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Liberal Fascism?
David Gordon
Lew
Rockwell.com
Friday February 1, 2008
Liberal
Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini
to the Politics of Meaning. By Jonah Goldberg. Doubleday,
2007. 487 pages.
Jonah Goldberg has ruined what could have been a valuable book.
Goldberg has in the past treated libertarians with disdain, but
here he offers an analysis of fascism that libertarians will find
familiar. Goldberg has been influenced by John T. Flynn's comparison
of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal with Italian fascism; and he
cites Friedrich Hayek with respect. He has learned from Murray
Rothbard on the progressives as well. (He at one point remarks,
"if libertarianism could account for children and foreign
policy, it would be the ideal political philosophy" [p. 344].)
Fascism is usually counted a movement of the Right; but, as Goldberg
notes, many leftists viewed Mussolini with sympathy. (Here Goldberg
follows the important work of John Patrick Diggins, Mussolini
and Fascism: The View from America.) H.G. Wells in a
speech at Oxford in 1932 called for a "Liberal Fascism";
and Rexford Tugwell, a leading member of Roosevelt's Brain Trust,
said in 1934, "I find Italy doing many of the things which
seem to me necessary…. Mussolini certainly has the same
people opposed to him as FDR has. But he has the press controlled
so that they cannot scream lies at him daily" (p. 156).
(Article continues below)
How is this possible? Leftists wish to reconstruct society along
socialistic lines; fascists glorify the nation and militarism.
How can leftists favor fascism? Goldberg readily resolves the
difficulty. Precisely by importing the war spirit into domestic
affairs, leftists hope to reconstruct society. In war, people
unite to achieve victory; in doing so, they sacrifice their personal
ends to achieve the common goal. The fascists took exactly the
same view, and many leftists accordingly recognized the affinity.
The progressives were well aware that war would enable them to
advance their ambitious social plans, and they advocated American
entry into the First World War for this reason. Herbert Croly,
author of the vastly influential
The Promise of American Life, "looked forward
to many more wars because war was the midwife of progress …
Croly's New Republic was relentless in its push for war"
(pp. 99, 107).
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INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
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