Antiseptic (9.58pm, 6/10),

Conservatism is opposed to socialism, though one could be conservative on moral issue and all in favour of the nationalisation of industry. I guess I could have said “libertarian socialism” and “socialist libertarianism”, but I just did not think of those combinations. I remain entertained by the fact that there are a few people on the right who are attempting to move heaven and earth in order to dislodge Nazism from the extreme right-wing position that it holds, while no one on the left that I have ever heard of ever pretends that communism was not on the left, extreme though it was.

As for this modern attempt by some to equate the right with libertarianism rather than with conservatism that has been the case historically - ha!

Chris Curtis

http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2011/10/the-opium-of-terry-eagleton is another response to Eagleton's essay which the article referred to.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12693#219743

Chris C, the far right is in fact REAL anarchy, no rules at all.

Communism or international socialism is on the far left along with total monarchy & other types of dictatorship.

Nazism or national SOCIALIST WORKERS party of Germany would also be on the left, in a graphic it would be about 1mm to the right of communism.

Moderate, centrist, conservative, christian democracy is in the middle, all other types of politics are either side of the middle, differing distances to the extreme right or left.

Almost the entire worlds lame stream media is owned/controlled by jews many of whom are also socialists of one type or another.

History is written by the victors. Pretending the Nazis were radical extreme right was about trying to protect the image of other forms of loony left politics.

Bob Katter, Don Chip & Pauline Hanson are all centrist. The LNP is in many ways "labour lite", politically correct, fabian socialism.

Social & Economic liberalism leads to small, medium business & co-ops being taken over or squeazed out by big business, usually multinational mega corporations. This is what radical, extreme, globalised, "free trade" leads to, Coca Cola Communazism as espoused by Comrades Whitlam, Fraser, Hawke, Keating, Howard, Krudd & Dillard.

Social & Economic conservatism leads to growth of small, medium business & co-ops, more competition, less big business monopoly, duopoly & cartels. Globalisation kills competition, protectionism creates it as espoused by Conservatives Chifly, Menzies & McKewan.

Chris
That is not an argument of substance but only takes the entire matter back to name-calling.

At best all it would establish is that the *name* for governmental control of the means of production should be called one thing rather than another.

Another name-calling tactic is the socialists’ use of the term “ideology”. The implication is that:
1) the person addressed is either a shill, or a dupe, of ruthless exploiters;
2) there is no possibility of rational economic theory, or of knowing truth; everything is just a matter of opinion
3) there is no possibility of different but socially harmonious economic interests; everything is a zero-sum game of exploitation and abuse, from which Our Saviour, the state, will rescue us.

So on the one hand the socialist denies that there can be any such thing as objectively true economic theory. On the other hand, he says that history proves that capitalism is exploitative, rapacious etc. Well how was he able to interpret the economic facts of history without recourse to economic theory? The opponents of socialism are only spouting neoliberal (translation: bourgeois) “ideology”; but the socialists perceive absolute economic truth without need for recourse to reason. It’s childish bullsh1t.

Of course the Nazis stand for the concentration camps and war deaths; that’s why the left want to characterize them as not left wing. But these atrocities were done by government direction using resources – means of production - taken from the private sector: by definition, socialism.

And the economic policy of the national socialists was indisputably left-wing:
“The Nazi credo that the individual belongs to the state also applies to business. Some businesses have been confiscated outright, on other what amounts to a capital tax has been levied. Profits have been strictly controlled. Some idea of the increasing Governmental control and interference in business could be deduced from the fact that 80% of all building and 50% of all industrial orders in Germany originated last year with the Government. Hard-pressed for food- stuffs as well as funds, the Nazi regime has taken over large estates and…”
(cont.)

“.. in many instances collectivized agriculture, a procedure fundamentally similar to Russian Communism."
Source: Time Magazine, who named Hitler “Man of the Year” for 1938.
http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id10.html

So the Nazis could only be “right wing” from the standpoint of full communism, which is hardly a recommendation, is it?

And what was the rationale for government having such power? It was no different from that of the left-wing socialists – the government stands for the interests of society over those of the selfish individual, there is a need for business to be regulated to prevent exploitation of the people, the state compensates for societal imperfection yarp yarp yarp.

In fact the *economic policy* of the Nazis is virtually identical to the policies so beloved of social democrats of the modern Western world like davidf: industrial relations laws; state broadcaster; social insurances; big infrastructure projects; state control of the commanding heights of society including money, credit, roads, highways, public spaces, police, army, water, electricity; compulsory indoctrination of all youths; motherhood policies; social engineering including racial policies; persecution of individual businesses; national fitness camps, you name it.

*All* attempts at socialism – democratic or otherwise – must necessarily and do morph into one or other form of fascism, because
a) on the one hand liberty is out of the question, else they’d be for the personal and economic liberty of private ownership of the means of production, and
b) on the other hand full socialism is factually impossible for the reasons Mises has irrefutably proved: http://mises.org/pdf/econcalc.pdf

Thus putting aside ideology there’s nothing else that socialism can turn into, than fascism, corporate cronyism.

If the left wing, instead of squarking slogans, actually inquired into the economics of what they support, they would understand that the fascist cronyism of the western world necessarily follows from the policies they advocate, not from the private ownership of the means of production that they abuse.

And democracy is just socialism by instalments.

That’s why it has now reached the stage that Obama has a panel to decide which American citizens will be assassinated without charge or trial.: http://www.lewrockwell.com/gregory/gregory241.html

ChrisC, I'm not "of the right" or "of the left", I try to make my own judgements based on as much information as I can be bothered to look for.

Until quite recently I proudly identified as a socialist, believing that the collectivist approach was the only way for working people to have any influence on the great forces that shape their lives. Having come up against the blunt edge of the coercive nature of the socialist state a couple of times since then and noted the complete lack of any sense of personal responsibility for outcomes that permeates the workforce of the organs of the state, I have changed my view. Socialism appeals to the young because the young are accustomed to having someone to "pick them up" in the form of their parents, but they don't much like the way their parents demand the right to instruct them in acceptable modes of behaviour. As they grow up a bit most people learn their own capacities and abandon the Left as unnecessary or flawed. Of course, some never do grow up that far..

I am not by any means "conservative". I think the conservative side of politics is just as bad as the so-called "progressive" side. Neither is genuinely "progressive", instead tending to the reactionary in most cases, based on a strong sense of entitlement on both sides. Try to discuss changing any policies of the "progressives" for an example of such reaction. Conservative policies are just as individually stultifying as those from the Left: the only difference is who they believe should be in charge. It's the Whigs and the Tories in another form.

Therefore, the only genuinely illuminating contrast is between socialism and libertarianism. It's the contrast between the concept of state as primary social unit versus the individual's self-determined priorities being the main social driver.

[cont]