World News

In order, but not quoting because mobile app and lazy:

Yes.

I said some.

They were both liberal, in that they were both proponents of liberalism, as in "liberal democracy." Not liberalism as left of center. Liberalism as in market economies and private property.

I'm also not necessarily associating liberalism as a whole to fascism. All zits are zots, but not all zots are zits, you dig? Fascism is an outgrowth of liberalism and capitalism, but it doesn't mean liberalism is fascistic or that it is inevitable. It means that when liberalism is threatened, in decline, backed into a corner by its own contradictions, fascism is one way that it defends itself so that the status quo can be maintained. It just depends on which part of the status society/the ruling class/those in charge value more. The personal freedom bit, the private property bit, the lifestyle of the rich bit? Social democracy is another way that liberalism defends itself, favored by those who value the other end of the spectrum. Fascism is a reaction to growing tensions around those contradictions and growing support for things like social democracy and actual socialism.

Also, this article specifically cites neo liberalism, an ideology of its own, and an outgrowth of liberalism, but liberalism itself. The shittiest form liberalism takes without going full fash IMHO, but it's hard to define "shitty" in any sort of academic sense. But fuck Reagan and Thatcher.

The term liberalism has a wide history, associating it as a whole to fascism sounds a stretch.

What specifically got called out was neoliberalism. While ordoliberalism was briefly called neoliberalism the general understanding of the term is "Whatever nefarious shit the Atlas network is currently up to". Things like conflating the free market with unregulated markets (which are anything but free), trickle-down economics, ludicrously excessive rent seeking behaviour, like say privatised pension funds, publishing ratings calling countries "nanny states" for having warnings on cigarettes because yes the tobacco lobby is very much part of that ilk, really the list is pretty endless: It's pure class war. War creates victims, those victims need handling, and misdirection of ire is a very convenient strategy, "It's not the billionaires who own everything who are at fault that you can't make rent, it's the immigrants".

It's not just Marx who is rotating in his grave, Adam Smith is very much spinning with at least the same RPM. It's after all his own work which gets abused by those people.

As to the more sensible liberalisms -- they largely got captured. The EU has a strong ordoliberal bent actually regulating markets ((it's in fact constitutionally a social market economy), but that neolib shit is still eating away at it and many people, even policy makers, can't really tell the difference.

The term liberalism has a wide history, associating it as a whole to fascism sounds a stretch.

Socialists seem rather illiberal about the definition and allowed use of the word and concept of liberal. They hear "a liberal?" and think "a fascist!". I suspect that this greatly plays into the polarization between tankies and limbrols here on lemmy.

For example a newer definition of fascism is 1. belief in inequality based on 2. a mythological identity (e.g. race which isn't real). That is useful to talk about trumpism vs the neoliberal democrats. But socialists completely refute that and insist it's both the same fascism because capitalism. And that is where any discussion ends in my experience. It's like we're dividing and conquering ourselves for the benefit of the fascists..

Of course they are right in terms of foreign policy, which is absolutely fascist towards "shithole countries" no matter who rules in the white house. Neoliberalism is: 1. belief in inequality based on 2. economic or class status 3. personal freedom to die in whatever way seems best to you.

And once the prosperity is distributed away with rising wealth inequality that does lead to plutocracy and then fascism. And I suspect the socialists are right that without an explicit socialist component in your ideology this outcome is inevitable.

But unfortunately their definitions are stuck based on outdated theories written before 1950.