What year is it?
Do liberals have a theory for why fascism is sprouting up around the world?
Because Marxists are like
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/FascismLiberals believe all ideologies other than basic western liberalism are based on confusion or ignorance at a personal level. And that’s the entirety of where ideology comes from. They don’t believe it’s rooted in history, conditions, wealth, anything. They see fascism as a complicated misunderstanding that could potentially be cured through a big speech or exposing fascists to the musical Hamilton. They think ideology is pathogen that spreads more easily through who they regard as ignorant and malleable. They believe racism is simply a matter of confusion over human biology that can be instructed away.
They’re very similar to conservatives like that. They both think societies are built by IQ scores and being “civilized.” Liberals may dress up their goofy theories in fancy academic language, but ultimately they believe the following: “Stupid people are more prone to fascism simply because they’re stupid and didn’t read enough Margaret Atwood books like me. People are more stupid now because of Tiktok.” And that’s how liberals would explain why fascism is on the rise again
And to elaborate on what you said, liberals believe that the “stupid” people are the proles. The uncultured, unwashed and financially unsuccessful masses who deserve every punch the invisible hand of the market throws at them. Liberals simply can’t conceive of someone with a fancy education, an expensive suit and good table manners being a fascist.
It’s tough to be critical of “liberalism” when everyone has a different idea of what it means. It might help to specify “economic liberalism”.
Along with it’s deep flaws, Liberalism is also associated with things like the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, LGBT+ rights, etc. Conservatives also muddy the waters by blaming these things for economic hardship.
Yeah you’re the one being pedantic here. Liberalism has exactly two definitions that get used 99% of the time. Someone might say liberal to mean “socially liberal,” which means open-mindedness in regards to progressive movements such as feminism, promotion of gay rights, acceptance of trans people, and all that stuff. This is usually the only definition used in the USA.
Or they mean liberalism as the broad ideological foundation of capitalism, with a belief in the promotion of free enterprise, distribution, public-private separation, and the primacy of individual rights. This definition is almost never used in the USA except by socialists, but outside of the USA this is understood as the primary definition of the term whereas “socially liberal” is regarded as a secondary definition.
And it’s very easy to determine which one a person is talking about if you look at the context clues. The only other context I can think of where liberal is used is the academic term “liberal arts,” but that refers to scholarly topics that would have been taught to people who weren’t slaves.
Liberalism has a definition, which Marxists have never forgotten, though thanks to two red scares and a cold war, others have forgotten. Now in Orwellian fashion, “liberalism” and “socialism” are floating signifiers, so we have liberals like Sanders calling themselves socialists despite never calling for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.
Slavery did end under liberalism, but then again liberalism started it.
Almost nobody knows the academic definitions of most political ideologies, they’re just all cable news buzzwords now. If you took a sample of the population I’d be surprised if even 5% could give you the correct academic definitions for the vast majority of political ideology terms.
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So that’s the change you want to see in the world. Technical linguistic grammar takes precedence over political outreach.
I fully support your desire to spread vocabular competence. My impression from your first post was that you had other priorities.
Despite the erasure of the words’ meanings in the public consciousness, the concepts still exist.
If you have new, sexier names for the concepts which will accelerate their reintroduction into the public consciousness, I’m all ears.
It doesn’t have to be sexier terminology, or even different terminology. Just don’t drop the word “liberalism” into a conversation and expect the average person to understand what your talking about.
You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition in common language. I know it’s technically incorrect, but language also isn’t static outside of academic disciplines. But ultimately you can use whatever language you want, just don’t assume a particular definition will be understood without explanation.
The only people I know of who don’t know what the word “liberal” means, especially in the context the person above was using it, are very ignorant Americans. To be clear, even though I don’t like most Americans, I’m not blaming them for being ignorant in this particular case because they have been subjected to decades of mostly uncontested propaganda deliberately obfuscating the term. But most of the rest of the world knows what everyone is talking about when saying “liberal” and knows it’s a right wing ideology. And everyone shouldn’t have to hold up the conversation to preemptively explain what the word means to those who don’t already know. People are generally expected to pick up the gist of a sentence or point via the context of what’s being said. The context was perfectly clear and it just sounds like concern trolling to go on about needing to hand-hold and dumb down the terminology being used for “the average person.”
Lol I’m sure Prolewiki is an unbiased source that the majority of people would agree with on the definitions of words. /s
It’s basically just “classical liberalism and neoliberalism”, and whether politically illiterate Americans use that word that way doesn’t matter very much from an analytical standpoint, because in political science, history, philosophy, and even just popular discourse in most other countries, the term “liberal” mainly has that meaning.
Oxford Dictionary:
lib·er·al
/ˈlib(ə)rəl/
adjective
willing to respect or accept behavior or opinions different from one’s own; open to new ideas.
relating to or denoting a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. Similar: tolerant, unprejudiced, unbigoted, broad-minded, open-minded, enlightened, forbearing, permissive, free, free and easy, easygoing, laissez-faire, libertarian, latitudinarian, unbiased, impartial, nonpartisan, indulgent, lenient, lax, soft
noun
a supporter of policies that are socially progressive and promote social welfare. “she dissented from the decision, joined by the court’s liberals”
a supporter of a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise.
Opposite: narrow-minded, bigoted,
You are free to argue with dictionaries, but if your enemy is liberalism as defined by civil rights, democracy, and welfare then you are the enemy of all people, in my eyes.
If one is trying to define liberalism against feudalism, that definition is fine, but it’s just redditor sophomorism to act like a dictionary is a replacement for an actual historical or academic definition of a political tendency.
Take it up with oxford, Words mean what the majority believes they currently mean. Anything else is just some shit somebody made up. This discussion is about the current meaning of Liberalism in today’s political context.
Stopping the rise of the far right is trivially easy, and government holds the levers. Just do two things:
- reduce immigration
- tax the wealthy
Seems they would rather lose to nazis than do those two things.
Edit: seems more than a few of you are rushing to lose to Nazis too
Taxing the rich is what the current government wants. The right wing does not want that.
The FDP very definitely does not want this, and one would be justified in doubting if the top brass of the SPD wants it. Personally, I am inclined to believe they only suggest plans like this knowing full well nothing will come of them in this government constellation.
The FDP does not want this. But both the SPD and the Greens want to. Good luck getting any tax increases past the CDU, FDP and AfD.
the correct answer (which germany will never land on) is to shoot the nazis. it has always been the only solution to a nazi infestation but germany has always found that difficult to swallow.
Shoot the nazis, establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, establish capital controls and develop the productive forces so the material conditions that lead to fascism don’t come back.
In reality, far from stopping the far right, Germany is implementing a far right agenda. Increase police authority? Check. Scapegoat immigrants and other marginalized groups? Check. Build up the military? Check. Suppress protests and dissenters? Check. Impose austerity, providing the fertile ground for fascists? Check.
By the time the AfD comes to power, they won’t have to do anything. The liberals (including socdems and greens) will already have created a fascist society.
These are a lot of statements without sources. Also most people would disagree with the statement that a government that includes social democrats and greens is implementing a “far right agenda”.
Fucking Scholz said he wanted to “finally deport in a big way” (“endlich im großen Stil abschieben”). This is (well used to be) a far right agenda. They’re sending weapons to Israeli fascists while they commit genocide, and defend them at every opportunity. These people support fascists and fascist policies.
What exactly do you even dispute is untrue about what I said?
Scholz was talking about around 50000 people who came seeking asylum but we’re found to have no right to asylum. It’s not very humane but it’s the current law. The actual fascists of the far right are talking millions.
SPD is a relatively conservative party but it’s absolutely insane to call them fascists.
It’s not very humane but it’s the current law
They changed the law so they can deport more people!
They are absolutely going far right with this one especially and their rhetoric around it. These used to be totally unacceptable far right slogans and policies, but here we are. Basic human rights suspended. Just because the AfD is worse does not mean the SPD has not shifted into what not long ago was far right territory. But oh no, calling out racism and how the SPD is effectively enabling a shift towards fascism is too far for you! That’s exactly how this rightward shift can happen, because people like you are making excuses for this shit.
The same is happening to France. As you said, they’ll have a field day when (at this point it’s not if, it’s when) they get to power.
Gotta love neoliberalism…The Netherlands will very likely have a right wing government and will be heading down the same path. Same with Italy, Sweden, Denmark.
With the next European election this year the right wing parties in the European Parliament will gain a lot of traction.
We could be heading down the American path and lose a lot or the progress we made over the last 2 decades.
I will be a father in a couple or hours. Between the right taking to power and accelerating climate change i am just so fucking worried in what kind of world my kids will grow up.
Fascists won the Cold War; it just wasn’t the nazis. This was unfortunately always an inevitable consequence of that.
Fahsism is not a very well defined term. Can you expand why you see America (whom I assume you are reversing to?) as a fashist regime?
Would be more accurate to say capitalists I suppose, who inevitably give way to fascism.
The US is a bourgeois/capitalist dictatorship built on the genocide of millions of native Americans. I think most socialists would say it’s not quite a fascist regime just yet, but it has a history of supporting such regimes and is currently supporting a fascist colony committing a genocide in Palestine.
Fascism is well defined, it is capitalism in decay, it is a desperate lashing out of the parasite class when they become incapable of forestalling the TRPF. Fascism is simply capitalism with the mask off. It is only “not a very well defined term” within the capitalist superstructure because they don’t want people oppose capitalism, so the definition deliberately muddied. There are many things that are not poorly understood, but must be made to be poorly understood.
The rise of right wing parties might be a consequence of the left wings failure to govern.
In Norway the Labour Party was the biggest party for decades. Now the party is infested with politicians using it for career paths to NGO’s or international organisations like UN and EU. The same party made for the labourers implements tax policies making it really hard to start industries.
Money are being spent on the most incredible projects bearing no fruit for future generations.
At a point people get fed up, and in desperation they have to vote further to the right. If you want less government spending on stupid projects you also have to get some fascism.
The problem is not the right wing parties or stupid people. The problem is worthless left wing politicians not contributing positive to the nation.
It saddens me.
I don’t know about other nations. In Germany we have had the Conservative Party ruling for 16 years as a right leaning Party, 4 years of a left party that implemented right wing neo fashist ideas, followed by another 16 years of conservative rule with more centeristic than right wing rule (the political void in the right was filled by the AFD, which has become a true fashist party in the last 10 years). The only “left” government we ever had in the last 36 years has been in the last 2, and they are heavily restricted by beeing in a coalition with a neo liberal right wing party.
So, at least for Germany, this just doesn’t hold true.
The only “left” government we ever had in the last 36 years has been in the last 2, and they are heavily restricted by beeing in a coalition with a neo liberal right wing party.
They’re all neoliberals. They wouldn’t be doing anything substantially different if the FDP didn’t exist.
The problem is worthless left wing politicians not contributing positive to the nation.
The problem isn’t a person. It’s class society itself and the capitalist mode of production.
Both Fascism and Socialism solve the problem of capitalism being in crisis; it always eventually will be, and it currently is in Europe. Fascism “solves” it by fully cementing capitalist rule and removing the veil of bourgeois “democracy”, while Socialism solves it by overthrowing capitalism entirely and establishing proletarian rule.
The far-right rising again in Europe was always the inevitable consequence of capitalists winning the Cold War and ruthlessly suppressing the Left since. The only other “solution” to the crisis is Fascism.
A great example of how this class operates. Our foreign minister from the Labour party had to step down due to suspicions of providing her husband with inside information on government contracts to public traded companies. The husband bought stocks and they made some cash.
The reward for this corruption is a new position as our ambassador to the US. She officially got the job two days ago.
We have seen this upper class of politicians never having to stand responsible for their actions for some years now. On both sides.
There’s no wonder people get desperate. The only solution they get provided is using their vote. And when they do use it they get called out for using it the “wrong” way.
Either the current politicians fix their shit, or the people will topple them. It’s fairly predictable.
Build up the military?
Any source on that? We do not have a military right now. Wouldn’t be bad if we wanted to defend ourselves against Putin.
defend ourselves against Putin
Putin is going to come and finish the job for Stalin any day now. Just wait and see, tomorrow the Bolchevik hordes might be flooding into Germany, to eat your Dachshunds and turning the Oktoberfest into a vodka and balalaika festival.
Why would Putin do that? Simply because he is evil.
The only sensible response is to cut every social program to fund the construction of a German death star.
My guy, have you heard phrases like “100 Mrd. € Sondervermögen für die Bundeswehr”, “Wiedereinführung der Wehrpflicht” , shit like this? Or have you heard anything people like Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann have said in the past two years? Also, hasn’t the Russian army been struggling to overpower Ukraine for the past two years now? The poorest country in Europe with basically no functioning infrastructure to begin with that also is decidedly not a member of NATO? Wouldn’t the Russian Army have to cross the Baltic states and Poland to even reach Germany, triggering a response from all of NATO? Could it be they all the rhetoric about the Russkys expanding westwards is full of shit and nothing more but a fig leaf to sell austerity and a military buildup to the German populace?
Those are not sources, those are only talks and rumors. I’ve not seen any result of the 100Mrd. yet. And yes, the NATO would be triggered if they invaded Poland, but shouldn’t Germany as a member of NATO be able to help then?
This is the same fearful and paranoid mentality which caused Putin to invade Ukraine. If everyone continues with this catastrophic thinking, we will have world war in no time.
Living in fear of a Russian invasion of Europe is completely delusional.
Alright then, let Putin do his thing.
I know there are many communists on Lemmy, but I didn’t know they are pro Putin.
Actual NPC dialog tree
Ok, NPC.
Yeah yeah, I remember all that shit from back in the day. Die Russen kommen! Die Russen kommen! Oldest trick in the book.
Natürlich, das einfache Volk will keinen Krieg […] Aber schließlich sind es die Führer eines Landes, die die Politik bestimmen, und es ist immer leicht, das Volk zum Mitmachen zu bringen, ob es sich nun um eine Demokratie, eine faschistische Diktatur, um ein Parlament oder eine kommunistische Diktatur handelt. […] Das ist ganz einfach. Man braucht nichts zu tun, als dem Volk zu sagen, es würde angegriffen, und den Pazifisten ihren Mangel an Patriotismus vorzuwerfen und zu behaupten, sie brächten das Land in Gefahr. Diese Methode funktioniert in jedem Land. – Hermann Göring
Also, I love that you want a source for something that was a top news story for months. You somehow heard, dass die Russen kommen!!! but not the Sondervermögen? You’re just fucking with me, aren’t you?
Are you living in a different Germany than me? There are sadly things going on to make immigration harder. But other than that, things are okay.
Make immigration harder??? Nice euphemism for this fascist shit. They’re throwing human rights out of the window. They’re literally putting migrants into concentration camps, if they’re don’t drown first thanks to Frontex pushbacks. Greens defended this so-called compromise to their base while fascist Meloni was giving victory speeches.
“Endlich im großen Stil abschieben” (Scholz). I can’t tell the difference an NPD slogan and the SPD chancellor.
And for the other shit, there’s some extra police authority or surveillance law proposed every other month or so. Pro-palestine protests are criminalized and they’re threatening Muslims with deportation for not being loyal enough to Israel. All the parties are discussing what sort of services they can cut so they have more money for the military. Real wages are shrinking. You can’t open a newspaper without reading about how Germany needs to prepare for war. Things are not okay.
