Can you explain why this is associated with fascism specifically, and not any other form of government which has high levels of oligarchical corruption (like North Korea, Soviet Russia, etc).
I am not saying you’re wrong, but please educate me why is this form of corruption/cronyism is unique to fascism?
It might be basic, but I found the Wikipedia article to be a good place to start:
> An important aspect of fascist economies was economic dirigism,[35] meaning an economy where the government often subsidizes favorable companies and exerts strong directive influence over investment, as opposed to having a merely regulatory role. In general, fascist economies were based on private property and private initiative, but these were contingent upon service to the state.
It's rather amusing reading the link on dirigisme given the context of its alleged implication. [1] A word which I, and suspect most, have never heard before.
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The term emerged in the post-World War II era to describe the economic policies of France which included substantial state-directed investment, the use of indicative economic planning to supplement the market mechanism and the establishment of state enterprises in strategic domestic sectors. It coincided with both the period of substantial economic and demographic growth, known as the Trente Glorieuses which followed the war, and the slowdown beginning with the 1973 oil crisis.
The term has subsequently been used to classify other economies that pursued similar policies, such as Canada, Japan, the East Asian tiger economies of Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan; and more recently the economy of the People's Republic of China (PRC) after its economic reforms,[2] Malaysia, Indonesia[3][4] and India before the opening of its economy in 1991.[5][6][7]
It’s a poor definition. The same “subsidization and directive influence” applies to all of Krugman’s Nobel-wining domestic champion, emerging market development leaders, in virtually all ‘successful’ economies. It also applies in the context of badly run, failed and failing economies. Safe to say this factor is only somewhat correlated. Broad assertions are going to be factually wrong.
The key element here is that the power exchange in this case goes both ways. The corporations do favors for the administration (sometimes outright corrupt payments and sometimes useful favors, like promoting certain kinds of content in the media, or firing employees who speak up.) And in exchange the companies get regulatory favors. While all economic distortions can be problematic — national champion companies probably have tradeoffs - this is a form of distortion that hurts citizens both by distorting the market, and also by distorting the democratic environment by which citizens might correct the problems.
All snakes have scales, so there is a 100% correlation between being a snake and having scales.
That does not imply that fish are snakes. Nor does the presence of scaled fish invalidate the observation that having scales is a defining attribute of snakes (it's just not a sufficient attribute to define snakes).
For correlation to be 1, it's not enough that all snakes have scales. You also need all scaly animals to be snakes.
Here's a toy example. Imagine three equally sized groups of animals: scaly snakes, scaly fish, and scaleless fish. (So all snakes have scales, but not all scaly animals are snakes.) That's three data points (1,1) (0,1) (0,0) with probability 1/3 each. The correlation between snake and scaly comes out as 1/2.
You can also see it geometrically. The only way correlation can be 1 is if all points lie on a straight line. But in this case it's a triangle.
You’re looking for the logical argument here, not the statistical one. You sampled from snakes and said there is a 100% correlation with being a snake (notwithstanding the counterarg in an adjacent comment about scale-free snakes).
I am noting that the logical argument does not hold in the provided definition. If “some” attributes hold in a definition, you are expanding the definitional set, not reducing it, and thus creating a low-res definition. That is why I said: ‘this is a poor definition.’
So then you agree that the original post that called this "text book fascism" was wrong, as this is just one very vague, and only slightly correlated property.
Yea fascism, communism, etc aren’t abstract ideals in the real world. Instead they are self reinforcing directions along a multidimensional political spectrum.
The scary thing with fascism is just how quickly it can snowball because people at the top of so many powerful structures in society benefit. US Presidents get a positive spin by giving more access to organizations that support them. Those kinds of quiet back room deals benefit the people making them, but not everyone outside the room.
That's not fascism, that is the dysfunctional status quo in literally every single country in the world. Why do you think companies and billionaires dump what amounts to billions of dollars on candidates? Often times it's not even this candidate or that, but both!
They then get access, get special treatment, and come out singing the praises of [errr.. what's his name again?]
It’s not Fascism on its own, but it’s representative of the forces that push society to Fascism.
Start looking and you’ll find powerful forces shaping history. Sacking a city is extremely profitable throughout antiquity, which then pushes cities to have defensive capabilities which then…
In the Bronze Age trade was critical as having Copper ore alone wasn’t nearly as useful as having copper and access to tin. Iron however is found basically everywhere as where trees.
Such forces don’t guarantee outcomes, but they have massive influence.
Socialism and communism are state ownership. Fascism tends toward private ownership and state control. This is actually easier and better for the state. It gets all the benefit and none of the responsibility and can throw business leaders under the bus.
All real world countries have some of this, but in fascism it’s really overt and dialed up and for the private sector participation is not optional. If you don’t toe the line you are ruined or worse. If you do play along you can get very very rich, but only if you remember who is in charge.
“Public private partnership” style ventures are kind of fascism lite, and they always worried me for that reason. It’s not an open bid but a more explicit relationship. If you look back at Musk’s career in particular there are ominous signs of where this was going.
The private industry side of fascist corporatism is very similar to all kinds of systematic state industry cronyism, particularly in other authoritarian systems that aren't precisely fascist (and named systems of government are just idealized points on the multidimensional continuum on which actual governments are distributed, anyway), what distinguishes fascism particularly is the combination of its form of corporatism with xenophobia, militaristic nationalism, etc., not the form of corporatism alone.
I think it is associated with fascism, just from the other party.
This is pretty common fascist practice that is used all over Europe and in any left-leaning countries, when with regulations governments make doing business on large scale impossible, and then give largest players exemptions, subsidies and so on. Governments gain enormous leverage to ensure corporate loyalty, silence dissenters and combat opposition, while the biggest players secure their place at the top and gain protection from competitors.
So the plan was push regulations and then dominate over the competitors with exemptions from those regulations. But fascists loose the election, regulations threaten to start working in a non-discriminatory manner, and this will simply hinder business.
I am not saying you’re wrong, but please educate me why is this form of corruption/cronyism is unique to fascism?