3 ms·

Conflating market corporationism and fascist corporationism is an idiotic and ridiculous category error leftists often make. The purpose of fascist corporatism

Conflating market corporationism and fascist corporationism is an idiotic and ridiculous category error leftists often make. The purpose of fascist corporatism was to achieve organic national unity by putting both corporations and unions under control of the government. Market corporatist ideology believes that separating government functions from the government would make them more efficient.

hwillis 10y ago
Both are a rejection of individualism. Both replace the advocacy of individualist values through government with majority rule via the state and economy respectively. In both fascism and libertarianism, mandates for individual worth are irrelevant and representation is achieved through power wielded. Rather than everyone having a vote, and citizenship entitling you to an equal say in the direction of the country, fascism only awards votes to those who can apply political (or in Italian fascism, economic) pressure, and libertarianism only awards votes in proportion to how much money you have. Italian fascism means minimizing the government, ensuring that individuals do not have equal representation (equivalent to barring them from making demands on the market/society, just like libertarianism), and replacing government functions with corporations. That's essentially identical to American libertarianism. Saying "fascist corporatism was to achieve organic national unity by putting both corporations and unions under control of the government" is disingenuous. Under fascism, the government IS the corporations. Unions only existed to prevent unionization; it's not a real union if it is controlled by the company. Fascism was not the ultimate control of corporations by the government (that's socialism), its the other way around. Given that libertarianism (I have never seen a descriptive definition of the term leftist) is all about individualism, it should not be at all surprising that the two are treated as so similar. You are doing the reviewer a disservice by saying he conflated the two. He just said they reflect each other. Finally, in a practical sense, libertarianism and fascism are deeply, deeply intertwined in America. Here's[1] a popular alt-right blogger saying as such, using essentially the same arguments as I am. There's also this guy[2]. Ayn Rand made an argument like yours, that fascism is statist[3], but it holds zero water and doesn't even bear strong resemblance to modern American libertarianism. Her argument is that without a state government, corporations become the state- and therefor the solution is to give the state more power, so it doesn't become fascist. So... the way to become less statist is to give the state more power. That contradiction underlies the cognitive dissonance of libertarianism. The "rules" of libertarian canon cannot exist without state enforcement, the minimization of which is the avowed purpose of libertarianism. [1] http://therightstuff.biz/2013/01/23/fascist-libertarianism-for-a-better-world/ http://therightstuff.biz/2013/01/23/fascist-libertarianism-f... [2] http://bennorton.com/the-libertarian-fascist-alliance/ http://bennorton.com/the-libertarian-fascist-alliance/ [3] https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/ayn-rand-fascism https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/ayn-rand-fascism

hwillis 10y ago

Both are a rejection of individualism. Both replace the advocacy of individualist values through government with majority rule via the state and economy respectively. In both fascism and libertarianism, mandates for individual worth are irrelevant and representation is achieved through power wielded. Rather than everyone having a vote, and citizenship entitling you to an equal say in the direction of the country, fascism only awards votes to those who can apply political (or in Italian fascism, economic) pressure, and libertarianism only awards votes in proportion to how much money you have. Italian fascism means minimizing the government, ensuring that individuals do not have equal representation (equivalent to barring them from making demands on the market/society, just like libertarianism), and replacing government functions with corporations. That's essentially identical to American libertarianism. Saying "fascist corporatism was to achieve organic national unity by putting both corporations and unions under control of the government" is disingenuous. Under fascism, the government IS the corporations. Unions only existed to prevent unionization; it's not a real union if it is controlled by the company. Fascism was not the ultimate control of corporations by the government (that's socialism), its the other way around. Given that libertarianism (I have never seen a descriptive definition of the term leftist) is all about individualism, it should not be at all surprising that the two are treated as so similar. You are doing the reviewer a disservice by saying he conflated the two. He just said they reflect each other. Finally, in a practical sense, libertarianism and fascism are deeply, deeply intertwined in America. Here's[1] a popular alt-right blogger saying as such, using essentially the same arguments as I am. There's also this guy[2]. Ayn Rand made an argument like yours, that fascism is statist[3], but it holds zero water and doesn't even bear strong resemblance to modern American libertarianism. Her argument is that without a state government, corporations become the state- and therefor the solution is to give the state more power, so it doesn't become fascist. So... the way to become less statist is to give the state more power. That contradiction underlies the cognitive dissonance of libertarianism. The "rules" of libertarian canon cannot exist without state enforcement, the minimization of which is the avowed purpose of libertarianism. [1] http://therightstuff.biz/2013/01/23/fascist-libertarianism-for-a-better-world/ http://therightstuff.biz/2013/01/23/fascist-libertarianism-f... [2] http://bennorton.com/the-libertarian-fascist-alliance/ http://bennorton.com/the-libertarian-fascist-alliance/ [3] https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/ayn-rand-fascism https://www.libertarianism.org/columns/ayn-rand-fascism