>> The only major difference between Communism and Fascism is the role that private enterprise plays in the economy.<<
I'd quibble with that. Communism is international in outlook, Fascism is nationalistic. OTOH, there is no "Fascist manifesto" so it's hard to define Fascism. It's one of those "I know it when I see it" ideologies.
Many scholars lump Communism and Fascism together because in practice Communist and Fascist regimes tend to be totalitarian, although I don't think that's essential in theory.
The peculiar relationship between the German industrialists and the Nazis was not ideological, but was driven by historical accident. There is no real Fascist economic theory. There was no anti-trust law in Germany, so large corporations were able to develop monopolies which in the 1920's and 1930's were afraid of Communism, so the Nazis (ideologically anti-Communist) seemed like a good idea in the beginning - - until Hitler assumed unprecedented power and ran, or tried to run, all Germany based on his own ideas of what it meant to be German, micromanaging everyone else's business.
Without pushing the analogy too far, there are decided parallels between the "strong man" governments of Germany, Russia, Japan and the USA (Roosevelt) during the 1930's. "Tough times call for tough men" was the theory.
Every Fascist government I am aware of developed in a country which had democracy (for example, Japan had its Diet) in part as a reaction to democracy, a turning away from democratic ideals. So anti-democracy is one of the tenets of Fascism. This includes a rejection of the rule of law, a distrust in the legal system, in favor of the rule of men, strong men. Fascists don't trust the common man.
This, I think, is the reason that capitalism doesn't "work" in Fascist countries. Capitalism only flourishes when the government enforces contracts, and otherwise doesn't interfere with the "invisible hand" of self-interest. State-run Capitalism in pre-war Nazi Germany did not really "work." Central planners don't run business well, and the business owners either evaded Nazi supervision by pulling the wool over their eyes, or reduced output. Not all that different from state-run industry in Communist countries.
Stalin admired Walther Rathenau, the German who developed "rationalization" during WWI, which was a form of central planning, which was intended to make cartels more efficient. Rathenau was a German industrialist who inherited the German version of GE, AEG. Russian central planning was modeled after Rathenau's theories. |
