Was there a meaningful difference between the economic policies of any of the big 1930s actors? FDR, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini? It seems (from my vantage point) that their positions were all roughly equivalent: Make more decisions at the center, for the good of everyone.
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Private ownership of capital was a major difference.
I guess you're pointing out that the direction of change was similar, which seems a reasonable point.
"Everyone" meant people in every country for the Communists, though not every person. "Everyone" meant all (obedient) Germans for Hitler. Autarky was an explicit goal for the fascists, but not for FDR. The Fascists and Communists both felt that mortal struggle for supremacy was inevitable, and thus spent the 30s militarizing. FDR was focused inwards and thus, to some extent, we were caught militarily flat footed.
The Japanese needed minerals which meant conquering Manchuria which meant war with China, and eventual war with the USSR. They needed oil from Indonesia and rubber from Malaysia, which meant war with the Netherlands and the English (and Australia), which meant transiting Vietnam and the Philippines which meant war with the France and the US.
Or they could've, you know, traded for stuff.
Japan didn't have the technology to trade for stuff. Trading blocks were fashionable on the time, with Imperial Preference and whatnot. Asians have a weakness for fads.
They only got tradable technology after becoming an American satellite. Which has other drawbacks.
They were wealthy enough to buy the state-of-the-art battlecruiser Kongo from the British in 1913.
"Trading blocks were fashionable at the time." Indeed. Hence Aretae's question.
That's like saying that the singer beggar should sell his speakers and stop asking for money.
The question to Aretae's question is well, not much in general. International competition almost assure that the economic system of all major players will always be similar. See crony capitalism these days, it's everywhere.
The risk of trying something different is too high.
You could write a book on that: http://www.amazon.com/Three-New-Deals-Reflections-Roosevelts/dp/0312427433/
There's no real difference, though FDR's approach to achieving the end seems to have won, which is very interesting.
FDR's advisers have very nice things to say about Mussolini's policies before they decided Fascism must be defeated, at which point they had really nice things to say about the commies.
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