Benito Mussolini: "Fascism Is the Merger of State & Corporate Power"

[Rakhmetov]

Tea partiers are so dumb thinking we are heading toward socialism/communism. Pleeeeaasse! :rolleyes:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFlKJmE4gVE&feature=related

[RadioRaheem84]

Not this line again.

I really do not think that Mussolini meant "corporate" as in multi-national business corporation, but more like corporate in the old latin usage of corpus; body. In other words, a federal agency of sorts.

Italian fascism believed in separate agencies called 'corporations' that would relieve the class antagonisms by acting as a mediator between labor and management.

[Rakhmetov]

Not this line again.

I really do not think that Mussolini meant "corporate" as in multi-national business corporation, but more like corporate in the old latin usage of corpus; body. In other words, a federal agency of sorts.

Italian fascism believed in separate agencies called 'corporations' that would relieve the class antagonisms by acting as a mediator between labor and management.

Oh, that's a lot of cant. Hitler & Mussolini had many corporations at work in their countries--- Ford, GE, Standard oil, IBM, etc, etc. Don't play the devil's advocate!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

[RadioRaheem84]

Well I was speaking in purely theoretical terms.

Fascist theotricians considered corporations as independent agencies or "unions" of managers and workers reconciling their differences.

I've never heard of Mussolini speaking of corporations in the business sense.

[RadioRaheem84]

Oh, that's a lot of cant. Hitler & Mussolini had many corporations at work in their countries--- Ford, GE, Standard oil, IBM, etc, etc. Don't play the devil's advocate!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust


Did not IBM and Ford also assist Stalin?

Industrialists loved fascists because if it was a choice between Bolsheviks, socialists or Fascists, they chose the latter.

The cozy relationship was due to the financial backing of fascists by industrialists to combat the socialist wave sweeping Europe after liberal prties were discredited.

[agnixie]

Well I was speaking in purely theoretical terms.

Fascist theotricians considered corporations as independent agencies or "unions" of managers and workers reconciling their differences.

I've never heard of Mussolini speaking of corporations in the business sense.

these corporations did not really reconcile differences so much as establish hierarchies. Going by what theory I've seen it was close to "one class, one college", basically something that would look a lot more like the 1917 Duma than like anything akin to an union.

[RadioRaheem84]

these corporations did not really reconcile differences so much as establish hierarchies. Going by what theory I've seen it was close to "one class, one college", basically something that would look a lot more like the 1917 Duma than like anything akin to an union.

Oh, I know. The point was just that corporations in the fascist sense meant what you described above not multi-national businesses.

[Desperado]

Oh, that's a lot of cant. Hitler & Mussolini had many corporations at work in their countries--- Ford, GE, Standard oil, IBM, etc, etc. Don't play the devil's advocate!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_and_the_Holocaust

Of course Mussolini was very close to big business. But he means corporate in the "corporate state" sense in that quote, institutions for each industry which were meant to end class conflict and co-ordinate all for Italian greatness. In reality, the representatives for the workers to the corporations were Fascist union leaders appointed top down, and class struggle was simply suppressed, nearly always by keeping the workers down. Besides, the corporate state was like most of Mussolini's ideas a load of propaganda and rhetoric without much substance - it was an ignored bureaucracy (most labour disputes occurred outside of it's structure) without clear purpose that provided comfortable jobs to some middle class Italians and not much else.

Anyway, as leftists it's clear that "relieving" class conflict within capitalism simply means the capitalists are winning unopposed.

[chegitz guevara]

Oh, that's a lot of cant. Hitler & Mussolini had many corporations at work in their countries--- Ford, GE, Standard oil, IBM, etc, etc. Don't play the devil's advocate!

No, radio raheem is correct. Fascism, ideologically, is a type of corporativism, which is an idea that every sector of society has a place and a role to play. Neither the capitalists nor the middle class nor the Church nor the farmers nor labor, etc., should be supreme, but all are equal parts of society. In fascist ideology, these parts of society are fused with the state.

That said, it should be pointed out that in fascism, ideology is basically pablum for the masses. Whatever it takes to get people to become followers, that's what they say. Many people in Europe were sick of the overt class conflict, and fascism promised to end it, laying out this "beautiful" theory of making all the parts of society cooperate in harmony. In reality, they bent themselves to the will of the finance sector (whom they railed against before taking power), heavy industry, landlords (also a group whom they attacked), etc.

This is why no one should take the stated ideology of the Tea Party with any seriousness. Once in power, these people ignore what they preached.

[RadioRaheem84]

It's surprising that Naomi Klein uses this line in her Shock Doctrine thesis.

I figured she would've done a little more research.

Same with Howard Zinn.

[Rafiq]

No, radio raheem is correct. Fascism, ideologically, is a type of corporativism, which is an idea that every sector of society has a place and a role to play. Neither the capitalists nor the middle class nor the Church nor the farmers nor labor, etc., should be supreme, but all are equal parts of society. In fascist ideology, these parts of society are fused with the state.

That said, it should be pointed out that in fascism, ideology is basically pablum for the masses. Whatever it takes to get people to become followers, that's what they say. Many people in Europe were sick of the overt class conflict, and fascism promised to end it, laying out this "beautiful" theory of making all the parts of society cooperate in harmony. In reality, they bent themselves to the will of the finance sector (whom they railed against before taking power), heavy industry, landlords (also a group whom they attacked), etc.

This is why no one should take the stated ideology of the Tea Party with any seriousness. Once in power, these people ignore what they preached.



And of course Fascism failed, because of the inevitable contradictory forces within class society.

You can ignore economic class all you want, but with a capitalist mode of production, you sure as hell can't get rid of it, it's still there.

[chegitz guevara]

And of course Fascism failed, because of the inevitable contradictory forces within class society.

You can ignore economic class all you want, but with a capitalist mode of production, you sure as hell can't get rid of it, it's still there.

Well, fascism, in practice, isn't anything more than a last, desperate attempt to save capitalism from folks like you and me. In the only fascist state that didn't decide to declare war on the rest of the human race, Spain, once it had accomplished its historic task, fascism just kinda "withered away" into general authoritarianism.

It is, of course, impossible to know how it would have ended up in Italy or Germany had they not decided to take on the rest of the world's empires, plus the USSR, all at once. Gutsy move, but stupid ... fortunately.