The economic and social ideas of the ‘Classical Fascisms’ (1919-45), have sometimes been viewed as highly pragmatic notions concerned only with buttressing political power realities. For the British Left, this conceptualisation still stands. In the case of the BUF, Mosley had armed his followers with a comprehensive economic-social reform programme; his manifesto, The Greater Britain served in this regard. (1) British neo-fascism has followed in this tradition by devoting considerable energy to such questions. This section is broadly divided into elucidating the two elements of policy.

In the opinion of Joachim Fest, the classical-fascisms sought to overcome fully, the alienation of man from technological society. (2) Philosophers and political writers like Oswald Spengler, Filipo Marinetti, Martin Heidegger, and Ernst Junger, though scarce known amongst 1970's neo-fascists, certainly served the BUF in the Thirties. The military destruction of the old-fascism, in 1945, liberal ideology withstanding, could not have abolished the original sense of "crisis" against which the fascists had rebelled. Fest’s "great dread", which was supposed to have crept through the Europe of the 1920's, and against which the fascists sought a social-renewal, was the growth of megalopolitan society, the fragmentation of ‘community’, all soured by class conflagrations which seemed to herald the dissolution of nations. (3) The post-war capitalist boom would certainly have altered British social relations enough for fascists to restate the "problem". Any new fascism would need to take count of the technological revolution--and one of its unique results.

As one sociologist contends;

Western society is on the brink of collapse, not into crime, violence, or redeeming revolution...but into withdrawal. Withdrawal from the whole set of values and obligations that have historically been the basis of public community, and family life. Western societies are collapsing, not from an assault...but from a voluntary, almost enthusiastic abandonment of them by people who are learning to live private lives of an unprecedented completeness, with the aid...of a technology which is evolving... into a pattern of socially atomising appliances...(4)

Even though this analysis is historically restricted, it may articulate what some leading fascists imagine the case. It could qualitatively differentiate "new" from "old" fascism through permeating the consciousness of its leading adherents. Policy formulators for British neo-fascism, such as Mosley and Tyndall, familiar as they are with the works of Ortega y Gasset and Spengler could agree that;

The mob...providence’s device for meting out retribution to unjust governments has retired from history, because history has become largely irrelevant to its way of life. (5)

To assert that Western man is abstaining from dynamic politics may be only an overstatement of public suspicion of politicians. Interestingly it is Bardeche’s fear that fascism can only "conquer the masses" with difficulty, for the mass can no longer be inspired by political dynamics. (6) The number of occasions British Right parties have despaired of their countrymen for their alleged "disinterest" in the "degeneration of Britain" are too numerous to cite.

To appear modern, yet rooted in the nation’s past, to preach an egalitarian ideal, yet create an elitist order, 1930’s British fascism had forged a mythology sustained by rituals, parades, and romantic pretensions. The "leader-idea", party uniforms, and the nostalgic "trench-psychology" had coloured the BUF, which always sought to embody the form of a fascist society inside itself. Contemporary fascism is differentiated therefrom by not employing such methodology. The Union Movement and the National Front probably realise, that groups of similar stripe as the BUF, as existed in the early 1960's, failed to capture public sympathy. That is, that they admit time-space limitation on ideas and tactics; if the BUF had hoped to relive the comradeship of war, the present UM admits that modern youth has not had this experience. (7)

A revaluation, of a key concept of the classical-fascisms has transpired. The "leader-idea", that "authentic necessity" of modern man, (to paraphrase Hitler), no longer carries much importance. Mosley wrote, in 1968, that in our advanced technological epoch, "even Caesarism has to be collective". (8) Mosley, who has always had faith in Science and Technics as dynamic agencies, may be positing ‘Technocracy’ as his system for social reorganisation. This notion has appeared in recent French neo-fascism (9), and in the National Front. Indeed, for Mosley, to postulate collective government, may itself possess significance. It may be that Mosley has recalled and developed to his satisfaction Heidegger’s contention, that a Technocracy could "plan" man’s development out of his "alienated" condition.

Complicated social questions are often only partially examined in the literature examined for this study. For example Action hints that ‘Alienation’ is a result of a society not having sufficient outlets for its energies. The loss of Empire and national power are thought to have contributed in this. (10) The National Front infers that the dynamic bedlam of modern youth has resulted from parents seeking to foster their shallow materialism onto their children. Hence youth has become "impoverished"--in Marcuse’s sense--morally, sexually, culturally, and aesthetically. In such a state the NF reasons that youth has chased existential heroes in even "coloured dictators", like Mao, Castro, or Ho Chi Minh. As such they are amenable to "anti-national causes." (11) If there is some validity in the contention that,

"The morale of an entire generation has collapsed to the point that it wishes nothing more for itself than a euphoric death.(12)",

then the appeal made by a neo-fascism to youth would be variant to the period of Classical Fascism.

Again this alleged "condition" of modern youth may be what the fascist visualise as reality, and they shape their methods to fit their beliefs. The appeal to nationalism, which won over strata of youth to the BUF in the 1930's, demonstrably holds less possibility. The primary appeal of neo-fascism is to racism, more appropriate to an age where nationalist ardour (of the old militarist type) in western Europe has cooled. Despite that it is more difficult to rally youth to fascism, youth activity remains vital to the tactical necessities of the neo-fascist parties. The reason may be, that the neo-fascists believe youth is, in Marcuse’s meaning, only partially integrated into "social-consumerism", and therefore capable of revolutionary action.

British neo-fascism has managed to reproduce the old fascist slogan of "national solidarity", though the substance of such a notion appears to vary from the totalitarianism of the pre-war fascisms. It has been stated, and inferred in material published by the Right, that the "destructive class-war" waged by managers against unions and vice-versa, has contributed much to the so-called "British disease" ; that public life has been reduced to the narrow politics of interest groups; that not much more could be expected in a society based on the acquisition of wealth, or consumer-products. A "solution" has been suggested.

Throughout 1973, when Wilson’s "social-contract" was being formulated, the Union Movement raised the concept of "seige-economy" as being a transient necessity. (13) The idea of an "Economic General Staff" has been raised since. (14) While ‘European union’ remains the Mosleyites’ panacea for all crises the National Front has placed more weight on the "seige-economy". However they have also presented it as a military necessity. The NF reasons that its assumption of government would not be popular in the West, and being also as the West’s military potential is slackening before the increase in Soviet military might, Britain would need to raise its defence potential. (15) This would demand a level of economic mobilisation comparable to war organisation. Articles on this theme have appeared in NF publications as early as 1970, and have been numerous since 1975. It is important to note that such ideas were not raised by the neo-fascist formations of the 1960's; it may be that the consumer-economy was too buoyant at this time, a factor which may have precluded the Right parties from building a mass movement, or raising any other issue than ‘race’.

A programme of militarisation can only be based on a social-dynamism continually being generated to draw all classes and castes under its sway. Significantly, both NF and UM, have alluded to Russia and Red China as states possessing a quantity of social mobilisation conducive to ‘national survival’. Their youth organisation programmes are judged, in themselves, "healthy". (16) In as far as it does not already exist under British democracy, the neo-fascists may be promising a "military-economic complex", a notion broadly similar to ‘guerre-revolutionaire’ ideology. Under such a system "social solidarity" would be the objective. A radical Technocracy would be a result of such a schema; this certainly conflicts with the pose of "democracy" assumed by most neo-fascists. Indeed, Technocracy does not seem as frightening a notion as dictatorship; it could be seen as innocuous, or modernistic. That parliamentary democracy "needs" an overhaul, has been claimed by most rightists. In effect their creed remains: "Modern society is too complex to run itself", and therefore requires, "the union of the whole nation, led by the elite of the whole nation." (17) It should be noted, that this by no means rules out the probability that conservative elements in the neo-fascist organisations believe in the value of the institutions of British democracy.

The classical fascisms contained a passion for "synthesis" in the social-economic field; they wished to combine seemingly conflicting notions, such as free-enterprise and state control, elitism and egalitarianism. Always they wished to go beyond capitalism and socialism, to produce a "third course". British neo-fascists have developed this fundamental idea. The early BNP managed only to put forward certain neo-nazi formulations in its political programme: "Nation Above Class", "folk-society" as counterpoised to "class society". (18) This usage of "organic" terminology pervaded the BNP; though such language went out of vogue soon after the Jordan split for most rightists, it can still be found in the British Movement. More constructively , Mosley advanced the term ‘European Socialism’ as his "third course". (19) This term covered worker’s ownership of the larger industries through a shareholding scheme, basic class-solidarity, the state as developing agent in new projects, protection for most other private enterprise, and protection of the farming castes. Not until 1974, did the National Front produce a coherent statement to compare with Mosley’s views.

This occurred in a pamphlet Beyond Capitalism and Socialism which perhaps made a particular misanalysis of objective reality. Capitalism has created the Welfare State, installed degrees of worker-employer co-operation, and centralised much economic power under government auspices, that is,carried out much of the Right's economic programme. The Union Movement may realise this when it angrily refers to the "Establishment" appropriating Mosley’s ideas. (20) The NF reflects "popular" conceptions, in Beyond Capitalism and Socialism: the Welfare State as "parasitical bureaucracy", the "union bosses" in rebellion against the national economy. (21)

The NF fails to observe that the Trade Union "Left" basically accepts the consumerist ideology and merely argues, as the "monopoly of labour-power", for a larger distribution of the national income. By the NF’s own analysis Labour’s "Socialism" serves the "international financial elite"; hence there would occur a total intermingling of seemingly conflicting ideologies, of Labour and Tory ideas. In effect, there would be nothing to "go beyond". It may be unlikely that the mass of NF supporters could visualise such fine points, hence it may be more expedient to assert what the public may imagine as reality, rather than what exists. It may be that political language experiences difficulty in expressing demonstrable realities.

The NF also enjoys depicting the trade union, managerial, and party elites as being the agents of national decline. (22) The broad mass was viewed as being devoid of a "real" leadership, yet possessed of healthy values; the NF desires the Nation to transcend internal class divisions, to support a nationalist movement. This is certainly a fascist notion. G.D.H.Cole remarked of the classical-fascist movements, that their claim:

to transcend classes is quite genuine, for it (fascism) reaches back behind the divisions of modern society toward primitive conditions of tribal solidarity. (23)

The BNP and the NSM attempted to portray this image through the actualisation of a romantic racism, but failed. It may be that the most successful British neo-fascism, the National Front, following somewhat in the line of Union Movement, has noted the failure of similar romantic ideals, and notes the continued progressive alienation of society from the natural order. They could believe the technical and military apparatuses more likely to suppress class divisions and individual atomisation than mere mythologies. Marcuse may have seen the drift of modern society to assert that, "...mythology is primitive and immature thought. The process of civilisation invalidates myth...".(24) It could be that the nationalist movement itself, is seen as the "image" behind which political power realities function.

The realities of power, and twentieth century life, can in the fascist mind only be perceived by an elite; this body must, by Spengler, be beyond the imagery its propaganda creates. The "third course" was perceived by Tyndall as a "synthesis" of various element in British life;

Nationalists seek a kind of government which has not been seen in this country for at least half a century, but at the same time a government which acts within the democratic terms on which it was elected. Firmness and strength can more easily be exercised within a dictatorship; within a democracy of the British type they call for leadership of a very high order. (25)

That is, a medium of authority and freedom; but possibly Tyndall’s statement does not approximate the NF’s intention:

This then is the aim of Nationalists in Britain: a new party of the character that can capture a majority following from both sides of the present political spectrum so as to be able to obtain a long and assured term of power necessary to its tasks. (26)

Such a party is more than just a party, and more a symbol of a people’s will; the leadership of such a party have hence charged themselves with a mission, to articulate this will. Such an elite have appropriated to themselves a morality conditioned by "History", a value shared, it would appear, by "old" and "new" fascism.

As stated in their programmes, the Extreme Right parties have stood for "private enterprise". The central marxist claim was / is that the Right’s economic ideas are but defensive measures in the service of monopoly capitalism. Contemporary marxists refuse to believe that, if the new fascism possessed political authority, it would undertake a profound social revolution. The British National Party’s policy involved "private enterprise within a framework of national control." The vagueries of the programme resulted from the BNP’s heavy preoccupation with "racial-nationalism". However, this basic statement has remained with most radical nationalist parties. The NF’s policy demands it "support private enterprise basically, but subject to government control...industries of vital national importance.". (27)

In a "siege-economy" this could involve far more than the present nationalised concerns. Both the NF and the UM agree that craft and various small specialised industries be privately controlled. Interestingly, in 1974, the Front came out in favour of nationalisation of foreign owned concerns; however they appear not push the issue of nationalisation too far lest they alienate the more conservative quarters of the party. A more radical section, including the former NF writers, Michael Lobb and David McCalden, seceded from the party to pursue forthright syndicalist-type ideals.

The single great point of agreement amongst all neo-fascist elements, has been the issue of "finance capital"--money policy. The antipathy to "finance" appeared in the British Union of Fascists, and managed also, to sustain Hargraeves’s "Greenshirts" of the Social Credit Party. Opposition to the alleged machinations of financiers can be viewed as a continuous value of Britain’s Extreme Right. Basically, the Right parties believe that finance-capital has usurped the power of industrial capitalists to gain dominance over the national economy.

Since "finance" had international connections it came to create an international economy dominated by the "great bankers". Such bankers are believed to dominate western economies and governments through the international economic agencies (eg. the World Bank, the IMF, the Gatt etc.) that they have established. Through their alleged control of domestic money supply the "bankers" control the community’s life-blood, and are viewed as contributing to economic recession. Finance-capital has also been attributed with an immoral imperative; it has destroyed much of the agricultural community; it can reduce people to the level of commodities; perhaps its worst attribute was summed for the Right as, "money is colourblind".

The policies of the neo-fascists towards finance has been reasonably consistent. For the Nazis it was all simply "Jewish", and would be expropriated. (28) The NSM envisaged a national credit authority assuming the powers of private banks and money agencies. The BNP had originated this basic statement, unless we view the BUF as the precursor of this plan. In Mosley’s mythical ‘European Nation’, private finance organisations would be permitted onlybecause the "closed" nature of this fanciful economic order would remove the danger "inherent" in money capital--its mobility. (29) The NF, however, has a wider programme: a national authority for the issuing of credit, a drastic reduction in interest rates, and a consumer-credit service to absorb surplus consumer commodity production. (30) It is implied that banking would be socialised as under C.H.Douglas’s system of ‘Social Credit’. However, unlike Douglas, the Front has envisaged credit being applied by government to capital projects, economic modernisation, and military spending, than to consumer oriented programmes. (31) This could lead to the conclusion that the Front is promising "austerity" rather than a revival of "consumerism". The nationalisation or control of credit has been seen as a measure which would halt the "disastrous" policy of exporting British capital and technology into the Third World. Both the Union Movement, and the National Front have followed in the tradition of the BUF in denouncing the export of resources as a "betrayal" of British labour.

A comparison of the respective economic programmes of the Union Movement and the National Front would suggest that some critical analysis has been attempted. It is to be noted, that the UM has scarce altered its economic ideas since the late 1950's, and usually recapitulates its fundamental tenets of faith. Basic concepts are shared by both the NF and the UM; for example they both agree that Britain’s economic decline has been in progress for over half a century. They concur that the post-war Labour policy of "export or perish" did not understand the multiform development of new overseas industrial centres. They have maintained that there has been considerable reluctance on the part of employers and labour, hence Tory and Socialist, to accept the necessity of following the technological revolution into the elimination of unproductive techniques and industries. They have reasoned that state nationalisation of collapsing industries has merely transferred the onus of economic mismanagement onto the government. Divergence can be seen in the solutions to economic disorder.

The Union Movement’s economic policies closely parallel its ‘Europe a Nation’ creed. Mosley has reasoned Britain’s economy to be a complement to those of the continental states. With the achievement of European government would come a common economic plan., that is, that the "Brussels bureaucracy" would undergo a transformation into a "bulldozer state" so as to revitalise both Britain’s and the Continent's failing economies. (32)

European-regional rationalisation of production would be attempted. Private enterprise would need control, not expropriation. (33) Mosley has said, that under ideal conditions, government needs only intervene in the economy in matters of wages and prices. Mosley’s "wage-price mechanism" would supposedly create fixed prices for all products, and secondly, common wages for all similar occupations throughout Europe. (34) Wages would rise as dividends for increased production. However, UM reasons a thorough modernisation of the productive factors is necessary for the political-social-economic viability of Europe, before any changes in individual wellbeing could be made. (35) It has followed, curiously, that the UM should urge Britain’s entry into the European Economic Community, for by its own logic, ‘Stasbourg’ is but a "front" for international finance. Perhaps the UM is determined that the British Right abandons its "Commonwealth" myths and pursues realistic policies. It is likely also that the UM has allowed its political creed to over-rule its tactical sense, for there was, and is, a large militant anti-EEC movement which could be manipulated.

The National Front’s economic ideas are similarly integrated into its world-view. The NF has spoken in favour of economic autarky--or the closest approximation thereto. (36)

Under an autarkic economic order exports would be made only to cover vital imports; productive factors would be directed only for the domestic market. Tyndall has admitted that the Front’s economic programme joins the principle of "minding Britain’s business", that is represents economic nationalism. (37) Throughout its history the NF has, (supposedly) looked to a revival of the Commonwealth economy. This has been reasoned because of the Old Dominions’ strong primary-industries; because it is supposed to be just as difficult to integrate with Europe as to reforge the Commonwealth; and because of the seeming self-sufficiency of such a union. (38) Assuming the NF was the government, it is unlikely this "Third Force Commonwealth" would prove workable, even if it could be established. It is more likely a propaganda creation on the part of the NF’s leadership for it offers an alternative to supporting the EEC and Mosleyite proposals, and manages to appear more palatable than the possibility of a long period of "siege economy". Being opposed to the EEC has brought the NF close to a large section of British public opinion, though as an issue, the EEC has been fading from the political scene.

The other economic issue which has most attracted the NF is the question of the trade-unions. The Front has opposed "communist infiltration" thereof since it began, and has established union cells to combat militant Leftists. Unlike the Union Movement which feels only communist influence needs be purged from the unions, the Front prefers to bring the unions under national control. The NF has, on occasions, seemed to be in favour of a syndicalist union structure; that is, elevating the unions into organs of the state. The Front believes that each industry should have one union. (38) The NF has not decided, even now, the exact arrangement thereof, but it appears to be less a Corporatist system and more a statist structure.

Overall, the economic-social theories of the neo-fascisms, laden as they are with the critique of the consumer society and its liberal ideology, have partially obscured their similarities to the old fascisms. Statism has appeared. One old fascist notion has been retained, that the twentieth century is the period for the resurgence of political thinking over economic materialism, this in the sense of Yockey’s "historical imperative". The statements of the UM and NF, particularly the latter, intimate their lack of commitment to "private enterprise", if only in the name of political necessity. Liberalism has been equated , throughout, to social and individual proletarianisation. Perhaps, if the neo-fascists still cherish the idea of a New Man, tactics would warn against this notion being added to this general rebellion against the nature of man under social-democracy. (Note: this concept most certainly appeared in the 1980's movement.) It should be stressed that the integration of economic theory into the world-views of the neo-fascist parties, has been reasonably successful. That more work has been devoted to these questions differentiates the NF from the groups of the early 1960's, and this approximates the more coherent continental neo-fascisms.

(1) Sir Oswald Mosley, The Greater Britain. (BUF) 1932, passim.

(2) Joachim Fest, Hitler. ( Weindenfeld and Nicolson), London 1974 p.104

(3) ibid., p.93-4.

(4)Martin Pawley, The Private Future. (Pan Books) London 1975 p.12

(5) ibid., p.116

(6) Bardeche op.cit., p.170

(7) Action, No.223 15 August 1976, p.3

(8) Mosley, My Life. pp.117-8.

(9) see Initiative Nationale: Mensuel des Forces Nouvelles. Paris, No.12 November 1976.

(10) Action, No.160 15 September 1973. p.5

(11) The Youth Movement :The National Front, leaflet date probably 1975.

(12) Pawley op.cit., p.57

(13) Action No.158 1 August 1973. p.3

(14) Action No.201 15 August 1975 p.2

(15) A collection of NF leaflets on defence.

(16) Action No.203 1 October 1975 p.3

(17) Action No.178 1 August 1974 p.1

(18) The Programme Of The British National Party., booklet, (BNP) 1960.

(19) see Mosley Broadsheet 14 January 1971.

(20) Action N.173 15 May 1974 p.2

(21) Beyond Capitalism And Socialism. (NF. Policy Committee) Croydon 1974 p.2

(22) ibid., p.3

(23) quoted in James Gregor, The Ideology Of Fascism: The Rationale For Totalitarianism.

(The Free Press) New York 1969 p.26

(24) Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man. (Routledge and Kegan Paul) London, 1964.p.188

(25) John Tyndall, Six Principles Of British Nationalism. Croydon 1972. p.3

(26) ibid., p.8

(27) Beyond Capitalism And Socialism. p.7

(28) NSM leaflet, date unknown.

(29) Mosley. Mosley: Right Or Wrong?, p.56

(30) from an election leaflet issued for the October 1974 General Elections.

(31) as implied by Tyndall in Britain: World Power Or Pauper State. (NF Policy Committee) Croydon, 1974 p.8

(32) Action N.179 15 August 1974 p.2

(33) Mosley. Mosley: The Facts pp.136-38

(34) Mosley. Mosley: Right or Wrong pp.40-41

(35) Action N.187 15 January 1975 p.4 and N.190 1 March 1975 p.3

(36) John Tyndall, The Case For Economic Nationalism. (NF Policy Committee) Croydon, 1974, p.9

(37) ibid., p.12

(38) ibid., p.11

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