Friday, April 28, 2006

Tebbit is Right!

Although I have not had the opportunity to read his letter to yesterday's edition of the Daily Telegraph, longtime readers of Conservative Mind will know that I totally agree with Norman Tebbit's statement that fascism is a ultra-left-wing ideology.

1 comment:

Tom said...

I think its a bad idea when people choose to define the political ideology of groups into which they do not self define by 'left' or 'right'.

I think left and right is not about state intervention, but who stands to denefit from political moves, and whether the move in question preserves (conservatism) or even exagerates (libertarianism, possibly facism) current relationships.

after all, left and right is all about what side of the King you choose to sit on.

Facism is far right as it
1)strengthens the already existing relationships between social/political forces, and aims to stop them changing; hence it's regressiveness on race relations and anti-REAL trade uniononism.
2)It does not benefit the weakest members of society, but the strongest, much like libertarianism or even Thatcherism, which is on the right.

Norman Tebbit has an evident motivation to call facism left wing. he needs to distance himself from it!

I do agree though that facism has left wing origins, particularly in relation to syndicalism in some respect, and Ideologues such as GK Chesterton.

Facism is pretty much the revers of socialism, in my view. in socialism, the people are meant to benefit, not the state (hence 'workers control of the means of production' rather than 'state control'), whereas in facism or rightist nationalism, the state is everything and the fate of citizens nothing.

facism may be collectivist (a left attribute), but it defends privilege and the strong, and is against the bulk of the population (right attributes).