Europe's Right Wing

[Ocean Seal]

I ask this question because I am curious about the right wing over in the different parts of Europe. What exactly are they like? In America they tend to be overly moralistic, libertarian capitalists, who hate immigration, political correctness, are constantly in an uproar about people who hate America and how rappers are trying to kill the police. Or they're the crazy kind (and I mean Alex Jones Glenn Beck and so on).

So things that they care about a lot


Small Businesses
The fact that the rich create jobs (I'm actually interested to see rebuttals against this claim from my fellow forumers much appreciated)
Anti-American people (Like Mexicans who put up their flags on Cinco de Mayo and undermine America)
The Culture War (A favorite about how liberals, feminists, and commies are trying to destroy the culture near and dear to them)
****jobs and the personal lives of politicians
Bringing down "big daddy" government
Not "coddling" the terrorists
Reducing the deficit (Through tax cuts for the ruling class and wars of course)
Whether candidates are Muslim or not
Whether candidates are born in Kenya or not
Whether candidates are socialists or not

So what I'm saying is are Europe's right wingers any different. For example, Geert Wilders is agnostic and Marine Le Pen has been divorced twice. That would not fly with the American right. So how is the European right different.

[PhoenixAsh]

For Holland


Small Businesses
Pretty much the same
The fact that the rich create jobs (I'm actually interested to see rebuttals against this claim from my fellow forumers much appreciated)
Pretty much the same
Anti-American people (Like Mexicans who put up their flags on Cinco de Mayo and undermine America)
They surprisingly do not care so much about anti-Americanism as they do about anti-Westernism and...for social-democrats
The Culture War (A favorite about how liberals, feminists, and commies are trying to destroy the culture near and dear to them)
Pretty much the same
****jobs and the personal lives of politicians
Not so much...certainly to a lesser degree as in the US
Bringing down "big daddy" government
Pretty much the same
Not "coddling" the terrorists
Pretty much the same
Reducing the deficit (Through tax cuts for the ruling class and wars of course)
Depending on the party...but in rough lines...pretty much the same.
Whether candidates are Muslim or not
For the PVV: yes...for liberal parties: no... for christian right: only in their own party

Whether candidates are born in Kenya or not
For the PVV yes....for liberals: no...for christian right: depends

Whether candidates are socialists or not
Yes...and social democrats


One small side notion tough. The PVV certainly does not like socialists...but they loath social democrats...

Also...

The rightwing is devided in different parties in Holland.

[Tim Finnegan]

For the UK, mostly in reference to the Tories (Conservative Party- the dominant centre-to-mid right party), UKIP (UK Independence Party- hard-line Tory malcontents) BNP (British National Party- crypto-fascists), NF (National Front- pretty much open fascists):


Small Businesses
The far-right UKIP, BNP and NF, yes, the Tories, not particularly.

The fact that the rich create jobs (I'm actually interested to see rebuttals against this claim from my fellow forumers much appreciated)
UKIP and the Tories, yes, but the BNP and NF tend towards "Third Position" populism.

Anti-American people (Like Mexicans who put up their flags on Cinco de Mayo and undermine America)
If you mean anti-Americanism, then UKIP and the Tories, yes, because they favour Atlanticism, but not the BNP and the NF, who tend to have less coherent a foreign policy. If you mean the local equivalent, i.e. anti-British or anti-Union people, then yes, on all counts, and particularly the fascists.

The Culture War (A favorite about how liberals, feminists, and commies are trying to destroy the culture near and dear to them)
The UKIP, BNP and NF, definitely, but the Tories tend to be a little more guarded about it these days, and will usually try to accommodate some very superficial feminism, gay rights, etc. into their platform.

****jobs and the personal lives of politicians
Not really.

Bringing down "big daddy" government
The Tories and UKIP, yes, but the fascists have the confused mixture of rhetoric which you might expect.

Not "coddling" the terrorists
Yep.
Reducing the deficit (Through tax cuts for the ruling class and wars of course)
The Tories and UKIP, yep, the fascists not so much.

Whether candidates are Muslim or not
The Tories, not really, but UKIP, NF and BNP, definitely.

Whether candidates are born in Kenya or not
Same as above, although the Tories get twitchier about candidates who are actually foreign-born.

Whether candidates are socialists or not
The Tories and UKIP, not exceptionally so- socialism is regarded more as a dinosaur than a threat in the UK- but the fascists get pretty frothy about it.


There's also the Ulster Unionist and Democratic Unionist Parties in Northern Ireland, but I can't speak much for them.

[Ocean Seal]

Thank you both, and for anti-Americanism I mean the equivalent for each country.

[Reznov]

I hear Russia has one of, if not the largest fascist/nationalist right wing movements happening and growing right now.

To what extent is this true? I saw a documentary where they are called "nazbols" (I think?) and are becoming more and more popular as the average Russian becomes more poorer and starts blaming immigrants and Jews for their problems.

I even saw in the documentary that they actually go in the streets, patrolling and actually attack foreigners reguarly.

The Right in the U.S. and Europe is bad, but actually mobilizing and fighting like they are in Russia is really scary.

[Revolutionair]

I think it's that everything is Russia is becoming more fascist and right winged. Some people who find the bolsheviks cool turn it into nazism-bolshevism. People who think modern Russia is cool turn it into right-winged state. There are imperialist flags at the parades of the communist party.

So suppose you are a social democrat. Over time in Russia you will keep your social-democracy, but it will get mixed with corporatist and racialist views.

It also has to do with lots of cheap labor in the form of immigrants coming into the country. One Russian nazi said: "the business owner will say: why should I hire a Russian if I can hire a foreigner for one-tenth of the price."

I'm not an expert on the current Russian situation though, so don't take my words as 100% true.

[RedSonRising]

The narratives are what matters, IMO. I've spent a good amount of time recently studying Integralism within the country. Many on the right (and many more on the extreme right) believe that the State should respond to the cultural needs of the people within the country. Using rationality and ceding sovereignty within the project of the European Union/Parliament, to many regional populations, was a betrayal. Very little was communicated to the populous justifying or explaining the sudden attempt at 'multiculturalism' (which was really an economically motivated initiative to take advantage of immigrant labor and racial divides in the working class.)

I've started to see integralism and fascism as working-class movements gone wrong. Many far-right movements on the right apply a populist discourse that resonates with white working class citizens and critique the development of 'fast-capitalism' as creating a mobility that detaches the cultural group from its cultural base. These sentiments could easily be found in commodified agricultural societies in Latin America and parts of the Third World, except instead of using class struggle, the far-right of Europe develops a politics surrounding the subjective idea that there is a natural order to a race/culture's way of life, and that autonomy for these cultures must come by way of the State as a priority.

There are many similarities between the US and European far-right (nativism, islamophobia, elements of populism, racist critiques of the welfare state, etc.) but in my opinion the cultural and political emergence of these far-right movements have characteristics that are specifically found within European States. Sorry for those who dislike ethnographic engagements with politics, but understanding the origin of political perspectives is in fact quite complimentary (if not aesthetically) to the proper use of class-analysis.

[flobdob]

The fact that the rich create jobs (I'm actually interested to see rebuttals against this claim from my fellow forumers much appreciated)


They also take away jobs on a massive scale, as we're seeing right now - the Financial Times just announced today that 2.46 million people are unemployed in the UK, or 7.7% of the workforce. They only employ workers where they can ensure they make a decent profit, and right now this means ensuring that unemployment benefit is cut to the point that workers are forced to accept low paying jobs to survive, which is of course what the current UK coalition government - exactly like the preceding Labour government - is doing.

The argument that the rich create jobs is totally backwards. The only reason that they have the right to decide who is employed and who isn't is because they control the means of production. We don't need the crumbs of them deciding who to employ - sometimes more, sometimes less - but we want the whole bakery. This means full, decent employment, which is only possible under a planned socialist economy.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

I've started to see integralism and fascism as working-class movements gone wrong.
Interesting, but I'm not quite clear how you define integralism. How does this connect with the far more prevalent concept of a "Herrenvolk Democracy" as practiced in 19th century America, 21st century Israel, and by the FN in France? True, local "ethnic" movements in Europe and America were often encouraged by the Nazis and Fascists (American Indian, Marcus Garvey, Flemings, Friulian), but at the present time, at least in Europe, various "native ethnic" movements (Occitan, Breton, Puglian) are offering strong resistance to centralized, state-directed capital. Incidentally, Pier Paolo Pasolini, who started out as a fascist-approved poet of "ethnicity," turned into something else altogether without losing his belief in the power of the "local." You may know his extraordinary poem, "Project for future works."

[Thirsty Crow]

I'll be talking about the ethno-nationalist right in Croatia, which borders on fascism with respect to some of their position. On the fring of the fringe, there are individuals who might be called "libertarians" (in the extreme lassez faire variant, minarchist or "anarchist").

The mainstream center-right can be characterized by moderate to significant support for social conservatism (family values, traditional culture, moderate patriarchy, outright defense of convicted generals at the ICC etc.) and economic liberalism (though they've shown themselves unwilling or unable to tear down what was left of the welfare state inherited from "socialist" Yugoslavia; but I doubt that the reasons are ideological or even pragmatic in that they think this kind of macro-management leads to growth; rather. I'd say that they fear the response from the "masses")


Small Businesses
There is a certain kind of "support" for small business insofar as these forms of economic activity correspond to what the right pictures as ideal localities for an expression of what is close to their hearts (small towns): nationality and national culture (opposed to big cities as localities of lose morals and decadence, foreign influence and so on) and tight social cohesion

The fact that the rich create jobs (I'm actually interested to see rebuttals against this claim from my fellow forumers much appreciated)
Yes, they reiterate this point, but within an overall framework which we might call "poorly conceived Third Positionism"; again, social cohesion is the primary factor here

Anti-American people (Like Mexicans who put up their flags on Cinco de Mayo and undermine America)
Oh hell yes. The whole world is teeming with anti-croats, and an embodiment of that kind of attitude is best found in Serbia
The Culture War (A favorite about how liberals, feminists, and commies are trying to destroy the culture near and dear to them)
Of course. The anti-communist frenzy is especially ridiculous (and that kind of sentiment is being fed by the mainstream center-right). Feminists and liberals are close second.

****jobs and the personal lives of politicians
To some extent. Though, the issue of religion and personal religious practice is very much highlighted

Bringing down "big daddy" government
No, or at least to a very, very insignificant extent. Big government is actually a goal for the crypto-fascist right here.

Not "coddling" the terrorists
If by "terrorists" you mean "anyone who opposes, even slightly, what we proclaim to be the supreme national interest", then yes. International terrorism and Islamism haven't yet been introduced to the right-wing spotlight, but I expect it.

Reducing the deficit (Through tax cuts for the ruling class and wars of course)
Economics isn't a strong side of any of the groups. If they do talk about such practices, then you can expect it being tied up to their populist rhetoric of social cohesion

Whether candidates are Muslim or not
Not so much. The thing is, the ethnic nationalist right has a paradoxical relationship to Muslims in this country because they most often come from Bosnia. Bosnia is considered a rightfully "Croatian" territory, Bosnian Muslims being Croats who suffered repression and indoctrination at the hands of the Ottomans, but still part of the grand ethnos. At the same time, fervent Catholicism of the right makes the relationship very uneasy, sometimes bordering on hostile.

Whether candidates are born in Kenya or not
Place of birth is not as important as ethnic origin and other "signals" which betray one's national loyalty (like religion, language). For instance, an American Croat ran for president and was not faced with outright hostility from the right.

Whether candidates are socialists or not
Oh, hell yeah. Social democrats are also considered "anti-croatian" and fiercly opposed.

[Total]

a contribution about the dutch right

It doesn't so much matter where you're born, they make a fuss about wich passports you have. The PVV for instance hated the fact that there was some left politician (pvda, labour party, i believe it was) who had a double nationality. Citizens from Marroco can't decline their passport. The PVV made it a big thing (in some circels) and affraid to lose votes the VVD (liberals) said they too felt a politician should have only one nationality/passport to prevent a personal conflict of intrests (not sure if other partys said something simmilar)

So if you're born outside of Holland and became a citizen, fine, IF you gave up you're former citizenship. The funny thing is though, the PVV stated that this wasn't restricted to 'muslim-countries', if it would have been somebody from Switserland they'd also demand their resignation or decline of the swiss passport.

Now the VVD is one of the party's in gouverment, together with CDA (christian democrats) with the support of the PVV to get a majority of votes (PVV isn't part of the 'kabinet' so does not have any people in charge like ministers or such).
After the new gouverment was installed they newspapers found out that one of the VVD puppets had a double nationality, a Swiss one.

But 'she didn't know about it, just forgot the whole thing' they said, I believe she only has a Dutch nationality now..

also the PVV isn't really agnostic (if I translated the word right) they're just anti-muslim, claiming it isn't a religion but a fascist ideoligy, they compare the Koran to Mein Kampf. The PVV loves the christian-jewish tradition they say Holland has though (that's why the dutch nazi's want nothing to do with them) and support a christian party in gouverment.

[PhoenixAsh]

Well...back to Holland again...


The PVV is the main far-rightwing party in Holland when it comes to xenophobia and open racism. The VVD are neo-free market liberals who often swing between center and the right taking position as political need dictates. They are the true representatives of corporations, money and finance.

The PVV has a lot of power....currently they are polled at 25 seats in our 150 seat parliament....and they were needed to give political support to the government which can otherwise not count on a parliamentary majority. So they influence policy without having any need to justify themselves to paliament or can in any way be held responsible for it.

In the economic section they are free market liberals who focus on flat tax, middle class small bussiness, privitisation, decebtralisation, getting the bussiness sector involved in social questions..such as education and healthcare...

In the social sector they emphasize solidarity. This solidarity however is limited to those who subscribe to our "culture" and the democratic, christain and jewish tradition. They agitate against immigration from non-western countries, they especially agitate against muslims, and see crime largely as a factor of ethnic causes and want ethnic registration for everybody.

I said earlier they want decentralisation. This is mainly economic. Police, Education and social services should be centralised.

They are also xenophobic. They agitate against the EU. THey agitate against development aid. THey want a strong military...but want to mainly use it as an auxilary policeforce inside our own country....and in defense of Israel.

They see the conflict in Israel as a conflict betwen freedom and barbarism. In which the European left has clearly taken the side of barbarism.

[La Comédie Noire]

The fact that the rich create jobs (I'm actually interested to see rebuttals against this claim from my fellow forumers much appreciated)

I think this is a good question. The main goal of capitalism is to seek profit, job creation is not a concern. Thus we can have a jobless recovery. The media will often use job creation as both a carrot and a stick.

"If we don't abolish the minimum wage, the corporations will move!"

"If we build this nuclear power plant next to this playground it will provide jobs!"

Often the positive effects of such measures are marginal at best, for instance they built a biomass plant in Massachusetts, something the community was highly against, and it created a grand total of 22 jobs.

[RedSonRising]

Interesting, but I'm not quite clear how you define integralism. How does this connect with the far more prevalent concept of a "Herrenvolk Democracy" as practiced in 19th century America, 21st century Israel, and by the FN in France? True, local "ethnic" movements in Europe and America were often encouraged by the Nazis and Fascists (American Indian, Marcus Garvey, Flemings, Friulian), but at the present time, at least in Europe, various "native ethnic" movements (Occitan, Breton, Puglian) are offering strong resistance to centralized, state-directed capital. Incidentally, Pier Paolo Pasolini, who started out as a fascist-approved poet of "ethnicity," turned into something else altogether without losing his belief in the power of the "local." You may know his extraordinary poem, "Project for future works."


This is correct, and I would posit that Integralism is not fascism itself, but at times a precursor and a very related ideology. The resistance to State-directed capital seems to come from the way in which it is used, but not the concept itself. These movements seldom articulate sophisticated economic demands, but frame economic processes in cultural contexts, and therefore their demands for the economy as well. A rejection of international economy, the welfare state as it exists, multiculturalism, etc. all tie into a nativist train of thought that may change its opinion on state-directed capital if it were to respond to their cultural demands, and possibly become fascism.

[RadioRaheem84]

In the States, the main base of the right wing is the middle to upper middle class. They're mostly the middle manergerial and small business types that are rabidly right wing.

They go to a flagship state school, major in business management or engineering, end up middle management by their 40s, buy a house in the suburbs or gated community, SUV, etc. and read Ayn Rand because they think they've made it!

Everyone abroad thinks that the right wing's base are uneducated, poor hillbillies but that is a false assumption. Very few are poor or working class whites.

At the local level, the people I described that compose most of the right wing base, then start to get into politics, first the local chamber of commerce, various economic development associations, then onto being a councilman or running for representative office.

They start giving contracts to their friends, running down the services of the poor neighborhoods, etc.

Soon they start to build up such a local following that they're thrust to the State level and then the national level.

When they mean they're pro-small business, what they really mean is they're not pro-small Pizza Parlor or local bookstore business but medium sized engineering firms, construction companies, real estate, or small clinics.

When Newt Gingrich was rallying on about his small town Georgia background and defending the small businesses within it, he was really talking about the medium sized firms that do business with bigger firms like Boeing or Lockheed Martin who get massive Federal money for projects and the wealth "trickles" down to smaller owners of business.

That is how the right works in the States.

[B.K.]

I hear Russia has one of, if not the largest fascist/nationalist right wing movements happening and growing right now.

To what extent is this true? I saw a documentary where they are called "nazbols" (I think?) and are becoming more and more popular as the average Russian becomes more poorer and starts blaming immigrants and Jews for their problems.

I even saw in the documentary that they actually go in the streets, patrolling and actually attack foreigners reguarly.


Well, I assume you mean by "nazbols" the members of National Bolshevik Party. First of all, NBP was relatively big in 1990s (but still not big enough to have any serious role in "real" politics), but it suffered serious pressure in the Putin era, and finally an official ban in 2007. There are several remnants of NBP that are still active today, but they hold very different ideologies. For example, "Other Russia" pretends to be a Western-style liberal democratic movement, NBF are hardcore nationalists, and "13th of January Movement" in Latvia (based on Latvian NBP branch) is social democratic and pro-Russian minority.

From the beginning, NBP was aimed to attract all the radical youth who was dissatisfied with Yeltsin's politics. It's difficult to explain the idea of "national bolshevism" in details (I've tried to do it on my blog, and my post turned out to be quite lengthy), but they definitely are very far from modern Western "white nationalists" and major right wing parties in terms of ideology. And I've never heard of any NBP members attacking any immigrants. Attacks of such kind are mostly performed by football hooligans or small clandestine groups of far-right militants (NS/WP, "peoplehaters", etc.)

[Aurorus Ruber]

Everyone abroad thinks that the right wing's base are uneducated, poor hillbillies but that is a false assumption. Very few are poor or working class whites.

What makes you say that? Looking at maps of electoral results or reading about how people voted, it always seemed to me that the bulk of votes for conservative candidates come from poor and working class whites. One can see this in the large swaths of the Midwest and South that vote overwhelmingly, by eight percent or so, for Republican presidential candidates. I don't imagine most of those people are upper-middle class businessmen, although I could be wrong.

[RadioRaheem84]

What makes you say that? Looking at maps of electoral results or reading about how people voted, it always seemed to me that the bulk of votes for conservative candidates come from poor and working class whites. One can see this in the large swaths of the Midwest and South that vote overwhelmingly, by eight percent or so, for Republican presidential candidates. I don't imagine most of those people are upper-middle class businessmen, although I could be wrong.

Really? Well, I am assuming the recent round up in the last ten years of working and middle class families through the moral issues post 9-11 also had something to do with it, but for the most part upper middle to just middle class middle manger types in the South and the Mid-West overwhelmingly voite GOP or are now radical Tea Partiers.

[B.K.]

As for Russia, it's difficult to make a generalization about all right wingers, since various groups of them can hold very different ideologies. However, there are some prevalent tendencies:


Small Businesses
I'd say most of them neither are strongly pro-small business, nor against it.
The fact that the rich create jobs (I'm actually interested to see rebuttals against this claim from my fellow forumers much appreciated)
No, most of them think that it's in responsibility of government to create enough jobs.
Anti-American people (Like Mexicans who put up their flags on Cinco de Mayo and undermine America)
I assume the local equivalent of anti-Americanism should be Russophobia... yes, they see it everywhere.
The Culture War (A favorite about how liberals, feminists, and commies are trying to destroy the culture near and dear to them)
Yes, of course, but replace "commies" with "Americans". See Wikipedia for "Dulles' Plan" conspiracy theory.
****jobs and the personal lives of politicians
Doesn't really care much about it. At least adultery won't ruin anyone's reputation here (but being homosexual definitely would). What's really matter that's if a politician has any links with the West or the oligarchs.
Bringing down "big daddy" government
Hell no! Quite the opposite - the vast majority of the right wingers here are advocates of an "iron hand" rule.
Not "coddling" the terrorists
Of course yes.
Reducing the deficit (Through tax cuts for the ruling class and wars of course)
Tax cuts? No, they mostly talk about tax increases for oligarchs and oil companies (but all of it is nothing but populism).
Whether candidates are Muslim or not
Rather, "whether they're Jewish or not", or (much more importantly) "whether they're pro-American or not".
Whether candidates are born in Kenya or not
The place of birth doesn't really matter.
Whether candidates are socialists or not
Rather, "whether they're liberals or not". A lot of right wingers here call themselves socialists and use social populist rhetoric, pure US-style libertarians are quite rare.

[RadioRaheem84]

So I take it the Russian right and judging by the numbers the growing numbers of Russians voting right, want a nationalist right wing autocratic party? One in which the iron hand will still feed them and punish oligarchs?

[B.K.]

Yes, they generally want someone like Lukashenko for president. They have nothing against small private enterprises (at least as long it's owned by Russians), but most of them want to nationalize the big corporations (especially the oil companies).

They also say they want "order" and tight social regulations, but I bet they'll start to whine about "evil police" right after being detained for drinking beer in public or something like that.

[Tim Finnegan]

When they mean they're pro-small business, what they really mean is they're not pro-small Pizza Parlor or local bookstore business but medium sized engineering firms, construction companies, real estate, or small clinics.
I think this certainly has a lot of truth to it. I remember reading that in the European Union a "small business" is defined as as a company employing less than fifty people, while in the United States it's defined as less than five hundred- a stretched definition of "small" indeed!. (The exact numbers may refer to manufacturing, but I think the ratio is roughly constant.) They try to spin "small business" as referring to Mom-and-Pop stores whose employees number a couple dozen at most, but in reality it refers to the bourgeoisie operating in local or specialist markets.

[Hoipolloi Cassidy]

A rejection of international economy, the welfare state as it exists, multiculturalism, etc.

Two of the movements I've mentioned, in Occitania and Puglia, have strong multicultural strains - like the Yiddishland movement they try to place resistance as consistently opposed to a unifying pressure, economic, political and cultural. Similar movements in Andalusia: to see one's native roots as a mixture of African, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Immigrant cultures.

Bottom line - I don't think this issue can't be dealt with without addressing the problem of the Nation-state as discussed in Balibar/Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class.