Richard Wolff on the differences between Fascism and Socialism

"The nationalist hysteria is a mechanism fascism has always used to support its prime function which is to rescue, reinforce and stabilize the instability and the social problems of a capitalist
system."

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Prof. Wolff's latest book "Understanding Marxism"

[Ancel]

Capitalism benefits the few at its best.
Socialism benefits all at its best.

[JammySugars]

Once again, fantastically insightful. Bravo.

[gabms]

Professor sounds like you are talking every single point about whats happening in brazil today...😒😔

[rallymonkeys]

brilliant mind as usual... Maraming Salamat.... from Philippines!

[lcotler]

From a teaching or pedagogical perspective, this is by far the best discourse on the difference between fascism and socialism that I have ever seen!


Watch it twice!

[wingoreviewsboxingandmma]

this ignores the fact that Hitler despised capitalism. just because communism isn't only for of socialism, it's just one of the extremes of it. Fascism was created by an Italian socialist. Hitler the fascist you tall about was a socialist. it's in his political parties name

[_Negra_Arroyo_Lane]

Way to totally describe Donald Trump without once mentioning his name.

[commonmancrypto]

Regarding the refrigerator analogy. The reality is that we have two choices, we either fix the broken refrigerator are we place all of our faith in some Refrigeration technology that has never been proven effective and has resulted in millions of tons of spoiled beef and poultry.

[ahmedanya]

This is the only video that really helped me understand the difference, others really mumbling without even convincing me that they themselves understand what they are saying

[ATier]

The Thumbnail is misleading. I thought Professor Wolff was gonna drop some sick rhymes and raps.
Well, i'll still be waiting for it though.

[PoliticalEconomy]

Private Capitalist Cooperatives vs. Public Socialist Cooperatives:
A capitalist cooperative is just a business with a more inclusive form of ownership. A capitalist cooperative functions the same as any other organization in a liberal society: it is founded to promote the self-interests of the members of the group. In cooperative terms it is founded to make a profit exclusively for its workers/owners. A worker owned cooperative would just make profits for the workers to appropriate for themselves. A worker owned cooperative or community owned cooperative would function as a de-facto private property business. A resource owned by the workers or a community has the right to exclude others in the country from its use. It also has the right to decide who can become owners of the resource. Society at large is at the mercy of the workers/owners who, like capitalists, may decide they don’t want to contribute to the common good and may want to keep all of the profits for themselves. They might use their profits to fund lobbying efforts to reduce taxes, reduce regulation, and procure subsidies from tax payers. Worker ownership would have little to no impact on the high level of income inequality already present in our capitalist economy.

Socialists believe that all vital resources should be owned by the nation as a whole when possible. Resources should be freely available for all citizens. That’s why we statists want nationalization. A publicly owned cooperative is a group that works for the public-interest. Resources are available to anyone without restriction, and the workers do not expect exclusive profits from its business activities. A socialist cooperative has to turn a portion of its profits into the state and be collectivized, and the workers get paid a salary based on a democratically decided central income plan according to financial incentives in each industry. An alternative to nationalization would be a type of centralized stakeholder ownership (good for medium sized businesses). Stakeholder ownership distributes the profits more widely than does a strictly worker owned business. Stakeholder ownership also makes sure that all interests have equitable bargaining power. If the community is part owner then it can make sure that the profits get redistributed and used for social purposes.

[TheChowitzer]

Hey Prof. Wolff, I love your content...

I'd just like to say although I know you're a Marxist and like to focus on that perspective, I'd really love to see you do a video on anarchism and your full thoughts on it - I think it could be very enlightening. Thanks for creating your content!

[KeithGadget]

I agree they are very different. However, from the three major fascist movements I can think of, they all stated in socialism, and then once gaining power moved to fascism (took it to the extreme).

[freegeorgia]

Mussolini was an Italian military man, journalist, and politician who was a member of the Italian Socialist Party for 14 years. In 1910, he was appointed editor of the weekly La Lotta di Classe (The Class Struggle), and the following year he published an essay entitled “The Trentino as seen by a Socialist.” His journalism and political activism led him to prison, but soon after he was released, the Italian Socialist Party—increasingly strong and having achieved an important victory at the Congress of Reggio Emilia—put him in charge of the Milanese newspaper Avanti!

[joggy]

For once I am not convinced entirely. Historically, European fascist movements stemmed from socialism: Mussolini was a prominent socialist party member and Nazi stands for national socialists.

[juliahenriques]

Professor, the class analysis of fascism works for Italy, as well as for Iberian authoritarianism, and for US backed Latin American authoritarianisms decades later. It does work a little less for Germany and Austria, though, and less still for the Eastern fascists. Maybe the point that's missing in most marxist takes on fascism is that other factors not directly tied to class struggles enabled it to succeed.


Authoritarianism, the belief that hierarchy is a necessity, that someone needs to have authority to issue direct orders to others, is a monster in itself. It does align more easily with the right, sure, but it is its own thing nonetheless. Of all the leftist movements in the beginning of the 20th century, the ones that withstood were the ones that faced fascist and right-wing authoritarianism, which are quick to embrace social hierarchies and whose ultimate form is militarism, with a strong military force of their own. The price paid was their own drift towards authoritarianism, of course, but that's another topic. The same can be said of tribalism in the form of nationalism, that was at the core of all fascisms, but was also used to great extent by Stalin and Mao. And the same can be said of religion, another staple of fascisms, but also the path that led MLK to socialism.


It would be great if you tackled, for example, how the fascist rethoric was actually one of transcending the class struggle through an organic nationalism, and also how fascists were obsessed with order and absolutely terrorized by complexities, both economic and social (as they continue to be).

[Gigika]

More people need to see this, everyone share if you can!

[johnmeyer]

After reading more about fascism and socialism it occurred to me that the system we have now is more like fascism (socialism for the rich/corporations with a strong nationalist component). It was a strange thing to realize because it was so disturbing, and now this very credible expert is saying the same thing.

[grabbingkitties]

You never explain the difference you just talked about fascism and tried your best to equate it with trump. That's all I got from this.

[kunga]

Your the Greatest. Waking people up to the truth.