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Thread: Mises on Fascism

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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    He sure wasn't pro-fascist but could well have mistaken it for a liberal movement, or hoped so, in opposition to communism.

    None of those system were imaginable without liberalism.

    You're right, the average Italian probably felt liberated economically and proud nationally, just like the average German under pre-war Nazism.
    Not exactly liberal philosophically, mind you, but rather an emergency response to the market's perceived failings particularly with regard to socialist and communist agitation.

    Now your industrial bigwigs almost certainly had to compromise with the regime's goals.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ethereal View Post
    Why is it irrelevant?



    Assuming this is true (it's not), what is it supposed to prove?



    Where did Mises say that fascism was a "liberal reaction to the crisis of capitalism"? Or that fascism was a "liberal, bourgeois movement"? Those are not his words, but yours.



    Your interpretation of his words is puzzling to say the least.
    Because it's not a question of Mises advocating fascism.

    It is true and it proves that we tend to make rather selective use of supposedly pro-fascist comments.

    Then what does he mean by "makeshift"? What are the fascists trying to stop if not socialism and communism? How can possibly explain his last comment if he believed fascism was just another socialist movement?

    It's not puzzling at all.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    Because it's not a question of Mises advocating fascism.
    I agree, but some people are stupid and require things to be spelled out for them in the simplest terms possible.

    It is true...
    No, it's definitely not true. Many people have commented on FDR's pre-war views of fascism.

    ...and it proves that we tend to make rather selective use of supposedly pro-fascist comments.
    Who is "we"?

    Then what does he mean by "makeshift"? What are the fascists trying to stop if not socialism and communism? How can possibly explain his last comment if he believed fascism was just another socialist movement?
    Opposition to Bolshevism, in and of itself, does not make one a liberal.

    It's not puzzling at all.
    Well, Mises didn't say the things you are attributing to him, so, yes, it is puzzling.
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    In the essay you are quoting from, Mises refers to fascists as the "non-Communist enemies of liberalism". He also describes their economic policies as "antiliberal".

    It's pretty obvious that Mises is characterizing both fascism and Communism as illiberal movements. That he considers fascism the lesser evil does not somehow imply that fascism is an outgrowth of liberalism.
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    Earlier gave link to Mises on Fascism, Democracy, and Other Questions. It's a defense of those remarks about fascism by Mises by the Mises Institute. It's a long defense I've managed to read half of so far. But it acknowledges Mises did see fascism as liberal, the section "V. The Italian Economists and Fascism." I'll cite only some of it.

    How to maintain liberal principles in the face of a radical-socialist movement threatening the foundations of the social order — above all, private property — had troubled liberals in central and eastern Europe in the later 19th century. Confronted with a rising socialist party in a German reich where the Reichstag was elected by universal male suffrage, John Prince-Smith, the founder of the German free-trade movement and its leader for over three decades, ended as an advocate of the military-authoritarian state.59 In Russia, Boris Chicherin, distinguished legal historian and social philosopher and the leading liberal of his time, declared, "At the sight of this communist movement nothing remains for the sincere liberal but to support [Tsarist] absolutism."60 In the crisis produced by radical socialism in Italy, liberals — including notables like Benedetto Croce and Luigi Albertini — reacted similarly, welcoming Fascism to one degree or another.61 Among the more enthusiastic supporters of the Fascist movement were the Italian liberal economists.

    ...A small but prestigious and in some ways influential economic-liberal movement had existed in Italy throughout the 19th century. In the later decades of the century, the writers in this camp were harsh critics both of the interventionist Italian state, with its corrupt support of capitalist special interests at the expense of taxpayers and consumers, and of the incipient socialist movement.

    With the Leninist turn of the PSI after the First World War and the emergence of the Fascist movement, the liberal economists began openly to side with the latter. A particularly distinguished member of the group was Maffeo Pantaleoni, of whom Hayek wrote that he was the author of "one of the most brilliant summaries of economic theory that has ever appeared."64 Pantaleoni, the longtime friend of Vilfredo Pareto, to whom he introduced the writings of Walras, was among Fascism's earliest and most fervent supporters. "If it had not been for Fascism," he wrote, "Italy would have suffered not merely an economic and political catastrophe, but rather a catastrophe of its very civilization."

    The most famous (or notorious) liberal supporter of Fascism, Pareto himself, was by no means the most committed. Yet in the end he endorsed the Fascist takeover, and a year before his death, permitted Mussolini to appoint him to the Senate.

    ...Fascism, Pareto held, was a healthy reaction to the crisis of the Italian body politic:

    One of the principal ends of every government is the protection of persons and property; if it neglects this, then from the bosom of the people there arise forces capable of making good the deficiency…. [Fascism arose] as a spontaneous and somewhat anarchical reaction of a part of the population to the "Red tyranny," which the government permitted to run rampant, leaving it to private individuals to defend themselves alone.75

    <snip other Italian liberal free-trade economists>

    Thus, it will be seen, Mises was hardly alone among liberal thinkers in praising Fascism at an early stage of the movement. In fact, he was reiterating the views of those in Italy in the best position to know.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Chris View Post
    Earlier gave link to Mises on Fascism, Democracy, and Other Questions. It's a defense of those remarks about fascism by Mises by the Mises Institute. It's a long defense I've managed to read half of so far. But it acknowledges Mises did see fascism as liberal, the section "V. The Italian Economists and Fascism." I'll cite only some of it.
    Interesting stuff. It's also fair to note that Hitler was small potatoes at this stage (1927) and Mussolini was a leading figure.

    What really struck me was how closely Mises' remarks resemble those of Polyani. Both are mistaken but I thought it was interesting that such different men could have the same interpretation. As this point I think I will have to revise my position on the left and fascism. The association of fascism with capitalism and liberalism was not unique to the radical left.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    I encountered this quote while reading yesterday afternoon and it sheds some light on how fascism was perceived by liberal and left contemporaries. I included the full quote because you would run the risk of distorting Mises' view if you didn't. He was not a proponent or apologist for fascism. That said, the text in red is enlightening. It appears that fascism was widely believed to have been a liberal reaction intended to preserve private property and the market.
    There is noting in that text that says anything about liberalism.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister D View Post
    We could say the same for FDR and his comments about fascism but some of us don't rush to point that out. In any case, it's irrelevant.

    If by contradistinction you mean that fascism served as a safeguard against socialism and communism, yes.

    Yes, that might be true but that's not the point. It appears that the Left's perception of fascism as a reactionary and ultimately liberal, bourgeois movement was shared by the right or at least shared by Mises.
    FDR's answer to the growing popularity of socialism and communism was government intervention to provide jobs, thus; fascism did not take hold in the US.
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    Quote Originally Posted by jet57 View Post
    There is noting [sic] in that text that says anything about liberalism.
    Anyone who knows Mises knows he was a liberal of the classical sort. Anyone who knows fascism knows it was antiliberal and anticapitalist.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Hoosier8 View Post
    FDR's answer to the growing popularity of socialism and communism was government intervention to provide jobs, thus; fascism did not take hold in the US.
    Nor has socialism/communism.

    I would argue one of the reasons communism and fascism/nazism arose as they did in Europe between the WWs was because economic liberalism and liberal democracy was seen by Europe at the time as having failed.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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