Hubert Kiesewetter Knihy

Popper was born in 1902 to a Viennese family of Jewish origin. He taught in Austria until 1937, when he emigrated to New Zealand in anticipation of the Nazi annexation of Austria the following year, and he settled in England in 1949. Before the annexation, Popper had written mainly about the philosophy of science, but from 1938 until the end of the Second World War he focused his energies on political philosophy, seeking to diagnose the intellectual origins of German and Soviet totalitarianism. The Open Society and Its Enemies was the result. In the book, Popper condemned Plato, Marx, and Hegel as "holists" and "historicists"--a holist, according to Popper, believes that individuals are formed entirely by their social groups; historicists believe that social groups evolve according to internal principles that it is the intellectual's task to uncover. Popper, by contrast, held that social affairs are unpredictable, and argued vehemently against social engineering. He also sought to shift the focus of political philosophy away from questions about who ought to rule toward questions about how to minimize the damage done by the powerful. The book was an immediate sensation, and--though it has long been criticized for its portrayals of Plato, Marx, and Hegel--it has remained a landmark on the left and right alike for its defense of freedom and the spirit of critical inquiry.

Over the last decade, there has been a growing acceptance among Anglophone academics that the core of fascism consists of a vision for a regenerated political culture and national community in a post-liberal age. While a consensus exists, it is not universal; some scholars in fascist studies maintain alternative views, questioning the existence of a shared understanding regarding the centrality of an ultra-nationalist myth of rebirth. The most referenced consensus among sympathetic academics is encapsulated in the definition that fascism is a political ideology characterized by a mythic core of palingenetic populist ultra-nationalism. The totalitarian movements represented by the PNF and NSDAP, along with the regimes they supported, served as role models for revolutionary nationalists during the inter-war period, becoming synonymous with totalitarian, mass-based revolutionary nationalism. This concept emerged following Mussolini's fascismo, the first movement to gain power. However, it was primarily in Italy and Germany where the structural crisis of liberal society was severe enough to foster a genuinely charismatic form of populist politics. This form extended beyond the core activists, generating a consensus that laid the groundwork for a fascist regime.

In diesem Buch werden unterschiedliche Wirtschaftsformen der griechischen und römischen Antike, des Mittelalters, des Feudalismus, des Merkantilismus sowie des Industriekapitalismus dahingehend miteinander verglichen und überprüft, welche kapitalistischen Ausprägungen in ihnen aufgetreten sind und ob sie mit einem modernen Kapitalismus überhaupt verglichen werden können. Aus Sicht des Autors beginnt der moderne Kapitalismus mit der englischen Industrialisierung seit der zweiten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts. Wenn es zutrifft, dass der europäische Kapitalismus des 19. und 20. Jahrhunderts vollständig neue Wirtschaftsformen entwickelt hat, dann müssen die vielfältigen Interpretationsversuche von bekannten Kapitalismusforschern wie Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Rudolf Hilferding, Werner Sombart, Max Weber u. a. auf ihre empirische Korrektheit hinterfragt werden. Darüber hinaus geht der Autor der Frage nach, welche Vor- und Nachteile mit einem modernen Kapitalismus für die arbeitende Bevölkerung verbunden waren und sind, und ob es gerechtfertigt ist, den heutigen Kapitalismus gründlich zu verändern, abzuschaffen oder durch ein alternatives System zu ersetzen, trotz der großen Gefahren für Freiheit und Wohlstand, wie wir sie in kommunistischen Staaten kennengelernt und miterlebt haben.