# Could fascism have been avoided and what can we do now (Part 2 of 3)
Date: 2024-11-19
Next Part: https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/could-fascism-have-been-avoided-and-what-can-we-do-now.part3.md
Previous Part: https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/could-fascism-have-been-avoided-and-what-can-we-do-now.part1.md

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> “No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for co-operation among men.”

So you take Reagan style wild west strong men and move them into corporations where now they can ludicrously take credit for the work of thousands [and the government](https://marianamazzucato.com/books/the-entrepreneurial-state/) a la Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, etc. It’s a form of nationalism that says we win because our 1% is better than your 1%.

Ascribe everything to strong men is not a recent invention. J. Robert Oppenheimer and atomic weapons is a good example:

> It was not that he contributed so many ideas or suggestions; he did so sometimes, but his main influence came from something else. It was his continuous and intense presence, which produced a sense of direct participation in all of us; it created that unique atmosphere of enthusiasm and challenge that pervaded the place throughout its time.[[135]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Robert_Oppenheimer#cite_note-139)

The American revolution was somehow ascribed to the “founding fathers” when it was in reality a very broad mass movement. If you believe in the strong man version of history, then the [antipathy to workers that Clinton had](https://lawcha.org/2016/11/23/bill-clinton-remade-democratic-party-abandoning-unions-working-class-whites/) seems justified. Innovation and productivity rest solely on suppressing labor to make them follow big men.

> But once in office, Clinton and his allies turned their backs on the labor movement that had made their careers possible, largely in hopes of discouraging anti-union companies from funding potential rivals or to undermine potential rivals on the left. Although political commentators date the birth of Clintonian triangulation — i.e. adopting some of your opponent’s policies to distance yourself from your base, move to the center, and broaden your electoral appeal — to the aftermath of the 1994 elections, Bill Clinton along with Pryor and Bumpers began employing it in the 1970s and the Arkansas labor movement was the target.

Union busting is fascism 101 and neo-liberals extensively championed it, immigration, both skilled and unskilled, and outsourcing to suppress worker power. Plus examples like big man Steve Jobs reaching illegal non worker compete agreements with other tech companies.

There’s also a strong sexual predator, which Clinton was, aspect to this form of fascism and its patriarchal strong men.

Bill Clinton won the 1992 election with a mandate, 370 to 168, and then four years later 379 to 159. Compare that to Bush 271 and then 286. Obama again had a 365 mandate, but the 2008 financial crisis had begun and arguably it sealed the deal for American fascism.

Plus Obama [recycled the President Clinton team](https://www.npr.org/2008/12/23/98593976/on-obamas-team-ex-clinton-staffers-get-do-over) including Lawrence Summers. In 2020, Summers said

> Increasing worker power must be a central and urgent priority for policymakers concerned with inequality, low pay and poor work conditions. If we do not shift the distribution of power toward workers, any other policy changes are likely to be short-term and insufficient.

When Summers was in power he had very different ideas. He pushed for China’s [admittance to the World Trade Organization](https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/ls601) without any protection for American or Chinese workers. He was an author of “shock therapy” that created foreign oligarchs and ruined workers in other countries, most notably Russia. Plus [deregulate everything financial](https://prospect.org/economy/falling-upward-larry-summers/):

> The title of one, Simon Johnson and James Kwak’s *13 Bankers*, refers to an irate phone call Summers placed to Born, then the chair of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), in March 1997, after she proposed issuing a concept paper on the case for regulating derivatives.

> “I have thirteen bankers in my office, and they say if you go forward with this you will cause the worst financial crisis since World War II,” Summers told her. These were not just any 13 bankers, but the heads of Wall Street’s largest commercial and investment banks — many of the same bankers who would beg for a trillion-dollar taxpayer bailout a decade later.

This sort of big men know best thinking is just as prevalent today. [For instance](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/29/opinion/trump-economics.html) from the NYT’s Paul Krugman,

> The Federal Reserve is a quasi-independent institution, not because of any sacrosanct constitutional principle, but because nations have found that in practice it’s important to limit partisan influence over interest rates and money creation.

Of course trusting Jerome Powell does not get you unbiased decisions, as dozens of economists have explained, it just gets you the same old austerity invented in post WWI fascist Italy — if workers are doing a great resignation then you do a great interest rate hike to [force them back to work](https://medium.com/@disrael/i-lost-my-hat-and-sunglasses-why-the-rich-should-call-off-jerome-powell-d00ce4365c16).

That fascist austerity playbook already included bailouts for corporations but not for workers, but Alan Greenspan’s austerity innovation was the “[Greenspan put](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenspan_put)” where he did whatever it took to back up corporations even before they need a bailout (which became more and more aggressive with the Bernanke put and then Yellen put).

Billionaires now have the tight controlling relationship with government that is typical of fascist economics. They also now own Twitter, YouTube, the Washington Post, and even NYT is owned by someone describing themselves [with](https://www.cjr.org/special_report/ag-sulzberger-new-york-times-journalisms-essential-value-objectivity-independence.php):

> I am the publisher of one of the most scrutinized media institutions in the world; a wealthy white man who succeeded a series of other wealthy white men with the same first and last name; and someone whose family has starred in a full century of shadowy media conspiracy theories.

Also typical is the transition from many oligarchs to a [single dear leader](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_fascism):

> Nevertheless, “once Mussolini acquired a firmer hold of power … laissez-faire was progressively abandoned in favour of government intervention, free trade was replaced by protection[ism] and economic objectives were increasingly couched in exhortations and military terminology”.

Clinton [arguably](https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2023/09/bill-clinton-history-legacy-centrism.html) tried to buck the rightward trend:

> Even after Clinton was president, his proposed health care reform agenda (pushed by party activists and loyal opposition in the Congressional Budget Office) would have been far more transformational and market-regulating than Obamacare, they argue.

The Clinton administration tweaked the Community Reinvestment Act, which was passed to reduce redlining, to offer more affordable housing loans. They expanded Earned Income Tax Credit, raised the minimum wage, and invested in education.

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**[Continue reading Part 3 of 3](https://disrael.github.io/blogs/raw/could-fascism-have-been-avoided-and-what-can-we-do-now.part3.md)**