If Hitler opposed both communism and capitalism, what did he favor?

by Crossbows
Fascist_Pink

While I cannot speak of the particulars of Adolf Hitler's personal beliefs, I can explain fascist perspectives on political economy.

The fascist perspective is fundamentally a hypernationalist one, which appreciates all of society's woes as merely aspects of the conflict between nations and peoples. The greatest struggle of all, according to Nazism, is that between the Aryan and the Jew. I would offer a quote here, from a sort of pamphlet for Aryan youth, German National Catechism, as a particularly good abridgment:

How has the Jew subjugated the peoples?

With money. He lent them money and made them pay interest. Thousands and thousands of Germans have been made wretched by the Jews and been reduced to poverty. Farmers whose land had been in the family for more than 100 years were driven from their land because they could not pay the interest.

What happened to those farmers?

They had to move to the cities. Torn from the land to which they belonged, robbed of their labor that gave their lives purpose and meaning, they fell victim to poverty and misery. Worn down, their souls crushed, they accepted Jewish doctrines that denied the Fatherland and opposed all that was nationalistic. Their strength and ability faded. The Jew had reached his goal.

Emphasis mine. Full text here. This rhetoric is a terribly good reflection of fascist philosophy. Labour has virtue. It gives purpose. Also note that the land is intrinsically tied to the spirit of the people. Poverty is not the consequence of the worker's exploitation of the bourgeois class, it is the consequence of the war between peoples, the sabotage of the Jews.

Compare this with the typical Marxist perspective. Marxism, and communism generally, is infamous for boiling down issues of racism, sexism, ableism, essentially all of the discriminatory -ism's to class struggle or class conflict: a state where the upper class necessarily fights to suppress the lower ones and maintain control of the means of production. Everything is symptomatic of this struggle.

Fascism? Substitute class for race, and you're dandy. So, the question becomes, how did fascism understand political economy -- the relationship between government and institution and economics? Well, Fascism is characterized by class cooperation in contrast to class conflict. They are the most notable advocates of corporatism: essentially, capitalism where the government plays favourites. Of course people might contend with that definition, so I'll offer another.

Corporatism is an economic system in which the state directs and controls predominantly privately-owned business according to four principles: unity, order, nationalism and success. (Winkler 1976)

Winkler, who I've sourced that quote from, gives us a handy diagram for understanding corporatism in relation to socialism and capitalism, and Mussolini's manifesto, The Doctrine of Fascism, gives us a neat insight into corporatist philosophy:

... Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State (16).

You can read the full manifesto here. Note that Fascism was opposed to trade unionism, whereas socialism is a close cousin of labourism. Yet, despite that disagreement, corporatism, as an alternative to socialism, had a broad appeal to what used to be the left wing. As a third way, a melange of a controlled economy with private enterprise, it even attracted Communists like Jacques Doriot.

In Refaire la France (1938), for example, Doriot lamented the ‘ruin’ of the middle classes and the ‘frightful’ crisis they faced as a result of the devaluation of the franc and the fiscal burdens they had to bear. He noted sympathetically that not only did their situation differ from that of the proletariat but that they represented ‘a state of soul quite distinct from the proletarian state of soul‘. The real enemy, he emphasized, was not the bourgeoisie as a whole but rather big business, monopolies, the great financial trusts. (Soucy 1966)

And Marcel Déat, a noted member of the French Section of the Worker's International.

The economic programme which Déat presented in his book Le Parti Unique (1942) was much the same. Like Doriot, Déat paid his respects to the petty and middle bourgeoisie as ‘guardians of precious traditions’ and declared that their position in French society had to be safeguarded if they were not to be wiped out by the larger industrial and commercial enterprises. A corporate state would help small businessmen band together in employer organizations which would enable them to overcome their weakness vis-A-vis big business. Fascist socialism, consequently, was far from hostile to the great bulk of the middle classes; in fact it would be their saviour:

The necessary rescue of our middle classes will be one of the happiest effects, one of the most essential objectives of the National Revolution. And that is what socialism should mean to them. At this point, we are a long way from any Marxist nonsense about the automatic concentration of our large enterprises and about the inevitable elimination of our small producers, people whom Marxists would discard, throwing them into the wage-earning class. (ibid.)

Such perspectives are echoed by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle:

Typical was Drieu’s proud comment in Socialisme fasciste (1934): ‘Fascism is a reformist socialism, but a reformist socialism which has, it seems, more fire in its belly than the old classical parties.’ (ibid.)

All named above later became prominent Nazi collaborators in Occupied France.

I hope that answers your question.

References

J. T. Winkler, 'Corporatism', European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie / Europäisches Archiv für Soziologie, Vol. 17, No. 1, Structure and Interest (1976), pp. 100-136

Robert J. Soucy, 'The Nature of Fascism in France', Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 1, No. 1 (1966), pp. 27-55

and the linked stuff.