Is Fascism Rotten Capitalism?

[Verbose]

Is "socialist" being used in place of "collectivist" here perhaps? It's not quite the same though.

 

[amadeus]

Is "socialist" being used in place of "collectivist" here perhaps? It's not quite the same though.

They’re all being used as epithets. Half the fun is trying to figure out when!

 

[Gorbles]

Start a thread about fascism and capitalism, turns into people being very invested in comparing things to socialism.

Never change CFC, never change

 

[Snorrius]

I don’t think so because I don’t think fascism has coherency. Liberal capitalism does, state socialism does, but not fascism.

If by coherency you mean whether fascism has some kind of philosophical theoretical framework, then yes, at least, if we talk about historical movement, and not whatever people decide to call "fascism" today. Fascism is based on the philosophical strand of Hegelianism formulated by Giovanni Gentile. Actually, it shares quite similar roots with Marxism, though the telos (the end goal) they propose differs. They (theoretical works of both strands) are equally hard to read. They are probably equally non-sensical.

 

[Lexicus]

So, if we compare fascism and communism, sure, they are different. But they both were — had to be — socialists. We might and will find differences in how different nations and regimes tried to approach socialism in real-life settings depending on the end goal envisioned and actual problems to solve. That's normal. Actually, USA had an interesting variety of its own kind of socialism — techocracy, which is based on works of Thorstein Veblen. It never took off but it is an interesting school of thought to study about.

Veblen is an odd person to note in this context. He was an intellectual with little influence in his own time. The real US "socialist" tradition is "labor republicanism", a form of cooperativism, exemplified by organizations like the Knights of Labor.

 

[Cutlass]

Is "socialist" being used in place of "collectivist" here perhaps? It's not quite the same though.

All conservatism is inherently collectivist. If collectivism is socialism, then the Republican Party is a socialist party.

 

[innonimatu]

Reimann gives a quite neutral description, considering he is a Communist. Maybe it is because he do not consider them real socialists, though he even notes similarity of some Third Reich's problems to Soviet Union ones. His perspective is different because unlike modern socialist which just say "fascism is capitalism", he certainly acknowledges National-Socialists do look a lot like socialists in action, though he seems to consider them to be reactionary overall. Why, then, asks he they are so socialist-looking like? And answers: well, we all know communism is inevitable, so elements of this glorious future are also inevitable to bubble up everywhere even in regimes we do not consider properly communist.

Everyone thought socialism would be the (near) future in those years. Even liberals like Keynes, Schumpeter saw economic organization going that way.
And all countries engaged in WW2 did the things you mentioned in terms of controlling the economy, to a greater or lesser degree. The FDR government in the US tightly controlled prices and distribution of raw materials, read Galbraith's accounting of his work with that. The UK had rationing into late 50s.
Germany was a laggard in controlling and mobilizing its economy. It failed compared to the USSR, the British Empire and the US. And got defeated quicker because of that. The fascists were not "socialists" in economic policy, instead the proved quite incapable of mobilizing their economies to produce weapons until late in the war. I really mean your thesis is very much contrary to what actually happened in the history of those years.

 

[Angst]

Here is a bit more quotes.







Sure, one might argue whether it is a proper "socialism" or not. In my opinion, extensive state-planning, fixed wages, abolishment of entrepreneurship et cetera does look very similar to many socialist projects. You are entitled to disagree of course.

federalization is not socialism

... or like. is it...

we have socialized industries in the west, and one can reasonably call those socialist.

but if you want to say part federalization and wage fixing is socialism then capitalism is socialism and monarchy is socialism and

...

"it's in the name" is dumb regardless, mate, i know that you know this. nazis called themselves socialist for propaganda purposes, it was even stated intent. it was to try and garner followers from voters that disliked international capitalist finance; something communists and fascists indeed both hate, but communists hate it because of the capitalism, fascists hate it because of its internationality

if you want to call fascism "socialist" this way, everything is socialist, and it has no relevance as to whether they "went quite far in the left direction"

All conservatism is inherently collectivist. If collectivism is socialism, then the Republican Party is a socialist party.

^
like come on snorrius

 

[Tee Kay]

All conservatism is inherently collectivist. If collectivism is socialism, then the Republican Party is a socialist party.

it does use red a lot...

 

[EvaDK]

'Rotten Capitalism' doesn't need inspiration from Fascist ideology or tenets, to become rotten.