Whoah. The OP has more than one post!
Corporatism (which does not mean what you or Paul thinks it does) is an element of some forms of fascism.
You’re right, I wasn’t aware of that term. I suppose corporatism is still a useful descriptor of the philosophy underlying the legal obligation of corporations though.
Also, funnily enough, corporatism in its original form was hierarchical too.
The word you’re probably looking for – meaning, business influence in politics – is “corporatocracy.” Which is not fascism, but is what the German capitalists foolishly thought they were buying when they backed Hitler.
The key difference between businesscritters and fascists is that businesscritters, as such, are concerned only with profit, while fascists are a kind of artistic romantics whose concerns are more complex. (It has been said of Franco that he was no fascist because he was “a cop, not an artist.”)
Just because a word once meant one thing doesn’t stop its meaning from changing over time.
Yes, but we’re all having a good time. 
But really - Ron Paul does so well in straw polls, has his gremlins spamming message boards and letters to the editor sections in newspapers complaining about how popular and yet obscure he is, gets plenty of media stories done about him (especially considering his lack of primary wins), and he can’t get elected because of a fascist banker conspiracy? Have you considered the possibility that he’s a fringe candidate with a powerful appeal, but only to a small and disproportionately loud gaggle of devotees who’ve read a book on economics?
Another thought…is Ron going to keep on running for President in future elections, gradually becoming the Lyndon Larouche of the Republican Party? Will the scatterbrained youth of America still worship him when he’s in his late nineties?
Oh, come on, you really think they’ve read a book on economics?
Still, I think “corporatocracy” should be the preferred term, to avoid confusion with the original sense of “corporatism” (referring to a thing which has not quite gone away and therefore remains relevant).
And here I thought the Op would be a big Thaddeus McCotter fan.
He didn’t say it was a good book.
I am quite certain that not even Paul, not even if you could catch him alone and drunk, would agree with a single word of the above.
It’s bait-and-switch: They use the word ‘corporatism’ because of ‘corporate’ but then they drag out how Mussolini was ‘corporatist’ (in the old meaning they don’t acknowledge) so therefore Bushitler and Monsanto Über Alles.
Let me try to summarize American politics.
Obama is the socialist-fascist Islamist guy who wants to give all your gold to the Jews. His stance against the Iraq War was all a ruse because he really wanted to invade Libya, Syria and Wyoming.
Paul is the anti-Socialist anti-Islamist who is anti-Fascist but pro-Hitler and wants to outlaw U.S. banknotes because of their cabalistic symbols.
Does that pretty much sum it up? (I’m still unclear which side the Venusians and Martians have taken, or whether they’re working for Good or Evil.)
Great thread / start-date combination.
(Emphasis mine.) Which is a dumb idea; it’s never been conquered from the left or from the right.
Which “they” were you talking about? Mussolini wasn’t discussed in the video or the thread, though he did come up in the comments. I certainly wasn’t intending that: corporatocracy speaks for itself.
You’d be surprised how often it comes up on comment threads outside the SDMB.
I find it kind of disturbing (speaking for myself, not BG) that I knew where that link was going before I even hovered over it.
Just when I think there’s nothing new Ron Paul supporters can do to disgust me, they top themselves.
The latest example is from “The Liberty Voice”, a spasmodically published libertarian newspaper distributed free at hotspots like my local barbecue joint. The latest edition has an op-ed call to the Paul faithful to hold strong together, despite Paul’s miserable performance this primary/caucus season. The author’s inspiration is…Winston Churchill.
*"As we Paul supporters have failed so far to rack-up a victory in the primary or caucus beauty contests, I have started noticing that some are considering giving in to defeatism. That is not worthy of Dr. Paul or our cause – and Winston Churchill will show you why.
In 1940, during the Second World War, Hitler’s tyranny had already swept across all of Europe. The score was liberty – zero; tyranny – too many to count. Only Britain was left standing. And Hitler was coming for us.
In the Battle of Britain, the British stood alone in the world against a tyranny that had built an empire more efficiently than any in history. This was when Churchill rallied the nation with what many regard as his greatest speech. “Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few”, he said.
But the British did nothing more than survive. By “winning” the Battle of Britain, what we really did was “avoid losing”. We didn’t push Hitler back an inch. We just ensured that we – a metaphorical beach-head of liberty in a literal island of liberty – would live to fight another day."*
What gets me about this appeal to Churchill and the fighting spirit he exemplified, is the contrast between what actually happened thanks to F.D.R., compared to what Ron Paul and his supporters would have done if Paul had been President when WWII broke out.
You can be sure there would have been no American Lend-Lease, no support to Britain when it stood virtually alone against Nazi Germany. Paul would have been dutifully neutral, probably avoiding any stand that might draw the U.S. into the war. Isolated, Britain probably would have had to make an accomodation with Germany that would at the very least have greatly prolonged the war and resulted in a much more suffering.
Any Paul supporters who think they can legitimately draw comparisons between their candidate (or themselves) and Churchill either are totally ignorant of history or think everyone else is.
Revolting.
Liberals ponder about accusations that Obama is a socialist-fascist-Islamist-who-is-in-league-with-radical-Christian-leaders: just look at Reverend Wright! Liberals think that these labels conflict with one another and that you have to choose.
Not so. Chris Mooney explains: That’s the liberal way of thinking. It is a view predicated on the idea one cares whether or not Obama is, in fact, a Muslim. If one cares about hurting Obama, then one believes what hurts Obama politically, which would be that he’s a Muslim. And an Atheist. And associated with radical black Christian leaders. Which one is asserted at any particular moment depends entirely on what will hurt Obama the most in the given context. That could be that he’s a Muslim if the topic is terrorism, or a black radical when discussing race, or it could be all three simultaneously, without so much as batting an eye at the obvious logical paradox. One who believes these three things is, in fact, being entirely consistent in their anti-Obamaness. The Liberty Voice shares the same logic. Any argument they make is consistent in its embrace of Ron Paulness, even if it accuses America of sliding towards fascism while drumming up support from Holocaust deniers. If it is pro-Ron, it must be A Good Thing. So go ahead: appeal to Churchill and other militarists. Why not?