Fascism or Libertarianism

[Manifesto]

Which would you prefer to live under and why. They are both the right-wing versions.

[Pogue]

This isn't really a theory thing is it, its more chit chat, as its going to be speculation of the highest order.

[Manifesto]

Ok then just seemed like the most proper place but I guess not.

[Raúl Duke]

I'm inclined to say libertarianism since it's laizzes-faire state would be powerless while the corporations devise methods to extend their power in society to a level beyond that which is normally possible in a bourgeois republic.

This would make it extremely easy for our class to identify corporations (and hopefully capitalism) as the enemy in comparison to a fascist state.

Also, a fascist state would immediately execute leftists while a libertarianist state would probably be indecisive about that. (although I bet corporate security or even the libertarianist state would find it ok to imprison those who "conspire to raise wages" or "form/run labor cartels" i.e. labor unions and shoot at strikers/occupiers for defying "private property rights")

[Mute Fox]

Ugh, that's a really hard choice. I suppose I'd pick Libertarianism, if only because it would be easier to overthrow than Fascism, relatively speaking. I say relatively, because those of you who have played Bioshock know that Libertarians put up a hell of a fight :laugh:

[Psy]

Libertarianism is impossible, the bourgeoisie would never surrender their influence over the bourgeois states and would brutally crush a Libertarian revolution. Lets not forget if Libertarians can launch a revolution it means we can also launch a revolution, meaning Libertarians would be caught between a class war between capitalists and workers yet their ideology that bans any organization means they would quickly be defeated on the battlefield, they would not be able to deal with either the bourgeoisie state declaring marshal law to restore order or with revolutionary armies of the proletariat taking over their means of production and handing it over to their workers.

[Red Saxon]

When you say to choose either Fascism or Libertarianism, which wing of those political ideologies are you referring to?

Right Fascism = Fucked up
Left Fascism = Still fucked up
Right Libertarianism = Still fucked up, but closer to us
Left Libertarianism = Closest to us (which I myself pick)

[The Essence Of Flame Is The Essence Of Change]

First of all it's Liberalism, not libertarianism :(Libertarianism refers to any politic theory that recognizes and supports individual freedoms (eg Libertarian Socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism)), while Liberalism is the capitalist variety, which is of course as Psy said, an oxymoron.Capitalism offers no freedom at all, except for the rich.You have the legal freedom to open a business and follow your life's dream but practically you can't cause you don't have money.You have the legal freedom to protest for your rights but this will be practically getting you fired from your work etc etc.And after all the Law is nothing more than a product of the ruling class in each society to enforce it's dominance.The same law will be enforced differently against someone who is rich enough to ''be a bit closer to the judge'' than a random person.

As for the debate Liberalism is of course a much better society for us to spread our propaganda and live our lives than in fascism but you must understand that if socialism is to be achieved, the Capital will inevitably assume the role of fascism in order to combat it.


I say relatively, because those of you who have played Bioshock know that Libertarians put up a hell of a fight :laugh:
lulz

[Psy]

First of all it's Liberalism, not libertarianism :(Libertarianism refers to any politic theory that recognizes and supports individual freedoms (eg Libertarian Socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_socialism)), while Liberalism is the capitalist variety, which is of course as Psy said, an oxymoron.Capitalism offers no freedom at all, except for the rich.You have the legal freedom to open a business and follow your life's dream but practically you can't cause you don't have money.You have the legal freedom to protest for your rights but this will be practically getting you fired from your work etc etc.And after all the Law is nothing more than a product of the ruling class in each society to enforce it's dominance.The same law will be enforced differently against someone who is rich enough to ''be a bit closer to the judge'' than a random person.

I meant it is impossible as not possible due a clash in class intrests. The bourgeoisie is dependent on the bourgeoisie states so they would never support a free-market as described by Friedrich Hayek, only the petite bourgeoisie would support such a free-market but they would require a state to establish such a free-market and to defend it from the bourgeoisie and proletariat. A Hayek state would be invaded by all the imperialist armies just as fast as Russia was after 1917 and if it survived that it would it still have to face armed worker uprisings, meaning a Hayek state would need to both a police state to keep the proletrait down with a military strong enough to defend the state against all the imperialist armies on the planet, by then the state would look nothing like Hayek theorized and the petie-beourgisie would just become the new beourgisie meaning class relations wouldn't have changed just the players would have.

[Manifesto]

When you say to choose either Fascism or Libertarianism, which wing of those political ideologies are you referring to?

Right-wing, I suppose I should edit that to make it more clear.

[Die Rote Fahne]

Libertarianism leads to fascism in my opinion, via growing corporate monopolies and the growing strength of Private Security and removal of labour laws.

So, I choose fascism so we can just skip ahead.

[Ravachol]

First of all there is no such thing as 'left wing fascism' it's impossible. If you mean a 'powerfull state', just call it that.

Secondly, Libertarianism, if ever executed (which I doubt for reasons similar to Psy's) would simply lead to the formation of the state. Corporations would merge or collaborate, either out of free will, through hostile takeover (in the financial sense) or by force through the use of private armies. The resulting entities would be large enough to employ a private military entity to govern large ammounts of 'private land' and enforce private laws on those lands.
Since under pure libertarianism almost everything would be private property (including the military, police and judical functions of the state) people would be forced to obey the private laws of one landowner or another. Due to private military enforcement of private property and wage surpession, they could establish a de facto state of serfdom. In fact, I believe we'll end up with a modified version of feudalism, perhaps without the mystifications traditionally associated with hereditary feudalism.
Do note that some libertarians (like Hans Hermann-Hoppe and his insane disciples) actually argue IN FAVOR of this.

[Nolan]

Libertarianism is impossible, the bourgeoisie would never surrender their influence over the bourgeois states and would brutally crush a Libertarian revolution. Lets not forget if Libertarians can launch a revolution it means we can also launch a revolution, meaning Libertarians would be caught between a class war between capitalists and workers yet their ideology that bans any organization means they would quickly be defeated on the battlefield, they would not be able to deal with either the bourgeoisie state declaring marshal law to restore order or with revolutionary armies of the proletariat taking over their means of production and handing it over to their workers.

This is what I've been telling crazy Objectivists for years now. They don't realize that the "John Galts" of the world aren't even on their side.

[Nolan]

This would make it extremely easy for our class to identify corporations (and hopefully capitalism) as the enemy in comparison to a fascist state.

)

Exactly, because a fascist state would probably claim to be anti-capitalist, but anyone who has read Parenti knows better.

[Ravachol]

This is what I've been telling crazy Objectivists for years now. They don't realize that the "John Galts" of the world aren't even on their side.

Nobody except a few sour old socks with a weblog and a twitter account is on their side. Not even capital is on their side. The state does it's job of serving capital just a little too well for capital to strive for it's abolishment, also capital doesn't need loony libertarians to privatise governement functions, it's doing the job just fine without them and without the patronising smugness as well.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Fascism is based on crushing all dissent and independent political organizations - there should be no question that this would be the worse option for the working class in general and radicals in particular (who would have to go into hiding or face arrest or worse)!

When trying to create a confident self-conscious movement of workers, it is always better to be able to operate in the open and not have to hide your politics.

In theory Libertarian "rule" would still respect bourgoise rights to free-speech and even possibly labor organizations (although I can never get a straight answer from self-identified libertarians on this). But unless it was a Libertarian Party wining an election (in which case they would basically be a laizzes-faire oriented reform party on the current system) Libertarians would not be able to run society in the Utopian capitalist fantasy they have concocted. In fact if they ever did try to "free corporations from the tyranny of government" I wouldn't be surprised to see it play out just like Psy described.

[Nolan]

A Falangist (a Cuban exile, at that) once told me he would force all suspected progressives to perform hard labor for the rest of their lives. He said he would prefer to humiliate us than to make martyrs. :ohmy:

[9]

Uh...
I picked Libertarianism... should this be in chit chat?

[Nolan]

A Falangist (a Cuban exile, at that) once told me he would force all suspected progressives to perform hard labor for the rest of their lives. He said he would prefer to humiliate us than to make martyrs. :ohmy:

That's why I pick Libertarianism, btw.

[Ravachol]

A Falangist (a Cuban exile, at that) once told me he would force all suspected progressives to perform hard labor for the rest of their lives. He said he would prefer to humiliate us than to make martyrs. :ohmy:

I don't like the prospect of a life full of hard labor :p
In all seriousness, I think repression by private military forces would be just as brutal, I just think they would be too busy fighting eachother to actually form any kind of coherent repression force. Something fascism is more than capable of.

[Sleeper]

Ravachol,

That's entirely correct, in my opinion. It is impossible to divide and conquer when there is nothing to divide.

[proudcomrade]

Fascism, and I'll tell you why: Under libertarian rule (yeah, I know, a self-contradicting phrase, but you know what I mean here), too many people get taken in by the meme. You end up with an exaggerated version of the mess that has been choking the US for centuries: The rich love it and obviously don't question it; the would-be working class drinks the Kool-Aid and keeps scraping by with their endless doomed, tail-chasing series of small-business attempts, consumerism and such; the destitute get marginalized by a majority who gets to write them off as lazy and undeserving. The whole thing locks itself effectively into place and perpetuates indefinitely.

Under some crazy fascist dictator, however, the resistance has to tighten up, smarten up, put aside its internecine bickering and identity-politics drama, and mount a wide-reaching movement to overthrow the far right, radicalizing millions of people who might have simply muddled around jaded, cynical and disgruntled without outlet, the way things are in the largely-deregulated US now. And the former conservatives would have no choice but to learn that the libertarian meme had been their own worst enemy.

Better to puke up the poison right away, than be sickened with it for generations.

[gorillafuck]

proudcommie: I'd say that history has shown that fascism hasn't caused a surge in left-wing viewpoints, but rather has succeeded in completely destroying all socialist movements in it's respective country.

Under Libertarianism ethnic minorities and homosexuals wouldn't be jailed, killed and deported. So I'll go with libertarianism.

[Psy]

proudcommie: I'd say that history has shown that fascism hasn't caused a surge in left-wing viewpoints, but rather has succeeded in completely destroying all socialist movements in it's respective country.

Under Libertarianism ethnic minorities and homosexuals wouldn't be jailed, killed and deported. So I'll go with libertarianism.

What about the strong left surge in Italy near the end of WWII that led to a powerful revolutionary army that not only crushed the Fascist Italian state but then kicked the ass of the Nazi Army that was sent to restore order in Italy and caused the British and Americans to run to Stalin to derail the Italian revolution in fear the Italian revolutionary army would kick the British and American out and establish their own workers state since the revolutionary army became the defacto authority of Italy as the workers in Italy had become fully mobilized against fascism long before then the imperialist power could establish any kind rule.

[Jimmie Higgins]

What about the strong left surge in Italy near the end of WWII that led to a powerful revolutionary army that not only crushed the Fascist Italian state but then kicked the ass of the Nazi Army that was sent to restore order in Italy and caused the British and Americans to run to Stalin to derail the Italian revolution in fear the Italian revolutionary army would kick the British and American out and establish their own workers state since the revolutionary army became the defacto authority of Italy as the workers in Italy had become fully mobilized against fascism long before then the imperialist power could establish any kind rule.While there were anti-fascist uprisings and underground organizations in many countries - including Germany - what's the better situation to be in as a revolutionary? Underground with no open connection to large numbers of working class people or being able to be open and speak directly to working class people and fight alongside them?

Besides, it was only when the fascist regimes began to fall that the anti-fascist forces were able to go above ground, I don't want to live 20 years under fascism with the complete destruction of working class organizations from radical to trade-union (hell, to social clubs and boy scouts)!

[GPDP]

Libertarianism is absurd, simply because for it to actually function without collapsing, degenerating into either the current system or fascism, or being overthrown by us leftists, it requires that EVERYONE living in said Libertarian society adhere to Libertarian ideology unquestioningly. It requires that everyone down to the pauper respect the sanctity of property rights, no matter how grossly unequal the society becomes. It requires that workers never let the thought of organizing for higher wages or demanding for regulation of business practices cross their minds.

In short, Libertarianism is a class-collaborationist ideology, albeit one that strives to deny class even exists. It can only work as it is prophesied by the high priests of Libertarianism if everyone is a dogmatic Libertarian, and simply allows the market to do its thing.

Since Libertarians overwhelmingly tend to be pacifists, instead of talking about overthrowing the present system, they instead count on propaganda, hoping that with enough exposure of their ideas, people will come to value their idea of "freedom," which will generate a huge change in consciousness. In the case of ancaps, this would lead to a mass boycott of the government, if you will, leading to its collapse. Basically, it means convincing everyone in society that laissez-faire is in their interest.

At least Fascism admits it is willing to use force to do away with class antagonisms. Libertarianism, by contrast, is highly ideal, and attempts to merely wish away the irreconcilable class antagonisms inherent to capitalism. And every Libertarian I've asked on what the strategy is toward achieving a Libertarian society pretty much implies the same thing.

[satlasirk]

I think it is to a large extent. Sometimes Marxists go over the top in how they fit everything into their analysis, its dogmatic. Also, it makes Marxism unfalsifiable, which is bullshit.