The European far-right seems accepting of the welfare state, the safety net and high tax rates -

[pampango]

issues that set our teabaggers' hair on fire. European right wing populists don't seem as dedicated to promoting capitalism as are our teabaggers who seem to view it as a part of their religion.

Breivik posted that "politics today was not about socialism vs. capitalism but nationalism vs. internationalism". Not all European right wingers are going to have the same beliefs as a nut like Breivik. But most of the reading I've done about them is that they do focus more on nationalism (particularly as it relates to immigration and trade) than they do on what our teabaggers hyperventilate about - issues like government spending, taxes and perceptions of Obama's "socialism".

While Breivik wrote about "multicultural Marxism", he seemed more focused on the "multicultural" part of that than on the "Marxist" part of it. (He may fear some sort of international unity of workers of different nationalities, races and cultures to the detriment of the nation state, but I'm not clear as to what exactly "multicultural Marxism means to him.)

He seemed more concerned with the social aspects of Muslim immigration than with any economic implications. I haven't heard of any writing or statements from him critical of the social safety net or "socialism" which, of course, Norway has a good deal more of than we do.

Is it accurate that the European far-right today is more focused on "nationalism vs. internationalism" than it is on "socialism vs. capitalism" or are these just the rantings of an obvious lunatic?

[socialshockwave]

1. European far righters

Tend to be fiscally liberal and socially conservative. They like the welfare state - as long as it's only white people who get it.

[pampango]

3. European far righters: "They like the welfare state - as long as it's only white people who get it."

That's a well-turned phrase.

What does it say about Europe when even the racists are "progressive" in some ways, i.e. supportive of an effective safety net, national health care and the high taxes to support them? American racists have got a long way to go to catch up with that.

The far righters probably think of themselves as "nationalists" rather than "racists"- at least that's what Breivik has posted - though that distinction gets muddled (at best) when the immigrants that the right wingers are upset about happen to be from Asia and Africa.

[LeftishBrit]

4. We should note...

that many Europaean right-wingers *are* very economically right-wing and anti-welfare-state, etc., sometimes in conjunction with being racist. It's just that the pseudo-populist, anti-establishment-right parties aren't as consistent about being economically far-right as the teabaggers and Ron Paul supporters in America (though they can be so). An easy explanation is that parties like the BNP seek to appeal to white working class people, who do not stand to benefit from economically right-wing policies; but one could presumably say the same of the Tea Party. Also, of course, the current situation in America is that the president is both a Democrat *and* black, which may help to unite the economic Right and the racists in America more than usual.

But I think that there is sometimes a tendency for Americans, both on the left and right, to underestimate the influence of the economic Right in Europe. Certainly, it is not as pervasive as it seems to be in America; and virtually all Europaean countries have some sort of welfare state and public health care system. But there are still the Thatcherites and worse-than-Thatcherites who attack, undermine and semi-privatize public services.

Here, for instance, are excerpts from a 2007 article by Melanie Phillips, a very widely-read right-wing journalist in the Daily Mail. She is not of course running the country, or elected to anything - but she has a significant influence:

How welfarism is destroying Britain!

Last updated at 08:49 26 April 2007

'...It is the welfare state which, more than anything else, has created the culture of incivility, irresponsibility, family breakdown and disorder of which Mr Cameron spoke.

...Yet no politician, even Conservative ones, will go near this subject. For all the windy rhetoric about irresponsibility and state interference, the root cause of these problems ? the welfare state - remains a political untouchable.
Even worse has been the effect of welfarism on people's behaviour and attitudes. True, the assault on family values has come from the self-indulgent and irresponsible elites at the top of society.
But welfarism put rocket fuel behind this by making it possible for millions of women to have children without sharing the commitment with a man - and telling them that this was their right.

..Yet while thousands thus cushioned by welfare refuse to work, the Government has encouraged mass immigration to find workers who will do so - in the process driving down wages and deepening poverty.
Madness, or what? As for public services, people should be paying into compulsory personal and social insurance schemes for pensions, health and long-term care and, in return, paying less tax to the state.
This would restore responsibility for individuals and their families, while looking after those who are truly incapable of looking after themselves, end dependency and remove the ever more intrusive control of individual lives by the state.
Instead of a welfare state which has so infantilised and demoralised us, we need a welfare society. Our culture needs to grow up at last.'

[LeftishBrit]

2. Broadly it's true, I think.

The Far Right is an assortment of individuals and parties, probably (and fortunately) almost as factionalized as the Far Left, whose main characteristics are ultranationalism and xenophobia. They hate non-whites; they hate immigrants; nowadays they hate Muslims; they tend to hate Jews; they mostly hate the EU with the same sort of fervour with which the American far right hate the UN. The worst are explicitly neo-Nazi. Far-right groups tend to attract disaffected young white men with an inclination for 'aggro', and sometimes have links to football hooliganism and the like.

Far-Right types *can* be economically right-wing, in particular with regard to a hatred for people who claim benefits; but they don't *have* to be. Many are single-issue xenophobes, whose approach to economic issues is that everything is the fault of those immigrants who in their view 'take our jobs', 'milk the welfare state and live on benefits', and 'jump the queue' for housing and public services.

Having said this: what might be called the 'borderline Far Right' - nationalists who reject neo-Nazism and violence but are to the right of mainstream Conservatives, represented in Britain primarily by UKIP - *do* usually tend to be very right-wing on economic issues.