noticed, the linear left-right model of the political spectrum doesn’t really work very well.
All the way to the right you have the KKK, all the way to the left you have the Neo Nazis. The Democrats are slightly left of center, republicans are sligtly right of center.
------------------------|----------------------Nazi |_____| KKK
D
|_____|
R
This is my pathetic attempt at a graph. Superimpose a bell curve over it to show that that 50% of people are at dead center and it drops down about equally on each side.
Forget it, its totally messed up.
Historically those states that have most obviously implemented fascism have been identifiably right-wing. Franco’s Spain, Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany were arguably right-wing in their promotion of state over individual, militarism with a supernatural edge (either in artifically revived nationalism or ideas of a superman leader) and the incorporation of business and labour into the state.
Fascism never pretended to be anything other than how it was implemented. Despite the level of state supremacy, centralised economic control and mythical “motherland” appeals in practice, communism in theory was all about freedom from authoritarian institutions.
In short: in practice, actual communist and fascists states looked fairly similar, but the theories behind them were very different.
Neo-Nazis left wing? I don’t think so. The Neo-Nazis and the Klan are both centered around white supremacy and not much else. They don’t have many political beliefs outside of that. And because right-wingers are almost always (wrongly) considered to be anti-minority these days, hate groups are (again wrongly) labeled as right-wing.
Remember that Lincoln was a Republican.
What does that have to do with anything?
Except that right-wing often describes those in favor of free markets and other capitalist ideas. Following that trend to its logical end does not even mildly resemble fascism.
If you extrapolate an extreme case from certain left-wing economic ideas, you do indeed get something akin to socialism. If you do likewise with certain right-wing social ideas, you get something akin to fascism. Thus, people on either side of the spectrum like this sort of name-calling, even if it is pretty stupid.
Somehow, capitalist, pro-business ideas have also been labelled by some opposed to such ideas as fascist. While certainly fascism incorporated government-supported industry, that is a far cry from government leaving industry alone. Perhaps the most extreme example of the fascism label being misapplied was in reading a customer review of Friederich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom on Amazon. The book’s argument is that a centrally planned economy cannot exist without creating oppression, such as in Nazi Germany, and thus is a bad idea. Whether or not you agree with the book, it is plainly anti-fascist.
I’m pointing out how political name-calling changes over time.
The reason fascism is right-wing and communism is left-wing, despite the fact that they are extremely similar, is due to the fact that a simple right-left one dimensional model is pretty much useless as a tool to understand government.
I think it’s main use came about during the cold war, when the communists were over to the left, and everything else was measured against it.
A much better graphing tool is ‘Pournelle’s Political Spectrum’, which has an X and Y axis. It looks something like this:
Rational
L | C
|
|
|
|
Individualism-------------+--------------Statism
|
|
|
|
A | F
Irrational
A=Anarchism
L=Libertarianism
C=Communism
F=Fascism
Rational and Irrational don’t mean the state of mind of the people, they mean the justification for wherever you are on the Individualism/Statism axis. A rational Statist believes that the state is an engine for improvement of society. An irrational statist doesn’t care - the state IS the end.
Likewise, a Libertarian is a rational Individualist, in that he thinks giving power to individuals leads to the best society. An Anarchist is an irrational individualist, because he doesn’t care - he just wants to do whatever he pleases.
Notice that this graph clears up the confusion between Communism and Socialism - on the old left/right axis, they are opposites. Here, they share one main attribute, and differ only in motivation.
[Edited by Lynn Bodoni on 07-23-2001 at 04:01 AM]
Whoa! Apparently, forgetting to close the ‘code’ tag does bad things. I have no idea why it’s scrolling to the right so far. If a moderator could kindly add a closing ‘code’ tag after the graph, it’d be much appreciated.
Fascism is considered right wing, I think, because it comes out of conservativism. It shares with conservativism the idea of the supremacy of the state over the individual, the idea that the resources of a nation exist for the good of the entire nation, rather than the good of individuals, and the idea that the leader is leader because of some inherent right to lead (for conservatives, it’s the divine right of kings, for fascists it’s because the leader is a man with superior vision and strength). Fascism is, of course, much more brutal that conservativism, because it destroys the other ties that people have…ties of family, of religion, etc, and subordinates them to the state, and I don’t know of any conservative leader, be it Louis XIV, Metternich, or Disraeli, who would support fascism, but the links are there.
Perhaps because going to extremes is never a good idea either way?
You are wrong if you consider a modern American conservative to be that.
(part of the problem with titles of conservative and liberal is how much they shift over time and from different regions). It is a liberal who believe that the state (or more specifically, society) takes precedence over the individual. It is a conservative who believes that the rights of the individual take precedence over that demands of society.
A quick example of this is how a Republican would want to cut taxes as much as possible (and cut them for all people, not just the poor) believing that the government had no right to take the money in the first place.
A Democrat would want to raise taxes (often on specific groups, ie the rich) so that we may have social welfare programs.
I think a discussion of liberal and conservative is better off leaving dem/reps out of it… they stay way too close to the center for any valid interpretation. Obviously today the liberal view is that of a relatively large government protecting the rights of the many over the freedoms of the few. Further, from the definitions of fascism we’ve seen, it is fairly close to this liberal view, except that instead of the purpose of that “oppression” (i don’t care if it does help the masses, its still oppressing certain freedoms to do it) is merely for purposes of the state to be powerful. That doesn’t mean “Oh man fascist and liberals are both on the same team”, that’s why sam stone posted that other visualization, to point out that you can’t say there’s only two ends to this thing. Obviously in one sense, liberals (and the extension of that being communism) and fascists agree, but that’s only one factor of many that place an ideology on a political spectrum. In the “pournelle’s” model there are 2 factors, I would say there’s probably a whole lot more than that, but to visualize it you’d need all kinds of whacky dimensions and projections and whatnot.
I’m glad to have read this thread. I had realized for a while now that “left and right” just wasn’t working, but I couldn’t come up with an alternative, and now I’ve seen one and for now it’s working a hell of a lot better.
That is pretty much what my messed up graph was supposed to show.