On Friday I was in Washington for a meeting with Administration officials. In the course of that meeting, they requested that I “step aside” as CEO of GM, and so I have.
http://media.gm.com/servlet/GatewayServlet?target=http://image.emerald.gm.com/gmnews/viewmonthlyreleasedetail.do?domain=74&docid=53290
The above is on the General Motors website. Since when, in a system of free enterprise, does the government pick CEOs for companies? Well, it doesn't. This is just the latest move deeper into fascism.
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."
-- Benito Mussolini
Ridiculous, I can hear many say. Obama is no Mussolini. True, ours is not yet the full blown dictatorship that Italy had back then.
Fascism will come at the hands of perfectly authentic Americans who have been working to commit this country to the rule of the bureaucratic state; interfering in the affairs of the states and cities; taking part in the management of industry and finance and agriculture; assuming the role of great national banker and investor, borrowing billions every year and spending them on all sorts of projects through which such a government can paralyze opposition and command public support; marshaling great armies and navies at crushing costs to support the industry of war and preparation for war which will become our nation’s greatest industry; and adding to all this the most romantic adventures in global planning, regeneration, and domination, all to be done under the authority of a powerfully centralized government in which the executive will hold in effect all the powers, with Congress reduced to the role of a debating society.
— John T. Flynn, As We Go Marching [1944]
The problem is we adopt more and more parts of the fascist agenda everyday it seems. Ours is a form of fascism that might best be described as elected fascism. The leaders change, the form remains.
Some excellent reading on the subject:
Economic Fascism
When people hear the word “fascism” they naturally think of its ugly racism and anti-Semitism as practiced by the totalitarian regimes of Mussolini and Hitler. But there was also an economic policy component of fascism, known in Europe during the 1920s and ‘30s as “corporatism,” that was an essential ingredient of economic totalitarianism as practiced by Mussolini and Hitler. So-called corporatism was adopted in Italy and Germany during the 1930s and was held up as a “model” by quite a few intellectuals and policy makers in the United States and Europe. A version of economic fascism was in fact adopted in the United States in the 1930s and survives to this day. In the United States these policies were not called “fascism” but “planned capitalism.” The word fascism may no longer be politically acceptable, but its synonym “industrial policy” is as popular as ever.
(snip)
http://www.thefreemanonline.org/columns/economic-fascism/
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Rob Mars
old new lefty
RomanticPoetess
mslibertea
cartouche
Patrick Hahn
Salon.com
Comments
I'm glad that you took the time to define and properly use the term "fascism" which is misused often.
It is very disturbing. Unfortunately, most people probably won't be that bothered by it, they won't get the implications. Hell, if people are clamoring for sacking the CEOs they're unwittingly asking for fascism.
Maybe I'll start a new clothing company. I'll make & sell black shirts. We have to adapt to the times! (gallows humor)
Fuck that. I have many doubts and worries and fears about government involvement, socialism in the marketplace and infringement of my rights, but in some cases, if you want the dough, turn your head and cough.
On the positive side, you did a great job giving us an accurate definition of fascism, as Roger pointed out. Fascism, socialism, communism and even capitalism are often thrown around with little understanding of what those terms mean.
I agree that there is something obscene about a 40-year business career being terminated by the fiat of a fledgling Chicago-style politician whose business experience doesn't extend beyond running a lemonade stand, if that.
However, Roger has a valid point that the supplier of rescue funds certainly has a right to impose conditions. This is precisely what Congress failed to do in the AIG matter.
The only way I can reconcile this apparent inconsistency is that government's providing the rescue funds is a bad idea in the first place. After all, Obama isn't providing his funds for the rescue, he's providing ours. The rules that would apply to a private investment in GM and others simply don't apply to government funding.
I think when the dust settles, the hastily thrown together rescue plans will be seen as fundamentally flawed in principle.
I'm sure an effective case can be made that GM was badly managed for many years. In a bankruptcy scenario, that management would be replaced in a less imperious fashion and the loss would be suffered by the stockholders, creditors, and suppliers of GM, not the public at large. It's not a pretty picture, but it's certainly more appealing than seeing the Obama/Geithner misadventure using taxpayer funds as the basis for passing judgment on the head of a major private corporation.
"Obama fires CEO."
It potentially has a snowball effect, where to stay viable, everyone takes government money,and then everyone is a government employee, and at the mercy of the government. Not very wise I fear.
america is incapable of long term planning, and short term planning doesn't work for long.
when investors want maximum dividends, ceos deliver or are replaced. a money driven society has this current collapse built in. socialism is the answer, run by democracy. only the ever re-newed electorate can have long term goals, past the next election, past the nest agm, with an eye on the next generation.
You wrote: "socialism is the answer, run by democracy." Perhaps you could enlighten us with an example, historic or present day, of this democratic socialism actually working.
This is just a case of finding something to nitpick within a larger policy that, by what I can see of your economic views, you should agree with. But are you really going to Glenn Beck-ize it and pull out the fascism card?
The government is now a major player in the economy. Nobody is happy about it, but you can blame the companies that demanded bailouts for asking for the handout - the government didn't wish this upon them, as much as some communofascist conspiracy theories may claim.
You make some good points, though you misunderstand my pov. Most businessmen these days are part of the problem. They don't want free markets, they want the govt to use its regulatory power to help them at our expense.
What I want is no govt regulation or other interventions in the economy. Private money with interest rates set by the market would have made a big difference. No bubble.
Can't wait for the defense of socialism.