Fascism involves government control of the means of production, but not ownership. Private companies exist, but they are merely arms of the government.
This is very much how things work in America today, except that in countries like Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, functions traditionally performed by the government have also been outsourced to private entities.
Reorder the economy. The program of the Nazis Gleichschaltung With the supervision of party officials and government boards, restructured everything to suit party goals.
In America, on the other hand, the corporations that control the commanding heights of our national economy do so themselves, following a philosophy of environmental, social and governance investment.
Before ESG, they were supposed to run their companies for the benefit of shareholders, something required by their fiduciary obligations to people who, you know, Actually own the company
But under the ESG philosophy, they should run their companies for the benefit of “stakeholders” — which could be employees, customers, the “community” or pretty much anyone they want — and “social justice” and environmental stewardship. Things, buzzwords that give them do Pretty much whatever they want.
In practice, they are guided not by a political party or government board but by various non-profit groups that are not really accountable to anyone but, oddly enough, all seem to support the same agenda. .
But if you had any doubt that these organizations are actually doing the bidding of the Biden administration, look at what happened when Congress tried to block 401(k) accounts from operating according to ESG guidelines: a Biden veto promise.
People rely on 401(k) funds for their retirement savings. If managers can operate those funds with goals other than maximizing client returns, it is effectively a tax on retirees to fund the managers’ social goals.
The Labor Department mandated that it’s kosher, and now that Congress wants to eliminate it — with legislation passed by both the Republican-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate — the Biden administration is making sure that the rule remains in place. Still applicable.
Team Biden would have to raise taxes to pay people for these purposes, which would cost them votes. By hiring fund managers to do this, it avoids liability.
If your retirement savings tank, you’ll blame the fund, not President Joe Biden. At least under traditional fascism, the people knew the culprit Der Führer or Il Duce When things went wrong.
Similarly, Congress passed the CHIPS Act to bail out American semiconductor companies. Now the Commerce Department mandates that along the way, firms must provide free childcare to their employees.
For years, mandatory national pre-K has been Democratic policy; Instead of implementing it themselves, they are mandating that corporations do it.
And you can bet the federal government and the usual tag-alongs of left-wing non-profits will be at the core of what is taught.
Even fascist surveillance, the mainstay of censorship, has been outsourced.
In early-modern England, the Court of Star Chamber licensed printers and punished those who stepped out of line. In Germany, Italy, and the Soviet Union, the government monitored what people said, wrote, and published.
Now there’s deniability: big tech censors people.
Did you criticize the lockdown or suggest that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health or the World Health Organization may be wrong about the Covid pandemic? (Which they often were.)
Have you shared stories (perhaps from this newspaper) about Hunter Biden’s laptop?
Then you get silenced by the big tech companies, from Facebook to Twitter to Google.
They acted at the behest of the government—the publication of Twitter files by Elon Musk made clear that the platform was eager to appease bureaucrats by silencing its critics—but again, the real action was taken by private actors.
It would have been very difficult and awkward for Anthony Fauci or Joe Biden to directly shut down critics; It was easy for tech firms to act on his cues.
Other politically incorrect groups are silenced at the bidding of organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center that purport to identify “extremist” groups but never seem to focus on critics on the right.
And all this is facilitated by a media/political class that really is An ideological monoculture One who does not welcome opposing views.
If that’s not enough, the Biden administration wants to make sure everyone is somehow under the corporate thumb. Biden’s nominee for labor secretary, Julie Sue, is an enemy of freelancers and gig workers.
If you are independent and self-employed, you are hard to squeeze. If you work for a corporate boss who is in the pocket of the Democrats, it is much easier.
Sue was the architect of California’s AB5, which destroyed the prospects of freelancers, independent truck drivers and others beyond the reach of corporatist America. If given the opportunity, she will do so across the country.
Do we now have a kinder and gentler fascism than in Germany and Italy? for sure But it is still fascism. And it must stop.
