I’ve been viewing the YouTube channel TIKHistory. Which I highly recommend for anyone who has an interest in World War II. The man who runs the channel is a British historian who specialized in that era. He has several videos where he explains the Nazi and Fascist theories in order to explain their actions and rational. All of them are very good, although I don’t agree with everything he says.
One of his videos covered the concept of the dialectic. He entered in this discussion because he postulated that in order to understand the reasoning behind Fascism and Hitler’s Mein Kampf you have to understand the dialectic, and he makes a very good case.
There was one part of his video I found extremely enlightening. He pointed out the essence of the dialectic was the conflict between the thesis and the antithesis. These are two ideas in are completely opposed to one another. To overcome this tension, you have to find a way to merge the two into a synthesis of an entirely new idea. TIKHistory then went on to explain that at that time Communism (specifically Bolshevism) was the thesis and Capitalism was the antithesis. In Communism the State owns and controls the means of production while under Capitalism there is private ownership. Fascism was the attempt at synthesis of these two. Under Fascism private ownership of property was allowed, but the state controls its usage and plans production. The aim was to mitigate the problem of economic swings that cause periods of recession or high inflation. Of course, this analysis views these three as purely economic systems and doesn’t consider the political and social natures of them. If you continue to look at them solely economically, you’re forced to one conclusion, the New Deal, and our current regulatory Deep State are Fascist.
#NewDeal, #dialectic, #Fascism