[Andrea_Chenier]

The marxist analysis of fascism traditionally revolves around the idea of fascism as the open terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital (Dimitrov). From Clara Zetkin to Max Horkenheimer, Kurt Gossweiler and more recent marxist historians like Domenico Losurdo said evaluation of the fascist phenomenon became pretty established and was further developed over the years. What I personally have not come across yet is an "official" marxist analysis of so called Third Positionism, i.e. those types of fascists who claim to be in opposition to capitalism, liberal globalism and so on. Are they nothing but regular fascists in disguise? Can we apply the same criteria on them or do we need a new, up to date theory?

[Rich]

I can't think of a single leading Nazi who came from the banking/ financial industry. But hey Marxism never let itself get boxed in by facts or truth.

[Andrea_Chenier]

I can't think of a single leading Nazi who came from the banking/ financial industry. But hey Marxism never let itself get boxed in by facts or truth.

What does that have to do with anything? Marx didn't come from a proletarian family, does that mean his writings weren't in the interest of communism?

[Rei Murasame]

I think that Communists gave up that whole narrative some time after Joseph Stalin died.

Their stance toward the Third Position is to criticise us as being national chauvinists or regional chauvinists who want to create a dictatorship of the petty-bourgeoisie. From there, they then segue into talking about the 'danger' of that position, which, according to them, is that since we want to make sure that we are in charge to continue to lead the proletarians, we are compelled by circumstances to engage in 'zig-zagging', and managerial compromises, which has a potential to expose the regimes to being undermined. They then go on to propose that the problem they are talking about would cease to exist, if the proletarians established a communist party and strove toward dictatorship of the proletariat rather than relying on a petty-bourgeoisie party to lead them to somewhere.

World Socialist Web Site persistently has had several of its contributors write articles that use that criticism against all kinds of Third Position tendencies, especially in the developing world. Whenever you see them start an article that involves the wording 'bitter legacy' and something like 'such-and-such situation illustrates the organic incapacity of the national-bourgeoisie movements to realise the aspirations of the masses', that is Communists gearing up to draw a line between themselves and the Third Position.

Here's an example of such a criticism:

[...]

Under various banners, the Arab bourgeoisie has sought to advance itself as the “natural leader” of the movement of the oppressed Arab masses against imperialist domination. In the case of Pan-Arabism and Ba'athism, it sought to combine the project of building an “Arab nation” with pledges to construct an egalitarian regime, akin to socialism. It was aided in this task by the Stalinist parties, which subordinated the independent interests of the working class to the bourgeoisie and its nationalist program.

The history of Syria and the entire Middle East has demonstrated, in the negative, the correctness of the Marxist theory of Permanent Revolution, as elaborated by Leon Trotsky. In countries with a belated capitalist development—even those possessing vast oil wealth—the native bourgeoisie is organically incapable of leading the workers and oppressed masses in overcoming the legacy of feudal backwardness and colonial subjugation. Its interests are fundamentally linked with and subordinate to those of the imperialist powers—economically, politically and militarily. Above all, it is concerned with suppressing the internal political threat to its rule posed by the working class.

The liberation of the Arab masses and the achievement of democracy and social equality require a new perspective and a new leadership, the basis for which is being laid by economic conditions now emerging in the Middle East which will ultimately strengthen the social position of the working class, and help Arab and Jewish workers overcome the destructive legacy of Zionist oppression and national-religious enmity.

The working class, Arab, Jewish and Iranian, must establish its political independence from its capitalist rulers. It must transcend the narrow framework of nationalism and set itself the task of uniting all of the oppressed masses of the Middle East in a socialist federation. This is the only viable strategy for overcoming Zionism, ending the national oppression of the Palestinian masses, and securing the social interests of all working people in the region. It must be fought for as an integral part of a world-wide struggle for socialism, alongside workers in the US and the other imperialist countries.

Of course, to me, the Communist position sounds like madness in practice, since in one breath they are criticising us for holding a position that results in zig-zagging and 3D chess, but then in the next breath they are asking the workers to take the time to wait for American workers to become communists.

American workers are the least likely people on the entire planet to become communist. How does that plan work?

The Third Position can defend itself from this criticism simply by pointing out that the United States is not going to enter any kind of federation with people that they actually hate and despise.

[Piccolo]

I think it depends on which type of Third Position we are talking about. I personally don't think class collaboration is really possible in the long run for the same reasons why social democracy is ultimately untenable. The tension between the interests of workers and capitalists will eventually reach some point where the compromise can no long sustain itself and the government will usually end up stepping in and siding with one side over the other, usually that of capital given its greater financial strength.

On the other hand, I think some elements of the Third Position support worker ownership of the means of production, for example some variants of national syndicalism and guild socialism. I think this is a tougher nut to crack for Marxists because it is essentially socialism, just not international socialism. Many Marxists are internationalists and are critical of nationalism per se, so we cannot expect them to support the Third Position at all.

[Leninist]

It has been my belief that most, if not all, fascism is based on some form of Keynesian-ism, and I know for certain that Nazi Germany was. My point is that Keynesian theory is an off-shoot of capitalism. The main difference between say the Keynesian policies of the New Deal and Fascism is, as I understand it, that generally fascism relies on the idea that it is the right of a strong nation to take over the weak so as to strengthen itself further, the most radical application of social Darwinism. This can be applied to much of the Fascist doctrine, for example all historical examples of fascism involved some sort of deal between the Fascist leadership and the established capitalists and business leaders. Back in Nazi Germany, this manifested as businesses giving the government good deals in exchange for a monopoly on internal business, with the promise this would expand as Germany did. What I read from all this is an affirmation of one of Lenin's statements "Fascism is capitalism in decline." Capitalism inevitably starts to fall apart, so business and right wing radicals make a deal to try and establish a more stable system. Just look at Europe, the Reactionary Fascists are starting to pop up again where the crisis is at its worst. I just hope my comrades can beat them to power and we don't need to repeat WW2.

Of course, to me, the Communist position sounds like madness in practice, since in one breath they are criticising us for holding a position that results in zig-zagging and 3D chess, but then in the next breath they are asking the workers to take the time to wait for American workers to become communists.

American workers are the least likely people on the entire planet to become communist. How does that plan work?

The Third Position can defend itself from this criticism simply by pointing out that the United States is not going to enter any kind of federation with people that they actually hate and despise.

Well to be fair, Marxism is designed to occur in the first world, with a well developed industry and educated populace. But also,

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/12/2 ... 75218.html

According to that, which references a pew survey, young Americans have a more favorable view of socialism than capitalism. Now, there is always the question, do they understand socialism, but it is progress all the same. And the worse those Wall Street bastards screw up the economy, the better socialism will sound. We actually got lucky compared to fascists. You say "Einstein was a socialist" and people will listean. You say "Hitler was a fascist" and anyone above junior high would recoil from it.

[annatar1914]

Agree with your assessment of Fascism, and what it is in practice; a militarized Keynesianism on steroids. However Socialism/Communism without Anarchism results in 'Red Fascism' and a gradual return to Capitalism, albeit in a more explicitly Statist form.

[Dagoth Ur]

Any system that perpetuates private property will revert to liberalism, ie the natural ideology of capitalism.

[Rich]

Any system that perpetuates private property will revert to liberalism, ie the natural ideology of capitalism.

What is Capitalism? Ancient Rome, Feudal Europe and many other societies perpetuated private property did they all revert to Liberalism?

[Dagoth Ur]

Progress was made since then, like it's totally not efficient/profitable to use slave armies anymore. And are you seriously asking me what capitalism is?

[annatar1914]

Progress was made since then, like it's totally not efficient/profitable to use slave armies anymore. And are you seriously asking me what capitalism is?

'Progress' of the sort in which slave armies of machines will someday do all the fighting and working for us. 'Us', not really, 'Us' being the Elite who will exterminate the superfluous and unnecessary population while they ascend into a transhumanist utopia. Not really progress at all.

In other words, the trends and interplay of Capitalism, Money, the State, and Technology will result in the final end of the human race as we know it, one way or another.

[Paradigm]

While I'm not a Marxist, I think the response would be that Third Positionism is one more tactic the bourgeoisie can use to delay their inevitable liquidation as a class. No matter how much glowing rhetoric you throw at it, ultimately class collaborationism is unsustainable. Nationalism can unite the classes for a period of time, but it can't stop the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and eventually the contradictions of capital accumulation will come back with a vengeance.

[annatar1914]

While I'm not a Marxist, I think the response would be that Third Positionism is one more tactic the bourgeoisie can use to delay their inevitable liquidation as a class. No matter how much glowing rhetoric you throw at it, ultimately class collaborationism is unsustainable. Nationalism can unite the classes for a period of time, but it can't stop the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, and eventually the contradiction of capital accumulation will come back with a vengeance.

I would say further that Statist 'Communism' itself is a means by which the bourgeoisie delay their liquidation, and that it practically is almost identical in it's final phases to Fascism itself in it's own final phases. All Marxist 'Communism' has done is determine who the new bourgeoisie shall be individually in the post-Marxist Communist Order.

[annatar1914]

The fate of Marxism is to disappear. It turns into fascism, or it just shrivels up and dies.

This is the part I really enjoy, now I'll get the standard blather about why I'm wrong, but I'm not a scholar.

Most of my life has been spent fighting communists, and I merely observe what happens in real life. The inconvenient part is that I also hate fascism. So I got to figure out how to destroy Marxist regimes but also free the people so they avoid fascism. That's a really difficult task.

Difficult indeed.

Consider fighting the State and all involuntary hierarchical power relationships in general.

Perhaps a digression; I enjoy your articles on 'Peak Oil', which theory partially led me to my idiosyncratic form of Anarchism.

[The Immortal Goon]

Alright.

I can't think of a single leading Nazi who came from the banking/ financial industry.

It is simplistic to say that fascism comes directly from the bourgeoisie. Their most preferred system is parliamentary. Most Stalinists (including Stalin) gave up on the ridiculous Third Period nonsense that they had been using and changed to Trotsky's analysis of fascism, even if he didn't get credit. As such, he's going to be posted here a little bit to tie up some of the loose ends a little bit. t hope that it makes sense.

But to begin with, we should define a problem that both the fascists and communists encountered with bourgeoisie systems. A quote from Engels that I think is rather under-rated:

Trade had outgrown such low means of making money; they were not worth while practising for the manufacturing millionaire, and served merely to keep alive the competition of smaller traders, thankful to pick up a penny wherever they could. Thus the truck system was suppressed, the Ten Hours’ Bill [2] was enacted, and a number of other secondary reforms introduced — much against the spirit of Free Trade and unbridled competition, but quite as much in favour of the giant-capitalist in his competition with his less favoured brother. Moreover, the larger the concern, and with it the number of hands, the greater the loss and inconvenience caused by every conflict between master and men; and thus a new spirit came over the masters, especially the large ones, which taught them to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to acquiesce in the existence and power of Trades’ Unions, and finally even to discover in strikes — at opportune times — a powerful means to serve their own ends. The largest manufacturers, formerly the leaders of the war against the working-class, were now the foremost to preach peace and harmony. And for a very good reason. The fact is that all these concessions to justice and philanthropy were nothing else but means to accelerate the concentration of capital in the hands of the few, for whom the niggardly extra extortions of former years had lost all importance and had become actual nuisances; and to crush all the quicker and all the safer their smaller competitors, who could not make both ends meet without such perquisites. Thus the development of production on the basis of the capitalistic system has of itself sufficed — at least in the leading industries, for in the more unimportant branches this is far from being the case — to do away with all those minor grievances which aggravated the workman’s fate during its earlier stages. And thus it renders more and more evident the great central fact that the cause of the miserable condition of the working-class is to be sought, not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself.

In the case of many countries this happens later. The prototypical example, Germany, had this happen later, in the build up for WWI. So the petite bourgeois people, the "middle classes" lost their independence. Whereas Britain was able to keep moving outward, the defeat of Germany in WWI stifled further trade that Germany was now reliant upon. Here was the time that the German proletariat should have struck. And they did. But, for various reasons, they failed to succeed.

So these middle classes are hurting as much as the workers. A couple of unique things happen in Germany at the time and place. For one, there's still a bit of a peasantry that's now also in trouble. For two, the petite bourgeois and their ilk don't melt in to the proletariat as much as the proletariat fall in to particularly drastic unemployment. Third, and perhaps most important, you had a lot of these same people who had served in the military. There was a lingering respect for the authority - which may be over emphasized - but also a certain level of dehumanization and a demand to have fought for something that led to a general belief in parliamentary democracy to collapse amongst all the affected classes. The Nazis were a group that could appeal to a lot of these people. Naturally these things differ from place to place—the lingering respect for national tradition might substitute for militaristic authority in a place like Britain or the United States. Catholic tradition in Spain, though they had their own military issues. So on and so forth.

Their stance toward the Third Position is to criticise us as being national chauvinists or regional chauvinists who want to create a dictatorship of the petty-bourgeoisie. From there, they then segue into talking about the 'danger' of that position, which, according to them, is that since we want to make sure that we are in charge to continue to lead the proletarians, we are compelled by circumstances to engage in 'zig-zagging', and managerial compromises, which has a potential to expose the regimes to being undermined.

This isn't a terrible summing up, but as per the nature of such discussions, there are some details that are probably important to go over.

In the basic theory, there's a deliberate parallel to both Bonapartism and a deliberate attempt to place the petite bourgeoisie in to historical context, including their role within the Jacobins.

Of course, to me, the Communist position sounds like madness in practice, since in one breath they are criticising us for holding a position that results in zig-zagging and 3D chess, but then in the next breath they are asking the workers to take the time to wait for American workers to become communists.

American workers are the least likely people on the entire planet to become communist. How does that plan work?

The Third Position can defend itself from this criticism simply by pointing out that the United States is not going to enter any kind of federation with people that they actually hate and despise.

I wouldn't say that this is a standard communist position. Generally, the idea would be to keep the "weak-link of capitalism," is going to have to snap, which is not the United States. It must be a global movement. Which isn't so unimaginable as it was even a few decades ago.

But I might go further and say that a large part of the problem with the American working class is that they are drawn to oppose the establishment of large-scale capital. They want to return to a time before Engels quoted the above. The Republican Party tells its uninsured members living in trailer parks without jobs that it's the fault of the Democrats and their big government manipulating trade and taxes and giving hard-earned money to negros in the cities where it's squandered on Hollywood propaganda. The Democrats tell their demoralized former-unionized employees on food stamps that everything would be okay if they could just get the big bad capitalists at the top to share a little bit more and pay better. It's the same argument appealing to the same problem Engels articulated more than a century ago. It's slide-of-hand to try and hide capitalist reality from the fictional dream it promises.

To use Germany as the prototypical example again, while some of the proletariat may have wanted a socialist system - many were drawn to the blustering of the Nazis—like the middle classes. In part because the big bourgeois elements, the same elements that Americans tend to want to try and curtail by voting for their parties, opposed the fascists in Germany. The big bourgeois would have naturally preferred a system more like the US has now. When the 1918 election came up, however, the remaining democrats and socialists voted in social-democrats. Actually, not that dissimilar from a Republican expecting the Republican Party to curtail the big bourgeois elitist latte-drinking Hollywood-limoisine-Liberal or the Democrat might hope the Democratic Party would curtail the big business Wall Street fat cat asshole. The results are similar enough to guess upon:

But the party that stood at the head of the proletariat returned the power to the bourgeoisie. In this sense the Social Democracy opened the era of counter-revolution before the revolution could bring its work to completion. However, so long as the bourgeoisie depended upon the Social Democracy, and consequently upon the workers, the regime retained elements of compromise. All the same, the international and the internal situation of German capitalism left no more room for concessions. As Social Democracy saved the bourgeoisie from the proletarian revolution, fascism came in its turn to liberate the bourgeoisie from the Social Democracy. Hitler’s coup is only the final link in the chain of counterrevolutionary shifts.

The US, as noted, has long since accepted trade and whatnot as a reality (as per the Engels link) and is far more stable (in that it doesn't have a peasantry and whatnot and never really has) than Germany. But in Germany, this, is where the big bourgeois elements get on board with the Third Positionists. As Trotsky noted previously:

The big bourgeoisie likes fascism as little as a man with aching molars likes to have his teeth pulled. The sober circles of bourgeois society have followed with misgivings the work of the dentist Pilsudski, but in the last analysis they have become reconciled to the inevitable, though with threats, with horse-trades and all sorts of bargaining. Thus the petty bourgeoisie's idol of yesterday becomes transformed into the gendarme of capital.

However, fascism was just an attempt to repair a system to fit in to the world that it came from. It offered a way to overcome the initial problems of the system, not destroy it.

And here is why Dagoth Ur, correctly but without the context, explained:

Any system that perpetuates private property will revert to liberalism, ie the natural ideology of capitalism.

Fascism in power, like Bonapartism, can only be the government of finance capital. In this social sense, it is indistinguishable not only from Bonapartism but even from parliamentary democracy. Each time, the Stalinists made this discovery all over again, forgetting that social questions resolve themselves in the domain of the political. The strength of finance capital does not reside in its ability to establish a government of any kind and at any time, according to its wish; it does not possess this faculty. Its strength resides in the fact that every non-proletarian government is forced to serve finance capital; or better yet, that finance capital possesses the possibility of substituting for each one of its systems of domination that decays, another system corresponding better to the changed conditions. However, the passage from one system to another signifies the political crisis which, with the concourse of the activity of the revolutionary proletariat may be transformed into a social danger to the bourgeoisie. The passage of parliamentary democracy to Bonapartism itself was accompanied in France by an effervescence of civil war. The perspective of the passage from Bonapartism to fascism is pregnant with infinitely more formidable disturbances and consequently also revolutionary possibilities.

And again:

The prolonged domination of finance capital by means of reactionary social demagogy and petty-bourgeois terror is impossible. Having arrived in power, the fascist chiefs are forced to muzzle the masses who follow them by means of the state apparatus. By the same token, they lose the support of broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie. A small part of it is assimilated by the bureaucratic apparatus. Another sinks into indifference. A third, under various banners, passes into opposition. But while losing its social mass base, by resting upon the bureaucratic apparatus and oscillating between the classes, fascism is regenerated into Bonapartism. Here, too, the gradual evolution is cut into by violent and sanguinary episodes. Differing from pre-fascist or preventive Bonapartism (Giolitti, Brüning-Schleicher, Doumergue, etc.) which reflects the extremely unstable and short-lived equilibrium between the belligerent camps, Bonapartism of fascist origin (Mussolini, Hitler, etc.), which grew out of the destruction, the disillusionment and the demoralization of the two camps of the masses, distinguishes itself by its much greater stability.

And this, I think, adds contexts to the statement in this thread:

I personally don't think class collaboration is really possible in the long run for the same reasons why social democracy is ultimately untenable. The tension between the interests of workers and capitalists will eventually reach some point where the compromise can no long sustain itself and the government will usually end up stepping in and siding with one side over the other, usually that of capital given its greater financial strength.

There is no actually class collaboration in the Third Position, as much as they'd like it to be so. In virtually every attempt at it, there are classes, they are just supposed to work together for a greater good of the national body. This is not too different from liberal capitalism, in many ways, in that the argument, "Who is going to clean our toilets?" Is often raised as an objection to socialism and an endorsement of a caste system of some kind. This kind of "collaboration," has existed since there has been class itself. It is dressed up and, as you mention, "ultimately untenable," because, "The tension between the interests of workers and capitalists will eventually reach some point where the compromise can no longer sustain itself," and we have what Trotsky speculated above. The same thing that happened to Spain, a fascist area that was left to breathe until its death from within.

[SpaciousBox]

As long as a caste-like class system exists, there cannot be freedom for workers. I'm not a Marxist and even I see that as truth. The Third Position wants to maintain class boundaries in order to support an established elite. That should send warning bells through anyone on the left, regardless of how progressive or reformist some of their ideas may appear at first. Personally, I find the Marxist criticism to be quite logical, but not from the perspective of private property. If the workers want to be free, they will never manage that under the boot of people whose interests are not their own – that isn’t a great leap of logic. The exact same criticism exists against the powers that be today, though I imagine this is where we might split on how to solve that issue and bring about freedom for everyone.

[Rich]

Fascism in power, like Bonapartism, can only be the government of finance capital. In this social sense, it is indistinguishable not only from Bonapartism but even from parliamentary democracy. Each time, the Stalinists made this discovery all over again, forgetting that social questions resolve themselves in the domain of the political. The strength of finance capital does not reside in its ability to establish a government of any kind and at any time, according to its wish; it does not possess this faculty. Its strength resides in the fact that every non-proletarian government is forced to serve finance capital

Any evidence that finance capital did well under the Nazis or is this yet more Marxist fantasy?

[quetzalcoatl]

Any evidence that finance capital did well under the Nazis or is this yet more Marxist fantasy?

Of course, none of this is new. You are replaying the Mason/Czichon debate between nominally Marxist historians.

Mason wrote "that both the domestic and foreign policy of the National Socialist government became, from 1936 onward, increasing independent of the influence of the economic ruling classes, and even in some essential aspects ran contrary to their collective interests" and that "it became possible for the National Socialist state to assume a fully independent role, for the "primacy of politics" to assert itself"[54]...Mason's "primacy of politics" approach against the traditional Marxist "primacy of economics" approach involved him in the 1960s with a vigorous debate with the East German historians' Eberhard Czichon, Dietrich Eichholtz and Kurt Gossweiler[55] The latter two historians wrote if Mason was correct, then this would amount to "a complete refutation of Marxist social analysis".[55]

My feeling is that the primacy of economics will triumph over any sufficiently long time period. The fact that fascists deliberately tried to undercut finance (as in Hitler's nationalization of banks) is one factor in its notorious instability and short-livedness. Where Marxists go wrong is in the assumption that the contradictions of capitalism will end the triumph of liberalism. What will instead happen (indeed is already happening) will be yet another monstrous mutation of capitalism occupying every available niche in the economic ecology.

Both traditional Marxist analysis and the Third Position are ultimately untenable, in my view. Successful adaptations will almost surely arise from the ideology which has always been committed to nothing other than its own survival. Liberal Capitalism's most distinctive characteristic - it's viral mutability - makes it (or its descendants) the most likely inheritor of a diminished human race.

[The Immortal Goon]

What measures have you taken to fight the bourgeois executioners, the Scheidernanns and Co.; have councils of workers and servants been formed in the different sections of the city; have the workers been armed; have the bourgeoisie been disarmed; has use been made of the stocks of clothing and other items for immediate and extensive aid to the workers, and especially to the farm labourers and small peasants; have the capitalist factories and wealth in Munich and the capitalist farms in its environs been confiscated; have mortgage and rent payments by small peasants been cancelled; have the wages of farm labourers and unskilled workers been doubled or trebled; have all paper stocks and all printing-presses been confis-cated so as to enable popular leaflets and newspapers to be printed for the masses; has the six-hour working day with two or three-hour instruction in state administration been introduced; have the bourgeoisie in Munich been made to give up surplus housing so that workers may be immediately moved into comfortable flats; have you taken over all the banks; have you taken hostages from the ranks of the bourgeoisie; have you introduced higher rations for the workers than for the bourgeoisie; have all the workers been mobilised for defence and for ideological propaganda in the neighbouring villages? The most urgent and most extensive implementation of these and similar measures, coupled with the initiative of workers’, farm labourers’ and— ;acting apart from them— ;small peasants’ councils, should strengthen your position. An emergency tax must be levied on the bourgeoisie, and an actual improvement effected in the condition of the workers, farm labourers and small peasants at once and at all costs.

Maybe in your crazy world of made up definitions of words and dodging history to try and make a bad-guy, this would somehow be an acceptable policy for finance-capital.

I would respectfully ask that one consider that instead of accepting this, finance capital may have been happy to have an alternative to this. Trotsky considered this:

The bourgeoisie is incapable of maintaining itself in power by the means and methods of the parliamentary state created by itself; it needs fascism as a weapon of self-defense, at least in critical instances. Nevertheless, the bourgeoisie does not like the 'plebian' method of resolving its tasks. It was always hostile of Jacobinism, which cleared the road for the development of bourgeois society with its blood. The fascists are immeasurably closer to the decadent bourgeoisie than the Jacobins were to the rising bourgeoisie. Nevertheless, the sober bourgeoisie does not look very favorably even upon the fascist mode of resolving its tasks, for the concussions, although they are brought forth in the interests of bourgeois society, are linked up with dangers to it. Therefore, the opposition between fascism and the bourgeois parties.

The big bourgeoisie likes fascism as little as a man with aching molars likes to have his teeth pulled. The sober circles of bourgeois society have followed with misgivings the work of the dentist Pilsudski, but in the last analysis they have become reconciled to the inevitable, though with threats, with horse-trades and all sorts of bargaining. Thus the petty bourgeoisie's idol of yesterday becomes transformed into the gendarme of capital.

But so did the person that wrote your sig:

The deeds of the Fascists and of other parties corresponding to them were emotional reflex actions evoked by indignation at the deeds of the Bolsheviks and Communists. As soon as the first flush of anger had passed, their policy took a more moderate course and will probably become even more so with the passage of time.

This moderation is the result of the fact that traditional liberal views still continue to have an unconscious influence on the Fascists...

It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.

As does the Von Mises institute today:

Like Friedman, Hayek glimpsed in Pinochet the avatar of true freedom, who would rule as a dictator only for a "transitional period, " only as long as needed to reverse decades of state regulation. "My personal preference, " he told a Chilean interviewer, "leans toward a liberal dictatorship rather than toward a democratic government devoid of liberalism." In a letter to the London Times he defended the junta, reporting that he had "not been able to find a single person even in much maligned Chile who did not agree that personal freedom was much greater under Pinochet than it had been under Allende." Of course, the thousands executed and tens of thousands tortured by Pinochet’s regime weren’t talking.

As does the CATO Institute that keeps fascists on its staff.

Milton Friedman's grandson concluded that the future of capitalism could not be democratic:

Democracy Is Not The Answer

Democracy is the current industry standard political system, but unfortunately it is ill-suited for a libertarian state. It has substantial systemic flaws, which are well-covered elsewhere, and it poses major problems specifically for libertarians:

1) Most people are not by nature libertarians. David Nolan reports that surveys show at most 16% of people have libertarian beliefs. Nolan, the man who founded the Libertarian Party back in 1971, now calls for libertarians to give up on the strategy of electing candidates! Even Ron Paul, who was enormously popular by libertarian standards and ran during a time of enormous backlash against the establishment, never had the slightest chance of winning the nomination. His “strong” showing got him 1.6% of the delegates to the Republican Party’s national convention. There are simply not enough of us to win elections unless we somehow concentrate our efforts.

2) Democracy is rigged against libertarians. Candidates bid for electoral victory partly by selling future political favors to raise funds and votes for their campaigns. Libertarians (and other honest candidates) who will not abuse their office can’t sell favors, thus have fewer resources to campaign with, and so have a huge intrinsic disadvantage in an election.

Libertarians are a minority, and we underperform in elections, so winning electoral victories is a hopeless endeavor.

Emergent Behavior

Consider these three levels of political abstraction:

Policies: Specific sets of laws.
Institutions: An entire country and its legal and political systems.
Ecosystem: All nations and the environment in which they compete and evolve.

Folk activism treats policies and institutions as the result of specific human intent. But policies are in large part an emergent behavior of institutions, and institutions are an emergent behavior of the global political ecosystem.

Then you have the fascists themselves:

Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....

After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....

...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absur[d] conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....

...given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century of Fascism.

Outside the State there can be neither individuals nor groups (political parties, associations, syndicates, classes). Therefore Fascism is opposed to Socialism, which confines the movement of history within the class struggle and ignores the unity of classes established in one economic and moral reality in the State; and analogously it is opposed to class syndicalism. . . .

The main plank in the National Socialist program is to abolish the liberalistic concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity and to substitute therefore the folk community, rooted in the soil and bound together by the bond of its common blood. A very simple statement; but it involves a principle that has tremendous consequences.

...And it is the greatest source of pride to us that we have been able to carry through this revolution, which is certainly the greatest revolution ever experienced in the history of our people, with a minimum of loss and sacrifice. Only in those cases where the murderous lust of the Bolsheviks, even after the 30th of January, 1933, led them to think that by the use of brute force they could prevent the success and realization of the National Socialist ideal—only then did we answer violence with violence, and naturally we did it promptly...

...I mean here that if Europe does not awaken to the danger of the Bolshevic infection, then I fear that international commerce will not increase but decrease, despite all the good intentions of individual statesmen. For this commerce is based not only on the undisturbed and guaranteed stability of production in one individual nation but also on the production of all the nations together. One of the first things which is clear in this matter is that every Bolshevic disturbance must necessarily lead to a more or less permanent destruction of orderly production. Therefore my opinion about the future of Europe is, I am sorry to say, not so optimistic as Mr. Eden’s. I am the responsible leader of the German people and must safeguard its interests in this world as well as I can. And therefore I am bound to judge things objectively as I see them.

I should not be acquitted before the bar of our history if I neglected something—no matter on what grounds—which is necessary to maintain the existence of this people. I am pleased, and we are all pleased, at every increase that takes place in our foreign trade. But in view of the obscure political situation I shall not neglect anything that is necessary to guarantee the existence of the German people, although other nations may become the victims of the Bolshevic infection.

...But I believe that nobody will question the sincerity of our opinions on this matter, for they are not based merely on abstract theory. For Mr. Eden Bolshevism is perhaps a thing which has its seat in Moscow, but for us in Germany this Bolshevism is a pestilence against which we have had to struggle at the cost of much bloodshed. It is a pestilence which tried to turn our country into the same kind of desert as is now the case in Spain; for the habit of murdering hostages began here, in the form in which we now see it in Spain. National Socialism did not try to come to grips with Bolshevism in Russia, but the Jewish international Bolshevics in Moscow have tried to introduce their system into Germany and are still trying to do so. Against this attempt we have waged a bitter struggle, not only in defence of our own civilization but in defence of European civilization as a whole.

In January and February of the year 1933, when the last decisive struggle against this barbarism was being fought out in Germany, had Germany been defeated in that struggle and had the Bolshevic field of destruction and death extended over Central Europe, then perhaps a different opinion would have arisen on the banks of the Thames as to the nature of this terrible menace to humanity. For since it is said that England must be defended on the frontier of the Rhine she would then have found herself in close contact with that harmless democratic world of Moscow, whose innocence they are always trying to impress upon us. Here I should like to state the following once again: —

The teaching of Bolshevism is that there must be a world revolution, which would mean world-destruction. If such a doctrine were accepted and given equal rights with other teachings in Europe, this would mean that Europe would be delivered over to it. If other nations want to be on good terms with this peril, that does not affect Germany’s position. As far as Germany itself is concerned, let there be no doubts on the following points: —

(1) We look on Bolshevism as a world peril for which there must be no toleration.

(2) We use every means in our power to keep this peril away from our people.

(3) And we are trying to make the German people immune to this peril as far as possible.

It is in accordance with this attitude of ours that we should avoid close contact with the carriers of these poisonous bacilli. And that is also the reason why we do not want to have any closer relations with them beyond the necessary political and commercial relations; for if we went beyond these we might thereby run the risk of closing the eyes of our people to the danger itself.

I consider Bolshevism the most malignant poison that can be given to a people. And therefore I do not want my own people to come into contact with this teaching. As a citizen of this nation I myself shall not do what I should have to condemn my fellow-citizens for doing. I demand from every German workman that he shall not have any relations with these international mischief-makers and he shall never see me clinking glasses or rubbing shoulders with them. Moreover, any further treaty connections with the present Bolshevic Russia would be completely worthless for us. It is out of the question to think that National Socialist Germany should ever be bound to protect Bolshevism or that we, on our side, should ever agree to accept the assistance of a Bolshevic State. For I fear that the moment any nation should agree to accept such assistance, it would thereby seal its own doom.

I aimed from the first at something a thousand times higher than being a minister. I wanted to become the destroyer of Marxism. I am going to achieve this task and, if I do, the title of minister will be an absurdity as far as I am concerned. . . .

At one time I believed that perhaps this battle against Marxism could be carried on with the help of the government. In January, 1923, I learned that that was just not possible. The hypothesis for the victory of Marxism is not that Germany must be free, but rather Germany will only be free when Marxism is broken. At that time I did not dream that our movement would become great and cover Germany like a flood.]Hitler[/url]"]I aimed from the first at something a thousand times higher than being a minister. I wanted to become the destroyer of Marxism. I am going to achieve this task and, if I do, the title of minister will be an absurdity as far as I am concerned. . . .

At one time I believed that perhaps this battle against Marxism could be carried on with the help of the government. In January, 1923, I learned that that was just not possible. The hypothesis for the victory of Marxism is not that Germany must be free, but rather Germany will only be free when Marxism is broken. At that time I did not dream that our movement would become great and cover Germany like a flood.

IN NOVEMBER, 1918, Marxist organizations seized the executive power by means of a revolution. The monarchs were dethroned, the authorities of the Reich and of the States removed from office, and thereby a breach of the Constitution was committed. The success of the revolution in a material sense protected the guilty parties from the hands of the law. They sought to justify it morally by asserting that Germany or its Government bore the guilt for the outbreak of the War.

This assertion was deliberately and actually untrue. In consequence, however, these untrue accusations in the interest of our former enemies led to the severest oppression of the entire German nation and to the breach of the assurances given to us in Wilson's fourteen points, and so for Germany, that is to say the working classes of the German people, to a time of infinite misfortune....

The splitting up of the nation into groups with irreconcilable views, systematically brought about by the false doctrines of Marxism, means the destruction of the basis of a possible communal life.... It is only the creation of a real national community, rising above the interests and differences of rank and class, that can permanently remove the source of nourishment of these aberrations of the human mind.

So, I mean, I guess if you want to say it's a, "Marxist" fantasy that fascists, capitalists, and everyone else inexplicably shares I guess you could in the same way that there's a "marxist fantasy" that the sun rises in the East. I would say that it's actual fact, but if you want to go off on your own crazy conspiracy theory that your own heroes, fascists, capitalists, and communists of all stripes would call you crazy for trying to go into I guess I can't stop you from trying to stitch together some kind of alternate reality where your world view makes sense.

I'll live in reality though.

[Rich]

But so did the person that wrote your sig:

That's there precisely to counter the Libertarian lie that they give a hoot about non aggression. There's no doubt that the capitalists threw their lot in with fascism and Nazism when they were threatened by Socialism, Communism, Anarchism and powerful trade union movements. That is totally different from fascism being an expression of finance capital or any sector of capital for that matter. This reinforces the imperialist myth. Economic imperatives did not drive the capitalists to war in WWI, WWII or any other war. They were not driven by a need for markets or new areas to invest surplice capital. This nonsense goes on today. The big corporations did not demand war against Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran or Syria. The big corporations are not driving our meddling in the Ukraine. These conflicts are ideologically driven.

The Nazis wanted to make the Ukraine German,again this was the ideological drives of Hitler and other Nazis it wasn't at the behest of big business. Big business didn't demand the Sudetenland, the occupation of Prague or the invasion of Poland. individual business men may have been enthusiastic even fanatic Nazis, but so could members of any class.