The Extent to Which Fascist Economic Policy in the Years 1924-1939 Can be Seen as an Alternative Neither Capitalist nor Communist
Mussolini and the facsisits believed in the corporative state.
Mussolini in theory believed that this was the state whereby all
economic activity and political life would be organized through
corporations with both workers and employers involved.
Mussolini saw the corporative state as the third way between
communisim and capitalism. He saw it as a way of removing labour
problems and creating an efficient economy. The corporate state
existed more in theory rather than in practice.
Italy had emerged from WWI in a poor and weakened condition. An
unpopular and costly conflict had been borne by an underdeveloped
country. Post-war there was inflation, massive debts and an extended
depression. By 1920 the economy was in a a massive disaster – there
was mass unemployment, food shortages, strikes, etc.
Mussolini came to power in 1922 and transformed the country's economy
along fascist ideology. But the question is did he really do this ?
Was the new way of organising the econmy- ‘corporativisim’ really an
alternative or was it merely another form of totalitarimsim that still
favoured capitilisim?
In facisit economics, fascism was seen as a third way between
laissez-faire capitalism and communism. 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 strugg...
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...ciations, of employees and employers to administer various
sectors of the national economy. These were represented in the
national council of corporations. The corporations were generally
weighted by the state in favour of the wealthy classes, and they
served to combat socialism and syndicalism by absorbing the trade
union movement. The Italian corporative state aimed in general at
‘reduced consumption in the interest of militarization.’
Overall the corpartive state as a social and economic system was not a
third way between the free market and communism. It was merely another
form of totalitarianism that sought to "combine its general
totalitarianism with the individualistic character of society." Such
policy created an extreme interventionist state whose chief production
agent was the government-created monopolist.