[ckaihatsu]

True.

What also sucks about communism and fascism is that ignorant people take it to mean that all forms of socialism or nationalism are bad. That's obviously ridiculous. Communism and fascism take these 2 things to an extreme. There isn't much in this world that isn't harmful when taken to an extreme. It's like seeing an obese person with diabetes and heart disease and drawing the conclusion that all food is bad for you and everyone should stop eating.

The 'extreme' that you fail to include in your equation is the *status quo*, and its *income inequality* -- which you've given lip-service to in the past, but somehow don't think of as 'extreme', now. So you're a Panglossian since 'this is the best of all possible worlds', and you assume a 'perfect-world' attitude / formulation regarding the world today.


Ideologies & Operations -- Left Centrifugalism

Spoiler: show

[ckaihatsu]

The 10 tactics of fascism _ Jason Stanley _ Big Think

[Unthinking Majority]

The 'extreme' that you fail to include in your equation is the *status quo*, and its *income inequality* -- which you've given lip-service to in the past, but somehow don't think of as 'extreme', now. So you're a Panglossian since 'this is the best of all possible worlds', and you assume a 'perfect-world' attitude / formulation regarding the world today.

The economic status quo in the US is right-wing neoliberal. On an ideological scale of 1 to 10, where communism were a 1 and 100% laissez-faire capitalism were a 10, the US might be a 7.5 or 8? Not sure that's extreme, but it's extreme-ish.

So I don't disagree with you. And I agree with you that the economic status quo in the US is trash, it's destroying the country.

For instance, healthcare should either be socialized or at least tightly regulated, and colleges should be subsidized and non-profit, where scholarships should be given for scholastics and not for athletics.

[Rich]

The economic status quo in the US is right-wing neoliberal. On an ideological scale of 1 to 10, where communism were a 1 and 100% laissez-faire capitalism were a 10, the US might be a 7.5 or 8? Not sure that's extreme, but it's extreme-ish.

If there's going to be a scale it should be set against societies/ regimes that actually existed. I'm as big a Tolkien fan as the next man, but the Shire is a libertarian fantasy. Give me a single Century, 80 legionnaires and 20 slaves, hell no give me 20 legionaries and five cavalry and I'd deal with that Shire's nonsense. Terrorism's not rocket science, it only gets hard when you're competing with other terrorists for people's (or hobbits) hearts and minds.

I'm no historical expert but it strike me that pre Graccian Rome seems to be the best we've got as a capitalist gold standard. if we were to play the left's rhetorical game, then its reasonable to categorise the Gracci as Clinos, Classical Liberals In Name Only. This makes Marius a Social Democrat, Julius Caesar a socialist and Augustus an out and out Commie.

I find it difficult to believe that the Roman elite were completely stupid, were completely lacking in intelligence. I find it difficult to believe the success of Rome was completely down to luck. So I would note that the dole was the first reform introduced. Before such nanny state measures as tax payer funded arming of soldiers or bureaucratic socialist extravaganzas like tax payer funded fire services, which of course in no time at all morphed into a tax payer funded police force as well. Its remarkable how little we've advanced in the last near two and a quarter Millennia of civilisation towards a National Basic Income.

[Political Interest]

Precisely. And the fascists do not believe in those ideals even as an abstract goal, seeing them merely as symptoms of "degeneracy" - rather as rural populations see anything the city-dwellers come up with as "degenerate". The proletariat, of course, are city-dwellers. This is why fascism is an ideology for lumpen peasants and landowners, while communism is an ideology for workers and urban intellectuals.

Funnily enough communism and socialism also only ever succeeded when there was an agrarian base. You needed farmers and peasants, or urban unskilled labourers of recent peasant roots in order to get support for communism. Russia and China were both largely agrarian societies, and their working classes were of recent peasant origins, peasants who had migrated to the cities.

In Great Britain the Communist Party found most of it support among miners and was successful among many of the Irish working class.

So communism also has a definite peasant basis to it. Mao Zedong was perhaps not too far off when he put forward his thesis that the peasantry could create the conditions for socialism.

[ckaihatsu]

So communism also has a definite peasant basis to it. Mao Zedong was perhaps not too far off when he put forward his thesis that the peasantry could create the conditions for socialism.

The Chinese economy did experience rapid growth through most of the 1980s and 1990s as a result of reform of the agricultural price system in the late 1970s which involved a massive one-off transfer of resources from the state to the peasantry. There was a rapid growth in food output for a number of years, which in turn provided the base for a range of light industries to develop, catering for both the domestic and world markets. According to the official figures, total industrial output trebled.

But the growth was incredibly uneven. Some coastal regions underwent massive industrialisation and urbanisation while vast inland regions stagnated or even regressed. There were tens of millions of new jobs in industry, but 200 million people flooded from the countryside to the towns in the hope of filling them. Rationalisation of the old heavy industries involved slashing their workforces and scrapping minimal forms of welfare provision. Wild fluctuations in growth rates saw sharp booms with rapidly rising prices giving way to periods of stagnation. Attempts to break out of these cyclical downturns by selling more on the world market threatened a classic crisis of overproduction every time the world economy slowed down or slumped.

This combination threatened to produce massive social convulsions, as was shown vividly in 1989. Only a few months before the political collapse in Eastern Europe the Chinese state itself came close to breaking down. Student demands for greater democracy became the focus for the grievances of wide sections of people, culminating in the famous demonstration in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, but also in dozens of other cities and industrial centres. For several days the regime was paralysed, seeming to have difficulty finding soldiers prepared to bring the demonstrations to an end, before it used tanks to crush the protests.

Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 596

[Unthinking Majority]

@ckaihatsu

China grew in the 80's and 90's because Mao died in 1976 and they were finally rid of his stupid extremist economic policies. They only grew when they introduced market reforms because as it turns out individuals and businesses can usually make better economic decisions for themselves than the government can. Robust regulation of the private business sphere and some socialization is much better than full-blown central planning.

Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Kim Jun-il, and Hitler are all idiots. George W. Bush and 90% of the GOP are idiots. FDR was not an idiot.

[ckaihatsu]

@ckaihatsu

China grew in the 80's and 90's because Mao died in 1976 and they were finally rid of his stupid extremist economic policies. They only grew when they introduced market reforms because as it turns out individuals and businesses can usually make better economic decisions for themselves than the government can. Robust regulation of the private business sphere and some socialization is much better than full-blown central planning.

Mao, Lenin, Stalin, Kim Jun-il, and Hitler are all idiots. George W. Bush and 90% of the GOP are idiots. FDR was not an idiot.

Thanks for the "briefing", but world political history isn't nearly as neat and tidy as *you'd* like it to be. First off, the historical strongmen you listed aren't even all on the same side of the political spectrum.

Here's my standing position on FDR:

In the following two years the CIO added just 400,000 members to those gained in its first 22 months. In 1939 the number of strikes was only half that of 1937. What is more, the union leaders increasingly reverted to collaboration with the employers and to restricting agitation by the membership. In the auto union there was an attempt to ban any publication not approved by the leadership, while there were to be no elections in the newly formed steel union for five years. The spontaneous grassroots militancy of 1934-36 gave way to tight control from above.

Many activists tried to resist this trend. But, as in France and Spain, their efforts were made much more difficult by the behaviour of the Communist Party. It had played a leading role in the militancy of 1934-37, with many of its activists taking positions as organisers in the CIO union drive, and by their courage and daring had attracted large numbers of new recruits. Until 1935 the Communist Party insisted that Roosevelt was a capitalist politician and the New Deal a fraud. Then it made a U-turn and welcomed Roosevelt and the New Deal Democrats with its own version of ‘Popular Front’ politics. The party worked with the union leaders to spread illusions about the role of these politicians and to discipline rank and file trade unionists who might disrupt cosy relations with the Democrats. This continued for the next ten years, except for a brief interlude during the Hitler-Stalin pact at the beginning of the Second World War. It helped the union leaders establish bureaucratic control over most unions—a control which they would use in the 1940s to destroy any Communist influence.

Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 517

---


Remember that back in 1949 China overthrew its own monarchy *and* Western and Japanese imperialism:

The Chinese Communist Revolution, known in mainland China as the War of Liberation, was the conflict, led by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chairman Mao Zedong, that resulted in the proclamation of the People's Republic of China, on 1 October 1949. The revolution began in 1946 after the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45) and was the second part of the Chinese Civil War (1945–49).[4]

Historical background

Historians disagree about the long and short-term factors behind the 1949 Revolution. Historians in mainland China trace the origins of the 1949 Revolution to sharp inequalities in society and imperialist aggression. They charge that high rates of rent, usury and taxes concentrated wealth into the hands of a minority of village chiefs and landlords. One Western historian quotes the statistic that "Ten percent of the agricultural population of China possessed as much as two-thirds of the land".[5] These historians also argue that imperialist pressure by the Western powers and the Japanese and "Century of Humiliation" starting with the Opium Wars and including unequal treaties and the Boxer Rebellion led to a rise in nationalism, class consciousness and leftism.[citation needed]

After internal unrest and foreign pressure weakened the Qing state, a revolt among newly modernized army officers led to the Xinhai Revolution, which ended 2,000 years of imperial rule and established the Republic of China.[6] Following the end of World War I and the Russian Revolution in Russia, Chinese radical intellectuals founded the CCP and Sun Yat-sen founded the Chinese Nationalist Party. [7]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_C ... Revolution

---


And here's my own take on a potential post-capitalist bottom-up central planning:


Emergent Central Planning

Spoiler: show

[ckaihatsu]

However, Roosevelt’s measures were neither as innovative nor as effective as many people thought. Roosevelt remained highly orthodox in one respect—he did not use government spending to break out of the crisis. In fact he cut veterans’ pensions and public employment. As Kindelberger writes, ‘Fiscal means to expand employment remained limited, since the Democratic administration under Roosevelt remained committed to a balanced budget’.224 He also suggests investment was bound to start rising at some point from the incredibly low level to which it had fallen (from $16 billion in 1929 to $1 billion in 1932), and it began to do so once the level of bank failures had peaked. In any case, Roosevelt got the credit for a rise in production from 59 percent of the level of the mid-1920s in March 1933 to 100 percent in July, and a fall in unemployment from 13.7 million in 1933 to 12.4 million in 1934 and 12 million in 1935. Many people believed his ‘New Deal’ had worked miracles—a myth that remains prevalent today. Yet one person in seven was still jobless in 1937 when output finally reached the level of eight years earlier.

Then in August 1937 there was ‘the steepest economic decline in the history of the US’, which lost ‘half the ground gained by many indexes since 1932’.225 Steel output fell by more than two thirds in four months, cotton textile output by about 40 percent, and farm prices by a quarter.

Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 513-514

[ckaihatsu]

The hard, hard times, the inaction of the government in helping, the action of the government in dispersing war veterans-all had their effect on the election of November 1932. Democratic party candidate Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Herbert Hoover overwhelmingly, took office in the spring of 1933, and began a program of reform legislation which became famous as the "New Deal." When a small veterans' march on Washington took place early in his administration, he greeted them and provided coffee; they met with one of his aides and went home. It was a sign of Roosevelt's approach.

The Roosevelt reforms went far beyond previous legislation. They had to meet two pressing needs: to reorganize capitalism in such a way to overcome the crisis and stabilize the system; also, to head off the alarming growth of spontaneous rebellion in the early years of the Roosevelt administration- organization of tenants and the unemployed, movements of self-help, general strikes in several cities.

That first objective-to stabilize the system for its own protection- was most obvious in the major law of Roosevelt's first months in office, the National Recovery Act (NRA). It was designed to take control of the economy through a series of codes agreed on by management, labor, and the government, fixing prices and wages, limiting competition. From the first, the NRA was dominated by big businesses and served their interests. As Bernard Bellush says (The Failure of the N.R.A.), its Title I, it turned much of the nation's power over to highly organized, well-financed trade associations and industrial combines. The unorganized public, otherwise known as the consumer, along with the members of the fledgling trade-union movement, had virtually nothing to say about the initial organization of the National Recovery Administration, or the formulation of basic policy."

Where organized labor was strong, Roosevelt moved to make some concessions to working people. But: "Where organized labor was weak, Roosevelt was unprepared to withstand the pressures of industrial spokesmen to control the . . . NRA codes." Barton Bernstein (Towards a New Past) confirms this: "Despite the annoyance of some big businessmen with Section 7a, the NRA reaffirmed and consolidated their power. . . ." Bellush sums up his view of the NRA:

The White House permitted the National Association of Manufacturers, the Chamber of Commerce, and allied business and trade associations to assume overriding authority... . Indeed, private administration became public administration, and private government became public government, insuring the marriage of capitalism with statism.
When the Supreme Court in 1935 declared the NRA unconstitutional, it claimed it gave too much power to the President, but, according to Bellush, ". . . FDR surrendered an inordinate share of the power of government, through the NRA, to industrial spokesmen throughout the country."


Also passed in the first months of the new administration, the AAA (Agricultural Adjustment Administration) was an attempt to organize agriculture. It favored the larger farmers as the NRA favored big business.

https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon ... hel15.html

[Fasces]

Fascism is a radical programme aimed at addressing alienation in industrializing societies.

Fascism, as an ideology, attempts to give workers a link to their labor without giving them sovereignty. They do this through the use of Palingenetic nationalism to create a driving myth to motivate the in group and to make them feel as part of a greater collective whole. Their struggles become national struggles - our struggles. In this way, the worker is made subservient to state interests.

Fascism, as an ideology, views the state as the expression of the people's will.

Fascism, as an ideology, advocates for a radical vertical programme of economic organization that makes worker and managerial interests subservient to state interests.

Fascism, as an ideology, has in almost all cases been coopted by the bourgeoisie and these radical elements excised. The myth of nationalism is used to erode the sovereignty of labor, but the state does not do the same to the bourgeoisie, elements of which empowered then. Hitler dumped Strasser during his ascent to power. Franco dumped the Falangista once they were no longer useful to appeal to the monarchists and westerners. Salazar banned the National Syndicalist party and arrested its leaders. Mussolini betrayed the principles of Dannuzio, Evola and others, sticking them in dead end roles as he cozier up to the King.

In all historical cases, fascists were willing to shed their ideological radicalism in exchange for power. For fascists, ideology is secondary to power.

Above all, fascism, as an expressed ideology, is obsessed with hierarchy and power. It takes on a Darwinian character. Fascists who care about ideology at the expense of power cease to be fascists, one way or the other, because the fascist leaders have no appetite for anything that could constrain raw power.

[Patrickov]

Remember that back in 1949 China overthrew its own monarchy *and* Western and Japanese imperialism

Isn't this CCP narrative?

Frankly what they are doing makes me think, if that was indeed the case, we probably need to question whether Western Imperialism is as bad as we are "educated" to.

[ckaihatsu]

Remember that back in 1949 China overthrew its own monarchy *and* Western and Japanese imperialism

Isn't this CCP narrative?

It also happens to be world history.

(Politically, Russia and China overthrew their monarchies, just as the Western powers had -- England, the U.S., and France -- but Russia and China have *never* gotten any kind of international respect or equanimity.)

Frankly what they are doing makes me think, if that was indeed the case, we probably need to question whether Western Imperialism is as bad as we are "educated" to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sino-Japanese_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion

[Patrickov]

(Politically, Russia and China overthrew their monarchies, just as the Western powers had -- England, the U.S., and France -- but Russia and China have *never* gotten any kind of international respect or equanimity.)

Both Russia and China do not get respect because they did not emerge to be a better country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Sino-Japanese_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boxer_Rebellion

Opium War is now seen as either less significant or provided a safe haven for legitimate dissent. Now China violently destroys its legacy.

The second one was China's fault for not winning. In fact, Koreans saw China as "imperialistic" as the Japanese during that time.

The final one is exactly like what Little Pink do now.

[ckaihatsu]

Both Russia and China do not get respect because they did not emerge to be a better country.

Are you speaking as a historian here, because it *sounds* like a load of moralistic crap.

Opium War is now seen as either less significant or provided a safe haven for legitimate dissent. Now China violently destroys its legacy.

The second one was China's fault for not winning. In fact, Koreans saw China as "imperialistic" as the Japanese during that time.

The final one is exactly like what Little Pink do now.

You're showing that you think 'Might is right' -- that those who came out on top, from the world wars of the 20th century, were also the most deserving of their victories. How convenient.

Would you prefer the world to be more like a Mad-Max-dogpile kind of thing -- ?

[Patrickov]

Are you speaking as a historian here, because it *sounds* like a load of moralistic crap.

I fail to see why being moralistic here means spewing crap. Is that you are out of arguments?

You're showing that you think 'Might is right' -- that those who came out on top, from the world wars of the 20th century, were also the most deserving of their victories. How convenient.

Would you prefer the world to be more like a Mad-Max-dogpile kind of thing -- ?

If I thought Might is Right why would I bother to hate China and Russia?

Please don't pretend them as weaklings.

[ckaihatsu]

I fail to see why being moralistic here means spewing crap. Is that you are out of arguments?

Just sayin'. If we're back on *arguments* now, how about explaining the Western international treatment of Russia and China, compared to their polite diplomatic treatment of Imperial *Germany*, at the same time (late 19th century).

If I thought Might is Right why would I bother to hate China and Russia?

I don't know. Why?

Please don't pretend them as weaklings.

Okay. I'm not taking sides, but the geopolitics / history are always worth addressing.

[Patrickov]

Just sayin'. If we're back on *arguments* now, how about explaining the Western international treatment of Russia and China, compared to their polite diplomatic treatment of Imperial *Germany*, at the same time (late 19th century).

Actually Israel is a good example to illustrate my point.

The Jews were indiscriminately murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust (okay, some elites like Sigmund Freud bought their way out, but still), however when they have their own country it's in expense of the Palestinian Arabs and the Jews are often accused of less-than-benevolent treatment of them.

Similarly, Russians and Chinese might be oppressed in the past, but when they took control they are even less agreeable.

Worse, at least Israel is internally open, free and democratic. Both China and Russia persecute their own people even on this very day.

I don't know. Why?

Because Might is NOT equal to Right. It is more about how, when and to whom one displays or uses the Might.

the geopolitics / history are always worth addressing.

Of course, it is just that my interpretation of history is apparently different from yours. Mind you, I mostly read history written by Communists when I was young.

[ckaihatsu]

Actually Israel is a good example to illustrate my point.

The Jews were indiscriminately murdered by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust (okay, some elites like Sigmund Freud bought their way out, but still), however when they have their own country it's in expense of the Palestinian Arabs and the Jews are often accused of less-than-benevolent treatment of them.

Similarly, Russians and Chinese might be oppressed in the past, but when they took control they are even less agreeable.

Worse, at least Israel is internally open, free and democratic. Both China and Russia persecute their own people even on this very day.






Because Might is NOT equal to Right. It is more about how, when and to whom one displays or uses the Might.




Of course, it is just that my interpretation of history is apparently different from yours. Mind you, I mostly read history written by Communists when I was young.

I just don't know where your one-sidedness is coming from. Sure, you can be pro-West and whatever, but then you return to focusing on the particular situation of the East for your political critique.

Is it some kind of nationalist self-criticism -- ?

[Patrickov]

I just don't know where your one-sidedness is coming from.

From what I see and hear in people around me, as well as the one-sidedness employed by the Chinese government and their collaborators in Hong Kong.