A Recipe For Fascism

[Adam Blake]

Good essay, I thought. States the bleedin' obvious very well.

http://readersupportednews.org/off-site ... or-fascism

[garth cartwright]

Yes, good stuff. The Guardian's economics writer wrote well yesterday on how the US lives in denial - it no longer produces things people want yet allows its populace to believe they can still "have it all" thus sinking deeper and deeper into debt with new jeeps and McMansions and such.

[NormanD]

Once again, it's a list of all that's wrong, and no suggestion of how to fight back.

The closest he gets is when he writes

The old left—the Wobblies, the Congress of Industrial Workers (CIO), the Socialist and Communist parties, the fiercely independent publications such as Appeal to Reason and The Masses—would have known what to do with the rage of our dispossessed. It used anger at injustice, corporate greed and state repression to mobilize Americans to terrify the power elite on the eve of World War I. This was the time when socialism was not a dirty word in America but a promise embraced by millions who hoped to create a world where everyone would have a chance. The steady destruction of the movements of the left was carefully orchestrated. They fell victim to a mixture of sophisticated forms of government and corporate propaganda, especially during the witch hunts for communists, and overt repression. Their disappearance means we lack the vocabulary of class warfare and the militant organizations, including an independent press, with which to fight back.

But he completely negated this idea a few paragraphs before with his breezy dismissal

The propagandists of globalization—from Lawrence Summers to Francis Fukuyama to Thomas Friedman—do for globalization and the free market what Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky did for Marxism. They sell us a dream.

This is not only an awful comparison, but a rejection of socialist ideas.

[Adam Blake]

Maybe I'm way off but I suspect the only really practical solution to the problems delineated here is a concerted campaign of civil disobediance on a national scale. People refusing to leave their foreclosed homes, refusing to pay their bills, organising pickets of banks and suchlike. This is very unlikely to happen. The poor and exploited subscribe to the idea that if they only work very hard and do their absolute best then they too can join the folks on the hill in the golden mansions, or at least maybe their children will. It's hardwired into the American psyche. That's what comes of not having a proper class system where everyone knows their place! People work and work and work and work and the rich just get richer and the poor just get poorer until they might just as well be living in a third world country with a military dictatorship which, to all intents and purposes, they are.

If I might offer an analogy. A huge boulder sits on one end of an enormous pair of scales. Every day, people come and put little pebbles on the other end and nothing seems to happen. Until one day, the huge boulder moves and the balance is shifted. The question is: how many pebbles does it take?

[Jonathan E.]

Yes, good stuff. The Guardian's economics writer wrote well yesterday on how the US lives in denial . . .

Could you give us a link, please. All I found is this, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2010/nov/09/us-midterm-elections-2010-us-politics by Mark Weisbrot, which doesn't appear to be what you're referring to.

BTW, I don't think it's just the US that should be accused of living in denial. I'd say the whole western neoliberal capitalist experiment of living way beyond one's economic and ecological limitations is about over — but there's plenty of denial going around; just read some of the comments on this very board. This is a global thing, not restricted to the US, UK and Europe. Even countries like China, which appear to be making an effort to keep one good eye on the future, are ultimately doomed to fail when the model requires continual growth. Still, it's been a fun ride.

[Neil Foxlee]

It might well be this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010 ... o-disaster .

[Des]

[Adam Blake]

Could you give us a link, please.

Does the link I posted above not work? Hmmmm.... I'll send it you in an email.

[Neil Foxlee]

The propagandists of globalization—from Lawrence Summers to Francis Fukuyama to Thomas Friedman—do for globalization and the free market what Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky did for Marxism. They sell us a dream.

This is not only an awful comparison, but a rejection of socialist ideas.

Here's someone who seems to know his history and would disagree on Lenin and Trotsky's contribution to socialism:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQsceZ9skQI (from 1.40).

[Pete Fowler]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=loAkxdji-G4

[Neil Foxlee]

As the commenter says, interesting! It's certainly worth thinking carefully about the knock-on effects, though. Safe-manufacturers for one would have a field-day.

[Jonathan E.]

It might well be this: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010 ... o-disaster .

I think that was it. Thank you, Neil.

Frequent readers of my musings will not be surprised that I was pleased to read this among the comments:

An accurate and clear summary but you could read this in the FT or DT. You say the US is in denial but there's an argument to be made that the denial goes way beyond the US, the current levels of consumption are unsustainable globally. Your argument is essentially 'back to business as usual'. This is understandable for someone well versed in conventional economics.

Until we confront the profound issues and consider the long term health of the planet and all that it sustains, our kids and future generations are going to curse us as contemptible failures. The doomsday scenario you paint is perhaps the one that will confront our hubristic complacency. Not easy I'll concede but essential for our survival. Greed, ego and selfishness are the enemy and yes there is a spiritual aspect to life, even economics.

[Jonathan E.]

Yes, good stuff. The Guardian's economics writer wrote well yesterday on how the US lives in denial - it no longer produces things people want yet allows its populace to believe they can still "have it all" thus sinking deeper and deeper into debt with new jeeps and McMansions and such.

If the article Neil posted to is the one Garth referred to, I think it worth pointing out that what was written was this:

America's structural problem is that it has been in long-term industrial decline for the past 30 years and is in a state of denial about it. Countries succeed when they get the fundamentals right: they see the need for the whole population to be well-educated, not just an elite; they spend time and effort getting products right and making small but important incremental improvements; they make things that other nations want to buy.

No mention of

yet allows its populace to believe they can still "have it all" thus sinking deeper and deeper into debt with new jeeps and McMansions and such.

[Des]

With all due respect to Garth (and I love him dearly) I suspect his carbon footprint is as big as Texas.

[garth cartwright]

Hey, I was improvising on my readings! Surely blending Larry with Gary or whoever else is writing on the US's downturn in The G these days.