On Wednesday (7/29/09) I was interviewed on an hour long radio program on WBCR, Berkshire community radio out of Great Barrington. The sound guy was listening intently in on the interview and carried on a conversation with me afterwards. He declared our government heading towards socialism, thinking that this was in agreement with everything I had said. I presented the long term economic statistics that shows we are not heading towards socialism, which amounts to almost every long term economic statistic out there. He realized that socialism was not the word he was looking for, but he was resolute in thinking that government was being heavy-handed in some way. I went through a litany of heavy-handed government ideologies and he identified the one that best fits.
Before I proceed further let me first disclaim that I would not call our government socialist, communist or fascist in the complete sense that those terms imply. Indeed, I think there are two problems with the plethora of think tanks trying to get us to think that the heavy-handedness we face is socialism. First, it’s ideological branding intended to get us to act with our hormones instead of our brains. Second, socialism is just plain wrong as the type of heavy-handedness we are facing. With that as a disclaimer, there is an alternative ideological brand that corresponds to the type of control our government exerts.
Socialism involves government command of the economy for social goals. If you look at data for the past sixty years (rather than cite a litany of cherry-picked legislation), whether it’s wealth disparity, productivity of different sectors, proportion of government benefits to GDP, etc., etc., etc., virtually all indicate we moved steadily away from socialist goals since the seventies.
Communism involves party command of government for paternal goals. Our government has grown increasingly paternal over the past two centuries, with increased centralization of information, increased dependence on campaign financing and a panel of nine power-appointed people well connected to wealth being the ultimate arbitrator of our laws. Yet there still remains a choice of parties, as paternal and beholding to wealth as both parties are, and we still have levels of federation, where grassroots democracy still survives.
Fascism involves government control of information and, by extension, cultural beliefs and behaviors. The purest example of fascism was Hitler’s government, which coincided with the rise of mass media. To put us in the same company as Hitler’s government would be going over the top, yet there are long term trends that correspond to the basic fascist goals. The consolidation of corporate media enables the centralization of information which, in turn, makes the control of that information easier for government. The way the press was handled for the Iraq War allowed for much greater control of information by government than how they were handled for the Vietnam War. Think tanks and interest groups have proliferated to influence the public for the sake of those in power.
Whoa! How can think tanks branding our government as socialist be doing the bidding of those in power? When there is a synergy between government and corporations the information being controlled, with government the generators and corporate media the suppliers, is ultimately to the advantage of corporations. Using the ideological brand of fascism in getting the public’s blood boiling against government would be counterproductive. Getting the public up in arms about fascism puts the heat on reducing the control of information that is benefiting corporations.
Ah, but put up the war cries of socialism and to what large, powerful entity can we turn to counter big government’s control of the economy? If you answer corporations you’ve answered just the way a plethora of “free market” think tanks and “patriotic” interest groups want you to, and you have helped to further strengthen the control of information by corporations and government. The sound guy at WBCR was once of a mind that would lend to this further control of information, just as Fox News or The Heritage Foundation would wish. Now he is of a mind to reduce that control, due to the simple clarification of what different heavy-handed ideologies really mean.
Tags: Middle Class Politics, Misinformation, Political Misinformation
Perfectly dissected.
Greetings Farfel,
You never leave your name or residence, but I’m grateful you are still dropping by a year later. Thanks.
Kirk Sinclair
Norfolk, CT
Socialism, Communism, Fascism are equally bad collectivism.
Economic liberalism is the opposite of economic fascism and socialism. To an individualist (which I still hope most Americans are), collectivism is all equally evil.
Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it—at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens . . .
Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis—and “the public good” is the altar on which victims are immolated. But there are stylistic differences of emphasis. The socialist-communist axis keeps promising to achieve abundance, material comfort and security for its victims, in some indeterminate future. The fascist-Nazi axis scorns material comfort and security, and keeps extolling some undefined sort of spiritual duty, service and conquest. The socialist-communist axis offers its victims an alleged social ideal. The fascist-Nazi axis offers nothing but loose talk about some unspecified form of racial or national “greatness.” The socialist-communist axis proclaims some grandiose economic plan, which keeps receding year by year. The fascist-Nazi axis merely extols leadership—leadership without purpose, program or direction—and power for power’s sake.
We both see these terms as government heavy-handedness, but I’m sensing we might strongly disagree about American individualism. I wonder if you really understand the meaning of individualism. To a scientist/ecologist individualism is, as a survival strategy, contrasted with altruism. Bacteria are individualists; humans, like wolves or whales, evolved to be altruistic. I know you are not approaching this as an empirical scientist, but meanings are ultimately embedded in some kind of actual experience and not just scholarship.
Understanding the natural connotations of individualism reveals your use of individualist and economic liberalism as doublespeak. Locke may have claimed property as a natural right, but even he acknowledged that we only come by property we aren’t using through currency, which in turn is provided by government. As a further distinction, you can’t own property in California and live in Connecticut unless you have government indulging you in that endeavor, otherwise, squatter’s rights is the natural economics of such a situation.
Real estate is indeed a great example of government indulgence. Things naturally depreciate with use. Real estate normally appreciates, and the reason lies with an economic system that only government can enable and indulge us with. In a similar vein, a stockholder needs a corporation to “earn” money for which they do not labor, which in turn absolutely, totally needs government to exist (unlike a proprietorship, which could in theory be independent of government). Nation states and corporations have a long history of coevolving.
Liberty and individualism are, quite frankly and by definition, both independent of government. Government can indulge us with property we do not use or earn, but it cannot grant us the independence to self-actualize or labor how we see fit. We must do that for ourselves. A proprietor and a laborer can in theory claim independence for themselves; neither a corporation nor a stockholder can, both need to be indulged by government to merely exist, let along thrive. Governments and corporations can indulge us with security, but independence of thought (independence not only of government, but of corporations and interest groups as well) is something we must claim for ourselves.
In truth, Americans are not remotely individualists, we are perhaps the most indulged citizenry on the planet, and the more dependent we are on corporate capitalism the more remote our understanding of individualism or liberty becomes. Furthermore, what “free market libertarians” often prescribe is further indulgence through corporate capitalism, rather than true independence through real free markets (which cannot exist with government suckled corporate capitalism). We could be more independent and less indulged by returning towards the states rights, agrarian community approach to government that was originally intended, but even then we would not be individualistic. We would just be swapping the indulgence of government and corporations for the more natural (and independent) altruism of grassroots social systems.