- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Socialists are not fascists.

Posted by: DonS ( USA ) on October 29, 1999 at 01:21:47:

In Reply to: You're kidding, right? posted by Kweassa on October 28, 1999 at 22:03:34:

: : Don: Fascism is the system where the government controls industry. FDR's policies placed government control over much of industry.

: : Don: Since the Social Democracies also regulate industry in detail, they are also fascist. They are not socialist unless the industries are owned by the government.

: Now that is really weird. Under your defintion of fascism, the history of the world between 1930~1989 would go like this:

: "FASCIST Germany exterminates the FASCIST Social Democrat/FASCIST communist opposition on their road to power with evil intents. So, FASCIST FDR teams up with FASCIST England(ie. Keynes).

Don: Communism is not fascism, for one thing. Further, I do not know to what extent pre-war England was fascist.

: With the help of the French resistance, (who happened to be a lot of FASCISTS too, since the mainstay of the resistance were Socialists)

Don: Socialists are not fascists.

:and the gigantic FASCIST USSR, FASCIST America and its FASCIST allies

Don: The USSR was still communist.

:lead the war to victory. Before the Great War, a great struggle in the Iberian peninsula had taken place between FASCIST Franco's rebellious miltary and the FASCIST Popular Front(which were alliances between FASCIST FOUM and FASCIST CRT, and liberals). "

Don: At least some of the Popular Front were socialist, not fascist.

: "So, FASCIST America and its FASCIST western allies get to rule the world under FASCIST Economics for more than three decades. Until the fall of Breton-Woods, and then, would finally appear the NON-Fascist Monetary Economics of Neo-Liberalism(which appears to be the ONLY THING that's not fascist after Adam Smith)"

Don: The pre-FDR US was basically non-fascist. The USSR was communist until the '90s.

: If I may add a little criticism, under your definition of fascism almost every major Western State during the periods between the Great Depression and the Oil Crisis of the 70's would be fascist.

Don: That is true.

: Even if it were so that you were generalizing on the tendencies of fascist economics, I think your version of the term 'FASCISM' goes way-beyond any historical/logical scale.

Don: My usage is purely economic. You do not have to wear jack boots and brown shirts to be a fascist.

: More interestingly, that would make Keynes' theories of state intervention on industrial/financial economies in support for full-employment also fascist.

Don: Yes.

:Therefore, every American government after FDR until Reagan administration would be fascist?

Don: More or less. Fascism bacame part of the US system due to FDR, was expanded under LBJ, and Reagan failed to get rid of it.

: Then, that would mean that the only thing that's not potentially fascist is Classical theories of capitalism represented by Adam Smith AND the up-to-date version of lassaize-faire represented by Milton Friedman.

Don: Socialism and communism are also not fascist. Fascism is in the middle, socialism on the left, lassaize-faire on the right . . .

: Ho ho, and that would also mean Socialism, Keynesianism, Communism, the welfare state, Social Democracies, democratical market system, "capitalism with a human face", Germany under Hitler, Japan under Hirohito and Italy under Mussolini were IN FACT, all fascism, only different versions of it!!

Don: Socialism and communism are not fascist!

: That would make the modern history of the world, "the struggles between various fascisms". You might actually rewrite a history of an entire era.

Don: Not quite. Post WW1 to the end of WW2 would be the rise of socialism and fascism. Post WW2 would be the contest between fascism and socialism, ending in the fall of the later. Further, I believe there are real differences between the different fascist systems, but that their fundamental economic concepts are essentially the same. The fascism of the US is "fascism with a friendly face".

: You've gotta be kiddin' me.
: That was a joke, wasn't it?

Don: Not at all.



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