The socialist roots of Nazism (and the Left’s typical response)

Brandon Christensen History, Politics, ,

One of my constituents once complained to the Beeb [BBC] about a report on the repression of Mexico’s indigenous peoples, in which the government was labelled Right-wing. The governing party, he pointed out, was a member of the Socialist International and, again, the give-away was in its name: Institutional Revolutionary Party. The BBC’s response was priceless. Yes, it accepted that the party was socialist, “but what our correspondent was trying to get across was that it is authoritarian”.

Amazing! This is from Daniel Hannan writing in the Telegraph.

11 thoughts on “The socialist roots of Nazism (and the Left’s typical response)”

  1. When I was a PhD student I arranged a swap with another student several years behind me. I was interested in doing some research on French newspapers. The Hoover Institute had a number of years of newspaper data from the Bibliothèque nationale de France [Jacques helped me with the sampling], but I’m a monolingual Anglophone. This student was fluent in English, Spanish [she was from Mexico] and French.

    She was [justifiably] very worried that she would not pass a quantitative methods class. I had been the TA for the class and was very familiar with the material. I swapped personal tutoring for data coding, 1 hour of tutoring for 1 hour of coding. At the end of the term she squeaked by with a B and gave me what she had coded.

    When I started looking at the data I was shocked to find that where I had a field for ‘political affiliation if any’ not only that the vast majority of newspapers had a political affiliation but that they were Fascist. It turns out that she was not only a Marxist as an academic but also in her personal beliefs. Any newspapers with any commercial content were obviously fascist; for that matter even middle-of-the-road newspapers were fascist.

    I’ve never trusted research assistants since then. It’s a bit more time consuming but I micro-manage the process until I know what their doing and why.

    I’m almost tempted to apologize for the idiocy of people on the left but the fact that we share some opinions doesn’t make me responsible.

    Reply

    • Terry: Thanks. I think this blurb from Hannan’s piece is good, too:

      Are contemporary Leftist critics of Israel secretly anti-Semitic? No, not in the vast majority of cases. Are modern socialists inwardly yearning to put global warming sceptics in prison camps? Nope. Do Keynesians want the whole apparatus of corporatism, expressed by Mussolini as “everything in the state, nothing outside the state”? Again, no. There are idiots who discredit every cause, of course, but most people on the Left are sincere in their stated commitment to human rights, personal dignity and pluralism.

      My beef with many (not all) Leftists is a simpler one. By refusing to return the compliment, by assuming a moral superiority, they make political dialogue almost impossible. Using the soubriquet “Right-wing” to mean “something undesirable” is a small but important example.

      We don’t have to worry about that here at NOL (yet!), but I’m sure you’ve noticed this in popular outlets as well.

    • Yeah, very early 80s; 81 or 82. As I recall she was a Sandanista fan.

    • Wow. That’s incredible.

      It’d be interesting to hear if her views have changed over time, especially since the collapse of the Soviet Union. I don’t know that I would have kept up with her if she had done that to me, but if you have some insights into her political views since 1992 I’d be grateful.

    • Fascinating, thanks.

      It looks like that old coot Delacroix may have been on to something when he wrote that “the people who would have been Marxists in 1974 call themselves ‘environmentalists’ today.”

      Also of note, there is an essay on Progressivism (old and new) at Cato Unbound that you might be interested in. If you read it, I’d be interested in hearing your feedback on it.

  4. The essay presumes knowledge I don’t have. I was at the University of Wisconsin for several years so I know there was a powerful Progressive party in the state early in the 20th century. I have no idea how they compare and contrast with Progressives like Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson for example.

    As for the old coot, remember that even a broken clock is right twice a day 🙂 This is one of those times. It’s a Cause; there’s a clear divide between Good and Evil; what more could a True Believer want?

    Reply

    • Very interesting thanks, but I think it actually helps to bolster the Cato Unbound piece’s charge that Progressivism has “[…] in an inconsistent and ultimately incoherent fashion, returned to some of the principles of liberty and equality that previous generations of Progressive leaders rejected.”

      One of the main reasons libertarians reject Progressivism is because of its logical incoherence and rejection of history (one thing I can safely generalize about libertarians is that they have a much, much higher than average knowledge of history).

      For instance, what exactly is the piece arguing? Aside from the fact that neoliberalism is not failing, all I see is a desire for Progressives to make a sharp turn to the Left. But why? Again, neoliberalism is not failing (the current economic doldrums are a product of bad fiscal, trading, and monetary policies) and I didn’t catch a solution to the US’s current woes.

      It seems to me, and correct me if I’m wrong, that Progressivism is a reactionary position rather than a coherent, progressive one. FA Hayek’s essay explaining why he was not a conservative gets to the heart of the present-day Progressive movement:

      The typical conservative is indeed usually a man of very strong moral convictions. What I mean is that he has no political principles which enable him to work with people whose moral values differ from his own for a political order in which both can obey their convictions.

      Indeed, judging by what I read in the Progressive blogosphere and based upon your link, I think you’d have to agree on two things: 1) that Hayek nailed down the conservative position very well, and 2) that today’s Progressives are actually quite conservative.

Please keep it civil