Democratic Socialism
Not sure where this came from:
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.Politically, it is heads-I-win when things go right, and tails-you-lose when things go wrong. This is far preferable, from Obama's point of view, since it gives him a variety of scapegoats for all his failed policies, without having to use President Bush as a scapegoat all the time.
Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely -- and correctly -- regarded as being on the political left. ....Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.
People get blinded (probably for good reason, given the heinousness) by Hitler's rounding people up in camps and can't really get beyond that in thinking about fascism. Which is why I sometimes find it helpful to use the term "Mussolini-style fascism". And the US Left, led by FDR, was very much in thrall with portions of Mussolini-style fascism, so much so that the National Industrial Recovery Act was a modelled on Mussolini's economic management of command and control by corporatist boards. Here is one description:
The image of a strong leader taking direct charge of an economy during hard times fascinated observers abroad. Italy was one of the places that Franklin Roosevelt looked to for ideas in 1933. Roosevelt's National Recovery Act (NRA) attempted to cartelize the American economy just as Mussolini had cartelized Italy's. Under the NRA Roosevelt established industry-wide boards with the power to set and enforce prices, wages, and other terms of employment, production, and distribution for all companies in an industry. Through the Agricultural Adjustment Act the government exercised similar control over farmers. Interestingly, Mussolini viewed Roosevelt's New Deal as "boldly... interventionist in the field of economics." Hitler's nazism also shared many features with Italian fascism, including the syndicalist front. Nazism, too, featured complete government control of industry, agriculture, finance, and investment.
The NRA has to be in the top 10 best overturn decisions by the Supreme Court. Thought experiment -- do you think you could buy a Honda, Toyota, Tesla, Nissan or Kia in the US today if GM and the UAW were running the automotive board?
