Fascism: Socialism with Shareholders
Question: What’s the difference between Halliburton and the Post Office?
Answer: You can buy stock in Halliburton.
No, that is not a joke. From an economic point of view, that really is the only difference. (If I had answered, “the cool sunglasses,” that would have been a joke.)
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Question: What’s the difference between Halliburton and I.G. Farben?
Answer: Nationality.
Halliburton is an American company and I.G. Farben was a German company.
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Question: What’s the difference between Halliburton and General Motors?
Answer: Sixty years.
General Motors prospered during World War Two and then grew bloated and inefficient and eventually needed a government bailout. Halliburton is prospering now during the occupation of Iraq, but will inevitably become bloated and inefficient and need a government bailout.
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Question: What’s the similarity between Halliburton and General Motors?
Answer: At the time of their government bailout, pundits can/will be heard exclaiming, “But we must! They’re too big to fail!”
Those same pundits are/will be conspicuously silent on how the entire economy came to be held hostage by one big company.
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Question: When Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae needed to be bailed out by the government, the Federal Reserve could have either opened the Discount Window to them or purchased their stock outright. What’s the difference?
Answer: Fascism or socialism.
“Today our primary focus is supporting Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in their current form as they carry out their important mission,” said Henry Paulson. Indeed, the government did choose to keep its current form: fascism. The Venezuelans can follow Hugo Chávez down the road to socialism, but George Bush will stick with fascism, thank you very much. “You know, there is an implicit guarantee,” he said.
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Question: From the point of view of the average American, what difference does it make?
Answer: None, unless he’s into reading the Sunday editorial page.
Under a fascist regime, editorialists will bemoan the existence of “those damned privately controlled bankers” and try to convince us that socialism would be better. Under a socialist regime, editorialists will bemoan the existence of “those damned lazy government workers” and try to convince us that fascism would be better.
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Question: So what’s the best economic system?
Visit www.axiomaticeconomics.co... to see how Victor Aguilar answers this question.
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Does anybody have any comments on Aguilar's new website page, "Socialism without Seizure is still Socialism?"
www.axiomaticeconomics.co...
I disagree with Aguilar. I
I disagree with Aguilar. I agree with Rand: it is fascism. Just because Aguilar says Rand is wrong doesn't make it so. His criteria for what constitutes "truth" is too relaxed for my taste. If something is true "for all practical purposes," then it is true for all practical purposes; practicality does not equate to universality. It's not important enough to argue about, however, since both socialism and fascism are worth denouncing, as Aguilar says.
I don't agree that labels are hugely important or that using the "wrong" one makes someone look ignorant. Ignorant of which label Aguilar prefers, perhaps, but not necessarily ignorant of which systems are worthy of denouncing or of how to go about it. One could just as easily turn Aguilar's argument against him in defense of Rand. Besides, you certainly can go far in denouncing those systems without using Aguilar's terminology or any other set of terms. His assertion to the contrary seems like an unwarranted leap.
Aguilar can call it socialism, anti-Aguilar-ism, or whatever-ism; I'll still call it fascism, as Rand did.
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Liberty for Dummies
Keep in mind that "for all practical purposes"
refers to the labeling of social systems, which is an inexact science. Any labeling system is inexact, even non-controversial ones like the taxonomy of animals.
Germany, Italy and Spain all had fascist governments, but they were far from identical. It's just a matter of convenience for historians to call them all "fascist" - it's also possible to study each country's history without comparing it to any other country's history.
With regards to economic theory, Aguilar has a much more stringent criteria of what constitutes "truth." His theory is proven from axioms that are clearly stated up front. So don't get the idea that, in the proof of economic theorems, he is vaguely equating practicality with universality. www.axiomaticeconomics.co... is intended for popular consumption, while www.axiomaticeconomics.co... is intended for academics.
I'm not going to make an issue of this, since you can go far in denouncing those systems without using Aguilar's terminology or any other set of terms. I think that you can go farther using Aguilar's terminology, but I'm not going to discourage anybody who is opposed to fascism and/or socialism.
Shaka? I seem to remember
Shaka? I seem to remember someone with the exact same name trolling about Aguilar at Mises.org...could it be that Victor Aguilar here not only posted an article advertising his economic theory, pretending to be someone else, but then attempted to dress himself in yet a third persona in the comments section?
Pathetic Victor. Perhaps if you laid out your views in an honest and -most importantly- COMPREHENSIBLE essay, your ideas would finally gain some traction?
Sounds like we're ultimately
Sounds like we're ultimately in agreement then, on the broader point.
BTW, are you Pickles? Just curious.
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Liberty for Dummies
Yes, I'm Pickles,
though I've since dropped that name. Now I'm just using Shaka as my nom de internet.
great
great post!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
as for me and my home, we shall worship the LORD
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for interesting topic.
Ayn Rand speaks
From chapter 20 of Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, The New Fascism: Rule by Consensus:
Aguilar has just added a new website page.
It is titled "Socialism without Seizure is still Socialism."
www.axiomaticeconomics.co...
Aguilar is responding to atrickpay's Ayn Rand quote.
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"Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac play a central role in our housing finance system and must continue to do so in their current form as shareholder-owned companies," Paulson said.
Commentators this week have talked a lot about the government's actions ammounting to socialism. However, let's get the reference straight: Paulson is actually advocating fascism, not socialism.
In the 1920's, there was much debate (and fighting in the streets) in Germany between the advocates of fascism and socialism. The idea of free enterprise just got swept aside. The average German felt that fascism and socialism were the only options.
We cannot allow this to happen in America. Socialists like Zarlenga, Montagne and Cook (all of whom Aguilar critiques at www.axiomaticeconomics.co...) would love to frame the debate as one between fascism and socialism. Given the average American's distaste for companies like Halliburton and their feeling that it is unfair for executives to profit on the way up and then get bailed out on the way down, this is an argument that the socialists can win.
But the socialists cannot win against free enterprise. Aguilar has a section on his homepage titled "Critiques of Socialism" and another titled "Critiques of Fascism." It is important that the advocates of free enterprise respond to both the socialist and the fascists with the appropriate critique. Otherwise, we will get swept aside as the socialists and the fascists argue with each other.