What's in a name?

Fascist, communist and socialist. These are all familiar epithets that are used in political discourse. This has been especially true in this country over the past two decades, with the Right calling members of the Left communists or socialists and the Left calling Conservatives, fascist. And every now and then you'll hear the dreaded “n” word: Nazi. The fact of the matter is that these are all slightly different flavors of the same philosophies. The core of all of these political systems is the supremacy of the State.

During the early part of the 20th century governments and philosophers began to break away from the monarchies and empires of the past. They felt that royalty and oligarchs always put the people, the proletariat on the bottom of the totem pole. Socialists and others felt that the way to end this was to put the control of the government into the hands of the people. Something similar had been tried before with republican forms of government, first with the Greeks, and more recently with the United States of America and the French Republic.

However, the political philosophers saw what they felt was a flaw in the republican model. They knew that some would achieve more than others. Some would be richer, smarter, wiser. The socialists believed—and still believe—that all men are equal, not just in the basic rights of “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, but also in every way. They believed that no one should have more than another. That regardless of whether a person works hard they should be given room, board and food, that everyone should drive a similar model of car or live in a similar house. Socialists believed that it was the duty of the State to provide an equalizer for all citizens. This is antithetical to what it means to live in a free society.

However, what Liberals don't tell you is that Nazism started in the same way. Nazi stood for the “National Socialist Workers Party” in Germany. The like all fascists believed in government control of private business. Now this differs slightly from socialism as it was envisioned by Marx, Engels and other founders of socialism in that they believed that the government should not only control businesses but that they should also own all businesses. But with modern socialism this has been modified more in keeping with fascist principles of private ownership, with heavy government regulation. Perhaps the fall of communism throughout the world has led to this modification of core principles. One need look no further than China, which has a communist government with much of the businesses being owned by private individuals. Both fascism and socialism believe that utilities and transportation, as well other services, should be owned and operated by the government.

In the final analysis, the names and terms that people use for the various political groups in this country are more similar than politicians and pundits—particularly Liberals—would have you believe. Instead of being an accurate description of the opposing side, they are simply different names than the standard “Republican” and “Democrat”. The Left uses “fascist” and “Nazi” against those on the Right, even though those terms have very little difference in meaning from Left-oriented “socialist”. While the Right uses the “socialist” tag for the Left even though there are elements to the neo-conservative movement that are firmly entrenched in socialist beliefs.

So, what is in a name?