The book "Liberal Fascists" might be helpful.

If you read that, I highly recommend you read some critiques of it too. The author, Jonah Goldberg, is a polemicist with an agenda, not a scholarly historian or political scientist who at least aspires to honest analysis. There's a fad in conservative circles these days to pretend that "the Left" and "collectivism" are synonymous, so that collectivist ideologies traditionally associated with the Right (e.g. Fascism, Nazism, etc.) can be disowned by conservatives/rightists and blamed on liberals/leftists. Goldberg was just capitalizing on that to sell some books.

Nationalism, particularly when married to authoritarianism and militarism, is a creature of the right, and militant/authoritarian nationalism was the dominant feature of both Fascism and Nazism. State management of the economy (esp. on behalf of "the people") was not the raison d'etre for those systems; nationalistic pride and territorial expansion were.

And your reading skills seem to have suffered, Khross. I did not say Fascism and Nazism were conservative. I said they were on the Right. Big difference. So your references to conservative governments is a red herring.

If you read that, I highly recommend you read some critiques of it too. The author, Jonah Goldberg, is a polemicist with an agenda, not a scholarly historian or political scientist who at least aspires to honest analysis. There's a fad in conservative circles these days to pretend that "the Left" and "collectivism" are synonymous, so that collectivist ideologies traditionally associated with the Right (e.g. Fascism, Nazism, etc.) can be disowned by conservatives/rightists and blamed on liberals/leftists. Goldberg was just capitalizing on that to sell some books.

Are you trying to tell me that the Nazi's didn't understand they were really right-wingers when they used the term socialist about themselves?

They weren't right-wingers. They were for expansive government. They were for massive social and societal change, to the point of exacting both by force. And they certainly weren't for preserving established traditions or social orders. Nor, for that matter, were the Fascists.

I think you're misinterpreting that statement Khross. It was meant for RangerDave. I was being sarcastic about the fact they described themselves as socialist yet we need to slap a right-wing label on them.

I mean, it's your conflation I'm working with here ... try not to be so careless when trying to out "logic" me.

Oh, let's play a game. Arms and legs are features of a human, therefore anything with arms and legs must be a human.

Nazi is actually a combination of the German words for National Socialism. Are you trying to tell me that the Nazi's didn't understand they were really right-wingers when they used the term socialist about themselves?

Again, I suggest you read more carefully, Khross. My point seems quite clear, but if you're honestly missing it, I'll clarify. Conservatism, Fascism, and Nazism are all traditionally viewed as being on the Right of the political spectrum.

That association makes contemporary conservatives uncomfortable, so they want to convince people that Fascism and Nazism are actually on the Left, thus transferring the guilt-by-association to liberals.

To do this, they are trying to argue that collectivism, and collectivism alone, is the key factor in categorizing an ideology as Left or Right.

In their formulation, any ideology that embraces collectivism is automatically on the Left, regardless of the reasons for the collectivism, the form it takes, or whatever other features the ideology in question may have. That is a ridiculous (and revisionist) oversimplification. With regards to Nazism and Fascism in particular, it completely ignores the fact that militant nationalism was the actual core organizing principle of both, which is vastly different than, and indeed totally contrary to, the internationalist, economic "justice" principles underlying Leftist ideologies.