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From: mck@ratex.UUCP (Daniel Kian Mc Kiernan)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Fascism and Socialism -- Response to Myers
Message-ID: <1115@ratex.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 1-May-85 17:11:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: ratex.1115
Posted: Wed May  1 17:11:36 1985
Date-Received: Thu, 2-May-85 03:12:48 EDT
Organization: Squids R Us
Lines: 47
Keywords: franco


     To have PROPERTY in something, one must have the right to bring-about or
prevent changes in that thing.
     Socialism is a social order in which, rather than allowing private
property and markets, decisions about the use of resources are made by
administrative institution (whether it be a bureaucracy or democratic
assembly).
     Under Fascism, individuals retain POSSESSION of resources, but decisions
about HOW these resources are USED are made by a system of government
institutions.  Thus, the possessors do NOT actually have PROPERTY in the
resources.  Fascism is a veiled form of Socialism.
     The appeal of Fascism (whether that of Mussolini, Hitler, Franco, or
Roosevelt) is that it maintains a fiction of private property but lets those
who fear market-processes feel more secure.  To many, it seems a happy
middle-ground between Communism and Spencerian Darwinism.  Obviously, since
WWII and the horror of the Holocaust, the word 'Fascism' has unpleasant
connotations; so Fascism must call itself by other names ('Fair Deal', 'New
Frontier', 'Great Society', &c), altho there ARE some Liberals who refer to
their Fascism as 'Friendly Fascism'.
     It is quite true that most Leftists are horrified by German National
Socialism, and honestly don't recognize it as a true Socialism; but this is
rather like failing to recognize a degenerate cousin spawned by a branch
of the family which inbreeds in Appalachia.
     To say that 'Capitalism' persisted under the National Socialists is to
confuse the issue.  It is quite true that there was a class of
industrialists who controlled the means of production (and who were
therefore 'capitalist' in one sense), but their power did not derive from a
market system (and they were therefore not 'Capitalist' in the other sense).
Hitler regarded Market Capitalism as a Jewish subterfuge.  Wages and prices
were fixed by the government (and as Galbraith, Deputy Administrator of the
Office of Price Administration from '41 to '43, notes: "A market system in
which wages and prices are set by the state is a market system no more.
Only the blithely obtuse can reconcile 'this Free Enterprise System' with
the enforcement of wage and price controls."), the money-supply was
drastically inflated (resulting in shortages, which were responded to by
administrative rationing), the institutions of financial intermediation
were integrated into the state, &c.
     Some (whether they are Socialist or not) object to the definition of
'Socialism' which I give above.  It IS possible to define it such that
Fascism is excluded, but it is not as easy as it may seem, and will involve
re-categorization of most who think themselves Socialist as Fascist
(including most in this newsgroup).  And while a semantical change may
enhance discussion, it will not invalidate the CONCEPTUAL content of
Libertarian claims.

                               TNX,
                               Daniel Kian McKiernan