I just finished Liberal Fascism, and cannot rave highly enough about this (well documented!) book. While some critics of the book portray it as a thoughtless attack on their institutions and political philosophies, the book is instead a fastidiously researched text on the history of our current politics and political systems, fascism of all kinds, and how the two relate – even when the relation is on the political right as well as the left.

Perhaps the most important points the book makes, in my opinion, is that not only does the modern political left (and some of the right) stand for politics that are in almost every way fascist, but that we live in a system that is considerably fascist – and it’s currently not that bad, even if libertarian principles would be better in almost every respect. Some of the other points that Liberal Fascism makes quite thoroughly are:

  • The political viewpoints re-invented by the political movements we call Fascist (the Italian and German movements, essentially) were at the time given the label “progressive.” Progressives have preserved most of these stances since then. The “liberal” label that is synonymous with the term (at least, in America) comes from the political party they essentially replaced.
  • Fascism is essentially the (pseudo-religious) viewpoint that the state can solve all of our problems, if only we have the will. Totalitarianism as it was initially defined by Mussolini was the term explaining that everyone and everything was part of the state, and the state part of everything. It Takes a Village.
  • The federalist (which is today often synonymous with libertarian) position of our founding fathers was essentially the antithesis of fascism. The factions of the right that stray from these principles often stray into fascism (so sometimes the accusations from the left of fascism are accurate, even if hypocritical). Regrettably, our system is currently quite fascist, rather than the system of limited government and negative liberties that our parties used to debate over before the left was co-opted by the progressives.
  • The language, political viewpoints, and tactics of the modern political left are in most cases identical, and in other cases only slightly modified from the languages, political viewpoints, and tactics of historic American progressives, who were remarkably similar to the Nazis and Italian fascists. A few notable exceptions are that the leading term of demonization from the left has become the term “fascist”, and the modern left tends to dislike the military, even while still enamored in many cases by violence ( witness the romantic notions of taking things to the street, and action above all else ).
  • Pretty much the only reason fascism is associated with the right is that the Soviets demonized their political opponents, both fascists and conservatives alike, synonymously. Politically, the difference between fascism and communism is that fascism is nationalistic socialism/corporatism, while communism is internationalist socialism.
  • Fascists always have played the cyclical game of denouncing big businesses, over-regulating them to the extent that the smaller businesses were shut down, and tying the big businesses very closely to government.
  • Woodrow Wilson and FDR were America’s two most fascist presidents. They both locked up dissidents and committed other acts that are even today considered quite fascist. The New Deal was essentially a (largely successful) attempt to recast America into a politically fascist society. Mussolini in fact advised other progressives to stop referring to FDR’s policies as fascist because the term was losing popularity in the U.S. and he didn’t want to cause trouble for his fellow progressive.

Among numerous other points. This book is definitely worth the read, and I also highly recommend checking out the associated blog.