Sometimes there is no “middle road.” The bitch is figuring out when that’s true.

There is of course the other kind of c & p post. There was a guy that posted here 5-6 years ago that I would swear never had an original thought and I suspected he cut and pasted many of his posts in their entirety from other sources.

As for the subject at hand, I think some of the same obfuscation and innocent confusion related to fascism and communism is found in the current liberal/conservative stalemate.

No doubt, no matter how you cut it, the middle road is always best. We just need to find the shoulders and get a decent driver.

And there is no need to make apologies for your interest in the subject. It is the BIG STORY of the Twentieth Century, Fascism and Communism and the struggle between them and the rest of the world turned the 1900s into a bloodbath.

Both Communism and Fascism arose early in the 20th century when it became clear that between the robber barons, economic imperialism, and world wide depression and war, unrestricted Capitalism was not living up to its promise. A few people were getting very rich all right, but most of the rewards didn’t seem to be filtering down to those who were actually doing the work. This was not so much the case in America, with its vast resources, small population and empty continent. But in Europe
it was obvious to everyone.

My own position is that all isms are difficult to define precisely, and a scan at the scholarly authorities finds little agreement except in the broadest areas. Communism actually comes right out and rejects private ownership of capital altogether, although it usually finds it can’t function at all without some. Fascism is a lot kinder to the idea of private enterprise, and in fact relies on collaboration with business to build its power base. It usually does better economically, but it seems to always have a need for other countries’ resources.

The Communist says, “I’m taking all this away from the rich and we’ll all be free and prosperous”. The Fascist says, “You let me do whatever I please and if you help me out a bit I’ll let you keep what you’ve got, and make it worth your while too.”

But in practice, both Communism and Fascism are dictatorships run by either a strongman or an all-powerful Party. Initially, (before anyone realizes what is actually going on), Communism appeals to the poor, who have nothing to lose, while Fascism is very tempting to the middle class, who have something to lose, and to the upper classes, which have everything to lose.

Fascism was discredited by World War II, Communism is finished for the time being, the end of the Cold War exposed that sham for what it was. But Fascism is making a big comeback, for the same reason it became popular in the 1920s, it has taken over in China and Russia, and it is pushing hard in this country. It is only a matter of time before some form of Communism arises somewhere and challenges it. Both systems seem to flourish during hard times.

It would be tragic if the ideological struggle of the last century is perpetuated into the new millennium. My own hope is that a regulated and managed capitalism operating in a constitutional democratic system is the best combination for a humane and effective political/economic organization, in other words, the middle way.

This is what the USA (and a few other Western countries) had in the last half of the 20th century. But it may be that it will be too difficult to implement a progressive social free-enterprise democracy in a society fractured along class lines and under severe economic and political stress.

And the rest of the world is now challenging us economically and politically in an environment of resource shortages and rising populations. It may turn out that a balanced and harmonious social fabric simply relies to much on prosperity and peace, it may no longer be a luxury we can afford.

Not bad at all!

I said too much, and Tom said nothing at all.

Communism – An economic philosophy based on common ownership of all lands and businesses. Private ownership is restricted to personal items. Historically, communism is usually accompanied by a Fascist government.

The word communism and the philosophy of common ownership (commune) has been around for over 500 years.

Fascism – A form of government dating back to the Roman Empire. It is essentially a concentration of power in a single leader (dictator).

As construed by Mussolini in 1920 it was anti-communist but it was considered by many as a modern, 20th century answer to Marxism.

Hitler’s fascism originated as a revolutionary socialist system but it evolved to heavily managed capitalism as Hitler curried favor with the German upper class.

You can apply that simple parameter across a great many “-isms” and a great many nations and societies in history, and get very consistent and nearly-identical results.

The rest of it is mostly semantic kabuki dancing, designed to draw you away from the obvious.

Communism is generally considered the form of Socialism implemented by Lenin in the USSR, and later “perfected” by Stalin. But long after Stalin died Communism remained, and evolved, and sprang up in other places, like China and Cuba. But there were enormous differences in those versions too.

“Communism” and “Fascism”, are like “Americanism” or “Freedom” or “Democracy”. You can’t just look them up and get an exact definition, and even in those places where there is general agreement on a vague similarity (like Canadian and American democracy or French and British capitalism) the details of each are quite different.

As a rule of thumb, a good working definition is that in Communism there is no private ownership of the means of production, it is owned by the state. (Although according to some Socialists, there is no State, the means of production are owned by the People, factories etc are owned by their workers, sort of like the way co-ops are run in Capitalist countries.)

In Fascism, the means of production is still privately owned, but economic goals and priorities are set by the state. I see Fascism as a form of Communism run by the businessmen, and Communism as a form of Capitalism run by the State.

Of course, in practice, what you actually wind up with in the real world is a hybrid system that has evolved over time through law, struggle, violence, compromise, and politics, custom and history. Even so-called Capitalist economies are not really fully capitalist, they just have different mixes. Some forms of government and economics are better than others, just ask the people who live there! But there is no pure example of any form of government or economics anywhere, just like there is no perfect marriage, or a perfect chess club.

You can’t look something up in a book and say “this is Communist, or Fascist, or Socialist”, or anything else, because the books don’t agree and the real-world examples are all different. Political economics is more like pornography, it may be hard to define, but you’ll know it when you see it. This doesn’t mean you can’t describe something you like or dislike by giving it a name, we all have fairly good ideas what we mean by these terms. What we can’t do is whip out a book and say “this can (or can’t) be fascism because it says here on page 129…”.

And one more thing. Words like this don’t have exact definitions. You can’t figure out what “love” or “liberty” or “art” or “work” or “faith” are either by looking them up in a dictionary. Try it. It just doesn’t work. Giving exact definitions to slippery, complex concepts like this is just another way politicians lie to you and get you to do what they want. Do not let them get away with it.