Comment Re:WRATH OF THE BLUESKY WOKE MORONS! (Score 1) 63
1) The above is the definition of the 14 core characteristics of fascism, from "Ur-Fascism" by Umberto Eco, who grew up in Fascist Italy, and is an influential essay on the characteristics of fascist thought (which well predates the new movement).
2) Fascism is not a synonym of Naziism. The Nazis were the the first fascist movement that had the word "socialist" in their name. Several minor ones (like the British Nazi Party) later cribbed it from them, but for example the Italian Fascist movement didn't use it at all when they came to power, the Spanish described their movement (accurately) as syndicalist, etc. In general, Fascist movements were a mix of syndicalism and corporatism, sometimes with a window dressing of socialism to smooth over alliances with powerful oligarchs.
3) The background on the name: Fascism is, as noted by Eco, an overwhelmingly middle class movement, but it likes to dress itself up in the trappings of the working class (the working class, by contrast, has historically been more attracted to socialism, which the middle class sees as a threat to its status). Fascist imagery commonly uses and glorifies the image of "the working man", with hyper-masculinization and motifs promoting the concepts of glory and sacrifice, with the leader presented as the voice of the working man.
But as for Naziism in specific: The Nazi party had its roots as the German Workers Party, which presented itself as a right-wing alternative to the Communist Party (KPD). Hitler joined and soon took control of the party, and in 1920 rebranded it as the "National Socialist German Workers' Party" (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei / NSDAP). The party sought, in the name, to tap into the working class (the country was in a massive economic crisis with large numbers of unemployed people). At the same time, it sought to set itself apart from "socialist parties", such as the Social Democratic Party (SPD), by stressing nationalism. Other parties of the 1930s included the Center Party (Zentrum), aka the Catholics (also their offshoot, the Bavarian People's Party (BVP)); the German National People's Party (DNVP), aka the monarchists (probably the closest party to the Nazis, philosophically); German People's Party (DVP), sort of a middle class-pro business party, sort of your "Never-Trump Republicans" or "Conservadems" (also similar: the German Economic Party (Wirtschaftspartei)); and the German Democratic Party (DDP), aka non-communist pro-democracy leftists.
In the early days of the party - late teens to the early 1920s - the party had a mix of left and right stances. It was from the start rabidly nationalist, anti-immigrant, anti-Jewish, and in general met all of Eco's characteristics of fascism - but it also had some genuinely socialist-leaning members like Gregor Strasser and his brother Otto, who advocated for nationalization of industry and land reform. However, after the failed Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler became increasingly dominant. Hitler increasingly marginalized the socialist wing in favour of powerful corporate alliances, and then outright eliminated them in the Night of the Long Knives in 1934.
The party still retained a number of superficially socialist policies, but, as examples:
x - They created the German Labor Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront)... but after abolishing all independent unions. This allowed them to keep the appearance of supporting workers rights, while bringing all workers under their control and eliminating their actual ability to negotiate or strike.
x - They created affordable state-sponsored wellness camps and facilities and the like, with an emphasis on the outdoors, esp. to help people detox, etc, but if you're trying to avoid comparisons when you have RFK planning basically the same thing, that's not helping
x - They set a number of price controls and invoked war production acts, but again, that's not really helping the case vs. the current US administration's trade policy either
x - They talked about improving healthcare, housing, land reform, etc, but actually did very little in these regards. Again, not helping.
But overall, they much more strongly aligned with German oligarchs. Before Hitler gained power he started heavily meeting with industrialists. In a meeting in February 1933 he got most of them to "bend the knee" and provide financial support. Oligarchs were generally wary of the Nazis, but more afraid of the communists and socialists. One of Hitler's first acts in power was, as mentioned, to suppress all of the unions, which further cemented his alliance with the oligarchs. The legal code was sculpted into one of "guided capitalism" (what one might today call "Putinism"), where oligarchs were allowed to (and assisted in) amassing wealth, so long as they bent the knee to Nazi goals when it was demanded of them. Cartelization was encouraged, rather than discouraged. Large industrialists benefited massively under the Nazis, receiving large orders, suppression of strikes, access to slave labour (late regime), protection from nationalization, etc. Krupp expanded dramatically. IG Farben expanded dramatically. Major banks expanded dramatically. German automakers expanded dramatically. It was high times for German industrialists, and again, all they had to do was bend the knee. The Quandt family for example, which owns most of BMW today, owes its fortune to largesse from the Nazis.
But again, to reiterate, Naziism was a particular variant of fascism (perhaps notable for its inclusion of an intensely virulent Jewish conspiracy - other fascist movements were hardly pro-Jewish, but most did not include this notion of Jews as a "society-destroying woke mind virus")
