Left, Right, What does it Mean

Fascists, Communists and Capitalists

I want to look at this question a bit more closely, because I think it may be the key to current politics in the West.

I was brought up to think that politics was one dimensional:

 left wing = Communist and right wing = Fascist . 

I guess you were too. Some more observant people made it a circle rather than a straight line, with Communist and Fascist “meeting round the back”.

In my reading over the past few years I've come across authors who say this is NOT correct. Some go further and say it was and is a deliberate obscuration of reality, an Orwellian attempt to prevent us from even being able to think in terms of reality: a Collectivist – Individualist political spectrum.

But what if Communism and Fascism are just the Tweedledum and Tweedledee of Collectivism and should be lumped together on the “Left Wing”

OK that may seem weird, so let me first compare and contrast these two ideologies – who naturally each view the other as wicked heresy.

a) What Fascism and Communism have in common:

1. Central control of production: In traditional communism every enterprise is state owned and decisions are made by the central government. Fascists like Mussolini were prepared to have private ownership – as long as all enterprises ran under strict state control. And he warned that corporations should not run for private gain but for the good of the state. In practise there is not much difference between the two. So both are anti- Capitolist.

2. Uniformity of thought. Both Communist and fascist governments ruthlessly suppress dissidents, and, as Mussolini said, use law and education to make everyone think alike and accept the same moral values. The Communists, particularly in China were more effective in using “shaming”, social pressure, deprivation of livelihood and “re-education camps”.
Interestingly These (apart from the camps – so far) are being mercilessly used now in the West by “Progressives” to enforce orthodoxy.

3. Anti-Christian. Both communism and fascism are avowedly atheistic. (Though Hitler did try to re-introduce old Norse paganism and is said to have used astrologers) They have either tried to eradicate Christianity as in Russia, or where faced with a powerful institutional church as in Italy made a compact trading institutional survival of the church for political obedience. In China Christians were persecuted by the Red Guards in the Cultural Revolution, and new opposition seems to be on the rise under Xi Ping.
Modern Western “Progressives” are also coming out stridently anti-Christian.

4. Violently suppress dissent. As Hyack (in “The Road to Serfdom”) demonstrated, the objectives of any state espousing central control of production and redistribution of wealth cannot be achieved without the use of force. Violence has historically been evident as in Mussolini's Black shirts, Hitler's Brown Shirts and later Gestapo, Mao's Red Guard and Tiananmen Square, and the Stalinist secret police.
Some modern “Progressives” such as “Occupy Wall Street” and “Antifas” are singing from the same play-book.

b) what are the main differences between Fascism and Communism?

1. Marx envisioned a class struggle within nations. Mussolini saw this had not happened in England and he could not ignite it in Italy so he changed to a national struggle: Italians all united against “inferior” nations. Similarly Hitler named his party the “National Socialist Workers' Party of Germany”. He also added the racist element (absent in Italy): the Aryan race above all and Jews to be exterminated.

2. Marxism was internationalist, fascist states were, as said above. Nationalist. However currently Communist states Russia, China and North Korea are nationalistic.

3. Marx had an idea of equality, with committees of workers making decisions. Russia started with all being “comrades” (True in practice they ended up with dictator Stalin and the Chinese with Mao) and committees set up at all levels. Fascists had no such illusions: The masses could not organise themselves – they needed leaders. The state needed a strong supreme leader – Hence Mussolini and Hitler. Hitler took it to the extreme with “Germany is the Fuhrer and the Fuhrer is Germany”.

One way authors describe this is: Horizontal collectivism (communist) Vs Vertical collectivism (fascist). Collectivism being their common trait.

………………………...

As we see, Both of these are fiercely opposed to both Capitalism and the idea of a free market in economics, and individual freedom of thought, speech and association in social structure. They are also both anti-Christian. So lets put them together where they belong!

So what am I (among many others!) suggesting “right-wing” actually looks like?

It is the opposite of collectivism!

(the common feature of communism and fascism)

a) in economics: individual decision making in private enterprise (with only natural monopolies state owned). This is “Darwinian” in that efficient and valuable enterprises succeed whereas less efficient or less socially valued enterprises succumb to competition. Other descriptors are “competition” and “free market” In “moderate-right” government regulations are provided to ensure a “level playing field”, restrict anti-competitive behaviour and provide consumer protection. All of which we see in most Western nations at present.

b) Morals and hence laws: traced back to deistic absolutes (in the West, Christian). So whereas collectivist morals are arbitrary – decided by the State - (and precisely because they are arbitrary, uniformity must be enforced and dissenting opinions ruthlessly suppressed). Morals based on absolute principles allow freedom of thought and debate as to how those principles work out in practice. (This does not work for Islam – it does not set out principles, but rather end practices)

c) in society: the enlightenment ideals of freedom of thought, expression, association and religion have been painstakingly built up in Christian and especially Protestant states (often against church institutions!). We should not take them for granted.
They are incompatible with collectivism, and so can flourish on the “right” but will be extinguished by the “left”.

d) in Academia: truth matters – so free debate is encouraged to test theories. This was the basis of Western scientific achievement. It was also what gave us the enlightenment.
It is incompatible with collectivism.
Today we are seeing dissenting ideas brutally suppressed on campus and in left-leaning corporations. And we are seeing – climate “science” is one example – the prostitution of science to political dogma.

e) in government: Government of the people by the people and for the people. Resulting in small rather than large government. Individual responsibility rather than a “nanny state”, private enterprise rather than state control. Individual freedom rather than “red tape”. Free elections to make politicians answerable to the people. And above all: freedom rather than servitude.

Let's simplify all this into a table of Left-wing Vs Right wing.

Politics 1.01½

LEFT WING	RIGHT WING
Tends to	Tends to
Big government	Small government
More government control of businesses	Less government control & regulation
Less freedom of speech, belief etc.	More individual freedom
The individual exists for the state	The state exists for the individual
In its extreme	In its extreme
State controls all means of production	Private enterprise starts & controls all businesses
Individuals give up their rights to the state “for the greater good”	The rights of the individual are paramount
Historically atheistic so ... MORALS: are decided by the state – so have to be ruthlessly enforced because no higher power (as Nietzsche said: without God there is no basis for morals)	Historically “nominal” Christian so … MORALS: are an attempt to live godly lives – left to individual conscience – This ignores sinful human nature! (some people have no conscience!)
TOTALITARIAN: because its agenda can only be achieved by force (as Hyack demonstrated) (think, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin & Mao!)	HELLISH: because some humans will use their “freedom” to cheat, defraud, oppress and enslave others (think C18 English factories!)

Aristotle, you remember said that virtue was generally the mean between two opposing vices. So in politics “Ideal Government” is the golden mean between the extremes of Left wing and Right wing.

Do you see our current problem? The present Left – Right definition gives us “the mean between Communism (Collectivism) and Fascism (Collectivism)” … which is … Collectivism! No wonder we can't talk sensibly about politics!

But once we sort things out as above we get:

Ideal Government = the Golden Mean between Collectivism and Individualism

Now we're cooking with gas! On each individual issue we can discuss sensibly with both allies and opponents. We know where our opponents are coming from (collectivist or individualist). So we can understand them. We can now debate whether on a particular issue more or less government control would be better. Not just WHAT the government control should look like!

In Australia at the moment electricity prices are rising because private (and government owned!) enterprises are gaming the system to get windfall profits. One could argue for more government control to protect consumers.

Also at present in Australia gas prices are rising and in part this is the result of state governments banning new gas exploration and development of known gas fields. One could here argue for less government control so the gas can flow.

Morals Blog: Truth , Lies & Nietzsche

I may be crediting Nietzsche with too much.

Back in 1990 I was taking a sabbatical studying philosophy. One moral philosopher’s criticism of his contemporaries stuck: “They claim to be 'Fearless Moral Thinkers' challenging the old morality – but they are really only men of their time spouting the mores of their own social group” Nietzsche's philosophy may not be the cause – his notions may be just a co-effect of more widespread human foibles! This would be ironic justice since he famously rejected scientific tools such as 'cause & effect'!

So although Nietzsche has been hailed as a source of inspiration by such mutually incompatible groups as Fascists, Nazi's, Anarchists and Zionists it may just be that they resonate with some of his ramblings. And although some modern philosophies have popularized his ideas, the same perverse ideas may also spring quite independently into human minds.

With that caution, I will look at two modern problems under quotations from Nietzsche.

1. “There are no facts, only interpretations” (Nietzsche)

a) Climate change is a contentious issue. Lets not go there! However the debate has raised this concern about modern scientific method: Truth as paramount over ideology.

Novelists – and I think C. P. Snow wrote a classic novel on this – have depicted the primacy of truth in scientific research. The researcher who discovers a fact that contradicts the findings they are about to publish as the culmination of years of research is tempted to bury this fact. The one who succumbs to this very real temptation is – at least in fiction! - found out, pilloried and driven from the scientific community as one who has betrayed the very essence of scientific method.

Sadly the climate debate is replete with revelations of scientists who have done just this but still hold their heads up high – and hold their positions. They justify themselves, and are justified by other scientists on the grounds that the end of “saving the world” justifies the means – falsifying their results.

Recently in Australia a newspaper took our government Bureau of Meteorology to task for this. Apparently they had been caught out changing historic temperature records. Their mantra was: We believe there has been continuous temperature rise over recorded history, so old records of high temperatures must be wrong. In one instance the highest recorded temperature on record at one recording station was simply deleted on the grounds that it occurred on a Sunday, and records were not generally taken on Sundays. The son of the postmaster who manned that station reported via the newspaper: “Yes it was a Sunday but it was a heatwave and so my father went in and checked the temperature and recorded it.”

I am not here arguing either side of the debate. I am saying that fully considering the facts not just even if but especially when they contradict our theory is of the essence of scientific method. If we lose that we are in danger of losing “science” as the tool for human advancement it has been in the past few centuries.

b) I passed a sign in the window of a Naturopath's shop-front: “We practice evidence based medicine”. “No,” I thought, “you really don't” The rise in popularity of these so called “alternative” or even more misleading “complementary” therapies shows how tenuous is our hold on real science. OK I have a reason for bias, my wife is a real doctor, but I am still right!

Many medical doctors are hopeless as “spin-doctors” so their patients go away unconvinced of their treatments or with unresolved issues. That is most unfortunate. But they are still using scientific methods of treatment.

Pharmaceutical companies possibly do many of the things they are accused of. But they still do scientific trials (and we are rightly outraged if they fake their results or hide bad side effects!). They sell some of the same compounds as “alternative practitioners” - but – and this is a huge BUT – the pharmaceutical companies get rid of potentially harmful impurities and produce doses of a known and consistent strength. OK (once again) my late father was a pharmacist – does that make me biased? - maybe – but I remember him saying how much safer it was when instead of using medicinal herbs of unknown potency he could get the active ingredient purified and in standardized doses from the drug companies.

Just remember that in many of the parts of the world where “natural remedies” were all they had people died like flies until Western scientific medicine came to their rescue. Don't let's throw that away!

Losing scientific method and scientific thinking puts us on the road to a new and terrible dark age!

2. “Truths are illusions about which we have forgotten that that is what they are” (Nietzsche)

Years ago listening to a radio program I heard the late Baroness Thatcher – then Prime Minister of Britain – make comment that has stuck with me. I can't remember her exact words – which is a pity since she undoubtedly said it better than I can – the gist was this: When she was Minister for Education she had to deal with a Communist dominated teachers union. She came to realize that they, and Communists in general were blatant liars. They had no respect for any sort of objective truth: If a statement would suit their current purpose then that alone made it “The Truth”.

Communism is in a bad way around the world but in the West, Progressive Socialism, or “Progressives” are in the ascendant. The Communist's attitude to truth is part and parcel of Progressive ideology

However this is not a blog on politics. I have introduced progressives because they are proliferating and they have  the Communists' idea of truth: there is but one criterion: if a statement serves their cause then it is thereby “The Truth” conversely if it hinders their cause it is thereby a “Lie”.

I suspect that the common link here, and indeed a link with tyrants and dictators around the world is that they want to control people. Communists, tyrants, and sadly so called “progressives” in the free world want to control people. They are not necessarily averse to using force to control people – yet they use lies if they can by preference.

Lies become internalized and make the subject doubly subjugated: they obey their masters and also believe it is just that they obey their masters. Take a simple example lie: “you're just a girl, you can't do anything” if women accept that lie they are not only made second class citizens, but they come to believe it is right that they are treated as second class citizens. Becoming free involves first throwing off the lie and holding the truth: “A woman can … “

Progressives may be more subtle but their agenda is the same – to reduce the populace (apart from themselves who alone know what is best for everyone) to servile obedience. Lies and propaganda serve that purpose admirably.

Jesus said “the Truth will set you free”. He was of course talking about himself and the freedom he promised was from sin and death. However truth is a marvelous thing and it is also the case that in a more general sense knowing the truth rather than being befuddled by lies is a really good start.

So firstly, no matter how expedient it may seem to lie, we must ourselves tell the real objective truth.

Then we must reject the lies of those who want to use them to control us. We must search for the truth and not accept their clever lies – remembering the old adage that the most effective lie is the one that is true except at the vital point. I think the term is “a shaft of truth with an arrowhead of a lie”. Finding the lie in the propaganda may not be easy.

We must accept that truth may cost us. Pilate asked Jesus “What is truth”. Jesus answered, not in words but in deeds – suffering and dying (and rising from the dead) to save the human race. Truth can be a costly affair, but it is worth it.

When lies are being used as the method of choice to control people, exposing those lies may cause the propagandists to use the next method of control: force. Force may hurt, but at least when they have to use force we are only singly subjugated rather than the double subjugation of believing their lies. And that is a step towards freedom.