Commies and Fascists, Sitting In a Tree

Why do conservatives consider communism and fascism to be close cousins and the opposite of conservatism?

More Like Siblings

Quora has a page with some wonderful answers that describe common characteristics of Communism and Fascism and that contrast them with Conservatism. However, common characteristics merely makes for similarity. “Close cousins” implies common heritage and genetic commonality that cause the commonalities. The metaphor bears truth.

Just as Vladimir Lenin and built Mao Zedong built their bloody Communist regimes upon a foundation of Marxism, so did Giovanni Gentile built his philosophy of Fascism upon Marxism. (Is Fascism Right or Left?) Thus, Communism and Fascism derive from a common philosophy. They are more like half-sibling rivals than like cousins. (Progressivism shares those roots, and Communist governments had a hand in establishing it in American politics.)

Children of Marxism

The children of Marxism are rooted in the idea that the collective (that is, in practice, the State) is a higher organism than man. They require acceptance of a Utopian notion of citizens submitting their interests to the common good.

That is a fine idea, as long as the system is filled with hypothetical, ideal humans. However, in practice, it has two fatal flaws. First, humans are a competitive, self-interested species. Someone will always claw his or her way to the top, and bolder citizens will fight for freedom.

Second, the State will always have to use indoctrination, intimidation, and force to cause everybody to submit to the collective’s will or to preserve the top dog’s rule, crushing freedom and removing incentive to excel. Thus, Marxism’s children, Communism and Fascism, always lead to totalitarianism.

Conservatism

American Conservatism is rooted in the idea that the individual is the ultimate earthly organism. That is why the Founders established a government with the People at the top, a Constitution expressing their will, and Government at the bottom. Whereas the People subjected under Marxism exist to serve the government, in Conservatism, the government exists to serve the people. That is why Marxist governments claim for themselves all capital, or at least control of capital, whereas Capitalist governments remove as little capital as possible from the People.

Conservatism also recognizes what happens when you introduce flawed, self-interested humans into any system. Freedom and retaining the fruit of one’s labors give people incentive to excel, raising metrics for the whole society. Moreover, Conservatism recognizes the need for balancing powers within politics and government, a major tenet of the US Constitution, so that competing interests keep each other in check. This contrasts against rule one-party rule and dictatorship that always develop in Marxist governments.

Another contrast is that Marxist “Social Justice” dictates equality of outcome that places heavier burdens on disfavored classes, such as forced redistribution of wealth to less successful classes, whereas Conservatism emphasizes equality of rights, individual responsibility for outcome, and voluntary charity. Thus, Conservatism champions personal charity and individual justice whereas Social Justice depersonalizes charity and undermines equal justice.

I have specified American Conservatism because the word Conservatism is defined by its context. It generally indicates a philosophy of preserving the current system. American Conservatives who want to restore lost values are insultingly called "paleo conservatives," when in fact, many of them would have been considered moderate-to-liberal just a generation ago.

American Conservatism is known in the rest of the world as liberalism because it champions conditions that allow liberty, unlike monarchy and Marxism. More importantly, American Conservatism could be better described as Americanism because it promotes the foundational values of American society and government, in resistance to Marxist values that now dominate the Left.

However, we stick with the label Conservatism because we can’t stomach the screams of “How dare you call me un-American” from un-American Leftists.

What's So Bad about Being a Liberal?

First, not all that presents itself as conservative is actually conservative.

The Republican Party poorly represents conservatism. In fact, the GOP vacillates between moderately conservative on some issues and liberal economics and internationalism. I would guess that a third of the GOP is actually liberal, a third sticks a wet finger in the air, and a minority is actually conservative. For example, George W. Bush got tax cuts passed early in his administration, but cooperated with Democrat-led bail-outs of banks and GM.

So, let's not use Republicans to define the opposite of liberalism.

Second, being liberal is a good thing; and progress is good when the goal is good and the means are just. Being a liberal or a progressive, however, has a very peculiar meaning that does not necessarily connect to the root words, liberal and progress.

In my definitions (not necessarily standard, but offered for the sake of communication), conservatism seeks to preserve traditional values of liberty, self-reliance, and justice that does not respect persons.

Liberalism, or as the codeword is used today, progressivism, on the other hand, redefines a neutral term. Progress is good, right? Doesn't everybody love progress?

When you say change (as in hope and change) or progress, you have to pick a direction. You have to pick an origination and a destination. Depending on your definition of progress, it may or may not mean something good. The compass has only one North, but it has 359 degree-markers that point away from North.

Suppose your objective were to see far with an unobstructed view, so you climb the highest mountain. Progress would be pretty stupid if it meant trekking off that cliff to the West, wouldn't it? What else could you do? You could build a tower where you are, on your existing foundation. But would you leave the spot just because change is good?

The progressive compass points hard left, to 270 degrees, toward freedom for immorality and toward repression of traditional morality, toward collectivist statism, and toward "social justice" that bases rights on class, skin color, and sexual orientation.

American conservatives see progressive, liberal, socialist, and Marxist, as variations of a single philosophy. That philosophy derives from secular, materialist existentialism, in which interpretation is reality, objective truth is a myth, and the ultimate organism is the state.

Whereas Americanism states that authority flows from God through the People to the government, the progressive spectrum worships the Collective as the ultimate organism, whose people live at its pleasure. Americanism secures rights to the people and assigns responsibilities to the government, but progressivism gives the government rights and the people privileges. Conservative liberalism means personal tolerance and personal giving (to which the restaurant help will attest after any political convention), but Progressive liberalism forces promotion of the tolerable and gives at the expense of others.

If you believe black is white and right is wrong, then, I suppose, being a liberal is great.