• Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    I suppose it counts now, after the fact.NOS4A2

    It's a famous quote, it's the "fascist dilemma". It's so famous that even my grandmother knew it.

    Here's an article about it in Spanish, from ESIC University:

    https://www.esic.edu/docs/editorial/articulos/170616_100602.pdf

    El régimen fascista de Benito Mussolini distribuyó carteles con el mensaje «Burro o cannoni?» con el objetivo de explicar a los italianos por qué en tiempos de guerra escaseaba la mantequilla y de paso pedir comprensión y sacrificio para la mayor gloria de la patria. Por último, en 1976 Margaret Thatcher en un discurso dijo, «Los soviéticos antepusieron las armas por encima de la mantequilla, pero nosotros pusimos casi todo antes que las armas».Sergio A. Berumen

    Translation: "Benito Mussolini's fascist regime distributed posters with the message "Butter or cannoni?" with the aim of explaining to the Italians why butter was scarce in times of war and, in the process, asking for understanding and sacrifice for the greater glory of the country. Finally, in 1976 Margaret Thatcher in a speech said, "The Soviets put guns before butter, but we put almost everything before guns.""
  • Tzeentch
    3.9k
    If you just watch the video I linked, you will understand why there is such a "misunderstanding" about what fascism is.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Obviously, it's a phrase that has been used by other politicians, besides Mussolini. Here's an analysis from Investopedia, here's an article by ThoughtCo titled Guns or Butter: The Nazi Economy, and here's an academic article published in a peer-reviewed journal titled Food Discourses and Alimentary Policies in Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: A Comparative Analysis

    For someone so interested in fascism, I find it strange that you weren't familiar with the "guns or butter" (alternatively, "butter or cannons") thing.

    "Guns and Butter" describes the government allocation to defense spending versus social programs. A country's budget includes military programs for national security, or guns, and social programs such as Social Security or family assistance, the butter. Politicians have evolved the phrase "guns and butter" for use in all areas of fiscal budgeting where there is a substantial trade-off between defense and social spending.

    The term "guns and butter" has been linked throughout history to the challenges of war and negotiations on defense spending. Its uses have varied from guns and butter, guns vs. butter, and guns or butter. Many trace the coining of the phrase to the beginning of World War I and the protesting resignation of Secretary of State William Bryan.
    Investopedia

    With the economy improving and doing well (low unemployment, strong investment, improved foreign trade) the question of ‘Guns or Butter’ began to haunt Germany in 1936. Schacht knew that if rearmament continued at this pace the balance of payments would go crippling downhill, and he advocated increasing consumer production to sell more abroad. Many, especially those poised to profit, agreed, but another powerful group wanted Germany ready for war.ThoughtCo

    ‘Guns before butter’ meant that food shortages were already present from the mid-1930s onwards. As Nancy Reagin has shown, preparations for war ‘led to economic policies that often worked against civilian consumers’ interests’. The quality of butter and cheese declined, and there was an increase in the use of inferior vegetable fats to create new fat compounds. By the winter of 1936–1937, shopkeepers sold butter only to their regular customers. Eating patterns changed.Patrizia Sambuco and Lisa Pine
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    Yeah, I was specifically looking for quotes about fascism, by fascists, not a general phrase used by a multitude of politicians across many ideologies.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Yeah, I was specifically looking for quotes about fascism, by fascists, not a general phrase used by a multitude of politicians across many ideologies.NOS4A2

    Mussolini famously used it in his 1938 speech at Belluno. He was a fascist, who used that phrase in a fascist sense. Your unawareness of this, which is something that even my grandmother knew, is genuinely surprising.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Benito Mussolini's fascist regime distributed posters with the message "Butter or cannoni?"Arcane Sandwich

    Did you at least know about the posters?
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    I knew it as a general economic principle, sure. I didn’t know Mussolini used the phrase once in a speech or in a poster. So thanks for that.

    I’m genuinely surprised that there aren’t more quotes, despite you saying there were several.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    I knew it as a general economic principle, sure. I didn’t know Mussolini used the phrase once in a speech or in a poster.NOS4A2

    It was one of his most important speeches. How else would someone like my grandmother know about it? She wasn't the most knowledgeable or educated person in the world. So how is it that she knew about it, but you didn't? The posters in question were widely distributed throughout Italy. In your investigations about fascism, you never stumbled across this?

    So thanks for that.NOS4A2

    You're welcome.

    I’m genuinely surprised that there aren’t more quotes, despite you saying there were several.NOS4A2

    Your own quotes don't count?
  • Vera Mont
    4.5k
    Yeah, I was specifically looking for quotes about fascism, by fascists, not a general phrase used by a multitude of politicians across many ideologies.NOS4A2
    To what end?
    Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered as it should be from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one,
    and ending to express itself in the conscience and the will of the mass, of the whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing,
    as one conscience and one will, along the self same line of development and spiritual
    formation. Not a race, nor a geographically defined region, but a people,
    historically perpetuating itself; a multitude unified by an idea and imbued with
    the will to live, the will to power, self-consciousness, personality.
    Mussolini's 'spiritual' version of L'Etat, c'est moi.

    Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall."[28] Each group described as "fascist" has at least some unique elements, and frequently definitions of "fascism" have been criticized as either too broad or too narrow.[29] According to many scholars, fascists—especially when they're in power—have historically attacked communism, conservatism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the far-right.[30] - wiki

    The National Government will therefore regard it as its first and supreme task to restore to the German people unity of mind and will. It will preserve and defend the foundations on which the strength of our nation rests. It will take under its firm protection Christianity as the basis of our morality, and the family as the nucleus of our nation and our state. Standing above estates [groups that make up society’s social hierarchy] and classes, it will bring back to our people the consciousness of its racial and political unity and the obligations arising therefrom. It wishes to base the education of German youth on respect for our great past and pride in our old traditions. . . . Germany must not and will not sink into Communist anarchy.
    Hitler's version of making Germany great again.


    How the tools actually behave in carrying out the national will doesn't look all that spiritual. But then, hardly any product matches its advertised virtues; fascism, like communism or capitalism or christianity manifests differently from its written theory.
    not that Trump would understand any of this.
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    Very nice. I’m glad you’ve read it. The best way to understand fascism is to understand what its creators were thinking, in my opinion.

    And you’re right. That’s why Mussolini was willing to use any economic doctrine and policy to further his spiritual one. So fascism could be liberal one day and socialist the next.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    So fascism could be liberal one day and socialist the next.NOS4A2

    Nah.
  • Vera Mont
    4.5k

    Except they are not the same doctrine. They have one main feature in common: the will of the people is what I say it is. And, of course, they're just similar in effect: suppressing individual freedom and wasting the nation's resources on weaponry.
    It's true, neither Mussolini nor Hitler peddled pictures of themselves on shoes or fake watches. But they sure hopped in bed fast enough with powerful bankers and industrialists.
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    The true antithesis, not to this or that manifestation of the liberal-democratic-socialistic conception of the state but to the concept itself, is to be found in the doctrine of Fascism. For while the disagreement between Liberalism and Democracy, and between Liberalism and Socialism lies in a difference of method, as we have said, the rift between Socialism, Democracy, and Liberalism on one side and Fascism on the other is caused by a difference in concept. As a matter of fact, Fascism never raises the question of methods, using in its political praxis now liberal ways, now democratic means and at times even socialistic devices.

    The Political Doctrine of Fascism - Alfredo Rocco
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Sounds like Rocco is wrong. You might as well quote Julius Evola, if those are your academic standards.
  • Vera Mont
    4.5k
    The Donald J. Trump version
    “Will there be some pain? Yes, maybe (and maybe not),” Trump wrote Sunday morning on social media. “But we will make America great again, and it will all be worth the price that must be paid.”
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    Sure, the guy who helped developed fascism is wrong about fascism.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Sure, the guy who helped developed fascism is wrong about fascism.NOS4A2

    Of course he is. Just as Stalin, the guy who helped develop socialism, is wrong about socialism.
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    And why are they wrong?
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Rocco and Stalin? Rocco is wrong to suppose that fascism can be pragmatic (i.e., "using in its political praxis now liberal ways, now democratic means and at times even socialistic devices") and still be fascism. If it uses democratic means, then it turns into a democracy. If it uses socialist devices, then it turns into socialism.

    In Stalin's case, he was wrong to suppose (to use just one example) that socialism could thrive and survive in one country. It couldn't. The USSR eventually ditched socialism and turned into modern-day Russia.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    A bit off the topic, but Swedes had similar policies. I think we Finns didn't, because we were looked down upon as Mongols by the Swedish racists of the 19th and early 20th Century. But that's history... a lot changed in Europe after the demise of the Third Reich, as you know.

    What is hilarious in the present discourse only accepts the American juxtaposition of natives against white "colonial" thinking in how that doesn't fit to the Sámi. The Sámi look exactly like Finns, you wouldn't at all in any way differ them from Finns. The Sámi have their large share of blue eyed and blonds so it ridiculous for them to have to talk about Finns "whites". And the "clash" between the Finns and the Sámi happened I guess in Antiquity when there simply was no Finnish country (as Finnish tribes fought each other until the Middle Ages), so the idea of native people/colonizers is funny in the case of Lapland. And the Sami as actually so few here, far less than people in Greenland.
    ssu

    Would it be fair to say that Norway and Sweden (and to a lesser extent, Finland) carried out fascist policies against the Sámi people? Maybe there's few native people today in Lapland because those are the ones that weren't forcefully assimilated.

  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    Unless they use all of the devices in service to the Fascist state. The phrase “the end justifies the means” doesn’t preclude using these devices to achieve an end.

    This indifference to method often exposes Fascism to the charge of incoherence on the part of superficial observers, who do not see that what counts with us is the end and that therefore even when we employ the same means we act with a radically different spiritual attitude and strive for entirely different results. The Fascist concept then of the nation, of the scope of the state, and of the relations obtaining between society and its individual components, rejects entirely the doctrine which I said proceeded from the theories of natural law developed in the course of the XVI, XVII, and XVIII centuries and which form the basis of the liberal, democratic, and socialistic ideology.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Unless they use all of the devices in service to the Fascist state.NOS4A2

    Let's consider the case of democratic means, to focus on just one example. What would remain of the fascist state if the means of representative democracy were to be the norm? Suppose Mussolini is effectively the Duce. Now suppose that presidential elections are held. And suppose that John Doe gets more votes than Mussolini. Suppose further that, after being elected, John Doe & company (as in, legislators, senators, etc.) carry out a series of reforms such that Fascist Country X starts to look more and more like the United States of America. What remains of the fascist state then, as envisioned by Mussolini, Rocco, and others? Nothing remains of it.

    This indifference to method often exposes Fascism to the charge of incoherence on the part of superficial observers, who do not see that what counts with us is the end and that therefore even when we employ the same means we act with a radically different spiritual attitude and strive for entirely different results.

    This is just wishful thinking. It's like Stalin's wishful thinking of Socialism In One Country.

    The Fascist concept then of the nation, of the scope of the state, and of the relations obtaining between society and its individual components, rejects entirely the doctrine which I said proceeded from the theories of natural law developed in the course of the XVI, XVII, and XVIII centuries and which form the basis of the liberal, democratic, and socialistic ideology.

    Nothing but daydreams.
  • BC
    13.7k
    I think that we are talking about autocracy and totalitarianism rather than just fascism. Totalitarianism would be more useful than the just fascism.ssu

    Could've, would've, should've.

    Totalitarianism and fascism are both bad, in the same way tuberculosis and AIDS are both bad but different, and you can have both of them at the same time. The Third Reich had both; the USSR did not.

    The US is neither totalitarian nor fascist at this point, even if there are some symptoms of them. Oligarchs are another problem, as are extremists conservatives. (Extreme leftists could be a problem, but we don't have many of those, Trump's claims not withstanding.).

    Martin Luther (apocryphally) observed that "A nation is better off if ruled by a wise Turk than a stupid Christian." We are going to have plenty of problems resulting from the rule of "stupid Christians", without having outright fascists in charge.

    There are various ways of delivering bad government to the people. Fascism and totalitarianism don't exhaust the possibilities. Run of the mill incompetence, naked self-interest, greed, vindictiveness, crude nationalism, poorly thought-out (if thought at all) policies, ad nauseam will do the trick.
  • Vera Mont
    4.5k
    Just as Stalin, the guy who helped develop socialism,Arcane Sandwich

    The which of the what now????
    Most definitions of socialism are concerned with the economy alone: who owns the land and factories. Yet, the way Americans often talk, you'd think public schools and old age pensions, state health insurance and government regulation of industry are all socialist - if not communist measures.
    In the purest sense, socialism means insuring the welfare of polity is the paramount task of government. A functional socialist arrangement isn't developed by despots. It cannot beimposed on a population. It's an inevitable process of a relatively honest functional democracy during peacetime.
    The majority wants material security, social stability, control over their individual lives and a [perceived] fair share of the common wealth. They vote for policies that promote the general welfare. This has the side-effect of a thriving communications and arts scene, which in turn leads to a trend toward tolerance. If the population was already diverse, it also leads to measures that reverse entrenched injustices.

    Industrialization and collectivization are not socialist ideals; they were considered necessary to end the backward feudalism prevailing in Russia before the revolution and catch up with the 20th century. There was also the looming threat of the American atomic bomb in the hands of a commie-hunting administration. Certainly the way these policies were carried out was far from democratic.
    His regime instituted some women's rights, free universal education (the indoctrination of the young), nation-wide vaccination programs and universal healthcare (of a sort) Food rationing and vast construction programs were a response to war damage.
    Overall, however, the 'socialism' of that time was a police state, wherein the people had no voice or choice.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Sure, there's a mismatch between what Stalin said and what he actually did. Same as Mussolini: there's a mismatch between what he said and what he actually did. My comment was intended as a parity argument against 's argument in favor of Rocco. My point was precisely thus: just because someone was actively involved in the development of X, that doesn't entail that the person in question can't be wrong about X.
  • Vera Mont
    4.5k
    My point was precisely thus: just because someone was actively involved in the development of X, that doesn't entail that the person in question can't be wrong about X.Arcane Sandwich
    My contention is that Stalin was not involved in the development of socialism: he may have made speeches about it (which added nothing to existing social theory), but all his official acts were aimed at making a stronger, better armed federation than the US.
  • Arcane Sandwich
    2.2k
    Yup, I understood your point.
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    Let's consider the case of democratic means, to focus on just one example. What would remain of the fascist state if the means of representative democracy were to be the norm? Suppose Mussolini is effectively the Duce. Now suppose that presidential elections are held. And suppose that John Doe gets more votes than Mussolini. Suppose further that, after being elected, John Doe & company (as in, legislators, senators, etc.) carry out a series of reforms such that Fascist Country X starts to look more and more like the United States of America. What remains of the fascist state then, as envisioned by Mussolini, Rocco, and others? Nothing remains of it.

    Fascists saw Fascism as the purest form of democracy, so long as the people are considered qualitatively instead of quantitatively. They did use democratic means, such as elections and voting, at least until they achieved absolute power. Again, the point is to use it to service the state, and then perhaps be done with when it is no longer required.

    This is just wishful thinking. It's like Stalin's wishful thinking of Socialism In One Country.

    Yes, they are terrible ideas. But this is what fascists believed and tried to implement. If we are to oppose it, it might be helpful to recognize it before it becomes action.
  • NOS4A2
    9.5k


    Very cool. Thanks.
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