# Explain fascism please. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 17, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065 "2010-07-17T22:15:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/121 "2010-07-21T15:02:43Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Well fascism saw itself as a response to class based politics - replacing class unity with national unity. One could equally argue that fascism was a ‘response’ to the perceived inadequacies of democracy. To my mind, fascism was not a ‘response’ to any one thing; stuff like the unrest spread by class-based politics, the perceived failures of democracy, the horrors of WW1 all gave it a _chance_, but they did not _produce_ the theoretical basis for fascism. That was an extreme development from many trends already long present in European civilization and thought - particularly, Romanticism combined with the ‘science-y’ _social_ implications of discoveries in biology and anthropology (Eugenics, Social Darwinism, Scientific Racism). ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/122 "2010-07-21T15:04:12Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > The fascist theorizers simply did not care for such things, as they did not care for rationality itself. Emotion and will counted for more. It was an interesting time. [Italian Futurism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism) with its emphasis on the mechanical, speed, anti-feminism and (notably) violence and purification and rejection of other human instincts was uncomfortably close to fascism too. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/123 "2010-07-21T15:05:35Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Capitalists were faced with the genuine likelihood of revolution. It had happened in many countries in Europe including Germany after the Great War, and even the UK, the poster child for gradualism and coopting the working class had seen a police strike in 1919 (I believe) and the General Strike. It really had the potential of being the End Times. [There was a General Strike in the UK in 1926](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_United_Kingdom_general_strike) – in _Brideshead Revisited,_ Charles Ryder volunteers for a militia to put it down – but it only lasted 10 days and really had very little revolutionary potential. The strikers only wanted what strikers usually want, and expropriation of the means of production was not on the agenda. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/124 "2010-07-21T15:05:56Z")
> [@Götterfunken](#): > > smiling bandit, could you provide some cites for the contention that Woodrow Wilson and the American progressive movement inspired the ideology of fascism? I know that Glenn Beck and Jonah Goldberg make this claim, but as far as I know, no historian of the 20th century takes them seriously. That’s not what I’m arguing, and I think Goldberg was wrong about that particular fact. Wilson’s total mobilization was something which both Progressives and Totalitarians admired for the same reason, but I do not think he specifically inspired the Fascists (though he was a borderline one himself). If I inadvertently confused you on that point, I apologize. It’s always hard to communicate a hugely complex bit of history, even in the overly-long posts I’ve made here. > [@](#): > > It seems to me that Goldberg and others who insist that “fascism = socialism” always base it on the particular case of Mussolini and his early dalliance with socialism (long before his “Il Duce” years). They seem to conveniently forget that as a fascist, Mussolini renounced such fundamentally leftist concepts as proletarian internationalism. In the same sense, they overlook the oxymoronic quality of the phrase “national socialism” to claim that Hitler was a leftist, too (it astonishes me that people on the SDMB will try to make the same argument–but it surfaces with every thread like this). First, Mussolini had nothing like a “dalliance” with Socialism. he was a flat-out Socialist and hard-core Leftist, whose major disagreement of his Left was that it was too weak to succeed. He disagreed with some concepts which were fundamentally Leftist, yes - but he fulfilled most of them. You could just as easily, and just as validly, argue that Lenin, Stalin, Kim Il-Sung, and Mao were all anti-Socialist. Communism is not the whole of the Left. It’s outrageously wrong to claim that. It was never the whole of the Left. And neither is the fact that the few modern-day Socilists, as well as the mild modern Left’s sensibilities, descend from the kinder internationalists and not the far-less kindly old Left. Some people still think that whipping up a one-liner about how they conflict proves their point. But it does not, because it’s my point that neither could ever tolerate the other, precisely because they are twins: born of the same mother by different “fathers”, and hating each other the more similar they were. Second, as I have tried repeatedly to point out, there was never anything contradictory about a nationalistic socialism. Socialists have been heavily nationalistic around the world, from American Progressives to German Democratic Socialists. Every Communist regime has been just so. You may argue they are not “Socialist” because of that, but again, if not Socialist then what? If you wish to reserve the word Socialist only for those who magiucally fulfill the perfect lilly-pure conditions… well, then about what could we be arguing? You would be talking about a theory, and I am talking about practice. > [@](#): > > Why can’t people just accept that monsters are on both ends of the political spectrum? The left gets Stalin, Mao, Castro, Kim Jong-Il, etc. The right gets Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Pinochet, etc. Totalitarian regimes on the right and left may share a certain style of governing, but at heart their ideologies are in opposition to one another, and it’s silly to claim that they’re otherwise interchangeable. Because it’s wholly incorrect as a fact, and because it pretends to assign guilt which is not there. The Classical Liberal position (which is now more or less Conservativism) opposed these things then and now. Moreover, the current American Left position, which is usually a wasted holdover 60’s radicalism highlights on a poorly-thought out quasi-Progressive platform, but mostly classical liberal in practice, has little to do with the old Left. That old Left is mostly gone. But not totally, and its real story needs to be told. There are more than a few Lefties on this board. The Left likes to portray its story as a mighty triumph. But it’s not true and not a pleasant one, for some very simple reasons. The one big failing of Classical Liberals, or Conservatives today, is not what the Left thinks. We have always been called monsters, the living human nightmare, the utter evil. But it’s untrue and was never true. Only the Left could really be so, because onyl the Left was willing or able to completely abandon any form of limitation on its power. Conservativism may never be truly as good as it could be, or maybe morally should be depending on your view. But it does not produce monsters. You can only become a demon if you are certain you are an angel. You can only create Hell on Earth if you are willing to sacrifice it to create Heaven on Earth. And that was the ultimate goal of the Left, from the moment it tore free from its womb to shower France with blood in the Revolution and drown Europe in death under Napoleon, to the Fascist and Communist experiments. Likewise, the Left as such made vastly lot less progress than they like to imagine, because they were always looking for perfection, not improvement. Time was always their enemy: they wanted everything, a world with no choices, where no good came at the cost of another good, and they wanted it yesterday. > [@Damuri Ajashi](#): > > Umm does any of this sound like the Teabaggers to anyone else? Your comment says nothing about us, but a great deal about you. Motes and planks and all that. **Brainglutton** , I was waiting for someone to pull that out. First off, he’s utterly wrong. No Fascist regime was born by “international finance capital” or capitalists, and I have never been able to find any credible source even to argue against it. Orwell was often perceptive, but he was just as often incredibly dense, and able to see what he wanted to see. His argument fails to even be an argument: he asserts it, but does not have any particular reason for it. Orwell was right in that Fascism was wholly against Orwell’s brand of Socialism. But it was definitely not about Capitalism. Fascism, if anything, encourage a form of Neo-Mercantilism in the economic sphere. > [@DiggitCamara](#): > > 1. The “Right” and the “Left” are named for their seating placement within the Legislative Power. The term stems from the French Revolution. > 2. The nazis saw themselves as the antagonists of the communist movement (far left) and seated themselves on the far right of the Reichstag > Therefore: the nazis saw themselves as a far right movement. You can argue that they were wrong, but if you do so, it’s you who’s ret-conning their political orientation. > Q.E.D.. Wow. Rarely do I get to see such a stunning display of ineptitude in the use of logic. Nice try, though. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/125 "2010-07-21T15:10:44Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [There was a General Strike in the UK in 1926](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1926_United_Kingdom_general_strike) – in _Brideshead Revisited,_ Charles Ryder volunteers for a militia to put it down – but it only lasted 10 days and really had very little revolutionary potential. The strikers only wanted what strikers usually want, and expropriation of the means of production was not on the agenda. Thanks for the lesson in British history, but you are utterly wrong if you think the General Strike had little revolutionary potential. The undercurrent, in particular in the minefields, where the strike started, involved calls for soviets… But you are missing the importance of the General Strike. It wasn’t whether the working class in the UK actually was on the verge of rising up in bloody rebellion, it is whether the forces of capital thought they were. And their response to the General Strike shows that they were terrified by it, and the posibility of more working class action. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/126 "2010-07-21T15:10:58Z")
> [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](#): > > It was an interesting time. [Italian Futurism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism) with its emphasis on the mechanical, speed, anti-feminism and (notably) violence and purification and rejection of other human instincts was uncomfortably close to fascism too. Yup. These days, it is hard for us to even understand or take seriously what actually motivated these folks. Hence, what we see in this thread - an attempt to make them out to be an example of the theoretical school opposed to one’s own, only taken to an extreme. The problem with such analysis, I contend, is that it obscures what actually motivated the fascists - which was truly wierd in its own right. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/127 "2010-07-21T15:18:43Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > But it was definitely not about Capitalism. Fascism, if anything, encourage a form of Neo-Mercantilism in the economic sphere. Do you know **anything** at all about the economic structure of Nazi Germany? Because you are making it pretty apparent you don’t. Other than actions specifically aimed at Jewish owners of department stores, the Nazi regime let the owners of the means of production continue unhindered, and in fact assisted them by destroying the union movement. Wages were supressed under facism. Profits sky-rocketed. Labor disruption was criminalized, while there was not a single attempt made to remove control from the hands of capitalists. I don’t know where you get this nonsense from, but it is nonsense none the less. ---
**Author:** ![Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/8edcca/32.png) [@Superfluous\_Parentheses](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superfluous_Parentheses)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/128 "2010-07-21T15:40:11Z")
Just a few more observations: By the time fascism (and socialism, and capitalism, really) were becoming actual world views with some kind of support, the nation-state was still a pretty new concept itself, and the increasing “modern world” (fast transport, mass media, large - international - industry, ever more powerful weaponry etc) was in many ways undermining the stability of sovereign countries. Fascism at some practical level was a system that tried to forge a cohesive and powerful nation-state by myth and violence whilst keeping - even accelerating - the “modern world” more or less for its own sake. If people get caught under the wheels, well, who cares? If you can strengthen “society” by singling out minorities (bonus points if they’ve got loot you can rob), go right ahead. Of course, while mass media are great, if any paper or movie threatens the ones in power, they _should_ go out and shoot them. It would be _immoral_ not to. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/129 "2010-07-21T16:15:43Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Do you know **anything** at all about the economic structure of Nazi Germany? Because you are making it pretty apparent you don’t. > > Other than actions specifically aimed at Jewish owners of department stores, the Nazi regime let the owners of the means of production continue unhindered, and in fact assisted them by destroying the union movement. Wages were supressed under facism. Profits sky-rocketed. Labor disruption was criminalized, while there was not a single attempt made to remove control from the hands of capitalists. > > I don’t know where you get this nonsense from, but it is nonsense none the less. I do know something about the Nazis, though they were again not the only Fascists (a “mistake” more than few people are eager to make). Do you know the details? The Nazis permitted unrestrained profit-seeking, yes. They also hammered employers who didn’t toe the line. They destroyed unionism, just as the Communisats did, in roder to make workers easier to control. Moreover, they were very much Neo-Mercantilists. While Mussolini never totally got his program off the ground, his conquest of Ethiopia and failed attempt to control Greece would have guarranteed resources for the home country. Germany displayed this more aggressively. And neither group had much use for international trade. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/130 "2010-07-21T16:18:49Z")
> [@villa](#): > > Labor disruption was criminalized, while there was not a single attempt made to remove control from the hands of capitalists. Seriously? Yes, industry was left in private ownership. Hitler didn’t nationalize the factories. But the industrialists were mobilized in the same way as the rest of society. The factory owner might have owned his factory, but he was not in control of the factory any more than a common citizen was in control of his own life. The fascists gave the orders and the capitalists obeyed. The notion that fascism was a triumph of the capitalists and controlled by the capitalists is almost as nonsensical as the argument that the fascists were a bunch of leftists. The capitalists kept their positions, they kept their “ownership”, but that meant nothing. They had a better position than a proletarian, but they didn’t run things, they passed on orders. Yes, they had responsibility and priveleges, but they were in the position of a General in the army. The General is subject to military discipline just as much as any private, and frequently more. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/131 "2010-07-21T16:20:21Z")
I asked if you knew anything about the economic structure of Nazi Germany. And it is clear you don’t. Employers hammered for not toeing the line? Who and how? Capitalists didn’t need to be forced because they loved what Hitler was doing. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/132 "2010-07-21T16:22:34Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > The only thing I’d add is that in Germany, the ruling capitalist class felt itself paralyzed, unable to make any serious moves to reestablish its dominance because of the strength of the working-class movement in Germany. They’d learned several very hard lessons during the 1920s and were pretty well aware that if they tried anything funny they’d probably have another revolutionary situation on their hands. Moreover, the working class on the march would have taken chunks of the lower middle class with it, so when the Nazis came around and said “We can organize the middle class in order to smash the workers” the bosses started throwing cash. > > (Note: I would disagree with your classification of communism as a 20th-century phenomenon, though - the _Manifesto_ was written in 1848, and the lessons Marx drew about the working class smashing the state were taken from the Paris Commune in 1871. Otherwise, spot-on analysis, IMO.) I’m a little confused by what distinction you mean between the “middle class” and the “working class”. In the United States at least, “middle class” is virtually synonymous with the people who work for an employer for wages; the only thing below that is the “lower class” which corresponds apporximately to what Marx called the Lumpenproletariat, which my Encyclopedia Britannica defined as “marginal and unemployable workers of debased and irregular habits, and including paupers, beggars and thieves”. Are you using the term “middle class” to mean the petite bourgeoisie? ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/133 "2010-07-21T16:22:38Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Seriously? Yes, industry was left in private ownership. Hitler didn’t nationalize the factories. But the industrialists were mobilized in the same way as the rest of society. The factory owner might have owned his factory, but he was not in control of the factory any more than a common citizen was in control of his own life. The fascists gave the orders and the capitalists obeyed. > > The notion that fascism was a triumph of the capitalists and controlled by the capitalists is almost as nonsensical as the argument that the fascists were a bunch of leftists. > > The capitalists kept their positions, they kept their “ownership”, but that meant nothing. They had a better position than a proletarian, but they didn’t run things, they passed on orders. Yes, they had responsibility and priveleges, but they were in the position of a General in the army. The General is subject to military discipline just as much as any private, and frequently more. There’s just no evidence of this. That the economy became more controlled after the move to ‘total war’ isn’t enough - all countries in the war (and often to a greater extent and earlier than Nazi Germany) placed controls on industry. There’s no real evidence of capitalist opposition to Hitler after the take over. What opposition there was class or religious based. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/134 "2010-07-21T16:27:17Z")
> [@villa](#): > > There’s no real evidence of capitalist opposition to Hitler after the take over. What opposition there was class or religious based. Because capitalists do not, despite the ferevered dreams of your imagination, form a unified bloc, hold significant political power, or even hold much in the way of common interests. Furthermore, noone could act against Hitler after the take-over, as he effectively kneecapped all existing opposition, much less . Industries which didn’t support the Nazis, however, were quickly made to toe the line. This is almost exactly the Progressive vision for an industrial army, wherein all workers are placed into huge combines which serve the government line - and precisely the corporatist idea popular with the 1920’s Left in Europe. For Fascists, unlike Communists, capital was a beast of burden to be enslaved for the economy, and not slaughtered for temporary chow. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/135 "2010-07-21T16:29:00Z")
My position is that attempting to fit fascism into the modern political-economic left-right spectrum is an exercise in pounding a square peg into a round hole. Although they share some aspects with many other political movements, they simply do not fit _anywhere_ in the modern conception of politics, even as an ‘extreme form’, as none so far as I’m aware truly depricate reason itself in favour of romantic passion and will. ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/136 "2010-07-21T16:30:38Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Industries which didn’t support the Nazis, however, were quickly made to toe the line. Just because you say this, doesn’t make it true. You can say it till you are blue in the face (or even black in the shirt) but it will still be just as false then as it was at the start. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/137 "2010-07-21T16:32:05Z")
Actually, [Nazi Germany was somewhat ambivalent and divided in its economic policies.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany) > [@](#): > > Hitler’s views on economics, beyond his early belief that the economy was of secondary importance, are a matter of debate. On the one hand, he proclaimed in one of his speeches that “we are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system”,[6] but he was clear to point out that his interpretation of socialism “has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism,” saying that “Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not.”[7] At a later time, Hitler said: “Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether… What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism.”[8] In private, Hitler also said that “I absolutely insist on protecting private property… we must encourage private initiative”.[9] On yet another occasion he qualified that statement by saying that the government should have the power to regulate the use of private property for the good of the nation.[10] Hitler clearly believed that the lack of a precise economic programme was one of the Nazi Party’s strengths, saying: “The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all.”[11] While not espousing a specific economic philosophy, Hitler employed anti-semitic themes to attack economic systems in other countries, associating ethnic Jews with both communism (“Jewish Bolsheviks”) and capitalism, both of which he opposed.[12][13] Hitler also believed that individuals within a nation battled with each other for survival, and that such ruthless competition was good for the health of the nation, because it promoted “superior individuals” to higher positions in society.[14] > > \ > > In the spring and summer of 1936, Nazi Germany was rocked by a major economic crisis. By the spring of 1936, the demands for raw materials from abroad and the supplies of foreign currency to pay for them had reached the point where the stockpiles of raw materials were sufficient for only two months production[20]. The extent of the German balance of payments problem could be seen in that between 1933-36 exports declined in price by 9% while imports rose in price by 9%, thus meaning that within an three-year period the Germans had to export 20% more in order to pay for the same level of imports[21], Dr. Schacht informed the War Minister, Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg that there was an insufficient foreign exchange reserves to pay for the increased level of lead and copper imports requested by the Wehrmacht, who would have to do without the increased production requested by Blomberg[22] At the same time, there was increasing demands from the Nazi Party for measures to increase autarky and decrease imports[23] Faced with the choice between one section of the government centered around Dr. Schacht and the Price Commissioner, Dr. Carl Goerdeler calling for an decreased level of military spending and an turn away from autarkic policies, and another fraction around Göring calling for increased military spending and more autarky, Hitler characteristically hesitated before siding with the latter, and more radical fraction in his “Four Year Plan” memo of August 1936[24] Supporting the “free-market” faction in their demands for less military spending, more free trade and less statism in the economcy were some of Germany’s leading business executives, most notably Hermann Duecher of AEG, Robert Bosch of Robert Bosch GmbH, and Albert Voegeler of Vereinigte Stahlwerke AG.[25] > > In August 1936, in response to a growing crisis in the German economy caused by the strains of rearmament, Hitler issued the “Four-Year Plan Memorandum” ordering Hermann Göring to carry out the Four Year Plan to have the German economy ready for war within the next four years.[26] During the 1936 economic crisis, the German government was divided into two fractions with one (the so-called “free market” fraction) centering around the Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht and the Price Commissioner Dr. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler calling for decreased military spending and a turn away from autarkic policies, and another fraction around Göring calling for the opposite. Hitler hesitated for the first half of 1936 before siding with the more radical fraction in his “Four Year Plan” memo of August.[27] Historians such as Richard Overy have argued that the importance of the memo, which was written personally by Hitler, can be gauged by the fact that Hitler, who had something of a phobia about writing, hardly ever wrote anything down, which indicates that Hitler had something especially important to say.[28] The “Four-Year Plan Memorandum” predicated an imminent all-out, apocalyptic struggle between “Judo-Bolshevism” and German National Socialism, which necessitated a total effort at rearmament regardless of the economic costs.[29] . . . > > \ > > Documents such as the Four Year Plan Memo have often used by right historians such as Henry Ashby Turner and Karl Dietrich Bracher who argue for a “primacy of politics” approach (that Hitler was not subordinate to German business, but rather the contrary was the case) against the “primacy of economics” approach championed by Marxist historians (that Hitler was a “agent” of and subordinate to German business)[34]. > > The British Marxist historian Timothy Mason, who was a leading expert on the economic history of Nazi Germany argued that after the 1936 economic crisis, a “primacy of politics” prevailed with business interests being subordinated to the Nazi regime. In a 1966 essay, Mason wrote “that both the domestic and foreign policy of the National Socialist government became, from 1936 onward, increasing independent of the influence of the economic ruling classes, and even in some essential aspects ran contrary to their collective interests” and that “it became possible for the National Socialist state to assume a fully independent role, for the “primacy of politics” to assert itself”[35] Mason used the following to support his thesis: > > - that after the 1936 economic crisis, German industrialists were increasing excluded from the decision-making process[36] > - that after 1936, the German state came to play an increasing dominant role in the German economy both through state-owned companies and by placing increasing larger orders[37] > - that the expansion of armament-related production supported by a highly economically interventionist state led to those capitalist enterprises not related to armaments to go into decline[38] > - the decline in effectiveness in economic lobbying groups in the Third Reich[39] > - that through every major German industrialist called for a reduction of working class living standards from 1933 onwards, before 1942 the Nazi regime always ignored such calls, and sought instead to raise working class living standards[40] > > \ > > . . . Throughout the 1930s, German businesses were encouraged to form cartels, monopolies and oligopolies, whose interests were then protected by the state.[46] In his book, Big Business in the Third Reich, Arthur Schweitzer notes that: > > > [@](#): > > > > “ Monopolistic price fixing became the rule in most industries, and cartels were no longer confined to the heavy or large-scale industries. […] Cartels and quasi-cartels (whether of big business or small) set prices, engaged in limiting production, and agreed to divide markets and classify consumers in order to realize a monopoly profit.[47] ” > > As big business became increasingly organized, it developed an increasingly close partnership with the Nazi government. The government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies, and, in exchange, business leaders supported the government’s political and military goals.[48] > > While the strict state intervention into the economy, and the massive rearmament policy, led to full employment during the 1930s, real wages in Germany dropped by roughly 25% between 1933 and 1938. [49] Trade unions were abolished, as well as collective bargaining and the right to strike. [50] The right to quit also disappeared: Labour books were introduced in 1935, and required the consent of the previous employer in order to be hired for another job. [50] In place of ordinary profit incentive to guide investment, investment was guided through regulation to accord with needs of the State. Government financing eventually came to dominate the investment process, which the proportion of private securities issued falling from over half of the total in 1933 and 1934 to approximately 10 percent in 1935–1938. Heavy taxes on profits limited self-financing of firms. The largest firms were mostly exempt from taxes on profits, however government control of these were extensive enough to leave “only the shell of private ownership.” [51] ---
**Author:** ![villa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/bc79bd/32.png) [@villa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/villa)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/138 "2010-07-21T16:33:42Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Furthermore, noone could act against Hitler after the take-over, as he effectively kneecapped all existing opposition, much less . Sorry, didn’t see this drivel before. The army could have easily dealt with Hitler. It chose not to because it was getting shiny toys to play with. Indeed, it is only once the defeats started that the army showed any interest in getting rid of Hitler, well after the true barbarism of the Nazis was evident to all (not just the filthy lefties who were pointing it out when good, upstanding, Christian conservatives were more than happy to sit down with Hitler as a bulwark against communism). ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/139 "2010-07-21T16:39:40Z")
> [@smiling\_bandit](#): > > Because capitalists do not, despite the ferevered dreams of your imagination, form a unified bloc, hold significant political power, or even hold much in the way of common interests. 😕 They do in America, and have since the Gilded Age. If not longer . . . > [@Adam Smith](#): > > “We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate … Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate.” > > “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” > > “The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy. But the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquility of anybody but themselves.” ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 21, 2010, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/140 "2010-07-21T16:43:25Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Actually, [Nazi Germany was somewhat ambivalent and divided in its economic policies.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany) Thus the foolishness of attempting to classify them based on a spectrum used to analyse various economic-political theories. At various times Hitler either embraced or repudiated them at will (and it is the “at will” part that is significant). From your cite, Hitler said it best: > [@](#): > > Hitler clearly believed that the lack of a precise economic programme was one of the Nazi Party’s strengths, saying: “The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065.md?page=8)