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Posted on 11/21/2025 5:04:36 AM PST by Sir_Humphrey
In the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s election victory earlier this month, it became clear that socialism is more of a rising threat on the left than ever before. It’s also clear the GOP could no longer coast along by proclaiming “Vote for us because he’s a socialist,” assuming that people would forever have a knee-jerk reaction to that word.
One issue that defined New York’s mayoral race – and, increasingly, politics throughout the country – is affordability. For millions of Americans, being able to afford rent, grocery bills, health care, and buying a home seems further out of reach than ever before. The issue has been winked at by politicians across the spectrum for years around election time with precious little results to show for it.
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
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Peter Thiel’s now-viral email from 2020 captures exactly what’s underlying this shift: “From the perspective of a broken generational compact … when one has too much student debt or if housing is too unaffordable, then one will have negative capital for a long time … if one has no stake in the capitalist system, then one may well turn against it.”
He was right then, and he’s right now. The only thing left to be seen is whether the right will wake up to that reality before it’s too late.
If civilized individuals won’t defend the civilizations they live in...who will? Many of those civilizations have horrible leaders destroying those who they are supposed to defend.
One problem as I see it that our “capitalist” system isn’t capitalist at all. It’s government-corporate fascism designed to enslave Americans by forcing them into a “compulsory consumption” economic system whether they like it or not.
Drivelous balderdash
Wow that’s a really good quote. Very true.
Do you have any idea how much money you spend on things you don’t need and don’t want — just because the companies that produce them lobby the government to mandate them?
well said ...
In the aftermath of Zohran Mamdani’s election victory earlier this month, it became clear that socialism is more of a rising threat on the left than ever before.
As much as anything else, Mamdani won because he had no competition- it wasn’t some seismic cultural shift... from deblasio, to Adams to ayatollah mamdani, NYChitty has gone from utter garbage to complete dogcrap with the candidates who run and win the mayoral race..
I want in on this conversation!
Albertas child might be over the target on this one. What we are experiencing is NOT capitalism.
Presently is is stylish, even fashionable, to rant about fascism.
Im interested in your argument but can you elaborate?
I wish this was discussed more, typically it is quickly dismissed. I can’t quite put my finger on it but sometime around the 1970’s we really transformed into some sort of state-capitalism/communism-lite economic system where the 12 federal reserve banks are the state. Regulators are non existent when it counts, and consumers have little say due to centralized capital distribution and allocation. Like I said, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but it’s quite obvious the economy stopped working for the people. To me at least it seems like the 12 branches pick the winners, the regulators force consumers to consume.
Srednik prefers “Free Enterprise” to ‘capitalism.’ We should never let our enemies define us.
I agree.
Lots of marketing, persuasion and manipulation. You need to consume constantly. And debt is your friend. By all means, spend money you don’t have to buy stuff you don’t need. That’s what all the good little boys and girls do.
I don’t generally focus on “income inequality” because I don’t think people are all that equal. But we have largely lost our Middle Class. We have poor people who are struggling and we have rich people who look down on anyone who isn’t rich. To my way of thinking, the key benefit of capitalism was the creation of a middle class. That’s the American Dream — start a family, buy a house, live in the suburbs and have some control over your own life. I think that almost all of that is out of reach for a lot of people today. I don’t consider our current American economy to be either a free market economy or capitalism. It really is fascism that benefits Big Government and Big Business and screws over everyone else.
The mistake that is made here is the assumption that we are in a capitalist society and that couldn’t be further from the truth.
These things are filled with expensive features that were once optional but became “mandatory” because the companies that produce them lobby the government to require manufacturers to build them into these products.
If people think prices & other things, conditions,etc. are bad in NYC now...just wait. Mamdani has more for you.
Here is how AI describes the differnce between the two concepts:
Corporatism and fascism are closely related but distinct concepts. Corporatism is a political and economic system in which society is organized into corporate groups—such as labor unions, professional associations, and employer organizations—that are intended to represent different sectors of the economy and work collaboratively under state supervision.
It emerged in the 19th century as a response to class struggle, advocating cooperation between social classes instead of conflict.
The term "corporatism" comes from the Latin corpus, meaning "body," reflecting the idea of society as an organism composed of functional parts.
Fascism, particularly as practiced in Benito Mussolini’s Italy, adopted corporatism as a central tenet of its economic and social policy.
Italian fascism implemented a corporatist model through institutions like the Labour Charter of 1927, which established state-controlled syndicates for workers and employers, and later corporations that unified these syndicates by industry.
These bodies were meant to harmonize economic interests under the authority of the state, replacing independent labor unions and class-based politics.
However, while corporatism can exist independently of fascism—having been embraced by Catholic social teaching, Christian democratic parties, and even some social democratic models—fascism uses corporatism as a tool to achieve totalitarian control.
In fascist regimes, the state dominates the corporatist structure, eliminating genuine autonomy for worker and employer groups.
As described in The Doctrine of Fascism (1932), the fascist state claims authority over all aspects of life, including the economy, and views corporatism as a means to integrate divergent interests into a unified national will under state direction.
A key distinction is that fascism is not merely an economic system but a revolutionary, nationalist, and totalitarian ideology seeking total commitment from the population, whereas corporatism is primarily an organizational model for economic and social governance.
Historian Ian Kershaw notes that unlike conservative authoritarian regimes, fascism aimed to transform society rather than preserve the existing order.
A common misconception, often repeated in online discourse, is that Mussolini defined fascism as "the merger of state and corporate power".
While this quote is widely attributed to him, there is no solid evidence that Mussolini or his philosopher collaborator Giovanni Gentile actually said this exact phrase.
Moreover, the "corporations" in fascist corporatism refer not to modern private corporations but to state-regulated bodies representing economic sectors—making the supposed linguistic link between "corporation" and "corporatism" misleading.
In practice, fascist corporatism served to suppress labor movements and eliminate political opposition, despite its theoretical promise of class collaboration.
Programs like Nazi Germany’s Strength Through Joy offered worker benefits conditional on loyalty, illustrating how corporatist mechanisms were used to enforce ideological conformity rather than promote genuine worker representation.
Now back to my thoughts:
Whatever one calls the current capitalism, it is not the pure fotm of capitalisn that his nation once enjoyed, and that is because of goverment intervention to control some of the aspects that pure capitalism can, and does, fall prey to, which are corruption, along with predatory practices that enable business to elevate itself beyond the powers of government to subvert constitutional limitations.
At one point in time, this nation employed caveat emptor, a Latin phrase meaning "let the buyer beware," & was a foundational principle in contract law that places the responsibility on the buyer to perform due diligence before a purchase to ensure the product or property is suitable and free from defects.
This is where government started to interfere with pure capitalism, and it was a noble attempt to combat corription within capitalism, of which religion used to play a majot role is curbing peoples deceptive & corrupt practice of deceiving each other. But as is always the case, one reaction is always met with an opposite reaction. The real culprit was the removal of relifion in the public square that increased the problem of deception & corruption. In act,it remains as the overriding readon that this country no longer functions like it used to function. Perfection is never achievable, because this world is run by humans, who are imperfect beings.
There is no perfect system, but pure capitalism has been the most successful in making more people live better lives than any other system that has been tried and all failed worse than did capitalism.
Lastly, we are seeing clear evidence that corporatism has been used as the method to slowly work towards the end goal of ending up with fascism & an authoritative form of government.
If we look at the former Allied nations of WWII, most, if not all, of our allies have reached that end goal already, and the U.S. has now begun to cross that line at an increasing rate & they are being far more open aboit their visions. As we have seen with Mandani & others who have won offices in recent elections. They will rule as authoritarians. They were not the first, but the ones that preceeded them were not as open about who they really were.
The red/green alliance, while being unimaginable bedfellows, have come together to create a powerful force of fotmidable numbers who promise those who have nothing, a piece of the pie. Those flocking to them do not realize that their promises are empty, and the outcones for them will be no different than that they are currently not enjoying. In fact, for many of them, it will actually become worse for them, because they will never have the opportunity of changing their consitions at all.
We need to stop both Islam (because of their incompaitble Sharia Law which prhibits them from ever assimulation into our statructure of being governed by a constitution) and the threat of creeping authrtarianinm via the trojan horse of corporatism.
The only way to combat this is for as many people who currently have abandoed Christianity, reuturn to it. To reform & retake the Christian beliefs in & out of the churches, because the rot exists in both places, and we must call on the Lord's assisyance as well. For he can only make the revial successful if we are sincere i our calls for his help.
My apologies for the long response, but sometimes more than sound bites are required to convet the message.
It’s also will within expectation to be met with hostility for expressing a somewhat different point of view on Free Republic.
Have you stopped to hear what they, or I, might have to say about it?
This is correct. Our system began its decline out of being capitalist, starting with our two Progressive presidents, Woodrow Wilson and Theodore Roosevelt.
Mass regulation, centralized planning, and total control over all organizations engaging in interstate commerce - that was the plan. In their own words.
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