"There's nothing inherently superior about a superiority complex. There's nothing perfect about fascism. It's built on flaws, and lies, and the struggle to hold onto power to be able to exploit other people."
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This episode of the podcast then goes into a predictably confused discussion about the regimes that resulted from 19th and early 20th revolutions.
Particularly the Leninist/Stalinist and Maoist regimes that are commonly called "Communist". Despite the fact that a careful reading of their history shows that the communist revolutions in Russia and China were defeated by authoritarian nationalists. Just like the libertarian socialist revolution in Spain, and the democratic socialist one in Chile.
@strypey interesting. I always thought there was something wrong with those labellings but wasn't able to put my finger on what it was 🤐
@badrihippo Having lived in China for 2 years, I can tell you it's just consumer capitalism with a heavily authoritarian government. There's nothing "communist" about it.
China does have an industrial policy. Unlike corporatist regimes like NZ where we just "leave it to the market" and occasionally step in to fix blatant market failures that could have been easily prevented. But the US had a forward-looking industrial policy well into the 70s. No one says they were "communist" or "socialist".
@badrihippo
For historical completeness I'll add that NZ also had industrial policy until the mid-1980s. Where governments borrowed to build multi-generational infrastructure. The resulting public debts was demonised by the corporatists in the 1980s, and the infrastructure reframed as "state assets" that could be sold to pay down the debt.
Resulting in generations of kiwis renting the infrastructure we paid to build off corporate owners, at a much higher total cost than paying interest on debt
Imagine a future scenario where the MAGA/ Project 2025 movement is able to hold power in the US for a century. Continuing with a pantomime version of republican institutions like elections and courts, the same way the CCP has in Hong Kong.
In this scenario, many other countries with multi-party government systems either fall to authoritarian nationalism too. Others move to decentralised eco-socialist systems, where power mostly moves away from elected national governments.
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In 2035, the word "Democracy" is commonly used to describe the kind of authoritarian nationalist system the US has been stuck in for a century. Outside the countries ruled by those regimes, anybody who advocates for "democracy" gets accused of promoting fascism, and told if they love "democracy" so much they can move to the US.
This is analogous to the situation we're stuck in now, with a cultivated historical amnesia resulting in confused and contradictory definitions of "communism".
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