/leftypol/ - Leftist Politically Incorrect

>>1690197
If you think that's wild…

Anyways, here's an obscure bit of Fascist history to get people talking again. In 1977 various Fascist Orgs in Europe created summer camps to appeal to the youth. The name of these camps?

"Hobbit Camps"

You might be wondering if that's a weird coincidence. A trick of language. But no, they were literally named after Tolkien's halflings.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/hobbit-camps-fascism-italy

Now Tolkien loathed allegory and essentially wrote a letter to the Nazis telling them to knock it off and that they were destroying the nobility of old Germanic stories. Still, his stories have been accused of promoting reactionary ideology and his critics chose to read allegory in them. Unsurprisingly, the Right Wing co-opted it and essentially said, "Yes, this IS about Fascism. And it's heckin' based!"

>The fucking Orcs vs Humans shit has been lionized by Fascists for as long as there were Orcs in the popular consciousness.

>>1691092
Fascists severely lack literature and intellectuals with wide appeal.
>D'Annunzio
Boring as shit. He's more interesting as a historical character than a writer. His protagonists are always self-absorbed egoists, completely unrelatable for the average person. Also, in Italian school, the only thing students read about him during literature lessons is a poem about rain in a pinewood.
>Gentile
Intellectual academic, not someone you'd read to relax after work.
>Evola
Super-elitist. The only people interested in him are weirdos and academics (also weirdos). Also, his works about religions aren't relevant any more.
>Pirandello.
Extremely good writer, wide popular appeal, studied in school and a card-carrying fascist. Yet none of his novels or theatrical works can be considered "fascist".
>Liala
Real name: Amalia Liana Negretti Odescalchi, I think she was the most successful writer of the fascist era. A noblewoman who started writing romance novels about brave and good-looking military officers after her lover (a seaplane pilot) died in a crash. She kept writing until her death in 1995. Not a fascist intellectual, just fascist adjacent, I'd say.

I could write a few more, but my point remains: not even fascists want to read fascist writers, so in the '70s they started looking for a writer they could appropriate, and they chose Tolkien, why? In part, it's because elitist left-wing intellectuals frowned upon fantasy literature and other expressions of popular culture (such as comics). Nowadays, they're too busy to write about the need to genocide Palestinians or why it's so important to stop working class kids from studying humanities to care about Tolkien or realize why the most important Italian comic artist is a working-class man born in the outskirts of Rome. There's something ironic about fascists appropriating an anglo writer that rejected nazi theories of race and apartheid because they couldn't produce anything better. They blame it on "communist hegemony in culture", but now they control both RAI and cultural funds for movies and yet, they still can't do shit with it because they're basically unable to produce art. A bit sad given how Futurism anticipated fascism in some aspects, and it was such a vibrant and interesting artistic movement.

>>1691092
>the Right Wing co-opted it and essentially said, "Yes, this IS about Fascism. And it's heckin' based!"
At most, they're as Von Hallerists would joke about themselves, racist liberals.

>his stories have been accused of promoting reactionary ideology
I presume Tolkien would be right libertarian leaning (Anglo) moderated by his Catholicism.

The Hobbits and the Shire are said to be his city on a hill – what I see are pastoralist vibes with right libertarian sentiment in terms of politics.

>>1691385
>not even fascists want to read fascist writers
Maybe b/c they're not really fascists.
The only reason Fascism is semi-relevant is leftists keep pulling up the Fascist boogeyman.
Classical Italian Fascism the ideology is hecka dead and irrelevant now.
You'll never see rightwingers embracing such statist views again, esp. nowadays.
In the Anglosphere in particular (US, Britain, Canada, Australia), that kind of statism / totalitarianism had long been shunned and clashes with the libertarian values they have. It's fundamentally at odds with their Anglo values which cherishes the idea of freemen and constitutionalism. Classical Italian Fascism noted this & the incompatibilities. (For the Germans too, btw).

>they chose Tolkien
Tolkien is overrated.
His legacy is as a pop culture icon & a writer for the high fantasy genre.
Tolkien has very little to offer politically speaking.
I don't say this out of spite for Tolkien, but politics isn't his forte imo.

If conservatism is the new punk rock, nazi imagery is that on steroids.

The reason Nazi ideology is a cool counter culture is not the fault of fascists or nazis.

It's the fault of contemporary pop culture making them look evil in a good way.

I'm not sure this is deliberately done or it's supposed to scare people away.

Nobody talks about how the cool edgy factor and the overtly evil portray in pop culture adds to their appeal. I'm surprised /leftypol/ doesn't talk about this pop culture phenomenon. There's so much media that does this. It ramps it up so hard it plays into the hands of making nazi imagery look cool.

A true damnatio memoriae condemns the idea or memory of something into irrelevance to be forgotten: but the West and leftists in particular keeps reviving their memory whether they like it or not.

>>1691415
You're not wrong, the problem is counter culture doesn't mean good it just means against them.
Pedophilia or mass murder idols can be just as much of a counter culture by that same definition.

>>1689920
>why isnt [non-nazi] fascism more progressive than liberalism?
Who said it wasn't? I'd say it is, albeit a corporatist retrofag progressivism worth combating to the death.

>>1691402
>You'll never see rightwingers embracing such statist views again, esp. nowadays.
In the Anglosphere in particular (US, Britain, Canada, Australia), that kind of statism / totalitarianism had long been shunned and clashes with the libertarian values they have
I have some strong objection about this. Yes Anglo "values" (or lack thereof) traditionally opposes absolutism, but Italians weren't big fan of absolutism either. I'm sure you know that Italy was heavily decentralized for centuries; really the emergence of the Fascist state can't be ascribed to cultural compatibility but more to the material reality of having one gazillion wounder war veterans necessitating a huge welfare state and massive urbanization leading to growth of popular politics

>>1690083
>I think this is why it's exceptionally important that we find some Italian Anon who'd be willing to translate some of Niccola Bombacci's works into English.
I don't know if we have any, and I don't know if anyone would be willing to do a whole (fascist) book for free, even on a fascist imageboard. Might end up needing to commission it.

>>1691488
>I'm sure you know that Italy was heavily decentralized for centuries
Right, but that doesn't really detract at all from absolutism itself either, silly goose.
This retarded meme of having many petty kingdoms or small states = libertarian paradise needs to die in a pit somewhere. It's a dumb libertarian meme in general. A city-state or petty kingdom could be just as authoritarian or despotic as a big state, if not worse sometimes. And there are numerous examples of this, most famously Singapore and the United Arab Emirates and Brunei and Paraguay (in the past). And in the past, so also was Genoa under Andrea Doria or Cosimo I de' Medici ruled Tuscany.
Let's not forget the Kingdom of Two Sicilies under the Bourbons. And Carlo Felice of Piedmont-Sardinia. Technically Korea is "decentralized" meme but I wouldn't say either Korea became much freer with DPRK being a militarized state and South Korea under the Parks.
I've read testimony about how Andrea Doria was a very heavy-handed ruler.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Doria
>He refused offers to take the lordship of Genoa and even the dogeship, but accepted the position of "perpetual censor", and exercised predominant influence in the councils of the republic until his death.
>The title "censor" in this context was modelled on its meaning in the Roman Republic, i.e., a highly respected senior public official (see Roman censor), rather than its modern meaning having to do with censorship.
>He was given two palaces, many privileges, and the title of Liberator et Pater Patriae (Liberator and Father of His Country).

Thomas Bayly in the 1600s gives an account of Andrea Doria.
>He came out of them under the name of Andreas Dory, a Genoese; this famous Andreas Dory was a zealous Commonwealths-man, and one of the new Gentlemen, as they call'd them∣selves, (for you must understand, that when these States-men had shook off the yoke of Sovereignty, they expelled all their Gentry or Nobility; which no sooner done, but they made a new Gen∣try or Nobility amongst themselves) and being a deserving man, the Emperour Charles the Great, will'd this Andreas Dory to ask and have what he desired of all that he had Conquered:

>He [Andrea Doria] asked Genoa, the Emperour gave it him, to do with it what he pleased, he gave it, the Citizens, together with all their liberties, and former Freedoms, upon this condition, That they shall recall the old Gentry in again, and settle them again in all their rights and privileges, which being assented unto, Genoa became a Free-state again

>But behold the Freedom, or rather power and bonds of love and gratitude, neither the old or new Gentry, nor the Common people, would allow of anything that was said or to be done, but what this Dory should command or say:

>For was there a more absolute and powerful Monarch upon the earth than he; and whilist he lived he did continue so, because people would obey

>Yet still it must be a Free-state, because Libertas was written over the Senate-House, and City-Gates, but neither within their Senate, or their Walls, was there ever such Tyranny over the common people

Then Thomas Bayly adds.
>Gulling the people into a sottish belief, that they are not suppressed by one hand, because it hath many fingers

>>1691488
I'm not sure why you're replying seriously to a drooling retard, but
>I'm sure you know that Italy was heavily decentralized for centuries
This is true, but Italy had no liberal tradition unlike UK or US. There weren't the material conditions for that. Even today, liberalism is a joke: the two biggest liberal think-thank in Italy receive public funds (that they try to hide ;) ) and are made up of public servants (mostly economy professors). The biggest liberal newspaper survives thanks to public funds because no one reads it (fun fact: it was founded by a literal CIA glowie!). The most important liberal party hide their economic views because most people are disgusted by them. Yeah, Berlusconi wanted to do a "liberal revolution" in Italy, but he definitely wasn't a liberal lmao.
>really the emergence of the Fascist state can't be ascribed to cultural compatibility but more to the material reality of having one gazillion wounder war veterans necessitating a huge welfare state and massive urbanization leading to growth of popular politics
And also because of a combination of:
>weak state structure (same for weimar Germany and Japan)
>dominance of landowners in the south, who supported fascism against the peasantry
>Weak constitution that gave eccessive decisional power to the king
>lack of liberal tradition due Savoy's centralization policy

>>1691496
I could try to translate something, as long as it's not too long

>>1691575
>I'm not sure why you're replying seriously to a drooling retard
Idk what ur talking about I aptly described Fascism in this thread.
The anons peering into Fascism as something "deeper" than totalitarian statism are midwits who refuse to call a spade a spade.

>>1691415
>Nobody talks about how the cool edgy factor and the overtly evil portray in pop culture adds to their appeal. I'm surprised /leftypol/ doesn't talk about this pop culture phenomenon. There's so much media that does this. It ramps it up so hard it plays into the hands of making nazi imagery look cool.

I kind of touched on this before but it's worth mentioning again. I can't remember where I had this conversation, maybe it was on /leftypol/ or maybe some other board, but the long and short of it was that a Nazi came into the thread with some ridiculous argument about why Nazism is superior to Communism. It was basically, if you look at media where the Nazis conquer the world (Wolfenstein, Man in The High Castle) everything looks super technologically advanced and clean and cool. If you look at media about the USSR, it's all dilapidated and depressing and drab. It was a bizarre argument but it lead me to an interesting conclusion.

Namely, the fact the Nazis were so explicitly evil allows you a degree of liberty in how their society is portrayed. They can build these huge monuments, have a nigh-unbeatable army, and it's just presumed that people will side against them because of the explicit racism of the Nazi project, but if you don't feel unnerved by that racism, all you're seeing is the cool shit. If you're the kind of person who thinks "Well nothing bad would happen to me under Nazi rule" then you can look at Wolfenstein's depiction of America under Nazi occupation and think "Damn, that looks like a great place to live!"

The issue with Communism and the USSR explicitly is that it isn't de facto evil. There's nothing in the Communist ideal that would horrify a normal person. Mass genocide isn't an irremovable aspect of the ideology. Almost always the mass deaths attributed to Communism is chalked up to "incompetence" rather than active malevolence. Zizek had a decent point on this where people imprisoned in the Gulags were supposedly made to send Stalin happy birthday wishes, whereas such a thing would be comically stupid if expected of the Jews. This is because at its root, the goal of putting Jews in camps was to exterminate them. The goal of putting reactionaries in Gulags is to keep them from harming society, and perhaps eventually rehabilitate them.

So if you're making media in a Capitalist state, the last thing you can do is portray the Communist society as "cool." Because there's nothing morally abhorrent about it to counterbalance things. What would a writer rely on? "But what about freeeeeedum?" I mean most people would recognize they don't feel all that free right now. Some awful things forced upon the rich? You're expecting empathy for a group of people mostly segregated from society, and whose status isn't imprinted on their skin like another race. If you had Communism, and it's portrayed with the clean streets, the wunderwaffe, and the monuments attributed to Nazis like in Wolfenstein, why the fuck would you want to "fight back" against that? For the right to vote for a shitty Politician every 4 years? For the right to start a business? The latter isn't worth losing your life over, the former reminds me of the old adage that a perfect democracy where everyone is satisfied would inevitably look like a dictatorship. If the politburo can build all these cool monuments, feed everyone, and keep the streets safe and prosperous, then what does voting even matter? You wouldn't vote for anyone else.

All portrayals of Communism, if it's not an explicit endorsement of it, has to portray it as drab and depressing and fundamentally colorless. Otherwise the good guys and bad guys will be confused for one another.

Posting here cause, fuck it, people are still asking for definitions of Fascism and I might as well have a bit of humor.

I think to some extent there’s a highly idealistic characteristic within Fascism that makes a coherent definition difficult. An example, consider the scholarly analysis of Christianity—specifically the early Church. Today we may call the various interpretations of Christianity at the time “heresies” but that term is loaded. For a period of time “Arianism” was less a heresy so much as another interpretation of Christianity, and determining what “the early church” even was implies a kind of unity and coherence to a confusing process. We can recognize that what we call “THE Church” eventually existed, but the point where a Jewish sect ended and a coherent Christian Church with unified dogma started is near impossible to tell. The Gnostic sects has wildly different interpretations from other formulations of Christianity, nevertheless we can accept that some kind of “Christianity” existed at the time.

Fascism can lead to wildly different interpretations. While we can mock the Fascists for their failure to come up with a definition of Universal Fascism in 1934, the council of Nicaea and other early Church debates were just as heated and fractious; the tiniest minutiae was hotly debated and battled over (“Filioque” for example)

So if we can accept that Christianity is a thing that exists, we can accept Fascism is. If we can accept that wildly different interpretations of Christianity exists, we can accept that Fascism can mutate into wildly different forms whilst still maintaining itself as Fascist.

There are a few traits of Fascist movements that, I believe, form a commonality in most strains of it. Firstly, you have immediacy and action. Second: collective Unity and Sublimation of the ego to the group. Thirdly, a sense of active group consciousness which manifests in a singular figure to direct the whole collective. I think all these parts mutually reinforce one another and form the basis of what can be called Universal Fascism.

In regards to immediacy and action, I think this is something Fascists will confess to themselves. I’ve met plenty of older socialists who confess that they’ll never see socialism, they’re just laying the bricks for the next generation. It’s a noble notion, but one Fascists abhor. The fascist revolution isn’t tomorrow, it’s today. You aren’t signing up for a project that culminates in your life being spent laying bricks, you believe you’ll see Fascism in your lifetime.

Similarly, the sense of action plays into Fascism’s “leader principle.” Parliaments merely slow down the culmination of the Fascist revolution. Honestly I think you see the seed of this idea today with the recent rise of populism. People don’t understand that the safeguards of parliamentary democracy means “their guy” can’t just do whatever the fuck he wants. When people want a president I think there’s an unspoken desire for them to rule like a dictator—as if Biden or Trump could just order the creation of universal healthcare regardless of what congress does.

Secondly, Unity and Sublimation of the ego. This typically takes the form of ultranationalism but I would argue that’s mostly a European phenomenon and in the Middle East, Islam could supersede the nation. What this means is that Fascism can take the form of whatever the broadest possible collective identity is.

What this means is that strains of Fascism can be benign on issues of race or religion. I suspect the “true” face of Modern American Fascism could be a kind of “civic” Fascism that would eschew race (a dying dogma as is) in favor of absolute loyalty to a new American Project. A belief that you could have this powerful technocratic state that could smooth over race relations and “stop the chaos.”

And importantly, Fascism demands a personal sublimation as well. The emphasis on big marches and rallies is to show a kind of collective discipline and reaffirm the existence of a collective whole. Everyone marching together, or everyone wearing a symbol or uniform, it’s a statement: “we’re one, we exist, we’re an entity when United.”

Finally you got one dominant leader figure to give the collective an appearance of an active consciousness. This might be a bit confusing, but I’d say that for a good portion of people, we get this impression that the state is basically on autopilot. We’re marching towards climate catastrophe with no one able to control this great beast. No one is in charge and consequently no one feels responsible. Ditto for Gaza. You’ve got Obama getting on a podcast saying “Uhh actually we’re all responsible for Genocide.” And we think “okay I don’t want to be responsible for genocide so how do I stop it?!” And the answer is: you can’t. The plane is on autopilot.

ᴉuᴉlossnW has a really great quote in “Talks with ᴉuᴉlossnW” where the reporter interviewing him makes a comment about how he could write a book talking about the benefits of a dictatorship, and he responds that a dictatorship at least means you can have someone capable of stopping the machine of state to avoid disaster. He prevents dictatorship as the emergency breaks of a system incapable of stopping itself.

And it’s an interesting position to take. One thing a dictator can’t hide behind is “well we’re ALL responsible!!!” And while the threat of dictatorship is portrayed as overreach, we’ve seen plenty of tyrannies emerge from ostensibly liberal systems—the patriot act, for example. The lack of anyone to hold accountable for it means the lack of any way to discipline the system. Hence this crisis we’re sleep walking towards can at least be named and fought. You’re not seeing passionate movements gelded by an intractable bureaucracy.

I think all these traits taken together make Fascism.

>>1691862
>>1691415
this is actually one reason why I really like how fascism is portrayed in The Man in the High Castle – the book, not the TV show. because in the book, it's not portrayed as some alluringly hyper-advanced and competent but "evil" "totalitarian" state. it's instead portrayed exactly as fascism in practice would have played out if the Axis had won the war, where they incidentally have some advanced technologies like rockets (because Germany happened to have a lot of smart scientists) but the Reich is also basically falling apart and there are tensions between it and Imperial Japan.

it really opened my eyes to how much mainstream media portrayals of the Nazis are complicit in enabling fascism, because it's always ahistorical comic book villain shit that ignores how the Nazis were actually mostly opportunistic incompetent sociopaths, incels, drug addicts, and failsons. just like real-life fascists today, and just as was the state of Italy, Germany, and Japan in general of being states that failed to acquire their own colonies.

>>1693283
Comic book villain shit is a great way to describe it. Like a capeshit, a huge portion of "anti-Nazi" media is mostly spectacle. It's some American GI fighting Nazi Spider Mechs or whatever. Spectacle might work against a backdrop of relative prosperity and stability, but when you feel like your whole world is decaying and you don't know what to do, then having the Nazis portrayed as these evil geniuses that could build space stations shaped like Swastikas might make you think "God what I wouldn't give for government with half that competence."

Meanwhile, I can only think of Red Alert as inadvertent Soviet propaganda. I wouldn't count Atomic Heart because Russkies made it tinged with nostalgia for a bygone era. Meanwhile the rest of Western media portrays the USSR as savagely cruel, stupid, and incompetent. It provides a little insulation from Communist ideas because no one is looking at it like "Man I wish I could live that life!"

Fuck it, bumping with more Mosley. Guy was a prodigious writer, what can I say?

Unemployment, Public Works, the Trade Unions
>The other sphere in which the government must give a decisive lead is in the organisation of public works on a great scale. In an island or even a continental economy overheating, with the result of inflation, can occur in a condition of full employment. On the other hand, to maintain a large pool of unemployment is inhuman and disastrous to the general morale. The answer to this dilemma of the present system is to avoid overheating and inflation by the restraints of credit policy, while taking up the consequent slack of unemployment in public works. No man should be unemployed, and work should be available to all on a reasonable standard of life in a large public works programme, but there should be sufficient differential to provide incentive to return as soon as possible to normal employment; re-training and re-deployment of labour schemes should always accompany a public works system.

>Public works should now be in active preparation in all Western countries to replace in due time the distortions of the economy of the Western world, which are initially caused by the semi-wartime basis of America. When peace finally breaks out, we should be ready with the constructive works of peace to replace the destructive works of America’s small wars and the concomitant arms race.

>The world inflationary movement, resting largely on America’s deficit financing of its wars and arms, can at any time come abruptly to an end, either through peace or the objections of other nations to this financial process. So far, armament race and minor wars have taken up the slack of unemployment which would normally represent the difference between modern industrial potential and effective market demand. This has only been done by distorting the economy and aggravating the eventual problem of peace. To maintain full employment in a real period of peace only two methods are available—inflation, or public works on a great scale. We have already seen the results of inflation in an overheated economy leading to over-full employment, and wages chasing prices in a vicious spiral whose end must be a crash.

>The only alternative is a stable price level maintained by a strong credit policy, with the resultant unemployment taken up in public works. The economic effect of public works in dealing with unemployment can be the same as the armament boom, without the disastrous exaggeration of deficit financing. Yet the difference in national, or I hope continental, well-being can be vital. The public works of peace can be integrated in general economic policy and can serve it rather than distort it. State action can prepare the way in works too large for private enterprise, and can thus assist rather than impede it. Such public works of peace in terms of unemployment policy can replace abnormal armament demand, can build rather than damage the economy, can benefit the nation and reduce the menace to mankind.

>In theory there is no insuperable difficulty confronting a massive transfer of production from the destructive purposes of war, or the distortions of near-war, to the constructive and beneficent purposes of peace. Indeed it is now emphasised in America that great social programmes, like the rebuilding of the slums which are largely responsible for their racial problem, only await the release of resources by the outbreak of peace. In practice, however, the present system and its operators find much more difficulty in doing things in a big way in peace than in war; money is more readily available for madness than for sanity. It remains to be seen whether the vast works necessary, either to take up the slack of production consequent on peace, or to meet the social problem, can be produced by the present system and its personnel. Is it possible without some change in the structure of government and prevailing statesmanship? Will the transfer begin and end with the substitution of a temporary euphoria on Wall Street for the previous slumps on ‘peace scares’?

>The fundamental dilemma of the system is that any continuance of the arms race in all the spheres which science is now revealing will be too great a strain for any economy to withstand, while even the partial cessation of the race will create a need for public works on so great a scale that present political thinking and action will never face it. Certainly, intelligent expenditure on developing the scientific revolution for the further and beneficent purposes of humanity could at this stage rapidly replace the organised idiocy of the arms race. Will this be done by men who appear to be scarcely aware of what is happening? The early future can summon both new ways and new men.

>These problems can be overcome, and with them will be banished the haunting fear of unemployment. There is no such waste of wealth and the human spirit as unemployment. It is avoidable, and in a continental economy easily avoidable; it is simply a question of the mechanics of economics which mind and will can master. When demand flags, the market falters and unemployment follows, but we should remember there is no ‘natural’ limit to demand; the only limitation is the failure of our intelligence and will.

>It sounded fantastic long ago in the House of Commons when a wise Labour leader of clear mind and calm character, J. R. Clynes, said there is no limit to real demand until every street in our cities looks like the front of the Doge’s Palace at Venice; and not even then. He was quite right, there is no limit to demand, only to our power to produce, and then to organise distribution. Certainly, there is no limit to demand while the slums disgrace our main cities and young married couples have to live with their parents for lack of accommodation.

>For years I have urged a national housing programme like an operation of war; the phrase was picked up and used long after as what is called a gimmick in contemporary politics; yet nothing was done about it. I meant it, and it can be done. It entails cutting right through the whole rigmarole of present local authority procedure and building houses by the same methods as shells, airplanes and mulberry harbours were produced, in time of war. The restrictions of the present system and the timidity of politicians alone impede it; these inhibitions must be overcome.

>It will be apparent to the reader that many of the policies I have so long advocated clash with present thinking and with vested interest. Particularly the direct intervention of government in questions of wages and prices is resisted in the mistaken belief that it threatens the position of the trade unions. When eleven years after my initial suggestion one of the ablest intellects in a Labour Government began to see ‘new patterns’ of economic policy in the possible intervention of government in wages and prices, a precipitate retreat followed in face of trade union opposition; the present hesitant application of any such policy is entirely negative; never positive in a readjustment of all rewards.

>Trade union traditions in bitter memory of the past tend to slow the pace of the fast to that of the slow; dark shadows of unemployment and the unprotected worker still haunt the bright prospects of a scientific age. Not only my advocacy for the past eleven years of economic leadership by government through the wage-price mechanism, but also my still longer insistence on payment by results in all spheres and ranks of industry and my new proposals for the provision of incentive through the fiscal system, are liable to collide at present not with reason but with industrial atavism.

<Reduction of government expenditure

>Yet I am no enemy of trade unionism, never have been and never will be. On the contrary, I can see an even bigger part for it in the modern world; for instance in securing a better method of administration. Reduction of wasteful expenditure is essential if our economy is not to founder in a sea of all-engulfing taxation. Present bureaucracy in the necessary and desirable welfare state should be largely replaced by the administration of trade unions and employers’ federations, and much of the operation of the welfare state should be made genuinely contributory. People should no longer be mulcted to pay for benefits they do not want, but only charged for the benefits they desire. Such a system would immediately bring to an end the blatant scandal of present practices. Large economies in this sphere can be added to the considerable saving effected by cutting down unnecessary external commitments through policies already described. Further general economies can be secured either by the attachment to each department of a watchdog responsible to higher authority, or by the rationing of departments. Taxation must be drastically reduced by the cutting of expenditure as well as transferred from the direct to the indirect method.

>Nothing is more important to our present situation than the strenuous reduction of inflated expenditure and the elimination of waste. There is no doubt that swollen government expenditure coupled with a lax credit policy is the prime cause of inflation. Trade unions are blamed because wages are continually chasing a rise of price caused by government policy. Their members do not suffer so much as people with fixed incomes, or as many highly skilled people who have no trade union to look after them. Yet all workers, and the whole nation, suffer in some degree from inflation and the continual rise of prices. Government expenditure must be severely reduced until greater production for the larger market of Europe will enable us to pay for many desirable things we cannot now afford. The present burden will eventually be lifted by the larger turnover available for taxation through this increase of production and of real wealth. It will be easier to secure agreement for the policies of expansion than for those of contraction. Trade unionism can then play not a lesser but a larger part in the developments which greater policies make possible.

>A world of many new possibilities presents trade unionism with an invitation and a challenge to move from the present to the future. There is no limit to trade union activity except taking over the government of the country; yet when they forbid government to intervene in questions of wages and prices this is precisely what they are doing. The function of government in the modern world must be chiefly economic, and the main question in modern economics is the matter of wages and prices. If government cannot enter this sphere of wages and prices it ceases to be a government. If trade unionism stops a government doing the job which the people have elected it to do, a showdown in the end is inevitable and will have to be faced. The will to face such a sad situation should always be present, though I hope and believe it can be avoided, with the aid of clear thought and good will.

>>1693283
>>1693309
Is it bad that this is the reason I like communism too?

>>1694731
I mean you’re self aware of it at least. So it isn’t too bad at least.

new history just dropped

>>1695095
So a funny story I stumbled upon was that Rohm's homosexuality was revealed to the German press by an angry former member of the NSDAP. It caused a huge stir in the Nazi party and prompted Hitler to publicly state that what a Nazi does in their private life was their own business.

Now, while it was a wholly political decision that left Rohm without any allies other than Hitler, it's still hilarious that for one brief moment, Adolf fucking Hitler was telling people that it didn't matter if you were gay.

Moving on from that, analyzing the factions of the Nazi Party Hitler purged could be interesting, and I believe it showcases the fundamentally different characteristics of various Fascist-adjacent movements. Hitler dealt with the Left faction of the NSDAP by murdering them all and I think it betrays a personal opportunism in Hitler's character. Whereas ᴉuᴉlossnW, it seems, played games and tried to balance different interests. Some Socialists he'd hope to win over with bureaucratic jobs and charismatic appeals, others he jailed, but the Fascist left was allowed to experiment by degrees, with ᴉuᴉlossnW attempting to claim the fascist regime would grow "more radical" with time.

Anyone here familiar with the Third Wave experiment? I knew the broad strokes but it seems like there's more to it than I originally thought.

For those who don't know.
>A Teacher in California had trouble explaining to his students how the Nazis came to power

<Incidentally the Teacher had ties to the Black Panthers and SDS

>Decides to start what was originally gonna be a one day social experiment

>Gets into class, writes "Strength Through Discipline" on the chalkboard. Rearranges seating and makes the students practice some rigid discipline; whenever they had a to ask or answer questions they had to physically stand up, refer to him as "Mr. Jones" at all times, and keep their response limited to 3 words or less.

>He decides to keep the experiment going and writes "Strength Through Community" and calls his movement 'The Third Wave', he creates some bullshit salute and gives out assignments: recruit your friends, design flags, stop non-members from entering the class

>Day 3: the experiment begins to grow out of control. Students from across the school join the class out of interest in the "Third Wave" movement. Students were given membership cards and Jones instructed them on how to initiate new members, he told 3 students to report to him when other members didn't abide by the rules
<Fucking 20 students volunteered to report on others
<A student volunteered to be his goddamn bodyguard
<Membership swelled to 200 students by the end of the day.

>Day 4, he decides to terminate the experiment. Tells his students that "The Third Wave" is actually a national movement and that they had a presidential candidate they'll announce at a rally the next day. He then banishes 3 students to the library and forbade them from joining the rally to express the importance of loyalty to the movement's precepts

>Final Day: Students attending the rally were greeted with a blank screen. Jones then explained that their experiment showed how the Nazis quickly came to power and then broadcast a documentary about Nazi Germany.

To be frank, as horrifying as it is, I'm somewhat impressed he managed to build a 200 person strong social movement in three days. No idea if it would have had any longevity, but it seems like Fascism can tickle something in peoples' psyches that gets them all in on a project. He took a bunch of highschool students and in three days they're practically singing "Tomorrow Belongs to Me" and are ready to goosestep us into Fascism.

>>1695545
the history of homosexuality in the early Nazi Party (mainly the SA) is actually a really fascinating topic that is unfortunately somewhat muddled by Christofascist conspiracy theories about the Nazis all being gay (see The Pink Triangle). it was absolutely a thing in the SA, and this is pretty well documented, that there was a weird amount of male homosexuality/homoeroticism going on there that later forced the Nazis to explicitly suppress homosexuality. the image you posted even relates to this very interesting phenomenon where I obviously don't think all gay men are Nazis or anything, but there is also a very strong current in the Nazi unconscious of male homoeroticism. usually, but not always, it's repressed.

always makes me think of this Adorno aphorism from Minima Moralia

>>1696359
There's a fine between contempt for femininity (weakness) and homosexuality.

>>1696342
Devil's advocate: authority in schools is very real, the hierarchy of student and teacher is powerful. Most students, I'd assume, wouldn't risk reporting the teacher if they thought it was stricter than usual or kind of weird.
If you haven't already, it could also be worth looking into Stanford prison Experiment (prisoner/guard roleplay that very quickly became extremely abusive) and Milgram experiment (among other things, demonstrated typical citizens were ready to slaughter others provided sheltering from the brutality and that an apparent authority was responsible or pressuring them). And also cults in general.

>>1696359
>>1696362

This is gonna be a Freudian doozy here but it seems like there are elements of homoeroticism in Fascism in general. You've got Mishima and his harem of gym boys. You've got modern nazis (I think you can see a few on the Right Wing Cringe thread) with fbi.govs full of "Trans NatSocs" or whatever. And there's Rohm too.

Honestly just taking a stab in the dark here, but Fascism tends to emphasize personal fitness (or at least the aesthetics of personal fitness) and male strength and frequent exercise can raise testosterone levels, while losing weight apparently can increase libido. Plus, I think males in general can endure greater loneliness and so Fascist orgs offer a sense of belonging and male friendship. If you go from feeling lonely and alienated to having a group of brothers who have your back, then that sudden experience of affection and bonding could gradually give way to attraction, sexual or otherwise.

Speaking personally, and this is going to sound embarrassing, I've experienced something similar after long periods with a steady diet/exercise routine. I joked with a buddy that after a couple weeks of jogging and push-ups I'm getting obtrusive thoughts of femboys and fascists.

>>1696400
I'm no psychologist, nor expert on sexuality, so I won't make hypotheses but I should point out /fit/ has always been famous for being a gay board.
>homoeroticism
At the very least, glorification of common traits.

>>1696400
Speaking of schrodinger from hellsing, the nazis depicted in that anime seemed pretty accepting of a wide variety of people as long as they went along with the plan of trying to destroy britain. They had a cat femboy, a fat fuhrer, a heavily tattooed mentally ill woman, a werewolf and that guy who uses decks of cards as weapons.

I haven't read much of this so far, although it seems like an interesting analysis of the modern neo-nazi landscape, where many small decentralized groups, each with negligible membership, network to provide significant effect.
From slime mould to rhizome: an introduction to the groupuscular right (2003)
>he depicts the gamut of the post-war extreme right as stretching from highly conspicuous, signifi- cant parties such as the Movimento Sociale Italiana (MSI), which at times make impressive inroads into the legitimate space of democratic politics, to a zone that ‘seethes’ with a ‘profusion of groupuscules far too numerous to mention—and mostly too tiny to be worth mentioning’, some of them ‘psychotically violent’. Yet, no matter how invisible they are in the world of conventional politics and political analysis, the special issue of Pattern of Prejudice dedicated to case studies of the groupuscular right, in conjunction with this article, which sets out to provide a generic conceptual framework for them, will hopefully contribute to a minor ‘paradigm shift’ in the way they are perceived. If such a shift were to take place, scholars would be much less likely to treat all formations of the extreme right that have numerically negligible memberships as abortive mass movements and hence of minimal significance or concern.

>>1696392
>Stanford prison Experiment
isn't that the one that proved wealthy college kids are psychos

>>1696400
It's not exclusive to fascism, just take a look back in history: every society in which an aristocratic or warrior class had a cultural contempt for the feminine (associated with trickery, vanity, weakness, jealousy…) and an exaltation of masculine qualities (physical and mental strength, honesty, bravery…) produced some sort of accepted or ritualized male homosexuality. Sexism doesn't necessarily turn into misogyny, and misogyny doesn't necessarily turn you gay, but I think that if someone despise the feminine and despises women while exalting male qualities…Well, maybe they should read forbidden colours by Mishima.

>>1696465
I've actually heard that the experiment is being critically reexamined because the guy in charge of it deliberately biased the experiment to get the results he wanted, like yelling at "prison guards" that didn't abuse the "prisoners" and shit.

>>1601511
So is there are book recommendation list or is it all just few page pahmlets or low autism score bullshit like mein kampf? ᴉuᴉlossnW himself seems like a mediocre creature navigating the 1920's Italian political landscape. If fascism needs to be defined in black and white then its the most authoritarian form of capitalism.

>>1696501
"Fascism, 100 Questions Asked and Answered" and "Fascism for The Million" by Oswald Mosley are decent insights into his particular brand of Fascism and how he sees the state being organized. I believe in the latter book he mostly talks about the economics of his proposed Fascist state.

Talks With ᴉuᴉlossnW is, at the very least, an extremely interesting insight into ᴉuᴉlossnW personally. It's essentially a series of interviews conducted with him by a liberal German journalist where he has a chance to expound on his views and reveal a bit of himself.

>>1686444
National vitalism, although a scary name, is merely the impetus to reshape, reform, reconstruct or build anew one's Nation and or National State. This distinction is important since social movements can redefine the fundamentals of a culture without ever acquiring direct State/Economic power via memetics. There's no real singular reason to engage in NatVit, the Furries, for example, are NatVit. They want a society that accepts their weird ass nonsense and they hold significant social power through their capability of pretty much existing in any position of society, although this is mostly accidental.

>>1696536
>There's no real singular reason to engage in NatVit, the Furries, for example, are NatVit. They want a society that accepts their weird ass nonsense and they hold significant social power through their capability of pretty much existing in any position of society, although this is mostly accidental.

Interesting interpretation you got there

>>1696536
Most furries just go anarchist for this, identifying that NatVit-ism is a retarded approach.

>>1696603
My point is that NatVit isn't exactly an ideology one acquires but a condition one takes when engaging with social movements. BLM for example is NatVit, so are the Incels and whatnot. NatVit is extremely mundane, this is due to the fact that we all live in Nation States. Where nationally based collective projects are the norm.
>>1696564
The best example is usually the most absurd you have. Since it gives the best contrast. The point is that NatVit is a piece of current normality that gives the fascist an impetus to move. Fascists are idiotic when I comes to fully analyzing the basis of society, the fundamental to them are as organic as trees are to forests. Organics are the most important thing to the fascist, it's one of the most defining things that differentiates the fascist from the average reactionary conservative

>>1696620
Wouldn’t the mutability of your definition of National Vitalism make it somewhat useless? I don’t mean that as an insult, but if so many groups can fall under the NatVit umbrella I think you’d have an easier time counting which groups don’t.

>>1683613
>Haven’t read the article yet, but I’m not sure if I’d term Hugo Chavez a fascist. And if he was it raises the question if the goals of both sides are necessarily at odds.
It more or less just about how Chavez's party has turned into a state that does what the tankie anon says fascists do, just instead of saying it's a 'different' type of socialism, he said it was normal socialism. I don't know if that means calling Chavez a fascist in particular though, and certainly not the infight-bait that such an accusation invites to any of his defenders. But as I said above, many modern fascists point to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics as an example of their ideas about society being economic successful- rather than sticking to syndicalism or corporatism (which I don't see as really any different fundamentally) they do embrace an actual serious national/fascist socialism. But there is clearly something more to it, because while we praise the PRC for achieving success under a dictatorship of the proletariat, they're utterly indifferent to further progression, or, carrying more philosophical weight, doubt that such a transition to socialism after the defeat of global capitalism is even possible. These are the most concrete matters about these things that we can be talking about. Not to dog on your Mosley posts.
>>1685277
>>1685281
I think this is the exact wrong position to take. Ignoring the fact that Franco and Pinochet never espoused fascist beliefs, your stance on this is entirely descriptive, actively resisting proscription- the point however it so change it!
The purpose of this thread is not to observe what these fascist states actually did with their economic policy. We know what they did. It's why Pinochet and Franco can belong to the historical category fascism, because their movements did the same things. There need be no thread on this; you can simply look at the data and see the actual history of their economies. Sometimes they did better, sometimes worse, but all can be described as capitalist dictatorships supported by incendiary populism.
The issue is that there are still texts of political theory which calls itself fascism. This fascism though is different from the actual reality as it happened, but that doesn't mean the relevance of these texts are forever combined to the history books. There is no certainty about the future, none at all, and there could easily be a resurgence of discontents inspired by these texts. If anyone (it doesn't even have to be them who does) points them out- does that mean we can just magically call them fascists, and thus write them off as capitalists no different from the rest? No, obviously not. Obviously there is going to be fascists saying 'according to fascism, fascism isn't capitalism,' and Marxists saying 'according to materialism, fascism is capitalism.' This doesn't directly does absolutely nothing. The ability to talk with greater nuance actually does.

>>1696861
>But as I said above, many modern fascists point to Socialism with Chinese Characteristics as an example of their ideas about society being economic successful- rather than sticking to syndicalism or corporatism (which I don't see as really any different fundamentally) they do embrace an actual serious national/fascist socialism.

Y'know what's interesting is I've seen examples of Fascists running for Italy explicitly on a corporatist platform, which was portrayed as people being given more official representation; I think they used youth sports clubs having a say in public policy related to sports, but I'm going off of memory.

The point being in a vacuum can we truly say such a position is bad? When it's stripped of its status as a competitor to Socialism I'd personally say that the corporatist position seems a little more humane than neoliberal capitalism.

>The issue is that there are still texts of political theory which calls itself fascism. This fascism though is different from the actual reality as it happened, but that doesn't mean the relevance of these texts are forever combined to the history books. There is no certainty about the future, none at all, and there could easily be a resurgence of discontents inspired by these texts.

I think what's also important to consider is that people don't act mechanically, not even Fascists, and they can look at the history of their movements themselves. Fascism isn't dead with the defeat of Axis anymore than Communism with the collapse of the USSR; the ideology lives on and can evolve despite the collapse of the state. Hell, even immediately after WW2 certain notorious Fascists were trying to reorganize themselves and network a wider movement, and the thing with any ideology is that it'll morph and change. The successful ones balance principles with adaptability.

I keep going back to the Church in my example because it's one of the largest and longest-lasting institutions promoting its own ideology in history. Elements of Church history parallel elements of ideological history. The Church experienced so much success because, at times, it could readily adapt to different circumstances. When the Protestant Reformation came around it schismed the church, but didn't destroy it. When secularism and militant atheism emerged from the French Revolution, it schismed the Church but didn't break it. Ideological struggles aren't these mechanic things and we have to accept that adherents to an institution who don't want it to be destroyed will adapt if they have to. The Protestants reform and the Church hosts a counter-reformation. The secularists try to start a "Cult of Reason" and the Church unites Counter-Revolutionaries. When Liberalism became too big to ever truly be quashed, the Church began an arduous process of reform: modernize the Mass, clean up the "medieval" image, speak to the youth, etc. Parry and Riposte.

So let's say for whatever reason you have an ideologically committed Fascist. Their still a living breathing person theorizing about their ideology. Maybe they imagine the project didn't work because ᴉuᴉlossnW/Hitler didn't crush the big bourgeoisie and now want to emphasize that "Second Revolution" that Rohm was talking about. Or maybe they recognize that you can't get anywhere as an open racist today. So they exchange racist rhetoric for talk about national unity (didn't certain chapters of the Klan do that recently?) and how "we're all in this together." Or maybe they talk a more environmentalist streak.

We shouldn't think of the Fascist in terms of unchanging stereotypes, because that's how they get the surprise on people. Shit here's a special report on Italian Fascists from Casapound literally running foodbank and medical checkups.

It's entirely possible in the coming years that we'll see the birth of some "great Fascist intellectual" who gives the movement a new shot in the arm, akin to the Jesuits for Catholicism, and we've got to prepare for it.

>>1697455
Reminder that nothing matters in a vacuum.
>I think they used youth sports clubs having a say in public policy related to sports, but I'm going off of memory.
There are certainly pros to technocracy or the syndi/corpo idea of organizations having an elevated platform in decisions. For sure, and comparing to something as horrible as neoliberalism's representative democracy, I'd say it's far better (notice, I didn't use the word 'good' - it's a pointless word).
There might be valid notes to take there, but corporatism as a class collaboration is when it really fails, where the state mediates the balance of capitalist and worker interests… if they're not going to let workers exercise their power like striking and isn't going to remove shitty capitalists, then there won't be a balance.

>>1697455
>The point being in a vacuum can we truly say such a position is bad? When it's stripped of its status as a competitor to Socialism I'd personally say that the corporatist position seems a little more humane than neoliberal capitalism.
I'd agree on the latter but not the former. There is no such thing as a political position 'in a vacuum,' ones' position is either directly connected to reality, or they are insane. Economic third positionism (Corporatism, distributism, syndicalism) is only really analyzable as 'good' or 'bad' for Marxist socialism inasmuch as they are willing to help defeat capital, rather than make some abstract proclamation about the correct doctrine in dealing with differences in opinion. It depends on the situation, the relationships with capital, and the position of us socialists. This was like that discussion in the China thread about the PRC funding the AfD in Germany, and the (imo false) comparison with Molotov-Ribbentrop.

>>1697657
This reminds me, I think it was Hillaire Belloc, a distributist, who once was debating with a succdem. The succdem, assuming the reason he didn't like Marxist socialism was opposition to violent revolution, pointed out that to achieve an actual state where the means of production are distributed to all, a revolution as, if not more, violent and authoritarian than the one in Russia would be required. Belloc basically replied 'yeah who the fuck cares liberal?'

I also mentioned this earlier in the thread; despite plenty of modern fascists praising the PRC, plenty also claim to hate violent socialist revolution. But clearly if you like ᴉuᴉlossnW, but wish he made a state like modern China- which is only itself by its incredibly violent revolution- you contradict yourself. What with that huh bud?

Back to you, CPUSAnon- I agree with all the rest of your post's points. Obviously if some fascists give a homeless man his first hot meal and dry place to sleep in days, and tells him 'we are all brothers in The Nation, we will never abandon you, long live fascism,' he isn't going to give a shit if you go up to him and well ackshually about the economic policies of Italy 90 years ago. This brings us back to the question of what the purpose of this thread is- are we just developing better language with which to describe the phenomena of fascism, both in the past and today? Or are we also going to talk about how to actually handle dialogue with non-/pol/sperg fascists? Is it just to describe the world, or to change it? And if so- how?

>>1697690
Almost all neo nazis and neo fascists after 1966 are nonwhite and gradually more and more lgbt for some reason, don't question it.
Just don't there's a million and one demographic contradictions in nazi and fascist history, and if you try to rationalize it you will go insane.

>>1696400
Interesting video that goes into some Freudian aspects.

>Capitalism relies on a basic fantasy structure that leads to intrinsic disappointment. This requires someone to blame for the disappointment, which ends up supporting a fascistic move that identifies an enemy responsible for the failure to attain what the capitalist fantasy promises.

>>1697455
>Shit here's a special report on Italian Fascists from Casapound literally running foodbank and medical checkups.
Wow, impressive the amount of things you can do with drug money.

>>1696501
I HATE AI IMAGES SO MUCH
I HATE LOOKING AT AN IMAGE THAT APPARENTLY LOOKS COOL UNTIL I SEE THE MELTING FACES IN THE BACKGROUND AND A MAN FUSING WITH A TANK IN THE CORNER.
IT FEELS LIKE BITING INTO A DELICIOUS LOOKING HAMBURGER BUT IT'S JUST GREY SLUDGE INSIDE LIKE THAT ONE EPISODE OF SPONGEBOB
FUCK THIS SHIT AAAAAAAAAA

>>1696686
That's the thing. NatVit is mundane but act ls completely different under various circumstances. Under fascism NatVit IS the main course, the impetus to act. Whilst in any other movement it exists as a result of simply existing. Fascism takes this mundane aspect of national statehood and turns it into an idol for either a personalistic and or collectivistic purposes

>>1697982
Anon there are no melting faces, that is not ai, you are becoming schizophrenic and having a psychosis induced mental break, to stop it do trepanning, there is a rat demon inside your brain controlling you, use a wine opener to drill into your skull and dig it out.