Politics Discussion Thread (Heated Arguing Warning)

[Bacchus]

Why should this be a formal sign of fascism in particular? Lots of societies had different classes, and naturally many had ideologies to justify whatever arrangement of society existed.

Lots of traditional societies. In modernity, we moved to a new, national-liberal paradigm of citizenry, where there is one nation, and all that matters is whether you are a member of that nation and hence a citizen, or not. That's somewhat idealized, the word 'citizen' itself is clearly discriminatory in origin, but that's at least the conceit. Now, a re-enactment of traditionalist hierarchies under a modern-bureaucratic, administrative state is indeed a key feature of fascism how I conceive it. It's distinctly a movement at this conjuncture of modernity and tradition. Some fascists actually reflected on that, and say this much themselves, e.g. Russia's Dugin.

Like the USSR?

Sure. USSR started off as a bit more of a distinctly modernist dystopian project, which sought to break hierarchies rather than instate them, but by Stalin's time the similarities with fascism are aplenty, and from there they only multiplied -- antisemitism, conspiratorial theories of world government, adoration of military order and might, etc. After USSRs collapse, self-identified fascists and Soviet nostalgists went into a political alliance, held marches together, etc, forming something we in Russia call the 'red-brown' movement. And for my liking, a whole lot of people who identify as communists in Russia are much more correctly described as Soviet fascists -- they care little for class struggle, but they pine for lost law and order, space program, standing up to the decadent West, having a large and scary army, etc. They tend to have very distinct ideas about second class citizenry too -- homosexuals, drug addicts, etc. What exists under the name of Communist Party of Russian Federation holds broadly to these views -- they are also big fans of Orthodoxy now, and generally of evrything Russian and traditional.

And I'm not making any kind of new statement here, Mussolini himself said that Stalin transformed Bolshevism into Slavic fascism.

[T-hawk]

Is the whole voter registration fiasco in the US still predominantly targetting/affecting non-white American citizens? The fact that they don't outright refer to it as a legislative effort to disenfranchise a chunk of the population on racial (and economic) grounds doesn't mean it isn't; it just means they're being fractionally more subtle.

Good question.  I don't know what the facts and statistics are here, and every source is going to be biased towards some agenda.  Anecdotally, when you actually read through most of those stories and get past the horrified whining, they usually come out to a reasonable standard, something like the person not having voted in the last N elections or repeatedly failed to respond to multiple renewal notices or committed crimes of a certain level that forfeits voting privilege.  There is also a selection bias in the perception - you will never hear about it when it's a white man affected, but everyone loves to proclaim when a poor minority is.

Of course each party seeks to set the rules to help their party and not the other.  I think they're simply motivated by votes and winning, not by racial means to get there.  If the rules happen to give an outcome that correlates with ethnicity or economics -- that's because of self-selection in that ethnicity/economics already correlated with voting for the parties.

[AdrienIer]

a reasonable standard

the person not having voted in the last N elections

Wut

[T-hawk]

A quick search found this as an example, for Pennsylvania: http://touch.mcall.com/#section/-1/artic...-99472595/

In Pennsylvania, according to Tim Benyo, chief clerk of Voter Registration and Elections in Lehigh County, people who are registered but haven’t voted over two federal election cycles are sent a card asking them to verify their registered address. If they respond, they are maintained on the voter rolls, he said.

A district has to purge registrations on some kind of timeout.  Otherwise you'd forever keep all the names that have moved away or died; there's no way a district can know of every such event.

But the horror story always jumps straight to "purged!!!" and ignores all the intermediate notification and reregistration steps that could have mitigated the outcome.

[Mardoc]

Ah, I see. That's not what corporatism means. To take a definition that corporatists themselves used: "a system of social organization that has at its base the grouping of men according to the community of their natural interests and social functions, and as true and proper organs of the state they direct and coordinate labor and capital in matters of common interest".

The 'corporation' in corporatism refers not to companies, but to structuring the entire society as a single body.

I've seen both used, depending on who's talking.  People will often argue that a fundamental difference between fascism and communism is that fascism features private ownership of corporations with the government merely controlling them.

By the above definition, though, I think we're in agreement about at least that aspect of fascism: the disregard of individuals in favor of the structuring of the entire society is an important feature.  I'd argue that the totalitarian levels of control, single leader, and so on, are natural consequences of taking that desire seriously.

I think that's not the only important factor, which may be part of why I don't think we're in agreement as to the applicability of the label to actual countries, outside of those that claimed it.  But at this point I don't think a forum post's worth of evidence will convince, and I certainly don't have time in my life to write a book.

For a reductio ad absurdum: by the corporatism and second-classes definition, the labor union movement itself was an example of fascism: it certainly seeks to define all 'workers at X company' as equivalent, speaking with one voice and one mission, while devaluing 'scabs' and owners and management.  Mostly the differences are things I consider to be an important part of fascism and you are arguing as contingent.

In modernity, we moved to a new, national-liberal paradigm of citizenry, where there is one nation, and all that matters is whether you are a member of that nation and hence a citizen, or not.

The only thing about that paradigm that's new is the scale.  Any number of tribal societies considered all members equal, as did many Greek city-states.  Plus, of course, it's not actually true about democracies: it's just that you don't consider the exceptions to be fundamental.  For example, access to national secrets, national property, governmental employment - these certainly aren't available to all citizens in any country.

[Bacchus]

by the corporatism and second-classes definition, the labor union movement itself was an example of fascism

If the labour movent sought to restructure the entire society and its legal relationships along union lines, with union membership becoming an all-encompassing status category, I'd say that would indeed be fascism, and nothing absurd about that. What saves the actual labour movement from the charge is that it had specific, limited goals in a distinct arena of life.

Any number of tribal societies considered all members equal, as did many Greek city-states.

Could you give three examples?

[ipecac]

Why should this be a formal sign of fascism in particular? Lots of societies had different classes, and naturally many had ideologies to justify whatever arrangement of society existed.

Lots of traditional societies. In modernity, we moved to a new, national-liberal paradigm of citizenry, where there is one nation, and all that matters is whether you are a member of that nation and hence a citizen, or not. That's somewhat idealized, the word 'citizen' itself is clearly discriminatory in origin, but that's at least the conceit. Now, a re-enactment of traditionalist hierarchies under a modern-bureaucratic, administrative state is indeed a key feature of fascism how I conceive it. It's distinctly a movement at this conjuncture of modernity and tradition. Some fascists actually reflected on that, and say this much themselves, e.g. Russia's Dugin.

Like the USSR?

Sure. USSR started off as a bit more of a distinctly modernist dystopian project, which sought to break hierarchies rather than instate them, but by Stalin's time the similarities with fascism are aplenty, and from there they only multiplied -- antisemitism, conspiratorial theories of world government, adoration of military order and might, etc. After USSRs collapse, self-identified fascists and Soviet nostalgists went into a political alliance, held marches together, etc, forming something we in Russia call the 'red-brown' movement. And for my liking, a whole lot of people who identify as communists in Russia are much more correctly described as Soviet fascists -- they care little for class struggle, but they pine for lost law and order, space program, standing up to the decadent West, having a large and scary army, etc. They tend to have very distinct ideas about second class citizenry too -- homosexuals, drug addicts, etc. What exists under the name of Communist Party of Russian Federation holds broadly to these views -- they are also big fans of Orthodoxy now, and generally of evrything Russian and traditional.

And I'm not making any kind of new statement here, Mussolini himself said that Stalin transformed Bolshevism into Slavic fascism.

I get your view now. What I don't see is how your definition of fascism yields a fascism that is a "problem", because it's what people traditionally do anyway, just reworked with the modern state instead at the centre of everything.

If the labour movent sought to restructure the entire society and its legal relationships along union lines, with union membership becoming an all-encompassing status category, I'd say that would indeed be fascism, and nothing absurd about that. What saves the actual labour movement from the charge is that it had specific, limited goals in a distinct arena of life.

What's the problem with such a union-centered society that creates a "charge"?

[ipecac]

Switching to modern US, need some American help here -- is this a real or an Onion-like text: https://www.nytimes.cotm/2018/08/14/styl...ilege.html. I thought it's real, but doubt has since been sowed.

There is a long and honorable tradition of Yale students writing in fake questions to these kinds of advice columns, so it reads like that. It's also not unheard of for advice columnists to write their own questions for themselves. I'd rate the probability of that question being real as very low.

One can't say the probability is zero, because the text is the natural consequence of taking the white privilege theory seriously.

As has been pointed out by others, under the theory white guilt is an inherited, inescapable Original Sin that leads to self-flagellation and despair, with the sinner desperately seeking for expiation.

[Bacchus]

What's the problem with such a union-centered society that creates a "charge"?

Justice requires affording people a whole range of rights unconditional on their membership of a union. Justice also requires that people can associate freely to pursue projects in accordance with their chosen life plan, to associate in whichever form they see fit. If significant rights are restricted only to union members and if only through unions you can, for example, publish a newspaper, that's a problem. As in my original definition the greater the supression of rights of the second-class citizens, the bigger the problem. For fully-fledged fascism you'd have to have significant areas of cities just cordoned off from non-union members, exclusion from learning, absent or highly irregular police and court protection (leading to plenty of unprosecuted, or perhaps even explicitly sanctioned extra-legal violence, e.g. lynchings and pogroms), that's on the formal side. On the informal side there'd be hate of course, dehumanization, conspiratorial theories, etc.

[ipecac]

What's the problem with such a union-centered society that creates a "charge"?

Justice requires affording people a whole range of rights unconditional on their membership of a union. Justice also requires that people can associate freely to pursue projects in accordance with their chosen life plan, to associate in whichever form they see fit. If significant rights are restricted only to union members and if only through unions you can, for example, publish a newspaper, that's a problem.

Suppose we replace 'union' with 'the citizenry', and that significant rights are only afforded to citizens of a nation. Suppose there is a country where only citizens can vote, sponsor political activity, serve on juries, have free speech, free assembly etc. Would you think that unjust?