He nationalised 75% of Italian businesses by 1935 and later took over all foreign assets, stocks and bonds held by private citizens and businesses.
He nationalised whole key industries, like railways and metallurgy.
He invested a lot into public sector and infrastructure and by 1925 Italy had food supplementary assistance, infant care, maternity assistance, general healthcare, wage supplements, paid vacations, unemployment benefits, illness insurance, occupational disease insurance, general family assistance, public housing and old age and disability insurance.
Mussolini also had plans to move the country to a planned economy a-la USSR, but he couldn’t implement it in time before the war.
He made trade union membership compulsory.
And much much more.
It is also important to remember that key people in Mussolini’s government believed that the Italian working class could not have the requisite numbers or consciousness to make revolution and required full maturation of capitalism as the precondition for socialist realization. Their policy was a gradual move to socialism with the help of an authoritarian state and slow nationalisation of everything instead of Russian style revolution. And people like Rossoni called industrialists and capitalists as “vampires” and “profiteers”.
Saying that fascists are not socialists is just plain wrong.
Only nazis try to convince people that the nazis / fascists were socialist. If it isn’t socialism for everyone, it isn’t socialism at all.
When you say “nationalised” you mean owned by the dictator, personally and not the nation state. A pathetic attempt at twisting history. Such was his hate for socialists and socialism, mussolini would roll over in his grave hearing your nonsense.
The programs you describe, benefits, pensions and so on might convince some that they are dealing with a socialist state, when in fact anybody in Europe would merely call them social.
When it comes down to it, socialism, which indeed is constantly being conflated with a lot of things, is about the workers owning the means of production. Of course you know that! But it also has never been the goal of the Russian Avantgarde nor the fascists in the west. Both their systems were exploiting workers. This time in the „national interest“.
About that they had different opinions, though.
Can you provide some reading for context? I’m looking into Mussolini and at least according to Wikipedia, where you seem to have directly lifted most of your points, the story is quite a bit more nuanced than you’re presenting.
Some quick things I found:
Although a disciple of the French Marxist Georges Sorel and the main leader of the Italian Socialist Party in his early years, Mussolini abandoned the theory of class struggle for class collaboration.
Economic policy in the first few years was largely classical liberal, with the Ministry of Finance controlled by the old liberal Alberto De Stefani. The multiparty coalition government undertook a low-key laissez-faire program—the tax system was restructured (February 1925 law, 23 June 1927 decree-law and so on), there were attempts to attract foreign investment and establish trade agreements and efforts were made to balance the budget and cut subsidies.[26] The 10% tax on capital invested in banking and industrial sectors was repealed while the tax on directors and administrators of anonymous companies (SA) was cut down by half. All foreign capital was exonerated of taxes while the luxury tax was also repealed.[27] Mussolini also opposed municipalization of enterprises.[27]
In 1924, the Unione Radiofonica Italiana (URI) was formed by private entrepreneurs and part of the Marconi group and granted the same year a monopoly of radio broadcasts.
The Pact of the Vidoni Palace in 1925 brought the fascist trade unions and major industries together, creating an agreement for the industrialists to only recognise certain unions and so marginalise the non-fascist and socialist trade unions. The Syndical Laws of 1926 (sometimes called the Rocco Laws after Alfredo Rocco) took this agreement a step further as in each industrial sector there could be only one trade union and employers organisation.
In 1930, the National Council of Corporations was established and it was for representatives of all levels of the twenty-two key elements of the economy to meet and resolve problems…One consequence of the Council was the fact that trade unions held little to no representation whereas organized business, specifically organized industry (CGII), was able to gain a foothold over its competitors.
A key effect that the Council had on the economy was the rapid increase in cartels, especially the law passed in 1932, allowing the government to mandate cartelization…Cartels generally undermined the corporative agencies that were meant to ensure they operated according to Fascist principles and in the national interest, but the heads were able to show that cartel representatives had total control over the individual firms in the distribution of resources, prices, salaries and construction.
A lot of these things seem to be directly in conflict with the elevation of the working class, but rather strictly state-corporatist and explicitly hierarchical in their implementation. Simply nationalizing industries doesn’t really equate to socialism I don’t think.
Mmm… Let me see…
He nationalised 75% of Italian businesses by 1935 and later took over all foreign assets, stocks and bonds held by private citizens and businesses.
He nationalised whole key industries, like railways and metallurgy.
He invested a lot into public sector and infrastructure and by 1925 Italy had food supplementary assistance, infant care, maternity assistance, general healthcare, wage supplements, paid vacations, unemployment benefits, illness insurance, occupational disease insurance, general family assistance, public housing and old age and disability insurance.
Mussolini also had plans to move the country to a planned economy a-la USSR, but he couldn’t implement it in time before the war.
He made trade union membership compulsory.
And much much more.
It is also important to remember that key people in Mussolini’s government believed that the Italian working class could not have the requisite numbers or consciousness to make revolution and required full maturation of capitalism as the precondition for socialist realization. Their policy was a gradual move to socialism with the help of an authoritarian state and slow nationalisation of everything instead of Russian style revolution. And people like Rossoni called industrialists and capitalists as “vampires” and “profiteers”.
Saying that fascists are not socialists is just plain wrong.
Only nazis try to convince people that the nazis / fascists were socialist. If it isn’t socialism for everyone, it isn’t socialism at all.
When you say “nationalised” you mean owned by the dictator, personally and not the nation state. A pathetic attempt at twisting history. Such was his hate for socialists and socialism, mussolini would roll over in his grave hearing your nonsense.
Yeah, Hitler nationalised a lot, too.
The programs you describe, benefits, pensions and so on might convince some that they are dealing with a socialist state, when in fact anybody in Europe would merely call them social. When it comes down to it, socialism, which indeed is constantly being conflated with a lot of things, is about the workers owning the means of production. Of course you know that! But it also has never been the goal of the Russian Avantgarde nor the fascists in the west. Both their systems were exploiting workers. This time in the „national interest“. About that they had different opinions, though.
Where did Hitler come from?
And no, sorry, fascism is socialism. Always was, always will be. You can’t bend the truth to suit your narrative.
Why do you insist? Nobody would agree with you on that
Only authoritarian “lefties” disagree.
Can you provide some reading for context? I’m looking into Mussolini and at least according to Wikipedia, where you seem to have directly lifted most of your points, the story is quite a bit more nuanced than you’re presenting.
Some quick things I found:
A lot of these things seem to be directly in conflict with the elevation of the working class, but rather strictly state-corporatist and explicitly hierarchical in their implementation. Simply nationalizing industries doesn’t really equate to socialism I don’t think.
You got the nationalism part down.