[Dark_crow]

Crow as you know I put little distinction between the socialist philosophies. Fascism is just national socialism .

I'd argue we've had creeping socialism since the beginning of the last century .See 16th amendment which started as a tax on 1% of incomes above $3000 .Now we fell half the rain forest just to publish the tax code.). After a while the gvt. did not trust the worker to cut a check themselves so they initiated the automatic withholding so workers would be deceived about how much taxes they actually pay . That was a WWII initiative that was supposed to end once the war was over . Well that worked out just fine.

How would we continue this drift ? I think we willingly let the nation pick our pockets and as more people surrender to the nanny -state our liberties erode. The big difference from other examples in history is that at least Hitler and Stalin spelled out their intentions. Our example allows the government to incrementally impose socialism on us and make it sound like they are doing us a favor.

The best example of this may be social security . Back when it was passed the workers had to "contribute " no more than 3% to a max of $3000. Now it is over 12% of income maxed out at incomes up to $90,000 ;and the talk is that unless the cap is lifted;the percentage raised;and the pay back tied to means ,then it will not be solvent by the time I retire. That is the legacy of that "entitlement"

The next big assault on us will be nationalized health care. The gvt. has gotten some of the states to act as surrogates in this effort. States like Maryland and others compel employers to provide medical insurance for employees of large companies. Eventually these companies complain to the national gvt. that their competitive position is weakened by these polices and petition for relief . That is when the Congress will and have begun to legislate a gvt. controlled health system into law. As the saying goes we are all "entitled " to decent health care . Who better than the gvt . to provide it.

Lastly ,as was well evident in the Chicago debate of the Democrats there will be a serious attempt to plunder the profit from successful industries with their rationalization being pure Robin Hood/Karl Marx wealth redistribution. The problem of course is that you and I know that the needy will never see a dime of it.

The problem the way I see it is that we are drifting towards socialism because the majority of Americans wish it . They won't say it that way ;they say they are "entitled " to the care that government can provide. Then they belly ache when the government proves less than efficient at delivering .

It’s a damm mess we have here Ollie, scratching my head. Government is an inherent glutton feeding on the whims of the minorities…

[inthebox]

There are excellent posts on the opening question.

Neither socialism or fascism promote freedom.

Freedom is only ensured by the right to weapons and to vote.
Do we really have that much power in the vote when there are only 2 major parties and they both sound alike, make promises they can't keep and offer simple minded solutions, come election time ?

Is there freedom in the tax code as others have pointed out?
Will a 6 figure earner really get the value out of soc. sec.

Is there freedom in healthcare?
The freedom NOT to have healthcare and directly negotiate a price with your doctor?
Or does that doctor have to follow all the insurance and medicare etc.. Rules.

Property rights?
Eminenet domain has been mentioned. How about property taxes?
My parents bought a house in Long Island for $ 80 k in 1972 - it is paid off, but the property taxes are more than the mortgage ever was.

First amendment rights.
The whole Imus incident exemplifies the current state.

Education:
Why no tuition tax credits or deductions or vouchers?



Just a rant , sorry.





Grace and Peace

[Dark_crow]

There are excellent posts on the opening question.

Neither socialism or fascism promote freedom.

Freedom is only ensured by the right to weapons and to vote.
Do we really have that much power in the vote when there are only 2 major parties and they both sound alike, make promises they can't keep and offer simple minded solutions, come election time ?

Is there freedom in the tax code as others have pointed out?
Will a 6 figure earner really get the value out of soc. sec.?

Is there freedom in healthcare?
The freedom NOT to have healthcare and directly negotiate a price with your doctor?
Or does that doctor have to follow all the insurance and medicare etc.. rules.

Property rights?
Eminenet domain has been mentioned. How about property taxes?
My parents bought a house in Long Island for $ 80 k in 1972 - it is paid off, but the property taxes are more than the mortgage ever was.

First amendment rights.
The whole Imus incident exemplifies the current state.

Education:
Why no tuition tax credits or deductions or vouchers?

Just a rant , sorry.
Grace and Peace

We can delineate the meaning of a noun and be right, but we cannot do away with the essence. For instance: The noun Spirituality may be used many ways, but with-out its essence, the intangible, its meaning can extend itself so far from the essence that we find ourselves talking non-sense.

I don't define words, they have been defined. So far as spirit ual-ity: It is a derivative of the noun spirit. Which is an immaterial object, hence: intangible?

If one were to take notice, my question revolves around the “Essence”, and not the other properties of what constitutes socialism or fascism.

So you see, no one has accurately answered my question.
:mad: :mad:

[excon]

So you see, no one has accurately answered my question.

Hello again, DC:

Well, I gave it a shot, but I told you that it might be beyond me. It was. It's also beyond the Wolverine too - which gets me to wondering...

I think that's the problem. I never did take a political science course. Indeed, I'm a high school dropout. But, the Wolverine has some higher learning, and if HE doesn't get it...

I'll bet a poly sci course would sound exactly like your question. I'm willing to take another shot (yes, I have no shame), if you could "splain" it a little better.

excon

[Dark_crow]

From one high-school drop-out to another…I'm not sure, that is why I ask.

[Dark_crow]

Hello again, DC:

Well, I gave it a shot, but I told you that it might be beyond me. It was. It's also beyond the Wolverine too - which gets me to wondering....

I think that's the problem. I never did take a political science course. Indeed, I'm a high school dropout. But, the Wolverine has some higher learning, and if HE doesn't get it......

I'll bet a poly sci course would sound exactly like your question. I'm willing to take another shot (yes, I have no shame), if you could "splain" it a little better.

excon

To see if we can get a handle on this let's look at some fundamental characteristics of fascism, and later Socialism.

1)Fascism is an extreme right wing ideology which simply means that they are against every any other ism.

2)Nationalistic to the point that criticism of the nation's main ideals, especially war, is decidedly an unpatriotic act at best, and treason at worst. Consistently broadcasting threats of attack, while justifying pre-emptive war.

3)Fascist hierarchy requires a righteous leader, who is supported by an elite secret group of capitalists. Those who oppose the social hierarchy of fascism are imprisoned or executed.

4)Fascism loathes the concept of equality, particularly immigrants or religious rights.

5)Fascism embraces capitalism where corporate power is absolute and workers' rights are destroyed.

6)Fascism is capitalism at war. War creates markets that otherwise would not exist. Destroys infrastructure that then requires reconstruction. Fascism then can provide huge loans to that society so fascist corporations can begin the process of rebuilding.

Well, what do you think?

[tomder55]

Fascism "A governmental system with strong centralized power, permitting no opposition or criticism, controlling all affairs of the nation (industrial, commercial, etc.)" (American College Dictionary)

Socialism "a theory or system of social organization which advocates the vesting of the ownership and control of the means or production, capital, land, etc., in the community as a whole"[re:state control] (American College Dictionary).

What's the difference ? Both have roots in the left. Fascist leaders were secular and progressive with a big hatred of existing bourgeois.

[tomder55]

This article says it better

The Left's Lust for Revolutionary Transformation
By James Lewis

"Everything must be different!" or "Alles muss anders sein!" was a slogan of the Nazi Party. It is also the heart's desire of every Leftist since Karl Marx. Nazism was a deeply revolutionary creed, a fact that is always denied by the Left; but it's true. Hitler and his criminal gang hated the rich, the capitalists, the Jews, the Christian Churches, and "the System". They went through their Leftist phase early in life, and then went on to discover Aryan racial purity as their beau ideal. (As a swarthy Italian, Mussolini preferred to appeal to ancient Roman imperial glory).


Nazism was hatched in the same little intellectual cafes as a myriad of Leftwing ideologies, like social-democracy, anarchism, the Socialist Workers' Party, Trotskyism, Proudhonism, the lot. In the back streets of European cities you can still find the local anarchist or Leninist storefront, with old guys wearing 1900 laborer's caps and big mustaches, and fierce revolutionary posters of Lenin tacked on the walls. You can also find them in Berkeley, California.


"Everything must be different!" is the core psychology of Leftism, and has little to do with reasoned political beliefs. Most Marxists in the English Departments of America have never read Karl Marx's giant tome, Das Kapital, which parades as a work of economics and history, but is in fact a ponderous update of the Prussian philosopher Friedrich Hegel, who is even more unreadable than Marx. Instead of going to the fount of all Marxist wisdom, our academic "Marxists" have read the 1848 Communist Manisfesto and some hero-worshipping Leftist magazines. They are what Lenin, with magnificent disdain, called "vulgar Marxists" -- that is, proletarian dupes who just don't understand the deep philosophical roots of the real thing.


There are only a few ideas in Das Kapital. One is that human history is driven by class struggle between the rich and the poor, a wild oversimplification of history's rich and colorful tapestry. The other idea, borrowed from Hegel and flipped upside-down, is that the inevitable culmination of History in a state of Paradise is a material and this-worldly society, the condition of universal Communism, instead of an other-worldly condition, as Hegel predicted. Hegel believed that the Prussian State was a model of Paradise to Come. But since Marx was a "scientific" materialist, his version of history was called "dialectical materialism."


The final idea in Das Kapital is that economic profit (called "surplus value") belongs only to the workers, and not to the providers of entrepreneurial capital, nor to entrepreneurs who start and run businesses, nor to the inventors and developers who build intellectual capital all the way from Silicon Valley to Shanghai. Naturally, the radical Left gets to control what the workers produce. That's it. There's nothing else; it's a huge and ponderous rationalization of the impulse to overthrow whatever exists.


At bottom, the key political idea of Marxism is "Alles muss anders sein!" --- Everything must be different. The workers are supposed to be the revolutionary engine of Marxism, but of course they must follow the "guidance" of the Party, which is the intellectual vanguard of the proletariat --- the Party ruling elite, who are inevitably the same gang of parasites who were hatched in the same backstreet cafes in which Lenin and Hitler learned their craft. If the workers and peasants don't follow orders they must die or be sent to Siberia, as a logical matter of policy. It's all for the good of mankind. Naturally the real beneficiaries are the Leftist apparatchiks, who happily end up stealing anything the workers produce.


The craving that "Everyhing must be different!" begins in personal psychology, and then becomes articulated in political beliefs. That's why the same people can turn into anarchists or Nazis, Communists, or today, Post-Modernists, Deconstructionists, Radical Feminists, Socialists, Hillary followers, Islamo-fascists, you name it. It is why the ACLU chooses the worst criminals to defend; they secretly adore criminals, who are the ultimate rebels against society.


In teenagers the spirit of rebellion is perfectly normal, but it has its pathological extreme in what the psychiatric manual calls "oppositional personality disorder." The most psychologically acute philosopher in Western history, Friedrich Nietzche, called this oppositional personality syndrome the "reveral of values," and attributed it to Christianity (and its roots in Judaism two millennia ago). Christianity does tell us that "the poor shall inherit the earth," but like any other two-millenium religious phenomenon, it also includes far, far more than that. The wish that Everything must be different! Is not limited to any faith or race, but is part of the human condition, to one degree or another. It's a normal part of growing up for most people.


But in some people it goes to murderous extremes -- such as the young Adolf Schickelgruber in Vienna, or the exiled Vladimir Ilyich Lenin not far away in Zurich. A young Cambodian named Pol Pot learned his version of Everything must be different! In Jean-Paul Sartre's Paris, was recruited as a promising candidate by the Soviet KGB, and then went back to Cambodia to kill three million people -- to create Paradise on Earth back home. Again. It's a predictable career path on the Left. Hugo Chavez today may follow the same logic as his model Fidel Castro.


What most conservatives don't understand is that the Left has reincarnated itself since the Soviet Union died. Conservatives think that obviously false beliefs should change; but that's not the way it works. Oppositional psychology is still at the core of the Left, and the mere crashing of the Soviet Empire and Maoist China hasn't changed a thing. The human condition is not that susceptible to reason or evidence. Oppositional personality just mutates and breaks out in other ways, like some insidious virus.


Marx thought that class struggle was the engine of history, but "deconstructionism," postmodernism, and the like have now generalized the class struggle to include race, class and gender, plus post-colonial revenge against the West, anti-rationalism, anti-scientific and anti-technology hatred, multiculturalism, militant Gays, transsexual gender benders, radical feminism, Afrocentrism, anti-Americanism, "man-boy lovers," the cultural assault against the traditional family, anti-Zionism, militant atheism, and all the other rabble-rousing "isms" of the Left. The key to all these movements is just one basic craving, that Everything must be different!


Inside the Left there is always a huge civil war, because Leftists fiercely compete with each other to be "more radical than thou." It's a big ego game. The wildest radical argument tends to get the biggest applause, so that the Left as a whole always edges closer and closer to the totalitarian extreme. At the heart of every fervent liberal is Uncle Joe Stalin, because "ordinary people" will never do what they are supposed to do. They don't follow orders from the Enlightened.


As a result of the competition to be more and more radical, things get so weird that the Left must always exercise censorship to shut out critical voices. Stalin decided what the science of genetics would be in the Soviet Union, leading to yet more disastrous harvest seasons in the midst of general famine. He just knew in his Great Man's mind that new varieties of potatoes, and new human beings, could be created by environmental manipulation. Unfortunately that's not true. But during Stalin's time, that idea drove both "science" and agricultural practice in the USSR. Those ideas are so weird that they can only thrive in an environment of intimidation and censorship.


That is why we have Politically Correct censorship on America's university campuses. Too many people know they just can't submit their weird beliefs to skeptical analysis. PC censorship is the logical outcome of all those people telling skeptics and unbelievers to just shut up!


So the Marxist-Leninists hated the Anarchists, who hated the Trotskyites, who hated the Socialist Workers. In those little backstreet cafes in European cities the fights were mostly verbal, but whenever the Left took real power, the first order of business was always to kill, imprison, or forcibly convert one's enemies on the Left. This was not revolutionary madness; it was a matter of deliberate policy. Lenin's Bolsheviks killed the Russian Social Democrats, just as Hitler's SS purged the SA (which included many homosexuals), in order to purify the one true faith and centralize control.

Read the rest here
American Thinker: The Left's Lust for Revolutionary Transformation

[Dark_crow]

This article says it better



read the rest here
American Thinker: The Left's Lust for Revolutionary Transformation

Tom, I think characteristic is a much superior (scientific) approach than definition.

I didn’t read much of the James Lewis article simply because at the very beginning of the first paragraph I realized he did not know the subject matter. Hitler was not opposed to big business, that is who financed his path to power. Anyone who has studied the matter knows that to him, the term capitalist was synonymous with being Jewish and he let his financers' know that.

When I look at the characteristics of what has been common to Fascism, many are common to America.

[tomder55]

Hitler was not opposed to big business, that is who financed his path to power.

'The Collapse of the Weimar Republic 'by David Abraham (a Marxist) is one of the big reasons this view of Hitler's rise persists . It is a book full of misrepresentations . As you will see . Yes individual businessmen like Henry Ford (a confirmed anti-semite) and industrialist Fritz Thyssen did contribute to Hitler but these were the exceptions. Small businesses were more likely to support Hitler over big business.


Henry Ashby Turner in' German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler ' makes the case that Hitler's rise was promoted by German big business is greatly exaggerated . He says that Hitler's funding came from grass-roots support and that German business put their money ,at least until 1933 after Hitler had already obtained power ,to the more right winged parties like the German People's Party and the German National People's Party.

Turner did an investigation into Abraham's book and it was then that the truth came out. What he found was an over-reliance on dogmatic Marxist theories about Nazism in the book .Abraham had invented whole sentences, phrases, and sentiments in his quotations.

Abraham's weak defense was a concession that there were a number of errors due partly to the pressure of time in preparing the book, but he had not deliberately invented anything. Dr. Gerald Feldman who had originally reviewed the book favorably fro Princeton did a second investigation into the facts and found Turner was correct in his critique. He called it "a terrible, terrible distortion of the documents," and readily admitted being embarrassed by his initial recommendation.

Dr. Ulrich Nocken of the University of Dusseldorf checked the citations in the book and found 4 of 70 that were not objectionable. He published his findings in the 'German Quarterly of Social and Economic History'.Prof. Gordon A. Craig of Stanford the "dean" of American scholars of modern Germany called the errors in the book"went beyond carelessness".

I hate to make such a big deal over a single publication except that it represents a conscious misrepresentation of the facts by Marxists who have tried for years to link Hitler to right-winged and capitalist politics . It just isn't so ;at least not during Hitler's rise. His rise can be attributed instead to his popular appeal and the mismanagement and incompetence in general ,and specifically of the political and economic systems of the Weimar Republic by President Paul von Hindenburg and chancellors Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher.

Here is the Nazi Party Platform Modern History Sourcebook: The 25 Points

"We demand that the state be charged first with providing the opportunity for a livelihood and way of life for the citizens."

"The first obligation of every citizen must be to work both spiritually and physically. The activity of individuals is not to counteract the interests of the universality, but must have its result within the framework of the whole for the benefit of all."

"Abolition of unearned (work and labour) incomes. Breaking of rent-slavery." (By this they meant people living on interest or stock dividends and so on.

"In consideration of the monstrous sacrifice in property and blood that each war demands of the people personal enrichment through a war must be designated as a crime against the people. Therefore we demand the total confiscation of all war profits."

"We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts)."

"We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries."
"We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare."

"We demand the creation of a healthy middle class and its conservation, immediate communalization of the great warehouses and their being leased at low cost to small firms, the utmost consideration of all small firms in contracts with the State, county or municipality."

"We demand a land reform suitable to our needs, provision of a law for the free expropriation of land for the purposes of public utility, abolition of taxes on land and prevention of all speculation in land."

"The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession."

"The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young."

The way I read this ,the current Democrat platform is not that different

[Dark_crow]

'The Collapse of the Weimar Republic 'by David Abraham (a Marxist) is one of the big reasons this view of Hitler's rise persists . It is a book full of misrepresentations . As you will see . Yes individual businessmen like Henry Ford (a confirmed anti-semite) and industrialist Fritz Thyssen did contribute to Hitler but these were the exceptions. Small businesses were more likely to support Hitler over big business.


Henry Ashby Turner in' German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler ' makes the case that Hitler's rise was promoted by German big business is greatly exagerated . He says that Hitler's funding came from grass-roots support and that German business put their money ,at least until 1933 after Hitler had already obtained power ,to the more right winged parties like the German People's Party and the German National People's Party.

Turner did an investigation into Abraham's book and it was then that the truth came out. What he found was an over-reliance on dogmatic Marxist theories about Nazism in the book .Abraham had invented whole sentences, phrases, and sentiments in his quotations.

Abraham's weak defense was a concession that there were a number of errors due partly to the pressure of time in preparing the book, but he had not deliberately invented anything. Dr. Gerald Feldman who had originally reviewed the book favorably fro Princeton did a second investigation into the facts and found Turner was correct in his critique. He called it "a terrible, terrible distortion of the documents," and readily admitted being embarrassed by his initial recommendation.

Dr. Ulrich Nocken of the University of Dusseldorf checked the citations in the book and found 4 of 70 that were not objectionable. He published his findings in the 'German Quarterly of Social and Economic History'.Prof. Gordon A. Craig of Stanford the "dean" of American scholars of modern Germany called the errors in the book"went beyond carelessness".

I hate to make such a big deal over a single publication except that it represents a conscious misrepresentation of the facts by Marxists who have tried for years to link Hitler to right-winged and capitalist politics . It just isn't so ;at least not during Hitler's rise. His rise can be attributed instead to his popular appeal and the mismanagement and incompetence in general ,and specifically of the political and economic systems of the Weimar Republic by President Paul von Hindenburg and chancellors Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher.

Here is the Nazi Party Platform Modern History Sourcebook: The 25 Points



The way I read this ,the current Democrat platform is not that different

It seems everyone and their mother has some story, however there were many contributing factors leading up to the rise of Fascism in Germany. Another book, which is I believe is the most authentic describing the conditions in Germany that enabled the rise of Hitler and Fascism in Germany is "Der Fuehrer" by Conrad Heiden. It's an excellent biography of Hitler that explains the conditions in Germany that enabled him to rise to power. Interestingly enough it also explains the origin and development of one of the vilest bits of propaganda ever created: "The Protocols of the Wise Men of Zion”.

If not the essence, which would surprise me, then an essential characteristic is missing from your example of the Democratic Party…Pro-War, which rather describes the other Party.

P.S. Conrad Heiden fought the Nazis in the streets in the 1920s and had to emigrate from Germany

[ETWolverine]

DC,

Going back to an earlier response of yours: England has not completely prohibitted ownership of guns. Ever been to a fox hunt? Or spent any time in the English countryside where sheep graze and the shepherds have to protect the sheep from wild animals? Lots of guns avialable in England. It is PUBLIC CARRY that is prohibitted. We can argue whether those rules are effective or not, or are in the public interest or not. But England does not completely prohibit ownership of guns. (I don't know about Australia. You'll have to check with the resident Aussies here for a desent response. But I would be surprised if gun ownership were completely prohibited in Australia.)

By contrast, in Nazi Germany, ownership of guns by anyone but government officials was completely prohibited. Ditto for the Soviet Union. Average citizens COULD NOT OWN GUNS AT ALL. Not in the homes, not outside the homes. Nada. If you were caught with a gun, you were shot and jailed... in that order.

So there is a very big difference between a complete prohibition on guns and strict carry laws. England has strict carry laws. But gun ownership is still permitted. And because of that, there is little (or at least less) chance of England ever becoming the nightmare fascist or socialist tyranny that we have been discussing.

Elliot

[tomder55]

I don't understand "essence" . Are you saying unless someone has pacifist tendencies then they have the "essence" of Fascism ? I would argue that every major war that the nation was involved in during the last century was led by a Democrat ; at least initially . The Republicans tended to be the isolationists . They were of course wrong. For the most part the wars fought in the last century were worthy ones for us to engage in as they were in defense of freedom.

[Dark_crow]

I don't understand "essence" . Are you saying unless someone has pacifist tendencies then they have the "essence" of Fascism ? I would argue that every major war that the nation was involved in during the last century was led by a Democrat ; at least initially . The Republicans tended to be the isolationists . They were of course wrong. For the most part the wars fought in the last century were worthy ones for us to engage in as they were in defense of freedom.

The essence of the difference between male and female is a D... ; and so it is there is an essence between every species. I simply carry than into Plato's forms.


:D

[Dr D]

I have enjoyed reading this spirited and civil exchange of ideas. I believe that there were a number of good answers to the original question posed by DC, even though they may not have been exactly what DC was seeking. If this was an essay question in a Poli-Sci test, then all of the students would have received a failing grade. That might indicate that the instructor required the students to have telepathic powers, in order to grasp the elusive nuances of the question.

Many of the fine posts, especially by tomder55, have provided more than ample proof to dispel the notion that Fascism is Capitalism run amok. Whether the person in control of an industry is a party aparatchick or a CEO who serves at the pleasure of the Fuhrer, the end is the same.

[Dark_crow]

I have enjoyed reading this spirited and civil exchange of ideas. I believe that there were a number of good answers to the original question posed by DC, even though they may not have been exactly what DC was seeking. If this was an essay question in a Poli-Sci test, then all of the students would have received a failing grade. That might indicate that the instructor required the students to have telepathic powers, in order to grasp the elusive nuances of the question.

Many of the fine posts, especially by tomder55, have provided more than ample proof to dispel the notion that Fascism is Capitalism run amok. Whether the person in control of an industry is a party aparatchick or a CEO who serves at the pleasure of the Fuhrer, the end is the same.

Glad you enjoyed the conversation. It seems to me that the essential fact of the thread is that the terms Fascism, Capitalism, and Socialism are terms that are inherently ambiguous, and any answer to the questions can only be accurately described in a relative sense.

I am though lost to the meaning of your comment, “Whether the person in control of an industry is a party aparatchick or a CEO who serves at the pleasure of the Fuhrer, the end is the same.”

[Dr D]

I am though lost to the meaning of your comment, “Whether the person in control of an industry is a party aparatchick or a CEO who serves at the pleasure of the Fuhrer, the end is the same.”[/QUOTE]

Both Socialism and Fascism abrogate personal property rights, which are a necessary component of Capitalism. In Socialism, the state confiscates the factory from the owner; in Fascism, the state tells the "owner" how he will run his business to benefit the state.

[Dark_crow]

I am though lost to the meaning of your comment, “Whether the person in control of an industry is a party aparatchick or a CEO who serves at the pleasure of the Fuhrer, the end is the same.”

Both Socialism and Fascism abrogate personal property rights, which are a necessary component of Capitalism. In Socialism, the state confiscates the factory from the owner; in Fascism, the state tells the "owner" how he will run his business to benefit the state.[/QUOTE]




Based on that element alone then it would be more accurate to say the America is a Fascist and not a Socialistic State.

[Dark_crow]

Both Socialism and Fascism abrogate personal property rights, which are a necessary component of Capitalism. In Socialism, the state confiscates the factory from the owner; in Fascism, the state tells the "owner" how he will run his business to benefit the state.

Based on that element alone then it would be more accurate to say the America is a Fascist and not a Socialistic State.[/QUOTE]
As I pointed out in #21… ‘We can delineate the meaning of a noun and be right, [As we have done just done.] but we cannot do away with the essence; so that we cannot in truth say, ‘America is a Fascist State generally, yet.’ and be right… that of course is what my question is all about. The answers have I received was not because of ‘the elusive nuances of the question.’ But rather because of the delineated meaning of the Nouns that have been offered.

[Dr D]

With all due concern for my tender and precious neck; the puropse of business in the US is ostensibly to generate a profit for the benefit of the owners/shareholders, rather than the state. The degree of government control is less ominous. I think that most rational people agree that "pure" laisez faire Capitalism would not be a good thing, and that a certain degree of government oversight is necessary to prevent misdeeds and abuse.

DC, you do manage to come up with provocative topics for dicussion. Keep up the good work.