Is It Fascism Yet? Experts Disagree
Nick Gillespie | November 29, 2006, 6:48am
Over at the vastly entertaining and provocative 10ZenMonkeys, RU Sirius has asked a bunch of wise men (and one woman) whether the U.S. is now a fascist country--a fair enough question given the way that various folks across the spectrum throw around the term. The responses range from hell yes to don't be stupid and worth a look. Here's a snippet from Ken Layne, blogger extraordinaire and a central player at the dearly departed Sploid:
Humorless liberals yell “Fascist!” at anything they don’t like: NASCAR, Wal-Mart, or especially somebody enjoying a nice hamburger.
The Neocons have made the bizarre decision that Fascism is actually a 1,400-year-old Semitic religion from Arabia, even though that religion is virtually indistinguishable from the monotheistic Semitic religions they claim to follow. Of course, the Neocons are the closest thing to a purely Fascist party in America.
And my beloved libertarians have the bad habit of believing Fascism is a mom asking grandpa not to blow cigar smoke on the babies, or the cops asking some target shooters to point away from the pre-school....
It’s not fascism, yet. And it’s unlikely that the USA’s post-9/11 dystopia will ever be called Fascism by future historians. It will never become outright Fascism if enough of us take our guns to D.C. and clean house.
More--from the likes of Michael Badnarik's campaign consultant, Howard "Smart Mobs" Rheingold, and sexpert Suzie Bright--here.
jb | November 29, 2006, 10:07am | #
There are, and will always be, the first preconditions of fascism. Those are:
The willingness of the people to censor unpopular speech, and the willingness of politicians to take political advantage in doing so
The willingness of the people to trade liberty for security, and the willingness of politicians to take political advantage by increasing the rate of trade
The willingness of the people to oppose external and internal enemies, if presented with them, and the willingness of politicians to take political advantage by making such presentations
The presence of all of these means that protofascist movements can always arise--the country is always ovulating, ready to gestate fascism.
Severe crises (9/11 was not severe on this scale) like the depression+deliberate ruin of the Weimar government in Germany in the early 1930s, the doubling in size of Rumania in the 1920s, the overextension, collapse, and lack of reward of Italy in the 1920s...those are like the sperm of fascism.
And when a country gets sufficiently fucked, the sperm fertilizes the egg and we get fascism.
9/11 is barely oral sex. Yes, the country sucks, but we're nowhere near fucked yet.
tarran | November 29, 2006, 2:36pm | #
Well the U.S. has flirted with fascism since it first tried it out in WW-I
Fascism is literally a system wherein all resources are marshalled for the good of the state which according to Benito Mussolini is a proxy for the people.
It is unfortunate that most people think of Germany under the Nazi leadership as the archetype of fascism. It is one of many flavors. Fascism in its purest form was I think Italy under Mussolini.
In a fascist state, the economy is highly regulated, and while individuals nominally own the factors of production, what is produced, in what quantities and at what price it is sold are controlled.
In World War I, the U.S. government imposed this form of regimentation. The effect of it was to ensure high "profits" for politically connected firms at the expense of outsiders.
After the war, the government loosened its control, but not entirely, and many of the leading "businessmen" worked actively to recentralize and cartelize the economy. Their man was Herbert Hoover, who (along with the Federal Reserve) managed to intervene enough in the economy to cause a recession which morphed into a depression.
FDR who ran initially on a free-market platform, once in office wasted no time in dramatically expanding Hoover's programs. He also adopted many of Mussolini's programs, including a similar economic cartelization (the National Recovery Act).
This regimentation continued through World War II and into the early post-war period. Fortunately as the central control lurched ot its inevitable conclusion, Truman took a step back. Faced with a meat shortage created by his agricultural policies, Truman considered having the National Guard sweep through farms confiscating livestock and chickens, but chose instead to lift the price-controls. Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin would quite happily have shot the farmers.
The U.S. has retained the essential elements of economic fascism. Mass media is controled by the government. Agriculture is still controlled by the government (as those poor farmers who bred the "ugly" tomato found out whn they tried to ship them out of Florida). The purchase and sale of businesses is monitored by the FTC.
We also retain the fuhrerprincip, the belief in a great leader who controls everything. We talk about how the president "managed" the economy.
I would argue that the U.S. is a fascist-lite country. It is not as fascist as it was under FDR or Nixon, but it retains many of the forms of fascism. However, the U.S. government has always hesitated when confronted with the decision of whether to engage in mass-murder or brutal repression to support its economic policies such as when Truman lifted price controls rather than have the National Guard shoot farmers.
I think the U.S. will try out fascism at some point in the near future. I found the attitudes of policemen and Natl. Guard in New Orleans in the wake of Katrina very troubling. The confiscation of guns, the in our face patrolling showed a willingness to dehumanize their countrymen. The reluctance that was a critical check on full blown totalitarianism is no more.
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