In reality, far from stopping the far right, Germany is implementing a far right agenda. Increase police authority? Check. Scapegoat immigrants and other marginalized groups? Check. Build up the military? Check. Suppress protests and dissenters? Check. Impose austerity, providing the fertile ground for fascists? Check.
By the time the AfD comes to power, they won’t have to do anything. The liberals (including socdems and greens) will already have created a fascist society.
The same is happening to France. As you said, they’ll have a field day when (at this point it’s not if, it’s when) they get to power.
Gotta love neoliberalism…The Netherlands will very likely have a right wing government and will be heading down the same path. Same with Italy, Sweden, Denmark.
With the next European election this year the right wing parties in the European Parliament will gain a lot of traction.
We could be heading down the American path and lose a lot or the progress we made over the last 2 decades.
I will be a father in a couple or hours. Between the right taking to power and accelerating climate change i am just so fucking worried in what kind of world my kids will grow up.
Congrats on fatherhood!
Thanks a lot :-). Will be another couple of days max.
rip your back if you have to sleep on the “husband couch” in the hospital room.
The rise of right wing parties might be a consequence of the left wings failure to govern.
In Norway the Labour Party was the biggest party for decades. Now the party is infested with politicians using it for career paths to NGO’s or international organisations like UN and EU. The same party made for the labourers implements tax policies making it really hard to start industries.
Money are being spent on the most incredible projects bearing no fruit for future generations.
At a point people get fed up, and in desperation they have to vote further to the right. If you want less government spending on stupid projects you also have to get some fascism.
The problem is not the right wing parties or stupid people. The problem is worthless left wing politicians not contributing positive to the nation.
It saddens me.
The problem is worthless left wing politicians not contributing positive to the nation.
The problem isn’t a person. It’s class society itself and the capitalist mode of production.
Both Fascism and Socialism solve the problem of capitalism being in crisis; it always eventually will be, and it currently is in Europe. Fascism “solves” it by fully cementing capitalist rule and removing the veil of bourgeois “democracy”, while Socialism solves it by overthrowing capitalism entirely and establishing proletarian rule.
The far-right rising again in Europe was always the inevitable consequence of capitalists winning the Cold War and ruthlessly suppressing the Left since. The only other “solution” to the crisis is Fascism.
I am not very well read in political theory, but I would agree with the idea that capitalism HAS to end in crisis because exponancial groth just can’t be sustained.
I would further point out that, to my limited knowledge, capitalism is a (or even the) root cause of the current climate crisis (altough things like humans inability to solve long term problems, as well as other factors come into play too. After all, things like the ozon hole have been solved even under a capitalist system).
A great example of how this class operates. Our foreign minister from the Labour party had to step down due to suspicions of providing her husband with inside information on government contracts to public traded companies. The husband bought stocks and they made some cash.
The reward for this corruption is a new position as our ambassador to the US. She officially got the job two days ago.
We have seen this upper class of politicians never having to stand responsible for their actions for some years now. On both sides.
There’s no wonder people get desperate. The only solution they get provided is using their vote. And when they do use it they get called out for using it the “wrong” way.
Either the current politicians fix their shit, or the people will topple them. It’s fairly predictable.
I don’t know about other nations. In Germany we have had the Conservative Party ruling for 16 years as a right leaning Party, 4 years of a left party that implemented right wing neo fashist ideas, followed by another 16 years of conservative rule with more centeristic than right wing rule (the political void in the right was filled by the AFD, which has become a true fashist party in the last 10 years). The only “left” government we ever had in the last 36 years has been in the last 2, and they are heavily restricted by beeing in a coalition with a neo liberal right wing party.
So, at least for Germany, this just doesn’t hold true.
The only “left” government we ever had in the last 36 years has been in the last 2, and they are heavily restricted by beeing in a coalition with a neo liberal right wing party.
They’re all neoliberals. They wouldn’t be doing anything substantially different if the FDP didn’t exist.
Yes. Pretty much everywhere has had capitalists ranging from moderate to hard-line in lead. Now they’re just seeing that they can form coalitions with open fascists. Leftists don’t even have the opportunity to try to achieve change… Maybe Uruguay or such are the exception
These are a lot of statements without sources. Also most people would disagree with the statement that a government that includes social democrats and greens is implementing a “far right agenda”.
Fucking Scholz said he wanted to “finally deport in a big way” (“endlich im großen Stil abschieben”). This is (well used to be) a far right agenda. They’re sending weapons to Israeli fascists while they commit genocide, and defend them at every opportunity. These people support fascists and fascist policies.
What exactly do you even dispute is untrue about what I said?
Sorry, statement rejected - no source provided (hypocrite)
Do liberals have a theory for why fascism is sprouting up around the world?
Because Marxists are like
https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/FascismIt’s tough to be critical of “liberalism” when everyone has a different idea of what it means. It might help to specify “economic liberalism”.
Along with it’s deep flaws, Liberalism is also associated with things like the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, LGBT+ rights, etc. Conservatives also muddy the waters by blaming these things for economic hardship.
Liberalism has a definition, which Marxists have never forgotten, though thanks to two red scares and a cold war, others have forgotten. Now in Orwellian fashion, “liberalism” and “socialism” are floating signifiers, so we have liberals like Sanders calling themselves socialists despite never calling for the abolition of private ownership of the means of production.
Slavery did end under liberalism, but then again liberalism started it.
Almost nobody knows the academic definitions of most political ideologies, they’re just all cable news buzzwords now. If you took a sample of the population I’d be surprised if even 5% could give you the correct academic definitions for the vast majority of political ideology terms.
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These weren’t egghead concepts back when we had a labor movement large enough to support a labor press.
Almost like they use buzzwords to obfuscate the real meaning of the ideas that threaten their hold on power.
So that’s the change you want to see in the world. Technical linguistic grammar takes precedence over political outreach.
I fully support your desire to spread vocabular competence. My impression from your first post was that you had other priorities.
Despite the erasure of the words’ meanings in the public consciousness, the concepts still exist.
If you have new, sexier names for the concepts which will accelerate their reintroduction into the public consciousness, I’m all ears.
It doesn’t have to be sexier terminology, or even different terminology. Just don’t drop the word “liberalism” into a conversation and expect the average person to understand what your talking about.
You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition in common language. I know it’s technically incorrect, but language also isn’t static outside of academic disciplines. But ultimately you can use whatever language you want, just don’t assume a particular definition will be understood without explanation.
The only people I know of who don’t know what the word “liberal” means, especially in the context the person above was using it, are very ignorant Americans. To be clear, even though I don’t like most Americans, I’m not blaming them for being ignorant in this particular case because they have been subjected to decades of mostly uncontested propaganda deliberately obfuscating the term. But most of the rest of the world knows what everyone is talking about when saying “liberal” and knows it’s a right wing ideology. And everyone shouldn’t have to hold up the conversation to preemptively explain what the word means to those who don’t already know. People are generally expected to pick up the gist of a sentence or point via the context of what’s being said. The context was perfectly clear and it just sounds like concern trolling to go on about needing to hand-hold and dumb down the terminology being used for “the average person.”
You could use “corporatism” which has kind of taken over that definition
“Neoliberalism” rather. Though that’s more like mask-off imperialism. And “corporatism” is just capitalism but when you don’t want to admit that the problem is capitalism.
Either way liberalism is the same idealist, individualist culture/ideology that emerges under capitalism to maintain that capitalist mode of production, and must be destroyed along with the mode of production it sustains.
Overthrowing liberalism/capitalism and stopping fascism requires mass organization and class consciousness, part of which is often understanding these basic concepts. And people did. They have to again.
These weren’t egghead concepts back when we had a labor movement large enough to support a labor press.
All I’m saying is that if you don’t take your audience into consideration, your message will be misunderstood. If you want to use the “correct” (more debatable than you think) terminology when that terminology isn’t well understood in the culture, then take the time to explain the language. Or keep scratching your head about why your getting downvotes and convincing nobody.
keep scratching your head about why your getting downvotes and convincing nobody
Yeah you do that.
I’m getting downvotes because I’m telling a bunch of bubble communists that actual communication is more important than in-group signalling. No head scratches required. It’s why the left has been hopelessly ineffective for at least half a century.
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I know exactly why I’m getting downvotes. No head scratches required.
Liberalism is also associated with things like the abolition of slavery, universal suffrage, LGBT+ rights
Communists had to pry these concessions from liberalism with organized violence, don’t pretend like liberalism did these things.
You quoted me, then immediately misquoted me. I didn’t say what you think I said.
Sorry should have phrased it as “people shouldn’t pretend…”
honestly there seems to be some confusion/distinction only in the US.
i think most people elsewhere mean mostly “neoliberal capitalism” when they say “liberal”.
What year is it?
1930 something.
Today, German lawmakers are rewriting bylaws and pushing for constitutional amendments to ensure courts and state parliaments can provide checks against a future, more powerful AfD. Some have even launched a campaign to ban the AfD altogether.
You see, democracy is when…
I’ll help you with this sentence:
… it defends itself against an undemocratic power.
Right, like the USSR, China, DPRK, and Cuba
L take. AES countries which are actual democracies do the same thing.
Though of course, banning it isn’t gonna go anywhere for Germany unless they tackle the root cause of capitalism.
