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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:
 
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>}}
 
{{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/id/2000099/entry/1003296/ ER: Authoritarian and Aristocratic], Slate.com, July 28, 1999</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":
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Meanwhile, [[First Lady]] [[Eleanor Roosevelt]] “lamented that the nation lacked a benevolent dictator to force through reforms."<ref>Christopher Caldwell, “[http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/the_book_club/features/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>}}
 
{{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 “should do much to help.”<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>
 
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 “should do much to help.”<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>
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{{cquote|The President's successful struggle against economic distress is being followed by the entire German People with interest and admiration. The Reich Chancellor is in accord with the President that the virtues of sense of duty, readiness for sacrifice, and discipline must be the supreme rule of the whole Nation. This moral demand, which the President is addressing to every single citizen, is also the quintessence of German philosophy of the State, expressed in its motto "The public weal before private gain."<ref>[http://www.cdojerusalem.org/icons-multimedia/ClientsArea/HoH/LIBARC/ARCHIVE/Chapters/Forging/Foreign/Message.html A Message from Hitler to Roosevelt], history-of-the-holocaust.org</ref>}}
 
{{cquote|The President's successful struggle against economic distress is being followed by the entire German People with interest and admiration. The Reich Chancellor is in accord with the President that the virtues of sense of duty, readiness for sacrifice, and discipline must be the supreme rule of the whole Nation. This moral demand, which the President is addressing to every single citizen, is also the quintessence of German philosophy of the State, expressed in its motto "The public weal before private gain."<ref>[http://www.cdojerusalem.org/icons-multimedia/ClientsArea/HoH/LIBARC/ARCHIVE/Chapters/Forging/Foreign/Message.html A Message from Hitler to Roosevelt], history-of-the-holocaust.org</ref>}}
  
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>
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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 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==
 
==Socialists and Communists on the New Deal==
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==Keynesian economics==
 
==Keynesian economics==
Perkins commented that, "Combined with the relief program and with public works," the the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the centerpiece of the New Deal, "constituted an effective demonstration of the theories which John Maynard Keynes had been preaching and urging upon the English government," adding:
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"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>}}
 
{{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>}}
  
In his 1936 book, ''The General 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> Keynes' [https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/keynes/john_maynard/k44g/preface2.html preface to the German edition] of the book, admits:
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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|the theory of output as a whole, which is what the following book purports to provide, is much more easily adapted to the conditions of a totalitarian state, than is the theory of the production and distribution of a given output produced under conditions of free competition and a large measure of ''laissez-faire''.}}
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{{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), "[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 a 1939 interview by the [http://www.amazon.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]), Keynes conceded that his economic proposals envisioned -- again like the NEP, Fascism and National Socialism -- an "amalgam of private capitalism and state socialism."<ref>Gilles Dostaler, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=kyxmAwAAQBAJ Keynes and His Battles]'' (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007) ISBN 178100837X, p. 98</ref>
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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. 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>
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In his 1936 book, ''The General 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>
 +
 
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In a 1939 interview by the [http://www.amazon.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]), Keynes conceded that his economic proposals envisioned -- again like the NEP, Fascism and National Socialism -- an "amalgam of private capitalism and state socialism."<ref>Gilles Dostaler, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=kyxmAwAAQBAJ Keynes and 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>Peter Kriesler and Claudio Sardoni, eds., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=iJGKAgAAQBAJ Keynes, Post-Keynesianism and Political 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 KGB in America]'' (Yale University Press, 2009) ISBN 0300155727, p. 258</ref> [[Harry Dexter White]] to create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, quintessential [http://www.tni.org/archives/archives_george_ottawa "Third Way" globalist institutions].
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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 Former Trotskyite<ref>Joel T. LeFevre, [http://www.keynesatharvard.org/site.html About the Author], keynesatharvard.org</ref> Zygmund Dobbs. 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>
 
::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 [[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> Former Trotskyite<ref>Joel T. LeFevre, [http://www.keynesatharvard.org/site.html About the Author], keynesatharvard.org</ref> Dobbs recounted that Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter observed that in Nazi Germany, "A work like Keynes’ ''General Theory'' could have appeared unmolested&mdash;and did." 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:  
+
[[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, 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>}}
 
{{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
 
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
Line 68: Line 71:
 
==New Deal programs==
 
==New Deal programs==
 
===National Recovery Administration===
 
===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, 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>
+
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 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>

Revision as of 04:39, February 16, 2017

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,[1] where President Obama matriculated.[2] Naziism and Fascism were in fact "organically connected," argues Russell, author of 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."[3]

"Both Stalin's Russia and Mussolini's Italy influenced the New Deal enormously,"[4] writes Amity Schlaes, author of The Forgotten Man. "[T]he New Deal was often compared with Fascism," according to cultural historian Wolfgang Schivelbusch.[5] “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.[6]

"Dictatorial powers"

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:

[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.[7]

Meanwhile, First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt “lamented that the nation lacked a benevolent dictator to force through reforms."[8] Soviet intelligence source[9] Walter Lippmann told Roosevelt, "The situation is critical, Franklin. You may have no alternative but to assume dictatorial powers";[10] in his influential[11] column, Lippmann added that the use of "'dictatorial powers,' if that is the name for it—is essential."[12] The New York Herald Tribune approved the inauguration with the headline "FOR DICTATORSHIP IF NECESSARY."[13] "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":

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.[14]

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,"[15]—by means of whom he not only "declares martial law,"[16] but “dissolves Congress, creates an army of the unemployed, and lines up his enemies before a firing squad.”[17] This movie was made not by a conservative such as Frank Capra, but by Walter Wanger, a "liberal Hollywood mogul";[18] in the film, the dictator ("an FDR lookalike")[19] is not the villain, but the hero, who by such dictatorial means "solves all of the nation's problems."[20] Roosevelt enjoyed the movie and saw it several times.[21] Most chilling, FDR wrote that he thought this film “should do much to help.”[22]

Contemporary reporting and commentary

The mood in Washington at FDR's inauguration was “strangely reminiscent of Rome in the first weeks after the march of the Blackshirts, of Moscow at the beginning of the Five-Year Plan” reported The New York Times. “America today literally asks for orders.” The Roosevelt administration, reported the Times, “envisages a federation of industry, labor and government after the fashion of the corporative State as it exists in Italy.”[23] Progressive writer Roger Shaw described the New Deal as “Fascist means to gain liberal ends.”[24] George Soule, editor of the pro-Roosevelt New Republic magazine, wrote, "We are trying out the economics of Fascism without having suffered all its social or political ravages."[25] "We in America,” wrote liberal journalist Mauritz Hallgren, “are being forced rapidly and definitely into Fascism..."[26]

Fascists on the New Deal

Mussolini was convinced that the New Deal was copying Fascist economic policies.[27] "Reminiscent of Fascism is the principle that the state no longer leaves the economy to its own devices," wrote Mussolini in a review of FDR's book Looking Forward. "Without question, the mood accompanying this sea-change is reminiscent of Fascism." Mussolini wrote that the book New Frontiers, by FDR's Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace, was "just as 'corporativistic' as the individual solutions put forth in it... The book leaves no doubt that it is on the road to corporatism..."[28] On a visit to New York, Mussolini said to Grover Whalen, Chairman of Mayor Fiorello La Guardia's Committee on Receptions to Distinguished Guests, "You want to know what Fascism is? It is like your New Deal."[29]

Nazi Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht declared that Roosevelt had the same economic idea as Hitler and Mussolini;[30] the official Nazi Party organ, Völkischer Beobachter, praised what it called "Roosevelt's Dictatorial Recovery Measures", writing, "We, too, as German National Socialists are looking toward America.... Roosevelt is carrying out experiments and they are bold. We, too, fear only the possibility that they might fail." The paper applauded “Roosevelt’s adoption of National Socialist strains of thought in his economic and social policies,” commenting, "Many passages in [Roosevelt's] book Looking Forward could have been written by a National Socialist."[31]

Hitler himself admired FDR’s approach, saying, “I have sympathy with President Roosevelt because he marches straight toward his objective over Congress, over lobbies, over stubborn bureaucracies.”[32] Hitler likewise congratulated Roosevelt for "his heroic effort in the interest of the American People." He added:

The President's successful struggle against economic distress is being followed by the entire German People with interest and admiration. The Reich Chancellor is in accord with the President that the virtues of sense of duty, readiness for sacrifice, and discipline must be the supreme rule of the whole Nation. This moral demand, which the President is addressing to every single citizen, is also the quintessence of German philosophy of the State, expressed in its motto "The public weal before private gain."[33]

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 Bolsheviks, but as "the candidate of a Capitalist Party."[34]

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.[35] The well-known socialist Theodore Dreiser (who would become an open Communist in 1945),[36] classed FDR with Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini, saying that all used the ideas of Karl Marx.[37]

New Dealers on fascism

"Anyone who wants to look at the writings of the Brain Trust of the New Deal will find that President Roosevelt’s advisers admired the fascist system," observed President Ronald Reagan, himself a former New Dealer. "They thought that private ownership with government management and control a la the Italian system was the way to go, and that has been evident in all their writings."[38] Even "intellectual observers of economics and social policies who were otherwise Roosevelt allies," observes Schivelbusch, "saw a Fascist element at the core of the New Deal."[39]

Roosevelt’s economic adviser, Rexford Tugwell, the “most prominent of the Brain Trusters and the man often considered the chief ideologist of the 'first New Deal' (roughly, 1933–34),”[40] was "open in his respect for Mussolini's economic policies." Of the Fascist system he wrote, "It's the cleanest, neatnest [sic], most efficiently operating piece of social machinery I've ever seen. It makes me envious." Tugwell, "the most left-wing member of Roosevelt's brain trust,"[41] said, “I find Italy doing many of the things which seem to me necessary... Mussolini certainly has the same people opposed to him as FDR has. But he has the press controlled so that they cannot scream lies at him daily.”[42]

Roosevelt was also a secret admirer of Mussolini, writing to his friend John Lawrence, "I don't mind telling you in confidence, that I am keeping in fairly close touch with that admirable Italian gentleman."[43] FDR also wrote to U.S. Ambassador to Italy Breckinridge Long about Mussolini, "I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble."[44] According to ex-Marxist[45] Lewis Feuer, FDR privately acknowledged that “what we were doing in this country were some of the things that were being done in Russia and even some of the things that were being done under Hitler in Germany. But we were doing them in an orderly way.”[46]

Fabian socialism

Tugwell was deeply interested in the ideas of the Fabian Society (which "set up the banner of Socialism militant"),[47] 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."[48] 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."[49] One Fabian socialist from the 1920s and '30s, Oswald Mosley,[50] went on to found and lead the British Union of Fascists, in which role he was lauded by Shaw,[51] who also admired both Mussolini and Hitler.[52]

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."[53] Asked what Britons should do if the Nazis crossed the channel into Britain, Shaw replied, "Welcome them as tourists."[54]

Shaw thoroughly endorsed[55] the Nazi doctrine of "life unworthy of life" (Lebensunwertes Leben).[56] 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..."[57] His appeal would shortly come to fruition in Nazi Germany.[58]

H.G. Wells had similar contempt for human life, writing, "No doubt Utopia will kill all deformed and monstrous and evilly diseased births."[59] In a 1932 speech at Oxford University, Wells exhorted his audience, “I am asking for a Liberal Fascisti, for enlightened Nazis.”[60] 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.”[61] Wells had no difficulty identifying FDR's program as socialism:

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?[62]

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."[63] Wells suggested that the President and First Lady were particularly incurious about the source of the ideas they took for granted:

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.[64]

Keynesian economics

"Combined with the relief program and with public works," wrote Perkins, the the National Recovery Administration (NRA), the 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:

[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.[65]

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:

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.[66]

In his 1936 book, The General 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."[67]

In a 1939 interview by the Fabian Kingley Martin, published in the New Statesman (a British journal founded by leading Fabians), Keynes conceded that his economic proposals envisioned -- again like the NEP, Fascism and National Socialism -- an "amalgam of private capitalism and state socialism."[68] In this interview, Keynes dubbed his system "liberal socialism"; in 1944 he would explicitly refer to this approach as yet another a "middle way."[69] That year, he would work together with Soviet agent[70] Harry Dexter White to create the World Bank and International Monetary Fund, quintessential "Third Way" globalist institutions.

Keynes had been involved with Fabian socialism since at least his student days at Cambridge.[71] Mosley had been a Fabian socialist in 1930, when Keynesian economics was the "officially accepted Fabian line," notes Former Trotskyite[72] Zygmund Dobbs. 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."[73] As a leading Fascist propagandist[74] noted (in a book with a preface by Mussolini):[75]

Fascism entirely agrees with Mr. Maynard Keynes, despite the latter’s prominent position as a Liberal. In fact, Mr. Keynes’ excellent little book, 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.[76]

Communist Party General Secretary William Z. Foster commented, "The Nazi fascists were especially enthusiastic supporters of Keynes."[77] As Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter observed, in Nazi Germany, "A work like Keynes’ General Theory could have appeared unmolested—and did."[78] 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:

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.[79]

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

the other kind of Jews, the ones who are... serving devils, with small horns, pitch forks, and oily tails. It is not agreeable to see civilization so under the ugly thumbs of its impure Jews who have all the money and the power and brains.[80]

According to Keynes:

[Jews] have in them deep-rooted instincts that are antagonistic and therefore repulsive to the European, and their presence among us is a living example of the insurmountable difficulties that exist in merging race characteristics, in making cats love dogs.[81]

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.”[82] The NRA—“the New Deal’s attempt to bring to America the substance of Mussolini’s corporativism”[83]—was established by the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933--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,[84] president of the Society of American Historians.[85] "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.[86] According to Leon Keyserling, chairman of President Truman's Council of Economic Advisers, NIRA had grown out of the 1931 "Swope Plan,"[87] 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."[88] 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.”[89]

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."[90] 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."[91] FDR's own economics instructor at Harvard[92] concurred, identifying the NRA as "essentially fascistic."[93]

Just as Mussolini “organized each trade or industrial group or professional group into a state supervised trade association” that “operated under state supervision and could plan production, quality, prices, distribution, labor standards, etc.,”[94] the NRA “forced virtually all American industry, manufacturing, and retail business into cartels possessing the power to set prices and wages, and to dictate the levels of production.”[95]

Hugh Johnson

As head of the NRA and thus “FDR’s leading bureaucrat,”[96] the President appointed[97] General Hugh Johnson, who was granted “almost unlimited powers over industry.”[98] According to economist Thayer Watkins (who teaches economic history at California’s San José State University),[99] Johnson was “an admirer of Mussolini’s National Corporatist system in Italy and he drew upon the Italian experience in formulating the New Deal.”[100] Walker F. Todd, research fellow at the American Institute for Economic Research, agrees that Johnson “did admire greatly what Mussolini appeared to have done,” identifying the NRA as a “thoroughly corporativist” idea.[101]

According to Jonah Goldberg, Johnson displayed a portrait of Il Duce in his NRA office and actually “distributed a memo at the Democratic Convention proposing that FDR become a Mussolini-like dictator.”[102] In his retirement speech, Johnson invoked what he called the “shining name” of Mussolini.[103] Johnson was said to carry around with him a copy of Raffaello Viglione’s pro-Mussolini book,[104] The Corporate State, and presented a copy to Perkins.[105]

Agricultural Adjustment Administration

Roosevelt appointed Johnson’s former business partner George Peek to head the Agricultural Adjustment Administration (AAA). Both men had “worked with the War Industries Board, the agency that regulated American production during World War I, and they believed their experience of managing an economy almost totally sealed off from the world market would suit the country now.”[106] They had long advocated a policy of expanding tariffs to keep foreign agricultural products out of the United States,[107] a policy that would have again rendered the U.S. economy “almost totally sealed off from the world market”[108]—a fair approximation of “autarky,” an economic policy particularly but not exclusively “associated with Nazi economic organization.”[109] Indeed, the AAA was analogous to the Reich Food Estate, which had been established in Germany by the Nazis to similarly dictate agricultural production quotas and prices.[110] Like the AAA (and Mussolini's "Battle for Grain")[111] the Reich Food Estate promoted agricultural protectionism[112] in pursuit of autarky.[113]

Civilian Conservation Corps

"The German Labor Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst—RAD) arose from a party organization set up in 1931 and known as the NS-Arbeitsdienst for the purpose of easing unemployment,"[114] "like its New Deal equivalent, the Civilian Conservation Corps [CCC],"[115] which would be established two years later.[116] According to Garraty, both

were essentially designed to keep young men out of the labor market. Roosevelt described work camps as a means for getting youth ‘off the city street corners,’ Hitler as a way of keeping them from ‘rotting helplessly in the streets.' In both countries much was made of the beneficial social results of mixing thousands of young people from different walks of life in the camps. Furthermore, both were organized on semimilitary lines with the subsidiary purposes of improving the physical fitness of potential soldiers and stimulating public commitment to national service in an emergency.[117]

"The American side, and especially President Roosevelt himself, was strikingly open and receptive to ideas emanating from Nazi Germany," writes historian 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.[118]

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.”[119] Harry Hopkins told the the NYA's Advisory Committee, “we have a lawyer who will declare anything you want to do legal.”[120] Hopkins had hired the Communist[121] lawyer Lee Pressman back into the government immediately after he was "purged" from AAA.[122] 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.”[123] Among his other hires was Eleanor Roosevelt's close friend Lorena Hickok, whom Hopkins brought into the government on 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."[124]

"Friendly Fascism"

Even some New Dealers have come to see the essential similarities between their ideology and fascism. For example, according to Friendly Fascism, by left-wing political science professor Bertram Gross, a leading architect of liberal social policy under presidents Roosevelt, Truman and Carter:[125]

I sought solutions for America's ills... through more power in the hands of central government.... In this I was not alone. Almost all my fellow planners, reformers, social scientists, and urbanists presumed the benevolence of more concentrated government power.

Big Business-Big Government partnerships ..., were the central facts behind the power structures of old fascism in the days of Mussolini, Hitler and the Japanese empire builders.... I see Big Business and Big Government as a joint danger.... Anyone looking for black shirts, mass parties or men on horseback will miss the telltale clues of this creeping fascism.... In America, it would be supermodern and multiethnic—as American as Madison Avenue, executive luncheons, credit cards and apple pie. It would be fascism with a smile.

While writing his book, Gross dreamed that he was searching through a huge, empty house for "friendly fascists."

I flung open one of the doors," Gross writes. "And there sitting at a typewriter and smiling back at me, I saw myself."[126]

Myths

Several myths have formed around the Great Depression. Among these are the myth that the Depression was brought to an end by the New Deal, or by the "wartime prosperity" of World War II. Neither of these is true. One study found that New Deal policies actually prolonged the depression by about seven years.[127] In fact, Americans' personal consumption did not rebound to 1929 levels until 1941.[128] "[T]he consensus among historians today," writes Schivelbusch, is "that the United States completely emerged from the Depression only with its entry into World War II."[129] Although the conscription of some 10 million young men into the armed forces reduced the civilian unemployment rate during World War II, the standard of living in the U.S. actually declined during the war. Using the Friedman-Schwartz price index, economist Robert Higgs found that real personal consumption per capita actually declined by more than 6 percent during 1941-1943, and did not recover to the 1941 level until 1946.[130]

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  128. No. HS--34. Personal Consumption Expenditures in Current and Real (1996) Dollars, 1929 to 2001, The 2009 Statistical Abstract: Historical Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau
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