Mises on why fascism is a branch of international socialism – the nationalist branch:

“IN 1947, Austrian economist Ludwig von Mises published a short book entitled Planned Chaos. He analyzed and put into perspective the intellectual and ideological forces that had been at work in the Western world since the First World War and which had led to the Second World War.

Furthermore, Mises said, “There were nowhere more docile disciples of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin than the Nazis…. They imported from Russia: the one-party system and the preeminence of this party in political life; the paramount position assigned to the secret police; the concentration camps; the administrative execution or imprisonment of all opponents; the extermination of the families of suspects and of exiles; the method of propaganda,” and many other techniques besides.”

He pointed out that it was “important to realize that Fascism and Nazism were socialist dictatorships” and that both had been “committed to the Soviet principle of dictatorship and violent oppression of dissenters.” He reminded his readers that before the First World War, Benito Mussolini had been one of the leading socialists in Italy. His major heresy from Marxian orthodoxy had been his strong endorsement of Italian entry into World War I on the Allied side as a means to “liberate” Italian-speaking areas under Austrian control in the Alps.

When the war ended, Mussolini organized the Fascist movement, unifying Italian nationalists, economic collectivists, and various groups from all walks of life that had come to reject traditional Marxian socialism. Mussolini took his economic agenda from the philosophy of syndicalism, the idea that trades, crafts, professions, and industries would be grouped into mandatory cartels and unions through which the nation’s economic system would be planned and directed under government supervision and control. Mises pointed out that fascism “began with a split in the ranks of Marxian socialism…. Its economic program was borrowed from German non-Marxian socialism” and that “its conduct of government affairs was a replica of Lenin’s dictatorship.” Mises also argued that the philosophy of Nazism was “the purest and most consistent manifestation of the anticapitalistic and socialistic spirit of our age.” Indeed,

The Nazi plan was more comprehensive and therefore more pernicious than that of the Marxians. It aimed at abolishing laissez-faire not only in the production of material goods, but no less in the production of men. The Führer was not only the general manager of all industries; he was also the general manager of the breeding-farm intent upon rearing superior men and eliminating inferior stock.

My Comment:

And what else have I been saying but this? Why do I emphasize the need to get away from ideology and see how that is played by our two-faced one-party system? Why else have I been insisting that the only way to fight secret spying, blackmail, extortion, bribery, and propaganda is by INCREASED respect for intellectual property (our right to our own selves, our minds, our privacy) and by fidelity to some standard of objective truth.