Fascism vs Socialism?

[editec]

...we're now incorrectly describing fascism as "socialist" in nature?

This comment by Agna got me thinking.

Certainly I can see how fascism and socialism differ in theory. In fact theoretically, they differ quite significantly. However, in practice it seems they end up looking very much alike: All power (and control of resources and means of production) in the hands of a very few. Far fewer even than with capitalism.

Discuss.

Hitlerian Germany was a mixed economy at war. But it was still basically a capitalistic economic system

Exactly as ours was, once we went to war.

The Soviet Unions economy was socialist through and through before during and after the war.

 

[manifold]

...we're now incorrectly describing fascism as "socialist" in nature?

This comment by Agna got me thinking.

Certainly I can see how fascism and socialism differ in theory. In fact theoretically, they differ quite significantly. However, in practice it seems they end up looking very much alike: All power (and control of resources and means of production) in the hands of a very few. Far fewer even than with capitalism.

Discuss.

Socialism says the means of production is controlled by ALL of society.
There can be no larger group than that!!!

In theory it does.

But in reality that isn't practical. And all attempts to actually practice socialism on any meaningful scale have ended up with control in the hands of very few.

 

[veritas]

This comment by Agna got me thinking.

Certainly I can see how fascism and socialism differ in theory. In fact theoretically, they differ quite significantly. However, in practice it seems they end up looking very much alike: All power (and control of resources and means of production) in the hands of a very few. Far fewer even than with capitalism.

Discuss.

Socialism says the means of production is controlled by ALL of society.
There can be no larger group than that!!!

In theory it does.

But in reality that isn't practical. And all attempts to actually practice socialism on any meaningful scale have ended up with control in the hands of very few.

Which is the trend in any system. Name one that isn't susceptible or trending that way at all times?

 

[Ravi]

This comment by Agna got me thinking.

Certainly I can see how fascism and socialism differ in theory. In fact theoretically, they differ quite significantly. However, in practice it seems they end up looking very much alike: All power (and control of resources and means of production) in the hands of a very few. Far fewer even than with capitalism.

Discuss.

Socialism says the means of production is controlled by ALL of society.
There can be no larger group than that!!!

In theory it does.

But in reality that isn't practical. And all attempts to actually practice socialism on any meaningful scale have ended up with control in the hands of very few.

You mean like capitalism?

 

[edthecynic]

This comment by Agna got me thinking.

Certainly I can see how fascism and socialism differ in theory. In fact theoretically, they differ quite significantly. However, in practice it seems they end up looking very much alike: All power (and control of resources and means of production) in the hands of a very few. Far fewer even than with capitalism.

Discuss.

Socialism says the means of production is controlled by ALL of society.
There can be no larger group than that!!!

In theory it does.

But in reality that isn't practical. And all attempts to actually practice socialism on any meaningful scale have ended up with control in the hands of very few.

But essentially the same thing is true of the theoretical Free Market Capitalism.

All attempts to actually PRACTICE Free Market Capitalism have ended up with control in the hands of a very few MONOPOLISTS.

 

[pal_of_poor]

...we're now incorrectly describing fascism as "socialist" in nature?

This comment by Agna got me thinking.

Certainly I can see how fascism and socialism differ in theory. In fact theoretically, they differ quite significantly. However, in practice it seems they end up looking very much alike: All power (and control of resources and means of production) in the hands of a very few. Far fewer even than with capitalism.

Discuss.

I can't get over how you guys just can't seem to understand the difference between economic systems, and systems of government. There are many Social "Democracies" in the world, and most have the healthiest, most educated, competitive, and happy people in the world. And they pay a bit more in taxes, and their incomes are yes, more equal, which explains the rest of this paragraph.

Totalitarianism, is basically a dictatorship. They can be tyrannical, benevolent, Hitler-like, or any number of ways. Most of the time, the top guy takes most of the stuff, has a great life, and the rest don't.

Democratic Socialism, were it applied here, would present a situation where most people would actually notice their lives getting better. People without health care, would then have it. Those who pay for insurance, would no longer have to pay, and would then have free health care. Those who don't have the option of going to school because of finances, would have the option. A few percent at the top would notice much higher taxes, but they'd still be rich. Democratically socialist countries still have rich people, plenty rich.

Fascism is more like we have now, whether democratic or republican. Republicans are a little more open about it, represeting just corporations, and their rich sycophant CEOs, and other generationally rich progenators. Democrats are pretty much the same, but they try to hide it a bit. When they get nearly 60 senators, it becomes pretty obvious. Fascism is way different, in they only want to have wage-slaves, workers make much less, have less benefits, and the rich, will be there, as always. Fascism is the endpoint of moving to the right of Republicans along the political spectrum, while Socialism is the endpoint of moving to the left, well, there is Communism. Totalitarianism, can be reached from either, but it isn't the same, not at all.

Workers fare better under Socialism, and since our form of Capitalism has been so ruined here, we're nearly to Fascism, where most people are wage slaves. They've managed to export most good middle-class jobs to foreign countries, that have no rights, are often run by dictators (totalitarians), which puts us in competition with virtual slaves. That's a contest we won't win, a contest that makes us worse for even having to compete. It is a competition that our fascist rulers want us to be in, because those rich folks just can't get enough money. It isn't a reasonable pursuit, but a kind of madness brought about by their avarice. And we all suffer for our government allowing such swollen wealth to accumulate to that part of our body politic.

But be clear--Fascism is much closer to the "savage capitalism" we've been moving toward for the last 3 decades. It's corporatism, where we are all nothing but wage slaves, for the economic royalists. And whether you like it, says more about you than anything, whether you like being a slave to them, with no power, with no dignity--whether you are just a brick in the wall.

 

[AllieBaba]

"Workers fare better under socialism".

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Show me where they fare better, dumbass. I'm dying to know.

 

[manifold]

Socialism says the means of production is controlled by ALL of society.
There can be no larger group than that!!!

In theory it does.

But in reality that isn't practical. And all attempts to actually practice socialism on any meaningful scale have ended up with control in the hands of very few.

Which is the trend in any system. Name one that isn't susceptible or trending that way at all times?

I can't.

But some seem to get there a lot faster than others.

 

[L.K.Eder]

...we're now incorrectly describing fascism as "socialist" in nature?

This comment by Agna got me thinking.

Certainly I can see how fascism and socialism differ in theory. In fact theoretically, they differ quite significantly. However, in practice it seems they end up looking very much alike: All power (and control of resources and means of production) in the hands of a very few. Far fewer even than with capitalism.

Discuss.

I can't get over how you guys just can't seem to understand the difference between economic systems, and systems of government. There are many Social "Democracies" in the world, and most have the healthiest, most educated, competitive, and happy people in the world. And they pay a bit more in taxes, and their incomes are yes, more equal, which explains the rest of this paragraph.

Totalitarianism, is basically a dictatorship. They can be tyrannical, benevolent, Hitler-like, or any number of ways. Most of the time, the top guy takes most of the stuff, has a great life, and the rest don't.

Democratic Socialism, were it applied here, would present a situation where most people would actually notice their lives getting better. People without health care, would then have it. Those who pay for insurance, would no longer have to pay, and would then have free health care. Those who don't have the option of going to school because of finances, would have the option. A few percent at the top would notice much higher taxes, but they'd still be rich. Democratically socialist countries still have rich people, plenty rich.

Fascism is more like we have now, whether democratic or republican. Republicans are a little more open about it, represeting just corporations, and their rich sycophant CEOs, and other generationally rich progenators. Democrats are pretty much the same, but they try to hide it a bit. When they get nearly 60 senators, it becomes pretty obvious. Fascism is way different, in they only want to have wage-slaves, workers make much less, have less benefits, and the rich, will be there, as always. Fascism is the endpoint of moving to the right of Republicans along the political spectrum, while Socialism is the endpoint of moving to the left, well, there is Communism. Totalitarianism, can be reached from either, but it isn't the same, not at all.

Workers fare better under Socialism, and since our form of Capitalism has been so ruined here, we're nearly to Fascism, where most people are wage slaves. They've managed to export most good middle-class jobs to foreign countries, that have no rights, are often run by dictators (totalitarians), which puts us in competition with virtual slaves. That's a contest we won't win, a contest that makes us worse for even having to compete. It is a competition that our fascist rulers want us to be in, because those rich folks just can't get enough money. It isn't a reasonable pursuit, but a kind of madness brought about by their avarice. And we all suffer for our government allowing such swollen wealth to accumulate to that part of our body politic.

But be clear--Fascism is much closer to the "savage capitalism" we've been moving toward for the last 3 decades. It's corporatism, where we are all nothing but wage slaves, for the economic royalists. And whether you like it, says more about you than anything, whether you like being a slave to them, with no power, with no dignity--whether you are just a brick in the wall.

good post, but you won't get anywhere with this.

you should post -ism-chains like this:

socialism is root of all evilism; marxism, bolshevism, organism, communism, maoism, taoism, leninism, facism, islamism and hitlerism are bastard children of socialism and/or exactly the same. obamaism is the culmination of all evil. burp!

 

[manifold]

How the hell you gonna post and ism-chain without racism and sexism?

Fuckin amateurs!

 

[L.K.Eder]

How the hell you gonna post and ism-chain without racism and sexism?

Fuckin amateurs!

dammit, i think i forgot a lot of other isms, too.

some day i will post an awesome near-complete -ism-chain.

maybe

 

[veritas]

Socialism says the means of production is controlled by ALL of society.
There can be no larger group than that!!!

In theory it does.

But in reality that isn't practical. And all attempts to actually practice socialism on any meaningful scale have ended up with control in the hands of very few.

But essentially the same thing is true of the theoretical Free Market Capitalism.

All attempts to actually PRACTICE Free Market Capitalism have ended up with control in the hands of a very few MONOPOLISTS.

Exactly.

 

[manifold]

How the hell you gonna post and ism-chain without racism and sexism?

Fuckin amateurs!

dammit, i think i forgot a lot of other isms, too.

some day i will post an awesome near-complete -ism-chain.

maybe

I'm going to start my own doucheism movement. It's kind of like a mixture of objectivism and individualism where not only is selfishness lauded, but so too is shitting on the other guy in one's own self-interest. Hey, wait a minute... that's no different at all! Except with doucheism we'll be honest about it.

 

[Oddball]

Basic difference is this:

Socialism is a Utopian economic theory (similar to pure free market capitalism, in the sense that neither has ever really existed.)

Fascism is a form of government, that has unfortunately existed.

Any questions?

Yeah...How do you institute economic socialism in the absence of the same kind of centralized authoritarian political control that is also the hallmark of fascism?

 

[Agnapostate]

But in reality that isn't practical. And all attempts to actually practice socialism on any meaningful scale have ended up with control in the hands of very few.

That's not true. The Spanish Revolution, for example (the anarchist social revolution that occurred during the Spanish Civil War), was and continues to be widely praised by libertarians as an example of legitimate socialism that contrasts strongly with the pseudo-socialist state capitalism of the USSR and related states. The French historian Gaston Leval, for example, was an observer of this:

In Spain during almost three years, despite a civil war that took a million live, despite the opposition of the political parties (republicans, left and right Catalan separatists, socialists, Communists, Basque and Valencian regionalists, petty bourgeoisie, etc.), this idea of libertarian communism was put into effect. Very quickly more than 60% of the land was collectively cultivated by the peasants themselves, without landlords, without bosses, and without instituting capitalist competition to spur production. In almost all the industries, factories, mills, workshops, transportation services, public services, and utilities, the rank and file workers, their revolutionary committees, and their syndicates reorganized and administered production, distribution, and public services without capitalists, high salaried managers, or the authority of the state.

Even more: the various agrarian and industrial collectives immediately instituted economic equality in accordance with the essential principle of communism, 'From each according to his ability and to each according to his needs.' They coordinated their efforts through free association in whole regions, created new wealth, increased production (especially in agriculture), built more schools, and bettered public services. They instituted not bourgeois formal democracy but genuine grass roots functional libertarian democracy, where each individual participated directly in the revolutionary reorganization of social life. They replaced the war between men, 'survival of the fittest,' by the universal practice of mutual aid, and replaced rivalry by the principle of solidarity…

This experience, in which about eight million people directly or indirectly participated, opened a new way of life to those who sought an alternative to anti-social capitalism on the one hand, and totalitarian state bogus socialism on the other.

Oh, and that's excerpted from Dolgoff's The Anarchist Collectives, dil.

"Workers fare better under socialism".

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Show me where they fare better, dumbass. I'm dying to know.

It would be logically sound to assume that workers fare better in a socialist economy because of the workers' ownership and management structures that form the cornerstone of such a model. But more importantly, we have at our disposal practical evidence of these improved conditions existing in the aforementioned example of the Spanish Revolution, for instance, as well as a substantial empirical literature into the superiority of worker-owned enterprises and labor cooperatives as a whole.

Yeah...How do you institute economic socialism in the absence of the same kind of centralized authoritarian political control that is also the hallmark of fascism?

There are almost no socialists who do advocate centralized authoritarian political control, and those that continue to do so have experienced ostracization because of the conflicts of authoritarian political control with the participatory aspects of collective ownership and management. The sects of the socialist movement that have traditionally advocated libertarian decentralized planning or republican market socialism won a victory after the observable failures of central planning manifested themselves. So those are our answers. Socialism can be implemented in either a republican market socialist economy or a decentralized and democratically planned economy.

 

[Contumacious]

No discussion necessary. You're right. A socialist regime will end up as a fascist one.

Fascism is a form of socialism.

In a fascistic regime the means of production are privately owned but under government control through rules, regulations and licenses, ie US.

Socialism - all the means of production are owned by the state.

Capitalism all the means of production are privately owned and the government is not interfering with the same in any way fashion or form.


.

 

[Agnapostate]

Fascism is a form of socialism.

That's utterly wrong. In reality, fascism and socialism are rather distinct from each other, and in many cases, are outright conflicting ideologies. To consider the elements of fascist political and cultural ideology and economy, we might look at Umberto Eco's conception of "Eternal Fascism," or Zanden's Pareto and Fascism Reconsidered (thanks, Reiver), for instance.

Firstly, as Zanden puts it, "[O]bedience, discipline, faith and a religious belief in the cardinal tenets of the Fascist creed are put forth as the supreme values of a perfect Fascist. Individual thinking along creative lines is discouraged. What is wanted is not brains, daring ideas, or speculative faculties, but character pressed in the mold of Fascism." This is not consistent with the socialist principle of elimination of alienation as defined by Marx's The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844. Such elimination necessitates revolutionary class consciousness, which obviously conflicts with "obedience, discipline, faith, etc." Revolutionary class consciousness is also rather inconsistent with the "cult of tradition" identified by Eco as an integral tenet of Eternal Fascism. "[T]here can be no advancement of learning. Truth already has been spelled out once and for all, and we can only keep interpreting its obscure message."

From an insistence on revolutionary class consciousness comes opposition to class itself on the part of the socialist. This is egregiously contradictory to the elitism that constitutes a core tenet of fascism. As Eco writes, "[e]litism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology, insofar as it is fundamentally aristocratic, and aristocratic and militaristic elitism cruelly implies contempt for the weak. Ur-Fascism can only advocate a popular elitism."

Fascism also has a necessarily anti-democratic nature. As Zanden notes, "the mass of men is created to be governed and not to govern; is created to be led and not to lead, and is created, finally, to be slaves and not masters: slaves of their animal instincts, their physiological needs, their emotions, and their passions." Similarly, Eco writes that "the Leader, knowing his power was not delegated to him democratically but was conquered by force, also knows that his force is based upon the weakness of the masses; they are so weak as to need and deserve a ruler." This strongly conflicts with the participatory elements of socialism, as it necessitates the collective ownership of the means of production. For instance, Noam Chomsky notes that libertarian socialism is "based on free voluntary participation of people who produce and create, live their lives freely within institutions they control and with limited hierarchical structures, possibly none at all." Other forms of socialism are necessarily democratic at the very least because of the participatory nature of collective management.

In a fascistic regime the means of production are privately owned but under government control through rules, regulations and licenses, ie US.

Incorrect. Private property was considered a necessary staple of an efficiently functioning economy under the most expansive fascist regime that the world has ever known. For example, consult Buchheim and Scherner's The role of private property in the Nazi economy: the case of industry:

Private property in the industry of the Third Reich is often considered a mere nominal provision without much substance. However, that is not correct, because firms, despite the rationing and licensing activities of the state, still had ample scope to devise their own production and investment profiles. Even regarding war-related projects, freedom of contract was generally respected; instead of using power, the state offered firms a number of contract options to choose from. There were several motives behind this attitude of the regime, among them the conviction that private property provided important incentives for increasing efficiency.

The Nazi regime was fundamentally capitalist in its character; it was ultimately rightist in the sense that its social aspect focused on the preservation of traditional social mores and conventions (as fascism in general does) and in the sense that its economic aspect focused on the preservation of capitalist economic structure and private property as a means of appropriate efficiency provision.

Socialism - all the means of production are owned by the state.

Similarly fallacious! Socialism is "a social system in which the means of producing and distributing goods are owned collectively and political power is exercised by the whole community." Complete state ownership is not only insufficient for this purpose, but will likely be antithetical to that purpose because of the centralized and authoritarian nature of state governance, which hinders the establishment of "political power...exercised by the whole community." This is why anarchists like Proudhon, Bakunin, and Kropotkin promoted stateless socialism.

Capitalism all the means of production are privately owned and the government is not interfering with the same in any way fashion or form.

Actually, heavy government intervention has always been a significant component in the capitalist economy, and will necessarily always remain so. For example, the major Western nations developed various industries through the utilization of protectionist state measures such as tariff impositions. This continues to be a necessary element of strategic trade policy today, as government protection of infant industries is necessary to ensure appropriate development.

Moreover, there are in fact extremely visible and substantial economic benefits provided by the utilization of such interventionism. A provision nemployment benefits, for instance, is able to ensure more extensive and thorough job search, which consequently provides for more appropriate skill set matches and thereby reduces underemployment, which is a form of static inefficiency. We thus have an example of a state welfare program contributing to tangible efficiency increases in the economy.

With that in mind, it's not surprising that countries that rely on heavy utilization of welfare state policies (such as the Scandinavian social democracies) are not only able to rival more economically rightist countries in the policy goals that they pursue, but also attain their own goals, such as reduced unemployment (and unemployment is of course also a form of static inefficiency). That aptly underscores the irony of referring to social democratic capitalism as "socialist" in nature when the policies it entails in fact strengthen efficiency in the capitalist economy, thereby strengthening capitalist economic structure as a whole.

 

[manifold]

You can always tell how how frustrated and wrong Agna is by the length of his posts.

In this case, off the charts.

 

[Agnapostate]

Just copying and pasting from previous comments, even if it is a matter of going after a fly with a bazooka.

Your point's been smashed to bits, BTW.

 

[manifold]

Yeah right!