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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Suma who wrote (10159)	1/28/2006 10:43:59 AM
From: Dale Baker	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 541326

The answer to your question would fill most Comparative Politics 101 courses at college level. I'm sure someone here will dispute it, but the level of state involvement and state control in various issues tends to grow as you go from a moderate approach out to the extremes of fascism and communism. Bush and his crowd are big government believers on the security side, and even in domestic spending when it suits them. The non-security big government was designed and implemented by moderate to liberal Democrats from the 1930's onward. Once you move further out to dogmatic liberals, you see more government involvement. The left has its slate of pet causes from heavy government regulation of the private sector to direct state involvement like national health plans. American liberals rarely venture very far into direct state ownership (Amtrak is an exception). They would also legislate lots of political correctness for all their favorite interest groups. And they believe in income distribution from the rich to the poor through government programs. The harder core conservative right will use the state to favor corporate interests with laws or lack of regulation, tax breaks, etc. The interests of companies and the state really start to line up. They will also take their social agenda and use government power to restrict individual conduct if they can. Often that includes stifling dissent through strict security laws (but not as strict as fascist - see below). A real socialist believes the state should own big parts of the economy directly - look at Europe a few decades back before airlines and railways were privatized, plus utility companies and many others. A socialist believes that the private sector won't respond to lower class needs so the state must mandate product and service delivery in many sectors. All of the above still believe in democratic elections and some restraint on military and police powers at home. Authoritarians go further to use the police and military to control or ban their opponents. You cannot do anything the state doesn't approve of, but you aren't compelled to be an active follower of the ruling party. Once you get to fascism and communism, that restraint is gone. Both are totalitarian systems that believe in the state controlling everything. You aren't just forbidden from doing what the state dislikes; you are forced to live a life according to the rules and decisions of the state. Your job, education, housing, military service, youth activities and on and on are run by them. No dissent or input is allowed from citizens. I know more about communism then fascism having read Marx and Lenin but not Hitler or Mussolini's works. The theory is that society on its own cannot be allowed to make any of its own choices, so the state dictates. In communism, the alleged goal is equality through the abolition of the class structure (which we all know is crap). For fascism, I suspect that patriotism and loyalty to the "fatherland" is the goal - save the Reich, as it were. The analytical confusion comes in when people take a moderate left position like proposed governmental regulations in industry and distort it as a socialist position, where the state would seek control over an entire economic sector. Or a conservative is called a fascist because they believe in spending more on the military. The Hitler Youth was a fascist creation - ROTC and the National Guard are not. That just barely skims the surface. Hope it helps you get started thinking about it all. PS I have lived under a couple of governments that leaned heavily toward authoritarianism in some areas. Once you see truly unrestrained executive power, I don't think as many folks in the US would be in favor of it.