Liberal Fascism

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Agathon


I take it you missed the rapes. You know, like the bit in one of her novels where the architect-hero breaks into that chick's flat and rapes her. Rand thought that women ought to submit to the desire of powerful men. Doesn't that sound a wee bit authoritarian to you?

What Elok said. And in all honesty I only finished Atlas Shrugged; nobody but a masochist would subject themselves to any more.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Sandman
The fascist distaste for mass production, female labour and international trade can't be explained with the 'big bourgeoisie' thesis. Nor can their enthusiasm for traditional rural life, small family businesses and autarky.

What is important is not what the fascists say. What is important was the role they played in Italian and German society and who supported them and who they supported. Their support from the big bourgeoisie and their support of the big bourgeoisie are not theses, but what actually happened.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Darius871

What Elok said. And in all honesty I only finished Atlas Shrugged; nobody but a masochist would subject themselves to any more.

The domination of the weak by the strong is central to Rand's philosophy. It runs through much of what she writes. It's inseparable from her political project.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara

Originally posted by Sandman
The fascist distaste for mass production, female labour and international trade can't be explained with the 'big bourgeoisie' thesis. Nor can their enthusiasm for traditional rural life, small family businesses and autarky.

What is important is not what the fascists say. What is important was the role they played in Italian and German society and who supported them and who they supported. Their support from the big bourgeoisie and their support of the big bourgeoisie are not theses, but what actually happened.

The big business owners are led into fascist camps by fear of Communism. Which, of course, the Fascists stoked up. Of course that doesn't mean the Fascists always did things that were beneficial for the big business owner (especially as Jewish business owners in Germany during the Nazi period), such as partial governmental takeovers and the curtailing of international trade. Of course they benefited a decent deal from governmental monopolies (depending on which company it was), but they could have made more if allowed to (especially in international trade)... it just didn't jive with Fascist ideology.

Let's not get it wrong. It wasn't the big business owner who was running the Fascists, it was the Fascists running the big business owner.

[Sandman]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
What is important is not what the fascists say. What is important was the role they played in Italian and German society and who supported them and who they supported. Their support from the big bourgeoisie and their support of the big bourgeoisie are not theses, but what actually happened.

What actually happened is that Italy had its economic retardation extended and enhanced by fascist policy. Mussolini used tariffs, taxes and price controls to keep people in villages, motivated by the fascist love of rural life. How could big business ever benefit from that, inhibiting their own ability to employ people?

Similarly, Mussolini squandered a fortune propping up the Italian currency, for reasons of 'national virility'. This ruined Italy's prospects for export-led growth.

The Nazis were suspicious of mass production and were hobbled in their fighting of the war with their complex web of small scale producers, making low quantities of over-engineered equipment. It was only when Speer came along did they actually adopt the production methods of the big bourgeoisie.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
What is important is not what the fascists say. What is important was the role they played in Italian and German society and who supported them and who they supported. Their support from the big bourgeoisie and their support of the big bourgeoisie are not theses, but what actually happened.

Well, nobody knowing anything about the NS time would deny today that (certain) big business(es) helped Hitler to power. That alone however doesn't prove the marxist view that "Fascism is the last resort of the big bourgeoisie to try and restore profitability and smash the working class." After all when you post "If they're profitable or the working class is submissive, fascism isn't in the cards." you seem to imply that capitalism was somehow not profitable in Germany pre-1933, and that big business desparately needed fascism to get it working again, which is rather questionable. If you look at the elections of the early 1930ies the communist party was never so strong that one would assume a real danger for capitalism or big business there.

There were surely some common interests between parts of business and the NS movement, and much of it was due to anti-communism, but I'd not agree if someone wants to paint the Hitler regime as a simple puppet of business. Maybe they thought that early on, like some conservatives who thought they could control Hitler. But after the process to gain total control was done ca. 33-38, Hitler wasn't anyone's puppet anymore, and business was then only one "power centre" in the NS system amongst others (military, security services, NSDAP and other mass orgs), and business had no real capability to control the NS leadership.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
but they could have made more if allowed to (especially in international trade)...

Definitely not.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by BeBro
you seem to imply that capitalism was somehow not profitable in Germany pre-1933, and that big business desparately needed fascism to get it working again, which is rather questionable.

You are talking about the greatest economic recovery/expansion in the history of the world.

edit: I'll let Che respond to you guys first, but I just wanted to point out a glaring error right off the bat.

[molly bloom]

It's simply a further indication of the paucity of originality and insight on the part of the tragic Right- they even stole 'politically correct' from the old Left and then (mis)used it as a catch-all term of abuse for anything they disagreed with- studies of African American dialects, literature written by women, lesbians or feminists, gay rights' measures...

Desperately said that the term 'liberal fascism' can even be used by a supposedly sane person who has left junior school.

I recommend Walter Laqueur's book on Fascist movements for a good history of Fascism in its various unpleasant irruptions and also for a thorough-going definition of what Fascism entails.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kidicious




You are talking about the greatest economic recovery/expansion in the history of the world.

edit: I'll let Che respond to you guys first, but I just wanted to point out a glaring error right off the bat.

Prove that fascism was the only way to have an economic recovery. Also "recovery" is kinda fun since the economy the NS system created - no classic free market system btw - couldn't run successfully for long without war and plundering out the occupied countries.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by BeBro




Prove that fascism was the only way to have an economic recovery. Also "recovery" is kinda fun since the economy of the NS system created - no classic free market system btw - couldn't run successfully for long without war and plundering out the occupied countries.

Since Che has posted in the History thread already I'll respond.

I don't know what fascism has to do with the recovery, except that the economic policies were anti-semetic. And I think that was a tragic failure of the government as well as a nightmare for the jewish population.

We are talking about economic policy that existed before serious rearmament for war. They specifically kept rearmament to a minimum in order to recover the economy. That said, they did a better job than any other economy in the world that had suffered from the great depression. In fact, to compare their recovery to any other is laughable. The other economies didn't recover until they started rearming.

[Kidlicious]

Originally posted by Sandman
The Nazis were suspicious of mass production and were hobbled in their fighting of the war with their complex web of small scale producers, making low quantities of over-engineered equipment. It was only when Speer came along did they actually adopt the production methods of the big bourgeoisie.

They weren't necessarily against mass production per se. They just didn't want to have uncontrolled growth. It took some time to get the economy to a point where they could us mass production on a full scale.

[Darius871]

Originally posted by Agathon
The domination of the weak by the strong is central to Rand's philosophy. It runs through much of what she writes. It's inseparable from her political project.

Even supposing that your interpretation is 100% correct, suffice it to say then that "true" Randroids are by definition not "libertarians" no matter how much they might try to characterize themselves as such. The point still stands that your notion of "authoritarian libertarians" is downright silly.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kidicious
I don't know what fascism has to do with the recovery, except that the economic policies were anti-semetic.

Then what are you talking about, you brought the 'recovery' point into the debate.

We are talking about economic policy that existed before serious rearmament for war. They specifically kept rearmament to a minimum in order to recover the economy. That said, they did a better job than any other economy in the world that had suffered from the great depression. In fact, to compare their recovery to any other is laughable. The other economies didn't recover until they started rearming.

So you post above that you don't know what fascism has to do with a recovery, and now you want to lecture people about it?

[molly bloom]

Originally posted by Kidicious




I don't know what fascism has to do with the recovery, except that the economic policies were anti-semetic.

You're presumably talking about Nazism, which although it shares several features with Italian Fascism, isn't exactly the same.

Also, Italian Fascism (although it adopted anti-semitic measures as the alliance with Nazi Germany progressed) didn't begin as anti-semitic, although Mussolini's imperialist tendencies cetainly did have a racial aspect (with regards the African and Arab territories of the new Roman empire).