Capitalism is closer to fascism than to democracy...

A caller to C-SPAN just touched on this subject. Capitalism does not have to be a cornerstone of democracy. In fact, it should be a part of democracy but not the major part. The right to property does not give anyone the right to steal the labor of someone else, all in the name of free marketplace or competition. We need to protect ourselves, in a democracy, from these corporations that would steal us blind if we let them. Fascism is when everything is for the benefit of the corporations. I would say we are closer to fascism today than we are to democracy.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power."

The difference with America is the smoke and mirrors approach ... which is quickly dissipating.

think he was talking about the business model as that is a fairly new meaning of the term. I think he was talking about all aspects of society being part of the state. All parts of society are part of the corpus, the body. This boy for Mussolini was the totalitarian state: "All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state."

all it means is a classification of economies where labor, state, and the private sector all negotiate in blocks to mitigate the the negative effects of the free market. Quite a few European economies are like this. Other types of corporatist arrangements were the East Asian economies in the latter half of the twentieth century.

The ism refers to the highest value in a particular society.

Capitalism - Money
Socialism - Society
Communism - Commune
Fascism - Power
Nepotism - Blood relations
Cronyism - Republicans

Where money is all that matters.

Capitalism is a system of values.

Democracy is a system of governance to achieve those values.

It is theoretically possible to have one, both, or neither.

One, we are slipping from a republic to an empire.

Two, our system of moral values is messed up.

Time to smash the golden calf again.

But democracy was replaced by national socialism. The "isms" will destroy democracy if not regulated.

"In times of crisis philosophies become expressions of the predicament of the age ..It would, however, be a complete misunderstanding if one interpreted existential thought as thought whose subject matter is existence. No, it refers to the mode in which the subject is engaged in his thought ..the term "existentialism" points to a certain state of mind, to a specific approach or attitude, to a spiritual movement which is of significance in present circumstances and to a specific mode of thought, in any case to something which is alive. It is a fundamental mistake to assume that what cannot be defined does not exist. On the contrary, anything which is alive cannot be exhausted by definition ... It can hardly be doubted that these philosophies are specific to the Zeitgeist, ..they express something of that which many feel without being able to formulate it."

"Whilst the majority accepted, voluntarily or forced, the pseudo-philosophies of Marxism, Bolshevism and Fascism, the existentialists defended the rights of the person. Existentialism is not the philosophy of a class, and the problems which it discusses transcend the boundaries of a specific group; they are simply human and they reappear within dictatorial states, even in a more pressing, though perhaps insoluble form ..In fact the existentialists are philosophers of resistance. They attempt to resist the collectivizing trend, bound up with machine production, which seems to lead in any society, whether democratic, fascist or socialist, to a depersonalization of man. This resistance takes various forms ..The philosophies of existence are philosophies of liberation rather than philosophies of freedom. They attempt to liberate man from the domination of external forces, of society, of the state, and of dictatorial power. They want to set man's authentic self free from the shackles of the unauthentic self. For this reason, the fact of estrangement in its enormous complexity and many-sidedness became central with them ..Man should choose himself according to his conscience, which is the voice of God in him, and he should therefore regard his self as a gift from God."

"..All the existentialists stressed the fact of alienation. Did they succeed in overcoming self-estrangement? Is it at all possible to get rid of this affliction? Will not an element of it always remain because of its having, so to say, metaphysical roots? Is it perhaps our permanent fate to remain foreigners on this Earth, in spite of being at home on it? Is this not even more true of man within the universe? Responding consciously and unconsciously to rays from sun and stars, he does not understand the message they may convey. Cosmic alienation is even greater than Earth-alienation ..The highest degree of estrangement, i.e. a complete break and an unbridgeable gulf, and the lowest degree, where no feeling of difference is left, are seldom realized, but they mark the limits between which the pendulum of our feeling oscillates. In their inner life they all remain, to a certain degree, foreign to us."
~ F.H.Heinemann, Existentialism And The Modern Predicament 1953

Always has been.

:shrug:

Competition?! When was the last time you drove down your road and seen one gas station with a cut-throat price taking on all the others? No. The key word here is Cooperation.

Big L Libertarians want to do away with regulations on capitalism. Conservatives have been conned into thinking they can get what they say they want by reducing regulations on capitalism.

But, the only way to ensure competitive markets is through regulation. If people say they want "free markets" this is an important point - do they mean "free" in that the markets are competitive and there are many sellers; or do they mean "free" as in free of regulation?

I think this is the root of confusion for many and mischief for those seeking to exploit.