There's probably some theory about power being like the conservation of energy, in that it doesn't get destroyed, just transformed or moved. Take power away from the government and that power doesn't just make people more free, it just goes somewhere else. Clearly the intent is to move that power from the government (which is at least nominally meant to protect citizens) to companies/the rich.
That's how I see it as well. Government in theory should protect the citizens, which I assume often means the consumers and the workers. But maybe capitalism run amok is when capitalists accumulate the power and use it to strong-arm the government into liking the corporate shareholders (capitalists?) more than the citizens.
> capitalism run amok is when capitalists accumulate the power and use it to strong-arm the government into liking the corporate shareholders (capitalists?) more than the citizens.
This is pretty much the definition of fascism.
“Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” — Benito Mussolini, famous fascist.
Mussolini used the word 'corporation' in a different sense to the modern sense of a public company. He was referring instead to different sectors of society, something like a 'guild'.
Not exactly. I'd say that is a self-serving quote to whitewash fascism.
The narrow definition of corporatism is basically just the public-private interweaving of government. Communism is just as much corporatist as fascism -- the main difference being that in communism the trade bodies are considered part of the government rather than part of the industry.
Fascism is more specific because it also encompasses fostering/breeding tribalistic tendencies (bigotry, nationalism, i.e. "othering") in society at large. In contrast, corporatism doesn't prescribe how the rest of society interacts.
Maybe you have a more positive view of corporations than me, because calling fascism a government of by and for corporations does not whitewash it at all for me.
I had the same reaction, but then some cursory searching led me to this discussion on the "Talk" page for Wikiquote's entry on Mussolini which casts some doubt on the accuracy of the attribution and/or translation of this line:
> At its core, the quoted saying is incompatible with fascism and frankly nonsensical. Under fascism, the state uses the market efficiency of capitalism to regulate and control the economy, namely by concentrating market shares to a relatively few large corporations into cartels, which in turn the fascist state has direct control over. Whereas, corporatism is state control by large interest groups, commonly pictured as large multi-national corporations with monopolistic powers. In other words, the controlling party under corporatism is the reverse of that under fascism."Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State."The Doctrine of Fascism (1932) by Benito Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile
In Italian, corporativismo has a distinct meaning that is unrelated to the concept of commercial corporations. It refers to a system of collaboration between social groups, represented through joint associations of employers and workers. Essentially, it is a state-aligned alternative to independent trade unions, a "national syndicalism" of sorts.
Muskotrumpia may excel in performance-based state capture, but fascism it is not. The anti-state culture of the U.S. clashes with the "everything for the state" ethos that defines fascism. We're simply entering textbook Caesarism territory.
There's probably some theory about power being like the conservation of energy, in that it doesn't get destroyed, just transformed or moved. Take power away from the government and that power doesn't just make people more free, it just goes somewhere else. Clearly the intent is to move that power from the government (which is at least nominally meant to protect citizens) to companies/the rich.