Communism and Fascism

[Ramo]

Um... no. Fascism isn't a capitalist ideology AT ALL. The main fascist thinkers were anti-capitalist. Read what Mussolini had to say about capitalism and how it divides people. There was great state control over means of production. The state took over labor negotiations and dictated production targets.

That's like saying Stalinism is a socialist ideology (btw, I think that is crap).

In fascism, the state doesn't have absolute control over the means of production, just as in Stalinism the state doesn't have absolute control over the means of production. In fascism, the state organizes and mediates between those who ostensibly control the means of production in the interests of national unity. Capitalism is not characterized by the lack of statism (again, hence, you see ideologies like anarchism).

Neither did mercantalism, but that isn't capitalist either.

I would say that fascism entails modern mercantilism (corporatism), and I would say that it's a subset of capitalism. Again, my point is that fascism doesn't see wealth disparity as a divisive issue to be abolished by the state.

[Imran Siddiqui]

GePap, I suggest you read Fascist texts from Mussolini and Barres. Women weren't expected to go back because of their biological place, but because it was MORAL. To say Fascism worked to break down the bonds of family is utterly silly. If anything it worked to stregthen them. The family was the most important part of Fascist society.

[GePap]

I own Mein kampf, The Italian fasicst reader, Everyday Life in Nazi Germany, Barres, all all the othert main authors of Fasicsm.

I also read them.

If anything it worked to stregthen them. The family was the most important part of Fascist society.

The nation is the most important part of facist society. It is the core of fascist society. Only in so far as the family furthers the aim of the nation is family important.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Mussolini constantly wrote about the importance of the family. A nuclear family (so to speak) was to be emphaszed above all. It was the moral basis.

The nation is extremely important, but really because it is considered the extended family of the person.

[GePap]

Hmm, a nuclear family in Italy? What about grandpa, grandma, your uncleas and aunts, cousins and nephews, and all the other individuals who make up what Italians define as "family"?

To emphasize 'nuclear' families apart from the extended family is certainly not just a call to tradition, especially in Italy of all places.

The nation is extremely important, but really because it is considered the extended family of the person

The person has no meanign outside of the nation. how then could nation just be an extension of person? That creates a sort of loop, no?

Who is your ultimate leader? Dad, or Il Duce? To whom do you owe final and total alliegence? If Dad asks you, for the good of the family, to kill Il Duce, do you do it? If Il Duce asks you, for the good of the Nation, to kill Dad, do you do it?

[Imran Siddiqui]

But WHY is that nation important? Why are all Germans or Italians better than anyone else? Because they are your family.

Il Duce is more important than your father, but that is because he is a father figure himself.

Maybe Mussolini didn't mean a strict nuclear family, but he believed very strongly that the man does the work, the woman stays home with the children. The extended family was important, but not like your own dad and mom (that's always been pretty true).

I mean, look at Germany. Hitler was 'father' to all Germans. That is WHY there is a focus on one male leader, because he is supposed to be your father. That is why he was shown with children and pets all the time. He was the moral father figure, who told you that homosexuality was wrong and women should stay barefoot in pregnant in the home because it was the traditional moral way.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Think about it.... almost every Fascist theorist has disdained the Enlightenment. I don't see how you could be a social modernist if you are anti-Enlightenment. Modernism was based on the individual.

[GePap]

No,

Nation is important because it is within the nation that you form your indentity. You are who you are because of the nation you live in, its values, language, culture.

Is your family American, imran? By blood? Yet you consider yourself American. is it because somehow yo had "American blood" poured into you? Or is it a result of your embrace of the Culture, of America?

Now, the question invariably comes as to how this individual, inherently special national identiy is formed in the first place. It is here that blood connection are important, if only because blood relatives are more liekly to stick together over time, and thus create their identity, just as workers have thier class identity formed at work (according to Communism).

The Leader may be a surregate "father figure", but what matters here is that the leader gives direction to the Nation, in ways the father does NOT give direction to the family, sicne the young eventually leave and become independent adults of their own. That's the thing about "nuclear families". Once the Kids are grown, the familiy has, to keep the annalogy, decayed. But the nation does not. The nation endures., and in its culture the identity of the new generations is formed, and hence become full human beings.

That is the fascist mindset about Nation.

[Imran Siddiqui]

You are forgetting the family aspects, GePap. By embracing the culture, you become part of the family. After all, when a son marries a daughter, the in laws become part of the family, even though their blood has not mixed.

The nation is important because every man in the nation is your brother and every woman in the nation is your sister.

What I meant when I said 'nuclear family' is what is expected of the genders. I didn't mean the actual configuration.

The Leader is the Godfather. No matter how old children get, they don't leave that family. They must always defer to the godfather. I guess that is another reason why some people refer to Fascism as a Thug (or Mafia) State. Everyone is family, and the Godfather is the Leader.

This is also why heirarchies are ok. If you brother is more successful than you, you should be happy for him.

This is why people that do not wish to be a part of family (the communists, the capitalists) are to be kicked out.

That is why Hitler is an extreme form of Fascism. He took the 'family' idea too far, to the level of being a part of it by blood. No one says Hitler isn't a fascist, but just that he is an extreme fascist.

[Imran Siddiqui]

GePap:

http://www.library.wisc.edu/libraries/dpf/Fascism/Family.html

The Fascist party encouraged the development of large families, here through articles and photographs extolling family life.

Like I said, by 'nuclear family', I meant the expectations of the genders. Mussolini was very big on family.

[Ned]

Saddam's Iraq is more like Nazi Germany than any state since WWII. In fact, Saddam outdoes Hitler in ruthlessness and in cruelty.

I think the common factors are between Saddam and Hitler are

1) a Furhrer.
2) a secret police composed of thugs, torturers and killers
3) a private army loyal to the leader to keep the other elements in line
4) elite troops controlled by the private army that keep the rest of the army in line
5) extreme militarism
6) all private enterprised subordinated to and potentially directed by the state
7) no independent power blocks, such as unions.

[Jarvin]

There has never been a capitalist society where the state and economy are completely seperate.

There has never been a "true" communist state, but that doesn't stop the commies from lauding it. And your mostly true statement won't stop me from lauding capitalism independant from the state either.

[RGBVideo]

Saddam's Iraq is more like Nazi Germany than any state since WWII.

Are you sure you aren't forgetting the glorious Georgian steel-man?

[Ned]

Well, Stalin certainly had a police state, but the difference seems to be is that Stalin had a centrally owned and planned economy. Nazi Germany did not. I presume that Saddam's Iraq is more like Nazi Germany than like Stalin's communist paradise.

[GeneralTacticus]

Actually, isn't most of the Iraqi economy state-owned (the oil industry, for instance)?