Fascism is on the 'Left'

The Paternalist Conspiracy has a link log of a set of post about how started by Tim Worstall's post about how Fascism should be seen as an ideology of the left. Of course it should. Mussolini began his political career as a leading light of the Italian Socialist movement editing several socialist newspapers before creating Fascism. Mosley walked out of the Labour party, where he had served on the Labour National Executive Committee and on Ramsay MacDonald's cabinet, to form the British Union of Fascists. You just have to look at the Program of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, the Fascist Manefesto, or todays BNP to see that they sit easily on the 'left' of the political spectrum with the talk of nationalisation, welfare, and control by the state for the people.

Fascists are nasty racists, and many that see themselves on the 'left' think that being nasty racists automatically means that you cannot be on the left. However compare Marx's answer to the Jewish question and Hilter's.

We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of the present time, an element which through historical development – to which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed – has been brought to its present high level, at which it must necessarily begin to disintegrate.

In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism.

Extremely similar and ringing with a bloody potential realised in Stalin's purges after World War 2.

Fasists where anti-communist, like the way that extreme leftist groups tend to split and splinter into strongly antagonistic factions as can be seen at the moment in the recriminations and back biting around the disintegration of the Respect Coalition. However today communists are also disclaimed from the 'left', in the same way that Fascists are, because of their murderous nature. This definition of the 'left' as 'that which is not nasty' is can be seen elsewhere in the rebuttals to Tristan Mills' original post such as this one that claims that every single instance of actually existing Socialism is not 'left' wing, despite their being supported by the 'left' before their collapse. This wishy-washy 'everything not nasty' definition fails with Cuba which is still seen by many that call themselves of the 'left' as a Socialist nirvana and its leaders, such as Che, idolised; but Cuba is definitely nasty and once the Socialist regime in Cuba falls everybody will see exactly why it is that every year hundreds of people flee across the open sea on make shift rafts.

'Left' and 'right' are not the most meaningful of terms but if anything it is on the 'left where Fascism belongs. Liberalism and authoritarianism are more useful, and it is amongst the authoritarians that most of the left resides because the constant calls to interfere in other peoples business that come from that direction.