Where are you on the political compass?

[bouzane]

@sc94597

Let's not forget that Authoritarian Communism is merely one branch of Communism (a highly conservative one at that). I don't see many similarities between Nazi Germany and the Spanish Revolutionaries in Andalusia, Catalonia and Zaragoza. Nor do I see the similarities between the Fascists and those who lived in the Makhnovia or Kibbutz regions. Sadly the conservative "Communists" of the Soviet Union have come to represent the entire Communist political spectrum.

That being said, there are still many differences between Fascism and Stalinism that make Hayek's analysis somewhat flawed. In Nazi Germany I would have been killed for my Mi'kmaq blood (as little as their is) if they didn't kill me for smoking pot first. Conversely, racism was strictly forbidden in the USSR as was anti-Semitism. Personally, I think Hayak was a hack for likening an entire ideology to another based upon their recruiting strategies. Ultra-nationalism and militarism are central to Fascism while the former is absent in Communism and the latter is absent in all but Stalinism and Maoism. Finally, Fascism employs a mixed-economy and private institutions that are typically absent in Communist societies. Italian style Fascism in particular flirted with Catholicism, the Monarchy and a free market, all of which were disposed of in the USSR.

I will admit that both ideologies are somewhat broad amalgamations of vastly different ideas and that we can make many valid comparisons between certain aspects of the two. The same can be said about Capitalism and Fascism or between any other two systems for that matter.