One part of
Fascism's definition is 'rigidly controlling most industrial
and economic activities', though a distinction needs to be made
between Socialist-Communist control, where ownership is held by the
State, and Fascism, where ownership remains in 'private' hands, and
the controls are exercised through cartels. The National Industrial
Recovery Act (a very early New Deal program, passed in June, 1933,
three months after Roosevelt took office) imposed business and
labor cartels on the American economy, down to the level of
individually-owned tailors:
New Jersey tailor Jack Magid was jailed for "charging
35 cents for pressing a suit," in violation of the NRA code that
mandated a 40-cent charge.
From
Cutthroat
Competition and Dead Chickens.
The Act established the National Recovery Administration, and
Congress attempted to delegate to the President unfettered total
control, without any governing standards, over wages, hours,
working conditions, and collective bargaining. The Brookings
Institution described some of the Act's provisions thusly:
A further expansion of the president's powers ...
authorizes him, whenever he shall find that activities which he
believes are contrary to the purpose of the law are being practiced
in any trade or industry, to license business enterprises if he
shall deem it essential to make effective a code of fair
competition or agreement. No person shall, after a date which shall
have been fixed in an announcement that licensing is required in an
industry, engage in any business specified in such announcement
unless he shall first have obtained a license pursuant to the
regulations prescribed....
Carrying on of business without a license where a license is
required is made a criminal offense. The penalty is a fine not to
exceed $500 or imprisonment not to exceed six months or
both.
From
Cutthroat
Competition and Dead Chickens.
The Supreme Court unanimously declared the Act unconstitutional in
the 1935 case
A.L.A. Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States:
To summarize and conclude upon this point: Section 3 of
the Recovery Act (15 USCA 703) is without precedent. It supplies no
standards for any trade, industry, or activity. It does not
undertake to prescribe rules of conduct to be applied to particular
states of fact determined by appropriate administrative procedure.
Instead of prescribing rules of conduct, it authorizes the making
of codes to prescribe them. For that legislative undertaking,
section 3 sets up no standards, aside from the statement of the
general aims of rehabilitation, correction, and expansion described
in section 1. In view of the scope of that broad declaration and of
the [295 U.S. 495, 542] nature of the few restrictions that are
imposed, the discretion of the President in approving or
prescribing codes, and thus enacting laws for the government of
trade and industry throughout the country, is virtually unfettered.
We think that the code-making authority thus conferred is an
unconstitutional delegation of legislative power.
Chief Justice Hughes, writing for the Court. Thus the United States
avoided a dictatorial, complete control of the entire
economy.