When megalomaniacs manage to gain control of huge national economies, without exception they impose arbitrary controls to solve what they imagine to be societal problems.
At the core, the practices involve mandating everyone to do their bidding!
Totalitarians always believe they know what is best for everyone else.
1. The economic policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, and Adolph Hitler were markedly similar, all reflect the above. All were based on corporatism, where government intrudes deeply into the private sector attempting to turn the economy into a “cooperative” enterprise where labor, business, and government sit around a table and make the decisions that affected everyone.
2. “Corporatism” was a term for dividing up industry into cooperative units, and associations, that would work together under the rubric of “national purpose.” Corporatism simply seemed a more straightforward attempt at what social planners and businessmen had been moving toward for decades. It embodied a new sense of national purpose that would allow business and labor to put aside their class differences and hammer out what was best for all. It represented an exhaustion with politics and a newfound faith in science and experts.
a. The propaganda of the New Deal (“malefactors of great wealth”) to the contrary, FDR simply endeavored to re-create the corporatism of the last war. The New Dealers invited one industry after another to write the codes under which they would be regulated. Even more aggressive, the National Recovery Administration forced industries to fix prices and in other ways to collude with one another: the NRA approved 557 basic and 189 supplementary codes, covering almost 95% of all industrial workers.
3. The intention was for big business to get bigger, and the little guy to be squeezed out: for example, the owners of the big chain movie houses wrote the codes that almost ran the independents out of business (even though 13,571 of the 18,321 movie theatres were independently owned). This in the name of ‘efficiency’ and ‘progress.’
“Liberal Fascism,” by Jonah Goldberg
a. Benito Mussolini was their icon!
New Deal bureaucrats studied Mussolini’s corporatism closely. From “Fortune” magazine: ‘The Corporate state is to Mussolini what the New Deal is to Roosevelt.’(July 1934)
b. And, Adolf Hitler, another source of inspiration for Roosevelt!
"Another early policy given high priority by the Nazi government was the organizing of all German businesses into cartels. The argument was that—in contrast to the disorderliness and egoism of free market capitalism—centralization and state control would increase efficiency and a sense of German unity. In July of 1933, membership in a cartel became compulsory for businesses, and by early 1934 the cartel structure was re-organized and placed firmly under the direction of the German government."
Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz Stephen Hicks Ph.D.
4. There is a pretty good argument to be made that corporatism, as a government policy, is really about gearing a nation up for war.
A corollary is something governments tend to do in wartime: fixing prices below their market levels. Hard to argue with any policies that support winning a war, and may be necessary in the face of wartime inflation.
The problem is that 'power corrupts,' and the policy generally continues post war. Politically advantageous, they are economically harmful.
Of course, understanding that it is harmful to an economy is well beyond the ken of megalomaniacs like Frankie, Bennie, and Dolph.....
(...and a certain community organizer.....)
At the core, the practices involve mandating everyone to do their bidding!
Totalitarians always believe they know what is best for everyone else.
1. The economic policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Benito Mussolini, and Adolph Hitler were markedly similar, all reflect the above. All were based on corporatism, where government intrudes deeply into the private sector attempting to turn the economy into a “cooperative” enterprise where labor, business, and government sit around a table and make the decisions that affected everyone.
2. “Corporatism” was a term for dividing up industry into cooperative units, and associations, that would work together under the rubric of “national purpose.” Corporatism simply seemed a more straightforward attempt at what social planners and businessmen had been moving toward for decades. It embodied a new sense of national purpose that would allow business and labor to put aside their class differences and hammer out what was best for all. It represented an exhaustion with politics and a newfound faith in science and experts.
a. The propaganda of the New Deal (“malefactors of great wealth”) to the contrary, FDR simply endeavored to re-create the corporatism of the last war. The New Dealers invited one industry after another to write the codes under which they would be regulated. Even more aggressive, the National Recovery Administration forced industries to fix prices and in other ways to collude with one another: the NRA approved 557 basic and 189 supplementary codes, covering almost 95% of all industrial workers.
3. The intention was for big business to get bigger, and the little guy to be squeezed out: for example, the owners of the big chain movie houses wrote the codes that almost ran the independents out of business (even though 13,571 of the 18,321 movie theatres were independently owned). This in the name of ‘efficiency’ and ‘progress.’
“Liberal Fascism,” by Jonah Goldberg
a. Benito Mussolini was their icon!
New Deal bureaucrats studied Mussolini’s corporatism closely. From “Fortune” magazine: ‘The Corporate state is to Mussolini what the New Deal is to Roosevelt.’(July 1934)
b. And, Adolf Hitler, another source of inspiration for Roosevelt!
"Another early policy given high priority by the Nazi government was the organizing of all German businesses into cartels. The argument was that—in contrast to the disorderliness and egoism of free market capitalism—centralization and state control would increase efficiency and a sense of German unity. In July of 1933, membership in a cartel became compulsory for businesses, and by early 1934 the cartel structure was re-organized and placed firmly under the direction of the German government."
Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz Stephen Hicks Ph.D.
4. There is a pretty good argument to be made that corporatism, as a government policy, is really about gearing a nation up for war.
A corollary is something governments tend to do in wartime: fixing prices below their market levels. Hard to argue with any policies that support winning a war, and may be necessary in the face of wartime inflation.
The problem is that 'power corrupts,' and the policy generally continues post war. Politically advantageous, they are economically harmful.
Of course, understanding that it is harmful to an economy is well beyond the ken of megalomaniacs like Frankie, Bennie, and Dolph.....
(...and a certain community organizer.....)
