People get offended here when nationalism is compared to fascism as if there are no reason such comparisons should be made.

Many equate fascism with Hitler's racism. Those are two different things.

Sheldon Richman writing in "The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics" long before Trump ever came on the political scene said the following:

quote:
The best example of a fascist economy is the regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Holding that liberalism (by which he meant freedom and free markets) had "reached the end of its historical function," Mussolini wrote: "To Fascism the world is not this material world, as it appears on the surface, where Man is an individual separated from all others and left to himself.... Fascism affirms the State as the true reality of the individual."

This collectivism is captured in the word fascism, which comes from the Latin fasces, meaning a bundle of rods with an axe in it. In economics, fascism was seen as a third way between laissez-faire capitalism and communism. Fascist thought acknowledged the roles of private property and the profit motive as legitimate incentives for productivity—provided that they did not conflict with the interests of the state.

Fascism in Italy grew out of two other movements: syndicalism and nationalism. The syndicalists believed that economic life should be governed by groups representing the workers in various industries and crafts. The nationalists, angered by Italy's treatment after World War I, combined the idea of class struggle with that of national struggle. Italy was a proletarian nation, they said, and to win a greater share of the world's wealth, all of Italy's classes must unite. Mussolini was a syndicalist who turned nationalist during World War I.

quote:
From 1922 to 1925, Mussolini's regime pursued a laissez-faire economic policy under the liberal finance minister Alberto De Stefani. De Stefani reduced taxes, regulations, and trade restrictions and allowed businesses to compete with one another. But his opposition to protectionism and business subsidies alienated some industrial leaders, and De Stefani was eventually forced to resign. After Mussolini consolidated his dictatorship in 1925, Italy entered a new phase. Mussolini, like many leaders at this time, believed that economies did not operate constructively without supervision by the government. Foreshadowing events in Nazi Germany, and to some extent in New Deal America, Mussolini began a program of massive deficit spending, public works, and eventually, militarism.

quote:
Beginning in 1929, in preparation for achieving the "glories" of war, the Italian government used protectionist measures to turn the economy toward autarchy, or economic self-sufficiency. The autarchic policies were intensified in the following years because of both the depression and the economic sanctions that other countries imposed on Italy after it invaded Ethiopia. Mussolini decreed that government bureaus must buy only Italian products, and he increased tariffs on all imports in 1931. The sanctions following the invasion of Ethiopia spurred Italy in 1935 to increase tariffs again, stiffen import quotas, and toughen its embargo on industrial goods.

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We have the government agencies already in place to carry out many of Mussolini's policies beyond the protectionism and tariffs Trump has already implemented.

Trump has threatened companies he does not like with the FCC and the DOJ. His favored companies are getting massive government help with tariffs and defense contracts.

Wilbur Ross is taking about imposing import quotas for steel for example. As the price of steel continues to rise there is little question there will louder and louder complaints from Americans. No doubt there will be some wanting price controls.

We are sliding backwards---back into protectionism that Hoover wanted and price controls that FDR wanted. We have a long history of failed price controls even as recently as Carter.

So if you are Trumpkin and are offended when someone is concerned if we are moving toward some hybrid fascism then you probably need to study why someone would have that concern and not just sky stream about "Cucks" and "melts".

I voted for Trump and hope he moves from the current path on trade and protectionism.

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