Can anyone show when the two first got associated? I don’t think in the 40’s anyone would have accused the Old Right as Fascist. In the 30’s weren’t many of the hip left in the Fascist camp? Was there some intellectual/ world war of two leftist ideologies at the time, and fascism lost so it got dumped the term right wing? If people consider the Nazis Fascist, isn’t it self apparent in the name of national socialism, that it probably can’t be “extremly right wing”? And can’t it be pretty easily shown that Keynes (our left wing hero of the moment) was indeed an admirer of Fascism?
Is there any way to trace the evolution of fasism going from the left to right? For that matter how did the love of authority get to exclusivly mean right wing?
Because in a system where you only need a 50% majority to wield power there are only two factions, the left and the right, and the Nazis’ biggest opposition was on the left, so that made them right-wing.
I’ve always thought that Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn had an interesting view of this. He characterises fascism as fundamentally leftist because of its identitarian and collectivist nature.
Then again, “right” and “left” aren’t easily defined.
This is not true…you need to go back and study history.
In the 1930’s Germany had two major factions fighting for political power, the National Socialist Workers Party (Nazi Party) and the Communists. Hitler and his followers sympathized with much of the communists theories but was afraid of Russia. The Nazi’s were more worried about Russia than communism. In fact, the National Socialist Workers Party was against capitalism but Hitler knew that he needed businessmen to help push his agenda.
The National Socialist Workers Party has much more in common with today’s National Democrat Party in the US in that both strongly supported socialism over capitalism and a strong centrally controlled government. Associating Nazi’s and fascism to the Republican Party is an incorrect correlation. The Nazi’s were really, extreme leftwing and calling them rightwing is nothing short of history revision.
one must understand that by 1930 altar and throne right-wingers were a dodo. the nazis simple cashed in on the mass popularity of state-socialism. to be a populist one must follow trends
The problem I have with the original quote is that it is very general…it is just like saying that because Republicans and Democrats oppose each other we must assume that one is extreme left and the other is extreme right.
My comment does not corroborate…in the 1930’s Germany, the fight was more about who had power over ideology because the two factions were similar politically. They both (Communist and National Socialists) were using the same tactics to gain power…mostly intimidation, violence and murder. Eitherway, Germany was screwed with either party because both systems had the ruling class of people who would run the country. Once in power, neither would be removed democratically. The German people were backed into a hole financially and were given by power hungry mad-men two choices…Monster 1 or Monster 2…Capitalism is the only free system, anything else is just another prison/concentration camp.
Best thing to do is continually reject the paradigm, don’t associate yourself as right wing (simply because we look at economics more, and think that’s what must represent us). You will automatically be associated with the neo-cons and war mongers. Whats the point in doing that?
Forwards towards Liberty, or backwards towards Tyranny.
Fascism is completely left wing; it involves the government controlling (though not outright owning) industries. The reason the Nazis were afraid of the communists is because their [Nazis] party was based upon scapegoating the Jews while communists wanted to unite people based upon class and not race. It would have undermined a key facet of Hitler’s propaganda. However, both communists and Nazis are left wing - that is, if we are using the contemporary United States left/right paradigm. In The Road to Serfdom Hayek discusses this in significant detail. He says that many students returned from the Continent unsure of if they had encountered Nazis or communists but only certain they hated Western liberal civilization. Hayek also notes that communists and socialists were often recruited by the Nazis because there was a great deal of overlap in their ideologies.
The real question is - Is the United States fascist or socialist? Where do we draw the line in the sand?
When Benito Mussolini was elected for the first time at the Italian parliament (in the Socialist Party… as you all well know), to mark his intention of breaking all schemes and to give himself some attention from the newspapers, he deliberately chose to occupy the rightmost seat available, which had been unoccupied in years by image-conscious Conservatives. Then, since he was a brilliant orator and a flamboyant personality, other MPs following his example flocked to the surrounding seats… and that’s how the extreme right was born.
It seems to me that the answer is that these words don’t really mean anything. Left-wing, right-wing, conservative, liberal, capitalism, socialism, fascism - none of them has any real meaning that remains the same from one discussion to another. They’re anti-concepts, and many suffer from the package-deal fallacy.
To respond specifically, Hayek discusses this issue a bit in The Road to Serfdom. His answer is that new political movements don’t arise from nowhere. Rather, there is a social drift which defines the range on which politics operates. Germany had gone quite far towards socialism. Then, once the range is determined, the right side of that range is the right, and the left side of that range is the left. So, in a very socialist state like Germany, the fascists did occupy the right-most position. He explains that this is why people came to believe that socialism and fascism are opposites, and that one must be a socialist to stop fascism. The fact is, he says, that the liberty-asserting position had already been entirely removed from the discussion, and the socialists were all that was left to oppose the fascists.
You should be a little more careful with your words, you might just say something like what you did above to someone who knows a little about history. Well, too late for that, actually.
Who were the biggest political enemies of Mussolini (the leader of the first fascist movement)? Against who did he most vigorously campaign, and what did he paint all his opponents as? Communists.
Let’s try even the National Socialists (though Mussolini did not find their imitations particularly good, and many scholars oppose their classification as “fascists”). Who were their greatest enemies? What political ideology did Hitler associate most with Jews? Who did Hitler warn was trying to take over the country? Communists.
I never said fascism should be considered right-wing, so your musings to the contrary are irrelevant. Where fascism actually fits on the political spectrum is totally inconsequential to the question of why people think it is on the extreme right.
Your logic is twisted. If we could have found a Capitalist party in Germany…Hitler would have opposed them too and painted them as the enemy. Fact is, Hitler DID oppose capitalism but they were not a political party, they were Jews. The only thing “right wing” about the National Socialist Workers Party is that they were only slightly right of the communist party which Hitler had no control (Hitler was sympathetic to communist ideology) but for Hitler it was all about power. Furthermore, associating Jews with communists was a red herring, they were capitalists, small business owners etc.
You were the one with a one liner that was apparently nothing more than an attempt to again paint anyone who is republican as right wing and therefore associated witht he Nazi Party when in FACT the current Democrat party has much more in common with the National Socialist Workers Party fascists than any single or group of republicans.
Here in the US the Democrat Socialist Workers Party has replaced JEW with AIG, and look what we have, an angry mob threatening to KILL AIG execs. See, hang around long enough and history will repeat itself.