Friends, Have you ever had the experience of postponing a letter to a friend? The longer you postpone, then the more pressure to write a "really good" letter. Which causes stress and encourages further postponement. That describes my gap in posting. I've got something to share here, but I don't know if it measures up to the wait. Someone wrote in with some comments, and this particular question helped me to express some ideas that have been shifting around in my head for the past few months, in the wake of the Iraq episode... > Neoliberalism is like fascism (is a brand of fascism) because it steals history - recall the posing of Hitler beside the bust of Nietzsche. Neoliberalism is a closer cousin that that to fascism! Fascism, according to Mussolini, is really 'corporatism' -- the merger of State and Corporate power. Neoliberalism is accomplishing that on a global scale. Neoliberalism IS fascism -- in its clearest expression. The other aspects we associate with fascism are secondary / symptomatic. In order to implement the corporate agenda, tactics are chosen pragmatically depending on the requirements of the situation. Distorting history, introducing slave-labor camps, demonizing minorities, burning down Reichstags, lying to the public, suspending civil liberties -- these and others are available as control tactics but they need not all occur, nor always in the same degrees. The acute symptoms of fascism flare up when dramatic actions are required by the corporate agenda, and when those actions are strongly opposed by a significant segment of the population. Dissent must then be suppressed; public support must be created; the agenda must proceed. The familiar tools of fascism are well-suited to the job. In Germany, the corporate agenda for German economic recovery was the subjugation of the Slavic states, (memorialized in Mein Kampf). This conquest was a monumental undertaking, and everything Hitler did was in pursuit of this agenda. The Jews, in the Aryan German mind, were associated with Russia and Communism. Their persecution sated German hatreds and aided the agenda at the same time. Hitler had no desire to fight in Europe, but there was no way the other Western powers were going to permit Germany to control the vast Soviet realms. He was forced to deal with them before turning East. Today, the corporate agenda is once again dictated by the need to achieve rapid & significant economic growth. The global economy is in the midst of a dangerous no-growth crisis. Something must be done quickly to avoid a major & long-lasting collapse. The New American Century -- as a means of achieving economic growth -- is the resulting elite agenda, and its technocrat authors are now running the US government. Their actions -- 9-11, the Patriot Act, the destabilization of the UN, the various conquests, the ravaging of the environment -- all make sense in terms of this ambitious agenda. Permit me to share a perspective on the New American Century. Consider the dates: 1945, 1980, 2001 -- in the context of US elites and their alliances. --- The Postwar Era (1945-1980) represented an alliance between three parties: US Elites, Western Populations, and Western Powers. Together they shared prosperity, entitlements, and mutual benefits -- in the postwar imperialist boom. But the US elite reserved certain prerogatives for itself. Domestically, the Taft-Hartley Act ensured that organized labor could not act as an effective counter-force to the elite economic agenda. Globally, the US insisted on being the sole military enforcer of imperialist order. The Suez Crisis was the test that cemented acquiescence to Pax Americana. These prerogatives were reserved for strategic reasons. They ensured that the ultimate power in the three-way relationship would stay with US elites. They had gained a decisively dominant position in the immediate aftermath of Word War II, and their postwar agenda guaranteed that they would not lose that advantage. In the 1970's the postwar boom began to run out, and a strategic adjustment was called for. The US elite sought to assure that its own share of the pie would keep growing -- and decided that someone else's share would need to be confiscated. That would be achievable because of the retained power prerogatives. --- The Neoliberal Era (1980-2001) was characterized by the betrayal of one of the alliance partners: the Western Populations. With Labor strategically defanged, Reagan & Thatcher were able to lead full-scale assaults on Unions, entitlements, and national budgets. The populations of the US and Britain -- and the institutions that served democratic functions -- were systematically disenfranchised and betrayed by the neoliberal agenda. Treasuries and industries were looted, and financial control was transferred to international markets beyond the reach of national governments. Globalization was the US-elite's program to extend neoliberalism globally. They now offered an alliance to only a single other party: Western elites. By betraying their own populations, and national sovereignty, these elites were offered a way to ensure that their own share of the economic pie would keep growing, for a while at least. Western elites were thus drawn into a program which separated them from their traditional basis of power: the sovereign and economically-strong nation state. Once again, the maneuverings of US elites are focused around strategic power considerations. Under the globalization program, the global economy becomes anarchistic -- from the perspective of nations. But at the same time it becomes hierarchical -- from the perspective of global capitalism. This tips power still further toward US elites -- since the US has the largest economy, the US $ is the leading reserve currency, US corporations are among the largest, and the IMF and WTO are dominated by US corporate representatives. As corporate power grows, the relative power of US elites vis a vis other elites grows with it. And all the while the US holds unchallenged military supremacy. In the 1990's, the globalization boom began to slow down. Once again a strategic adjustment was called for, and once again the (enhanced) power prerogatives of US elites were decisive in enabling them to achieve an adjustment favorable to their share of the pie. --- The Era of The American Century (2001 - ?) is characterized by the betrayal of the remaining alliance partner -- Western elites. They allowed themselves to be led down the garden path, and now they'll pay the consequences. They'll play a distinctly second-echelon power role, through a disempowered UN. Their corporations will find the playing field more and more tilted toward US-based corporations, and their national budgets will be in disarray as they pay for increasingly expensive petrol in US dollars only. The US will enjoy artificial prosperity from the US $ scam and relatively less expensive petrol, and US corporations will benefit from sweetheart contracts -- particularly in the energy arena -- as we see already in Iraq. To some extent, we've returned to the era of nation-based imperialism, with the US in a dominant role as was Britain before. But there are critical differences. The old imperialist era was unstable, with constantly shifting alliances. By careful use of a carrot and stick, US elites are now seeking to achieve a more stable kind of hegemony. Never before did one power enjoy unilateral military supremacy -- that's the stick. And the US isn't running a completely closed shop, the global economy is still an open (albeit slanted) playing field -- that's the carrot. As long as there's some fat on the carrot, and the stick remains mighty, all parties would seem to do best by playing along. --- Our political context -- the global regime -- is now a combination of fascism and gangsterism. It is fascist in the sense that political power is now wielded by corporate elites, and we are seeing fascism entering its acute stage since 9-11. Meanwhile, 'gangsterism' aptly characterizes the operations of the global economy. With the US and other Western elites, we can see the standard hierarchical gang 'family', with the supreme 'don' at the top. Death squads, the drug trade, the arms trade, military interventions, covert terrorism, torture, assassination, threats -- these are all routine tools used to create and maintain the conditions 'on the ground' demanded by corporate elites to ensure profitable operations and ongoing growth. These are the tactics of Mafia gangs, only on a grander scale. --- don't blame me, I'm just the messenger, rkm