Talk:Far-right politics

The Nazis

And again have I seen someone calling the Nazis "far-right". How long will it take for people to realize that it was a movement led by the National SOCIALIST German Workers' Party? Nazism is a leftist movement, along the lines of communism — it can be easily seen from the 3rd Reich's economical policy, which was a form of state capitalism, thus central planning, and thus leftist. The rightwingness implied by nationalism doesn't really matter here, because social/(inter)national/other views are always secondary to the economic ones. Zeiimer (talk) 09:54, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

That "someone" is pretty much the entire academic consensus. Sure, the Nazis had "socialist" in their name (and some fools actually took that at face value) but their ideology of National Socialism (Nazism) was not a form of socialism at all but a variant of fascism, which is far-right. People from the left and the right have broadly agreed on this since 1945, possibly longer. Only recently has this fringe obsession with recasting Nazism as being on the left become vocal. I think this started as a pleading by some on the right to disassociate themselves from the Nazis but it was entirely unnecessary. So long as people on the right are engaged in politics and not murder then they have no reason to fear being tarred with the brush of Nazism, just as nobody on the left need fear being tarred with the brush of Stalinism so long as they are engaged in politics and not murder. In the hands of some on the fringe right the rhetoric has shifted from asserting that Nazism was of the left to asserting that the left is of Nazism. That is just cynical abuse of one's opponents and does not need to be taken seriously. Your mistake is to judge the Nazis on their economic policy as if that matters more than the invasions, the racism and the murders. The Nazi Party article already mentions that the Nazis did take some ideas from the left. We are not trying to cover that up but, equally, we can't let that be spun up into something it isn't. Economics is important but it doesn't trump racist mass murder when evaluating a person or an organisation. You might as well judge politicians by the quality of their moustaches if it leads to a conclusion you find tactically advantageous. --DanielRigal (talk) 10:28, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

The sources say they are right wing. TFD (talk) 14:18, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

I think that much of the confusion of this comes from American politics, who are used to defining left and right somewhat differently due to a lack of 'traditional' right-wing views outside of the religious right (no monarchists, basically.) In 1940s Europe, the distinction between "right" and "left" had mostly to do with an ideology's relationship to the French Revolution (which had little to do with economic policy either way); as it says in Right-wing politics, the division comes down to whether an ideology embraces egalitarianism and equality or whether it believes that social stratification is natural and inevitable. Advocates of laissez-faire capitalism are sometimes (although not always) categorized as right-wing, especially in the US, because that implicitly supports the idea of social stratification, while both mainstream socialists (even ones who support working through the free-market system) are left-wing because they seek to make people more equal. The Nazis are defined as right-wing because they were bitterly opposed to to the revolutionary ideals of egalitarianism and equality; they supported centralized control over the core of the economy, but they also supported private property rights and the profit motive, and opposed the idea that the state should try to make people equal. --Aquillion (talk) 09:34, 1 July 2015 (UTC)

Saying they were left-wing would be utterly denying their motives. The part that was somewhat more left leaning was purged during the Night of Long Knives. Their greatest enemy were by far communists (they accused all Jews of being "judeo-bolsheviks"). Anyhow, a name says little. Democratic People's Republic of Korea, for example, isn't exactly "democratic". Bataaf van Oranje (talk) 12:10, 17 July 2015 (UTC)

Nature of support

I'm currently working on various articles relating to the nature of support for the far-right. Lots of academic literature out there. Are far-right voters socially isolated as social breakdown thesis would suggest? Competing for scarce jobs/housing with immigrants as the ethnic competition thesis states? Rejecting the post-material agenda of modern progressive parties? Ideally all these articles will branch off one big article dealing with demand/supply side theories in the end.

I still think there needs to be a massive article dealing with various definitional issues. Far-right (terminology). Much of this talk page seems to concerned with such issues. It doesn't help that the nature of the far-right has changed over time. For instance Pim Fortuyn adopting social liberal values (being gay himself) in opposition to what he viewed to be a "backwards" Islamic culture Ulcerspar12 (talk) — Preceding undated comment added 13:24, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

If one searches Google books or scholar for "far right", the results are almost entirely neo-fascists. It is only used for Pim Fortuyn in newspaper headlines. When the same term has different meanings, then disambiguation should be used. It is not enlightening that we combine sources about groups like Pym Fortuyn and neo-fascists and present them as if they were writing about the same thing. We do not for example combine sources about Paris, France and Paris, Texas for an article about Paris. TFD (talk) 14:00, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

You make a fair point. Rydgren argues in this book [1] against including Pim Fortuyn in the extreme-right family given a) he wasn’t radically nationalist b) wasn’t against the EU c) he didn’t support traditional authoritarian values d) supported the integration of immigrants so long as they adopted Dutch cultural norms. I was thinking of his view that Dutch anti-discrimination laws should be repealed and strong anti-islam statements when making the comparison. Something that would arguably quality as "far-right" under the Carter definition. Not that everyone accepts that one.The point I was trying to make was that for some the “right” label is just as much a bone of contention. For instance the French FN has adopted anti-globalisation sentiment more in keeping with left wing parties. The whole nature of the ideologies of these parties has changed significantly over time something that has made defitional questions all the more difficult. Ulcerspar12 (talk) 15:37, 6 March 2015 (UTC)

Rydren says Pim Fortuyn is not "extreme right-wing populist", while Carter provides a definition for "right-wing extremism." Right-wing populist, extreme right/right wing extremism and far right are three distinct concepts although different writers do not always adhere to the same terminology. The first is a group of parties that emerged in the 1980s, the second is any group to the right of traditional liberal/conservative parties and the third is as far to the right as a group can be, generally neo-fascist. TFD (talk) 19:22, 7 March 2015 (UTC)

The results for the far right are not almost exclusively neo-fascists at all. In her typology of extreme right parties, Elisabeth Carter (2005) identifies only two of the five types as either neo-fascist or neo-nazi. The others were variants of populism. The problem is that scholars do not agree upon a definition of the extreme right (Something Mudde made very clear). For instance, K.R. Luther maintains that the FPO is not an extreme right party, while other sources certainly do. A 'debates in the extreme right' page would be very interesting, however, it would also be exceedingly long. GM1 (talk) 22:39, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

Again, Right-wing populist, extreme right/right wing extremism and far right are three distinct concepts although different writers do not always adhere to the same terminology. To Carter the second is any group to the right of traditional liberal/conservative parties and the third is as far to the right as a group can be. (see p. 23) So fascists and neo-fascists are far right, but there are non-far right groups in the extreme right, such as right-wing populists. Compare with furniture: all chairs are furniture but not all furniture are chairs. TFD (talk) 23:25, 23 August 2015 (UTC)

"However, in later writings he revisited his earlier assessment and argued in favour of a definition based upon three features: authoritarianism, populism and nativism" Cas Mudde, here, is referring exclusively to radical right populist parties, not the Extreme Right.Chip.berlet (talk) 20:42, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

Hard right

How about a separate Hard-right page? There is, after all, a Hard left page.