I would be interested in seeing a post, blog, website, etc that is devoted to defining political terms. I was at a Tea Party where I saw signs calling Obama a communist, a socialist, and a fascist. Which sign was correct? All three? What about Bush, what would we classify him as?
I believe there are many people who don’t understand the basic definitions, which makes further discussion basically worthless. It’s like trying to figure out Austrian economics and praxeology without understanding the foundation.
So I’m wondering if there is such a site, and if not, perhaps one could be created here?
You could certainly start a definition page here in the wiki. I’m just not sure that classification has a lot of value.
It’s the ideas, not the labels which matter. I think ideas like peace, voluntarism, trade, justice etc are quite clear in their definitions.
On any given day I call myself a voluntarist, an anarchist, an anarcho-capitalist, a conservative, a liberal, a classic liberal, a libertarian and an austrian. But the common thread is that I support natural rights, private property, free markets and peaceful interaction.
Hoppe describes two forms of socialism/statism - left (social-democratic) and right (conservative). This does not refer at all to the extent of socialism/statism as opposed to freedom. Strong socialists are called communists (on the left) and fascists/corporatists (on the right).
As you can see from my page, I class Obama as a strong socialist/statist of the left-wing variety, so communist would be a fairly accurate description, though he also has some right-wing views, so there are elements of fascism/corporatism as well.
Obama is neither fascist nor communist, not even socialist, but a liberal democrat, and communism and fascism have nothing to do with each other, and fascism is not socialism but directly opposed to that (only the nazi’s themselves claim that, but one should not buy that crap).
If fascism was a form of socialism, why did Hitler then kill all the socialists, communists, trade-unionists, etc.??? Makes really no sense.
‘If fascism was a form of socialism, why did Hitler then kill all the socialists, communists, trade-unionists, etc.??? Makes really no sense.’
Why did Lenin killed the sailors of Kronstadt? Why did Stalin kill Trotsky? Men in power will always secure their power by any means.
If we are to define socialism as the public ownership of the means of production then fascism most certainly deserves a spot in the corpus of socialist thought. For the founder of fascism stated: ‘Everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing above the state’