So what's wrong with fascism?

[Lord Baal]

At this point a mod should just move this to A&E. You snobbish artistic types, you.

 

[AlpsStranger]

I didn't know ideas could be subhuman.

This.

Though I can see the temptation to view Nazi ideas as subhuman, it's not true. It was very human.

 

[Tycho Brahe]

Well, i am not sure how serious you are being here

To me that nazi statue is exceedingly ugly. It is utterly kitch in its vulgarity and outright barbarous features, worst of which is the head itself. Really it reminded me of Lucky Luke:

And at least Lucky Luke was supposed to be a joke, not something aspiring to be high art.

Please don't drag Lucky Luke into this. He doesn't belong in a discussion on fascist art.

Many superhero-comics could arguably be seen as quasi-fascist, but definitely not him.

 

[Kyriakos]

True, Lucky Luke is not fascist or fascist-like, but i mentioned it as something which the nazi statue's head reminded me of. You could see some sort of caricature of a thug like that in Lucky Luke, although it would be clearly comically-oriented and not trying to pass as high art, let alone something to look up to

 

[Greizer85]

Regarding the statue: that is what Readiness looks like. Surely you can cut him some slack for being a mere concept?

I've always had a soft spot for Fascism (ahem). I probably would've been a fascist had I lived in the '30s. It is a kind of a knot-of-Gordion solution to complex societal problems. All working together towards a Grand Goal -- it doesn't matter what that goal is so long as it's there, ever just-out-of-reach, gleaming bright and furious. The main engine is the double-whopper of stoic discipline & hypnotic zeal that binds the people together as one body, eradicating or masking any and all differences. The theoretical points that you people squabble about are all irrelevant. You'd be the first to go in a fascist state. Didn't Mussolini supposedly utter "The socialists enquire constantly about our programs... Our program is simple: to smash the skulls of the socialists!"? Anyway the innermost desire of the common man is to have someone do all their decisions for them -- to be 'free from freedom', as some Nazi or other put it. It is this base desire, and the fear underneath -- the fear of Chaos as the essence of reality -- that Fascism feeds upon. Putting order into things has been in vogue since the stone-age, and will be to the far reach of the stars. If Hitler were to be resurrected and given new looks, he'd have plenty of pull in plenty of countries. There will be others after him, probably worse in fact. Hell, we don't even have old Adolf beat yet after 70-odd years. WWII will only finally be over when you can wear a Hitler-moustache in public without people batting an eyelid; I predict we have another century of warfare ahead of us. Buckle up, gentlemen (and the ladies)!

You may claim that my post is vain aesthetic posturing without much substance; but it is a fascist post and it doesn't care. Regardless, further complaints will end with brutal reprisals against your posts, so, beware & hail the Great Leader Post!

 

[~Corsair#01~]

It is a kind of a knot-of-Gordion solution to complex societal problems.

vain aesthetic posturing without much substance

and it doesn't care

I've noticed that your conception of Fascism is strikingly similar to just being drunk.

 

[Kyriakos]

The solution of the knot in the city of Gordion mostly involved one being Alexander though. I am sure any other could have cut the knot with a sword too, the point was to actually examine the knot and carefully untie it. Alexander probably thought that he would make a statement to the futility of a son of God being involved with such lowly problems, so just used his sword. Besides, that was his only way out, it is not like he would have won had he tried to see an edge in the knot which might lead to a solution in time.

Still, not a heroic stance there. It is a bit like Theseus killing the Minotaur by demolishing the entire labyrinth with catapults. A solution, but one resting on sufficient arms, and not thought or accomplishment.

 

[Hygro]

Germany wasn't really fascist. Nazism is a racialised off-shoot of fascism.

As to your question; "fascism" (we'll use the term, even though it's not technically accurate) was terrible for Germany. The German economy was rotten to the core, and it was the successes of the German military - which managed to maintain a large degree of independence from Nazism, unlike civil authorities - which kept Germany alive for as long as it did. Whenever the German army - or occasionally diplomats, as in Munich - captured a territory for the Reich, the NSDAP immediately stripped it of its wealth and extorted ridiculous loans from occupied territories in order to keep itself afloat. As it was, Germany operated under huge deficits for the entirety of Nazi rule, and was essentially to become an economic satellite of the USSR if it hadn't invaded shortly before it was required to pay for the raw materials Stalin had sold the Nazis since 1939.

Please name a single state that has thrived under fascist leadership. Dictatorships are often good for a state, but fascist dictatorships have never been.

"Huge deficits" are a necessity for stable economic growth. The reason it was "rotten to the core" was that it was fixed to gold, and thus they had to plunder gold to maintain their state power rather than float their currency on the auspice of industrial integrity.

It's actually one of the biggest tells of Nazi stupidity: they actually believed themselves stuck to the social convention that currency needs some kind of physical basis.

Maybe if this is your favorite sculpture:

Spoiler :

That was my avatar for like, 2 years.



The terrifying thing of fascism is that it is a society completely governed by politics a la Carl Schmitt's "The Political", in which the dividing line between friend and enemy is in your mind. If you reject the virus, you are the enemy of the fascist. If you declare yourself a fascist, you are a friend. The enemy then is anyone who thinks freely. Anyone who thinks that there can be anything that trumps the ideology is the enemy. Family? Love? Pleasure? Friendship? Liberty? Health? Competition? Outer Space? Comfortable Socks? ...Freedom? In the friend-enemy distinction, the enemy must be killed. To maintain the friend-enemy distinction, there must always be an enemy so that's ultimately self defeating. But it just means that anyone can become a fascist, and anyone else can be the victim of fascism. It's a virus and the only inoculation is real education.

(N.B. America simultaneously promotes friend-enemyism without succumbing to fascism--i.e. doesn't promote friend-enemyism because our enemy is, socially speaking, still the Nazis, who don't exist anymore. We're like if a Mario game bugs out and we can walk on the other side of walls and not die. Cha ching).

The Nazis were indeed a racist state, and therefore not ideal-type fascism. However humans are imperfect at performing ideology, ergo one could make the case that their particularities made them the closest to successfully performing perfect fascism. The only good thing about fascism is that it is self defeating. Its inability to accept diversity means that it is completely subject to system death. There's no social liquidity so if part of it goes off the edge or fractures, all of it does.

Spoiler for a thought game :

But, and play along if you may, if a mostly-fascist state like the Nazis took over, what would they have done to maintain world domination? As they wouldn't have ever stopped. Like Rome, or a 360 degree pseudo shark, if they stopped expanding before complete victory they would collapse--because only collapse would have stopped them. Bear with me: they would have planted nuclear bombs under every coordinate on the planet. Missiles from above? Sure, it's almost the same thing. But that implies striking capacity, not ground ownership, which they demanded. And they would have used them, because they were crazy. It's a virus, to believe in fascism/Naziism/glorified state violence/etc. The Cold War was bad but notice that once the fascists were removed from the equation, no one was crazy enough to start a nuclear war. The Nazis did start a nuclear war, even if it was America dropping 2 small ones on Japan.

 

[Lord Baal]

"Huge deficits" are a necessity for stable economic growth. The reason it was "rotten to the core" was that it was fixed to gold, and thus they had to plunder gold to maintain their state power rather than float their currency on the auspice of industrial integrity.

It's actually one of the biggest tells of Nazi stupidity: they actually believed themselves stuck to the social convention that currency needs some kind of physical basis.

Deficit-spending is necessary not for economic growth, but to kick-start faltering economies. By 1935, the German economy was no longer faltering and should therefore have been balanced. At the very least, the deficit-spending should have been lessened. The NSDAP actually did the opposite.

That said, however, the gold standard certainly hurt the german economy at this time. I would put more emphasis on the lack of foreign currency though.

 

[Hygro]

Deficit-spending is necessary not for economic growth, but to kick-start faltering economies. By 1935, the German economy was no longer faltering and should therefore have been balanced. At the very least, the deficit-spending should have been lessened. The NSDAP actually did the opposite.

That said, however, the gold standard certainly hurt the german economy at this time. I would put more emphasis on the lack of foreign currency though.

Deficit spending is necessary for economic growth because without it you inherently have deflation. The money supply has to grow in sync with the economy for private sector investment to continue, and that can come from either foreign governments' money (i.e. via exports, which means they have to run your deficit for you) or your own government putting in more money (spending) than it is removing (taxing). Otherwise you have a government investment surplus which is also known as putting private sector cash in a shredder.

 

[Lord Baal]

Deficit spending is necessary for economic growth because without it you inherently have deflation. The money supply has to grow in sync with the economy for private sector investment to continue, and that can come from either foreign governments' money (i.e. via exports, which means they have to run your deficit for you) or your own government putting in more money (spending) than it is removing (taxing). Otherwise you have a government investment surplus which is also known as putting private sector cash in a shredder.

Eventually, yes. I'm talking about the specific situation in Germany during the 1930s.

 

[Hygro]

Eventually, yes. I'm talking about the specific situation in Germany during the 1930s.

Certainly. My point was just that their big deficits were not creating a fake economy. If everyone is working and making real things, then the economy can support everyone working and making real things, regardless of the accounting difference between taxes and spending.

 

[Cutlass]

Deficit spending is necessary for economic growth because without it you inherently have deflation. The money supply has to grow in sync with the economy for private sector investment to continue, and that can come from either foreign governments' money (i.e. via exports, which means they have to run your deficit for you) or your own government putting in more money (spending) than it is removing (taxing). Otherwise you have a government investment surplus which is also known as putting private sector cash in a shredder.

 

[Hygro]

(G-T) + (I-S) + (Im-Ex) = 0

It's an accounting rule.

 

[potatokiosk]

So if G=T and Im = Ex, then I=S? I don't see what the problem is.

 

[Hygro]

it's one set of terms, because in another macro econ nomenclature I=S inherently.. buuuuut

But the point is that if G=T, and Im=Ex, then there is no private market investment... I think there's a problem there. Since this is measured in GDP aka dollars, it means money. The private sector, aka investment, can't print its own money so that means it goes bankrupt. Meanwhile that doesn't help the government because the government already has an infinite bank account.

So if you want private sector investment then government has to run a deficit. Aka print new money to meet the expanded quantity of the economy to maintain prices. Government errs on the side of inflation since it's very hard to be precise and demand-side deflation is very bad.

Anyway, fascists aren't very good economic planners but like the George Bush economy, accidentally big deficits are better than none at all.

 

[Lord Baal]

You seem to think that deficit-spending can be maintained indefinitely. I'm no economist, but even I know that's not possible. Not unless the state in question is producing more than enough to cover that deficit.

 

[Hygro]

You seem to think that deficit-spending can be maintained indefinitely. I'm no economist, but even I know that's not possible. Not unless the state in question is producing more than enough to cover that deficit.

Aka enough economic growth that the additional money is used to fulfill new economic transaction (particularly quantity) needs rather than just adding money on top of a maxxed out economy, aka general demand side inflation. But demand side inflation on a maxxed out economy isn't even that bad except in special cases. No economy is near that point without a lot of extrra-market help.

Why isn't infinite deficit spending possible, good sir?

 

[Lord Baal]

Aka enough economic growth that the additional money is used to fulfill new economic transaction (particularly quantity) needs rather than just adding money on top of a maxxed out economy, aka general demand side inflation. But demand side inflation on a maxxed out economy isn't even that bad except in special cases. No economy is near that point without a lot of extrra-market help.

Why isn't infinite deficit spending possible, good sir?

Because infinite economic growth isn't possible. There is no cheat code for infinite money.

 

[Mise]

We've been running a deficit for decades. So has France and Germany. Most countries run essentially a perpetual deficit. Here's an annoyingly small graph for the US:

Here's an annoyingly big graph for the UK:

Spoiler big :

Here's an annoying graph for France (it's annoying because it's French):