An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of boxes
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Europe's laissez-faire system and its impact before World War I
- 2 Decline of laissez-faire and the rise of the regulated market system
- 3 Economic dirigisme in authoritarian–fascist regimes
- 4 The centrally planned economic system
- 5 Mixed economy and welfare state in an integrated post-World War II Western Europe
- 6 Globalization: return to laissez-faire?
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Economic dirigisme in authoritarian–fascist regimes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of boxes
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
- 1 Europe's laissez-faire system and its impact before World War I
- 2 Decline of laissez-faire and the rise of the regulated market system
- 3 Economic dirigisme in authoritarian–fascist regimes
- 4 The centrally planned economic system
- 5 Mixed economy and welfare state in an integrated post-World War II Western Europe
- 6 Globalization: return to laissez-faire?
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
A decades-old debate persists over the existence of a “fascist economic regime.” Alan Milward, more than a quarter of a century ago, argued
Most economic historians have so far adopted the convention of treating “the fascist economies” as an entity in the inter-war period … Was there a distinct political economy of fascism? And how did it differ from that of other political groupings? The more research that is published, the less do existing theories of the political economy of fascism carry conviction … [Regarding] Italian and German economic policies in the fascist period … differences will be seen as more important … than the similarities.
(Milward, 1977: 379, 412)Besides the debate over the similarities and differences between the Italian and German systems, debate persisted over fascism itself. From the perspective of this economic history analysis, it is not relevant whether Italian fascism and German National Socialism may be generalized as fascist regimes, nor is there a need to differentiate them or establish that “nazism [is] a distinctive branch grafted on the fascist tree.” It is not relevant here whether a narrower definition of fascism excludes “the royal military–bureaucratic–oligarchic dictatorships,” including regimes led by political forces such as Primo de Rivera's Unión Patriótica and later Franco's Movimiento Nacional in Spain, or Salazar's União Nacional in Portugal (Linz, 1976: 9, 11). General John Metaxas's dictatorship in Greece had no party backing at all. His “Fourth of August Regime” rejected party organizations.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- An Economic History of Twentieth-Century EuropeEconomic Regimes from Laissez-Faire to Globalization, pp. 92 - 132Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2006