Rebuttal to ‘Fascism is a Left-Wing Political Philosophy, Not Right-Wing’

By Joe Ross

***Disclaimer, before making any comments or false assumptions, please read the entire article.

This article is a response to: http://libertyhangout.org/2017/02/fascism-is-a-left-wing-political-philosophy-not-right-wing/




In this article, the author Chase admits that he has no sources to differentiate the left from the right. He just came up with it himself. His only differentiation was that left wingers lean more socialist while right wingers lean more capitalist. He does not mention any of the other issues that have historically separated the left from the right.

I’m basing my definition of left vs. right based off the evolutionary psychology behind politics by anonymous conservative (which is a book everyone should read). His argument is that left-wing humans exhibit r-selected traits while right-wing humans exhibit K-selected traits. The things that separate r/K animals go as following:

1. K-selected animals treat resources as limited, while r-selected animals treat them as unlimited.
2. K-selected animals prefer competition, while r-selected animals avoid it.
3. K-selected animals prefer monogamy, while r-selected animals prefer having sex with anything.
4. K-selected animals prefer high investment parenting, while r-selected animals prefer low investment parenting and breeding more.
5. K-selected animals have an in-group preference, while r-selected animals do not.  

I believe that this is an excellent description of left vs. right. If you look at the policies of any right or left wing party in the US or Europe, it will match up. Let’s just examine the Republican and Democratic parties here in the US.

1. Democrats tend to support increases in government spending. They believe that resources are unlimited and that they can just tax and borrow more while Republicans are more likely to view resources as limited and want to keep government spending at similar levels.
2. Republicans tend to prefer policies that allow for competition while Democrats tend to prefer less competition. The best example of this is a policy known as affordable housing. This allows people to randomly get the best housing instead of it going to those who can afford it.
3. Democrats tend to be more open to sexual freedoms. They tend to support things that allow people to have more sex, such as abortion rights and easy access to birth control. They also support things like acceptance of homosexuality and polyamory. Republicans tend to oppose those things because they prefer sexual repression and monogamy.
4. Republicans tend to support policies that keep families together, while Democrats tend to support policies that allow families to separate. The best example of this is how Democrats support the welfare state which allows mothers to divorce without being financially dependent on a man. (This will come into question with regards to illegal immigrants, but they are considered an out-group so do not count).
5. Republicans tend to be more patriotic and nationalistic. They will be the ones flying the American Flag and getting outraged when someone doesn’t stand for the national anthem, while Democrats tend not to care and value things like the United Nations or a North American union.

It needs to be noted that the right / left paradigm does NOT address the size of government.

Now, where do fascists fit in?

Well, you need to first understand fascism, and simply looking it up in the dictionary isn’t going to cover the entire philosophy. There are many different books on the topic, but this pro-fascist article summarizes their philosophy fairly well:

http://www.smashculturalmarxism.com/what-is-fascism/

Let’s examine the philosophy to left vs. right.

1. Fascists treat resources as very limited.
2. Fascists value some competition. They don’t necessarily want individual market competition like capitalists. They prefer group competitions and want their group to do better than other groups, vs leftists who just want everyone to be equal. They also have no problems with people leaving their country and joining a different one.
3. Fascists want to repress sexual freedoms. They want porn to be outlawed.
4. Fascists believe in the importance of a family unit.
5. Last but not least, I don’t think there is one person out there who doubts that fascists have an ingroup preference.

Everything here can be confirmed in the pro-fascist source that I listed above.

Based off this, fascism does not seem very left leaning to me. It seems like it’s very far to the right.

My ultimate conclusion on this topic: Fascism has its flaws. It is perfectly acceptable to oppose the philosophy, or at least parts of it, without wrongly labeling it as a left-wing philosophy. It is preferable to communism and other leftist ideologies. If someone falsely accuses you of being a fascist, you should explain to them the differences between your philosophy and fascism. Maybe you enjoy being allowed to watch porn or hook up with others on tinder. Maybe you think that free markets are useful and that usury isn’t inherently bad. Maybe you have no in-group preference and think that multiculturalism has its uses. Maybe you’re one of those people who doesn’t like competing with others for resources. You could even be as far to the right as the fascists yet you oppose state intervention and hold the view that freeing the markets will push us further to the right.

But fascism is not a left-wing philosophy, as Chase believes.