Saturday, June 16, 2012

How To Tell The Far-Left And Far-Right Apart In The Greek Elections

You can't tell the players without a scorecard.

The media tells us that socialists are far-left and fascists are far-right. Nowhere is this more evident than in the upcoming Greek elections where the socialist Syriza Party and the fascist Golden Dawn Party both expect strong showings. Differentiating between the Syriza lefties and far-right Golden Dawners is easy.
  • Syriza wants to renege on Greek debt agreements. So does Golden Dawn.
  • Syriza blames bankers for Greek problems. So does Golden Dawn.
  • Syriza wants to continue government spending to support the economy. So does Golden Dawn.
  • Syriza fanatics use violence to make their points. So do fanatics for Golden Dawn.
  • Syriza doesn't have a problem with immigrants. Golden Dawn hates them.
There. That's it! You can now easily tell them apart. If it gets muddled in your head again, just remember this easy mnemonic: Socialism is total government power. National Socialism is total government power for the Nation. And that, dear readers, is the difference between far-right and far-left*.

Bonus Bit: Showing how over-applying the principles of Milton Friedman takes you from being a moderate to being a Nazi is left as an exercise for the reader.

This guy was just a hop, skip and a jump from being a fascist.

* - I wonder if this is because the folks in the press think that anyone not in favor of total government power is insane.

2 comments:

Doo Doo Econ said...

Schools of socialism are not very diverse. Marxism 101 is the same root of these drug induced psuedo-intellectual exercises.

However, when conservatives defend government power "for the children" or to "stop pornography" it comes off as imperial and fascist-like to permissive liberals.

It is better to be for something than against something as a popular culture issue.

sykes.1 said...

Fascism, like Naziism, is a socialist ideology. It differs from classical socialism and communism in that it advances the cause of the Nation. Classical socialism and communism usually mouth the international brotherhood of the workers and farmers and eschew nationalism. However, during WWI all the socialist parties supported the war efforts of their own countries. This was a great scandal to the purists and led to schisms. E.g., Mussolini, a leading theorist of the Italian Socialist party was expelled for his nationalist beliefs and set up his own version of socialism, the Fascist party.