(K): "Then that would be in simple deducive logic: 'Socialism or Communism does not emphasize on government control over the industry, because they are not fascists'"
(Don): "Fascism is not the *only* system that allows government control over industry, so the above does not follow."
(K): "Doesn't it seem to everybody that those lines up there contradict themselves very very nastily?"
(Don): "No, since I do not believe fascism is the only system that allows government control of industry." Yeah, I misjudged you on that part. I wrote the post before I saw your debate with Lark.
(K): "Then this is the picture I'm getting. You put fascism in the middle, but generally, from left to right it would go: communism - socialism - social democracy - liberalism - conservatism - fascism. They got this definiton because people take pro-capitalists to the right and anti-capitalists to the left. The orders are determined by political tendencies on HOW to promote the economical system they support(ie. immediate revolution as a means of socialism=communism, violent dictatorships as promoting capitalist corporative state=fascism). People take fascism as a political term. The economical definition of fascism is still under the category of capitalism, and they have extreme policies for maintaining it. That's why they put in in the far-right. "
(Don): "In my system, left to right it is: socialism-fascism-capitalism. Communism is one type of socialism, while the nazis were one form of fascism. The exterme right is true capitalism: the market forces, not the government, control the economy. The far left is total government control: the government *owns* industry. Fascism falls in the middle."
Yeah. I expected that, but the problem is, in order for you to claim fascism and capitalism do not share the same economical ideology, it has to show some difference.
According to you, the definition of socialism/fascism/capitalism is distinguished by who owns/controls the economy. Ok. Then WHERE'S THE ECONOMY here? I don't see any ECONOMIC THEORY.
(Marxian)Socialism has both economic/poltical meanings. So, "socialism" in purely economical term would be:
* economical system of socialism, where privatization of the means of production and class-exploitation is abolished.
"Capitalism" is also an economical term.
* economical system of market exchange.
The differentiation between these two ideologies has derived from WHAT the basic principle of economy is. They are different in economical theory, therefore, they are two DIFFERENT ECONOMICAL SYSTEMS.
But "fascist" USA, even in its most "fascistic"(some people would claim 'socialistic') moments, never has abolished the market. Neither did Keynesianism, not even USSR has(technically, USSR has never achieved a communist status). And so was Nazi Germany.
Did "state intervention" cause impact enough so as we might call them something different from capitalism? Hardly. FDR's policies on recession and Keynes' implications on full employment were never theories that were meant to abolish the market itself. It has become obvious to the new generation of economists during the years of the Big Depression that 1) economic 'cycles' existed in reality(that they were NOT temporary events), and 2) a fully functioning market system DOES NOT return to the status of full employment AUTOMATICALLY. Therefore, since the vicious cycle of unemployment and recession could not be cured by automatical market powers, something had to be done artificially by the state to return it to a normally functioning market again. The purpous of state intervention was to fix-up capitalism and get it working again. It was a necessary means, and a CORRECTION to the classical economic theories of capitalism, not an ALTERNATIVE.
The whole thing was "reformation" not "alternation". Unless the very basic principles of the economy itself was changed, we cannot call it something different.
So if you want to decribe it that way, you'll have to re-define capitalism. Your definition of "capitalism" will have to be one that does not require the words "market" and "capital" to explain it, because, in traditional sense, if there exists the profit system of "market" and "capital", regardless of where the state's role is placed at, that's capitalism.
Ironical, huh?
