Politics > Politics-USA > 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism'
| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Black Elk" |
| Date: |
04 May 2005 10:29:41 PM |
| Object: |
'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism' |
Corporatism
by Jonathan Taplin
Dissident Voice
June 3, 2003
"The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism
because it is a merger of State and corporate power"
--Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Fascist Dictator of
Italy
The decision by the FCC this morning to remove the last restrictions on Big
Media to the control of the Public Airwaves is but one more sign that we are
entering the Age of Corporatism, a world where the interests of the Fortune
500 and the Bush Administration have merged perfectly. One can observe
Assistant Secretary of the Interior Stephen Griles working tirelessly to
make sure his former clients in the Coal Industry have unfettered access to
Federal Lands for mining (as outlined on "Now with Bill Moyers" last Friday)
or you watch Michael Powell make sure that the Broadcasters who paid for his
luxurious travel arrangements for the past three years, get unfettered
access to the the public airwaves . All of these moves take "The Commons"
which is owned by all of us and move it into the hands of a few wealthy
companies who pay little or nothing for resources from which they make
millions.
When Halliburton and Bechtel make billions out of reconstructing Iraq we all
pay for the 200,000 troops that provide their security, but only the
dividend coupon clippers who own Halliburton stock get the massive profits
coming out of the enterprise. Forty years ago in his farewell speech,
President Eisenhower warned:
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of
unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the
military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of
misplaced corporate power exists and will persist. We must never let the
weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."
We now face a situation that far surpasses the "misplaced corporate power"
that Ike predicted. Spurred on by the excuse of perpetual war, the Arms
industry prospers while teachers and policeman are laid off by strapped
states. The Corporatists move a Patriot Act II under which if you attend a
legal protest sponsored by an organization the government has listed as
"terrorist," you may be deported and your citizenship revoked, without trial
or recourse. The Corporatists have cut off funding for the crucial agencies
that monitor water pollution or enforce Superfund sites.
The reason the FCC decision this morning was so tragic is that an
enlightened public that understood that THEIR airwaves and THEIR public
lands were being given away for the benefit of the few might ask for redress
from their government. But they never hear about these issues. As recently
as last week the Pew Center found the 74% of the public was unaware of the
FCC's impending decision. But in the rare case when a public figure does
speak out, the other part of Mussolini's Corporatism shows it's power.
Whether it's the brownshirts at Rockford College, storming the stage while
New York Times Reporter Chris Hedges tried to deliver a commencement address
slightly critical of our Iraq policy, or it's the Amen Choir of Limbaugh,
Hannity, Savage and O'Reilly ripping into Tim Robbins, The Dixie Chicks, Tom
Daschle, Howard Dean or their target of the day; the
military-media-industrial complex will make sure the Corporatist line is
triumphant.
There is one silver lining in this cloud. The battle has been joined. We
have to believe that the first step to fighting an evil is to name it. We
are fighting Corporatism. There is no turning back.
Jonathan Taplin is a television and film producer whose work (including The
Last Waltz, To Die For, "The Prize" and "Cadillac Desert") has been
nominated for the Oscar, Golden Globe, and Emmy Awards. He is a member of
the Academy Of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and sits on the advisory
board of the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland. He is a
contributor to Bear Flag.org (www.bearflag.org)
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles5/Taplin_Corporatism.htm
--
"What good fortune for those in power that people do not think!"
- Adolf Hitler, as quoted by Joachim Fest.
=====================================
The fair use of a copyrighted work:
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site
is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml.
.
|
|
| User: "Werner Hetzner" |
|
| Title: Re: 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be calledCorporatism' |
05 May 2005 09:46:56 PM |
|
|
Black Elk wrote:
Corporatism
by Jonathan Taplin
Dissident Voice
June 3, 2003
"The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism
because it is a merger of State and corporate power"
--Benito Mussolini (1883-1945), Fascist Dictator of
Italy ...
We have that here. Business is very highly regulated in the USA. That
means the state has insunuated itself in business. Laws decide virtually
everything business and citizens can do.
http://1marketsquare.com/CapLP/PatriotAct.shtml
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Dave Simpson" |
|
| Title: Re: 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism' |
05 May 2005 10:52:08 PM |
|
|
The stupid Left shows its stupidity once again. This happens all the
time with "corporate state." The "corpus" is the nation, which brings
business under its control and integrates it with government (not
subjecting the nation to the control of business, as stupid leftists
claim). Time after time the Left ignores fascism as practiced by its
US liberal agents in the USA, and dishonestly (and stupidly) associates
fascism with the business community (and even with capitalism).
You can tell the most stupid leftists because they see the fascism
sought by the Left, such as the HillaryCare fiasco and outrage, not as
the government takeover it was an example of leftist fascism in the
USA, but "shoveling money into the furnaces of corporate greed." (It
was fascism, while keeping health care providers nominally private, so
they would still be subject to junk lawsuits, so the Democratic Party's
best and the USA's worst interest group would remain satisfied.)
.
|
|
|
| User: "Dwain" |
|
| Title: Re: 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism' |
06 May 2005 01:24:08 PM |
|
|
Once again, Dave Simpson has his head screwed in backwards (sigh.)
Dave thinks universal health care is fascism, I suppose like in fascist
Canada and fascist Britain and fascist Switzerland and fascist Holland
and fascist Denmark.
Dave Simpson thinks there is no relationship between fascism and
capitalism and corporate power. Little wonder he also hates Social
Security, wants to bomb Syria and Iran, and thinks depleted uranium is
as harmless as lead.
Dave, here are two definitions of fascism. See if you can grasp them...
"Fascism is a political, social and economic form of society wherein by
virtue of a merger which has been accomplished between certain powerful
financial interests and a military machine, the entire nation is under
the dictatorship of this oligarchy. Individuality and freedom are
suppressed 'in the interests of the state' which happens to be none
other than the dictating oligarchy." - U.S. Army
"Fascism is capitalism plus murder." - Upton Sinclair
In article <1115351527.983791.284530@z14g2000cwz.googlegroups.com>,
david_l_simpson@yahoo.com says...
The stupid Left shows its stupidity once again. This happens all the
time with "corporate state." The "corpus" is the nation, which brings
business under its control and integrates it with government (not
subjecting the nation to the control of business, as stupid leftists
claim). Time after time the Left ignores fascism as practiced by its
US liberal agents in the USA, and dishonestly (and stupidly) associates
fascism with the business community (and even with capitalism).
You can tell the most stupid leftists because they see the fascism
sought by the Left, such as the HillaryCare fiasco and outrage, not as
the government takeover it was an example of leftist fascism in the
USA, but "shoveling money into the furnaces of corporate greed." (It
was fascism, while keeping health care providers nominally private, so
they would still be subject to junk lawsuits, so the Democratic Party's
best and the USA's worst interest group would remain satisfied.)
.
|
|
|
| User: "Topaz" |
|
| Title: Re: Re: 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism' |
06 May 2005 08:35:02 PM |
|
|
MUNICH
SPEECH OF APRIL 24, 1923
.. . . I REJECT the word 'Proletariat.' The Jew who coined the word
meant by 'Proletariat,' not the oppressed, but those who work with
their hands. And those who work with their intellects are stigmatized
bluntly as 'Bourgeois.' It is not the character of a man's life which
forms the basis of this classification, it is simply the occupation -
whether a man works with his brain or with his body. And in this
turbulent mass of the hand-workers the Jew recognized a new power
which might perhaps be his instrument for the gaining of that which is
his ultimate goal: World supremacy, the destruction of the national
States.
And while the Jew 'organizes' these masses, he organizes business,
too, at the same time. Business was depersonalized, i.e., Judaized.
Business lost the Aryan character of work: it became an object of
speculation. Master and man were torn asunder . . . and he who created
this class division was the same person who led the masses in their
opposition to this class division, led them not against his Jewish
brethren, but against the last remnants of independent national
economic life.
And these remnants, the bourgeoisie which also was already Judaized,
resisted the great masses who were knocking at the door and demanding
better conditions of life. And so the Jewish leaders succeeded in
hammering into the minds of the masses the Marxist propaganda: 'Your
deadly foe is the bourgeoisie; if he were not there, you would be
free.' If it had not been for the boundless blindness and stupidity of
our bourgeoisie the Jew would never have become the leader of the
German working-classes. And the ally of this stupidity was the pride
of the 'better stratum' of society which thought it would degrade
itself if it condescended to stoop to the level of the 'Plebe.' The
millions of our German fellow countrymen would never have been
alienated from their people if the leading strata of society had shown
any care for their welfare.
You must say farewell to the hope that you can expect any action from
the parties of the Right on behalf of the freedom of the German
people. The most elementary factor is lacking: the will, the courage,
the energy. Where then can any strength still be found within the
German people? It is to be found, as always, in the great masses:
THERE ENERGY IS SLUMBERING AND IT ONLY AWAITS THE MAN WHO WILL SUMMON
IT FROM ITS PRESENT SLUMBER AND WILL HURL IT INTO THE GREAT BATTLE FOR
THE DESTINY OF THE GERMAN RACE.
The battle which alone can liberate Germany will be fought out with
the forces which well up from the great masses. Without the help of
the German workingman you will never regain a German Reich. Not in our
political salons lies the strength of the nation, but in the hand, in
the brain, and in the will of the great masses. Now as ever:
Liberation does not come down from above, it will spring up from
below.... If we today make the highest demands upon everyone, that is
only in order that we may give back to him and to his child the
highest gift: Freedom and the respect of the rest of the world....
The parties of the Right have lost all energy: they see the flood
coming, but their one longing is just for once in their lives to form
a Government. Unspeakably incapable, utterly lacking in energy,
cowards all - such are all these bourgeois parties and that at the
moment when the nation needs heroes -not chatterers.
In the Left there is somewhat more energy, but it is used for the ruin
of Germany. The Communists on principle reject the discipline imposed
by the State: in its stead they preach party discipline: they reject
the administration of the State as a bureaucracy, while they fall on
their knees before the bureaucracy of their own Movement. There is
arising a State within the State which stands in deadly enmity against
the State which we know, the State of the community of the people.
This new State ultimately produces men who reject with fanaticism
their own people so that in the end Foreign Powers find in them their
allies. Such is the result of Marxist teaching....
What we want is not a State of drones but a State which gives to
everyone that to which on the basis of his own activity he has a
right. He who refuses to do honest work shall not be a citizen of the
State. The State is not a plantation where the interests of foreign
capital are supreme. Capital is not the master of the State, but its
servant. Therefore the State must not be brought into dependence on
international loan capital. And if anyone believes that that cannot be
avoided, then do not let him be surprised that no one is ready to give
his life for this State. Further, that greatest injustice must be
corrected which today still weighs heavily upon our people and upon
almost all peoples. If in a State only he who does honest work is a
citizen, then everyone has the right to demand that in his old age he
shall be kept free from care and want. That would mean the realization
of the greatest social achievement.
Adolf Hitler
www.spearhead-uk.com http://www.natvan.com
http://www.thebirdman.org http://www.RealNews247.com
.
|
|
|
|
| User: "Dave Simpson" |
|
| Title: Re: 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism' |
06 May 2005 05:38:40 PM |
|
|
Poor Dwain, making a fool of himself again...
Anyone with a mind (that works; sorry, Dwain) can read and learn the
facts.
.
|
|
|
| User: "Dwain" |
|
| Title: Re: 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism' |
07 May 2005 08:37:05 AM |
|
|
Notice how Dave Simpson cannot argue? He simply cuts out the article and
calls people names. Dave is the fool, here.
Now Dave, if you want to convince anyone you have a mind, refute the
following definition of fascism...
"Fascism is a political, social and economic form of society wherein by
virtue of a merger which has been accomplished between certain powerful
financial interests and a military machine, the entire nation is under
the dictatorship of this oligarchy. Individuality and freedom are
suppressed 'in the interests of the state' which happens to be none
other than the dictating oligarchy." - U.S. Army
Go ahead, try, Dave!
.
|
|
|
| User: "Werner Hetzner" |
|
| Title: Re: 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be calledCorporatism' |
07 May 2005 09:32:27 AM |
|
|
Dwain wrote:
Notice how Dave Simpson cannot argue? He simply cuts out the article and
calls people names. Dave is the fool, here.
Now Dave, if you want to convince anyone you have a mind, refute the
following definition of fascism...
"Fascism is a political, social and economic form of society wherein by
virtue of a merger which has been accomplished between certain powerful
financial interests and a military machine, the entire nation is under
the dictatorship of this oligarchy. Individuality and freedom are
suppressed 'in the interests of the state' which happens to be none
other than the dictating oligarchy." - U.S. Army
What do you call this?
---
It was another close election. We find ourselves warring against each
other - - red states and blue; 'them against us'; 'Left' vs. 'Right';
Republicans vs. Democrats. These forces are just about equal. Each seeks
to take, keep and expand the power to impose values on the other.
Campaign finance laws not withstanding, this election cost much more
than the last. Both sides spent as if in combat and more than many
countries spend on a real war. All else -- other ideas for example -- is
a distraction we can no longer afford in this new war between Americans.
Win at all cost! Tons of money, advertising campaigns, phone banks,
promises, defections, "Get out the vote" battalions, voter registration
shenanigans, vote fraud, hoards of pollsters, and armies of lawyers have
become our new reality. Except for that other war, the media covered
little else and ignored other candidates.
Why is an election so important? Is it because so much power has never
been so concentrated in so few? If power corrupts, what has happened to
our perspective? Can't there be more colors than just red or blue? We
keep getting evidence that politics as usual is dysfunctional. So why do
we allow ourselves to see no other choices? Is choice even possible
without diversity? What do you have when you have no choice? Cars aren't
either red or blue so why must we all be limited by Republican or
Democrat rules?
Prohibitions, limitations and mandates now rule us all. Red voters hope
to impose their values on the blue and visa versa. The red forces will
limit, mandate or prohibit some things while blue cohorts would do the
same to others. No matter the outcome, one half of the electorate will
have gained more power to impose its values at the expense of the other
half. Isn't that expense becoming unbearable and unsustainable for all?
Should we be ruled by anyone? Should values be forced on us and choices
restricted by any party? Can't we try to liberate instead of regulate
each other? Wasn't America supposed to be about voluntary agreement
instead of forced obedience?
Libertarian Party of New York
http://www.NY.LP.org/choice
.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| User: "Topaz" |
|
| Title: Re: 'The first stage of fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism' |
06 May 2005 08:30:59 PM |
|
|
corporatism
"All those engaged in a common enterprise, particularly as a means of
making a living, have a common interest and should deal with
government through their leaders as, for example, educational workers,
or workers in agriculture, rather than 'horizontally' as laborers,
clerical workers, managers, and so on."
Source:
David Miller et al., eds, The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political
Thought (Oxford, 1987)
Of course Mussolini did not mean that corporations as in the USA
should have more power or profits.
Here are parts of a post about Mussolini written by a very
anti-Mussolini person. He has done his homework though and cites many
books which are also anti-Mussolini and anti-Fascist. These are some
things they admit:
"He had a profound contempt for those whose overriding ambition was to
be
rich. It was a mania, he thought, a kind of disease, and he comforted
himself with the reflection that the rich were rarely happy"
Here Hibbert (1962, p. 47) is describing a lifelong attitude of
Mussolini
that continued right into his time as Italy's Prime Minister - when he
refused to take his official salary.
"There was much truth in the comment of a Rome newspaper that the new
fasci
did not aim at the defence of the ruling class or the existing State
but
wanted to lead the revolutionary forces into the Nationalist camp so
as to
prevent a victory of Bolshevism.
even after coming
to power, to take drives in the country with his wife and stop at
various
farmhouses on the way for a chat with the family there. He would enjoy
discussing the crops, the weather and all the usual rural topics and
obviously just liked the feeling of being one of the people. His claim
to
represent the people was not just theory but heartfelt. And he never
gave up
his "anti-bourgeois" rhetoric.
His policies were basically protectionist. He
controlled the exchange-rate of the Italian currency and promoted that
old
favourite of the economically illiterate - autarky - meaning that he
tried
to get Italy to become wholly self-sufficient rather than rely on
foreign
trade. He wanted to protect Italian products from competing foreign
products.
By 1939 he had doubled Italy's grain
production from its traditional level, enabling Italy to cut wheat
imports
by 75% (Smith, 1967, p. 92).
He made Capri a bird sanctuary (Smith, 1967, p. 84) and
in 1926 he issued a decree reducing the size of newspapers to save
wood
pulp. And, believe it or not, he even mandated gasohol - i.e. mixing
industrial alcohol with petroleum products to make fuel for cars
(Smith,
1967, p. 87). Mussolini also disliked the population drift from rural
areas
into the big cities and in 1930 passed a law to put a stop to it
unless
official permission was granted
he advocated private enterprise within
a strict set of State controls designed, among other things, to
prevent
abuse of monopoly power (Gregor, 1979, Ch. 5).
....a big
expansion of public works and a great improvement in social insurance
measures. He also set up the "Dopolavoro" (after work) organization to
give
workers cheap recreations of various kinds (cf. the Nazi Kraft durch
Freude
movement). His public health measures (such as the attack on
tuberculosis
and the setting up of a huge maternal and child welfare organization)
were
particularly notable for their rationality and efficiency and, as
such, were
rewarded with great success. For instance, the incidence of
tuberculosis
dropped dramatically and infant mortality declined by more than 20%
(Gregor,
p. 259).
"instituted a programme of public works hitherto unrivalled in modern
Europe. Bridges, canals and roads were built, hospitals and schools,
railway
stations and orphanages, swamps were drained and land reclaimed,
forest were
planted and universities were endowed."
In 1929 Mussolini and Pope Pius
12th signed the Lateran treaty - which is still the legal basis for
the
existence of the Vatican State to this day - and Pius in fact at one
stage
called Mussolini "the man sent by Providence". The treaty recognized
Roman
Catholicism as the Italian State religion as well as recognizing the
Vatican
as a sovereign state. What Mussolini got in exchange was acceptance by
the
church - something that was enormously important in the Italy of that
time.
the great hatred that existed in prewar
Germany between the Nazis and the "Reds". And the early Fascists
battled the
"Reds" too, of course.
The 1919 election
manifesto, for instance, contained policies of worker control of
industry,
confiscation of war profits, abolition of the Stock exchange, land for
the
peasants and abolition of the Monarchy and nobility. Further,
Mussolini
never ceased to inveigh against "plutocrats".
He wanted a harmonious and united
Italy for all Italians of all classes and was sure that achieving just
treatment for the workers needed neither revolution nor any kind of
artificially enforced equality.
This made Italian Fascism a much more popular creed than Stalin's
Communism. This
is perhaps most clearly seen by the always persuasive "voting with
your
feet" criterion. Mussolini made no effort to prevent Italians from
emigrating and although some anti-Fascists did, net emigration
actually FELL
under Mussolini. Compare this with Stalin and the Berlin wall.
Mussolini gained
power through political rather than revolutionary means. His famous
march on
Rome was only superficially revolutionary. The King of Italy and the
army
approved of him because of his pragmatic policies so did not oppose
the
march. So this collusion ensured that Mussolini's "revolution" was
essentially bloodless.
His considerable popularity for many years among a wide
range of Italians shows how effective his recipe for achieving that
was.
In his "corporate state", Mussolini was the first to create ...a
system
of capitalism under tight government control. And his corporate state
was
one where the workers had (at least in theory) equal rights with
management.
REFERENCES Amis, M. (2002) Koba the Dread : laughter and the twenty
million.
N.Y.: Talk Miramax
Carsten, F.L. (1967) The rise of Fascism. London: Methuen.
Funk & Wagnall's New Encyclopedia (1983) Funk & Wagnall's
Galbraith, J.K. (1969) The affluent society. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton
Mifflin.
Gilmour, I.H.J.L. (1978) Inside right. London: Quartet.
Greene, N. (1968) Fascism: An anthology. N.Y.: Crowell.
Gregor, A.J. (1979) Italian Fascism and developmental dictatorship
Princeton, N.J.: Univ. Press.
Hagan, J. (1966) Modern History and its themes. Croydon, Victoria,
Australia: Longmans.
Hibbert, C. (1962) Benito Mussolini Geneva: Heron Books. Herzer, I.
(1989)
The Italian refuge: Rescue of Jews during the holocaust. Washington,
D.C.:
Catholic University of America Press
Horowitz, D. (1998) Up from multiculturalism. Heterodoxy, January.
See:
http://www.cspc.org/het/multicul.htm
Lenin, V.I. (1952) "Left-Wing" Communism, an Infantile Disorder. In:
Selected Works, Vol. II, Part 2. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing
House.
Martino, A. (1998) The modern mask of socialism. 15th John Bonython
lecture,
Centre for Independent Studies, Sydney. See
http://www.cis.org.au/Events/JBL/JBL98.htm
Muravchik, J. (2002) Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism
San
Francisco: Encounter Books.
Smith, D.M. (1967) The theory and practice of Fascism. In: Greene, N.
Fascism: An anthology N.Y.: Crowell.
Steinberg, J. (1990) All or nothing: The Axis and the holocaust
London:
Routledge.
www.spearhead-uk.com http://www.natvan.com
http://www.thebirdman.org http://www.RealNews247.com
.
|
|
|
|
|
Related Articles |
|
|
