In that case, when you say “Liberalism leads to fascism”, what you mean is “Liberalism creates the preconditions necessary for fascism”, just like liberalism creates the preconditions necessary for socialism.
Not exactly. Part of the characteristics of liberalism is that it’s supportive of capitalism and capitalism can be regulated but will tend to move towards increasing power imbalances, artificial scarcity, and environmental destruction.
Those things cause strain on a liberal society, and that strain leads that society to go into turmoil. Populism begins to happen, but collective resistance to the capitalist ruling class is strongly suppressed while other forms of harmful populism like racism and desire for war are allowed to fester or even amplified.
Capitalism is the dog, but liberalism is the neglecful owner that lets go out the leash
Not exactly. Part of the characteristics of liberalism is that it’s supportive of capitalism and capitalism can be regulated but will tend to move towards increasing power imbalances, artificial scarcity, and environmental destruction.
Okay, cool, so which system hasn’t tended towards that so far?
Because right now, it sounds a whole lot like “Liberalism leads to fascism” is only true in the most banal sense.
Socialism does not tend towards those things, worker-owners of a plant won’t pollute their own water supply for a buck. By democratizing the economy we give everyone a say in decision making, and the average worker doesn’t have the money to build a bunker to survive the societal collapse. Billionaires are literally planning for the collapse, rather than considering giving up their position.
There is insufficient data but we can look at the incentives of the system. If implemented as an authoritarian state running the economy a la state capitalism then we’ll see similar concerns. If implemented as a syndication of workers unions then we would not.
It doesn’t take a double blind study with control groups to make a statement about what a system incentivizes. A distant billionaire owner doesn’t care about polluting your city, but you do.
So, there’s nothing in the form of actual evidence for asserting liberalism as exceptionally a boogeyman for fascism.
I’m hammering this point here, but I want to make it clear why - I believe in a socialist future, or at the very least a post-capitalist future. Capitalism has overstayed its welcome and needs to go, for the good of human society. But capitalism and liberalism are not the root causes for all of our problems. A handful - a handful of big ones, yeah, but only a handful. I dislike it when people start asserting that socialism would ‘fix’ everything by simple fiat. It’s no different than some free market fetishist insisting that the market will correct itself to come to the most efficient solution.
but we can look at the incentives of the system. If implemented as an authoritarian state running the economy a la state capitalism then we’ll see similar concerns. If implemented as a syndication of workers unions then we would not.
What, precisely, do you mean by a syndication of workers’ unions? Market socialism? A planned economy by consensus?
It doesn’t take a double blind study with control groups to make a statement about what a system incentivizes. A distant billionaire owner doesn’t care about polluting your city, but you do.
That’s just the thing - you already see this dynamic with homeowners. Homeowners - as in, individual homeowners, not corporations or firms - use the municipal tools at their disposal to (sometimes) effectively fend off outside interference. They utilize their power and self-interest as a class to reject the imposition of capitalist firms seeking profit. But it’s not out of any sense that “Poisoning the air for money is bad” - these are largely the same people who vote in Republicans to the state legislature, and cheer on the opening of a new coal plant - as long as it’s not near them.
I know that the response is going to be “But if society’s culture was different they would act differently”, and that comes back around to point 1 - there’s no fucking proof of the supposed changes.
A distant billionaire owner doesn’t care about polluting your city, but neither does the factory worker upwind of you. It’s NIMBYism, not wealth disparity. The billionaire cares just as much about the coal plant in HIS backyard as the local homeowner does - and the average local homeowner cares about the coal plant in some distant homeowner’s backyard about as much as the billionaire. And if you have a bunch of workers’ firms operating in the interest of the workers within them, those firms are necessarily going to make choices that maximize their gain (whether those gains are in stability of function, social capital, etc) and minimize their losses - including by, say, polluting downriver where nobody gets their water from anyway - nobody the workers know, at least.
I am 100% in support of overthrowing the current system. But I don’t expect what comes next to be a panacea to humanity’s problems, and neither should anyone else. When we make the change, it will not cure our problems. We’ll be fighting a good 80% of the same fights we are now. Fuck’s sake, even in actual nonprofit, nonhierarchal community groups today you see all kinds of bullshit worm its way from the cretins within. We will be voting against fascists who want to abuse the system - whatever form that system takes - for their own power. We will be arguing with locals over why the community coal plant proposed in someone else’s town which will make their electric bill go down is a bad thing. We will be telling Joe Schmoe that voting for the blathering dotard of a union leader running for the executive council this year because he ‘tells it like it is’ (with ‘like it is’ being ‘confirming my prejudices’) is bad fucking citizenship. We will be protesting the neighboring Ohio Workers’ Council for not enforcing the standards of pollution they agreed to abide by.
We will be fighting the same fights. And to pretend that liberalism is the root cause instead of just incidental to most of these problems is… absurd. Liberalism, thus, only ‘leads to fascism’ in the same way that every extant system leads to fascism; and in the same way that any theoretical system considered will lead to fascism.
Fuck.
That being said, the form of neoliberalism which became popular in the 1980s IS creating an environment ripe for fascism - not uniquely, not even the worst environment possible for fascism - but causing formerly functioning societies to collapse in on themselves is definitely a bad fucking environment for fighting off blowhards who promise to ‘fix everything’ if only they get ALL the power.
As Joseph Stiglitz himself says:
“Rather, the answer is something along the lines of a rejuvenated European social democracy or a new American Progressive Capitalism, a twenty-first century version of social democracy or of the Scandinavian welfare state,”
… I actually don’t agree with that, I’m a bit more radical, but the point is this - no system is going to fix all of our problems. No system is going to not ‘lead to fascism’ in the same sense that liberalism ‘leads to fascism’. And by bandying these ideas about, by insisting on the utopian worth of the ideology and the society it will supposedly create, you set up idealists for quick disillusionment (or conversely, increasing radicalism to root out the shadowy ‘enemy’ which is clearly stopping the perfect society from coming to be) and the marginally-political to reflexive reaction - to actual conservatism, as in, keeping the status quo, like dipshit centrist Dems do. Because as politically uninformed as they are, most of them aren’t complete morons - they see when someone promises perfection, they’re likely to deliver anything but. And no amount of theory is going to overcome that obstacle, because for once, they’re right.
… you don’t have to respond to this, actually. I think I ranted myself out.
Your perspective is valid and fair and I won’t fault you for holding it but I do think that there is more of a direct link between fascism and capitalism, and I do think liberalism is conducive to it. Socialism is the real opposition to fascism, and to your point there are different kinds of socialism with different degrees of resistance to fascism.
You might be using fascism in a less formal definition and that’s valid, but I’d remind you that it’s historically pretty linked to capitalism. Or maybe the definition is more broad than I’m giving it credit for, that may be the case.
I’m also a radical. I was describing anarcho-syndicalism. Anarchist flavors of socialism are what I’m personally in favor of, as active resistance to fascism is built in.
I don’t really have a quarrel with you, my main thesis was just that capitalism is a huge problem and when it comes to climate change and other imminent dangers I consider it a root problem. We generally agree on that point.
On the point of hating on liberals, I’ll concede, that’s not important to me.
Fascism has a specific definition that also relates to capitalism but otherwise you’re right that those in power will cling to power.
Fascism is one such outcome that occurs when capitalism is under threat.
In that case, when you say “Liberalism leads to fascism”, what you mean is “Liberalism creates the preconditions necessary for fascism”, just like liberalism creates the preconditions necessary for socialism.
Not exactly. Part of the characteristics of liberalism is that it’s supportive of capitalism and capitalism can be regulated but will tend to move towards increasing power imbalances, artificial scarcity, and environmental destruction.
Those things cause strain on a liberal society, and that strain leads that society to go into turmoil. Populism begins to happen, but collective resistance to the capitalist ruling class is strongly suppressed while other forms of harmful populism like racism and desire for war are allowed to fester or even amplified.
Capitalism is the dog, but liberalism is the neglecful owner that lets go out the leash
Okay, cool, so which system hasn’t tended towards that so far?
Because right now, it sounds a whole lot like “Liberalism leads to fascism” is only true in the most banal sense.
Socialism does not tend towards those things, worker-owners of a plant won’t pollute their own water supply for a buck. By democratizing the economy we give everyone a say in decision making, and the average worker doesn’t have the money to build a bunker to survive the societal collapse. Billionaires are literally planning for the collapse, rather than considering giving up their position.
Which form of socialism has proven to not tend towards those things?
There is insufficient data but we can look at the incentives of the system. If implemented as an authoritarian state running the economy a la state capitalism then we’ll see similar concerns. If implemented as a syndication of workers unions then we would not.
It doesn’t take a double blind study with control groups to make a statement about what a system incentivizes. A distant billionaire owner doesn’t care about polluting your city, but you do.
So, there’s nothing in the form of actual evidence for asserting liberalism as exceptionally a boogeyman for fascism.
I’m hammering this point here, but I want to make it clear why - I believe in a socialist future, or at the very least a post-capitalist future. Capitalism has overstayed its welcome and needs to go, for the good of human society. But capitalism and liberalism are not the root causes for all of our problems. A handful - a handful of big ones, yeah, but only a handful. I dislike it when people start asserting that socialism would ‘fix’ everything by simple fiat. It’s no different than some free market fetishist insisting that the market will correct itself to come to the most efficient solution.
What, precisely, do you mean by a syndication of workers’ unions? Market socialism? A planned economy by consensus?
That’s just the thing - you already see this dynamic with homeowners. Homeowners - as in, individual homeowners, not corporations or firms - use the municipal tools at their disposal to (sometimes) effectively fend off outside interference. They utilize their power and self-interest as a class to reject the imposition of capitalist firms seeking profit. But it’s not out of any sense that “Poisoning the air for money is bad” - these are largely the same people who vote in Republicans to the state legislature, and cheer on the opening of a new coal plant - as long as it’s not near them.
I know that the response is going to be “But if society’s culture was different they would act differently”, and that comes back around to point 1 - there’s no fucking proof of the supposed changes.
A distant billionaire owner doesn’t care about polluting your city, but neither does the factory worker upwind of you. It’s NIMBYism, not wealth disparity. The billionaire cares just as much about the coal plant in HIS backyard as the local homeowner does - and the average local homeowner cares about the coal plant in some distant homeowner’s backyard about as much as the billionaire. And if you have a bunch of workers’ firms operating in the interest of the workers within them, those firms are necessarily going to make choices that maximize their gain (whether those gains are in stability of function, social capital, etc) and minimize their losses - including by, say, polluting downriver where nobody gets their water from anyway - nobody the workers know, at least.
I am 100% in support of overthrowing the current system. But I don’t expect what comes next to be a panacea to humanity’s problems, and neither should anyone else. When we make the change, it will not cure our problems. We’ll be fighting a good 80% of the same fights we are now. Fuck’s sake, even in actual nonprofit, nonhierarchal community groups today you see all kinds of bullshit worm its way from the cretins within. We will be voting against fascists who want to abuse the system - whatever form that system takes - for their own power. We will be arguing with locals over why the community coal plant proposed in someone else’s town which will make their electric bill go down is a bad thing. We will be telling Joe Schmoe that voting for the blathering dotard of a union leader running for the executive council this year because he ‘tells it like it is’ (with ‘like it is’ being ‘confirming my prejudices’) is bad fucking citizenship. We will be protesting the neighboring Ohio Workers’ Council for not enforcing the standards of pollution they agreed to abide by.
We will be fighting the same fights. And to pretend that liberalism is the root cause instead of just incidental to most of these problems is… absurd. Liberalism, thus, only ‘leads to fascism’ in the same way that every extant system leads to fascism; and in the same way that any theoretical system considered will lead to fascism.
Fuck.
That being said, the form of neoliberalism which became popular in the 1980s IS creating an environment ripe for fascism - not uniquely, not even the worst environment possible for fascism - but causing formerly functioning societies to collapse in on themselves is definitely a bad fucking environment for fighting off blowhards who promise to ‘fix everything’ if only they get ALL the power.
As Joseph Stiglitz himself says:
… I actually don’t agree with that, I’m a bit more radical, but the point is this - no system is going to fix all of our problems. No system is going to not ‘lead to fascism’ in the same sense that liberalism ‘leads to fascism’. And by bandying these ideas about, by insisting on the utopian worth of the ideology and the society it will supposedly create, you set up idealists for quick disillusionment (or conversely, increasing radicalism to root out the shadowy ‘enemy’ which is clearly stopping the perfect society from coming to be) and the marginally-political to reflexive reaction - to actual conservatism, as in, keeping the status quo, like dipshit centrist Dems do. Because as politically uninformed as they are, most of them aren’t complete morons - they see when someone promises perfection, they’re likely to deliver anything but. And no amount of theory is going to overcome that obstacle, because for once, they’re right.
… you don’t have to respond to this, actually. I think I ranted myself out.
Your perspective is valid and fair and I won’t fault you for holding it but I do think that there is more of a direct link between fascism and capitalism, and I do think liberalism is conducive to it. Socialism is the real opposition to fascism, and to your point there are different kinds of socialism with different degrees of resistance to fascism.
You might be using fascism in a less formal definition and that’s valid, but I’d remind you that it’s historically pretty linked to capitalism. Or maybe the definition is more broad than I’m giving it credit for, that may be the case.
I’m also a radical. I was describing anarcho-syndicalism. Anarchist flavors of socialism are what I’m personally in favor of, as active resistance to fascism is built in.
I don’t really have a quarrel with you, my main thesis was just that capitalism is a huge problem and when it comes to climate change and other imminent dangers I consider it a root problem. We generally agree on that point.
On the point of hating on liberals, I’ll concede, that’s not important to me.