Newt Gingrich writes in the Washington Post today to defend his assertion that Obama is a socialist. He cites several examples of the President’s big-government agenda, which are excerpted below. These are all examples of bad policy, to be sure, but other than the student loan takeover, these are all examples of fascism rather than socialism. Socialism, technically speaking, is government ownership of the means of production. Fascism, by contrast, involves government control and direction of resources, but cloaked by a system of nominal private ownership.
Calling Obama a fascist, however, is counterproductive. Other than a few economists and historians, people don’t understand that fascism developed (with Mussolini perhaps being the best example) as a social/economic system. Instead, most people associate it with Hitler’s lunatic ideas on matters such as race and militarism. That’s why I prefer to call Obama a statist or a corporatist. Those words accurately describe his governing philosophy without creating the distractions caused by calling him a socialist or fascist.
Creating czar positions to micromanage industry reflects the type of hubris of centralized government that Friedrich von Hayek and George Orwell warned against. How can a White House “executive compensation czar” know enough to set salaries in multiple companies for many different people? Having a pay dictatorship for one part of the country sets the pattern for government to claim the right to set pay for everyone. If that isn’t socialism, what word would describe it?
Violating 200 years of bankruptcy precedent to take money from bondholders and investors in the auto industry to pay off union allies is rather an anti-market intervention.
Proposing that the government (through the Environmental Protection Agency or some sort of carbon-trading scheme) micromanage carbon output is proposing that the government be able to control the entire U.S. economy. Look at the proposals for government micromanagement in the 1,428-page Waxman-Markey energy tax bill. (I stopped reading when I got to the section regulating Jacuzzis on Page 442.) If government regulates every aspect of our use of power, it has regulated every aspect of our lives. What is that if not socialism?
Nationalizing student loans so that they are a bureaucratic monopoly. This will surely lead to fraud on the scale we see in Medicare and Medicaid, from which more than $70 billion per year is stolen.
Expanding government mortgage intervention to 90 percent of the housing market.
Dan,
Did you see this of mine? http://www.thefreemanonline.org/headline/is-obama-a-socialist/
I’ve had a similar problem with people calling Obama “socialist;” it’s an imprecise use of words with precise meanings, and the imprecision hurts efforts to focus opposition to what he and the statist Democrats are doing. In the long run, however, whether Obama is a “progressive,” “fascist,” “corporatist,” or socialist is less important that the large and still growing realization that what he wants to do will do terrible harm to the nation. It’s that vague sense of “I can’t name it, but I don’t like it” that we have to count on to guide voters on election day and after.
The problem with “corporatist” is that, by dint of mere phonetic resemblance, people take that as referring to “rule by corporations”, the Left’s standard bogeyman.
The irony of it is that what Mussolini originally was referring to, was the structuring of society into groups by industry and occupation, what in those days were called guilds and which is closer to what we now know as unions.
I completely agree, Dan.
I held a lively discussion some time back on the drift of our government. Most insisted that we were becoming a Socialist satrap, when I asserted that we had entered the realm of Facism, I received major blowback.
This is not a term most Americans can swallow, too much European emotional baggage is associated with the word. And, frankly speaking, most of our citizens don’t have the education to grasp the differences.
Most GOP conservatives abhor the labels of statist or corporatist in equal measure, distrusting the libertarian associations that come to mind when those words surface in any discussion. Speaking of anything other than the big socialist boogie man tweaks their boxed in political viewpoint three ways to Sunday.
Player conservatives are fiercely determined to paint the current administration and its lapdog Congress in comfortable adversarial terms that mean absolutely nothing, but win hearts and big dollars to preserve their running legislative hypocrisy.
Cheers, Mr. Mitchell. I do believe you have the heart and the wisdom of a natural born king.
I love calling Obama a corporatist precisely because that DOES conjure up images of the Left’s Bogeyman. Want to see your lefty friends get all twisted up in a knot? Call Obama a corporatist. It’s fun!
(Then, of course, proceed to educate them about precisely what you mean)
[...] 25, 2010 by Dan Mitchell I got some interesting feedback about my pseudo-defense of Obama against the accusation that he is a socialist. It was a faux defense because my goal was simply to [...]
“Calling Obama a fascist, however, is counterproductive.” I don’t think it matters much what you label him. Though I must admit I personally prefer the label crony capitalist.
Sadly the majority of the public doesn’t understand the difference between any of the ideologies, save communism. I think we need to do a better job of educating the public. Our public education system is certainly not doing so. Or at least are changing the definitions. A great example is most people are being taught Hitler was a right wing extremist.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
[...] commented on this issue twice, remarking that Obama technically is a fascist, but that it is much better to call him a statist or corporatist. But there is the tricky issue of whether a word should be defined by experts (to the extent [...]
[...] you make references to Nazis or fascism (indeed, I’ve made this point in previous posts about whether Obama is a socialist). Here’s an excerpt for those who want to know more about the story. The billionaire [...]
[...] you make references to Nazis or fascism (indeed, I’ve made this point in previous posts about whether Obama is a socialist). Here’s an excerpt for those who want to know more about the story. The billionaire Blackstone [...]
Under that definition of fascism, every modern president back to ar least Reagan is a fascist. Nixon implemented price controls & policies to prop up American industry.
Uh… excuse me, but clearly you haven’t the slightest idea what fascism is – which describes a political behavior rather than economic policies.
Robert Paxton, in his seminal book “The Anatomy of Fascism”, defined it as:
“a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”
So, in other words, your use of the term is a massive fail. In no way do any of Obama’s policies fit this description to any rational human being. On the other hand, there is a political movement in America that does resemble this “militant nationalism”, and here’s a hint: they are very prominent in the media and don’t vote Democrat.
Not to be insulting, but if you had written this essay in a high school civics class, you’d get an F.
A parting note. Disagree with Obama all you want – that’s legitimate and healthy. Just learn to use accurate and intelligent terms instead of contributing to the ongoing decline in America’s capacity to conduct civil and intelligent discourse.
[...] basically agree with Alter. As I explained two years ago, a true socialist wants “government ownership of the means of production.” To be sure, [...]
OOmingmak,
Your definition of fascism that you presented applies equally to the current adminstration that you attribute towards its opponents.
If you read Mr Mitchell’s comments, you would have seen that he does not prefer to call Obama a fascist anyway…he is contributing to civil discourse by encouraging us to use more accurate words like statist or corportist.
Did you even read the article for did you just skim it and jump to conclusions?
[...] is an appropriate point for the disclaimer that Obama is not a socialist, which technically requires government ownership of the means of production. As I’ve [...]
[...] the way, I can’t resist being pedantic and re-explaining that socialism is not the same as redistributionism. Rate this: Share this:PrintEmailFacebookTwitterMoredeliciousDiggFarkLinkedInRedditStumbleUponLike [...]
[...] libertarian Cato Institute, says there are other words for Obama’s expansion of government (he thinks “fascism” is a fair term or perhaps statist), but that it’s not accurate to call it socialism. Daniel N. [...]
[...] couple of years ago, Newt Gingrich accused Obama of being a socialist, causing some squawking and grousing about incivility from the more sensitive types in [...]
[...] couple of years ago, Newt Gingrich accused Obama of being a socialist, causing some squawking and grousing about incivility from the more sensitive types in [...]
[...] couple of years ago, Newt Gingrich accused Obama of being a socialist, causing some squawking and grousing about incivility from the more sensitive types in [...]
[...] couple of years ago, Newt Gingrich accused Obama of being a socialist, causing some squawking and grousing about incivility from the more sensitive types in [...]
[...] already provided my two cents on the underlying theory of Obamanomics, and I agree that socialism is not the right [...]