Obamanomics Socialist -- Or Fascist?
Noted economist Thomas Sowell makes the key point that Obama's economic policies are actually less "socialist" than they are fascist.
In "Socialist or Fascist," up at Townhall on June 12th 2012
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/06/12/socialist_or_fascist
Thomas Sowell says:
It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a "socialist." He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
...
Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous -- something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.
This is a very important point. With great power comes great responsibility; if the power be obvious, then so is the responsibility. Economic fascism -- privately-owned production subject to arbitrary government direction -- insulates the government from criticism for poor economic decisions in ways in which socialism never can.
One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.
Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely -- and correctly -- regarded as being on the political left. Jonah Goldberg's great book "Liberal Fascism" cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists' consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left's embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.
Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.
(*nods*)
In fact, the "right-left" one-dimensional political classification system breaks down when confronted with either communism or fascism. What is more important in analyzing those systems is "authoritarian-libertarian" -- both communism and fascism are authoritarian systems, regarding the rights of the State over the Individual as trumping those of the Individual against the State, and are hence close cousins.
It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot -- and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.
And indeed, only in the mid to late 1930's. Until then, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini were seen as alike "progressives," men of the Future, who had advanced beyond the silly libertarian superstitions of the 19th century. Note also that this was essentially a rebranding -- it is not that the Fascists changed their policies, it is that these policies became impossible to overlook once the Fascists were actually in power.
This attitude greatly influenced early genre science fiction. If one senses a fascist or communist tinge to a lot of the Interwar stories, it's because it's quite real: they tended to regard democracy and capitalism as old-fashioned. The preferred American alternative was "Technocracy" -- rule by scientific and technical experts, hence all the common appearance of a "World Science Council" with its "Science Police" and the like in the interwar pulps. This attitude actually began post World War One (the Old Order had obviously messed up royally and really gathered steam following the Crash of 1929.
What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.
Which is where lies its basic irrationality. It is purely by self-proclamation that these "very wise people" are better at making these decisions, and (as Von Mises has pointed out in some very long and detailed books) it is impossible for said "very wise people" to have either the information or the motivation to make these decisions more effectively than the people who own the property involved and hence personally stand to gain or lose by their wisdom or folly.
This also explains why such ideologies appeal to the arrogant and intellectually unqualified Barack Obama. And also, sadly, to many Interwar science fiction fans, who tended to be smart but naive young men who were frustrated in their real lives by the Great Depression, and consequently liked to fantasize that things would be better if they -- or men like them -- were running the world.
The left's vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, "We the People..."
That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution's limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges' new interpretations, based on notions of "a living Constitution" that will take decisions out of the hands of "We the People," and transfer those decisions to our betters.
Thankfully, our Constitution still stands, still stops these would-be tyrants, and shows every sign of surviving to check them at least into the near future. Long may our Constitution continue to protect our liberties!
I will add to this that Barack Obama's main personal inspiration seems to be coming neither from the doctrinaire Marxism (which is probably a bit too hard for him to understand) nor the iron tyranny of the Soviet dictatorship (which failed, reducing its appeal), but rather from the flamboyant quasi-fascist quasi-socialist charismatic dictators of Third World despotisms. And these tend to have a fascist flavor in part because many of them started as anti-colonialist movements in the Interwar Era, which Germany, Italy and Japan backed as a means of destablizing the European empires. This is a major aspect of the history of the Third World which the New Left for obvious reasons tries to ignore or even deny, and it is one of which Obama, growing up in Indonesia, would have been well aware, and in the most approving sort of way.
Happily, America will toss out this would-be tinpot tyrant and his pretensions of God-Kingship come the November elections.
At least we all hope so.
In "Socialist or Fascist," up at Townhall on June 12th 2012
http://townhall.com/columnists/thomassowell/2012/06/12/socialist_or_fascist
Thomas Sowell says:
It bothers me a little when conservatives call Barack Obama a "socialist." He certainly is an enemy of the free market, and wants politicians and bureaucrats to make the fundamental decisions about the economy. But that does not mean that he wants government ownership of the means of production, which has long been a standard definition of socialism.
What President Obama has been pushing for, and moving toward, is more insidious: government control of the economy, while leaving ownership in private hands. That way, politicians get to call the shots but, when their bright ideas lead to disaster, they can always blame those who own businesses in the private sector.
...
Government ownership of the means of production means that politicians also own the consequences of their policies, and have to face responsibility when those consequences are disastrous -- something that Barack Obama avoids like the plague.
This is a very important point. With great power comes great responsibility; if the power be obvious, then so is the responsibility. Economic fascism -- privately-owned production subject to arbitrary government direction -- insulates the government from criticism for poor economic decisions in ways in which socialism never can.
One of the reasons why both pro-Obama and anti-Obama observers may be reluctant to see him as fascist is that both tend to accept the prevailing notion that fascism is on the political right, while it is obvious that Obama is on the political left.
Back in the 1920s, however, when fascism was a new political development, it was widely -- and correctly -- regarded as being on the political left. Jonah Goldberg's great book "Liberal Fascism" cites overwhelming evidence of the fascists' consistent pursuit of the goals of the left, and of the left's embrace of the fascists as one of their own during the 1920s.
Mussolini, the originator of fascism, was lionized by the left, both in Europe and in America, during the 1920s. Even Hitler, who adopted fascist ideas in the 1920s, was seen by some, including W.E.B. Du Bois, as a man of the left.
(*nods*)
In fact, the "right-left" one-dimensional political classification system breaks down when confronted with either communism or fascism. What is more important in analyzing those systems is "authoritarian-libertarian" -- both communism and fascism are authoritarian systems, regarding the rights of the State over the Individual as trumping those of the Individual against the State, and are hence close cousins.
It was in the 1930s, when ugly internal and international actions by Hitler and Mussolini repelled the world, that the left distanced themselves from fascism and its Nazi offshoot -- and verbally transferred these totalitarian dictatorships to the right, saddling their opponents with these pariahs.
And indeed, only in the mid to late 1930's. Until then, Stalin, Hitler and Mussolini were seen as alike "progressives," men of the Future, who had advanced beyond the silly libertarian superstitions of the 19th century. Note also that this was essentially a rebranding -- it is not that the Fascists changed their policies, it is that these policies became impossible to overlook once the Fascists were actually in power.
This attitude greatly influenced early genre science fiction. If one senses a fascist or communist tinge to a lot of the Interwar stories, it's because it's quite real: they tended to regard democracy and capitalism as old-fashioned. The preferred American alternative was "Technocracy" -- rule by scientific and technical experts, hence all the common appearance of a "World Science Council" with its "Science Police" and the like in the interwar pulps. This attitude actually began post World War One (the Old Order had obviously messed up royally and really gathered steam following the Crash of 1929.
What socialism, fascism and other ideologies of the left have in common is an assumption that some very wise people -- like themselves -- need to take decisions out of the hands of lesser people, like the rest of us, and impose those decisions by government fiat.
Which is where lies its basic irrationality. It is purely by self-proclamation that these "very wise people" are better at making these decisions, and (as Von Mises has pointed out in some very long and detailed books) it is impossible for said "very wise people" to have either the information or the motivation to make these decisions more effectively than the people who own the property involved and hence personally stand to gain or lose by their wisdom or folly.
This also explains why such ideologies appeal to the arrogant and intellectually unqualified Barack Obama. And also, sadly, to many Interwar science fiction fans, who tended to be smart but naive young men who were frustrated in their real lives by the Great Depression, and consequently liked to fantasize that things would be better if they -- or men like them -- were running the world.
The left's vision is not only a vision of the world, but also a vision of themselves, as superior beings pursuing superior ends. In the United States, however, this vision conflicts with a Constitution that begins, "We the People..."
That is why the left has for more than a century been trying to get the Constitution's limitations on government loosened or evaded by judges' new interpretations, based on notions of "a living Constitution" that will take decisions out of the hands of "We the People," and transfer those decisions to our betters.
Thankfully, our Constitution still stands, still stops these would-be tyrants, and shows every sign of surviving to check them at least into the near future. Long may our Constitution continue to protect our liberties!
I will add to this that Barack Obama's main personal inspiration seems to be coming neither from the doctrinaire Marxism (which is probably a bit too hard for him to understand) nor the iron tyranny of the Soviet dictatorship (which failed, reducing its appeal), but rather from the flamboyant quasi-fascist quasi-socialist charismatic dictators of Third World despotisms. And these tend to have a fascist flavor in part because many of them started as anti-colonialist movements in the Interwar Era, which Germany, Italy and Japan backed as a means of destablizing the European empires. This is a major aspect of the history of the Third World which the New Left for obvious reasons tries to ignore or even deny, and it is one of which Obama, growing up in Indonesia, would have been well aware, and in the most approving sort of way.
Happily, America will toss out this would-be tinpot tyrant and his pretensions of God-Kingship come the November elections.
At least we all hope so.