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The United States is arguably one of the least "socialist" of the developed countries and by far one of the worst for surveillance and authoritarianism. Indeed

The United States is arguably one of the least "socialist" of the developed countries and by far one of the worst for surveillance and authoritarianism. Indeed it's on the cusp of a full scale fascist take over. This isn't nearly as simple as "socialism trends toward authoritarianism". Which let's also clarify what we're calling "socialism" here. In this case we using it to describe having the government provide a social safety net. All too often "socialism" gets applied as a blanket term for "any government provided service" which obfuscates the actual issues rather than clarifying anything. It just makes the whole conversation devolve into a pointless ideological battle.

rendall 4y ago
> it's on the cusp of a full scale fascist take over Not really. Or, rather, that claim is being used as justification for overreach and power grabs from the same authoritarians who claim to be against fascism.
- mkmk3 4y ago
  "No, but yes, because it's a different unnamed party than the one I imagine you intended"?
  - luckylion 4y ago
    Is every authoritarian a fascist? If not, that statement makes perfect sense: there's no looming fascist takeover, but authoritarians are claiming there is to influence the population and get more power.
    - rendall 4y ago
      This is the correct answer.
    - snapplebobapple 4y ago
      Finally, another person who thinks it's weird a moderately sized swath of humanity has no concept or historical understanding of the myriad different types of authoritarians spawned by society over the years. Nobody remembers the party authoritarian government of pre 1990's Mexico? Nobody notices present day Singapore organized under the same??? Nobody remember Pinochet in Chile for an example of military authoritarianism? How about Myanmar??? And why is it always the Marxist leaning types with this blindness? It's like they are jealous of their equivalently terrifying sibling ideology and only have eyes for it or something...
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > Is every authoritarian a fascist? In principal, no, non-fascist authoritarianisms can exist. In modern practice, they are comparatively rare. Leninism in the narrow sense was internationalist rather than nationalist, but most of its later derivatives (starting, in the USSR with “socialism in one country”) have shaded progressively more toward nationalism. Superficially “left” authoritarianisms (again, largely, Leninism and its derivatives) may have a rhetorical bent toward egalitarianism that contrasts with fascisms elitist/heirarchicalism, but even in old-school Leninism its distinction from Marxism is its adoption of vanguardism which naturally tends toward hierarchy, and that’s even more intense in its subsequent derivatives, both institutionalized with state power and, in many case, in revolutionary movements; the necessity of armed power to maintain authoritarian systems makes institutionalized authoritarianism naturally tend toward militarism even when as movements they might present as anti-militaristic. All of the modern authoritarian movements are corporatist, whether by bringing “outside” groups formally into regime decision-making, or abolishing them and replacing them with formal state institutions, or by assuring that “outside” interests are run by people connected to the regime and informally coordinating power, even if there aren’t part of formal decisionmaking.
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I am kind of confused by your reasoning here. Assuming you’re correct, that there are power grabs from authoritarians claiming to be against fascism, isn’t that you agreeing with the poster that there’s risk of fascist take over then? That sounds exactly like fascistic behavior to me.
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    Fascism is only one form of authoritarian government. You can have authoritarian socialist, communist, monarchical, and oligarchic governments too.
    - orwin 4y ago
      Fascism: the oligarchy get its power from small to medium business-owners, lawyers and big landowner (petite bourgeoisie) (and the police/army). Franquism is basically the same. It's an evolution of Feudalism, with more Nationalism to replace the 'God's will' part. For Nazis the oligarchy gets its power from bigger businesses (and still, the army and police, like all authoritarians). This is a very managerial system that promotes internal competition (Chapoutot wrote a book extremely interesting about it, especially when you lived through poorly implemented agile/scrum). It's basically the cousin of Fascim, one of their parents being Bonapartism. I suppose communism/socialism/stalinism (depending on your definition) the oligarchy gets its power from the bureaucracy once they capture it from the proletariat. Again, a cousin of the two previous system, with the same parent (according to Trotsky, Kronstad's butcher) For platformism (the most authoritative version of anarchism), it never got to the point of having that much authority, but it could have gone towards Bonapartism too. With a much weaker power base consisting of only the army and basic nationalism, so if you don't have Napoleon or Nestor Makhno, it probably won't work (and Makhno was too anti-nationalist to build his power on that, so I guess it wouldn't work). 'Oligarchic' and 'monarchic' aren't political ideologies btw. They're political systems.
      - dragonwriter 4y ago
        > I suppose communism/socialism/stalinism (depending on your definition) the oligarchy gets its power from the bureaucracy once they capture it from the proletariat. In Leninism and derived systems, there is no need for the oligarchy to seize anything from the proletariat, the distinction between then and their notional parent in Marxism is vanguardism, which already incorporates an elite which becomes the oligarchy when seizing power “in the name of” the proletariat.
- dbingham 4y ago
  Lets get concrete. The last Republican president Trump, did so many things that invoked echos of the last major wave of fascism (Hitler and Mussolini) that one of the foremost experts on Nazism (Christopher Browning [1]) wrote a piece in the media directly making the comparison - not something experts on that period generally do lightly. [2] That was in 2018, and it was followed by two more years of authoritarian power grabs culminating in an attempted coup. Since then, Trump has continued to largely drive the policy and political approach of the Republican party. And other leading Republicans, like Desantis, have followed his lead. Those attacks have extended to the media (there's currently advancing in Florida that would require bloggers to register with the state if they cover the state) and there were calls to "eradicate trans people" at CPAC to resounding cheers (which is literally how the holocaust started [3]) So while I am not a fan of the Democratic party (there isn't a party in American politics that represents my political views), there is only one party that is clearly a neo-fascist party. And that party is far too close to regaining power for comfort. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Browning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Browning [2] https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-d... [3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-his...
  - rendall 4y ago
    > The last Republican president Trump, did so many things that invoked echos of the last major wave of fascism... You know what a moral panic is, right? "Trump is Literally Hitler!!!!" is another moral panic. No, I don't expect anyone caught in the grips of one to believe they are caught in the grips of one, especially when prominent journalists, celebrities and pundits are also caught in it, so I won't try to convince you. iykyk. Personally, I think a President lying to get his country into two (2) ruinous wars simultaneously, and the resultant, decades-long occupations is far more destructive than anything Trump could manage. Overseeing FISA courts, mass surveillance, assassination lists did far more destruction to democracy than Trump even tried to do, but we're not ready for that conversation. So, no, Trump is not heralding a wave of neo-fascism. Maybe if folks who believe so could put down the torches and pitchforks long enough to actually listen to the people who voted for him, we all could work together to vote in a principled President at least once in my lifetime. No, repeating to each other that Trump's voters were all hick white supremacist neo-fascists is not actually listening. Empathetic listening is listening. But, again, I don't expect to convince anyone of that here and now.
a4a4a4a4 4y ago
> Indeed it's on the cusp of a full scale fascist take over. From the democrats or republicans? ("Both" would be closest to correct, if we assume your statement is true.) Edit: oooh did I make the left or the right angry with this comment? Both sides are authoritarian and infringing on your rights wherever they can, while simultaneously convincing their followers that only the opponents do it.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- toss1 4y ago
  Nonsense. Yes, there are always elements of the far-left and far-right who lean authoritarian, and any of the "-isms" (fascism, communism, etc.) are fully correlated or anti-correlated to authoritarianism. But, in this current situation, to claim it is "both sides" is either naive or willful ignorance, and plays right into the authoritarian line. The FACT is that a number of countries have fallen from democracy into authoritarianism (Hungary, turky, etc.), and these are Right-Wing movements. In the US, while the Dem party works to protect voting rights, the Republican party has gone full authoritarian, literally stating that democracy is less preferable thatn their rule, actively taking measures to select their voters, control the academy, the press, and industry, all of which are flat-out authoritarian. Their leader literally has just declared that "I am your retribution.”. That is not the statement of anyone even remotely working to lead a democratic society; it is the statement of someone who wants authority to lead a minority in crushing and killing anyone who opposes him. False equivalency is a cheap cop-out at best, and more accurately actively promoting ignorance and failure to respond to emerging authoritarianism. In the current situation, it is frankly disgusting. Stop it.
  - 988747 4y ago
    [dead]
  - a4a4a4a4 4y ago
    No, I don’t think I will stop it, until people start to realize the democrats are doing the same thing. Also, what an authoritarian response for someone claiming not to be authoritarian. The Democrats are actively ignoring Supreme Court rulings (Bruen case and the Hochul administration in NY doing exactly what the Supreme Court told them they could not do, which was to declare the entire state a “sensitive location”). The Democrats also redraw voting districts as they like, just as they accuse the republicans of. You have states like CA intentionally leaking the names, addresses and purchase lists of gun owners. The entirety of “social authoritarianism” belongs to the democrats. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/561825-comedians-are-right-authoritarian-democrats-are-also-a-problem/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/561825-comedians-are-ri...

rendall 4y ago

> it's on the cusp of a full scale fascist take over Not really. Or, rather, that claim is being used as justification for overreach and power grabs from the same authoritarians who claim to be against fascism.

mkmk3 4y ago
"No, but yes, because it's a different unnamed party than the one I imagine you intended"?
- luckylion 4y ago
  Is every authoritarian a fascist? If not, that statement makes perfect sense: there's no looming fascist takeover, but authoritarians are claiming there is to influence the population and get more power.
  - rendall 4y ago
    This is the correct answer.
  - snapplebobapple 4y ago
    Finally, another person who thinks it's weird a moderately sized swath of humanity has no concept or historical understanding of the myriad different types of authoritarians spawned by society over the years. Nobody remembers the party authoritarian government of pre 1990's Mexico? Nobody notices present day Singapore organized under the same??? Nobody remember Pinochet in Chile for an example of military authoritarianism? How about Myanmar??? And why is it always the Marxist leaning types with this blindness? It's like they are jealous of their equivalently terrifying sibling ideology and only have eyes for it or something...
  - dragonwriter 4y ago
    > Is every authoritarian a fascist? In principal, no, non-fascist authoritarianisms can exist. In modern practice, they are comparatively rare. Leninism in the narrow sense was internationalist rather than nationalist, but most of its later derivatives (starting, in the USSR with “socialism in one country”) have shaded progressively more toward nationalism. Superficially “left” authoritarianisms (again, largely, Leninism and its derivatives) may have a rhetorical bent toward egalitarianism that contrasts with fascisms elitist/heirarchicalism, but even in old-school Leninism its distinction from Marxism is its adoption of vanguardism which naturally tends toward hierarchy, and that’s even more intense in its subsequent derivatives, both institutionalized with state power and, in many case, in revolutionary movements; the necessity of armed power to maintain authoritarian systems makes institutionalized authoritarianism naturally tend toward militarism even when as movements they might present as anti-militaristic. All of the modern authoritarian movements are corporatist, whether by bringing “outside” groups formally into regime decision-making, or abolishing them and replacing them with formal state institutions, or by assuring that “outside” interests are run by people connected to the regime and informally coordinating power, even if there aren’t part of formal decisionmaking.
SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
I am kind of confused by your reasoning here. Assuming you’re correct, that there are power grabs from authoritarians claiming to be against fascism, isn’t that you agreeing with the poster that there’s risk of fascist take over then? That sounds exactly like fascistic behavior to me.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  Fascism is only one form of authoritarian government. You can have authoritarian socialist, communist, monarchical, and oligarchic governments too.
  - orwin 4y ago
    Fascism: the oligarchy get its power from small to medium business-owners, lawyers and big landowner (petite bourgeoisie) (and the police/army). Franquism is basically the same. It's an evolution of Feudalism, with more Nationalism to replace the 'God's will' part. For Nazis the oligarchy gets its power from bigger businesses (and still, the army and police, like all authoritarians). This is a very managerial system that promotes internal competition (Chapoutot wrote a book extremely interesting about it, especially when you lived through poorly implemented agile/scrum). It's basically the cousin of Fascim, one of their parents being Bonapartism. I suppose communism/socialism/stalinism (depending on your definition) the oligarchy gets its power from the bureaucracy once they capture it from the proletariat. Again, a cousin of the two previous system, with the same parent (according to Trotsky, Kronstad's butcher) For platformism (the most authoritative version of anarchism), it never got to the point of having that much authority, but it could have gone towards Bonapartism too. With a much weaker power base consisting of only the army and basic nationalism, so if you don't have Napoleon or Nestor Makhno, it probably won't work (and Makhno was too anti-nationalist to build his power on that, so I guess it wouldn't work). 'Oligarchic' and 'monarchic' aren't political ideologies btw. They're political systems.
    - dragonwriter 4y ago
      > I suppose communism/socialism/stalinism (depending on your definition) the oligarchy gets its power from the bureaucracy once they capture it from the proletariat. In Leninism and derived systems, there is no need for the oligarchy to seize anything from the proletariat, the distinction between then and their notional parent in Marxism is vanguardism, which already incorporates an elite which becomes the oligarchy when seizing power “in the name of” the proletariat.
dbingham 4y ago
Lets get concrete. The last Republican president Trump, did so many things that invoked echos of the last major wave of fascism (Hitler and Mussolini) that one of the foremost experts on Nazism (Christopher Browning [1]) wrote a piece in the media directly making the comparison - not something experts on that period generally do lightly. [2] That was in 2018, and it was followed by two more years of authoritarian power grabs culminating in an attempted coup. Since then, Trump has continued to largely drive the policy and political approach of the Republican party. And other leading Republicans, like Desantis, have followed his lead. Those attacks have extended to the media (there's currently advancing in Florida that would require bloggers to register with the state if they cover the state) and there were calls to "eradicate trans people" at CPAC to resounding cheers (which is literally how the holocaust started [3]) So while I am not a fan of the Democratic party (there isn't a party in American politics that represents my political views), there is only one party that is clearly a neo-fascist party. And that party is far too close to regaining power for comfort. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Browning https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Browning [2] https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-democracy/ https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2018/10/25/suffocation-of-d... [3] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-history-of-the-worlds-first-trans-clinic/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-forgotten-his...
- rendall 4y ago
  > The last Republican president Trump, did so many things that invoked echos of the last major wave of fascism... You know what a moral panic is, right? "Trump is Literally Hitler!!!!" is another moral panic. No, I don't expect anyone caught in the grips of one to believe they are caught in the grips of one, especially when prominent journalists, celebrities and pundits are also caught in it, so I won't try to convince you. iykyk. Personally, I think a President lying to get his country into two (2) ruinous wars simultaneously, and the resultant, decades-long occupations is far more destructive than anything Trump could manage. Overseeing FISA courts, mass surveillance, assassination lists did far more destruction to democracy than Trump even tried to do, but we're not ready for that conversation. So, no, Trump is not heralding a wave of neo-fascism. Maybe if folks who believe so could put down the torches and pitchforks long enough to actually listen to the people who voted for him, we all could work together to vote in a principled President at least once in my lifetime. No, repeating to each other that Trump's voters were all hick white supremacist neo-fascists is not actually listening. Empathetic listening is listening. But, again, I don't expect to convince anyone of that here and now.

a4a4a4a4 4y ago

> Indeed it's on the cusp of a full scale fascist take over. From the democrats or republicans? ("Both" would be closest to correct, if we assume your statement is true.) Edit: oooh did I make the left or the right angry with this comment? Both sides are authoritarian and infringing on your rights wherever they can, while simultaneously convincing their followers that only the opponents do it.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
toss1 4y ago
Nonsense. Yes, there are always elements of the far-left and far-right who lean authoritarian, and any of the "-isms" (fascism, communism, etc.) are fully correlated or anti-correlated to authoritarianism. But, in this current situation, to claim it is "both sides" is either naive or willful ignorance, and plays right into the authoritarian line. The FACT is that a number of countries have fallen from democracy into authoritarianism (Hungary, turky, etc.), and these are Right-Wing movements. In the US, while the Dem party works to protect voting rights, the Republican party has gone full authoritarian, literally stating that democracy is less preferable thatn their rule, actively taking measures to select their voters, control the academy, the press, and industry, all of which are flat-out authoritarian. Their leader literally has just declared that "I am your retribution.”. That is not the statement of anyone even remotely working to lead a democratic society; it is the statement of someone who wants authority to lead a minority in crushing and killing anyone who opposes him. False equivalency is a cheap cop-out at best, and more accurately actively promoting ignorance and failure to respond to emerging authoritarianism. In the current situation, it is frankly disgusting. Stop it.
- 988747 4y ago
  [dead]
- a4a4a4a4 4y ago
  No, I don’t think I will stop it, until people start to realize the democrats are doing the same thing. Also, what an authoritarian response for someone claiming not to be authoritarian. The Democrats are actively ignoring Supreme Court rulings (Bruen case and the Hochul administration in NY doing exactly what the Supreme Court told them they could not do, which was to declare the entire state a “sensitive location”). The Democrats also redraw voting districts as they like, just as they accuse the republicans of. You have states like CA intentionally leaking the names, addresses and purchase lists of gun owners. The entirety of “social authoritarianism” belongs to the democrats. https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/561825-comedians-are-right-authoritarian-democrats-are-also-a-problem/ https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/561825-comedians-are-ri...