Corporatism/Fascism Continued

Kennedy: Fascist America

In my recent post - "Corporate power + State power = ...Fascism" - I commented on an article by David G. Mills, who argues that alliance between corporations and the state is the most significan factor of the structure of facsism. To continue the conversation started ther, I would like to point out to the article above by Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman. The authors primarily reflect on their conversations with Robert Kennedy Jr., who as they report might run for Attorney General of New York State. After giving brief overview of his previous work they provide some recent quotes, which I think are ery relevant to this topic. Kennedy seems to agree with the supremacy of the corporatism among defining characteristics of fascizm:

In the book, Kennedy implies that we live in a fascist country and that the Bush White House has learned key lessons from the Nazis.

"While communism is the control of business by government, fascism is the control of government by business," he writes. "My American Heritage Dictionary defines fascism as 'a system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership together with belligerent nationalism.' Sound familiar?"

He quotes Hitler's propaganda chief Herman Goerring: "It is always simply a matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country."

Kennedy then adds: "The White House has clearly grasped the lesson."

Kennedy also quotes Benito Mussolini's insight that "fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

"The biggest threat to American democracy is corporate power," Kennedy told us. "There is vogue in the White House to talk about the threat of big government. But since the beginning of our national history, our most visionary political leaders have warned the American public against the domination of government by corporate power. That warning is missing in the national debate right now.