r/economy

Roughly, here are 11 aspects to the problem (how and why the US is degenerating into overt fascism):

1 - Covert fascism:

There are limits to bourgeoisie democracy, in that our ruling oligarchs/kleptocrats will never allow their grotesque, anti-democratic wealth and power to be voted away.

If that means they have to fund overt fascism (as opposed to the covert fascism that we live under), that barely registers as a downside for many of them.

Apartheid South Africa, slavery, Jim Crow, what the British did to India, Ireland, Sudan, etc. - what the ruling classes in those societies were willing to do to the lower classes and colonial subjects to maintain power are basically what our own ruling classes are doing, have been doing, and are willing and able to do to maintain their power and control over the public.

We have a corporate colonial system that allows our extremely abusive ruling class to hollow out the commons for their own private profits, while most of the population are turned into drones/serfs/slaves/cattle.

"Bourgeois democracy, although a great historical advance in comparison with medievalism, always remains, and under capitalism is bound to remain, restricted, truncated, false and hypocritical, a paradise for the rich and a snare and deception for the exploited, for the poor. -Lenin, "The State and Revolution"

"Democracy for an insignificant minority, democracy for the rich—that is the democracy of capitalist society. -Lenin, "The State and Revolution"

"The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them." -Lenin, "The State and Revolution"

"Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in the ancient Greek republics: freedom for the slave-owners."-Lenin, "The State and Revolution"

George Carlin - You have owners:

2) Democracy at Work: Curing Capitalism | Richard Wolff | Talks at Google:

3) Second Thought - How the Media Controls the Masses:

4) Second Thought - Is the US a Police State?

5) Systemic Corruption:

6) Billionaires/oligarchs/kleptocrats should not exist:

Senator Sheldon Whitehouse - The Scheme:

7) Richard Wolff - the decline of the US empire:

8) The decline of unions:

9) The capture and corruption of mainstream economic theory/policy:

Days of Revolt: How We Got to Junk Economics:

Days of Revolt: Junk Economics and the Future:

Michael Hudson on the Orwellian Turn in Contemporary Economics:

Clara Mattei - How Economists Invented Austerity & Paved the Way to Fascism:

How Land Disappeared from Economic Theory:

The decline of antitrust:

10) Spending 20% of our GDP on "healthcare":

Health Justice and SAW:

11) Climate Change and Ecological Collapse:

The point being, these issues/cancers have been metastasizing for a long time.

We the people have to do the work of understanding the issues we're facing well enough to be able to fight against oppression, fascism, national decline, and ecological collapse effectively.

It's not enough to play defense on all these issues, or expect "the government" to solve them - the public (government of, by, and for the people...) also has to organize, build power, and play offense, or else decline and collapse into fascism are inevitable, and the only possible outcomes.

The best time for the public to build power, solidarity, and understanding to be able to fight fascism, brutal corporate oligarchy/kleptocracy, oppression, and ecological collapse was 50 years ago;

the second best time is today.

If you consider classic economists (Ricardo, Marx) vs the Austrian school, it's the theory of absolute value vs relative prices.

If you consider physics, it's Newton vs Ernst Mach - absolute motion vs total relativity.

One can also add Sigmund Freud (and maybe even Kafka) here vs, say, Marx once again - deeply individual psychological focus vs the material process of collective human formation.

So, I'm wondering what drove this relativism, subjectivism and individualism in the Austrian society in the 19th century? Presence of wealth, but relative absence of heavy industry?