Creeping fascism?
In "The 'F'-word" (Opinion and Commentary, June 22), Colin McNickle wrote that he got some flack when he used the word "fascistic" to describe Mayor Tom Murphy's "failed policy of command economics," e.g., "threatening eminent domain," etc., and that he used the "F"-word again to describe Gov. Ed Rendell's idea that the state be given a board seat at US Airways in return for a mega-million-dollar package of financial concessions.
The aforementioned seat proposal, where already over-soaked taxpayers would pick up the tab for what might well become the world's most expensive chair, was called "Mussolini economics" by the Trib.
DEFINITIONS
Let me add a few definitions to the argument. First, in its description of "The Fascist State," the Columbia Encyclopedia explains that "the corporative state" was a key part of fascist dogma inaugurated by the government of Benito Mussolini in Italy and by Hitler's National Socialist regime in Germany. "Although the Italian system was based upon unlimited government control of economic life, it still preserved the framework of capitalism."
"Mussolini economics," in short, maintained the skeleton of capitalism, but it was the government that increasingly called the shots. Central planning replaced the "untidy" free market, and individual sovereignty was gutted by a plethora of state commands.
In another definition explaining "the characteristics of fascism," Dr. Lawrence Britt points to "rampant cronyism and corruption" as the nuts and bolts of fascism: "Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability."
In his essay "Do you own yourself?," professor Butler Shaffer at Southwestern University School of Law argues that fascism gains totalitarian control over individuals by taking control of their private property: "Every political system is defined in terms of how property is to be controlled in a given society. ... Under fascism, 'title' to property remains in private hands, but 'control' over such property is exercised by the state. Thus, fascism has given us state regulatory systems, in which property owners --- be they farmers, homeowners, or businesses --- have the illusion of owning what they believe to be 'theirs,' while the state increasingly exercises the real ownership authority (i.e., control)."
FIRSTHAND ACCOUNTS
A few years ago, I read an out-of-print book that appeared in 1939, "The Vampire State: Doing Business Under Fascism," written by Guenter Reimann, then a 35-year-old German writer. Through contacts with German business owners, Reimann documented how the "monster machine" of the Nazis crushed the autonomy of the private sector.
"A fine of millions of marks was imposed for a single bookkeeping error," explains Reimann. He quotes from a businessman's letter: "You have no idea how far state control goes and how much power the Nazi representatives have over our work. The worst of it is that they are so ignorant. These Nazi radicals think of nothing except 'redistributing the wealth.' Our agents and salesmen are handicapped because they never know whether or not a sale at a higher price will mean denunciation as a 'profiteer' or 'saboteur,' followed by a prison sentence. The difference between this and the Russian system is much less than you think, despite the fact that we are still independent businessmen."
Under fascism, explains the businessman, the capitalist "must be servile to the representatives of the state" and "must not insist on rights, and must not behave as if his private property rights were still sacred." It is the businessman, characteristically independent, who is "the most likely to get in trouble with the Gestapo for having grumbled incautiously."
Of all businessmen, "the small shopkeeper is the one most under control and most at the mercy of the party, " recounts Reimann. "The local Hitler gets a report every day on what is discussed in Herr Schultz's bakery or Herr Schmidt's butcher shop."
The Nazi bureaucrats, trained only to obey orders, writes Reimann, apply the laws rigidly and mechanically. "Their only incentive to modify the letter of the law is in bribes from businessmen, who for their part use bribery as their only means of obtaining relief from a rigidity which they find crippling."
Says another businessman, talking not unlike any business owner in Pittsburgh in 2003: "Each business move has become very complicated and is full of legal traps which the average businessman cannot determine because there are so many new decrees. All of us in business are constantly in fear of being penalized for the violation of some decree or law."
Business owners, explains another entrepreneur, cannot exist without "a collaborator," a "lawyer with good contacts" in the Nazi bureaucracy, one who "knows exactly how far you can circumvent the law." Nazi officials "obtain money for themselves by merely taking it from capitalists who have funds available with which to purchase influence and protection," paying for protection "as did the helpless peasants of feudal days."
Complain, warned a Nazi directive, and "we shall take away the freedom still left you."
In a nutshell, that's "economic fascism," the "F"-word. Anyone recognize any parts of that growing in our section of the worldâ¢
