Which is more likely: a Communist or a Fascist America

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by Jello_Biafra

The data simply doesn't support that conclusion.

Americans joined the labor movement and socialist political movements with the same propensity as their European brothers all the way up to the Great Depression.

Further, unlike their European comrades, American socialist organized in rural areas with the same or greater proportion that urban areas, a feat that was simply unimaginable in Germany or France.

But at the same time, Americans have long been more hostile to strong central government and state limitations on their economic development than Europeans. There's no getting around that.

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by Wendell

But at the same time, Americans have long been more hostile to strong central government and state limitations on their economic development than Europeans. There's no getting around that.

Revolutionary socialism, especially before the Bolshevik revolution, was also highly opposed to centralized states. Karl Marx didn't laude Bismarcks' so-called Staatssozialismus, but rather the Paris Commune, with its revolutionary federalism, re-callable delegates, and creeping transition to common ownership and workers' control of the means of production.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by Jello_Biafra

Revolutionary socialism, especially before the Bolshevik revolution, was also highly opposed to centralized states. Karl Marx didn't laude Bismarcks' so-called Staatssozialismus, but rather the Paris Commune, with its revolutionary federalism, re-callable delegates, and creeping transition to common ownership and workers' control of the means of production.

Which still does not get around "temporary" control from the center and the confiscation of property by the state on behalf of the proletariat.

[Aranfan]

Originally Posted by Wendell

Which still does not get around "temporary" control from the center and the confiscation of property by the state on behalf of the proletariat.

Congrats, you've come across the Libertarian Socialist (Anarchist) criticism of Marxism.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by Aranfan

Congrats, you've come across the Libertarian Socialist (Anarchist) criticism of Marxism.

The biggest problem though with libertarian socialism is achieving it.

[tormsen]

Originally Posted by Wendell

The biggest problem though with libertarian socialism is achieving it.

Thats the problem with a great many political/social/economic systems, both tried and untried.

I feel the idea that the US is less prone to socialism is somewhat closed-minded and based far too much on the current political and social climate. Jello Biafra has written convincingly of socialist triumph in the US, and his arguments are pretty solid. "Socialism just ain't the American way" is a fine enough sentiment in it's way but it's just that: a sentiment.

[Wendell]

Originally Posted by tormsen

Thats the problem with a great many political/social/economic systems, both tried and untried.

I feel the idea that the US is less prone to socialism is somewhat closed-minded and based far too much on the current political and social climate. Jello Biafra has written convincingly of socialist triumph in the US, and his arguments are pretty solid. "Socialism just ain't the American way" is a fine enough sentiment in it's way but it's just that: a sentiment.

It's a difference of opinion, but I just don't think the fundamentals are there. Nonetheless, interesting and truly brilliant AH can result from the improbable or less likely happening. Certainly, as history has shown, reality is full of improbabilities.

[Technocrat]

The "independent" character of the US hasn't prevented close brushes with dictatorship and totalitarianism in the past; though ironically a democratic and libertarian cooperative system might be harder to institute than that - but at that point it's not the "independent spirit" or wise "distrust of authority" of Americans, it's some other factor. Americans have demonstrated a very unwise implicit trust of authority and a strongly collective attitude on national matters before; so I don't think it is really fair to describe Americans as a uniquely independent or freethinking people. Which is exactly the part that doesn't bode well for any beneficial reforms - whatever they could theoretically be.

So, I'm betting that if there was a communist type revolution in the U.S. and the oppression/repression justifying it leading up to it, it's primary impediment would be - if anything - a uniquely statist impulse among Americans, not the opposite. People blindly obeying authority, reporting in their neighbors, believing propaganda, etc. Think the Red Scares.

[von kressenstein]

Originally Posted by clendor

By the way- Learn from the Canadians, they are pretty Socialist and their crime rate is like half of the USA.

Population of canada is also vastly less
Canada: 33,739,900
United States: 307,006,550

[Alien and Sedition Bat]

I don't think a communist revolution was ever even remotely possible in the United States. Some kind of Americanized quasi-fascism might have been possible in the 1930s. Say, if Roosevelt died. Huey Long would not have instituted fascism, he just would have annoyed big business with lots of populist rhetoric. He would probably have tried to use the FBI against his opponents, but Hoover would have refused to play along. Lindbergh could have instituted a pro-fascist regime, but he was too nutty to be elected. Even if he was elected, he would not have joined the Axis, just would have withheld help from the Brits. That would have been bad enough.

For a not totally implausible scenario, see Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here.

In the future, if Islamic terrorists start to nuke American cities and millions die, we MAY have a form of fascism, probably rooted in religion, and it could be very, very ugly.

[Jello_Biafra]

I think people are getting too caught up in the particularities of OTL's fascisms and communisms, and missing the core ethos from which those movements sprang.

One thing to consider is that all OTL communist states were some variant of official Marxism-Leninism. Fascist states and movements, had no such central, animating principle.

If Marxism-Leninism was about imposing Russian prerogatives on other states, then fascism is about letting all that is dark, ugly and atavistic reign in society.

An American fascism wouldn't look like German "National Socialism" or Italian Fascism. It would be its own flavor of evil, as American as apple pie.

[Cryptic]

Originally Posted by Jello_Biafra

Further, unlike their European comrades, American socialist organized in rural areas with the same or greater proportion that urban areas, a feat that was simply unimaginable in Germany or France.

But actual socialists were in rural America?

Outside of the mining districts in the Appalachians (southeren counties in West Virginia was not unionized until the mid to late 1920s), the membership numbers of the rural Tenant Farmers Union was very low.

Even with unionized rural mining districts in the south and the west, being a union member did not always mean "committed socialist". Almost all support for a socialist / communist government was going to come from urban areas.

[Jello_Biafra]

Originally Posted by Cryptic

But actual socialists were in rural America?

Outside of the mining districts in the Appalachians (southeren counties in West Virginia was not unionized until the mid to late 1920s), the membership numbers of the rural Tenant Farmers Union was very low.

Even with unionized rural mining districts in the south and the west, being a union member did not always mean "committed socialist". Almost all support for a socialist / communist government was going to come from urban areas.

http://wsm.wsu.edu/r/index.php?id=116

Yeah, quite a few actually, especially in the West.

[Wolfpaw]

Originally Posted by Cryptic

But actual socialists were in rural America?

Outside of the mining districts in the Appalachians (southeren counties in West Virginia was not unionized until the mid to late 1920s), the membership numbers of the rural Tenant Farmers Union was very low.

Even with unionized rural mining districts in the south and the west, being a union member did not always mean "committed socialist". Almost all support for a socialist / communist government was going to come from urban areas.

I think he meant the populist movement that was so big in the farm states in the waning years of the 19th Century. Much of their platform was pretty much agrarian socialism, so there is fertile ground there for leftism to take root, albeit of a socially conservative nature.

[Petike]

Originally Posted by Jello_Biafra

An American fascism wouldn't look like German "National Socialism" or Italian Fascism. It would be its own flavor of evil, as American as apple pie.

A stereotypically WASPish and jingoistic technocracy with an outwardly (and nauseatingly) idyllic appearance ? Seems plausible to me (but then again, I'm just grabbing at semi-clichés).

A communist US wouldn't probably work, but I can imagine an Oakie-led mini revolution founding a short lived "American Republic of Councils / American Christian-Socialist Republic" (or just "Socialist Republic") in the 1930s of a TL where the OTL dust bowl years went completely insane. One already existing fictional example that comes to mind is the People's Collective from Crimson Skies - but that one is of course ridiculous and ASB on purpose (as is most of the CS TL).

[von kressenstein]

Originally Posted by Jello_Biafra

An American fascism wouldn't look like German "National Socialism" or Italian Fascism. It would be its own flavor of evil, as American as apple pie.

America was rather racist at that time. now would that mean death camps in America? i doubt it.. but it would definatly be racist.. I also feel that America was quite isolationist during this period and may fall deeper into itself as well. so you could see a more stunted America, that when or if it was attacked during WWII .. would take longer to get up to steam

[jakewilson]

The only way a right-wing dictatorship would occur in the United States in the 20th century is if there were a large communist rising. It's the only way you could get the various diverse right-authoritarian groups to set aside their differences. Rather like Spain's Francoist government being composed of monarchists, fascists, Catholic integralists, and militarists, an American equivalent would need the Klan, the WASP establishment, the Mormons, and probably Irish Catholic anti-Semites to set aside their differences.

Such a regime would have a hard time clamping down on criticism from the anti-communist libertarian right (H.L. Mencken types who might have survived the initial violence), and have little hope of controlling gun ownership or preventing elections, and so would be faced by a constant insurgency against their rule.

A communist USA is ASB.

[jakewilson]

Originally Posted by clendor

By the way- Learn from the Canadians, they are pretty Socialist and their crime rate is like half of the USA.

Canada sometimes scores higher than the US on the various economic freedom indices. Single-payer health care does not a socialist economy make when you have free trade, secure property rights, and ease of doing business.

[von kressenstein]

Originally Posted by jakewilson

The only way a right-wing dictatorship would occur in the United States in the 20th century is if there were a large communist rising.

A communist USA is ASB.

actually...

<cough>

uhm.. if by the time of massive Unions and industrialization began to take place in the northern states, IF the unions were put down VIOLENTLY.. and labor rights not brought to the front, and things like child labor and sweat shops continued to mar the country.. you very well could see a socialist/communist America.. throw in the era's segregation policies, throw out woman's rights.. keep the prohibition on alcohol and high crime rates and then the depression... might not take as much as one would think.. just more old stogy cigar chomping capitalistic pigs running the show and well.. there ya go...

<cough>

maybe that was allot

[jakewilson]

Originally Posted by von kressenstein

actually...

<cough>

uhm.. if by the time of massive Unions and industrialization began to take place in the northern states, IF the unions were put down VIOLENTLY.. and labor rights not brought to the front, and things like child labor and sweat shops continued to mar the country.. you very well could see a socialist/communist America.. throw in the era's segregation policies, throw out woman's rights.. keep the prohibition on alcohol and high crime rates and then the depression... might not take as much as one would think.. just more old stogy cigar chomping capitalistic pigs running the show and well.. there ya go...

<cough>

maybe that was allot

I suppose the US would only see a fascist regime if there was a serious attempt at a communist rising, and a communist regime if there was a serious attempt at a fascist takeover. I find both unlikely and politically unsustainable, given many Americans' affection for local elections and guns.