Hamlet
Manic Depressive
Originally posted by MrPresident
I am sorry but that is completely wrong. Communism has defined goals and ways in which to achieve them. It has explainations as why these goals should be meet.
But that's a nonsense argument. What is conservatism's "defined goals" in your opinion, then? Every ideology has a "goal". Please don't try and make out that simply because Communism works towards a utopian society, it has a monopoly on ideology, because it does not. You're trying to make out that an ideology has to be a solid, universally agreed upon, unchagerble item, and none of them are. Not even Communism. Fascism is not particular to Italy, Italian fascism is merely the basis for fascist theory and practice, just as Communists draw upon Das Kapital etc. All fascists share some common ideological goals and beliefs, and, contrary to what you say, they do explain why they should be pursued. Democracy is a weak and inneficent system that leads to national stagnation, so the country is best lead by a great leader who embodies the national characteristic, etc. Such as:
-Militant nationalism, proclaiming the racial and cultural superiority of the dominant ethnic group and asserting that group's inherent right to a special dominant position over other peoples in both the domestic and the international order
-The adulation of a single charismatic national leader said to possess near superhuman abilities and to be the truest representation of the ideals of the national culture, whose will should therefore literally be law
-Emphasis on the absolute necessity of complete national unity, which is said to require a very powerful and disciplined state organization (especially an extensive secret police and censorship apparatus), unlimited by constitutional restrictions or legal requirements and under the absolute domination of the leader and his political movement or party
-Militant anti-Communism coupled with the belief in an extreme and imminent threat to national security from powerful and determined Communist forces both inside and outside the country
-Contempt for democratic socialism, democratic capitalism, liberalism, and all forms of individualism as weak, degenerate, divisive and ineffective ideologies leading only to mediocrity or national suicide
-Glorification of physical strength, fanatical personal loyalty to the leader, and general combat-readiness as the ultimate personal virtues
-A sophisticated apparatus for systematically propagandizing the population into accepting these values and ideas through skilled manipulation of the mass media, which are totally monopolized by the regime once the movement comes to power
-A propensity toward pursuing a militaristic and aggressive foreign policy
-Strict regulation and control of the economy by the regime through some form of corporatist economic planning in which the legal forms of private ownership of industry are nominally preserved but in which both workers and capitalists are obliged to submit their plans and objectives to the most detailed state regulation and extensive wage and price controls, which are designed to insure the priority of the political leadership's objectives over the private economic interests of the citizenry. Therefore under fascism most of the more important markets are allowed to operate only in a non-competitive, cartelized, and governmentally "rigged" fashion.
How exactly can you claim that fascism is not an ideology, when all fascist regimes and exponents share many comprehensive and coherent set of basic beliefs about political, economic, social and cultural affairs?
Originally posted by MrPresident
So I think that Nazism probably isn't a sub-strand of fascism but the German equivalent.
Nazism was Hitler's attempts at applying a workable fascist system (influenced by Mussolini's practices and ideas) to Germany, Marxist-leninism was simply Lenin applying Communism to Russia, as you pointed out. What's the difference? They're both attempts to apply a certain type of system based on beliefs by a certain follower of a way of organising society.