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In particular, they blamed social ills on moral corruption that, on their view, came from foreigners and homosexuals, from unpatriotic citizens, and in particular from Marxists and anything having to do with organized labor. His purpose is to smear contemporary US liberals--specifically, the supporters of public health care--with the *label* of being fascist, regardless of the evidence for doing so. The Nazis gave their organization a left-sounding name to garner popular support, and they appealed to imagery that appeared to praise the working class. When the depression came, the Government added the loss to the tax-payer's burden.
And no, the fascists were not "competing with their fellow leftists for power," as Goldberg intimates. Nonetheless, this alliance was effective even when it was uneasy, and the fascists invariably worked as hired muscle for big business. By his own admission, Goldberg's aim is not scholarly but political. Rather than supporting the labor movement like real socialists would, the Nazis broke up picket lines, murdered union leaders, banned worker newspapers, outlawed strikes, and sent the leaders of pro-labor organizations to death camps. As Goldberg points out, the earliest fascist propaganda includes anti-capitalist rhetoric in addition to social conservatism. Instead of blaming social ills on systemic exploitation, as socialists would, the fascists blamed them on individual moral corruption. Profit is private and individual.
A fascist regime, summarily, is a conservative, pro-business, *capitalist military state*, in which the state's suppression of organized labor is purportedly justified by appeals to tradition, heritage, patriotism, the family, and other conservative social norms. Since these things can be privately controlled while getting help from the government--e.g. Capitalism is a system, in other words, characterized by private, non-democratic control over a society's land, labor, resources, and machinery. Here Goldberg's use of history is selective, however, as any examination of the majority of fascist propaganda--especially later propaganda--will find a dearth of anti-capitalism. Fascism is not socialism, nor is it a left-wing movement of ANY kind.Goldberg's study focuses on peripheral fluff while ignoring the economic facts.
We get no mention of the fascists' violent and ideologically-driven opposition to the labor movement, and no mention of their relationship with business--except with the demonstrably false claim that Mussolini somehow "oppressed" private industry when he gave it state support. (In Italy, child labor was reintroduced as well). subsidies and "bailouts"--it's actually possible to have capitalism *with* government involvement. Loss is public and social." One of fascism's main features as a an economic system, then, is re-enforcement of profits at the public's expense.The three most famous regimes to be called "fascist," however--including Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and Franco's Spain--were not always up-front about their support of monopoly capitalism. During the 1930s, Italy, Germany, and Spain were strangled with public recession, wage cuts, the banning of strikes, the overturn of workplace safety laws, and the private appropriation of both public property and public industries. Thus Gaetano Salvemini, a survivor of Italian Fascism, wrote, "In Fascist Italy the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise. The fascism of Italy and Germany showered the weapons industries with state money, and stimulated war profits by waging imperialism abroad, as Mussolini did in Ethiopia and Hitler did in eastern Europe.
Goldberg is one of those right-wing writers who equates capitalism with lack of government involvement in business, and who consequently categorizes fascism as anti-capitalist (and therefore "liberal,") because every fascist regime--including Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and Franco's Spain--threw heavy state resources into the marketplace. Goldberg, like the fascists themselves, chooses to focus on what the fascists said rather than on what they did, and treats their propaganda as accurate rather than looking at the facts.Goldberg's book is not an academic study. Fascism is right-wing in its conservatism, right-wing in its alliance with the private sector, right-wing in its policies of imperialism and war, and right-wing in its violent opposition to Marxism and organized labor. Hitler and Mussolini both eliminated the inheritance tax, cut taxes for the rich, deregulated business, gave public property and public works to private companies, and increased taxes for the poor. part of the labor movement. At the same time, profits for big corporations like I.G.
Yet as soon as Hitler assumed power, he implemented "Operation Hummingbird," in which all socialists in the Nazi party were executed. As scholars like Paxton and Griffin point out, it was sometimes necessary for fascists to blame capitalism to gain popular support; and the alliance between fascism and big business was easier in fascism's later stages than in its inception. Fascism is a version of this kind of capitalism: it begins as a violent, right-wing populism that blames organized labor for the decline of traditional values--such as the family, the church, and the nation--and it ends up as an anti-labor military state, which devotes its resources to maintaining profits for the private sector. Farben and the Federazione Industriale were never higher. Capitalism is *private ownership of the means of production*.
Like Hitler, Mussolini crushed his country's labor movement as soon as he assumed power.All this is confirmed by the economics of fascist regimes. On the subject of capitalism, then, there is thus an important difference between the things that fascists occasionally said and the things that they actually did.To illustrate, note that the fascist Nazi party gave themselves a left-sounding name--to wit, "the national socialist German workers' party." From their name, one would think they were socialists--i.e. While contributing nothing to the study of fascism, it is a significant contribution to actual fascist movements in the US today, such as the Minute Men, the Klan, and the Dominionists, who can now try to dodge their association with fascism by citing Goldberg and fallaciously smearing their leftist opponents with the label "fascist" instead. We also get no study of the *actual* fascist groups that existed in America's history, nor those that exist today--with the appalling exception of a paragraph in which he says that the KKK's reputation for racism is exaggerated, and that they are effectively a harmless fanboy cult of the movie "Birth of a Nation." (This claim, by the way, is a boon for *actual* Klansmen and fascists, who can now try to dodge their association with political villainy by citing Goldberg). If "capitalism" just means "no government," then Goldberg is right to think of fascism as anti-capitalist.Capitalism, however, is not the same thing as an absence of government from business. He mentions that Italy and Germany had public works, for instance, but fails to touch on their pro-profit character. He mentions that the Nazis employed environmentalist rhetoric and practiced vegetarianism, while ignoring the fact that huge funds were given to Germany's largest polluting corporations.
Far from being socialists, the fascists were vehemently opposed to socialism and everything that socialists stood for.
Yet instead, Goldberg gives us a highly selective focus on irrelevancies--such as the fact that the Nazis had a non-smoking campaign--with no detailed focus on socio-economic history.
The fascists and the socialists were not like the Bloods and the Crips; their violent opposition was ideologically-driven, specifically in that the fascists were anti-Marxist and against organized labor, while the socialists were Marxists fighting on the labor movement's behalf.
As long as business was good, profit remained to private initiative.
It has footnotes, all right--except when they're needed to substantiate his preposterous thesis--but its intent is not to contribute to the academic study of fascism, totalitarianism, or extremist politics.
However, facts were the exact opposite.
Likewise, Mussolini's Squadistri--the "Blackshirts"--were also hired by private businesses as strikebreakers, union-busters, and as a "front against Bolshevism." Under Mussolini, hundreds of socialists and communists were murdered, and the peasant workers' movement was demolished by the corporately-funded Fascist squads.
If Goldberg had bothered to research American fascism, he would have found corporate money from the Du Ponts and Mellons flowing through the Klan, the Black Legion, and the German American Bund.
In the end, Goldberg's book is mere propaganda.
He makes a deep impression that Fascism is simply State-control of a society, and is hence a form of statism, which is usually a left-wing phenomenon. This is a great, amazing book. He totally debunks the old, kneejerk habit of liberals calling conservatives "fascists" (which they believe basically because they say so), by showing how fascism started out as a form of socialism, ie was a movement on the left, and follows it from the WWI Progressives to the Liberals, through FDR, the Great Society, the 60's radical street movements, the liberal God-State, and up to today's "Global Village" and oppressive politically-correctness.This book should be the subject of an entire history course, in every college in America. It is exceedingly well written, well researched and well documented, and it gives a refreshing, alternative view of history that you will NOT find in the standard liberal-dominated texts. The author eschews political-correctness in favor of seeking out the truth. Hooray for Goldberg. I highly recommend it.
I tried to read this book, even when I discovered it to be so dry, because like a bad movie, I kept waiting for the good part. I thought this would be the perfect gift for him, to help him see the light. This is a textbook, and if you're looking for some easy talking points, you won't find them here. Boy, was I wrong.Jonah is a really smart guy, and I like him a lot, but this is not at all in the style of his columns. Wow, I wanted to read this book to get specific info to better argue with my son - who is getting further and further to the left as he continues to hang around in Manhattan, at work. Love you, Love your columns, but this is not a good read. I already knew the basic premise of the book, and long ago had the same beliefs, but without proof, my son is not willing to listen to my "beliefs". There are plenty of good points in there, and if you were giving a lecture on the subject, this would be a handy reference guide, but nothing presented (at least in the first 3rd of the book) is usable in conversation with a non-believer.
For those already in agreement, this is too much like work, and for those who don't believe the premise, they won't do this much work only to prove themselves wrong. I just can't make myself read it. Given Jonah's columns, which I read often, and the cover art on the book, I had assumed this would be right up my alley, since he is usually so concise and well thought out, expressing my thoughts well, without being dry or preachy. Unfortunately, I can't give him a book I can't even get through - and I already care.I'm no dummy, and it's not that I can't grasp what he's saying, but frankly, I don't care that much. 4 months later, I'm only a third of the way through. It is genuinely a text book, and not at all written for the casual reader. Absent a school assignment, I don't really see how this scholarly a book is of any value to the general public.Sorry, Jonah. Fair warning to casual fans.
To kind of turn the tables, as well (come on let's be real here) get some payback, Jonah attempts to tie Fascism to modern Liberalism, and show that both political philosophhies share the same ideological root, alas, his book: Liberal Fascism. And last and not least.he compares the ways of modern liberal politicians to the personality cults of fascist dictators.and to really drive the point home he uses a famous speech by Hilary Clinton to say (or at least kind of imply) that she is an authoritarian fascist. Jonah's jab at Hilary was a new low. Say what you will about Hilary folks, she may be phony.she may be an unreasonably loyal wife.and she may be a straight up stubborn bi.um.(can't say that on here).but one thing she is not is a fascist. Next, he gives examples of early 20th century prominent intellectuals and celebrities expressing admiration for the economic programs instituted by Hitler and Mussolini in their respective countries, and Jonah proves once again he's done his research, but once again he pushes it too far. I got to give it to Jonah, he may have not done so well on the test, but he sure as hell did his homework: first, he gives a plethora of historical examples of liberal Presidents (most prominently FDR) instituting massive state-run economic and public works programs and compares this to the similiar programs instituted by the Nazis (as well as by the Italian fascists in Italy) to revitialize their countries' economies, and this, in Jonah's mind, proves that fascists and Liberals are very alike, he's got a point right.
Whoa, not so fast. Just because two parties happen to share some ideas, doesn't mean they're alike, hell, you can make the case that both modern Conservatives and fascists are for big military spending, and thus, conservatives and fascists are alike and that they share similiar ideological roots, so he could just as easily write a book called Conservative Fascism (I'm sure Michael Moore would give the foreword).but I digress. Conservative columnist and author Jonah Goldberg has always had a big beef with the left, and the latest liberal thing to be getting under his skin is the hurling of the word "fascist." by those ever-so militant leftists at Conservative figures and icons such as himself. So would I recommend this book. Jonah's thesis.is not holding together. Is he serious. If you're looking for typical political polemic and smearing.sure.but if you're looking for a serious scholarly work.turn your eyes elsewhere.
Dubois expressed admiration for many of the policies Hitler and Mussolini undertook to revitalize their countries, however men such as Dubois praised them only for their economic, and (obviously) not their social policies, and indeed liberals such as Dubois later condemnded the Nazis for their militarism and racism. And what an attempt it is. So, to sum things up, Jonah's thesis is wrong.liberalism, with it's respect for democracy, representative government, minority protection, equal rights,and individual liberty has little in common with the fascism of old. It is true that many early 20th century liberal intellectuals such as W.E.B. Also, the admirers of fascists also could be found among the ultra-conservative ranks, the most obvious being the KKK, so you could once again say that conservatives are more like fascists, and you're back to square one. However, if Goldberg really wanted to make a scholarly contribution to the world and score big points for the right wing at the same time, he should have written a book detailing the links and similarities between fascism and communism, since both fascist and communist countries (unlike liberal and fascist countries) do HAVE A LOT in common-authoritarianism, lack of democracy, government encroachment on individual and economic liberty, massive propaganda and censorship, etc.but hey who am I kidding.it's the 2000s, and to get the big check and all the publicity on FOX NEWS Jonah had to write a book bashing Liberals instead.
I read this book for a book club, and I was disappointed. Randomly throw out beliefs to persuade the reader, even though the points have little or no relevance to the topic that you are discussing. Use the same word repeatedly in every chapter title to make it seem like you are actually proving a point.In summary.If I wanted somebody to sell a used car for me, I would hire Jonah Goldberg. You have examples of:1. For an intelligent discussion on the link between progressives, liberals, and fascists, I would go elsewhere. How to use an overabundance of adverbs which are meant to sell you on an idea instead of having an actual merit. Since I like to say something positive about everything, I decided that this book is good at showing how not to write an intelligent book, and instead it shows you how to write persuasive arguments with little intellectual merit. 3.
(Tech writers like myself call it marketing speak). 2. He knows how to manipulate for persuasive purposes. This book was a waste of time.
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