[lbo-talk] More on Obama and Fascism

[Chris Maisano]

Fascism and social democracy/Keynesianism/welfare liberalism/whatever you want to call it actually do share some common roots in their economic thinking, as both attempted to subordinate significant portions of the economy to some sort of political control (though obviously the big difference is the nature of the state in a fascist regime vs. a social democratic/welfare liberal regime) and make use of some sort of corporatism (tripartite economic planning by the state, organized labor and organized business). They were both forms of dissent from the practice of orthodox liberalism and orthodox Marxism in the early 20th century, both of whch adhered to classical economic theory. Sheri Berman wrote a pretty good book a couple of years ago called The Primacy of Politics (http://www.cambridge.org/us/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521521109)  that deals pretty extensively with this issue. 
 
Today's teabaggers and their ilk obviously don't really go much beyond sloganeering when the equate whatever the Obama admin is doing economically with fascism, but there is a very small grain of truth in that argument.