I was reminded recently of an amazing, powerful, withering attack on antisemitism and socialism, reprinted a few years ago in Mises Daily. It’s by Mises, The Socialist Calumny Against the Jews, and is taken from from Omnipotent Government (1944). What an incredible mind Mises had.
Source link: http://blog.mises.org/11269/socialism-and-anti-semitism/
Socialism and Anti-Semitism
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Mises was the greatest thinker and teacher of the 20th Century. But he went along with one grievous error.
He wrote,
“The parties of the Left and of the Right are in conflict because they both aim at supreme power.”
He was referring to the Communists as the party of the Left and the Nazis and Fascists as the parties of the Right.
They are all of the Left. It is the Liberals of the 19th Century and Libertarians or Utilitarian Voluntarists of the 20th Century who are the “parties” of the Right.
To say that the Fascists were of the Right is to say that the real liberals were Fascists.
A grievous error.
Actually DG I believe it is you who may be in error. I cannot speak for Mises because I have not read enough of his work to say whether he saw fascists as Rightist or Leftist.
I do know though, that Rothbard actually considered the communists as technically parties of the right. It was his opinion that the parties of the left were the classical liberals and all those who professed individual rights violable by the government.
Could I get some backup here? I’m fairly sure I’m correct but I cannot for the life of me remember where exactly I read that.
In fact, if you read further into the article, it seems more like he is saying that political parties (even with the same ideology) fight because the different persons in them want power separate from the persons in the other party.
If you go down several paragraphs, Mises states plainly that fascists and communists are obviously of the same ideology, which they definitely are. So I seriously doubt he would consider one the party of the left and the other the party of the right, if he considers them of the same ideology.
I was about to reply, saying, “It’s unbelieveable to me that with as many brilliant thinkers who happened to be Jewish as there were in pre-Nazi and Nazi Germany, that the whole country could turn anti-Semitic.” Then I thought twice and realized that this was exactly the point: once they denigrate and exterminate the thinkers, a party of tyrants has no credible opposition. Terrible.
Regarding left and right, even though many of her ideas are unpopular around here, I think Ayn Rand offers the most compelling explanation of fascism and communism in the context of left and right. Mystics of muscle versus mystics of spirit. It rings true to me, anyway.
Slim,
It doesn’t matter whether the Nazis and Communists were left or right, but that they were at or near the same point upon the spectrum, and that we be consistent about it, that we not confuse real extreme opposites, such as Voluntarists and Fascists, by lumping them together at the same extreme.
If the Communists were extremists of the Left, I’m an extremist of the Right, and the Nazis were not. They were creeping and leaping socialists, moderate to extreme leftists.
Ryan,
All those brilliant Jewish thinkers couldn’t do Jews any good if they were anti-Jewish. And most of them were certainly anti-capitalist, which is the next thing to it.
They were, and are, the Dumb Jews, the title, incidentally, of my book.
The most illuminating works on this site concerning fascism are, for me, Ralph Raico’s JLS article on Mises and Pareto in relation to fascism, and Paul Gottfried’s lectures on fascism, anti-fascism, and the welfare state.
I think Lesvic’s classifications are garbled, but I’m not going to start the conversation where we each have to write long comments and dip into sources to document our positions.
This article by Mises, by the way, highlights a certain tendency in his work and libertarianism in general: to reduce sociopolitical and by extension human concerns to their economic aspects. Mises sets up to block this criticism in Human Action by saying that he’s confining his study and claims to the area of human action in its praxeological sense, but that doesn’t make the habit go away, really.
In this example he ends up saying that socialism is socialism is socialism, and so when anyone else (e.g., the fascists) adopts a socialist tactic or method of economic organization, they are socialist. This frame persists today in libertarian polemic, and has something to do with the libertarian habit of cozying up to the hysterical anti-fascist mindset that is fashionable on today’s multicultural Left.
Note that I am not ruling out Mises observations about group similarities among forms of socialism and fascism. There is something in the critique, I just think there is a strong argument to be made that the critique is overdrawn. Also note that I am not piping up in favor of fascism, merely making other suggestions. The non-economic character of political movements matters greatly, calling any use of organized force “fascist” or “socialist” likely is mistaken, and so on.
Evan,
All that I am asking for is consistency.
If you want to define different groups according to criteria other than economics, that’s your privilege.
But it’s not your privilege to confuse freedom lovers with freedom haters.
DG-
If you seek consistency, you must reject collectivist labels. In certain contexts it may be helpful to visualize opposing groups as “left” or “right”, but these groups are nothing but collections of individuals, all with varying and temporally changing beliefs and actions.
Trying to consistently cross-reference different groupings according to any scale will inevitably result in inconsistencies and inappropriate assumptions. In all, where you say “they all were of the left”, I could just as earnestly argue “they all were of the right” because of some characteristic. Mostly what I see is you defining yourself, and those things that you don’t like as being opposed to your autonomous label.
Much like Marx and the labels “capitalist,” “bourgeois,” and “exploiter.”
EY,
Like it or not, there will be definitions and labels.
Is there anything wrong with asking that they be as consistent as possible? Are you satisfied with the present arrangement whereby you and I are lumped with the Fascists because we refuse to compromise with the Communists?
I agree with others. The Right is still fascist today, the left is still socialist. Mises is entirely consistent here. The problem is the false dichotomy of Left and Right.
Watch Block’s video on this false dichotomy for more info.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDHcYESwL-Q
So, “the Right is still fascist today, the left is still socialist,” fascism and socialism are complete opposites, and anyone who refuses to compromise with socialism, and with fascism, is a fascist.
Sorry, no sale.
Weren’t the original people on “the left” those liberals in France who demanded a laissez-faire future?
IMO, the problem with consitency-of-labels is that crybabies whose ideologies get exposed time & again as ludicrous always seem to respond by changing definitions, stealing terminologies, and generally being sore losers (“losers” being the operative word).
Van,
You seem to be saying that the problem with consistency of labels is inconsistency of labels.
Which do you want, consistency or inconsistency.
I still want consistency, and, again, don’t care whether you put me to the right or the left, so long as you’re clear and consistent about what it means.
filc,
If Communism is extremism of the left and Fascism of the Right, where does that leave freedom from both, in the middle, half Communist and half Fascist? Isn’t there anything that isn’t at all Communist or Fascist?
I prefer
Liberty and Tyranny
because isn’t that what it boils down to in the end?
William,
Yes, liberty and tyranny. And I don’t car which is right or left. But, whichever side you put liberty on, I’m an extremist of that side. If liberty is to the left, I’m an extremists of the left. If it’s to the right, I’m an extremist of the right. And whichever side I’m an extremist of, the fascists are extremists of the other.
DG,
Well, I suppose you’re entitled to be that way, and as a fan of liberty I can sympathize. As a conservative, I tend to be suspicious of extremists either way.
William,
Extremism is simply a dysphemism for integrity and principle, refusal to compromise with evil, to meet the devil half way, or any part of the way, and the principle that one should be middle in all things and extreme in none the principle that one should have no principles.
According to this “principle,” when Hitler wanted to murder all the Jews in the world, the British and Americans should have met him half-way, and agreed to murder half the Jews in the world.
I trust you wouldn’t have agreed to murder a single one of them, except my brother-in-law.
“I trust you wouldn’t have agreed to murder a single one of them, except my brother-in-law.”
That’s quite an accusation! Methinks you just like to get into arguments with natural allies.
William,
I don’t get your point.
As I have said, the middle way is simply a euphemism for compromise with evil, meeting the devil half way, and extremism, conversely, a dysphemism for integrity and principle, refusal to compromise with evil, to meet the devil half way or any part of the way.
And I asked if you would have met Hitler half way, or refused to meet him any part of the way.
What was wrong with that?
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