Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change |
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| Title: | Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Change |
| Author: | Jonah Goldberg |
| Publisher: | Broadway |
| Type: | Book / Paperback |
| Publication Date: | 02 June, 2009 |
| ISBN / ISBN-13: | 0767917189 / 9780767917186 |
| List Price: | $17.00 |
| You Save: | $5.44 |
| Amazon Price: | $11.56 |
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Editorial Review / Publisher's Information:
Product Description
“Fascists,” “Brownshirts,” “jackbooted stormtroopers”—such are the insults typically hurled at conservatives by their liberal opponents. Calling someone a fascist is the fastest way to shut them up, defining their views as beyond the political pale. But who are the real fascists in our midst?
Liberal Fascism offers a startling new perspective on the theories and practices that define fascist politics. Replacing conveniently manufactured myths with surprising and enlightening research, Jonah Goldberg reminds us that the original fascists were really on the left, and that liberals from Woodrow Wilson to FDR to Hillary Clinton have advocated policies and principles remarkably similar to those of Hitler's National Socialism and Mussolini's Fascism.
Contrary to what most people think, the Nazis were ardent socialists (hence the term “National socialism”). They believed in free health care and guaranteed jobs. They confiscated inherited wealth and spent vast sums on public education. They purged the church from public policy, promoted a new form of pagan spirituality, and inserted the authority of the state into every nook and cranny of daily life. The Nazis declared war on smoking, supported abortion, euthanasia, and gun control. They loathed the free market, provided generous pensions for the elderly, and maintained a strict racial quota system in their universities—where campus speech codes were all the rage. The Nazis led the world in organic farming and alternative medicine. Hitler was a strict vegetarian, and Himmler was an animal rights activist.
Do these striking parallels mean that today’s liberals are genocidal maniacs, intent on conquering the world and imposing a new racial order? Not at all. Yet it is hard to deny that modern progressivism and classical fascism shared the same intellectual roots. We often forget, for example, that Mussolini and Hitler had many admirers in the United States. W.E.B. Du Bois was inspired by Hitler's Germany, and Irving Berlin praised Mussolini in song. Many fascist tenets were espoused by American progressives like John Dewey and Woodrow Wilson, and FDR incorporated fascist policies in the New Deal.
Fascism was an international movement that appeared in different forms in different countries, depending on the vagaries of national culture and temperament. In Germany, fascism appeared as genocidal racist nationalism. In America, it took a “friendlier,” more liberal form. The modern heirs of this “friendly fascist” tradition include the New York Times, the Democratic Party, the Ivy League professoriate, and the liberals of Hollywood. The quintessential Liberal Fascist isn't an SS storm trooper; it is a female grade school teacher with an education degree from Brown or Swarthmore.
These assertions may sound strange to modern ears, but that is because we have forgotten what fascism is. In this angry, funny, smart, contentious book, Jonah Goldberg turns our preconceptions inside out and shows us the true meaning of Liberal Fascism.
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Customer Reviews:
• Absolutely Suberb. Should Be Required Reading In College History
15 March, 2010
This is a great, amazing book. It is exceedingly well written, well researched and well documented, and it gives a refreshing, alternative view of history that you will NOT find in the standard liberal-dominated texts. The author eschews political-correctness in favor of seeking out the truth! He makes a deep impression that Fascism is simply State-control of a society, and is hence a form of statism, which is usually a left-wing phenomenon. He totally debunks the old, kneejerk habit of liberals calling conservatives "fascists" (which they believe basically because they say so), by showing how fascism started out as a form of socialism, ie was a movement on the left, and follows it from the WWI Progressives to the Liberals, through FDR, the Great Society, the 60's radical street movements, the liberal God-State, and up to today's "Global Village" and oppressive politically-correctness.
This book should be the subject of an entire history course, in every college in America. Hooray for Goldberg! I highly recommend it!
- Amazon Customer Review
• A Wonderful Example Of How Not To Write A Book
08 March, 2010
I read this book for a book club, and I was disappointed. Since I like to say something positive about everything, I decided that this book is good at showing how not to write an intelligent book, and instead it shows you how to write persuasive arguments with little intellectual merit.
You have examples of:
1. How to use an overabundance of adverbs which are meant to sell you on an idea instead of having an actual merit. (Tech writers like myself call it marketing speak).
2. Randomly throw out beliefs to persuade the reader, even though the points have little or no relevance to the topic that you are discussing.
3. Use the same word repeatedly in every chapter title to make it seem like you are actually proving a point.
In summary...
If I wanted somebody to sell a used car for me, I would hire Jonah Goldberg. He knows how to manipulate for persuasive purposes.
For an intelligent discussion on the link between progressives, liberals, and fascists, I would go elsewhere. This book was a waste of time.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Wow, Out Of My League ...
11 March, 2010
Wow, I wanted to read this book to get specific info to better argue with my son - who is getting further and further to the left as he continues to hang around in Manhattan, at work. Given Jonah's columns, which I read often, and the cover art on the book, I had assumed this would be right up my alley, since he is usually so concise and well thought out, expressing my thoughts well, without being dry or preachy. Boy, was I wrong.
Jonah is a really smart guy, and I like him a lot, but this is not at all in the style of his columns. This is a textbook, and if you're looking for some easy talking points, you won't find them here.
I tried to read this book, even when I discovered it to be so dry, because like a bad movie, I kept waiting for the good part. 4 months later, I'm only a third of the way through. I just can't make myself read it. It is genuinely a text book, and not at all written for the casual reader. There are plenty of good points in there, and if you were giving a lecture on the subject, this would be a handy reference guide, but nothing presented (at least in the first 3rd of the book) is usable in conversation with a non-believer.
I already knew the basic premise of the book, and long ago had the same beliefs, but without proof, my son is not willing to listen to my "beliefs". I thought this would be the perfect gift for him, to help him see the light. Unfortunately, I can't give him a book I can't even get through - and I already care.
I'm no dummy, and it's not that I can't grasp what he's saying, but frankly, I don't care that much. For those already in agreement, this is too much like work, and for those who don't believe the premise, they won't do this much work only to prove themselves wrong. Absent a school assignment, I don't really see how this scholarly a book is of any value to the general public.
Sorry, Jonah. Love you, Love your columns, but this is not a good read. Fair warning to casual fans.
- Amazon Customer Review
• Complete Avoidance Of Actual Class Politics
18 March, 2010
Goldberg is one of those right-wing writers who equates capitalism with lack of government involvement in business, and who consequently categorizes fascism as anti-capitalist (and therefore "liberal,") because every fascist regime--including Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and Franco's Spain--threw heavy state resources into the marketplace. If "capitalism" just means "no government," then Goldberg is right to think of fascism as anti-capitalist.
Capitalism, however, is not the same thing as an absence of government from business. Rather, it is *private ownership of the means of production.* Capitalism is a system, in other words, characterized by private, non-democratic control over land, resources, labor, and machinery. It's possible to have private ownership of such things while getting bailouts from the government, and so it's actually possible to have capitalism with government involvement. "Fascism" is the name of this kind of capitalism. The fascist state is essentially an anti-labor state, which devotes its resources to the private sector rather than to the public, to war rather than to peace, and to exploitation and profit rather than to better conditions for workers. Thus Gaetano Salvemini, a survivor of Italian Fascism, writes, "In Fascist Italy the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise. As long as business was good, profit remained to private initiative. When the depression came, the Government added the loss to the tax-payer's burden. Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social." Fascism's main feature as a socio-economic system, then, is state re-enforcement of profits and state support of privatized control over the means of production.
The three most famous regimes to be called "fascist," however--including Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, and Franco's Spain--were not always up-front about their support of monopoly capitalism. On the contrary, all three regimes were characterized by an odd combination of revolutionary-sounding rhetoric and reactionary class politics. This resulted in an important divide between the things that fascists said and the things that they actually did.
To illustrate the point, consider the fact that the fascist Nazi party gave themselves a left-sounding name--to wit, "the national socialist German workers' party." From their name, one would think they were socialists--i.e. part of the labor movement. However, facts were the exact opposite. Rather than supporting the labor movement like real socialists would, the Nazi Brownshirts busted unions, beat up leftists and union leaders, broke workers' strikes, banned worker newspapers, murdered communists, and sent the leaders of pro-labor organizations to death camps. The Nazis gave their organization a left-sounding name to garner populist support, and appealed to imagery that appeared to valorize the working class. Yet as soon as Hitler assumed power, he immediately executed ALL communists and socialists in the Nazi party in"Operation Hummingbird." Likewise, Mussolini's Squadistri--the "Blackshirts"--were also hired by private businesses as strikebreakers, union-busters, and as a "front against Bolshevism." Far from being socialists, they were vehemently opposed to socialism. Like Hitler, Mussolini crushed his country's labor movement as soon as he assumed power, and like Hitler, he also deregulated business, cut taxes for the rich, and increased them for the poor.
All this is confirmed by the economics of fascist regimes. During the 1930s, Italy, Germany, and Spain were strangled with public recession, wage cuts, the reintroduction of child labor, the overturn of workplace safety laws, and the busting of unions, even though profits for big corporations like I.G. Farben and the Federazione Industriale were never higher. A fascist regime, in other words, is a conservative CAPITALIST military state, in which the government is used against the working class, and in which such use is purportedly justified by appeals to conservative social values like tradition, heritage, patriotism, religion, and the family. Fascism is right-wing by being pro-capitalist and anti-labor. It is not socialism of ANY kind, nor is any kind of socialism--no matter how oppressive--the same thing as fascism.
Goldberg's study focuses on all the accidents of history while ignoring the crucial economic facts. He mentions that Italy and Germany had public works, for instance, but fails to touch on their pro-profit character. He mentions that the Nazis employed environmentalist rhetoric and practiced vegetarianism, while ignoring the fact that huge funds were given to Germany's largest polluting corporations. Finally, Goldberg focuses on accidental elements that are common to leftist and rightist political systems, such as the cult of personality, which can be in place regardless of how a country's economy is organized. Goldberg, like the fascists themselves, chooses to focus on what the fascists said rather than what they did, and treats their propaganda as accurate rather than looking at the socio-economic facts.
- Amazon Customer Review
• I'm Not Buying It Man..
11 March, 2010
Conservative columnist and author Jonah Goldberg has always had a big beef with the left, and the latest liberal thing to be getting under his skin is the hurling of the word "fascist!" by those ever-so militant leftists at Conservative figures and icons such as himself. To kind of turn the tables, as well (come on let's be real here) get some payback, Jonah attempts to tie Fascism to modern Liberalism, and show that both political philosophhies share the same ideological root, alas, his book: Liberal Fascism.
And what an attempt it is. I got to give it to Jonah, he may have not done so well on the test, but he sure as hell did his homework: first, he gives a plethora of historical examples of liberal Presidents (most prominently FDR) instituting massive state-run economic and public works programs and compares this to the similiar programs instituted by the Nazis (as well as by the Italian fascists in Italy) to revitialize their countries' economies, and this, in Jonah's mind, proves that fascists and Liberals are very alike, he's got a point right? Whoa, not so fast. Just because two parties happen to share some ideas, doesn't mean they're alike, hell, you can make the case that both modern Conservatives and fascists are for big military spending, and thus, conservatives and fascists are alike and that they share similiar ideological roots, so he could just as easily write a book called Conservative Fascism (I'm sure Michael Moore would give the foreword)..but I digress. Next, he gives examples of early 20th century prominent intellectuals and celebrities expressing admiration for the economic programs instituted by Hitler and Mussolini in their respective countries, and Jonah proves once again he's done his research, but once again he pushes it too far. It is true that many early 20th century liberal intellectuals such as W.E.B. Dubois expressed admiration for many of the policies Hitler and Mussolini undertook to revitalize their countries, however men such as Dubois praised them only for their economic, and (obviously) not their social policies, and indeed liberals such as Dubois later condemnded the Nazis for their militarism and racism. Also, the admirers of fascists also could be found among the ultra-conservative ranks, the most obvious being the KKK, so you could once again say that conservatives are more like fascists, and you're back to square one. Jonah's thesis..is not holding together..
And last and not least..he compares the ways of modern liberal politicians to the personality cults of fascist dictators..and to really drive the point home he uses a famous speech by Hilary Clinton to say (or at least kind of imply) that she is an authoritarian fascist. Is he serious? Say what you will about Hilary folks, she may be phony..she may be an unreasonably loyal wife...and she may be a straight up stubborn bi..um.(can't say that on here)..but one thing she is not is a fascist. Jonah's jab at Hilary was a new low.
So, to sum things up, Jonah's thesis is wrong..liberalism, with it's respect for democracy, representative government, minority protection, equal rights,and individual liberty has little in common with the fascism of old. However, if Goldberg really wanted to make a scholarly contribution to the world and score big points for the right wing at the same time, he should have written a book detailing the links and similarities between fascism and communism, since both fascist and communist countries (unlike liberal and fascist countries) do HAVE A LOT in common-authoritarianism, lack of democracy, government encroachment on individual and economic liberty, massive propaganda and censorship, etc..but hey who am I kidding..it's the 2000s, and to get the big check and all the publicity on FOX NEWS Jonah had to write a book bashing Liberals instead..
So would I recommend this book? If you're looking for typical political polemic and smearing..sure..but if you're looking for a serious scholarly work..turn your eyes elsewhere.
- Amazon Customer Review
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