4 ms·
With regulatory capture and corruption of the government, isn't our problem a textbook definition of facism (in the academic sense of the word, not in the nazi
by arca_vorago 9y ago
With regulatory capture and corruption of the government, isn't our problem a textbook definition of facism (in the academic sense of the word, not in the nazi sense of the word)?
Personally I think the word is overused and too heavily charged, and a more appropriate and descriptive term is corporatism.
I also agree with Chris Hedges and Sheldon Wolin that inverted totalitarianism is an apt definition.
According to the Princeton study of congress, we are also an oligarchy due to the public having almost no influence on legislation, meaning we are not being represented by our elected officials.
I would also argue with the increasing disparity of power and resources between the uber-rich and the rest of, and as the middle class is attacked from all sides and shrinks, that our system also matches the definition of neo-feudalism.
So, to put it all together, America has allowed itself to become a neo-feudal oligarchical corporate inverted totaltarian surveillance state.
- coldtea 9y agoWhy start with the definitions first? Isn't that backwards?
- arca_vorago 9y agoI don't understand your comment? The question of the post is why does it cost this much? A responder said capitalism, and I am just going further into the various political definitions that describe the current system, which is helpful in inderstanding the original question of the article. If it's an oligarchical corporate state, then it would make sense that hospitals (companies) abuse of their regulatory capture (oligarchism) are exploiting the majority of people financially and otherwise (neo-fuedalism), largley by making them dependent or subservient to their systems. How is that backwards?
- coldtea 9y ago>I don't understand your comment? The question of the post is why does it cost this much? A responder said capitalism, and I am just going further into the various political definitions that describe the current system, which is helpful in inderstanding the original question of the article. That's what I am referring to. Instead of looking into some idealistic "political definitions" and say "according to this this system isn't capitalism", we should look into what's going on (in reality) and say "this is what capitalism looks like". Else it's like those marxists, that instead of accepting that communism can result in a BS bureaucratic state, they said that USSR and co weren't "real communism/socialism", because they didn't match the theory, and that real communism hasn't been tried etc. That's what I call going backwards. One has a definition, and compares reality against it. Instead they should derive their definition from what happens in reality -- and maybe even accept that their idealistic definition can't ever happen anyway. It's like some zoologist had a definition of animal X, and then matched it with various animals and said "this can't be X, because it doesn't match the definition". Well, if that X existed only in theory that's a bad practice. The definition of any X should come from studying actual animals (e.g. this animal species has so and so characteristics, we'll call them an X, e.g. tiger). So, where has this ideal "capitalism" even been seen in the wild?
- arca_vorago 9y ago>That's what I am referring to. Instead of looking into some idealistic "political definitions" and say "according to this this system isn't capitalism", we should look into what's going on (in reality) and say "this is what capitalism looks like". I'm sorry but thats not how definitions work...
- mirimir 9y agoMe, I'd say kleptocracy. Got that from Gibson's Peripheral :)
- arca_vorago 9y agoThey aren't mutally exclusive, so I'll add it to my reportoire. kleptocratic neo-feudal oligarchical corporate inverted totaltarian surveillance state