Osborne's Tory Lies [UK Only]

Originally posted by normbenign
Note that I don't advocate anarchy. Nor do I advocate governments randomly trying stuff in the hope that some of it works. Unless it is pretty much certain that a policy is beneficial to all classes, and harmful to none, it ought be avoided.

The notion of the majority (lower income) deciding by voting to rob the minority (higher income) is obnoxious ...[text shortened]... cist State that I am aware of. Overly high rates of corporate taxation would indeed by fascist.

Fascist economic policies were chaotic and inconsistent, that is true, and fascists demanded that corporations serve the national interest - as defined by the fascists of course. The first key link is the emphasis on an excessive, fanatical nationalism. Those countries with an excessive, unhealthy obsession for their own national flag and excessive fear of other flags should learn from this. An example coming to mind is the USA. In the UK we rightly fear the growth of nationalism.

However, fascists consistently set about destroying democratic institutions and destroying the power of trade unions, while making strikes illegal. Countries like the USA, and the Tories in the UK, come to mind. Your fear about an impoverished majority stealing wealth from an elite that is entitled to its wealth is absurd but it is also explicitly antidemocratic, blatantly so.

Fascists favoured big corporations over the interests of small business. The national leadership came to comprise the senior generals, the top businessmen and the party leaders. A focus on military spending served all three interests nicely. I think of the USA as a good comparison here, with the UK also out of its league in spending on macho toys like Trident.

Current political focus on "free markets" and "market forces" is spurious in many ways of course. The key ingredient, though, is to undermine regulation of corporate behaviour and monopolistic practices. What you need to understand about laissez faire as an ideology is that it offers no protection whatever against vested interests accumulating monopoly powers and abusing their position in the market to destroy competition. You also need to understand how money subverts democracy. If you examine the role of corporate America and politicians like President Wilson, you will notice the subverting (or the subtle redefining) of laissez faire ideology to fit a new pattern serving the interests of corporations. Again, if you look at America's long standing commitment to "free markets" and its "open doors policy" you will start to notice that this was always about using America's military and political power to break down barriers to American corporations moving into foreign markets on terms that were always unbalanced in their own favour. That alliance of corporations, the military and the fascist state is the thing to be aware of.

Finally, throw in a severe dose of violent racism, and bear in mind the influence of segregationist America as well as Britian's imperialist ideology on European fascist thinking, including Henry Ford's infamous anti-semitism and his widely read writing about Jews. The fascists were stunned that Britain and America did not take their side and indeed, bearing in mind also the huge American investment in Germany's revival before the WW2 war, I often feel that it was only Roosevelt's genius that prevented that. Notice how America protected Franco's appalling Spanish dictatorship after that war.

You will get some good information about fascist economics from this Wiki page - you have to make your own links to the present day.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism