I’m not clear on what it takes to be a facist state, but watching Barney Frank today drool on TV today over the opportunity to have equity positions in corporations for the chance for the government to profit was interesting… are we facist yet?
Yet? You say that as if we haven’t been on that road for 6 or 7 decades.
I would say a little over a century since 1890, actually.
I know we’ve been on that road… I’m not as big on the political terms as economics, but figured we’ve had a socialistic semi-dictatorship since at least Lincoln, at least he is the one that put the question of abandoning the Constitution to rest in my mind.
I guess there’s no one that can bring the facist state to town cloaked in the flag like some profit-hating, yet profit-seeking senators. Wonder how that’ll work out.
*Fascist
Fascism is the primacy of the state over all other institutions. A rightist example would be the Protestant conflation of the State with the Christian mission. A leftist example would be the State mandating that a homosexual union have equal dignity with heterosexual marriage.
So basically in the US we’ve got the worst of all worlds, and every bit of it by democratic vote. Fascism is the natural conclusion of democracy.
I don’t think leftists putting homosexual marriage into law qualifies as fascism, statism maybe but not fascism. Fascism implies a single party state under the command of a single leader, which brutally suppresses any political opposition. It also a place where any legal protections against arbitrary arrest and imprisonment are eliminated. In short the police can arrest you for a crime and throw you in prison without the trouble of going through due process of law.
I think these key features of fascism is what most people identify with fascism - not that Hitler was the first to regulate smoking.
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It’s “fascism” not “facism.” Common spelling mistake.
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No. We have a mixed economy. Fascism is rather different, as economic fascism includes more “class cooperation.” FDR and the New Deal was pretty fascist, IMO, but we’ve moved away from those policies, though now it looks like we’re moving back to them.
I would generally define fascism as a political system in which there is a significant degree of synergy between buisiness and state, combined with nationalism.
Let’s see…
the United States
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has intensely nationalised industries to shelter it from the ‘unstable nature of capitalism’
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has invaded 2 sovereign nations
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is attempting to “free itself” from “foreign oil”
Hmmm…is anyone else thinking this
NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Plus militarism and other conservative ‘values’…Also, I think unions play an important role in fascism.
Actually under fascism, Unions are illegal and so is the right to strike. The argument being that the state is going look after the workers from the predatory capitalists anyway so Unions are redundants and divisive.
Ever hear of syndicalism?
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/learn/features/timeline/depwwii/unions/unions.html
"Although the future of labor unions looked grim in 1933, their fortunes would soon change. The tremendous gains labor unions experienced in the 1930s resulted, in part, from the pro-union stance of the Roosevelt administration and from legislation enacted by Congress during the early New Deal. "
For an in depth study of fascism read An Intelligent Persons Guide To Fascism by Edward G Griffith and Robert O. Paxton’s The Anatomy Of Fascism.
For a quick answer it is hyper-nationalist “action” parties engaging the failed liberal democratic states. It is a split off from “national greatness conservatism” combined with love of production of capitalism, but not its individualism.
Eerily similar to the philosophy and action of the T.R. and F.D.R. administration.
America was fascist before there was fascism. Lincoln was Hitler’s hero.
Most scholars of fascism believe the first movement that would officially qualify as ‘fascist’ was the KKK.