WI: Fascist America

Indeed. You can tell the German industries were suffering by the record at a time of wage stagnation.

If "economic freedom" equals "Do as I tell you or you get a bullet in the back of the head," then the PRC under Mao must have been the most economically free society on the planet.
 
But Fascism by the Italian definition is Corporations working together to run the government. As they are the holders of jobs, money, and power they have a say. Mussolini said that Fascist should be called Corporationism. So calling it left leaning is hard as it is secure in the economy and big business which is traditional right side leaning.

I believe that there is some question as to if Mussolini really said that about Corporatism. There is some indication that he may never have said that. Also corporatism, in its historical context, and are not directly linked with corporations (ie. businesses).

From wikipedia:

Historically, corporatism (Italian: corporativismo) refers to a political or economic system in which power is held by civic assemblies that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, social, cultural, and/or professional groups. These civic assemblies are known as corporations (not the same as the legally incorporated business entities known as corporations, though some are such). Corporations are unelected bodies with an internal hierarchy; their purpose is to exert control over the social and economic life of their respective areas. Thus, for example, a steel corporation would be a cartel composed of all the business leaders in the steel industry, coming together to discuss a common policy on prices and wages. When the political and economic power of a country rests in the hands of such groups, then a corporatist system is in place.

However, I will grant you that I would consider the US, in general, may be tipping towards a form of corporatism with the repeated mergers of airlines, banks, etc.
 
Why not Roosevelt? Fascism is a political movement on the leftside of the political spectrum. It shares the same roots - tho varying from country to country - with Progressivism.

Enough with this lie.:mad::mad::mad: Fascism was at bthe service of the established powers-that-be against the workers' movements. It was TREASON to the n-th power of any form of socialism.
 
I've said it before: the Nazis built giant industrial combines, subsidised with government funds, to outcompete the private firms and press prices down. They completely rejected the capitalist view of supply and demand setting the prices; to them, national interests should govern production, not private profits. Furthermore, they tended to nationalise or otherwise interfere with "big business" that got in their way (Rheinmetall, Junkers, IG Farben are a few examples). How are such policies and such a stated disregard for the market pro-business?
 
Back when Ian had some Alternate History Scenarios with something called Dark America.This should be read if the scenario is available.Ian.do you still have the Alternate History section with scenarios like Dark America?I will check my print out and try to come up with a summary .
 
Off the top of my head.

1. Fascism and Nazism are different and not one and the same - at least historically.

2. Woodrow Wilson and the Progressives had some pretty strange and frightning ideas about restructuring government and the nation.

3. The New Deal was inspired by Wilson's wartime economy.

4. Fascism is right wing only in regard to it being right of communism but still left of center politically.

5. Socialism was a popular idea internationally from the late mid to 19th century to the early 20th century and the Great War had a tremendous impact how the concept of socialism developed differently in each country.

Thats a few.

Maybe I should have said "points which support the assertion that Fascism was a left-wing movement", an assertion which is, as I said before, bollocks.
 
If "economic freedom" equals "Do as I tell you or you get a bullet in the back of the head," then the PRC under Mao must have been the most economically free society on the planet.

I really don't understand your point here.

It seems like you'd like to say that any oppressive government that interferes in the economy is left-wing. Which is anice way of establishing a circular argument that no right-wing government can be oppressive.
 
I've said it before: the Nazis built giant industrial combines, subsidised with government funds, to outcompete the private firms and press prices down. They completely rejected the capitalist view of supply and demand setting the prices; to them, national interests should govern production, not private profits. Furthermore, they tended to nationalise or otherwise interfere with "big business" that got in their way (Rheinmetall, Junkers, IG Farben are a few examples). How are such policies and such a stated disregard for the market pro-business?

On the other hand, they also had a habit of handing out contracts and factories to loyal companies like party favors. Certainly, the fact that industry supported them is a sign of their orientation. Unless you think that the leaders of Germany's cartels were all leftists.

The Nazis aren't really either left or right in any conventional sense of the term.
 
On the other hand, they also had a habit of handing out contracts and factories to loyal companies like party favors. Certainly, the fact that industry supported them is a sign of their orientation. Unless you think that the leaders of Germany's cartels were all leftists.

The Nazis aren't really either left or right in any conventional sense of the term.

Or maybe they viewed them as better than the alternative? I imagine many Russian industrialists would've supported Kerensky against the Bolsheviks, though he was a Socialist himself.

Though classifying the Nazis on the traditional left-right scale is difficult, I'll give you that. Some parts of their foreign and social policy were definitely right-wing. On the other hand, many others were leftish. In all, it was less about any systematic ideology and more about what individual bigwigs thought.
 
Though classifying the Nazis on the traditional left-right scale is difficult, I'll give you that. Some parts of their foreign and social policy were definitely right-wing. On the other hand, many others were leftish. In all, it was less about any systematic ideology and more about what individual bigwigs thought.

I think you are absolutely right here. Because of nazism and fascism being a hybrid of both left and right it is difficult to place them on the political spectrum. They are simultaneously liberal and conservative by appealing to followers from both sides. So it would be inheritently incorrect to consider them as being exclusively of one side or the other.
 
I'll say it again:

You can't properly place industrial era ideologies like communism and fascism on the left-right scale, something that emerged at the tail end of the commercial era of the 1700's. It's a primitive, out-dated model of politics.

Fascists were collectivist in nature, so they share more in common with socialists than with liberals in that regard. They were, however, also very culturally conservative, and nationalist (which started as a 'left-wing' position, mind) rather than internationalist. I've heard it said that Bolshevism is international socialism and Nazism was national socialism, which works rather well from certain perspectives.
 
I'll say it again:

You can't properly place industrial era ideologies like communism and fascism on the left-right scale, something that emerged at the tail end of the commercial era of the 1700's. It's a primitive, out-dated model of politics.

Fascists were collectivist in nature, so they share more in common with socialists than with liberals in that regard. They were, however, also very culturally conservative, and nationalist (which started as a 'left-wing' position, mind) rather than internationalist. I've heard it said that Bolshevism is international socialism and Nazism was national socialism, which works rather well from certain perspectives.

So what then is Socialism in One Country?

:confused:
 
CanadianGoose, because most of us refuse to refer to the author whose work ultimately led to the miniseries V and the even more unspeakable television series.:eek:


One fundamental question is whether you believe an expansion of government to be automatically leftist. If so then you must conclude that any government at any point in history which had to handle a war must have been leftist, regardless of any of the details of that government.
 
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