archived: 15 - 21 Jan, 2006 Back Next
JUNKIE
“Fascist
Corporations”
Dr. Steven Jonas’ recent article, "WHY THE PATRIOT ACT, REDUX: FASCISM IN THE HERE AND NOW, CONT," has been widely read in TPJ and republished on a number of other political sites on the internet. In discussing fascism, he defined it as:
Fascism is a politico-economic system in which there is: total executive branch control of the government; no independent judiciary; no Constitution that embodies the Rule of Law standing above the people who run the government; no inherent rights or liberties; a single national ideology that first demonizes and then criminalizes all political, religious, and ideological opposition to it; and total corporate determination of economic, fiscal, and regulatory policy.
A TPJ reader anonymously replied:
-- um, excuse me, but this is nonsense. WTF do you mean by "corporate" here? Can you tell the difference between a fascist "corporation" and a capitalist "corporation"? No, I didn't think so.
Anonymous’ response was forwarded to Dr. Jonas, who provided the following response:
Thanks for sending the comment . . . along. The answer to that question is simple: a capitalist corporation is one that supports a Constitutional, democratic system of government with a capitalist economic system. A fascist corporation is one that supports a fascist system of government, as in my brief definition, with a capitalist economic system. The former are presently found in all of the world's Constitutional capitalist democracies. The latter were found in the major corporations of fascist Germany and Italy.
Even though the comment was unsigned, if you would care to run it and my response in "Junkies Speak," that would be fine with me.
Frankly, I debated whether publishing anonymous’ feedback and Dr. Jonas’ reply would materially benefit readers. I wrote Dr. Jonas:
May do so, even though my initial reaction was that anonymous’ point was weak and would not really be meaningful to readers.
Dr. Jonas was quick and correct in responding:
Actually, I think that the point is a fairly important one in the understanding of what fascism is all about. The history of fascism has shown that it arises only when enough major corporations in a given country get behind the concept of eliminating Constitutional democracy and substituting fascist dictatorship (again as in my definition) for it. One major, unreported, largely behind-the-scenes struggle that is presently going on in our country is between those corporations that would like to substitute the fascist model for the Constitutional democracy model. In the absence of a mass movement to protect Constitutional democracy, at least at the present, it is the outcome of that struggle that will likely be the major determinant of our future.
All points well made, all worthy of publication and discussion.
Last Update: 03/23/2006