Kinda skimmed because that’s a really long essay, but:
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation and race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy.
Fascism is a fairly specific thing. It’s not just anything that’s not democracy. Overapplying the term is a tool that allows you to condemn reasonable stances as absolute evil. Note that reasonable, used here, does not mean ideal or without caveats. If you can condemn every stance other than your own as absolute evil, that is radicalization. Radicalization can have its use, but it’s a dangerous thing. It needs to be focused. What is “Punch a Nazi” when capitalists are fascists too?
I understand that definition of fascism, and you should read the rest of my post for a better understanding of how that fascism operates in modern society. Nothing I’ve stated goes against those definitions, they’ve just been tempered with the context of modern society.
And yes, capitalism is ‘fascism lite’ if you want an analogy. Profit as a concept is inherently exploitative for the purpose of building wealth and power to exploit more people; power that is used to exert authoritarian control over those who rely on that person’s willing distribution of their excess resources, and will eventually give way to systems that are better focused on social equality.
and will eventually give way to systems that are better focused on social equality.
That’s one part that I’m not convinced about. I think it can and will happen in isolation, but whether it is stable in the long term and spreads to other countries is another.
One thing that I notice with the communist/socialism gang is that they often simultaneously have faith in the good of mankind and condemn all pro-capitalists and western politicians as evil. Reality is more nuanced, of course.
Anyway, I expect it will be the most robust political and economic systems that will survive and prosper. There are many big challenges (eg. climate change & competition for limited resources), as well as intentionally thrown spanners. Often it has been, and no doubt will continue to be, those who wield the biggest sticks that get to dictate or influence the rules.
My personal hope is that China walks peacefully forward toward a healthy form of socialism and is able to lead the world by example. I have my doubts, of course.
It’s already happening in other countries, other first world developed countries have universal healthcare, are looking at reducing full time working hours, implementing UBI not to mention more robust and fair electoral systems.
America still has a very strong Conservative grift slowing the country’s social progress, but the need for the masses to survive will always outweigh the need for the individual to be greedy so movement towards social benefit is slow but inevitable.
I’m in one of those countries (no UBI experiments yet). We have worker’s councils in large companies and unions, but there is still significant income and (more-so) wealth disparity. On the whole, this is one of those rare cases where the US has helped set-up a better and fairer system abroad than they have at home.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen to the world would be for the US to reform itself - healthcare first. I have bigger doubts here than China, though.
Until such time as they are truly working toward fair democracy and human rights at home and abroad, I think we need more bulkwards against US corporate interests (similar with other countries). Basing international trade purely on business interests and political whims doesn’t seem ideal - perhaps we need more principle based international trade, with incentives to improve.
You talk about fascism as if it’s the pervasive force of evil. Fascism is a relatively recent phenomenon, a specific manifestation of evil. I believe what you’re talking about is greed, or hunger for power.
Nothing about fascism is recent, fascism is born of greed and hunger for power, but the act of engaging in self imposed authority through control of power and resources is fascism. I don’t think of it as good and evil, these are just the actions of people, selfish vs selfless. Society is humanity moving away from selfish towards selfless, movement in the other direction requires engaging in fascism.
Kinda skimmed because that’s a really long essay, but:
Fascism is a fairly specific thing. It’s not just anything that’s not democracy. Overapplying the term is a tool that allows you to condemn reasonable stances as absolute evil. Note that reasonable, used here, does not mean ideal or without caveats. If you can condemn every stance other than your own as absolute evil, that is radicalization. Radicalization can have its use, but it’s a dangerous thing. It needs to be focused. What is “Punch a Nazi” when capitalists are fascists too?
I understand that definition of fascism, and you should read the rest of my post for a better understanding of how that fascism operates in modern society. Nothing I’ve stated goes against those definitions, they’ve just been tempered with the context of modern society.
And yes, capitalism is ‘fascism lite’ if you want an analogy. Profit as a concept is inherently exploitative for the purpose of building wealth and power to exploit more people; power that is used to exert authoritarian control over those who rely on that person’s willing distribution of their excess resources, and will eventually give way to systems that are better focused on social equality.
That’s one part that I’m not convinced about. I think it can and will happen in isolation, but whether it is stable in the long term and spreads to other countries is another.
One thing that I notice with the communist/socialism gang is that they often simultaneously have faith in the good of mankind and condemn all pro-capitalists and western politicians as evil. Reality is more nuanced, of course.
Anyway, I expect it will be the most robust political and economic systems that will survive and prosper. There are many big challenges (eg. climate change & competition for limited resources), as well as intentionally thrown spanners. Often it has been, and no doubt will continue to be, those who wield the biggest sticks that get to dictate or influence the rules.
My personal hope is that China walks peacefully forward toward a healthy form of socialism and is able to lead the world by example. I have my doubts, of course.
It’s already happening in other countries, other first world developed countries have universal healthcare, are looking at reducing full time working hours, implementing UBI not to mention more robust and fair electoral systems.
America still has a very strong Conservative grift slowing the country’s social progress, but the need for the masses to survive will always outweigh the need for the individual to be greedy so movement towards social benefit is slow but inevitable.
I’m in one of those countries (no UBI experiments yet). We have worker’s councils in large companies and unions, but there is still significant income and (more-so) wealth disparity. On the whole, this is one of those rare cases where the US has helped set-up a better and fairer system abroad than they have at home.
Perhaps the best thing that could happen to the world would be for the US to reform itself - healthcare first. I have bigger doubts here than China, though.
Until such time as they are truly working toward fair democracy and human rights at home and abroad, I think we need more bulkwards against US corporate interests (similar with other countries). Basing international trade purely on business interests and political whims doesn’t seem ideal - perhaps we need more principle based international trade, with incentives to improve.
You talk about fascism as if it’s the pervasive force of evil. Fascism is a relatively recent phenomenon, a specific manifestation of evil. I believe what you’re talking about is greed, or hunger for power.
Nothing about fascism is recent, fascism is born of greed and hunger for power, but the act of engaging in self imposed authority through control of power and resources is fascism. I don’t think of it as good and evil, these are just the actions of people, selfish vs selfless. Society is humanity moving away from selfish towards selfless, movement in the other direction requires engaging in fascism.
It’s only fascism if it comes from the fascism region of Europe. Otherwise it’s just sparkling authoritarianism.
Yes, that is the argument you just tried to make. How self aware.