I’m looking for a book that compares/contrasts the Progressive Era and Fascism. I’ve read Three New Deals by Wolfgang Schivelbusch and it was fantastic. As of night now I’m reading Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism but unfortunately I don’t feel he’s proving his case that the progressive era and fascism are heavily similar.
Do you guys know of any books that show the similarities between Wilson, FDR, Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin, and Stalin? Thank you so much.
I have read through about 3/4 of Liberal Fascism. So far the criticism in the book of the fascist left is valid, but it’s hard not to ask what of the rise of the fascist new right over the last 60 years?
Jonah Goldberg is 1) wrong; 2) a NeoCon shill; 3) a leftist; 4) an idiot.
http://www.alternativeright.com/main/blogs/district-of-corruption/jonah-s-fascism/
http://mises.org/misesreview_detail.aspx?control=326
The modern managerial left is neither Fascist nor Progressive. The Progressives were vastly more conservative than the modern left, and often far more localist and populist. The Fascists were moderately opposed to the leftist gestalt, and they were a specific ideology that arose in opposition to internationalist socialism; specifically early 20th century Communism. Their economic program, de jure, had nothing in common with modern interventionism; de facto what similarities exist were copied from the Italian democratic state and Wilsonian Progressivism. Calling Progressives or democratic centralists ‘fascists’ is anachronistic.
Well firstly, many of these people you say are not in the Progressive Era. Wilson and Lenin were at the end of it really. The Progressive Era was 1900-1914. I can probably recommend some reading material for that but you need to give more detail now you have acquired new knowledge.
you might try this:
Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism
Kolko looks to me one of the primary sources for Rothbard’s thesis regarding the progressive era & economic fascism.
FDR and his New Deal were mostly fascist, although it had some progressive elements such as social security.
Fascism is apparently popular in the U.S. or else there would be more people like Dr. Paul elected.
Kolko, The Triumph of Conservatism
Kolko looks to me one of the primary sources for Rothbard’s thesis regarding the progressive era & economic fascism.
A fine book, but ‘economic fascism’ is a bogus concept. It’s the Red smear campaign carried over into political economy, and it’s not even historically accurate. ‘Economic fascism’, so called, is actually democratic interventionism which predates Fascism by almost 70 years and had a large hand in leading to Fascism. Again, Italy copied America on economics, not the other way around.
Thank you guys so much for all of your answers. I guess to clarify more specifically what I’m looking for are books that show the similarities between the presidencies of Wilson and FDR and the European dictatorships of Lenin, Stalin, Mussolini, and Hitler. Between 1912-1945, all of these men came to power and seemed to have many of the same ideas with economic and social controls.
Besides Three New Deals by Wolfgang Schivelbusch, do you guys know of any other books that cover this entire era and explain in detail how all of these men were similar or possibly how they all thought of each other? Thank you so much.
Have you tried John T. Flynn’s As We Go Marching yet?
Have you tried John T. Flynn’s As We Go Marching yet?
Another fine book, though again I disagree with some of the ways he uses ‘fascism’. It wasn’t ‘fascistic’, it was statist and democratic.
I have not yet but I do know of it. I know John T. Flynn was a huge critic of FDR and the New Deal throughout his life. I’ll definitely give that one a shot. Thanks again, my friends!
Fascism usually takes the guise of being populist sentiment hence the nationalist component.