The socialism of the National Front
Over at the Libertarian Alliance you Sean Gabb has put up some interviews made in 1991 for a documentary about Liberty.
One of the interviews is with Ian Anderson of the National Front. In it, he espouses a very socialist and Marxist view of liberalism. The free market, he states, allows for accumulation of wealth which leads to oppression of the masses by the rich. He trots out many of the same (incorrect) arguments against liberalism that the socialist does.
The only difference I can tell is a focus on ‘racial problems’ and enforced segregation.
Although he claims that he’s not a socialist because he wants power to be ‘given to the British people’ not to the government. However his focus on enforcing particular solutions (collective ownership by the workers) is distinctly socialist in the broader sense.
I think this really does show that National Socialism, is not simply a form of fascism, its also a form of socialism.
The scariest thing for me is that if you took away the context of Nationalism and the National Front, much of it would be agreed upon by many Liberal Democrats.
Here’s the video:
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February 5th, 2008 at 6:57 pm
It’s also notable how the Labour ‘left’ (and socialist splinter groups) echo the protectionist concerns of the nationalist ‘right’ with their opposition to the Euro currency and to Europe in general, particularly where immigration ‘threatens’ protected British workers.
The violently intolerant nationalism of Marxist Sinn Fein displays similar features.
February 12th, 2008 at 10:26 pm
Of course there are similarities in what the opposite extremes identify as the problems. But the solutions they point to are vastly different. The differences between socialism and National Socialism are a more extreme version of those between Liberalism and Libertarianism. Just because they sound the same doesn’t mean they are the same.
February 13th, 2008 at 10:10 am
No Duncan.
Socialism, despite its many well meaning adherents, is inextricably linked with National Socialism.
True, National Socialists consciously choose nationality rather than class as the discriminating factor (but class is still a factor) and socialism seeks state ownership whereas national socialism seeks state control through corporatism, but these are just manifestations of the root ideology in socialism.
(Libertarianism is essentially liberalism anyway, its just a name taken on when liberalism came to mean interventionism and socialism in the US and to a lesser extent in the UK. True, some libertarians are extremely logical, but the old Liberal Party used to contain such people, and the liberal movement as a whole did even more so).
February 14th, 2008 at 4:22 am
Well, I mostly see libertarianism used to refrence anarcho-capitalism. Non-initiation of force as an inviolate rule is rather a long way from liberalism.
The end goal of socialism is typically workers control rather than state control. We could argue about the actual diffrence, but I think there is an ideological gap.
February 14th, 2008 at 8:17 am
Tinter:
Libertarianism is a broad church. There are those like the Rothbardians who take it as anarcho-capitalism, but when you look at the Cato Institute, Reason or even the Libertarian Party you see that its a far broader range.
Basically its liberalism - individualism, limited government, individual freedom, voluntary association. Just like in the 19th Century liberalism ran the gamut from Gladstone to Spencer and Herbert, today libertarianism has a similar diversity.
In the UK, due to the remnant of the original meaning of liberalism, libertarianism does tend to mean the Spencer and Herbert end of liberalism rather than the Gladstone, but even then, there’s plenty of diversity of thought and definitely no general leaning towards anarchism.
As for worker ownership of the means to production - that’s precisely what the NF spokesman was advocating…
February 14th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I read reason on occasion. Even if it could be called liberalism, it is very much on the outskirts. The non-initiation of force ideal is still pretty strong even amongst minarchists, and doesn’t really fit with liberalism post-19th Century.
I don’t mean this as an insult- while not a libertarian, I hold the same views and use their arguments on a range of issues. I still see a large gap in where the two aim towards.
Well, I could get into a long essay about this. Facism, doctrinally, put state corpratism at the forefront and the nation above all. However, appealing as it does to the disenchanted working class, many prefer to take some “old labour” economics and mix it with racial nationalism. So I would say that a divergence from facism.
Socialists do have a genuine concern for the individual. I don’t disagree on the utter faliure of their economic policies regarding this, but their ideological position does not demand the same submission to the group explicitly; it just occurs in some areas almost as happenstance.
I think that in many areas of Western Europe it is socialists who lead on civil liberties bears this out. I couldn’t ever see a facist doing that.
I think Duncans comparision is illuminating, but not by intent. Regardless of the gap I see between libertarianism and liberalism, its obvious they both approach from an individual-oriented view. I do not think that a similar wide-view comparision can be made between socialism and facism, even if sometimes some economic comparisions can be found. Italian facist parties for example have no grounds for comparision at all- wheras with liberal and libertarian groups I do not expect this is ever the case.