2006
Democrats Consider the Fascist Option
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by Thomas E. Brewton
Democrats, committed to the theory that only the political state can improve people's lives, explore ways to deliver on campaign promises.
David Wessel writes in the November 30 edition of the Wall Street journal here, (if you're an online subscriber):
In campaign rhetoric, Democrats raised expectations they would do more than Republicans to boost wages and living standards of ordinary Americans……Now Democrats have to deliver, or at least look like they're trying.
…….Democrats, [Gene Sperling, a Democratic cabinet-secretary-in-waiting] says, must figure out what government can do to encourage business to create more middle-class jobs in the U.S.
…….[Robert Reich, the former Clinton labor secretary], recites a familiar list: trade policy, industrial policy — government attempts to influence the flow of capital toward promising industries and companies — antitrust, publicly financed research and development, and stronger trade unions.
The sorts of policies advocated by Mr. Reich are what led us to economic and social disaster in the 1930s and again in the 1960s and 70s. Those policies are also essential elements in the economic doctrine of Mussolini's and Hitler's Fascism.
In both Italian Fascism and German National Socialism, the political state had the last word in establishing wages, hours, production volumes, and sale prices of goods. Unlike Soviet Communism, Fascism left property ownership in its original hands, recognizing that regulatory control was sufficient to carry out political and economic policies. Labor unions remained in existence and were strengthened vis a vis industrialists, and farmers were assured higher prices.
In common with the left-wing liberals of the Democratic Party, Fascists believed that private individuals and private business counted for little, if anything, in the creation of jobs and the necessary production of society's goods and services. People's lives and livelihoods were viewed as the creation of the political state, which therefore had the last word in regulating human activity.
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