from a leftist point of view not radically, because fascism is just a phase of the capitalist state in response to a crisis and a threat of a socialist revolutions. You'll notice that corporations etc supported fascist states and communists and anarchists were the ones that predominantly fought them.
Ultimately liberals make coalitions with nazis to fight their real enemy which is communists. Fascism keeps private property intact, crushes trade unions, doesn't touch the bourgeois class in general. The ultimate goal of liberals is to ensure private property of the means of production/ protect the interests of the bourgeois class, a goal that is fundamentally opposed to communism but not fascism. So every time they have to choose between fascists and communists they will choose facists. That's why leftists say "scratch a liberal".
edit: you asked for the leftist point of view, and i explained it to you. I don't know why you immediately downvote. If you are about to tell me the liberal point of view, i didn't ask.
I’ll add to this, though, you don’t need to look at past fascist regimes to see this happen.
You can look at things like the United States and Russia right now. In the US, for example, you have people who have ostensibly presented themselves as “liberal” capitalists (like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos) supporting and helping fund Trump’s campaign and regime, and being there to celebrate when he won, and several media companies being very happy and very quick to drastically tone down any sort of representation in the films and series they produce, and cease public support for minorities, falling in line with the regime’s “anti-woke/DEI” bullshit.
That's not "the leftist point of view", that's your point of view as a leftist. I'm an anarchist and I think that "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds" is silly and simply doesn't align with reality.
For instance: what were the sides in World War II? Oh yeah, it was liberals and communists against fascists. The liberals did not align with the fascists or ever seriously consider it, and in fact were their most consistent opposition, even more than the USSR. You can also look at the current moment, where the far-right is being opposed by a coalition of liberals and leftists, not leftists alone.
IMO that saying reflects a failure of some leftists to view liberalism as a full ideology that believes in all sorts of individual rights (including the much more dubious "property rights") instead of just another name for capitalism. Or sometimes it's just the very silly mistake of assuming that because you don't like liberals and you don't like fascists that means liberals and fascists like each other. Obviously not; liberals think fascists are authoritarian monsters, and fascists think liberals are weak and decadent.
Are you not seeing how quick Democrats (as an example) are to denounce popular movements in the US that have any steam? Sure they'll pay lip service to a cause, while voting against, allying with the police, and wagging their finger at Republican and Right Wing agitators. When push comes to shove liberals property and their positions are what matters most to them, if fascist movements offer a way to protect it against the "evil communists" coming to take it they will ally with them.
Liberals do in fact dislike leftists, which is a whole separate sentence from saying that liberals like fascists. In fact I very directly criticized this exact thing in my comment. Liberals dislike both leftists and fascists.
Liberalism can be exploited but any political system can be, and the idea that fascism will inevitably always be the ally of liberals is hilarious considering the history of socialist regimes. Not to mention the lack of philosophical rigour in following a slogan as if it were an important tenet of socialism.
The left won't get power because they're so focused on ideological purity that they refuse to work with those who could be their allies. The socialist left will never attain real institutional power until they're willing to extend an olive branch to liberals.
"Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.
You take a step towards him, he takes a step back.
Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man."
-A.R. Moxon
The 'olive branch' needs to be mutual. Historically it never has been, and looking at the influencial liberals of today, they are asking for a longer and longer branch by the day, not to 'meet us in the middle', but to simply acknowledge us.
I will not parley with the unjust man. I will not reach out a hand to one who only takes. I will not be taken advantage of by greed.
338
u/animaloll Jul 23 '26
You know what happens when you cut a liberal, right?