Monday, January 28, 2008
Fascist is as fascist does
But why should that stop us? I'm looking at some of Megan McArdle 's dialogue on the subject. In the comments two criteria come up as proposed Fascist traits:
7 Religion and Government are Intertwined
8 Corporate Power is Protected
As the linked comment suggests, these aren't necessarily conventional criteria for fascism. However, they do illustrate how listing fascist state attributes can take you through the looking glass.
For instance, many utopian states are envisioned as completely disassociated from organized religion. The problem is, these utopian states might also be described as a competing religion, requiring certain articles of faith and codes of behavior. So the state is either completely divorced from religion or it is the monopoly religion. One can argue from either point of view.
Similarly, when a government seeks to regulate more, it often has the effect of protecting corporate power as much as diminishing it. In theory the government acts in the interests of the consumer. In practice...not so much. In the extreme, a socialist economy takes over corporations, which become the agents of an extremely powerful state. Has a corporation's power grown or diminished when marketplace discipline is replaced by sovereign stakeholders?
These are the reasons, as one commenter states, that the term has become so malleable. The word fascism is simply attached, in common usage, to some very malleable concepts.
Make no mistake, Goldberg is addressing the 'common usage" crowd. That's one of the things that's a bit confusing about Liberal Fascism
. It's clearly provoked by the proverbial rabble raising "Bushitler" signs, but quickly takes on the veneer of an academic classification exercise.5 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Jan 28, 08:56:00 PM:
A fascists is just another name for a liberal
By 
cttaxed.com, at
Mon Jan 28, 11:01:00 PM:
The over usage and totally inappropriate usage of the term has left me totally confused and scrambling for my old textbooks and wikipedia.
I prefer the WII usage as related to the AXIS powers. Therefore "common usage" is not correct and those who throw the term about in current circumstance are not far removed in the evolutionary tree from those who use the term racist as a tag to kill discussion just as easily.
By Pax Federatica, at
Tue Jan 29, 12:02:00 AM:
This comment on Winds of Change has a quote from George Orwell that pretty much says it all:
....Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept "bully" as a synonym for "Fascist". That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.
In other words, if you favor any sort of policy against terrorists, illegal immigrants, or what have you that's the least bit heavy-handed, you are likely to acquire the "fascist" label in short order.
By , at
Tue Jan 29, 12:30:00 AM:
For the record, @ the first commentor, I think the term "liberal" as similarly been too handwavingly defined and abused to have respectable meaning anymore. Case in point: a recent conversation with some of the more conservative of my friends. Short version:
Them: I just don't understand the liberal aversion to communities self-determining whether or not sodomy should be illegal. (Subtext = such an opposition is of course a strictly liberal phenomena.)
Me: Perhaps it has to do with a skepticism directed at empowering the government in an exceptionally private sphere without justification as to why such a power should be extended. Alternatively, if the law doesn't have teeth to it and the empowerment isn't an issue, why should the government be wasting time on such a law anyway. At the point where the law is just "taking a stand" or "sending a message," where is the narrow tailoring to avoid the slippery slope argument of government taking a stand on every goddamn thing? Also, what about the erosion of respect for the law as a body when some of it "doesn't count?"
I consider all of the points I raised to be standard small government conservative arguments, which makes the lazy use of "liberal" counterproductive and disingenuous/naive. Further, the few times I have heard attempts at definition, such sketches proceeded based on forming a conve hull from a few extreme individuals. Interestingly, this didn't justify the commonplace usage employed later, but rigor is for girly men anyway.
By Georg Felis, at
Tue Jan 29, 11:39:00 AM:
My belief. Fascism is a belief that the Government is much better suited to controlling all aspects of your life and the economy than you are. Communism is "The Government" pretending to be "The People" and doing the same thing.
