starman wrote:Try reading Shirer. He wrote that the German workers, despite being deprived of unions and collective bargaining, did not overly resent their inferior status in the Third Reich. Wages actually fell, income taxes were "stiff" and workers were constantly pressured to make donations (they could get fired if they didn't). The vacations were likened to bread and circuses to divert the proles's attention from their lowly state. Moreover the German workers were swindled since VW production was cancelled and their money was never refunded.
In practice, a modern totalitarian state emphasizes sacrifice for a common goal, not enriching the average individual.
Shirer?! The American propagandist? The VW swindle was unavoidable once war set in and that's just an exception anyway. Italian Fascism did all those things I mentioned
despite its compromise with conservatives and capitalists.
Off to a more important argument:
Ash wrote:But my point is that fascism (or corporatism at least) specifically accepts the socialist critique of capitalism, ie. that it produces distinct classes (owners and workers) who are systematically opposed to each other. If fascists simply rejected the socialist analysis of capitalism, that'd be fine: but they specifically accept it, because the tripartite economic system they propose is between capital, labour and state. My point is that if they accept that capitalism produces these problems, why maintain the power of an economic elite, when by your own admittance it disadvantages the great majority of people? Unless fascism is not concerned with the welfare of the majority - but this would seem at odds with its historical record (welfarism of various sorts). Here's where socialists and fascists agree: one, laissez faire capitalism is bad because two, it creates class divisions between workers and capitalists which is three, a product of the economic structure itself which four, needlessly disadvantages of the great majority at the expense of the capital-owning minority. So why not just abolish the capitalist minority and take the companies into some sort of worker or state ownership?
Because it doesn't. The capitalist "Faustian" spirit can be of great advantage to society. Marxism itself bases its theories of historical materialism and the coming of socialism on the notion that capitalists' pursuit of profit develops and modernizes society to such an extent that their "services" are no longer required. This is where Fascism differs. The corporatist state exercises restraint to prevent capital from become a threat to the nation. The byproduct of this check is that capital is never allowed to bear itself to the maximum extent possible and therefore never becomes a threat to itself. One could say that the corporatist state ensures that the Dialectic of capital and labour is for ever preserved to the benefit of both, the Nation and everything that it encompasses. It echoes the ancient concept of harmony from balance of opposites. Eternal strife without victory/decline.
Well, it is true that to gain enough support for a revolution to succeed, or a new regime, you have to appeal to a broad base. You can't just favor the top 10% in terms of intellectual/political sense. So a revolutionary must manipulate the masses, with dopey slogans and promises.
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