Summary: Below is a short economic analysis of German Economy under the Nazis. It is apparent they ran a centralized collectivist economy just like the Soviet Union. It was a political party that acted much in the same way the American Left does in regard to unemployment and trying to use the government to decrease it. It notes that the Nazis used public works to a large extent, which is exceedingly leftist, and put people to work for the State.

The Nazis started enacting other leftist ploys like price freezes and starting expanding the role of the government and destroying any freedom left in the Market. Private Property owners were dictated to by the State. Clearly Nazis were opponents of capitalism through and through.

Notes on: "On the Theory of the Centrally Administered Economy: An Analysis of the German Experiment," by Walter Eucken

Walter Eucken was a professor of economics at the University of Freiburg, Germany and an architect of the economic reforms that led to the Economic Miracle. In this article Eucken wanted to explain the problems and weaknesses of centrally administered economies such as that of National Socialist (Nazi) Germany and the Soviet Union.

The Nazi economic system developed unintentionally. The initial objective in 1932-33 of its economic policy was just to reduce the high unemployment associated with the Great Depression. This involved public works, expansion of credit, easy monetary policy and manipulation of exchange rates. Generally Centrally Administered Economies (CAE's) have little trouble eliminating unemployment because they can create large public works projects and people are put to work regardless of whether or not their productivity exceeds their wage cost. Nazi Germany was successful in solving the unemployment problem, but after a few years the expansion of the money supply was threatening to create inflation.

The Nazi Government reacted to the threat of inflation by declaring a general price freeze in 1936. From that action the Nazi Government was driven to expand the role of the government in directing the economy and reducing the role played by market forces. Although private property was not nationalized, its use was more and more determined by the government rather than the owners.

Eucken uses the case of the leather industry. An individual leather factory produces at the direction of the Leather Control Office. This Control Office arranged for the factory to get the hides and other supplies it needed to produce leather. The output of leather was disposed of according to the dictates of the Leather Control Office. The Control Offices set their directives through a process involving four stages:

• 1. The collection of statistical information by a Statistical Section. The Statistical Section tried to assemble all the important data on past production, equipment, storage facilities and raw material requirements.
• 2. The planning of production taking into account the requirements of leather by other industries in their plans; e.g. the needs of the Shoe Control Office for supplies of leather. The available supply of hides limited the production of leather. There had to be a balancing of supply and demand. The result of the planning of all the control offices was a Balance Sheet. There was some effort at creating some system for solving the planning, such as production being limited by the narrowest bottleneck, but in practice the planning ended up being simply scaling up past production and planning figures.
• 3. The issuing of production orders to the individual factories.
• 4. Checking up on compliance with the planning orders.

In practice the authorities of the control offices often intervened and there was continual negotiation and political battles as the users of products tried to use political influence to improve their allocations. The prices of 1936 made little economic sense, particularly after Germany was at war. So there economic calculations using the official prices were meaningless. In particular, the profitability of a product was of no significance in determining whether it should be produced or not. Losses did not result in a factory ceasing production; the control offices made sure that it got the raw materials and that the workers got rations of necessities.

At the beginning of the war the Government established a priorities list for allocating scarse resources. Activities associated with the war got top priority and consumer goods production was near the bottom of the list. If two users wanted gasoline any available stocks went to the user with the highest priority. This seems reasonable but, in fact, it led to major problems. Suppose one use of gasoline is for trucks to haul raw materials to factories. If the Government always gives the available gasoline to the Army then the truckers cannot deliver supplies to the factories and they shut down and eventually other factories dependent upon them also shut down. At first the Government tried to handle the problem by revising the priorities list and moving up uses such as gasoline for trucks. But whatever uses got put at the bottom eventually created bottlenecks. In the middle of the war the Government abolished the priority list. It was an unworkable system.

The problem with making production decisions without reference to relevant prices is that the control offices may dictate the production of goods which are of less value to the economy than the opportunity costs of the resources that go into their production.

Because of the mistakes and failures of Centrally Administered Economies there are often black markets operating. Although the authorities typically persecute people for dealing in these markets the reality is that such markets are essential for preventing a collapse of the Centrally Administered Economy.

Production decisions may be made on political criteria that are economically foolish, such as locating a factory in a region to benefit the supporters of some political figure. Even aside from such corruption of the decision process the centrally administered economy suffers from major weaknesses. The centrally administered economy can mobilize resourts quickly for big investment projects but there is no guarantee that there will be a balance of investments. For example, there may be big programs to build railroads but not enough trains to make use of those railroads.

Although Centrally Administered Economies may appear to be efficient and effective initially their errors and inefficiencies accumulate and eventually result in stagnation if not collapse. Often the apparent successes of such economies are just illusions. Outsiders who do not know how such economies really work are often fooled by these illusions.

Source: San José State University - Department of Economics

MODERN LEFTISM AS RECYCLED FASCISM



By: John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.)


Mussolini's own summary of the Fascist philosophy: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" (Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State)


A Leftist prophet

The ideas of Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), the founder of Fascism, are remarkably similar to the ideas of modern-day Western Leftists. If Mussolini was not the direct teacher of modern-day Leftists, he was certainly a major predecessor. What Leftists advocate today is not, of course, totally identical with what Mussolini was advocating and doing 60 to 80 years ago in Italy but there are nonetheless extensive and surprising parallels. Early in the 20th century, he prophesied that the 20th century would be the century of Fascism and he got that right in that most of his ideas are still preached by the modern-day Left.



The popular view

Popular encyclopedias such as Funk & Wagnalls (1983) lump together Hitler's German regime, Mussolini's Italian regime, General Tojo's Japanese regime and Generalissimo Franco's Spanish regime under the single rubric of "fascist" so it seems clear that it is the accepted wisdom that all four regimes were basically similar and differed only in matters of detail. Anyone who knows even a little of the history of the period concerned, however, must realize how far from the truth this is. The feudal warlords of Japan, the antisemitic socialist of Germany, the Catholic monarchist of Spain and the pragmatic socialist of Italy were in fact really united over only one thing: Their dislike of Lenin and Stalin's Communism and "Bolshevism" generally. There clearly is some need, therefore, for us to look at what Mussolini and the Fascists really were and did.



The reality

In what follows, facts that should be easily checkable in popular encyclopaedias and textbooks will not be referenced. Less well-known facts, however, will be referenced. History is of course written by the victors and most summaries of historical Fascism are therefore written from a very anti-Fascist perspective so care is normally needed to tease out the facts behind the interpretations and value-judgments. That will attempted here.

Unlike many other accounts, considerable emphasis will be given here to Mussolini's early years. What politicians say in order to get into power and what they do once they gain power are notoriously two different things -- with Lenin and Stalin being not the least examples of that. A major aim therefore will be to see where Mussolini came from and what he did and said in order to get into power.

To do so, however, is a considerable trip back in time and one effect of that is that the political terminology of nearly 100 years ago was somewhat different from today. In reading quotations from the early days one must keep in mind that those Mussolini refers to as "Socialists" were in fact Marxists rather than social democrats and those whom Mussolini refers to as "liberals" were advocates of laissez faire and would hence be described as conservatives today. Mussolini started out as a Marxist but eventually devised Fascism as a "third way" (sound familiar?). He saw it as offering a middle way between Marxism and capitalism -- Leftist but not Marxist.



In Mussolini's own words

Let us listen initially to some reflections on the early days of Fascism by Mussolini himself -- first published in 1935 (See the third chapter in Greene, 1968).

"If the bourgeoisie think they will find lightning conductors in us they are the more deceived; we must start work at once .... We want to accustom the working class to real and effectual leadership".

And that was Mussolini quoting his own words from the early Fascist days. So while Mussolini had by that time (in his 30s) come to reject the Marxist idea of a class-war, he still saw himself as anti-bourgeois and as a saviour and leader of the workers. What modern-day Leftist could not identify with that?

"Therefore I desire that this assembly shall accept the revindication of national trades unionism"

So he was a good union man like most Leftists today.

"When the present regime breaks down, we must be ready at once to take its place"

Again a great Leftist hope and aspiration.

"Fascism has taken up an attitude of complete opposition to the doctrines of Liberalism, both in the political field and in the field of economics".

The "Liberalism" he refers to here would of course be called "Neo-liberalism" today -- the politics of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan. Mussolini opposed such politics and so do Leftists today.

"The present method of political representation cannot suffice".

Modern-day Leftists too seem to seek influence outside the normal democratic channels -- from strikes and demonstrations to often successful attempts to get the courts to make law.

"Fascism now and always believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say in actions influenced by no economic motive"

He here also rejects the Communist emphasis on materialism. Leftism to this day is often seen as a religion and its agitators clearly often long to be seen as heroic and unmaterialistic.

"Fascism repudiates the conception of "economic" happiness"

Leftists today also tend to regard consumerism as gross (or say they do as they drive off in their Volvos).

"After the war, in 1919, Socialism was already dead as a doctrine: It existed only as a hatred".

Socialism has never been a buzzword in North American Leftist circles but it certainly was for a very long time in the rest of the world. And to modern day British Leftists too socialism has a meaning that is more nostalgic and emotional than concrete and many would be prepared to admit that it is functionally "dead". Mussolini, however was 70 years earlier in announcing the death. It should be noted, however, that Mussolini was principally referring here to the policies and doctrines of his own former Socialist Party -- which was explicitly Marxist -- and which were far more extreme than the socialism of (say) Clement Attlee and the postwar British Labour party.

"Fascism ..... was born of the need for action and it was itself from the beginning practical rather than theoretical".

Modern-day Leftist demonstrators too seem to be more interested in dramatic actions than in any coherent theory.

" one would there find no ordered expression of doctrine but a series of aphorisms, anticipations and aspirations".

This is how Mussolini described early Fascist meetings. Modern-day Leftist agitators too seem more interested in slogans than in any form of rational debate.

"If the 19th century has been the century of the individual (for liberalism means individualism), it may be conjectured that this is the century of the State.

This is Mussolini's famous prophecy about the 20th century in the Enciclopedia Italiana. It came true with the aid of the modern-day Left and their love of big government. To underline that, note that in 1900 the ratio of government spending to GDP in Italy was 10%, in the 1950s 30%, and it is now roughly 60% (Martino, 1998). In this prophecy, Mussolini rejected Marxian socialism because he disliked the Marxist notions of class war and historical inevitability but modern-day Leftists differentiate themselves from Marxists too.

But Mussolini was more like Lenin and Stalin in his overt rejection of democracy: "Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society". Most modern-day Leftists in the Western world would undoubtedly like to get rid of democracy too but they are less open about it than Mussolini was.

"Laissez faire is out of date"

To this day the basic free market doctrine of "laissez faire" is virtually a swear-word to most Leftists. Quoted from Smith (1967, p. 87).

"The paid slaves of kings in their gaudy uniforms, their chests covered with crosses, decorations and similar foreign and domestic hardware ..... blinding the public with dust and flaunting in its face their impudent display".

Here Hibbert (1962, p. 11) reports Mussolini's youthful contempt for the armed forces. Such anti-militarism would surely resound well with most student antiwar demonstrators of today.

"The Socialist party reaffirms its eternal faith in the future of the Workers' International, destined to bloom again, greater and stronger, from the blood and conflagration of peoples. It is in the name of the International and of Socialism that we invite you, proletarians of Italy, to uphold your unshakeable opposition to war".

This from Carsten (1967, p. 46). It is from an article that was published by Mussolini in the Socialist Party organ "Avanti!" of 22 September, 1914 during Mussolini's Marxist period. So Mussolini's anti-militarism persisted until he was aged 31. When compared with Mussolini's subsequent career this shows exactly where anti-militaristic and antiwar sentiments can ultimately lead.

"Our programme is simple. We want to rule Italy".

As I have argued at length elsewhere, that is the real program of any Leftist. But Mussolini had the honesty to be upfront about it. Quoted from Carsten (1967, p. 62).

Mussolini ha sempre ragione ("Mussolini is always right").

This is probably the most famous of the many slogans that were plastered up everywhere in Fascist Italy. It too has a resounding echo among Leftists today. I can think of examples where modern conservative politicians have apologized and retracted their views but I can think of no example where a Leftist has. In the old Soviet empire there was virtually no such thing as "negative" news reported in the media. Even plane crashes were ignored. And as Amis (2002) notes, even though the reality of the vast, destructive and brutal tyranny of the now collapsed Soviet regime is undeniable, Leftists to this day are almost universally unapologetic about their past support for it and may even still claim that Lenin was a great man.

And Mussolini's "Fascist Manifesto" of 1919 (full translation by Vox Day here) includes in Fascist policy such socialist gems as (I quote):

* The nationalization of all the arms and explosives factories.
* A strong progressive tax on capital that will truly expropriate a portion of all wealth.
* The seizure of all the possessions of the religious congregations and the abolition of all the bishoprics, which constitute an enormous liability on the Nation and on the privileges of the poor.
* The formation of a National Council of experts for labor, for industy, for transportation, for the public health, for communications, etc. Selections to be made from the collective professionals or of tradesmen with legislative powers, and elected directly to a General Commission with ministerial powers.
* A minimum wage.
* The participation of workers' representatives in the functions of industry commissions



Mussolini as described by historians

"For the proletariat must consider itself anti-patriotic by definition and necessity and made to realize that nationalism was a mask for rapacious militarism that should be left to the masters and that the national flag was, as Gustave Herve had said, a rag to be planted on a dunghill"

This is a summary of Mussolini's attitudes when he was aged 25 by Hibbert (1962, p. 14). So although in his 30s Mussolini become an ardent nationalist, in his youth he was as anti-nationalist as any America-hater among the American "liberal" youth of today.

"He was coming to the belief which was soon to dominate his life -- that the existing order must be overthrown by an elite of revolutionaries acting in the name of the people".

This summary of Mussolini's developing beliefs in his 20s by Hibbert (1962, p. 17) could hardly be a more quintessentially Leftist outlook.

"It contained several demands that were decidedly radical: A progressive tax on capital and a tax of eighty-five percent on war profits, universal franchise for men and women, a national militia, a minimum wage, nationalization of the munition industries, worker's participation in the management of industrial enterprises, the confiscation of all eccelesiastical property".

This is Carsten's (1967, p. 50) summary of Mussolini's June, 1919, political program, already mentioned. There would be very little in that which would not strike a chord with modern-day Leftists. Note that Mussolini was even a feminist by the standards of his day -- agitating for equal rights for women.

"He had a profound contempt for those whose overriding ambition was to be rich. It was a mania, he thought, a kind of disease, and he comforted himself with the reflection that the rich were rarely happy"

Here Hibbert (1962, p. 47) is describing a lifelong attitude of Mussolini that continued right into his time as Italy's Prime Minister -- when he refused to take his official salary. Given the contempt for the rich so often expressed by Leftists almost everywhere, Mussolini was clearly a Leftist paragon in that regard.

"There was much truth in the comment of a Rome newspaper that the new fasci did not aim at the defence of the ruling class or the existing State but wanted to lead the revolutionary forces into the Nationalist camp so as to prevent a victory of Bolshevism..

Here Carsten (1967, p. 50) also reports on not mistaking the rivalry between the Fascists and the Communists as being pro-establishment.

"Mussolini, however, declared that he was fighting the Socialists, not because or their socialism but because they were anti-national and reactionary".

This is again from Carsten (1967, p. 50). So Mussolini retained his socialist loyalties even though he had also become a nationalist.

"In the summer of 1919 crowds, indignant about recent price increases, invaded the shops, looted goods and insisted on price reductions. Mussolini and his fasci proclaimed their solidarity with the rioters. The "Popolo d'Italia" suggested that it would set a good example if some profiteers were strung up on lamp-posts and some hoarders smothered under the potatoes and the sides of bacon they were hiding".

So Mussolini was far from being an instinctive supporter of law and order (Carsten, 1967, p. 52). The "Popolo d'Italia" was Mussolini's own newspaper.

"There Mussolini was still following a distinctly radical line. he asserted that his programme was similar to that of the Socialists, that Fascism was helping their cause, that it would carry through the agrarian revolution, the only one that was possible in Italy. He even welcomed the occupation of the factories"

This is again from Carsten (1967, p. 56) -- summarizing Mussolini's speeches of 1920. Pledging revolution and welcoming worker occupation of the factories is still of course a wet dream of the more "revolutionary" Left today.

"On 16 November the new government presented itself to Parliament.... received an overwhelming vote of confidence ... Only Mussolini's old enemy Turati, the spokesman of the Socialists rejected the government ... but not even all the Socialist deputies voted against."

So when he finally came to power, Mussolini and the "Reds" of his own former party were still bitter rivals but he was still Leftist enough for some "Reds" to vote for him! (From Carsten, 1967, p. 65). Much later, Hitler too received some parliamentary support from Germany's Socialist party.

"Mussolini in March 1936 told the council of corporations that he did not wish to bureaucratize the entire economy of the nation but in practice the extension of government activities everywhere brought with it a top-heavy organization, slow and unresponsive, and quite out of touch with ordinary people".

This is from Smith (1967, p. 80) and describes a picture that is all too familiar to us today as the outcome of ever increasing cries for government regulation and intervention from Leftists. And Mussolini's disclaimer about bureaucratization is distinctly reminiscent of US President Bill Clinton's declaration that the era of big government is over. No doubt both Clinton and Mussolini crossed their fingers as they said it!

"Mussolini set the example in his revival of pagan rites, and in October 1928 instituted a ceremony in which patriotic citizens presented their national savings certificates as a burnt offering on an ancient altar of Minerva specially brought out of its museum for the purpose"

So do modern day Leftists find a superior spirituality in pagan pre-Christian religions such as the religions of the American Indians? Mussolini was there before them (Smith, 1967, p. 100).

And perhaps the ultimate comment by others on Mussolini is what Muravchik (2002) reminds us of at some length: Leftists of the prewar era worldwide very often praised and admired Mussolini as a great socialist innovator. It was once as fashionable among Leftists to praise his regime as it later became to praise Soviet Communism.

Horowitz (1998) also quotes historical summaries showing that many modern Leftist intellectual stratagems have precedents in prewar European Fascist thought generally.



Mussolini's Marxist Roots

So, how many people today are aware that Mussolini, that great Fascist ogre, was in his youth an incandescent revolutionary socialist, a labor-union agitator who was jailed for his pains (Hibbert, 1962)? He was as radical as any student radical of today. Even in his childhood, he was expelled from two schools for his rebellious behaviour.

After that he became one of Italy's most prominent Marxist theoreticians and an intimate of Lenin. He was in fact first dubbed "Il Duce" (the Leader) when he was a member of Italy's (Marxist) Socialist Party and between 1912 and 1914 he was the editor of their newspaper, "L'Avanti". After his split with the Socialist Party he started his own Leftist newspaper "Il Popolo d'Italia" ("The people of Italy").

When he broke with the Socialist party in 1914, it was not over any dissatisfaction with socialist ideology but rather because the Socialists were neutralists in the First World War whereas Mussolini correctly foresaw that the Austro/German forces would not win the war and therefore wanted Italy to join the Allied side and thus get a slice of Austrian territory at the end of the war. Italians had suffered many humiliations at the hands of the Austrians and there must have been very few Italians who did not share Mussolini's desire to seize historically Italian territory from them. Like many Leftists then and since Mussolini did not have any principles that he allowed to stand in the way of a grab for power.

It should be noted that Mussolini's views in this matter did not at all disqualify him from continuing as a Marxist. Like many other Marxists of his time (See Gregor, 1979), Mussolini tempered his view of the importance of class-solidarity with the recognition that both Marx and Engels had in their lifetimes lent their support to a number of wars between nations. He looked, in other words, not only at broad Marxist theory but also at how Marx and Engels applied their theories. Such "pragmatism" was, of course, a hallmark of Mussolini's thinking. And, like the Communists, Mussolini had no aversion to war.

As further commentary on Mussolini's Marxist credentials, it may be worth noting that, long before the Bolshevik revolution, Mussolini had supported the orthodox Marxist (cf. the Mensheviks) view that backward States like Italy and Russia had to go through a capitalist or bourgeois democratic stage before evolving into socialism. It was this, as much as anything, that led Mussolini to collaborate with the Italian establishment when he eventually gained power.

Mussolini's disagreement with Lenin in this matter therefore meant that Mussolini and his Fascist friends greeted with considerable glee the terrible economic disaster (with national income at one third of the 1913 level) that emerged in Russia after the Bolshevik takeover. They saw both the Bolshevik disaster and their own eventual successes as proving the correctness of Marx's theory of historical evolution. When, in 1919, Lenin began to speak (in language that could have been Mussolini's) of the need to hold his country together with "a single iron will" (Gregor, 1979, p. 124) it put him belatedly but rather clearly in Mussolini's camp.

It should also be noted that Mussolini was the son of an impoverished and very Leftist father who worked mainly as a blacksmith. Mussolini was very proud of these working-class roots and it was a great recreation of his, even after coming to power, to take drives in the country with his wife and stop at various farmhouses on the way for a chat with the family there. He would enjoy discussing the crops, the weather and all the usual rural topics and obviously just liked the feeling of being one of the people. His claim to represent the people was not just theory but heartfelt. And he never gave up his "anti-bourgeois" rhetoric.



Mussolini gaining power

After 1918, Italy was in chaos, with Communist upheavals everywhere. Mussolini initially expressed his sympathies for these upheavals but soon saw that they were reducing Italy to a form of anarchy that was helping no-one. He therefore formed his "Fasci di combattimento" -- mainly comprised in the beginning of fellow ex-servicemen -- to help restore order. This they did by force, breaking up the Socialist and Communist rallies, strikes and organizations. Internecine feuds between Leftists have always been common, however.

Nonetheless, Fascism was subversive in that it fought against the traditional Italian ruling elite -- who were essentially still 19th century liberals (what would nowadays be called "neo-liberals" or just "conservatives"). It was also subversive because of its desire to innovate in many ways and to replace the existing ruling class with a new Fascist ruling class.

So, while in Italy, as elsewhere in interwar Europe, individual Communists, Fascists, anarchists and others fought fierce street battles with one-another in a way that is reminiscent of nothing so much as the turf wars between rival black gangs in Los Angeles today, many of the Leftist brawlers eventually went over to the Fascists --- showing how slight the real differences were between them.

When he did gain power, he implemented economic policies that would endear him to many of the Left today. His policies were basically protectionist. He controlled the exchange-rate of the Italian currency and promoted that old favourite of the economically illiterate -- autarky -- meaning that he tried to get Italy to become wholly self-sufficient rather than rely on foreign trade. He wanted to protect Italian products from competing foreign products. The Leftist anti-globalizers of today would approve.

And he even had some success. By 1939 he had doubled Italy's grain production from its traditional level, enabling Italy to cut wheat imports by 75% (Smith, 1967, p. 92). As with all autarkist nonsense however, the price was high. The extra grain could be produced only at high cost so Italians now had to pay twice as much for their grain. But what anti-globalizer would worry about that?

But socialism was of course not the only string to Mussolini's bow. He was also a strident Italian nationalist with an avowed aim to restore the Roman empire. He certainly offered Italians a new pride in themselves that was clearly welcomed by many Italians.



Nationalism as an exciting novelty

Something that seems generally to be overlooked is that the three countries with the most notable Fascist movements in the early 20th century (Germany, Italy and Spain) were all in countries with fragile national unity. Germany and Italy had become unified countries only in the late 19th century and Spain, of course, is only nominally unified to this day -- with semi-autonomous governments in Catalonia and the Basque country. Right up until the end of the Prussian hegemony in 1918, Germans saw themselves primarily as Saxons, Bavarians, Prussians etc rather than as Germans and the contempt for Southern Italians among Northern Italians is of course legendary.

So the fierce nationalism of the Fascists (though Franco held himself above the Spanish Falange to some extent) appears to have been at least in part the zeal of the convert. Nationalism was something new and exciting and was a gratification to be explored vigorously. And the Fascists/Nazis undoubtedly exploited it to the hilt. The romance of the new nation was an important asset for them.

So if we regard the creation of large nation states as a good thing (a fairly dubious proposition) the small silver lining that we can see in the dark cloud of Fascism is that they do seem to have had some success in creating a sense of nationhood. A German identity, in particular, would seem to be the creation of Hitler. There was certainly not much of the sort before him.

There are of course differences between the three countries but in all three an acceptance of their nation-state now seems to be well-entrenched. This acceptance seems to be strongest in Germany -- probably in part because modern Germany is a Federal Republic with substantial power devolved to the old regions (Laender) so that local loyalties are also acknowledged. Spain has moved only partly in the direction of federalism and there is of course a strong political movement in Northern Italy for reform in that direction also.

It is perhaps worth noting that it took a ferocious war (the civil war) to create an American sense of nationhood too.



Was Fascism middle-class?

The commonest Marxist analysis of Fascism seems to be that it was "bourgeois" -- the last gasp of a failing middle class in its desperate struggle to hold onto its position against the rising tide of the working class. Since the leading Marxists themselves -- from Marx and Engels, through Lenin to Pol Pot have themselves always been middle class, this analysis has its amusing side. The perennial Leftist tactic of accusing others of what is in fact true of themselves would alone account for that characterization of Fascism. But is the characterization nonetheless true? There is much to say that it is not. The breadth of Mussolini's appeal is in fact one of the most remarkable things about him. The Fascists certainly included many middle class people but they included workers and aristocrats as well. Even Jews were prominent among them! But rather than attampt to plough through the arguments in detail here, let me just quote a summary of what Michael Mann, a respected Left-leaning historian of Fascism, says on the subject:

In Fascists, Mr. Mann contends that the rise of right-wing authoritarian movements between the world wars can best be understood as, in effect, nation-statism forging not a cage but a concentration camp. His analysis puts him at odds with the Marxist interpretation of fascism, which treats it as a violent effort to preserve capitalism from the challenge of left-wing mobilizations following World War I. Mr. Mann also rejects efforts to treat fascism as a totalitarian "political religion" emerging in reaction against modernization and democracy.

All of Europe underwent severe economic crisis in the period between the wars, he notes. But fascists made no serious bid for power in countries where the state had both well-established institutions of representative democracy and a solid basis of infrastructural power. In England, for example, the black-shirted members of Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists were exotic and attention-grabbing, but ineffectual at much besides outbursts of street hooliganism.....

Mr. Mann also says that "the degree of capitalist support for fascist movements . varied considerably between the different countries." What was consistent, however, was that the core fascist constituencies had strong vested interests in the growth and dynamism of the nation-state. "Soldiers and veterans above all, but also civil servants, teachers, and public-sector manual workers were all disproportionately fascist in almost all the countries of mass fascism," he writes. Students, too, were always heavily represented.

Mr. Mann contends that, important as economic factors were, they are insufficient to understanding the movement. Consider the contrast between Hungary and Romania. "Hungary had probably the worst middle-class job prospects, Romania the best," writes Mr. Mann, "yet both produced fascism among those most affected, students and public-sector workers." He also notes that in both countries fascists "recruited more from proletarian than bourgeois backgrounds."

More here

De Felice, (1977, p. 176) too says that Mussolini found supporters and adversaries in all social classes. And particularly in the early years of Fascism, Mussolini often attacked the bourgeoisie in his speeches!

Whether Nazism was middle-class is treated here



Mussolini the environmentalist

As well as being an "anti-globalizer", there were several other ways in which Mussolini would have appealed to modern-day greenies. He made Capri a bird sanctuary (Smith, 1967, p. 84) and in 1926 he issued a decree reducing the size of newspapers to save wood pulp. And, believe it or not, he even mandated gasohol -- i.e. mixing industrial alcohol with petroleum products to make fuel for cars (Smith, 1967, p. 87). Mussolini also disliked the population drift from rural areas into the big cities and in 1930 passed a law to put a stop to it unless official permission was granted (Smith, 1967, p. 90). What Green/Left advocate could ask for more?



Mussolini the pragmatist

Although Mussolini never ceased preaching socialism in some form, his actions when in power were like those of most politicians: Many unrealistic promises were broken and policies were adopted that in fact hurt the workers (such as wage cuts). The important point, however, is that the policies he in fact adopted once in power were not adopted for mere ideological reasons but because they were the policies that he thought would work best for Italy and, thus, ultimately for all Italians. As "Conservative" political parties tend to think in this way also (Gilmour, 1978), it is presumably in part this that causes Mussolini to be referred to as a Rightist. His appeal to Italians, however was as a socialist and a nationalist.

For all his pragmatism, however, it should also be recognized (contrary to what many of his critics say) that Mussolini did have a well-publicized and coherent economic strategy mapped out before he came to power and that policies that are sometimes seen as merely "pragmatic" were also theoretically grounded in his old Marxist ideas. He was well aware of both Italy's poverty and the inefficiency of its bureaucrats and blamed much of the former on the latter. Following the Marxist theory of developmental stages, he argued that the only alternative to the bureaucrats that would mobilize Italy's limited resources was the fostering of private enterprise and capitalism. He even advocated privatization of telecommunications and the post office! This coincides, of course, with the way modern-day Leftists (particularly in Britain) have abandoned the idea of State-run enterprises and acknowledged the benefits of privatization.

Mussolini was, however, far from being any sort of free-marketeer. Just like most modern-day Leftist politicians, he advocated private enterprise within a strict set of State controls designed, among other things, to prevent abuse of monopoly power (Gregor, 1979, Ch. 5).

So we see that Mussolini again had remarkable prescience. Deng Xiaoping of China and Gorbachev of Russia seem now to be generally seen as the first Marxists to have discovered pragmatism and private enterprise. Mussolini, however, did it all 60 or more years before them.



Mussolini's socialist deeds

One major "socialist" reform of the economy that is still a misty ideal to modern-day Leftists Mussolini actually carried out. He attempted to centralize control of industry by declaring a "Corporate State" which divided all Italian industry up into 22 "corporations". In these corporations both workers and managers were supposed to co-operate to run industry together -- but under Fascist guidance, of course. The Corporate State was supposed to ensure social justice and give the workers substantial control of industry.

And in 1933 Mussolini even promised that the National Council of Corporations would eventually replace the Parliament! Surely the ultimate unionist's dream! And the Chamber of Fasces and Corporations created in 1939 largely fulfilled that promise. Since Mussolini had dictatorial powers by then it was largely tokenism but it nonetheless showed how Leftist his propaganda was.

In reality the Fascist appointees to the corporations tended to take the side of the management and what resulted was really capitalism within a tight set of government controls. Since most of Europe and much of the rest of the world moved in that direction in the post-war era, Mussolini was in this also ahead of his times. And if the waning of the "Red" influence on Western economies in the post-Soviet era has led to some deregulation of business, the rise of the "Greens" has added a vast new area of government regulation. The precedent set by Mussolini is still being followed!

Some other clearly Leftist initiatives that Mussolini took were a big expansion of public works and a great improvement in social insurance measures. He also set up the "Dopolavoro" (after work) organization to give workers cheap recreations of various kinds (cf. the Nazi Kraft durch Freude movement). His public health measures (such as the attack on tuberculosis and the setting up of a huge maternal and child welfare organization) were particularly notable for their rationality and efficiency and, as such, were rewarded with great success. For instance, the incidence of tuberculosis dropped dramatically and infant mortality declined by more than 20% (Gregor, p. 259). Together with big improvements in education and public infrastructure, such measures gave Fascist Italy what was arguably the most advanced welfare State in the world at the time.

And if influential American "liberal" economists such as Galbraith (1969) can bemoan the low level of spending on public works as "private affluence and public squalor", Mussolini was well ahead on that. As Hibbert (1962, p. 56) says, Mussolini

"instituted a programme of public works hitherto unrivalled in modern Europe. Bridges, canals and roads were built, hospitals and schools, railway stations and orphanages, swamps were drained and land reclaimed, forest were planted and universities were endowed."

Given the modern-day Leftist's love of government provision of services, it would seem that Mussolini should be their hero in that respect. He actually did what they advocate and did it around 70 years ago.