I think what we have here are two pillars trying to be defined by one single term. That term being Fascism, is probably the one "ideology" that has been mistook or better yet had it's definition abused. The two pillars in question is economics and politics. Both are intertwined, yet can be separate. Often Fascism is seen merely as an authoritarian version of capitalism be it a regulated one or the free-market kind, the key being that the latter is integral to having Fascism. Yet Fascism does not need free-markets, because at the end of the day it really is a political religion than an economic one.
The core of Fascism is totalitarianism, that a special order (be it a party or more often than not, a leader) must have direct authority over all aspects of life. Orthodox fascism differs from plain authoritarianism in that it takes that to the next step, like a sculptor working with clay. While authoritarian regimes would simply be pleased with holding onto the reigns of government, the true fascist wants to mold society so that the masses obtain an image the fascist deems as "perfect". This image comes in many forms bonded together, that is a certain way of thinking, an appearance crafted by this new way of thinking, and behavior molded along these two. Politics and tools of the state and society are simply there to achieve this idea of perfection. This is forced evolution in a way, and that other elements are deemed as competition which must be destroyed.
One way to look at Fascism, would be to think of it as the closest thing to religious fundamentalism on a secular plane. It's God, if the perfect image incorporates such a concept by said regime, is an ultimate utopia where a supposed harmony is achieved once everyone thinks and believes and looks the same. Orthodox Fascism deems that this is the greatest achievement that man can do, because of that, there must be struggle. And this is one of the ironies of attempting to achieve "perfection," the struggle can never end, because for the regime a new flaw will always be found that needs to be stamped out.
In regards to economics, it has a history of opposing bolshivism and other socialisms. Yet, in practice, fascist regimes are hipocrits, in that many policies that are enacted often echo leftist state run economic initiatives. In Nazi Germany, the state would establish industries it deemed necessary; it would also annex competing companies and also take partial stock ownership (IG Farbin for example). Now in many cases, the old owners remained, but this was because the Party in power either did not have the expertise to operate such business concern in a timely manner (Germany was gearing up for war or was in the early stages of it) or that company bosses proved more willing to meet the needs of the ruler. If one has a chance, please read up on Krupp steel, there is an interesting tale between the last heir and I think it was Albert Speer. I will have to find this and post it.
But in the economic sector, the orthodox fascist cannot have anything competing with it in stature. Any private entity, be it church or company, is either brought into line or neutralized. In Nazi Germany, it was deemed that the Aryan needed holiday time, so they initiated a whole enterprise of resorts and such, which would become known as "Strength through Joy." The same was said for the media, propaganda (the fascist's sermons?) which at the time was radio, was unified under the control of Goebbels. Automobile production was coordinated by the state, Hitler's "Peoples Car" (the Volkswagen Beetle, or a precurser of it I should say). In all of these, there was no drive for profit by these companies, there was no market competition. Companies existed, but they merely served as extensions of the order in power.
Ok, I could go on, but I am ill these days, and now realize it is 5am. I hope you see what I was trying to point out here. Yes, I played fast and loose (borrowing a Shakespeare there) and ommited somethings, but trying to hit on the main points.
To confuse terms like this, lends to what George Orwell said about the destruction of language. It's dumb luck that the word "corporatist" was used as manfrommiddletown has correctly stated. You make sense in that control from private corporations would, had the term not already been coined, logically be called "corporatism". But, and perhaps I'm too much of a history nerd here, we do a misjustice to the term. Frankly, I view this as an opportunity to develop a new word for what you are trying to relate here.
You have no idea how much that has irked me. From the blogs to respectable names on the radio like Thom Hartmann, I've heard "corporatist" being bandied about meaning everything these days, but mainly rule by private corporations. I had an argument over the holidays over this very thing! My younger relative kept saying that it was something invented by American corporations to maintain power. She had no friggin' idea that one of the origins of "corporatism" came from Fascist Italy and the syndicalist movements in Europe. When I tried to explain this, this "student agitator" (As she likes to call herself) said basically "yeah, well corporations are fascist, it would make sense that it would come from a Fascist." I kid you not on this.
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
> > Thomas Jefferson 1802
what you probably don't realize and middle is working on a PhD in public policy, hence he wants people to use the real terminology for each system and understand what it implies. Hopefully he will write up a blog post on all of these terms, their real definitions and systems.
But in other words, we're just batting the terms around and he's saying, hey, these are real classifications in forms of economic systems w/in government systems, so hopefully he'll write up a nice tutorial so we don't misuse them.
I tried to define it in my original post- separating Corporatism as we know it in the United States (which is most certainly NOT facism- more mercantilism than anything else) with State Corporatist as practiced in China (which seems, at least to me, closer to fascism).
Who makes the laws is what it comes down to for me. Under US Corporatism, lobbyists write the laws and Congress rubber stamps them. Under China's system, the Communist Party makes the laws and it's up to the corporations to implement them.
I still question those levels of global unemployment rates and obviously depending on the true size of the global labor force that affects all things in terms of what is the real global unemployment rate.
How about a blog post defining and giving illustrations on these various systems from an economic point of view? Kind of an educational piece. Like my new term? ;)
China's method of the dictator having a controlling interest in almost every corporation is the *reverse* of corporatism- the controlling interest is the dictator, not the corporation. I was saying China's method is equal to fascism, not corporatism = fascism.
There are so many features on here that are not on even the major blogs it gets confusing. But hey man, there is always email for problems. EP has a full email system on it.
FWIW, Seymour Melman used the term "state capitalism" to describe a situation in which the state controlled a significant portion of the capitalist system, in particular, the military part, and directed it to some extent that way -- with a certain amount of influence moving from corporations to government as well, although Melman saw the Pentagon as the source of most power. But "fascism" I think is the more traditional term for a merging of corporations and government.
Implying this demonstrates that you don't know what the term means, and utterly discredits any argument that you make using it. Because it looks like you lack intelligence, like when people use a fancy word wrong to try to look smart.
Mark Leonard's What Does China Think? for a really good overview of current intellectual thought in China.
There's a really interesting debate between the New Right, who are basically neo-liberals, and the New Left, who are social democrats. They've been going at it for a while, and often their academic debates are proxies for ongoing battles in the CCP. It's just that open political debate isn't an option.
I've always used Corporatist to mean a government of the corporations, run by the corporations, for the corporations, usually through excessive lobbying.
State Corporatism as used above is really Fascism- the dictator owns a controlling share in all corporations.
I just never thought before that a State Corporatist economy could, through economic growth, replace the duty of a communist government to provide for the commune.
"Corporatist" is thrown around by people on blogs as though its meaning is that an economic system is dominated by corporations.
That is not what the concept means.
At its base corporatism tries to organized economic interests into a series of organizations representing the interests of industrial sectors and the government and they get together to direct future economic development.
In its social democratic variant, labor is integrated, so that workers have a seat at the table where decisions are being made. This is the German model, as an ideal it's really limited to the metalworking sector (IG Metall, labor, and Gesamtmetall, the employer's federation), but it's a different way of doing social welfare that requires less direct state involvement.
Arguably, the system of pattern bargaining between the UAW and the Detroit Three was basically a social democratic variant of corporatism that lead to the establishment of a private socialism where the company provided workers benefits and jobs security in exchange for labor peace. It was called the Treaty of Detroit.
the economic collective to which everyone was assigned was broken in the late 1990s.
The migrants that swarmed factory towns in Guangdong and up the eastern coast through Dalian left their native villages, where they held residency permits and the right to social services, are in pretty dire straits right now.
The CCP is quite frightened of the possibility that the collapse of economic growth (Saxo bank has its predictions out for the New Year, # 7 is that Chinese GDP growth will drop to 0%) will create a revolutionary situation.
The process of deindustrialization that took the better part of 30 years to accomplish in the industrial Midwest has been sped through in less than a year in China's Guangdong province.
The Guangzhou Public Opinion Research Center poll found 51.7 percent of respondents were worried that diminished incomes and growing unemployment will weaken public security.
Another 35.5 percent fear social disturbances, according to the survey of 1,000 residents conducted in mid-December.
The survey also found 81.9 percent of respondents claimed their income or employment had been affected by the crisis. Of these, 30.9 percent said the impact was severe, while 51 percent had been "influenced to some extent".
In addition, 32.3 percent of respondents said the financial crisis had made it difficult for them to find jobs, while 17.5 percent said they had been laid off because of the crisis.
Companies have simply closed up shop and left town. The story of suitcase workers in Dongguan is emblematic.
It has become common in Guangdong for factory owners to suddenly shut down their cash-strapped plants and disappear without paying laborers.
That's what happened at Chen's factory — the Jianrong Suitcase Factory in the city of Dongguan. The plant shut down Tuesday without warning and its 300 workers began taking to the streets, demanding full payment of wages.
Local government officials eventually glued an announcement to the factory's walls, saying its Japanese owner could not be located and the workers would only get 60 percent of the monthly wages they had earned since October. The laborers, paid an average monthly salary of 1,500 yuan, or about $220, refused to accept the deal....
There is real resentment here, and if it escalates into anger at the regime instead of the Japanese owners, the current shtick from the CCP about economic development isn't going to work. They are going to have to turn to something else, and that's probably going to be nationalism. And the worst strains of nationalism in contemporary China harken back to the extremism of the 1930s.
The big test is going to be after Chinese New Year. Chinese workers typically leave their jobs to go home to their native village at this time, and in the past factory owners have shown a tendency to use the time to scoop up machinery, and skip town with wages unpaid.
If that happens on a massive scale this year, there's going to be hell to pay for it.
I've been prepping a piece about this that I hope to get published in a policy journal. We've given the Chinese the industrial base they need to allow the cancer of nationalism to cause real harm in Asia. Extremist strands of Chinese nationalism believe that areas as far apart as the Russian Far East, and the entirety of South East Asia were "stolen" from China during the 19th century. In earlier centuries these areas engaged in tribute-trade with the Chinese Emperor, "recognizing" the sovereignty of China over them. Some Chinese don't get that this was a facade used to allow trade.
I think what we have here are two pillars trying to be defined by one single term. That term being Fascism, is probably the one "ideology" that has been mistook or better yet had it's definition abused. The two pillars in question is economics and politics. Both are intertwined, yet can be separate. Often Fascism is seen merely as an authoritarian version of capitalism be it a regulated one or the free-market kind, the key being that the latter is integral to having Fascism. Yet Fascism does not need free-markets, because at the end of the day it really is a political religion than an economic one.
The core of Fascism is totalitarianism, that a special order (be it a party or more often than not, a leader) must have direct authority over all aspects of life. Orthodox fascism differs from plain authoritarianism in that it takes that to the next step, like a sculptor working with clay. While authoritarian regimes would simply be pleased with holding onto the reigns of government, the true fascist wants to mold society so that the masses obtain an image the fascist deems as "perfect". This image comes in many forms bonded together, that is a certain way of thinking, an appearance crafted by this new way of thinking, and behavior molded along these two. Politics and tools of the state and society are simply there to achieve this idea of perfection. This is forced evolution in a way, and that other elements are deemed as competition which must be destroyed.
One way to look at Fascism, would be to think of it as the closest thing to religious fundamentalism on a secular plane. It's God, if the perfect image incorporates such a concept by said regime, is an ultimate utopia where a supposed harmony is achieved once everyone thinks and believes and looks the same. Orthodox Fascism deems that this is the greatest achievement that man can do, because of that, there must be struggle. And this is one of the ironies of attempting to achieve "perfection," the struggle can never end, because for the regime a new flaw will always be found that needs to be stamped out.
In regards to economics, it has a history of opposing bolshivism and other socialisms. Yet, in practice, fascist regimes are hipocrits, in that many policies that are enacted often echo leftist state run economic initiatives. In Nazi Germany, the state would establish industries it deemed necessary; it would also annex competing companies and also take partial stock ownership (IG Farbin for example). Now in many cases, the old owners remained, but this was because the Party in power either did not have the expertise to operate such business concern in a timely manner (Germany was gearing up for war or was in the early stages of it) or that company bosses proved more willing to meet the needs of the ruler. If one has a chance, please read up on Krupp steel, there is an interesting tale between the last heir and I think it was Albert Speer. I will have to find this and post it.
But in the economic sector, the orthodox fascist cannot have anything competing with it in stature. Any private entity, be it church or company, is either brought into line or neutralized. In Nazi Germany, it was deemed that the Aryan needed holiday time, so they initiated a whole enterprise of resorts and such, which would become known as "Strength through Joy." The same was said for the media, propaganda (the fascist's sermons?) which at the time was radio, was unified under the control of Goebbels. Automobile production was coordinated by the state, Hitler's "Peoples Car" (the Volkswagen Beetle, or a precurser of it I should say). In all of these, there was no drive for profit by these companies, there was no market competition. Companies existed, but they merely served as extensions of the order in power.
Ok, I could go on, but I am ill these days, and now realize it is 5am. I hope you see what I was trying to point out here. Yes, I played fast and loose (borrowing a Shakespeare there) and ommited somethings, but trying to hit on the main points.
To confuse terms like this, lends to what George Orwell said about the destruction of language. It's dumb luck that the word "corporatist" was used as manfrommiddletown has correctly stated. You make sense in that control from private corporations would, had the term not already been coined, logically be called "corporatism". But, and perhaps I'm too much of a history nerd here, we do a misjustice to the term. Frankly, I view this as an opportunity to develop a new word for what you are trying to relate here.
You have no idea how much that has irked me. From the blogs to respectable names on the radio like Thom Hartmann, I've heard "corporatist" being bandied about meaning everything these days, but mainly rule by private corporations. I had an argument over the holidays over this very thing! My younger relative kept saying that it was something invented by American corporations to maintain power. She had no friggin' idea that one of the origins of "corporatism" came from Fascist Italy and the syndicalist movements in Europe. When I tried to explain this, this "student agitator" (As she likes to call herself) said basically "yeah, well corporations are fascist, it would make sense that it would come from a Fascist." I kid you not on this.
So ManfromMiddletown, thank you.
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."
> > Thomas Jefferson 1802
I'm wondering what his term for a government controlled by bribery and lobbyists is...that's what we've got in the United States.
I'm a little less sure about China now....
what you probably don't realize and middle is working on a PhD in public policy, hence he wants people to use the real terminology for each system and understand what it implies. Hopefully he will write up a blog post on all of these terms, their real definitions and systems.
But in other words, we're just batting the terms around and he's saying, hey, these are real classifications in forms of economic systems w/in government systems, so hopefully he'll write up a nice tutorial so we don't misuse them.
I tried to define it in my original post- separating Corporatism as we know it in the United States (which is most certainly NOT facism- more mercantilism than anything else) with State Corporatist as practiced in China (which seems, at least to me, closer to fascism).
Who makes the laws is what it comes down to for me. Under US Corporatism, lobbyists write the laws and Congress rubber stamps them. Under China's system, the Communist Party makes the laws and it's up to the corporations to implement them.
I still question those levels of global unemployment rates and obviously depending on the true size of the global labor force that affects all things in terms of what is the real global unemployment rate.
How about a blog post defining and giving illustrations on these various systems from an economic point of view? Kind of an educational piece. Like my new term? ;)
Corporatism != fascism is true.
China's method of the dictator having a controlling interest in almost every corporation is the *reverse* of corporatism- the controlling interest is the dictator, not the corporation. I was saying China's method is equal to fascism, not corporatism = fascism.
What's in a word? Just define it for him. (Your PhD exp. is showing! ;)) Personally I can see why one would confuse fascism with Corporatism.
There are so many features on here that are not on even the major blogs it gets confusing. But hey man, there is always email for problems. EP has a full email system on it.
JR on Grist
FWIW, Seymour Melman used the term "state capitalism" to describe a situation in which the state controlled a significant portion of the capitalist system, in particular, the military part, and directed it to some extent that way -- with a certain amount of influence moving from corporations to government as well, although Melman saw the Pentagon as the source of most power. But "fascism" I think is the more traditional term for a merging of corporations and government.
JR on Grist
Corporatism does not equal fascism.
Implying this demonstrates that you don't know what the term means, and utterly discredits any argument that you make using it. Because it looks like you lack intelligence, like when people use a fancy word wrong to try to look smart.
Mark Leonard's What Does China Think? for a really good overview of current intellectual thought in China.
There's a really interesting debate between the New Right, who are basically neo-liberals, and the New Left, who are social democrats. They've been going at it for a while, and often their academic debates are proxies for ongoing battles in the CCP. It's just that open political debate isn't an option.
I've always used Corporatist to mean a government of the corporations, run by the corporations, for the corporations, usually through excessive lobbying.
State Corporatism as used above is really Fascism- the dictator owns a controlling share in all corporations.
I just never thought before that a State Corporatist economy could, through economic growth, replace the duty of a communist government to provide for the commune.
Global utilization of human labor is under 60%. I didn't know that, I was going on the total population instead of work force.
I knew US workforce population was only about 33% though....
"Corporatist" is thrown around by people on blogs as though its meaning is that an economic system is dominated by corporations.
That is not what the concept means.
At its base corporatism tries to organized economic interests into a series of organizations representing the interests of industrial sectors and the government and they get together to direct future economic development.
In its social democratic variant, labor is integrated, so that workers have a seat at the table where decisions are being made. This is the German model, as an ideal it's really limited to the metalworking sector (IG Metall, labor, and Gesamtmetall, the employer's federation), but it's a different way of doing social welfare that requires less direct state involvement.
Arguably, the system of pattern bargaining between the UAW and the Detroit Three was basically a social democratic variant of corporatism that lead to the establishment of a private socialism where the company provided workers benefits and jobs security in exchange for labor peace. It was called the Treaty of Detroit.
the economic collective to which everyone was assigned was broken in the late 1990s.
The migrants that swarmed factory towns in Guangdong and up the eastern coast through Dalian left their native villages, where they held residency permits and the right to social services, are in pretty dire straits right now.
The CCP is quite frightened of the possibility that the collapse of economic growth (Saxo bank has its predictions out for the New Year, # 7 is that Chinese GDP growth will drop to 0%) will create a revolutionary situation.
The process of deindustrialization that took the better part of 30 years to accomplish in the industrial Midwest has been sped through in less than a year in China's Guangdong province.
Polling from the province has been revealing.
Companies have simply closed up shop and left town. The story of suitcase workers in Dongguan is emblematic.
There is real resentment here, and if it escalates into anger at the regime instead of the Japanese owners, the current shtick from the CCP about economic development isn't going to work. They are going to have to turn to something else, and that's probably going to be nationalism. And the worst strains of nationalism in contemporary China harken back to the extremism of the 1930s.
The big test is going to be after Chinese New Year. Chinese workers typically leave their jobs to go home to their native village at this time, and in the past factory owners have shown a tendency to use the time to scoop up machinery, and skip town with wages unpaid.
If that happens on a massive scale this year, there's going to be hell to pay for it.
I've been prepping a piece about this that I hope to get published in a policy journal. We've given the Chinese the industrial base they need to allow the cancer of nationalism to cause real harm in Asia. Extremist strands of Chinese nationalism believe that areas as far apart as the Russian Far East, and the entirety of South East Asia were "stolen" from China during the 19th century. In earlier centuries these areas engaged in tribute-trade with the Chinese Emperor, "recognizing" the sovereignty of China over them. Some Chinese don't get that this was a facade used to allow trade.
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