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/* "Dictatorial powers" */
=Fascism and the New Deal=
It is "absurd to ignore, as all our textbooks do, the fact that the New Deal and European fascism grew from the same ideological roots, produced strikingly similar policies, and fostered national cultures that, if not identical, bore the resemblance of siblings," writes Thaddeus Russell, professor of American Studies at Occidental College,<ref>[http://www.oxy.edu/x10401.xml Thaddeus Russell], Occidental College</ref> where President Obama matriculated.<ref>David Remnick, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=F6HAasv2v-4C The bridge: the life and rise of Barack Obama]'' (Alfred A. Knopf / Random House Digital, Inc., 2010) ISBN 1400043603, p. 105</ref> Naziism and Fascism were in fact "organically connected," argues Russell, author of ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=ohV_-4GJaU0C A Renegade History of the United States]'', to "the New Deal, the basis of what we now know as 'liberalism'," which he calls the "most influential American political movement of the twentieth century." The New Deal, concludes Russell, "created an economic system that was virtually identical to the national economies established in Italy and Germany, and further consolidated power in the hands of the president."<ref>Thaddeus Russell, ''[[http://books.google.com/books?id=ohV_-4GJaU0C A Renegade History of the United States]]'' (Simon and Schuster, 2011), ISBN 1416576134, pp. 240, 245</ref>
"Both Stalin's Russia and Mussolini's Italy influenced the New Deal enormously,"<ref>Amity Shlaes, "[http://www.aei.org/article/26390 The Real Deal]," ''The Wall Street Journal'', June 25, 2007</ref> writes Amity Schlaes, author of ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=7fZ6AAAACAAJ The Forgotten Man]''. "[T]he New Deal was often compared with Fascism," according to cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch.<ref>Wolfgang Schivelbusch, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Z3GV5_n1h04C Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939]'' (Macmillan, 2006) ISBN 080507452X, p. 22</ref> “The slogan into which the Nazis condensed their economic philosophy, ''Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz'' (i.e., the commonweal ranks above private profit) is likewise the idea underlying the American New Deal,” wrote Ludwig von Mises.<ref>Ludwig von Mises, ''[http://mises.org/books/socialism.pdf Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis]'' (Yale University Press, 1951), pp. 578-579</ref>
Roosevelt presented the New Deal in militaristic terms of "discipline," sacrificing individual rights for "leadership" promising a greater good. His first inaugural address contained an exhortation that could have been made by Mussolini or Hitler:
{{cquote|[I]f we are to go forward, we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because without such discipline no progress can be made, no leadership becomes effective.... We are, I know, ready and willing to submit our lives and our property to such discipline, because it makes possible a leadership which aims at the larger good.... I assume unhesitatingly the leadership of this great army of our people.... [I]n the event that the Congress shall fail... I shall ask the Congress for the one remaining instrument to meet the crisis -- broad Executive power to wage a war against the emergency, as great as the power that would be given to me if we were in fact invaded by a foreign foe.<ref>Franklin Delano Roosevelt's First Inaugural Address, Washington, DC, March 4, 1933, in Michael Waldman, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=bHpQCczJrwkC My Fellow Americans: The Most Important Speeches of America's Presidents, from George Washington to Barack Obama]'' (Sourcebooks, Inc., 2010), ISBN 1402243677, pp. 98-101</ref>}}
Meanwhile, [[First Lady]] [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] “lamented that the nation lacked a benevolent dictator to force through reforms."<ref>Christopher Caldwell, “[http://www.slate.com/idarticles/2000099arts/entrythe_book_club/1003296features/ 1999/eleanor_roosevelt_volume_2_19331938/er_authoritarian_and_aristocratic.html ER: Authoritarian and Aristocratic], Slate.com, July 28, 1999. In the crisis of World War II, the First Lady wrote, "I've come to one very clear decision, namely, that all of us -- men in the services, and men and women at home -- should be drafted and told what is the job we are to do. It seems to me there should be immediately a freezing of prices, of profits and of wages .... The only way I can see to get the maximum service out of our citizens, is to draft us all and to tell us all where we can be most useful and where our work is needed." She thought that private citizens should be regimented into "complying with the wishes and doing the things which those in authority thought should be done." Eleanor Roosevelt, [https://www.gwu.edu/~erpapers/myday/displaydoc.cfm?_y=1942&_f=md056129 "My Day," May 10, 1942]</ref> Soviet intelligence source<ref>[http://www.nsa.gov/public_info/_files/venona/1944/9sep_lippman_views_churchill_roosevelt.pdf 1289 KGB New York to Moscow, 9 September 1944]</ref> [[Walter Lippmann]] told Roosevelt, "The situation is critical, Franklin. You may have no alternative but to assume dictatorial powers";<ref>Thomas Griffith, “[http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,924464,00.html NEWSWATCH: Comrade of the Powerful],” ''Time'', September 15, 1980</ref> in his influential<ref>Lippmann is widely regarded as “the most influential journalist in American history.” Jacqueline Foertsch, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mao9DJoAlhAC American Culture in the 1940s]'' (Edinburgh University Press, 2008) ISBN 0748624139, p. 56</ref> column, Lippmann added that the use of "'dictatorial powers,' if that is the name for it&mdash;is essential."<ref>Russell Baker, “[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/22273 A Revolutionary President], ''The New York Review of Books'', Vol. 56, No. 2 (February 12, 2009)</ref> The ''New York Herald Tribune'' approved the inauguration with the headline "FOR DICTATORSHIP IF NECESSARY."<ref>“[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5525748 Author Reconstructs FDR's 'Defining Moment'],” ''Weekend Edition Saturday'', National Public Radio, July 1, 2006</ref> "We called for a Man of Action, and we got one," wrote New Dealer Donald Richberg. For only the Man of Action could overcome the "inefficiencies and corruptions of popular government":
{{cquote|The American people might well go down upon their knees and thank God that in that dreadful day there came into power the man who alone could save them — the Man of Action.<ref>Donald Randall Richberg, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=od1AAAAAIAAJ The rainbow: after the sunshine of prosperity, the deluge of the depression, the rainbow of the NRA, what have we learned? Where are we going?]'' (Doubleday, Doran & company, inc., 1936), pp. 2, 14, 294. Cf. James Q. Whitman, "[http://digitalcommons.law.yale.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1656&context=fss_papers Of Corporatism, Fascism, and the First New Deal]," ''The American Journal of Comparative Law'', Vol. 39, No. 4 (Autumn, 1991), pp. 747-778</ref>}}
A [[Hollywood]] movie was released about a President of the United States who "revokes the Constitution, becomes a reigning dictator," and employs "brown-shirted storm troopers,"<ref>"[http://allmovie.com/work/gabriel-over-the-white-house-19092 Gabriel Over the White House]," allmovie.com</ref>&mdash;by means of whom he not only "declares martial law,"<ref>Glenn Erickson, "[http://www.dvdsavant.com/s3054gabr.html Gabriel Over the White House]," dvdsavant.com</ref> but “dissolves Congress, creates an army of the unemployed, and lines up his enemies before a firing squad.”<ref>Jonathan Alter, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=ASmlaOHQNawC The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope]'' (Simon and Schuster, 2007) ISBN 0743246012, p. 6</ref> This movie was made not by a conservative such as Frank Capra, but by Walter Wanger, a "liberal Hollywood mogul";<ref>Saverio Giovacchini, "[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/109.2/br_89.html Benjamin L. Alpers, ''Dictators, Democracy, & American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s]," ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 109, No. 2 (April 2004), p. 553</ref> in the film, the dictator ("an FDR lookalike")<ref>Saverio Giovacchini, "[http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/109.2/br_89.html Benjamin L. Alpers, ''Dictators, Democracy, & American Public Culture: Envisioning the Totalitarian Enemy, 1920s-1950s]," ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 109, No. 2 (April 2004), p. 553</ref> is not the villain, but ''the hero'', who by such dictatorial means "solves all of the nation's problems."<ref>"[http://allmovie.com/work/gabriel-over-the-white-house-19092 Gabriel Over the White House]," allmovie.com</ref> Roosevelt enjoyed the movie and saw it several times.<ref>Terry Christensen, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=HnSFQgAACAAJ Reel Politics: American Political Movies from Birth of a Nation to Platoon]'' (Blackwell, 1987) ISBN 0631158448, p. 34. Cf. Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor, eds., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=eyTFPMFOskkC Hollywood's White House: The American Presidency in Film and History]'' (University Press of Kentucky, 2005) ISBN 0813191262, p. 153</ref> Most chilling, FDR wrote that he thought this film “would “should do much to help the country.”<ref>Jonathan Alter, ''The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope'' (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007), p. 185. ISBN 0-7432-4601-2. Cf. Jonathan Alter, “[http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/07/books/chapters/0507-1st-alter.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all The Defining Moment],” ''The New York Times'', May 7, 2006</ref>
==Contemporary reporting and commentary==
But Hitler's admiration for Roosevelt gave way to contempt upon the opening of hostilities. With the German declaration of war against the United States, Hitler would deprecate Roosevelt, not as a tool of the socialists or Bolsheviks, but as "the candidate of a Capitalist Party."<ref>[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/hitler_declares_war.html Hitler Declares War on the United States] (December 11, 1941). Jewish Virtual Library (American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise)</ref>
 
==Socialists and Communists on the New Deal==
As early as 1933, the manifesto of the first United States Congress Against War and Fascism (a Communist front) "pointed to the NRA, the CCC, and the other policies of the Roosevelt administration as indications of America's preparedness for war and Fascism," according to FDR's Attorney General Francis Biddle.<ref>Attorney General's list of Subversive Organizations, 1942, page photographically reproduced in M. Stanton Evans, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=vz42rDYmf3wC Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemys]'' (Crown Forum, 2007), p. 56</ref> The well-known socialist [[Theodore Dreiser]] (who would become an open Communist in 1945),<ref>Theodore Dreiser, "Request to Become a Communist," ''[[The Daily Worker]]'', July 30, 1945, reprinted in Albert Fried, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mLJbT3NMbN4C Communism in America: A History in Documents]'' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997) ISBN 0231102356, pp. 348-350</ref> classed FDR with Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini, saying that all used the ideas of [[Karl Marx]].<ref>"[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F7061FFF355C1B7A93C0AB1783D85F4C8385F9 Says Roosevelt Uses Karl Marx's Ideas; Theodore Dreiser Adds That So Do Hitler and Stalin]," ''The New York Times'', August 22, 1938</ref>
==New Dealers on fascism==
Tugwell was deeply interested in the ideas of the Fabian Society (which "set up the banner of Socialism militant"),<ref>G. Bernard Shaw, "[http://walterschafer.com/fabiansocietyhistory.htm Fabian Tract No. 41: The Fabian Society, Its Early History]," (Fabian Society Reprint, 1899)</ref> particularly those of [[George Bernard Shaw]] and [[H.G. Wells]]. Referring to Roosevelt's Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, Tugwell commented, “Miss Perkins was literate in the Fabian tradition, and so were some of the rest of us.” Roosevelt himself, observed Tugwell, “had a good Harvard education when Fabianism was developing, and he probably knew quite well the work of Wells and Shaw."<ref>Anne Jackson Fremantle, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=IRQdAAAAIAAJ This Little Band of Prophets: The British Fabians]'' (New American Library, 1960), p. 233</ref> But as John T. Flynn, who had supported Roosevelt in the 1932 election, observed, "the line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator."<ref>John T. Flynn, "The Road Ahead," ''Reader's Digest'', February 1950, reprinted in Gregory P. Pavlik. ''[http://mises.org/books/forgotten_lessons_flynn.pdf Forgotten Lessons: Selected Essays of John T. Flynn]'' (The Foundation for Economic Education, Inc., 1995) p. 189</ref> One Fabian socialist from the 1920s and '30s, Oswald Mosley,<ref>Rose L. Martin, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=9_vvAAAAMAAJ Fabian Freeway: High Road to Socialism in the U.S.A., 1884-1966]'' (Fidelis, 1968), p. 62</ref> went on to found and lead the British Union of Fascists, in which role he was lauded by Shaw,<ref>Gareth Griffith, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=aGAEWDI3SR4C Socialism and Superior Brains: The Political Thought of Bernard Shaw]'' (CRC Press, 2002) ISBN 0203210832, p. 263</ref> who also admired both [[Mussolini]] and [[Hitler]].<ref>"[http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70810FA3C5513738DDDA90994DA415B838FF1D3 Shaw Heaps Praise Upon the Dictators: While Parliaments Get Nowhere, He Says, Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin Do Things]," From an Address By George Bernard Shaw, ''The New York Times'', December 10, 1933</ref>
Shaw had contempt for freedom. Mussolini, Hitler and other dictators, he wrote, "can depend on me to judge them by their ability to deliver the goods," rather than by what Shaw dismissed as "comfortable notions of freedom."<ref>[[#refHollander98|Hollander 1998]]: 169</ref> Shaw thoroughly endorsed<ref>Edvins Snore, ''[http://www.sovietstory.com/ The Soviet Story]'' ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvsf2MUKRQ Clip])</ref> the [[Nazi]] doctrine of "life unworthy of life" (''Lebensunwertes Leben'').<ref>Dr. Stuart D. Stein, [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/mord.htm "Life Unworthy of Life" and other Medical Killing Programmes], University of the West of England</ref> In the [[BBC]]'s weekly magazine, he made a 1933 "appeal to the chemists to discover a humane gas that will kill instantly and painlessly. Deadly by all means, but humane not cruel..."<ref>''The Listener'' (London), February 7, 1934</ref> His appeal would shortly come to fruition in [[Nazi]] Germany.<ref>"The use of poison gas&mdash;first carbon monoxide and then Zyklon B&mdash;was the technological achievement permitting 'humane killing'." Robert Jay Lifton, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=bv8IAqVh8EAC The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide]'' (Basic Books, 1986) ISBN 0465049052, p. 453</ref> Asked what [[Briton]]s should do if the [[Nazi]]s crossed the channel into [[Britain]], Shaw replied, "Welcome them as tourists."<ref>Thomas Sowell, "[http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/sowell092401.asp Pacifism and war]," ''Jewish World Review'', September 24, 2001 (7 Tishrei, 5762)</ref>
Shaw thoroughly endorsed<ref>Edvins Snore, ''[http://www.sovietstory.com/ The Soviet Story]'' ([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQvsf2MUKRQ Clip])</ref> the [[Nazi]] doctrine of "life unworthy of life" (''Lebensunwertes Leben'').<ref>Dr. Stuart D. Stein, [http://www.ess.uwe.ac.uk/genocide/mord.htm "Life Unworthy of Life" and other Medical Killing Programmes], University of the West of England</ref> In the [[BBC]]'s weekly magazine, he made a 1933 "appeal to the chemists to discover a humane gas that will kill instantly and painlessly. Deadly by all means, but humane not cruel..."<ref>''The Listener'' (London), February 7, 1934</ref> His appeal would shortly come to fruition in [[Nazi]] Germany.<ref>"The use of poison gas&mdash;first carbon monoxide and then Zyklon B&mdash;was the technological achievement permitting 'humane killing'." Robert Jay Lifton, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=bv8IAqVh8EAC The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of Genocide]'' (Basic Books, 1986) ISBN 0465049052, p. 453</ref> H.G. Wells had similar contempt for human life, writing, "No doubt Utopia will kill all deformed and monstrous and evilly diseased births."<ref>Herbert George Wells, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=w_HY2By17g4C A Modern Utopia]'' (London, Odoms Press Ltd., 1908, reprint: Forgotten Books, 2008) ISBN 1606201840, p. 86</ref> In a 1932 speech at Oxford University, Wells exhorted his audience, “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis.”<ref>H.G. Wells, “Liberalism and the Revolutionary Spirit,” ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=NxzTAAAAMAAJ After Democracy: Addresses and Papers on the Present World Situation]'' (London: Watts, 1932), p. 24</ref> Two years later Roosevelt and key members of his “Brains Trust” met with Wells, who judged FDR “the most effective transmitting instrument possible for the coming of the new world order... He is continually revolutionary in the new way without ever provoking a stark revolutionary crisis.”<ref>Arthur Meier Schlesinger, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=mj3VmJ38tHIC The Coming of the New Deal, 1933-1935]'' (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2003) ISBN 0618340866, p. 588</ref>Wells had no difficulty identifying FDR's program as socialism:{{cquote|The New Deal is plainly an attempt to achieve a working socialism and avert a social collapse in America; it is extraordinarily parallel to the successive 'policies' and 'Plans' of the Russian experiment. Americans shirk the word 'socialism', but what else can one call it?<ref>H. G. Wells, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=hzpR2uASeT8C The New World Order]'' (Filiquarian Publishing, LLC., 2007) ISBN 1599868431, p. 46</ref>}}Wells observed that "the President ... has made himself the spear-head of the collectivising drive"; that he was engaged in "progressive socialisation of the nation"; and that his opposition threatened to "slow down the drift to socialism."<ref>H. G. Wells, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=hzpR2uASeT8C The New World Order]'' (Filiquarian Publishing, LLC., 2007) ISBN 1599868431, p. 53</ref> Wells suggested that the President and First Lady were particularly incurious about the source of the ideas they took for granted:{{cquote|I doubt if these two fine, active minds have ever inquired how it is they know what they know and think as they do. Nor have they ever thought of what they might have been if they had grown up in an entirely different culture. They have the disposition of all politicians the world over to deal only with made opinion. They have never inquired how it is that opinion is made.<ref>H. G. Wells, ''[http://archive.org/download/fateofman013812mbp/fateofman013812mbp.pdf The Fate Of Man]'' (1939), pp. 224-225</ref>}}
==Keynesian economics==
Perkins commented that, "Combined with the relief program and with public works," wrote Perkins, the the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the [https://exhibitions.cul.columbia.edu/exhibits/show/perkins/national-recovery/national-recovery centerpiece of the "first New Deal, "] constituted "an effective demonstration of the theories which John Maynard Keynes had been preaching and urging upon the English government," adding:
{{cquote|[Keynes] pointed out that the combination of relief, public works, raising wages by NRA codes, distributing moneys to farmers under agricultural adjustment, was doing exactly what his theory would indicate as correct procedure. He was full of faith that we in the United States would prove to the world that this was the answer.<ref>Frances Perkins, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=AIEhAAAAMAAJ The Roosevelt I Knew]'' (The Viking press, 1946) p. 225</ref>}}
Keynes had been involved with Fabian socialism since at least his student days at Cambridge.<ref>Michael Holroyd, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=hL1GPQAACAAJ Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biography, Vol.1: The Unknown Years,1880-1910]'' (Heinemann, 1967), p. 250; Anne Jackson Fremantle, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=IRQdAAAAIAAJ This Little Band of Prophets: The British Fabians]'' (New American Library, 1960), p. 230</ref> Mosley had been a Fabian socialist in 1930, when Keynesian economics was the "officially accepted Fabian line," notes Zygmund Dobbs. Mosely went on to found the British Union of Fascists, which "at first was modeled after Mussolini’s example but later became patterned after Hitler. Through all these tergiversations, Mosley never had to abandon his Keynesist principles."<ref>Zygmund Dobbs, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=N-g1AQAAIAAJ Keynes at Harvard: economic deception as a political credo],'' (New York: Veritas Foundation, 1960), pp. 88-90</ref> As a leading Fascist propagandist<ref>James Strachey Barnes led a "major group" established "to promote ... fascism," and circulate "fascist propaganda," emphasizing "the positive nature of fascism." Roger Griffin with Matthew Feldman, eds., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=xeHuSpHzqGUC Fascism: The 'Fascist Epoch']'' (Taylor & Francis, 2004) ISBN 0415290198, p. 255</ref> noted (in a book with a preface by Mussolini):<ref>Gaetano Salvemini, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=CaONx1VLelsC Under the Axe of Fascism]'' (Read Books, 2008) ISBN 1443736708, p. 115</ref>
::"Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=pKBdAAAAIAAJ The End of Laissez-Faire]'' (1926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics. There is scarcely anything to object to in it and there is much to applaud.... All this is pure fascist premises."<ref>James Strachey Barnes, ''[http://books.google.com/books?cd=1&id=N_jSAAAAMAAJ Universal Aspects of Fascism]'' (London: Williams and Norgate, 1929), pp. 113-115</ref>
As [Keynes had long been sympathetic to corporatist ideas. According to James R. Crotty, Professor Emeritus of Economics and Sheridan Scholar at the University of Massachusetts Amherst:{{cquote|When Keynes heralded the death of laissez-faire in the 1920s, it was not just macroeconomic policy he had in mind. He called with equal enthusiasm for the state to adopt powerful industrial policies to regulate enterprise and industry behavior. At least in this period, Keynes was unabashedly corporatist.<ref>James Crotty (1998), "[Communist Party]http://people.umass.edu/crotty/JEI_Keynes-corp.pdf Was Keynes a Corporatist? Keynes’s Radical Views on Industrial Policy and Macro Policy in the 1920s] ," pp. 2-3</ref>}} In his 1936 book, ''The General Secretary Theory of Employment, Interest and Money,'' Keynes advocated "a somewhat comprehensive socialization of investment." Agreeing with Lenin's NEP, Mussolini's corporatism, and Hitler's national socialism, he added, "This need not exclude all manner of compromises and devices by which public authority will co-operate with private initiative." Nevertheless, he insisted, "The central controls necessary to ensure full employment will, of course, involve a large extension of the traditional functions of government."<ref>John Maynard Keynes, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=xpw-96rynOcC The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money],'' (Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 2006) ISBN 8126905913, p. 378</ref> In a 1939 interview by the [William Zhttp://www. Fosteramazon.com/Socialism-welfare-state-Fabian-tract/dp/B0007JKJG4 Fabian]Kingley Martin, published in the ''New Statesman'' (a British journal [http://www.fabians.org.uk/about/the-fabian-story/ founded by leading Fabians] commented), Keynes conceded that his economic proposals envisioned -- again like the NEP, Fascism and National Socialism -- an "The Nazi fascists were especially enthusiastic supporters amalgam of private capitalism and state socialism."<ref>Gilles Dostaler, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=kyxmAwAAQBAJ Keynesand His Battles]'' (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007) ISBN 178100837X, p. 98</ref> In this interview, Keynes dubbed his system "liberal socialism"; in 1944 he would explicitly refer to this approach as yet another a "middle way."<ref>William ZPeter Kriesler and Claudio Sardoni, eds. Foster, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=0AdnAAAAMAAJ Outline iJGKAgAAQBAJ Keynes, Post-Keynesianism and Political History Economy: Essays in Honour of Geoff Harcourt, Volume 3]'' (Routledge, 2002) ISBN 1134825978, p. 164</ref> That year, he would work together with Soviet agent<ref>John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr, and Alexander Vassiliev, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=qCAVQ_cdomcC Spies: The Rise and Fall of the AmericasKGB in America]'' (Yale University Press, 2009) ISBN 0300155727, p. 258</ref> [[Harry Dexter White]] to create the World Bank and International PublishersMonetary Fund, 1951quintessential [http://www.tni.org/archives/archives_george_ottawa "Third Way" globalist institutions]. Keynes had been involved with Fabian socialism since at least his student days at Cambridge.<ref>Michael Holroyd, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=hL1GPQAACAAJ Lytton Strachey: A Critical Biography, Vol.1: The Unknown Years,1880-1910]'' (Heinemann, 1967), p. 597250; Anne Jackson Fremantle, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=IRQdAAAAIAAJ This Little Band of Prophets: The British Fabians]'' (New American Library, 1960), p. 230</ref> Mosley had been a Fabian socialist in 1930, when Keynesian economics was the "officially accepted Fabian line," notes Former Trotskyite<ref>Joel T. LeFevre, [http://www.keynesatharvard.org/site.html About the Author], keynesatharvard.org</ref> Zygmund Dobbs recounted that . Mosley went on to found the British Union of Fascists, which "at first was modeled after Mussolini’s example but later became patterned after Hitler. Through all these tergiversations, Mosley never had to abandon his Keynesist principles."<ref>Zygmund Dobbs, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=N-g1AQAAIAAJ Keynes at Harvard: economic deception as a political credo],'' (New York: Veritas Foundation, 1960), pp. 88-90</ref> As a leading Fascist propagandist<ref>James Strachey Barnes led a "major group" established "to promote ... fascism," and circulate "fascist propaganda," emphasizing "the positive nature of fascism." Roger Griffin with Matthew Feldman, eds., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=xeHuSpHzqGUC Fascism: The 'Fascist Epoch']'' (Taylor & Francis, 2004) ISBN 0415290198, p. 255</ref> noted (in a book with a preface by Mussolini):<ref>Gaetano Salvemini, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=CaONx1VLelsC Under the Axe of Fascism]'' (Read Books, 2008) ISBN 1443736708, p. 115</ref>::Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=pKBdAAAAIAAJ The End of Laissez-Faire]'' (1926) might, so far as it goes, serve as a useful introduction to fascist economics. There is scarcely anything to object to in it and there is much to applaud.... All this is pure fascist premises.<ref>James Strachey Barnes, ''[http://books.google.com/books?cd=1&id=N_jSAAAAMAAJ Universal Aspects of Fascism]'' (London: Williams and Norgate, 1929), pp. 113-115</ref> [[Communist Party]] General Secretary [[William Z. Foster]] commented, "The Nazi fascists were especially enthusiastic supporters of Keynes."<ref>William Z. Foster, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=0AdnAAAAMAAJ Outline Political History of the Americas]'' (International Publishers, 1951), p. 597.</ref> As Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter observed that , in Nazi Germany, "A work like Keynes’ ''General Theory'' could have appeared unmolested&mdash;and did." <ref>Joseph A. Schumpeter, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=pl4DABZfGREC History of Economic Analysis]'' (Routledge, 2006) ISBN 1134838700, p. 1156</ref> In the introduction to the 1936 German edition of his treatise, Keynes himself suggested that the total state that the National Socialists were then building was perfectly suited for the implementation of his investment schemes:
{{cquote|The theory of aggregate production that is the goal of the following book can be much more easily applied to the conditions of a totalitarian state than the theory of production and distribution of a given output turned out under the conditions of free competition and a considerable degree of ''laissez-faire''.<ref>Translation in Henry Hazlitt, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=HfGxAAAAIAAJ The Failure of the "New Economics": An Analysis of the Keynesian Fallacies]'' (Van Nostrand, 1959), p. 277 (Original: "Trotzdem kann die Theorie der Produktion als Ganzes, die den Zweck des folgenden Buches bildet, viel leichter den Verhältnissen eines totalen Staates angepaßt werden als die Theorie der Erzeugung und Verteilung einer gegebenen, unter Bedingungen des freien Wettbewerbes und eines großen Maßes von ''laissez-faire'' erstellten Produktion." John Maynard Keynes, ''Allgemeine Theorie der Beschäftigung, des Zinses und des Geldes'' [Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1936], p. ix)</ref>}}
Moreover, Keynes was at least an ambivalent anti-Semite. He called Albert Einstein "a naughty Jew boy... that kind of Jew... who have not sublimated immortality into compound interest." This he contrasted with
==New Deal programs==
===National Recovery Administration===
Just as Roosevelt expressed to Ambassador Long his admiration of Mussolini, Long in turn reported to Tugwell regarding Fascist economics, “Your mind runs along these lines.... It may have some bearing on the code work under N.R.A.”<ref>Long to Tugwell, May 16, 1934, [http://lccn.loc.gov/mm%2078030502 Breckinridge Long Papers], Box 111, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress</ref> The NRA&mdash;“the New Deal’s attempt to bring to America the substance of Mussolini’s corporativism”<ref>Leonard Peikoff, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=2_xpAAAAIAAJ The Ominous Parallels]'' (Stein and Day, 1982) ISBN 081282850X, p. 293</ref>&mdash;was established by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933, --[http://www.pbs.org/wnet/supremecourt/capitalism/landmark_schechter.html centerpiece of the New Deal legislation]--which was “similar to experiments being carried out by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini in Italy and by the Nazis in Adolf Hitler's Germany,” according to John A. Garraty,<ref>John Arthur Garraty, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=DGRuAAAAMAAJ The American Nation]'', 4th ed., vol. 2 (Harper & Row, 1979) ISBN 0060422696, p. 656. Cf. John A. Garraty, "[http://www.wagner.edu/departments/gap/sites/wagner.edu.departments.gap/files/download/garraty%20new%20deal.pdf The New Deal, National Socialism, and the Great Depression]," ''The American Historical Review'', Vol. 78, No. 4 (Oct., 1973), pp. 907-944</ref> president of the Society of American Historians.<ref>[http://sah.columbia.edu/content/history History], The Society of American Historians</ref> "There was hardly a commentator who failed to see elements of Italian corporatism in Roosevelt's managed economy under the National Recovery Administration, the institution formed in 1933 to maintain mandatory production and price 'codes' for American industry," wrote Schivelbusch.<ref>Wolfgang Schivelbusch, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Z3GV5_n1h04C Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939]'' (Macmillan, 2006) ISBN 080507452X, p. 23</ref> According to Leon Keyserling, chairman of [[Harry Truman|President Truman]]'s Council of Economic Advisers, NIRA had grown out of the 1931 "Swope Plan,"<ref>Jerry N. Hess, [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/oralhist/keyserl1.htm Oral History Interview with Leon H. Keyserling], Washington, D. C., May 3, 1971, p. 7 (Harry S. Truman Library, National Archives and Records Administration)</ref> which, aping Mussolini, had proposed "a national organization of modified cartels in which competition would be limited, overproduction governed, workers and investors vigorously protected," all controlled by "some Federal supervisory body."<ref>[http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,742325,00.html INDUSTRY: Swope Plan], ''Time'', Monday, September 28, 1931</ref> As one NRA study concluded, “The Fascist principles are very similar to those which have been evolving in America and so are of particular interest at this time.”<ref>Janet C. Wright, "Capital and Labor Under Fascism," National Archives, Record Group 9, Records of the National Recovery Administration, [http://www.archives.gov/research/guide-fed-records/groups/009.html#9.2.4 Special Research and Planning Reports and Memoranda, 1933-35], Entry 31, Box 3</ref>
The Italian Fascist Party journal of political theory ''Gerarchia'' (Leadership) characterized the NRA as "bearing a Fascist signature" and as "corporatism without the corporations." Progressive journalist Roger Shaw agreed, "The NRA... was plainly an American adaptation of the Italian corporate state."<ref>Roger Shaw, "[http://ia600504.us.archive.org/19/items/northamreview238miscrich/northamreview238miscrich.pdf Fascism and the New Deal]," ''The North American Review'', Vol. 238, No. 6 (December 1934), pp. 559-564</ref> When Roosevelt referred to the industrial cartels established by the NRA as "modern guilds," writes Schivelbusch, he was making "reference to the corporatist system associated with Fascism."<ref>Wolfgang Schivelbusch, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Z3GV5_n1h04C Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939]'' (Macmillan, 2006) ISBN 080507452X, pp. 24, 27, 30</ref> FDR's own economics instructor at Harvard<ref>[http://www.montaguemillennium.com/familyresearch/h_1961_gilbert.htm Gilbert Holland Montague, 1880-1961], montaguemillennium.com</ref> concurred, identifying the NRA as "essentially fascistic."<ref>Gilbert H. Montague, "[http://www.jstor.org/pss/1019193 Is NRA Fascistic?]" ''The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Sciences,'' July, 1935, pp. 149-161</ref>
"The American side, and especially President Roosevelt himself, was strikingly open and receptive to ideas emanating from Nazi Germany," writes historian [http://www.eui.eu/DepartmentsAndCentres/HistoryAndCivilization/People/Professors/Patel.aspx Kiran Klaus Patel]. According to Patel, there was at least one actual "intercultural transfer," in which the CCC studied and adopted ("on personal orders from Roosevelt") a program for training aviation mechanics modeled after the Flyer Hitler Youth.<ref>Kiran Klaus Patel, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=nqTsBdOzNF4C Soldiers of labor: labor service in Nazi Germany and New Deal America, 1933-1945]'' (Cambridge University Press, 2005), ISBN 0521834163, pp. 278, 289</ref>
 
As early as 1933, the manifesto of the first United States Congress Against War and Fascism "pointed to the NRA, the CCC, and the other policies of the Roosevelt administration as indications of America's preparedness for war and Fascism," according to FDR's Attorney General Francis Biddle.<ref>Attorney General's list of Subversive Organizations, 1942, page photographically reproduced in M. Stanton Evans, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=vz42rDYmf3wC Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemys]'' (Crown Forum, 2007), p. 56</ref>
===National Youth Administration===
The National Youth Administration (NYA) was conceived as a New Deal “alternative to the Hitler Youth,” designed to hold young people “to their patriotic loyalties.”<ref>Richard A. Reiman , ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=wRNiQgAACAAJ The New Deal & American Youth: Ideas & Ideals in a Depression],'' (University of Georgia Press, 1992) ISBN 0820314072. Cf. Herbert Mitgang, "[http://www.nytimes.com/1993/01/13/books/books-of-the-times-on-the-new-deal-s-effort-to-put-youth-to-work.html On the New Deal's Effort to Put Youth to Work]," ''The New York Times'', January 13, 1993</ref> Harry Hopkins told the the NYA's Advisory Committee, “we have a lawyer who will declare anything you want to do legal.”<ref>Barton J. Bernstein and Allen J. Matusow (eds.), ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=W-U5AAAAMAAJ Twentieth-Century America: Recent Interpretations]'' (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1972) ISBN 0155923919, p. 234</ref> Hopkins had hired the Communist<ref>[[#refHUAC50.2|HUAC 1950, pt. 2]]: 2850 [PDF 16]</ref> lawyer [[Lee Pressman]] back into the government immediately after he was "purged" from AAA.<ref>[[#refHUAC50.2|HUAC 1950, pt. 2]]: 2849 [PDF 15]</ref> According to Pressman, Hopkins told him, “The first time you tell me I can’t do what I want to do, you’re fired. I’m going to decide what I think has to be done and it’s up to you to see to it that it’s legal.”<ref>[[#refGall99|Gall 1999]]: 32)</ref> Among his other hires was [[Eleanor Roosevelt]]'s [http://www.sappho.com/letters/e_roosevelt.html close friend] Lorena Hickok, whom Hopkins brought into the government on [http://web.archive.org/web/20101104032911/http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/hickok-lorena.htm Mrs. Roosevelt's recommendation]. Hickok wrote, "If I were 20 years younger and weighed 75 pounds less, I think I'd start out to be the Joan of Arc of the Fascist Movement of the United States."<ref>Lorena A. Hickok, et al., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=nstfz85S4ccC One Third of a Nation: Lorena Hickok Reports on the Great Depression]'' (University of Illinois Press, 1983) ISBN 0252010965, p. 218</ref>
=="Friendly Fascism"==
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