Correctly Defining Fascism...

Fascism, in essence, is nothing more than a COMMAND (government-directed) culture within the framework of a COMMAND (government-run or directed) economy. THAT is "fascism" in a nutshell.

That's why, while both Pinochet and Sukarno were fascists, they pale in comparison to the most notable, brutal and yes, successful fascists of recent history – HITLER, STALIN and MAO.

The ONLY difference between Hitler, Stalin and Mao and fellow fascists like Sukarno and Pinochet, is that the latter saw the abject failure of the command economy all around them and took advice from one of the greatest economists of the 20th Century, Milton Friedman. Dr. Friedman ranks only behind Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises in the pantheon of the 20th Century’s greatest economists and he probably ranks in the top 5, certainly the top 7 of all time.

Because of their taking the advice of “the Chicago School” both Pinochet and Sukarno were able to preside over the ONLY two productive COMMAND economies ever to exist. By delivering that advice, the SAME advice that Dr. Friedman gave every other Command Economy at the time, he was able to convince two fascist tyrants to begrudgingly accept the necessity of the FOUNDATION of ALL freedom, ECONOMIC LIBERTY (the natural right of all who produce to maintain OWNERSHIP and CONTROL over what they produce)...without that foundation, there is no possibility of freedom for the individual. Now that's something that EVERY American and EVERY freedom-lover on earth should be proud of.

So called “liberals” or Leftists seeking to smear Professor Friedman’s pro-LIBERTY (freedom) ethos by perversely linking it to with the likes of Pinochet and Sukarno (he also met with and delivered the same advice to the then USSR), is as absurd as smearing all anti-tobacco policies because Hitler was the first modern world leader to seek to restrict and prohibit the use of tobacco (he was), OR smearing all environmental policies because Hitler was the first modern world leader to embrace modern environmentalism, elevating nature to a status above man’s (he was), OR tarring all gun policies (even requiring training and proper handling) because Hitler, Mao and Stalin, like almost all tyrants, were reflexive “gun grabbers.”

While reasonable people can disagree on any and all of those issues, they DO deserve to be considered strictly on their merits and not debased by being linked to the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao.

Now, I DO revile Hitler for these disgusting sentiments from May 1st, 1927; "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." I can’t imagine a more vile, misanthropic sentiment one could express than that.

Free people ARE valued according to their productive abilities (what they produce)...so, we are all judged/evaluated according to the amount of wealth and property we possess. For merely expressing these sentiments alone, Hitler proved himself a disgusting tyrant, vigorously opposed to human freedom and dignity. Every word of that quote is antithetical to America’s Founding design.

As far as linking religions to fascism, that’s another inane stretch. Hitler, like Stalin and Mao reviled the Roman Catholic Church and sought to instill an Aryan mythology, built around himself as “the promised father or savior” to replace all other religions in Germany. MOST, if not all fascists seek to install a cult of personality (built around THEMSELVES) as the chosen replacement for religion.

In the BOTH Communist China and the USSR, all religions were barred, EXCEPT for atheism, which is as much a faith-based belief system as any religion and BOTH those regimes exterminated more innocents than Hitler, Pol Pot and the rest of the 20th Century’s despots combined!

Fascism’s primary sin is not mass murder, not by a long shot - post revolutionary France was rife with mass exterminations and that was a pure democracy – no, fascism’s primary sin is that it opposes human freedom/INDIVIDUAL Liberty.

That’s why, in the grand scheme of things, Sukarno (who allegedly killed over ONE MILLION communists) and Pinochet (charged with killing a few thousand) were relatively MINOR tyrants. While they were often as brutal and ruthless and the rest of their ilk, they, for whatever reasons, accepted Milton Friedman’s prescient economic advice, accepted economic liberty (the foundation of ALL other freedoms) and wound up with surprisingly (even to Dr. Friedman, who didn’t think economic liberty could exist absent political freedom) productive economies. In fact, two of the most prosperous economies ever presided over by tyrants. So, the bulk of the citizens in those places, suffered LESS than those in places like the USSR, Cuba, Cambodia, etc.

EVERY ONE of America’s Founder espoused the SAME private property rights and individual liberty (the basic and inalienable right of the producer to control/keep what he/she has produced) and the open or “free” market economy, that the likes of Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises and Milton Friedman did.

Perhaps the easiest way for anyone to understand fascism is that it stands primarily against ECONOMIC LIBERTY – the foundation of ALL other freedoms.

Basically, ANYthing that runs counter to what America’s Founders (Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, etc.) espoused is certainly anti-LIBERTY, which is anti-freedom and probably fascist, as well.

FASCISM'S primary sin is that it is opposed to ECONOMIC LIBERTY, the FOUNDATION of all other freedoms, for if a person does not control/own what he produces then he doesn't and cannot be said to own himself or his own life.

Again, the reason that Dr. Friedman was one of the greatest economists of the 20th Century, is because he delivered a veritable MIRACLE! He got TWO confirmed fascists (Sukarno and Pinochet) to open their economies to ECONOMIC FREEDOM and from that sprang a shockingly vibrant prosperity within two otherwise repressive regimes. That has made him a hero to any open-minded American, ESPECIALLY liberal Americans.

In fact, Sukarno and Pinochet presided over the TWO most productive economies ever to exist under tyrannical despots...thanks, in large measure to their taking the advice given to them by Professor Friedman.

Friedman offered the very same advice to the former USSR at around the same time. They rebuffed that advice to their detriment.

Ironically enough, Russia has taken a good deal of Friedman's advice since the fall of the USSR. Today Russia has a Flat Tax and private ownership of property and that's one of the reasons for its post break-up surge in prosperity. China has also followed suit. See Ted Koppel's The People's Republic of Capitalism.

That's why Marxism is today thoroughly and utterly discredited around the world.

On Robin’s GREAT blog (Conservative Black Woman http://conservativeblkwoman.blogspot.com/ I’ve seen this great quote, “Where justice is denied, where poverty is enforced, where ignorance prevails, and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

Frederick Douglass

This particular phrase, “and where any one class is made to feel that society is an organized conspiracy to oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe,” is the key and the KEY phrase there is “ANY ONE CLASS.”

Unfortunately and very foolishly, many people don’t recognize that ANY ONE CLASS includes the most despised, hated and envied class throughout human history, the land owners, the merchant-class, the business-owners, also known as the PRODUCTIVE CLASS, although far more often derided as the “hated” or “filthy rich.”

Wherever you have such people under siege by “redistributive schemes” and other attempts by others to “rob, oppress and degrade them,” no one’s life or property is long safe.

Of that there is no question.

That quote is one of the best blanket indictments of class envy and of fascism ever spoken.


H/T to Robin at ConservativeBlackWoman (http://conservativeblkwoman.blogspot.com/)