cSc61 Loc: Austin

Watch a season of Dateline ... you'll see what I mean.

JoyV

Can you not see that you are saying fascism is far right yet describing it as far left. Fascism, socialism, communism, liberalism, republicanism, and anarchy are NOT economic systems but are ideologies. While within the ideologies certain economic systems may be favored or simply work better, they are not in and of themselves economic systems. Linearly totalitarianism is far left and anarchy is far right. I agree that there are no PURE totalitarian nations and certainly cannot be any PURE anarchist nations. Since totalitarianism is a core component of fascism, it CANNOT be right wing! The farther right you go, the smaller the government. The farther left you go, the larger the government. A fascist government is totalitarian. Totalitarian government is BIG government. Hence fascism is NOT right wing!!!! Just because it is not as extreme left as communism, does not make it right wing. It is considerably farther left that Democratic Socialism and even farther left than Liberalism. Republicanism is right wing. Republicanism is a little farther right than Libertarianism, but not nearly as far right as anarchy.

So the linear line would read from left to right as: Communism, Fascism, Democratic Socialism, Liberalism, Centrist, Libertarianism, Republicanism, Anarchy.

There are also isms which are neither inherently left or right, but can be either. These include Absolutism which can be extreme left or extreme right. Another is Nationalism, which can be found at any position on the line. The USSR and Mao's China were definitely nationalistic. The US, Great Britain, and France were once very nationalistic. Especially during and after WWII.

JoyV

Whichever form you meant when you spoke about the laborers owning the results of their labor in communism.

So if they should own the results, or product of their labor; who will pay for the buildings, equipment, materials, etc? And why would anyone put out the money, effort, or innovation to create a product if it is the laborers who will reap the benefit?

debeda

GREAT post, JoyV

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

Many good parallels, tbut!

Fascism
By Sheldon Richman
As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

Fascism is to be distinguished from interventionism, or the mixed economy. Interventionism seeks to guide the market process, not eliminate it, as fascism did. Minimum-wage and antitrust laws, though they regulate the free market, are a far cry from multiyear plans from the Ministry of Economics.

Under fascism, the state, through official cartels, controlled all aspects of manufacturing, commerce, finance, and agriculture. Planning boards set product lines, production levels, prices, wages, working conditions, and the size of firms. Licensing was ubiquitous; no economic activity could be undertaken without government permission. Levels of consumption were dictated by the state, and “excess” incomes had to be surrendered as taxes or “loans.” The consequent burdening of manufacturers gave advantages to foreign firms wishing to export. But since government policy aimed at autarky, or national self-sufficiency, protectionism was necessary: imports were barred or strictly controlled, leaving foreign conquest as the only avenue for access to resources unavailable domestically. Fascism was thus incompatible with peace and the international division of labor—hallmarks of liberalism.

Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography. In this, fascism revealed its roots in syndicalism, a form of socialism originating on the left. The government cartelized firms of the same industry, with representatives of labor and management serving on myriad local, regional, and national boards—subject always to the final authority of the dictator’s economic plan. Corporatism was intended to avert unsettling divisions within the nation, such as lockouts and union strikes. The price of such forced “harmony” was the loss of the ability to bargain and move about freely.

To maintain high employment and minimize popular discontent, fascist governments also undertook massive public-works projects financed by steep taxes, borrowing, and fiat money creation. While many of these projects were domestic—roads, buildings, stadiums—the largest project of all was militarism, with huge armies and arms production.

The fascist leaders’ antagonism to communism has been misinterpreted as an affinity for capitalism. In fact, fascists’ anticommunism was motivated by a belief that in the collectivist milieu of early-twentieth-century Europe, communism was its closest rival for people’s allegiance. As with communism, under fascism, every citizen was regarded as an employee and tenant of the totalitarian, party-dominated state. Consequently, it was the state’s prerogative to use force, or the threat of it, to suppress even peaceful opposition.

If a formal architect of fascism can be identified, it is Benito Mussolini, the onetime Marxist editor who, caught up in nationalist fervor, broke with the left as World War I approached and became Italy’s leader in 1922. Mussolini distinguished fascism from liberal capitalism in his 1928 autobiography:

The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity. The Fascist State with its corporative conception puts men and their possibilities into productive work and interprets for them the duties they have to fulfill. (p. 280)

Before his foray into imperialism in 1935, Mussolini was often praised by prominent Americans and Britons, including Winston Churchill, for his economic program.

Similarly, Adolf Hitler, whose National Socialist (Nazi) Party adapted fascism to Germany beginning in 1933, said:

The state should retain supervision and each property owner should consider himself appointed by the state. It is his duty not to use his property against the interests of others among his own people. This is the crucial matter. The Third Reich will always retain its right to control the owners of property. (Barkai 1990, pp. 26–27)

Both nations exhibited elaborate planning schemes for their economies in order to carry out the state’s objectives. Mussolini’s corporate state “consider[ed] private initiative in production the most effective instrument to protect national interests” (Basch 1937, p. 97). But the meaning of “initiative” differed significantly from its meaning in a market economy. Labor and management were organized into twenty-two industry and trade “corporations,” each with Fascist Party members as senior participants. The corporations were consolidated into a National Council of Corporations; however, the real decisions were made by state agencies such as the Instituto per la Ricosstruzione Industriale, which held shares in industrial, agricultural, and real estate enterprises, and the Instituto Mobiliare, which controlled the nation’s credit.

Hitler’s regime eliminated small corporations and made membership in cartels mandatory.1 The Reich Economic Chamber was at the top of a complicated bureaucracy comprising nearly two hundred organizations organized along industry, commercial, and craft lines, as well as several national councils. The Labor Front, an extension of the Nazi Party, directed all labor matters, including wages and assignment of workers to particular jobs. Labor conscription was inaugurated in 1938. Two years earlier, Hitler had imposed a four-year plan to shift the nation’s economy to a war footing. In Europe during this era, Spain, Portugal, and Greece also instituted fascist economies.

In the United States, beginning in 1933, the constellation of government interventions known as the New Deal had features suggestive of the corporate state. The National Industrial Recovery Act created code authorities and codes of practice that governed all aspects of manufacturing and commerce. The National Labor Relations Act made the federal government the final arbiter in labor issues. The Agricultural Adjustment Act introduced central planning to farming. The object was to reduce competition and output in order to keep prices and incomes of particular groups from falling during the Great Depression.

It is a matter of controversy whether President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal was directly influenced by fascist economic policies. Mussolini praised the New Deal as “boldly . . . interventionist in the field of economics,” and Roosevelt complimented Mussolini for his “honest purpose of restoring Italy” and acknowledged that he kept “in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman.” Also, Hugh Johnson, head of the National Recovery Administration, was known to carry a copy of Raffaello Viglione’s pro-Mussolini book, The Corporate State, with him, presented a copy to Labor Secretary Frances Perkins, and, on retirement, paid tribute to the Italian dictator.

About the Author
Sheldon Richman is the editor of The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvingtonon-Hudson, N.Y.
http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

How the Powers That Be (Big money) use both Fascism and Communism:

Fascism&Communism are both Totalitarian

To see the agenda - Google: “CFR,TC,Bilderberg group”

*Council on Foreign Relations CFR & Trilateral Commission TC Background & Quotes*

“An end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old fashioned frontal attack" – Richard Gardner ,
Ambassador to Italy - quoted in (CFR)Foreign Affairs, April, 1974

“Actions at the multinational level will be needed, if the process of international relocation of industries is to be accelerated in an organized fashion…….” TC Report #23, 1982

The Banksters control both parties by installing vetted CFR members
CFR members are very tightly affiliated with the U.S. government. Since 1940, every U.S. secretary of state (except for Gov. James Byrnes of South Carolina, the sole exception) has been a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and/or its younger brother, the Trilateral Commission. Also since 1940, every secretary of war and every secretary of defense has been a CFR member. During most of its existence, the Central Intelligence Agency has been headed by CFR members. Virtually every key U.S. national security and foreign policy adviser has been a CFR member for the past seventy years.
Zbigniew Brzezinski formed Trilateral Commission for David Rockefeller in 1973, and Jimmy Carter was made a founding member. Jimmy Carter became President,
& ZB was installed as Carter's National Security Adviser. (ZB is also advisor to Obama)

ZB - Referring to the rivalry between the USSR and the United States – “The eventual outcome of the competition is however, foreordained, given the inherent superiority of the communist system “ 'Between Two Ages' (1970 - ps.146,147) by ZB

Officer Jim Loc: Florida

As someone who brought many cases before the courts I can attest that NONE were totally innocent even if they were not guilty of the specific offense they were charged with.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

Emarine has no answer to that question.

JoyV

Thank you very much for this article. It is both short yet detailed.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

"Thank you very much for this article. It is both short yet detailed." - joyV
I thought it was worth sharing.
BUT
Not short enough for many to take the time to read.
Thanks for taking the time.

http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html

Officer Jim Loc: Florida

VERY well written article about Fascism and how it works. There are some good things about this system which is why Hitler was able to win over those that elected him. Problem is, Hitler was crazy and power hungry and fascism is a great tool for a Dictator to take over a nation. They system is made to instill blind obedience which in turn allows a dictator to take over.

eagleye13 Loc: Fl

Yep!!!!
Exactly why the PTB (Big Money) uses it.
Big Money installed Hitler and the Bolsheviks (Stalin and Lenin).

emarine

this topic is too complex for a simple linear line...way too many different forms of communism & fascism which is still evolving with time to use the old school theory's... We haven't even mentioned Plutocracy's, corporatism, corporate fascism or globalism to get up to speed... I find if using a simple linear line the extreme left being the different communist pure socialist theory's & applications to date & fascism, neo Nazism being extreme right works... putting democratic & republican theory in the left & right of center... this draws a clearer picture of the issues in todays America … the liner line is a simple tool not carved in stone by old school definition... Hitler broke the mold... obey or die... is that really a viable form of government in todays society?... the point that lead to this debate was... people on OPP throw out terms like calling a democrat a Marxist/communist while collecting SS & Medicare... fact is I see way more posters doing this from the right than the left... this is a huge subject for a data limited opinion so you stick with old school info...

emarine

I'm sure that's true...but do you agree that prosecutors are just & defense Atty's are not?...

emarine

You must first choose a form of communism... they all differ... second time mow bird buddy...