BNP economic views? Wtf?

[OneBrickOneVoice]

I was on wikipedia for some reason and came across the BNP and found this.


The BNP is generally not regarded as economically "right-wing": that is, they oppose laissez-faire economics, instead emphasising so-called Third-way distributism. Rather, the description of them as 'far-right' relates to their authoritarian nationalist and collectivist policies, as well as their promotion of racial segregation [27] and compulsory military service. However, the description of the party as right-wing has been criticised. The former Conservative Party Chairman Lord Tebbit has said that the BNP policies of "central direction of the economy, nationalisation, worker control of businesses, and opposition to capitalism and free trade" are left-wing rather than right-wing and that "nationalism, racism and anti-semitism are not uniquely of the Left or Right but can be found on either side of the spectrum".[28]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Natio...itical_spectrum (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_National_Party#Policies.2C_and_position_on _the_political_spectrum)

wtf?? I thought they were fascists. This makes no sense. Anyone from Britan know something more about this? discuss.

[YSR]

This is not really anything new to the Fascist movement. Despite our rabid disagreements, the German National Socialists and the Italian Fascists (National Syndicalists) were named such for more than just propaganda purposes.

Picking up on the momentum of workers' movements that have failed and channeling that hate into limited reforms and nationalism has consistently been the hallmark of fascism.

I remember someone almost got restricted a few months back for praising the original Fascist Manifesto as "progressive." Of course, they were wrong, insofar as the document is associated with a reactionary movement. But some of the demands themselves possess a degree of decent worker reform.

I point out this excellent pamphlet, which I think addresses some of these points:
http://prole.info/articles/insurrectionsdie.html

[Brownfist]

The fascist movement has some very progressive tendencies when it comes to their own working class. This ensures that the fascist movement enjoys the support of majority of the population in the country. However, it must also be noted that despite some of the economic reformism that could be seen progressive, albeit attached to an extremely disgusting political movement, the fascist governments tends to be very much against workers organizations like unions; rather the working class is not empowered to liberate themselves, instead they are there to further empower the state. Basically, there is a complete alienation of the self into the state on the part of the working-class.

[Socialistpenguin]

Just to reiterate what's been said already: this practice isn't anything new, it's as old as fascism itself. In an effort to attract more workers to their ranks, fascist parties will adopt all manner of phrases and policies (i.e. in the Nazi party, the white on red of the swastika, their official name, "National Socialist German Workers Party" or some such nonsense) that they have absolutely no intention of fulfilling.
Remember what Mussolini said: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power."
Rather than the state taking over corporations, corporations are taking over the state.

[Sugar Hill Kevis]

fascism and national socialism both consider themselves 'in touch' with worker movements; although not in the way of self determination, more in the way of "we'll make sure you're not too badly off" was it Franco who promised "bread and fire in every house" or something?

[Demogorgon]

Your clue is that Lord Tebbit is cited. He is still in a bad temper over the BNP stealing his thunder. When he was a senior figure in the Conservartive Party, he got to e the ultra right wing racist, now somebody else is taking his place.

The BNPs economic views are...weird.

I could best describe it I suppose as a belief that there should be capitalism, but that capitalism should be mismanaged. Essentially what they're views would lead to would be all the disadvantages of capitalism along with permanent recession. They don't see it that way of course. They simply react to each individual case they hear that annoys them in a kneejerk fashion without any cohesion.

They are right wing economically though. They believe in abolishing income tax and using VAT to compensate for the losses. Even Milton Friedman didn't go that far.

[Forward Union]

The NF believes in a system of distributist ownership. This means that we would strongly encourage workers to directly own the factories, farms or other places of employment. In this way people are more likely to take pride in, and enjoy, their work; they also cannot be thrown out of work at the whim of some whizz-kid in the City of London.
This would also break down the traditional divide between workers and management

From the national front faq (www.natfront.org)

[Ander]

This is called Third Position, an economic idea that is adopted regularly by fascists. It is supposed to be a third alternative to capitalism and communism but still borrows ideas from both sides. Peronism in Argentina is known as being a prime example of Third Positionism in action, but I'd really have to look further into that.

I'd also like to raise the point that this thread is a perfect example of political ignorance. LeftyHenry was shocked to see that the BNP, a fascist party, mixed econonic elements of the left into their ideology. Imagine what your average joe thinks about communism. I'm sure images of Stalin and gulags come flying into their mind every time the word is mentioned.

[Forward Union]

Well, it's not unique to third positionism.

There is actually some reasoning behind the "socialism" in "national socialism" it's, certainly not socialism in any marxist sense, but today's usage is very broad. Fascists do want to nationalise the economy, with a national health service available to the indigenous population etc.

But the idea of having white workers run the factories is a farce anyway. The National front contradict themselves and go on to talk about 'achieving harmony' between the two classes.

[Severian]

Also, there opposition to "free trade", the European Union, and so forth, is clearly nationalist, and doubly not surprising in a fascist party.

What's more surprising is to see a lot of these anti-free-trade themes picked up by most of the left. But not all that surprising, if you keep in mind the left's long history of patriotic sellout going back to August 4, 1914 and probably even before.