“Think of fascists as socialists on steroids” 

“Adolf Hitler didn’t name his fascists the National Socialist German Workers Party because he was a closet conservative trying to hide his right-wing, free-market, libertarian ideas”

Book Review - Jonah Goldberg - “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning”,

The media is confused or lazy or both about the political label “fascist”.
Politicians of the left disguise their own dictatorial and intrusive intentions, by labelling others “fascist”, using the word as an instrument of abuse with no serious political content.  Lefties belittle the good guys of politics and the true standard-bearers for progress – libertarian conservatives who want a smaller state and more individual liberty - by using misleading language which traduces those who would deliver a more intelligent and individualistic form of politics.

It has always been obvious to me that fascists were left-wingers, impatient socialists, who wanted to impose the idea that the state was king. Government should be able to impose its will on people because it knew best and had our best interests at heart, they say.

Socialists on steroids
Think of fascists as socialists on steroids. Or socialists who really mean what they say.  

After all, Adolf Hitler didn’t name his fascists the National Socialist German Workers Party because he was a closet conservative trying to hide his right-wing, free-market, libertarian ideas. Hitler was an extreme socialist. And it is worth remembering that in the 1920s and 1930s, fascist dictators, like former Marxist Benito Mussolini of Italy and Hitler in the early days of his regime in Germany in the 1930s, were not considered to be odious, imprisoning, cold-blooded killers, but visionary statesmen who believed that the state and its experts could rationally solve all problems of humankind. This was often called the “Third Way”, a “philosophy” expounded also by our late, beloved and glorious leader Tony Blair. Don’t forget that the brief flirtation with fascism in Britain was led by the prominent Labour Party leader and socialist Oswald Mosley.

“communism and fascism are closely related historical competitors for the same space”

As Jonah Goldberg argues in his new book “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning”, the word “fascism” is now used by leftists as a form of vacuous abuse for true right-wingers.

Wilson, FDR liberal fascists
But, Goldberg argues fascist ideology is left-wing and always has been. Goldberg says that former presidents Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt (Democrats both) also supported fascist ideas quite openly in the first half of the twentieth century. But there’s was a mostly benign, Americanised version of fascism. Today prominent Democratic Party leaders like Hillary Clinton also favour much state-control, and he says their modern liberal ideas spring from 20^th century progressivism which in turn shares intellectual roots with European fascism.

This of course translates directly to politics in Britain. The worst perpetrator of this insult to our intelligence, you won’t be surprised to hear, is the BBC, which routinely uses the word “fascist”, either without having any idea what it means, or because it is happy to use the word as a form of abuse. Get ready to hear the BBC, in Britain’s local elections next month, routinely describe the British National Party (BNP) as extreme, right-wing fascists.  The BNP, inasmuch as it has any kind of coherent political philosophy, hates globalisation and free trade, loves protectionism, wants the state and its “experts” to do something about what it calls fat-cats in the city by higher taxation or direct action, and wants to nationalise the railways, and much else besides. Just like socialists. 

“Do that, because you know the man in Brussels knows best, and because I say so”
Right-wingers want less government intrusion and lower tax. The more “extreme” the right-winger, the less you will hear about laws to make us better. Right-wingers believe in individual responsibility. The left wants to ban us from doing stuff like smoking and driving. The left loves the idea of nationalised health care when it can intrude ever deeper into our lives and force us to stop doing things which it considers we are too stupid to figure out for ourselves. Right wingers don’t think we are dimwits; the left does, in the nicest possible way of course. Think Margaret Hodge, Red Dawn Primarolo and Harriet Harperson-Dromey, nannying us by insisting that we slash our alcohol consumption, drive slower to save the world from climate change, or telling us that we have to trash our own culture in order make aliens feel more at home. I can hear them saying “Do that, because you know the man in Brussels knows best, and because I say so”, can’t you? Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown is the control freak’s control freak.

Communism, fascism compete for same space
One of the enduring myths of history, says Goldberg, is the way the left has successfully bamboozled the media into accepting its terms of reference, by using communism and fascism as opposite ends of the spectrum, rather than the truth, which is that they are closely related historical competitors for the same space.

Fascism and communism were utopian visions and attracted big support in the West, particularly after World War 1. Goldberg blames Soviet dictator Stalin for this confusion.

“Socialists and progressives aligned with Moscow were called socialists or progressives, while socialists disloyal or opposed to Moscow were called fascists,” Goldberg says.

He offers us a definition of fascism.

“Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the “problem” and therefore defined as the enemy,” he says.

Heavy handed state power
Goldberg surprised me by saying that fascism was first practised in America by progressive Presidents Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). Wilson was keen on using the power available from the mobilisation and war socialism of America in WW1, while FDR used heavy-handed state power to “solve” the economic crisis following the Wall Street Crash in 1929.

Wilson used the Sedition Acts of 1917 and 1918 to end criticism of government policy. American progressives in the 1920s came up with alcohol prohibition, eugenics, loyalty oaths and state capitalism. FDR used much military metaphor in his attempt to reignite the American economy in the 1930s (which many academics now call a failure because the recovery was underway before FDR launched his state power machine, which slowed down the process). FDR encouraged the use of massive militaristic parades (shades of Nuremberg). FDR’s leader of the National Recovery Administration (NRA) distributed copies of Raffaello Viglione’s The Corporate State, a fascist tract loved by Mussolini.

New Deal fascistic
“It seems impossible to deny that the New Deal was objectively fascistic. Under the New Deal, government goons smashed down doors to impose domestic policies. G-men (federal agents) were treated like demigods, even as they spied on dissidents. Captains of industry wrote the rules by which they were governed. FDR secretly taped conversations, used the postal service to punish his enemies, (and) lied repeatedly to manoeuvre the United States into war,” Goldberg said.

“He (FDR) questioned the patriotism of anybody who opposed his economic programmes, never mind the war itself. He created the military-industrial complex so many on the left decry as fascist today,” he said.

And Hitler’s Germany was undoubtedly socialist.

“(Nazi) party leaders spouted all sorts of socialist prattle about seizing the wealth of the rich. Mein Kampf is replete with attacks on “dividend-hungry businessmen” whose “greed” “ruthlessness” and “short-sighted narrow-mindedness” were ruining the country. Hitler adamantly took the side of the trade union movement over “dishonourable” employers,” he said.

Bringing us right up to date, Goldberg unleashes his guns on Hillary Clinton, first-term Senator from New York, and as I write, still a candidate to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for President of the United States. Goldberg reminds us that he’s not accusing the modern left of extreme, concentration-camp fascism, but a nicer, more thoughtful set of ideas which are still unmistakeably fascist

Exemplars of liberal fascism
“Hillary and her friends are the leading proponents and exemplars of liberal fascism in our time,” says Goldberg.

Her book “It Takes A Village” has all the hallmarks of a fascist enterprise, with its over-wheening idea of the organisation which is above everything. “This is the Volksgemeinschaft reborn as a Social Gospel day-care centre,” he says. In her village, healthcare would be controlled by the state (here in England we know the grim cul-de-sac that is the NHS). Clinton’s over-the-top claims for children and their rights are scary and counter-productive. Goldberg quotes her as saying “there isn’t really any such thing as someone else’s child”.

Goldberg agrees that Clinton is no fuehrer in the making, but very dangerous, nevertheless.

“Obama is a fully paid up member of the progressive/liberal fascist tendency, and then some”

“She indisputably draws her vision from the same eternal instinct to impose order on society, to create an all-encompassing community, to get past endless squabbles and ensconce each individual in the security blanket of the state,” Goldberg said.

When Goldberg wrote the book, I doubt that Barack Obama was on anybody’s radar as a possible president. Suffice to say – see “Obamania – Is There Anything Behind The Rhetoric?” – this man is a fully paid up member of the progressive/liberal fascist tendency, and then some.

In the forthcoming presidential election, John McCain is no liberal fascist, although he does have some worrisome tendencies, not least his apparent embrace of the global warming scam with all its implications for personal freedom and pseudo excuses for government action. But Obama/Clinton certainly succumb to the belief that all it takes for prosperity is for the priesthood of experts, as Goldberg calls them, to step forward and redesign society in a “progressive” manner.

“I have repeatedly made clear that modern liberals are not cartoonish Nazi villains. These people aren’t storm troopers or commissars: they’re campus student-life directors and diversity managers, child psychologists and anti-smoking crusaders. The danger they pose isn’t existential or Orwellian, save perhaps in the sense that they might inure Americans to social control from above. The real threat is that the promise of American (and our) life will be frittered away for a bag of magic beans called security,” Goldberg said.

Neil Winton – April 2, 2008