In the newest issue of American Affairs to see the light of day after 60 years, Garet Garrett once again carries the day:
There are only two kinds of planned economy; and for all they may have, or seem to have, in common, there is yet a very simple way in which one kind may be distinguished from the other. You have only to ask: What is done with private enterprise? In one case private enterprise is liquidated, as in Russia, and the state itself, that is to say, the government, becomes the sole or principal enterpriser. In the other case private enterprise is controlled and directed, as in Italy under the Fascist regime; and if private enterprise is docile, obedient and cooperative it may in fact be very comfortable, at least for a while, as was undoubtedly true of the Fascist Confederation of Industrialists, which published yearly a book of praise, called the “Fascist Era,” numbered according to the years of the regime, as if time began with Mussolini.
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Would you say that the latter option, the Italian Fascist model, was similar (though more overt/extreme) to the US WWII economy given the existence of War Planning Board and the like?
My knowledge of WPB and industrial planning of the time is limited to what I have read in a biography of Bernard Baruch a few public affair pamphlets on the topic (1940s-1950s) that I managed to salvage and read.
Mussolini said that Fascism should really be called Corporatism, or in other words, a cooperative symbiosis of Big Business and Big Government to rule the nation. Really, that is just the age-old system where the rich rule.
I would say that modern America pretty much is Corporatism. We could call it Fascism, but people don’t like to hear that term used to describe America because sounds bad. Call a spade a spade.
The genius of modern American Fascism is that the rulers learned from their mistakes in the 1930s and now present a more acceptable face. Instead of one party dictatorship, we have a defective two party oligarchy. Instead of overt government planning boards we have regulatory agencies.
But one things never changes–governments must always forcefully and violently put down determined opposition to their rule. Right now our governors are constructing the secret police apparatus that will be necessary to control opposition once the tyranny becomes unpopularly oppressive.
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