Dambisa Moyo - Fascist economist?

[The Idler]

Dambisa Moyo has just published a book entitled "How the West Was Lost" to follow on from "Dead Aid" which was a criticism of foreign aid. In her latest book she advocates protectionism. Can the kind of economics she proposes be described as merely protectionist or nationalist or even fascist.

[ComradeMan]

I don't know enough about her to comment nor have I read her book.

Could you tell more please?

[#FF0000]

Well from what little I know, "Fascist Economics" pretty much entails your regular old social democracy, except with a huge dose of protectionism, maybe.

EDIT: The political and cultural aspects of Fascism are kind of more important, though. That's what makes fascism different from a bourgeois democracy or social democracy. The fervent nationalism and militarism and all that.

And I'm pretty sure protectionism has been a solid strategy for the bourgeoisie in developing countries in the 20th century. Places like Mexico and India, for example, had social democratic parties in power for much of their history, and had a lot more state intervention in the economy. This is because when you're running a developing country, you really can't afford to be dealing with the boom and bust cycle of super-free-market-capitalism and expect to have much independence from these countries and companies who've been around awhile and have experience and power, you know?

[Acostak3]

Producerism perhaps?

[Lt. Ferret]

a "real" fascist economy is based on national syndicalism. protectionism and social democracy are not really synonymous with fascist economics

[#FF0000]

a "real" fascist economy is based on national syndicalism. protectionism and social democracy are not really synonymous with fascist economics

How does national syndicalism work and how is it different from social democracy?

[Nolan]

a "real" fascist economy is based on national syndicalism. protectionism and social democracy are not really synonymous with fascist economics

Of course, corporatism without heavy protectionism doesn't make sense.

The comparison with social democracy is a bit overdone imo.

[#FF0000]

I thought it was an astute observation fuck you guys

[The Idler]

What concerns me is how well-respected she seems to be in mainstream circles.

[danyboy27]

a "real" fascist economy is based on national syndicalism. protectionism and social democracy are not really synonymous with fascist economics
quite right but i wouldnt call that national syndicalism.
The Deutch arbeit front existed for the sole purpose of keeping the worker in line with the industries who had massive contract with nazi germany, it wasnt really about protecting the worker or anything like that, but to make them feel that they where taken care of and to give them the impression that, since everyone work for the state, then class dosnt really matter.

Most of the ''social-democratic'' things organised by the german governement (free boat cruise, free theatrical performance, nursery program) where put in place to make feel to the worker that everyone was equal and everybody was a part of the state, even tho the reality was that inequality subsisted and even got bigger.

[ComradeMan]

Italian fascism was basically an outrgrowth of national-syndicalism.

[Demogorgon]

Well from what little I know, "Fascist Economics" pretty much entails your regular old social democracy, except with a huge dose of protectionism, maybe.

A few people have commented on this already, but just to clarify why social democracy and fascism can't really be linked, social democracy defines itself by establishing a welfare state that attempts to correct social differences and close social division. Fascism traditionally adopts a fairly extreme notion of the Conservative welfare state, which is fairly generous provisions intended to preserve "traditional" divisions. That is money to "allow" women to stay at home and look after their husbands, welfare to stop the poor getting so poor that they end up rebelling. Think De Gaulle and Adenauer but more extreme. You have to remember of course that many fascists, especially their modern descendants would like to do away with social welfare altogether.

As for fascist economics, people can get a little too bogged down trying to analyse it, because there is surprisingly little to analyse. Economics is a bit too dry to worry about when you have your glorious national vision to pursue and fascist Governments tended to put economic management in the hands of technocrats and adopt different policies as suited. Italian fascism of course held to National Syndicalism and Corporatism (not rule by corporations, but different sections of society each being represented in decision making, something that social democrats later took up), but there was little, if any, actual implementation of this. Once in power they did whatever seemed most prudent at the time, first they pursued a very free market approach to please their Liberal allies, then they engaged in a lot of Government spending to combat the depression and then they used considerable state control to try and put the economy of a war footing. This wasn't due to periodic changes of heart, it was because economics was just a means to an end to them and they changed policy as they thought necessary.

As for Moyo, I don't think she is a fascist, she is wrong certainly, but hardly strikes me as fascist.

[Lt. Ferret]

quite right but i wouldnt call that national syndicalism.
The Deutch arbeit front existed for the sole purpose of keeping the worker in line with the industries who had massive contract with nazi germany, it wasnt really about protecting the worker or anything like that, but to make them feel that they where taken care of and to give them the impression that, since everyone work for the state, then class dosnt really matter.

Most of the ''social-democratic'' things organised by the german governement (free boat cruise, free theatrical performance, nursery program) where put in place to make feel to the worker that everyone was equal and everybody was a part of the state, even tho the reality was that inequality subsisted and even got bigger.

german nazi animal was something quite interesting. i was thinking more of traditional italian fascism, and especially the spanish falangism, which out and out touted national syndicalism as its economic model.

those germans though. whew.

[Red Commissar]

I'm not sure that what is described in the OP be described in fascist. One would need greater detail from this text to apply that standard- fascism has a whole set of social relations and economic structure that this isolationist rhetoric described in the OP isn't sufficient to fill.

Though the problem here is that many countries through foreign aid and military presence overseas assert their status in the world and economic dominance. I'm not sure many countries nowadays would agree to such measures.

Though I've seen this kind of talk (call back the troops, cut foreign aid, etc.) echoed in many areas. It's hardly unique.