Corporate power + State power = ...Fascism

(DV) Mills: It' the Corporate State, Stupid: "David G. Mills"

David G. Mills puts it bluntly - "It's corporate State, Stupid". He argues in his article that the unholy alliance of corporations and the goverment is in the heart of the structure of fascism. Like many others, he raises the alarm about the dangerous rout the country seems to be heading into and the worry with which the others might be observing it from a distance. The countries that have gone through the experience may be very quick to recognize it in others, however it is not an easy task when you are the part of structure.

The early twentieth century Italians, who invented the word fascism, also had a more descriptive term for the concept -- estato corporativo: the corporatist state. Unfortunately for Americans, we have come to equate fascism with its symptoms, not with its structure. The structure of fascism is corporatism, or the corporate state. The structure of fascism is the union, marriage, merger or fusion of corporate economic power with governmental power. Failing to understand fascism, as the consolidation of corporate economic and governmental power in the hands of a few, is to completely misunderstand what fascism is. It is the consolidation of this power that produces the demagogues and regimes we understand as fascist ones.

Mills references the earlier article by Lawrence Britt, where he defined 14 defining characteristics. Although Mills calls that article excellent he disagrees with Britt's priorities and emphasis:

But even Britt’s excellent article misses the importance of Mussolini’s point. The concept of corporatism is number nine on Britt’s list and unfortunately titled: “Corporate Power is Protected.” In the view of Mussolini, the concept of corporatism should have been number one on the list and should have been more aptly titled the “Merger of Corporate Power and State Power.” Even Britt failed to see the merger of corporate and state power as the primary cause of most of these other characteristics. It is only when one begins to view fascism as the merger of corporate power and state power that it is easy to see how most of the other thirteen characteristics Britt describes are produced. Seen this way, these other characteristics no longer become disjointed abstractions. Cause and effect is evident.

He also opens a conversation about how this slide can be stopped or at least attempted to, noting regretfully that countries like Germany and Italy were not able to do it soon enough. He cites the French revolution as the only somewhat successful example, which unfortunately resulted in too much bloodshed.

The thought of an American twenty-first century French Revolution is ugly. But the thought of an American twenty-first century fascist state is far uglier.