Reddit reviews Three New Deals

Actually, the US started on the path of fascism in the 1910's under Woodrow Wilson (predating even Mussolini, who borrowed many things from Wilson's "war boards" etc.) and became a full-blown fascist nation around the same time that the several European nations did (the 1930's) -- and it has essentially been one ever since.

As were many other people (especially New England WASPS) at the time, FDR was an "avid admirer" of Mussolini, and sought to emulate his policies and programs (and very much did so, even down to "Americanized" versions of the symbolism and iconography).

A fairly recent book "Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939" covers that in significantly more depth than this (rather obviously quickly tossed off) article does.

While a LOT of the more "militant" things from the 1930's era have been either reverse or eliminated (for example the codified institutionalized racist practice of "Redlining" that was part of the New Deal "National Housing Act of 1934") -- but many other things have gotten significantly worse, while (due mainly to technology) being able to operate in a much less obvious way.

Currently reading Schivelbusch's "Three New Deals" again to get some perspective on the American and the Frankfurt School in exile's debate about fascism and the New Deal.

It's worth a read for anybody interested.

I highly recommend this book for those interested in taking a deeper dive into this mess of policy...

Three New Deals

>I don't think so. Britain, France, Germany, and Italy obviously stood no chance of challenging Japan in its own sphere. The Soviet Union could eject them from the Asian mainland but didn't have the navy to challenge Japanese influence in the Pacific. Only America posed an existential threat - and that really wasn't evident until America decided to get its shit together and mobilize all its resources.

The UK was perfectly capable of dealing with japan as long as it didn't have to fight a war in Europe simultaneously. France I'll give you. the russo/japanese border conflicts showed how much stronger the USSR was than the Japanese, and while they had no fleet, they also had no interest in pacific power projection.

>Which was a great power. Not of the first rank, but definitely counted among the great powers.

By courtesy and tradition only.

> Japan's strategic position was much better than Italy's, and like Britain, their navy was capable of offsetting whatever army or industrial weakness they had.

the first half of this is true, Japan's geographic distance from the other great powers was a large advantage. The second half, however, is not. naval warfare depends absolutely on industrial/financial/maritime base. far more than land warfare, sea wars are won with money. The UK in 1939 was not industrially weak. It had several times the industrial capacity of Japan, twice that of France, and was on a level with with the USSR and Germany, with a much higher per capita level than both.

>The large industrialists opposed Roosevelt at every turn and his agenda was severely rolled back by the time the 1939 elections came around - it was the closest he came to defeat. Those same industrialists largely had sympathies with Nazi Germany as well, seeing "national socialism" as a much more palatable form of stability than regular democratic socialism.

this is very bad history. First, roosevelt was not, at first, some sort of anti-fascist crusader. the early new deal was, in fact, explicitly modeled on italian fascist ideas. If you were a fascist sympathizer in the US in the early 1930s, you SUPPORTED Roosevelt, you didn't oppose him. Roosevelt only became an anti-fascist crusader when it became politically useful for him to be in the later 30s, when the blush wore off the early love affair with Mussolini.

Second, FDR's agenda was not "rolled back" by 1939. There were some reversals of his policy around '35, but following his court packing scheme and the death of a few judges, he managed to re-impose much of his initial efforts in slightly modified form from 35-37. The wagner act, for example, was largely a rehashing of the labor half of National industrial recovery act, and it explicitly inherited all the labor legal precedents established under the NIRA.

>IMHO, if American chose a voluntary war with Japan, I don't know if the public will would have survived 6 months of defeats, like what occurred beginning with Pearl Harbor. A voluntary war would require a string of victories to motivate the people.

The first 6 months of the pacific campaign were able to go as well for the japanese as they did because they began at the time of japanse choosing, and they chose right after their plans for said campaign were ready to go. A war launched by the US would have started with both sides ill-prepared instead of just the US, and would have been a much more even affair.

Three New Deals was very interesting. It compares the US, Germany and Italy during the 1930’s.

The Pursuit of Power by Evans is a good general,overview of European History and his 3 volume history of the third Reich is really well done as well.

How about FDR, Hitler, and Mussolini?

I've was reading The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy (free link) and Three New Deals Amazon. Both kind of trace the genealogy of fascism. The latter providers the direct link to the US, Germany and Italy in the 1930s while the former is a kind of framework which describes the battle between two schools of Democracy, liberal and totalitarian.

Both schools affirms the supreme value of liberty. But whereas one finds the essence of freedom in spontaneity and the absence of coercion, the other believes it to be realized only in the pursuit and attainment of an absolute collective purpose.

Some might argue that totalitarian democracy is the only path to a "mega welfare state".

>Which party now represent corporatism? Which ruling just now allows unlimited donations by corporations? Corporations are people my friend.

well, you have certainly demonstrated your complete ignorance of what corporatism is. do some reasearch.

>One of the most idiotic things I have ever heard.

Yeah, what could possible have [given me that notion](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_Party_(United_States,_1948%29#Communist_influence)

First, let's deal with what's NOT the answer. It wasn't that fascism wasn't optimistic. Fascism was, according to its proponents, extremely optimistic. It was about the nation coming together as one, putting aside petty class differences and working together for the greater glory and progress of everyone. And prior to WW2, this was not disputed.

Two, it wasn't that communism wasn't criminal, it was. both nazism and communism had an idealistic vision of the future, but both required climbing over a mountain of corpses to get there. with communism, it was class enemies, with nazism it was race enemies, but both saw the extermination of millions as essential. If anything, fascism (as distinct from naziism) was the mildest of the three ideologies.

So why do the nazis get such bad press? One, state sponsorship. Communists came to control one of the largest and potentially most powerful states in the world, russia, and they aggressive evangelized their new religion all around the world as aggressively as they could get away with. After ww2, they conquered even more territory. This sponsorship had enormous influence and won them friends and admirers the world over. The nazis never had anything like that level of ideological support, because of reason two.

They lost the war. communism was an utter failure that never achieved any of what it promised and killed millions in the process. But unlike naziism, it never lost an existential war, meaning that the could continue existing and creating the illusion of success. Both western and communist states had every reason to demonize the opponent they had just pulverized, and did so mercilessly, so whoever you were, communist or capitalist, it was politically correct to denigrate nazism, and this was done.

Had some alternate universe seen 80 years of fascism ruling half of europe and ww2 that ended with the utter defeat of communism, the positions would be exactly reversed. This is what is meant by history is written by the winners.

>Are you suggesting that the New Deal was... Fascist? Or proto-typically so?

the new deal wasn't any one thing. It was an enormous number of programs, pushed by a bewildering variety of people for all sorts of different reasons. but the NRA was unquestionably fascist. its purpose was to cartelize both industry and labor and drive up prices (if there was one common theme throughout the new deal, it was FDR trying to raise the price level). And gompers is right about the quote,

>there seems to be no question that [Mussolini] is really interested in what we are doing and I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy.

the original source, or at least where I learned about it, is schivelbusch. But this is not an extreme claim, Mussolini was globally popular in the 20s. Thomas Edison called him a genius and Churchill was openly admiring.


>That a single, common idea of the "big unit economy" was both the "core economic philosophy of the new deal coalition" and "more or less the basic idea behind fascism?"

As for the big unit economy, John Kenneth Galbraith is probably its most articulate advocate, and probably the world's most famous economist in the 50s and 60s. His basic economic idea was that big industrial corporations could more or less manufacture demand, and needed to be checked by the countervailing power of unions, with the state standing between them. See his American Capitalism for more. His is a much less radical version of Mussolini's vision. Mussolini rejects both capitalism and socialism (he spends much more time attacking socialism than capitalism. Capitalism, he seems to think, is hardly worth attacking) both for promoting dis-union, and seeks to shackle both to the national good. the money quite, from his doctrine of fascism is "But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State". As I have said, mussolini takes the idea farther, explicitly rejecting democracy and liberalism, but both are describing the same problem and trying to solve it in the same manner.

alright, let's read Three New Deals

these are nonsense.

>Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

they use patriotic slogans and propaganda? My god, who do they think they are, communists!

>Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

Just like every other authoritarian regime in history.

>The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

Right. We need to get those banksters! and if we don't hurry and stop global warming, humanity will die out!

>Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

Just like in literally every communist state.

>The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.

Right, that's why evita peron was never a national figure!


>Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

Just like every other authoritarian regime in history.

>Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

You already mentioned fear once. you don't get to count it twice.

>Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

this was true of franco's spain, but basically no other fascist regime.


>The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

No, they aren't. this is simply historically illiterate. Not a single fascist state was put into power by an "industrial and business aristocracy".

>Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed .

Just like every other authoritarian regime in history.

>Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.

Again, this is historically ignorant. Fascists often attacked "degenerate" art and learning, just like communists did.


>Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

Again, they learned it from the commies.

>Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

Again, they learned it from the commies.


Not a single one of those traits is unique to fascism. A few aren't even fascist traits! This list is even worse than umberto eco's utterly empty fascism. If you want to read what fascism was, you should try reading actual fascists, or actual historians, not lazy poli-sci professors. .