Barack and Benito

Barack Obama’s infamous phrase “Just words. Just speeches” keeps ringing in my ears. While the U.S. economy crumbles and the world teeters toward war, the President busies himself with words and speeches (not to mention photo ops and vacations and parties). Appalling, yes. Surprising, no. To quote Yogi Berra: “This is like deja vu all over again.”

Today’s leaders of the Democratic Party are not at all progressive. In fact, their ideology is regressive – a throwback to an ideology popular in the 1920s and 30s and 40s. Their vision is that people they consider the “ignorant many” should be governed by people who see themselves as the “enlightened few.”

At the core of this socialist outlook on life is what Friedrich Hayek called “the fatal conceit.” That’s a person assuming that, if he were given unlimited power, then everything would be perfect. He projects that government employees would act on his behalf. He sees government employees as a proxy for his own egotistical fantasies.

A faceless bureaucracy is too impersonal, however, for some socialists, who prefer a proxy with a face. These people prefer to focus their aspirations on a charismatic leader, who attracts hordes of followers, all dreaming that the great leader would, in fact, impose their own will on society, if only He were in charge of everything!

Relieved of the burden of having to think for themselves, these fanatics can easily find their political passions unrestrained by reason. This fascist mentality can produce the thuggish brutality of a Benito Mussolini regime.

Nowadays, “fascism” is just an all-purpose insult. Few of those who call people they don’t like “fascists” know what fascism is. Fascism is an economic system. The name comes from an ancient Roman symbol, the “fasces,” a bundle of sticks – referring to how all sectors of society would be tied together by the government.

Back in the day, many intellectuals and other so-called progressives hailed fascism as a “third way” between communism and capitalism. Under fascism, private property does exist, but it is concentrated into big businesses, controlled by the government. Workers are also concentrated, into huge unions, again, controlled by the government.

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”

“All within the state. Nothing outside the state. Nothing against the state.”

– Benito Mussolini

Young people, students, union members, environmentalists, minorities, scientists, retirees, celebrities, and so on – under fascism, each sector of society is “a stick” – bundled and tied together and controlled by the government. And, at the head of the fascist state is the Leader, who struts as if onstage and mesmerizes crowds with speeches, lots of speeches.

Benito Mussolini is best remembered for his egotistical speechifying, but his background should be just as well known. His father was a socialist who named him after a Mexican revolutionary icon, Benito Juarez. His two middle names honored a pair of Italian socialists. Mussolini rose to prominence as editor of a socialist magazine.

At the head of a black-shirted goon squad, he strutted and preened and wooed and threatened his way to power. But, once in office, Mussolini showed little interest in the actual governance of Italy, leaving most administrative responsibilities to others.

Benito Mussolini was a very lazy guy. He spent most of his time focused on showmanship and self-glorification. In World War II, for example, spies in Rome told an astonishing tale, that during one major military crisis, Italy’s Leader idled away the afternoon chatting with his chauffeur. Basically, his message to government officials was: “Call me if you need me.”

The analysis of socialism in this essay is adapted from Back to Basics for the Republican Party, cited by Clarence Thomas in a Supreme Court decision. See www.grandoldpartisan.com for more information.