“Fascism is the organized attempt to introduce socialist planning with the consent of big business.” – Edward Conze (1934)
So, on the Fascist scale of 0 (September 17, 1787) to 10 (Nazi Germany, 1940), where do you think we stand today?
I’d put us at 7, maybe 8.
So many people today think that Fascism and Socialism are at opposite ends of the spectrum rather than being attached at the hip.
With Fabian Socialism in the middle. Where on that spectrum does Jeffersonian Democracy sit?
Neighboring peas in the pod. It is really just a matter of who does the aspiring tyrant have to suborn to become dictator for life.
If nobody except for a minority owns anything, then Communism. If many people own their own homes and businesses, then Fascism, as gradually the people own things that they eke out enough money to own, but every last thing they can do with it except what color paint (Non VOC paint, of course!) is regulated completely by the government.
“… no loud colors … “
Oh, yeah…….8. Perhaps trending to 9 as the 2022 mid terms approach.
I fear we are already past the point of no return….God please tell me I am wrong.
Hmmm. 6-7. 8 is likely a tipping point, where recovery – absent kinetic assistance requiring significant amounts of lead, brass, and blood – is not realistically possible.
It’s not too late to recover, but the time is getting short. The problem is generational. The next generation of voters have no experience with the disaster of socialism. The don’t remember Soviet Russia, and Auschwitz is just a paragraph or two blurb in a history book that they just gloss over. They see big government as normal and expected; they’ve been taught to think that any problem has a government solution. And of course, the government is happy to urge them to think that.
And all the major institutions (government, education, corporate governance, finance) are controlled by leftist statists. Mostly by default – conservatives mostly refused to fight the culture wars, or maybe more accurately, we fought the wrong ones. We got bogged down in minor skirmishes, as the major battles were slowly going on mostly out of sight. We surrendered as the left continued the long march through the institutions. The left’s grip is now so firm that they are fully engaged in purging anyone who resists from those institutions, banishing conservative thought to “deplorables” and thinking that is considered “fringe” and need not be taken seriously. The Overton window is largely on the left side of the spectrum, at least in the corridors of power. Actual voters need not be taken seriously.
Really – if voting ever really changed anything, do you think they would let us do it? The last election told us that they don’t even care anymore if we know they cheat.
If we’re going to recover, our window is fairly short. I’m not optimistic. Fortunately, I live in an area where I can retreat from the world and tell them to F- off.
The current inflationary run we’re about to fully experience, BTW, is not accidental, it’s intentional. It is government monetizing its debt. We all know that debt can’t be paid off, at least in real terms, but if we can just print funny money, the debt can be paid off. Of course, the money will be worthless, but that’s not government’s problem, that’s yours. And they don’t give a damn about you.
Frankly, I’m glad I’m not going to live to see 50 years from now. The US, as we knew it, and as was successful and the beacon to the world, is probably finished.
It was a good run. And I desperately hope I’m wrong.
If we can’t do something about “social media”, we will look longingly back at the days of an “8”.
“All roads lead to Fascism”
The distinctions between communist, socialist, and democratic socialist are without practical difference or merit. It is a largely academic matter of interest only to a small number of academics and a large number of those invested in the paradigm who play 3 card monte games to hide their evil.
Fascism, on the other hand has its own interesting pedigree. Rather than being a creature of the Right, as is often exclaimed, its roots lie with our very own Woodrow Wilson, who was very much a creature of the Left. It is one of the myriad “third ways” that attempts to combine the best of commieSoc with the best of free market capitalism, adhering to some sort of social calculus of greatest benefit to the most at lowest cost to whoever foots the bill.
This is the appeal. People of statist and collectivist bent who would normally caucus with commieSocs eventually arrive at the practical understanding that Socialism/Communism simply doesn’t work, and the only way to salvage the project is to adopt a parasitic relationship with capitalists. (Of course, the parasitism and exploitation inherent in their system will never be acknowledged by its proponents. At very most, they might try to pass it off as a symbiosis, which fools a lot of people)
Coming from the other direction, ill informed but well intentioned capitalists seek to manage societal risks via redistribution of resources to form “social safety nets”. Big business, sensitive to and dependent upon government conditions trade their position of influence for various market and crony market advantages, so they go along with the plan, egged on by the commieSocs, who are well positioned after 100 years of Gramsci to fan those flames.
Atop it all is our political elite: The Democrats, who are the primary authors of our post constitutional order, and their junior partners, the complicit Republicans, who are both equally and fully committed to preserving that post constitutional order which is the engine on their gravy train.
We are well past the point of no return, if for no other reason than that no matter which side they started on, a sufficient majority of our countrymen accept the premise that government’s business is to form and administrate most if not all aspects of society, and the only remaining question is what shade of purple it should be.