On Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:00:47 -0800 (PST) "B." <docile_body at yahoo.com>
writes:
> I dunno. I am wondering if Eleanor Roosevelt is now also a fascist in
> retrospect, or if it was just her husband...
>
> If there were fans of Mussolini-style corporatism in the 1930s, they
> had no noticeable influence in US govt. that I have ever heard of.
> And anyway, the US went to war against fascist Italy, so they must
> have really hated that part of it, must have been dreadfully painful
> to watch from the halls of power.
>
> -B.
>
>
I think that this is something that is perhaps been best documented in German-born historian Wolfgang Schivelbush's book, *Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's German, 1933-1939*. He provides documentation that New Dealers like Rex Tugwell did look at things like Italian corporatism under Mussolini for suggestions on how to deal with the economics problems associated with the Depression. That doesn't mean that they were interested in adopting other aspects of fascism like the totalitarian state, the murdering of political opponents or any of that other stuff. Rather as pragmatic people, when they saw something that looked like it wad generating results, they were inclined to look to see if there anything there that could be adapted to American conditions.
And at any rate, it seems that part of Schivelbush's thesis is that capitalist societies when confronted with major economic crises like the Great Depression are likely to turn to similar kinds of economic policies, despite the otherwise overwhelming differences they might have in terms of ideologies, traditions and political systems.
Then again, here is a preface that the infamous nutball John Maynard Keynes wrote for the German edition of his *General Theory*. See: http://tmh.floonet.net/articles/foregt.html ____________________________________________________________ Click now to find out which media club is right for you. http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/PnY6rw3LztpwAS4WoKCzpnyk77cAlypnkdnUl7DMPFSgp0RKZtJWF/