Todd D. wrote: I honestly think that a more accurate distinction would be to say Individualistic or Socialistic.
Not really, that would be an ahistorical division. The counterpart to individuality might be collectivity, but not socialism. 'Socialism' refers to specific social system, as does 'capitalism'.
Does the individual reign higher than the society, or vice versa?
The question itself implies a metaphysical, idealist stance. 'individual' and 'society' just belong to different set of categories, neither being "higher" or "lower". Individuals act in society so therefore, objectively, society is primary (irrespective of social system).
Hitler and Stalin both felt that the nation, state, people, whatever, were more important than the individuals, and that's why I think a lot of people view them as very similar.
Maybe some people view it like that, but in reality it's not that simple. In the NSDAP's ideology there was also a special kind of individualism, a "cult of the individual" superficially akin to that of Nietzsche. Of course also "national unity" was propagated ("Ein Volk",... etc.) as is normal in any country preparing for war.
-"Command economy" is cold war slang. Every capitalist country has some degree of planning, especially if its preparing for war. However, this is not the same as centrally planned economy which is charachteristical to socialism (and communism) alone. Having planning in economy isn't the same as having a planned economic system.
It's not really Cold War slang, it's Macroeconomic Slang. It's just that a bulk of Macroeconomic theory was in response to the Great Depression, which of course was right before WW2 and at the onset of the Cold War. Hitler and Mussolini's economies were incredibly state run, despite the guise of the "corporation", and were very much planned by the central body of the government, not the value that the market dictated, which is what we both agree seperates centrally planned economies.
-Whatever its origin, "command economy" indeed is part of cold war, anti-communist slang. It implies that only the economic "commands" by the government are "command economy".
-There's no qualitative difference between the planning carried out by fascist Germany and Italy as compared to other militarised capitalist countries. Therefore the existence of planning (which isn't the same as
centrally planned economic system) doesn't justify the lumping together of 'fascist economic model' and socialism. Even in the most militarised capitalist economy, planning still happens in the context of a market economy, of commodity production, and the plan itself is dominated by the law of value. The regulator of even the most militarised capitalist production is profit. The area where plan can operate in capitalism is really limited to that of socialism. That's a necessity dictated by economic laws, which cannot be changed even if the capitalists themselves wanted so. That's completely different in socialism, where the area of operation of the law of value is constantly decreased, while that of plan widens. Please don't get this wrong, I'm not using this as an argument for socialism's "superiority" or anything of the sort, just pointing out the prinicipal difference between capitalist "planning" (of even the most extreme sort) and socialist centralised planned economy. This doesn't apply to post 60's Soviet economy, but that's completely another topic.
-Corporatism of fascist Italy and Germany is often misunderstood. "Corporatism" doesn't refer to the rule of big companies, it is meant to create an illusion of harmonic worker-capitalist co-operation. For example, in Italy there were "corporative" tradeunions where both the workers and capitalists belonged to, and where both were supposedly represented equally. But in both cases the reality meant the complete subjucation of labour under capital.
- By litwin
- By Pants-of-dog