I've read it. I used to be a libertarian. You're missing the point of what I'm getting at. Sure, there are parallels between any two forms of government, but communism and fascism and national socialism and representative democracy are entirely different things that result in entirely different ways of life(Stalin's Red Fascism notwithstanding).
Have you read The Doctrine of Fascism, or Capital? If not, you should.
And don't be so presumptuous.
Edit: Add Mein Kampf to that list, cuz why not.
Max Eastman, who was the first editor-in-chief of the rag The Masses, was invited by a guy by the name of Lenin to Russia just after their revolution. Max Eastman was the leading socialist activist in the US during the time period. He wrote almost all the articles that appeared in The Masses. Just in case you forgot about the following quote from The Road to Serfdom I'll quote it again for you.
In recent years, however, the old apprehensions of the
unforeseen consequences of socialism have once more been
strongly voiced from the most unexpected quarters. Observer
after observer, in spite of the contrary expectation with which he
approached his subject, has been impressed with the extraordin-
ary similarity in many respects of the conditions under "fas-
cism" and "communism". While "progressives" in this country
and elsewhere were still deluding themselves that communism
and fascism represented opposite poles, more and more people
began to ask themselves whether these new tyrannies were not
the outcome of the same tendencies. Even communists must
have been somewhat shaken by such testimonies as that of Mr.
Max Eastman, Lenin's old friend, who found himself compelled
to admit that "instead of being better, Stalinism is worse than
fascism, more ruthless, barbarous, unjust, immoral, anti-
democratic, unredeemed by any hope or scruple", and that it is
"better described as superfascist"; and when we find the same
author recognising that "Stalinism is socialism, in the sense of
being an inevitable although unforeseen political accompani-
ment of the nationalisation and collectivisation which he had
relied upon as part of his plan for erecting a classless society", 1
his conclusion clearly achieves wider significance.
Chapter 2 The Great Utopia pages 27, 28
I'm not sure if the paging from my pdf copy of one of the earlier versions of the book is the same as the current version but the chapter alone should suffice to make it easy to find.
Notice that socialism, communism, and fascism are basically interchangable ideologies. Both Hitler and Mussolini were socialists to begin with and easily slid over into fascism. The academic and journalism world claims that the USSR(
Union of
Soviet
Socialist
Republics) was communist, but those who knew exactly what it was, as Eastman was given unlimited access to Soviet documentation and unlimited travel around Russian by Lenin, said the USSR was socialist. Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin were all Marxists. Chairman Mao was a dedicated Marxist. Fidel Castro was a dedicated Marxist. And Karl Marx is the author of modern day socialism. So to try to pretend that there are significant differences between communism and socialism is just intellectually dishonest in my book. And when Stalinism was nothing more than fascism on steroids there is no real difference between fascism and socialism either. This is far more than just having a few parallels between all three ideologies.
All three are known as collectivism. That means they can all be classified under the same banner, which means there is very little difference between the three of them. And all three are totalitarian in nature. When government tells business what to produce, when to produce it, how much of it to produce, where to distribute those goods, what to charge for them, etc... what difference does it make if the government owns the business outright or there is a titular owner? In any of these ideologies if private ownership is allowed the owners become, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than middle managers for they make no decisions as to the direction of the company or what it is to produce, the pricing structure, or distribution channels. They, for all intents and purposes, have no say in their own business.
Just for your info, I've read Hitler, Marx, Engels, Keynes, and many of the other proponents of Marx. Not a one of them make a lick of sense.
