Friday, October 7, 2011

How Fascism Has Gone Mainstream

By Lew Rockwell

Everyone knows that the term fascist is a pejorative, often used to describe any political position a speaker doesn’t like. There isn’t anyone around who is willing to stand up and say: "I’m a fascist; I think fascism is a great social and economic system."

But I submit that if they were honest, the vast majority of politicians, intellectuals, and political activists would have to say just that.

Fascism is the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police State as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive State the unlimited master of society.

This describes mainstream politics in America today. And not just in America. It’s true in Europe, too. It is so much part of the mainstream that it is hardly noticed any more.

It is true that fascism has no overarching theoretical apparatus. There is no grand theorist like Marx. That makes it no less real and distinct as a social, economic, and political system. Fascism also thrives as a distinct style of social and economic management. And it is as much or more of a threat to civilization than full-blown socialism.

This is because its traits are so much a part of life – and have been for so long – that they are nearly invisible to us.

If fascism is invisible to us, it is truly the silent killer. It fastens a huge, violent, lumbering State on the free market that drains its capital and productivity like a deadly parasite on a host. This is why the fascist State has been called The Vampire Economy. It sucks the economic life out of a nation and brings about a slow death of a once thriving economy.

Let me just provide a recent example.

6 comments:

  1. Except for sky-daddy beliefs that cloud his thinking, Lew is a brilliant man...Same for Gary North.

    ReplyDelete
  2. What a great speech. Very good explanation of the fascist impulse that has driven US (and world) politics for 60+ years.

    Anon@547, although I'm not a believer in the traditional sense, all religion (separated from dogma) is at its core universal and applicable to modern life- don't steal, don't kill, don't lie or defraud, don't worship false idols (the big sin committed by all the "USA! USA! USA!" cheerleaders like Romney) and treat others as you wish to be treated...these are the building blocks of civil society.

    I don't see Rockwell or North pushing their deeply held religious views (except when directly relevant to the topic) and their tolerance for alternative religions- including the "evil and demonic" Islam that has become the go-to boogeyman of political parasites of both parties- is far higher than many so-called preachers and priests and imams and rabbis. They believe that worship, and different religious beliefs, can co-exist peacefully as long as respect is given on both sides.

    I would bet that Lew would be much friendlier and respectful of a Devil-worshipping satanist (as long as he respected the libertarian "first principle" of liberty) than he would be to "Rev. Jesse Jackson" or "Rev. Al Sharpton" and their socialist bullshit.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anon@5:47 PM,

    I'd like to hear just one specific example of how Lew Rockwell's "sky-daddy beliefs" clouds his thinking.....maybe you would even be kind enough to offer one for Gary North also.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Religious moderates give cover to fundamentalists' beliefs. @Richard assumes that all ppl can successfully pluck the wisdom from the silly of the Bible. This is proven false thru out history. Please watch Sam Harris at IdeaCity on utube to get a sense.

    ReplyDelete
  5. This is brilliant. I see my work here is done. If one cannot diagnose the disease properly, its unlikely a cure can be found.

    Fascism is the present course of most western governments, not socialism. If only because a) American socialists are incompetent, muddle-headed doctrinaire idiots, and b) fascism, being far more simple and requiring little in the way of higher-level thought, is consistent with American tendencies of exceptionalism and empire.

    These governments will use all tools at their disposal - most critically the military, media, and central banks and trans-national institutions (World Bank, IMF, BIS, etc.) to effect the fascist agenda.

    Quoting from Rockwell's excellent speech:

    "It is for all these reasons that fascism takes on a right-wing cast. It doesn’t attack fundamental bourgeois values. It draws on them to garner support for a democratically backed all-round national regimentation of economic control, censorship, cartelization, political intolerance, geographic expansion, executive control, the police State, and militarism.

    For my part, I have no problem referring to the fascist program as a right-wing theory, even if it does fulfill aspects of the left-wing dream. The crucial matter here concerns its appeal to the public and to the demographic groups that are normally drawn to right-wing politics.

    If you think about it, right-wing statism is of a different color, cast, and tone from left-wing statism. Each is designed to appeal to a different set of voters with different interests and values.

    These divisions, however, are not strict, and we’ve already seen how a left-wing socialist program can adapt itself and become a right-wing fascist program with very little substantive change other than its marketing program."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Unless restrained, all governments devolve to tyranny. Now, the Federal Reserve is effecting a coup d etat through the Dodd Frank legislation, similar to the Jekyll Island coup that established the Federal Reserve Bank.

    The purpose of the current coup d etat, the Federal Reserve financial services regulatory reform coup, is to establish sovereign authority over credit, lending, money and investment, as well as administration of commerce, trade and industry, to promote the security and prosperity of a soon coming regional economic government, as called for by the Club of Rome in 1974. Eventually, a group of stakeholders from government, finance, and industry will provide a new seigniorage, that is a new moneyness, based upon diktat, not debt. The word, will, and way of these sovereigns, having sovereign authority, will create a new money and credit, and the people will be amazed and follow after it, giving it their full allegiance. Despite the William Lyon Mackenzie King warning, published in BATR, totalitarian collectivism is the way of the future, “ Once a nation parts with control of its credit, it matters not who makes the nation’s laws."

    The Federal Reserve’s regulatory mission creep through the Dodd Frank legislation is an example of tyranny creep, whose genesis came through the New Democrat Coalition's Financial Services Task Force which announced the Working Group on Regulatory Modernization.

    The end result will be totalitarian rule manifesting as state corporatism, austerity measures, and debt servitude. Totalitarian Collectivism is America’s, Canada’s and Mexico’s future, as all countries will be merged in a continental economic government. Albert Nerenberg writes in the Montreal Gazette that Our World Is Now Ruled By Finance. Its presence has displace real value in the economy. The world tomorrow will be ruled by diktat of the sovereigns as national sovereignty is waived and regional economic government is established.

    ReplyDelete