Davos: From Proto-Fascism to Post-Fascism

American Thinker ^ | January 17, 2024 | Gary Gindler

[WWII_Historian]

The political adage “If you cannot beat them, join them” has been well-known for centuries. So, the Left made one extra step and arrived at the “if you cannot beat them, lead them.” The Left has been trying (unsuccessfully) various methods to eliminate capitalists and private property.

Eventually, Leftists learned their lesson and decided to preside over private property instead of confiscating and spreading it around. Lenin used it (the so-called “New Economic Policy” in the Soviet Union 1921-1928), Mussolini used it, Hitler used it, and Mao Zedong used it (his campaign is still alive and well in China). It blatantly violates a well-demarcated borderline between the government and the governed. However, by now, it is the cornerstone of Globalism.

Note that the systematic and deliberate infiltration of the state into private economic affairs did not begin with Mussolini. In 17th-century France, for example, Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu established state-sponsored and state-directed cartels. That resulted in public-private entities that were granted monopoly status in their respective fields. Richelieu aimed not to build a proto-fascist state per se; his cravings were more down-to-earth: France had a war to win. (The following definitions are used: “Socialism is a state of society where most wealth, either de jure or de facto, belongs to a government. Fascism is a form of Socialism where most wealth de facto but not de jure belongs to a government.)

Nevertheless, Cardinal Richelieu deployed state power to consolidate state power even more. His offer to the French merchants was one they could not refuse: guaranteed profits under the protection of the state or guaranteed imprisonment at the Bastille.

[Brian Griffin]

Ein Reich

[SecondAmendment]

Funny how Germans keep trying to take over the world, and we let it them try to do it ...

[sauropod]

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