I would never wish to forbid the use of any word... I'm just pleading for a little more intellectual honesty with this one. Your previous response illustrates part of the problem, though in a subtle enough way that it took me several hours and a crossing over the Atlantic Ocean to figure out exactly why. You said:
Just because Obama isn't likely to commit genocide doesn't meant that using public money to take over companies while leaving them nominally privately-owned is anything but another step towards fascism in this country, and one that should alarm people.
Now, it is no surprise to anyone that you and I have some differing opinions on whether it can ever be a good thing for government to exert control over business. And that's certainly an argument worth having, but when you say "another step towards fascism in this country, and one that should alarm people", well... why should it alarm people?
More to the point: should it alarm people because government control of business is alarming, or because fascism is alarming? If you mean the latter, then you've undermined your point by insisting that fascism doesn't imply all the particularly alarming things that most people associate with it. If the former, then what has the whole discussion really got to do with fascism anyway? If you really define fascism mainly by its macroeconomic implications, then -- being much less of a believer in the good of the free market -- I actually don't find it all that alarming. If you want to convince me that I should, then you have plenty of arguments at your disposal, but the claim that it's fascism isn't going to help.
(I would also tend to argue that, by my understanding of the word -- which is admittedly not that deep -- governmental control of the economy is a natural outcome of fascism rather than an integral component of it. Because fascism is by nature authoritarian. But one can also have some governmental control of the economy in a democratic system.)
I'm trying not to veer too far into another discussion altogether, but I need to expound on this at least a little:
More to the point: should it alarm people because government control of business is alarming, or because fascism is alarming?
I would say both: I do believe that government control of business is alarming in and of itself, but I also believe that it's alarming as an indication that we're taking one more step on a path towards a form of government and a level of government control that is the antithesis of what America was founded to create, and that Americans have lived under for a bit over two centuries. Moreover, the end of that road is a form of government that promotes war and strife, and that destroys the rights, the choice, and the prosperity of all its citizens.
We're already involved in "endless" wars overseas that are supposed to make us safer and more secure against a nebulous and ill-defined threat. Nationalism and blind loyalty to those in charge, no matter where they may lead, has largely supplanted true patriotism and the questioning of authority. These things go hand in hand with the economic implications of ever-increasing government power as the major features of fascism, and once they're in place, it's simple for the government to claim any further powers they wish in the name of protecting us. All it takes is for someone at the top to push hard enough, evoke enough public fear, and we could become a dictatorship in all but name.
As an example of why I think government control of business itself is alarming, what happens if people still aren't purchasing GM cars, now that the government has a financial and ideological stake in saving the company? Do they force people to buy them anyway by placing tariffs on foreign cars so high that no one will want them? Then we have a choice between an inferior product at a price no one wanted to pay in the first place, and a product people want at a price no one will pay. How does that serve anyone but the people running GM and the government bureaucrats who can point to GM's sales and say "See? We saved the company." They could lower the price of the cars, since the government is footing the bill, but the difference has to come from somewhere - we'd still be paying for them out of our taxes, and still be stuck with an inferior product. GM has no incentive to produce better products, because we'll be paying for them no matter what they put out.
In the end, this only leads to a less prosperous, less satisfied general population and a more prosperous, more satisfied group of managers at GM, who now have to do less because they can be assured that the government won't let them fail. This only leads to less innovation, less progress and less money to go around, since people are less likely to invest in new and potentially profitable alternatives when the government has a stake in ensuring that the existing players continue to dominate the market.
Actually, any system can be perverted to be an authoritarian system. Democracy is often called "the tyranny of the masses".
While we do have democracy and good democratic process working at local levels in the United States; the federal government has never been a democracy. The representative republic worked very well as a form of government until industry realized that they could pervert/subvert government with money and use their shills to raid the treasury and rob the citizenry. That's been going on for quite some time. The leveraged debt/debt speculation fiasco last fall is an excellent example of a corporate treasury raid. Our government "bailed out" banks when they should have been piercing the corporate veil to indict many of the bankers they "saved" for various forms of securities fraud.
And when I said "I'm inviting trouble", I meant, "I'm inviting saintbogz." :) Welcome to the fray!
Now, to the extent that the federal government has never technically been a democracy, that's true and I don't care. As a practical matter, I find representative democracy good enough (which is not to say that there isn't a lot of room for improvement). Switzerland has something more like direct democracy. One famous result of this was that extending voting rights to women had to be approved by national referendum, and thus didn't actually happen until 1971! (1990 in Canton Appenzell.) I guess that's the tyranny of the masses for you.
I agree with much of the rest of what you said, though.
Just because Obama isn't likely to commit genocide doesn't meant that using public money to take over companies while leaving them nominally privately-owned is anything but another step towards fascism in this country, and one that should alarm people.
Now, it is no surprise to anyone that you and I have some differing opinions on whether it can ever be a good thing for government to exert control over business. And that's certainly an argument worth having, but when you say "another step towards fascism in this country, and one that should alarm people", well... why should it alarm people?
More to the point: should it alarm people because government control of business is alarming, or because fascism is alarming? If you mean the latter, then you've undermined your point by insisting that fascism doesn't imply all the particularly alarming things that most people associate with it. If the former, then what has the whole discussion really got to do with fascism anyway? If you really define fascism mainly by its macroeconomic implications, then -- being much less of a believer in the good of the free market -- I actually don't find it all that alarming. If you want to convince me that I should, then you have plenty of arguments at your disposal, but the claim that it's fascism isn't going to help.
(I would also tend to argue that, by my understanding of the word -- which is admittedly not that deep -- governmental control of the economy is a natural outcome of fascism rather than an integral component of it. Because fascism is by nature authoritarian. But one can also have some governmental control of the economy in a democratic system.)
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More to the point: should it alarm people because government control of business is alarming, or because fascism is alarming?
I would say both: I do believe that government control of business is alarming in and of itself, but I also believe that it's alarming as an indication that we're taking one more step on a path towards a form of government and a level of government control that is the antithesis of what America was founded to create, and that Americans have lived under for a bit over two centuries. Moreover, the end of that road is a form of government that promotes war and strife, and that destroys the rights, the choice, and the prosperity of all its citizens.
We're already involved in "endless" wars overseas that are supposed to make us safer and more secure against a nebulous and ill-defined threat. Nationalism and blind loyalty to those in charge, no matter where they may lead, has largely supplanted true patriotism and the questioning of authority. These things go hand in hand with the economic implications of ever-increasing government power as the major features of fascism, and once they're in place, it's simple for the government to claim any further powers they wish in the name of protecting us. All it takes is for someone at the top to push hard enough, evoke enough public fear, and we could become a dictatorship in all but name.
As an example of why I think government control of business itself is alarming, what happens if people still aren't purchasing GM cars, now that the government has a financial and ideological stake in saving the company? Do they force people to buy them anyway by placing tariffs on foreign cars so high that no one will want them? Then we have a choice between an inferior product at a price no one wanted to pay in the first place, and a product people want at a price no one will pay. How does that serve anyone but the people running GM and the government bureaucrats who can point to GM's sales and say "See? We saved the company." They could lower the price of the cars, since the government is footing the bill, but the difference has to come from somewhere - we'd still be paying for them out of our taxes, and still be stuck with an inferior product. GM has no incentive to produce better products, because we'll be paying for them no matter what they put out.
In the end, this only leads to a less prosperous, less satisfied general population and a more prosperous, more satisfied group of managers at GM, who now have to do less because they can be assured that the government won't let them fail. This only leads to less innovation, less progress and less money to go around, since people are less likely to invest in new and potentially profitable alternatives when the government has a stake in ensuring that the existing players continue to dominate the market.
Reply
While we do have democracy and good democratic process working at local levels in the United States; the federal government has never been a democracy. The representative republic worked very well as a form of government until industry realized that they could pervert/subvert government with money and use their shills to raid the treasury and rob the citizenry. That's been going on for quite some time. The leveraged debt/debt speculation fiasco last fall is an excellent example of a corporate treasury raid. Our government "bailed out" banks when they should have been piercing the corporate veil to indict many of the bankers they "saved" for various forms of securities fraud.
Reply
Now, to the extent that the federal government has never technically been a democracy, that's true and I don't care. As a practical matter, I find representative democracy good enough (which is not to say that there isn't a lot of room for improvement). Switzerland has something more like direct democracy. One famous result of this was that extending voting rights to women had to be approved by national referendum, and thus didn't actually happen until 1971! (1990 in Canton Appenzell.)
I guess that's the tyranny of the masses for you.
I agree with much of the rest of what you said, though.
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