“Progressive” Economics - Socialist or Fascist?

“It’s way past time to put the end to the era of shareholder capitalism. The idea the only responsibility a corporation has is its shareholders — that is simply not true, it’s an absolute farce. They have a responsibility to their workers, their community, to their country.”
—Joe Biden

Back in the day, the Soviets used to refer to their fellow travelers in the West as “progressives”, and their sympathizers, such as Henry Wallace and his comrades in the Progressive Party, referred to themselves as such, as well. Furthermore, you’ll find that the progs in the Communist Party USA still refer to themselves and other socialists (ex., Bernie Sanders) as “progressives, too. The term still fits, but what’s curious is that the policies many self-styled “progressives” on the Left and in the Democratic Party embrace are policies that more closely fit the definition of fascism, rather than socialism. While both share common socialist roots and seek government control over the economy/private sector, what separates the two are the means of control. In the case of communists and socialists, this could be described as direct control through ownership, and in the case of fascists, it could be described as indirect control through dictates, mandates, rules and regulations, not ownership. Either way, you wind up with the government controlling the economy/private sector.

What raises this question is in the stakeholderism, of which ESG (Environmental-Social-Governance) is a prominent stakeholder component, that Joe Biden and many “progressives have endorsed. As you can see in the articles posted below, what “progressives” are embracing is a fascist construct that originated in fascist Italy and Germany during the 1930s.

Many of you may already be aware of what stakeholderism and ESG are about, but for those less familiar, here are a few articles and information to consider:

First a glance at the history of stakeholderism...

...and now a couple articles:

Is ‘Stakeholder Capitalism’ Newspeak for Economic Fascism?
https://fee.org/articles/is-stakeholder-capitalism-newspeak-for-economic-fascism/

Stakeholder Fascism Means More Loss of Liberty
Richard M. Ebeling
– September 28, 2020
https://www.aier.org/article/stakeholder-fascism-means-more-loss-of-liberty/

And finally, for those who deny the socialist roots of fascism, a few quotes from across the political spectrum:

"...in the great river of Fascism one can trace currents which had their source in Sorel, Peguy, Lagardelle of the Movement Socialists..."
--Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism

"It is significant that the most important ancestors of National Socialism [Johann Gottlieb] Ficht, [Johann Karl] Rodbertus and {Ferdinand] Lassalle - are at the same time acknowledged fathers of socialism."
— F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom

“Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism”
—Joseph Stalin, Concerning the International Situation

So, what do you think? Are “progressive” economics socialist, fascist or a shifting combination of both? Given that it’s hard to nail down I thought I’d throw this question out there and see what others thought…

 

And how is the Biden Administration's embrace of stakeholderism and ESG manifesting itself in public policy?

 

In U.S., 2023, "progressives" are people who defend democracy and seek the progress of Society from a framework of equal Economic and Social opportunities for all regardless of gender, sexual orientation, ethnic identity, age or religion. With heavy reliance on science and scientific fact.

So.... you do the math.

 

To a certain extent, the progressive movement is drunk on it's own perceived self-righteous importance much in the same way their counterparts in the MAGA crowd are. The idiocy on one side spawns and drives the idiocy on the other. It is almost reaching critical mass like some kind of twisted fusion reactor that outputs nincompoopery.

 

Very accurately informative and well written post. As you strongly imply socialists, fascists, and communists are all birds of similar feather, although some socialists are in name only. It is just a matter of different degrees and in some cases different tactics.

 

“Progressive” Economics - Socialist or Fascist?

I'd vote neither. Their ideas economics are best described as comically ignorant.

While this is anecdotal, living where I do there are more than a few Progressives among my friends and family. These are folks who takes seriously the economic commentary of people like Bernie Sanders, AOC, or Rachel Maddow. With confidence I can say two things about them:

1. Most are among the nicest, kindest people I know.​

2. Not one of them has a clue how a market economy works, how wealth is created, what it takes to run a successful business, and they show absolutely no desire to understand any of it.​

It's as if they're almost too nice, and it clouds their thinking.

FWIW.

 

An

And the weird thing is where do "progressives" fit, especially when you have Center Left pols like Hillary Clinton claiming that they're the most "progressive" people on the Left.

Despite all the talk, it seems that the Center Left that wants to call itself "progressive" (Clinton, Biden, et al) but doesn't fit the classical definition of the euphemism and embraces social democracy and stakeholderism is in fact embracing fascism (as Stalin correctly pointed out). In some cases, they are also embracing the worst, totalitarian forms of fascism, from its intolerance of opposing views to the censorship associated with it. On the other hand, you have the Far Left "progressives" who are socialists and would like to nationalize parts of the private sector, most notably in the area of health insurance/health care.

 

I've always thought the economic illiteracy comes with the territory. The two things "progressives", i.e., socialists and communists, have never understood are 1) human nature and 2) economics.

Yet, regardless of their ignorance they still embrace either a fascist or socialist economic program.

 

IMHO democrats are generally not progressive. They just seem to have moved that way to neuter a growing movement against the establishment democrats from the left. They are still bringing home the same bacon even if they sell it as Iberico pork. For instance, al this racial justice infrastructure stuff is little more than them making sure the lion's share of the new spending lands in blue urban areas. Green energy is about subsidizing California and punishing Texas and Appalachia for not being Team Donkey. If you go back through the messaging from the beginning, the Department of Ed has been almost singularly focused on getting teachers their loan forgiveness and adjustments to please their most stalwart supporters. Everybody else has gotten little more than delay after delay after delay.

 

You’d have to be a pretty extreme libertarian to disagree with Biden’s quote. All he was saying was that companies have more responsibilities than profit to shareholders. It’s not okay to contaminate drinking water, sell secrets to the Chinese, or irradiate neighborhoods, for example. This isn’t fascism. Regulations to protect people from irresponsible and greedy people is a major important function of government. Socialism would be government ownership, so even further from the mark.

 

Socialism, communism....doesn't matter what its called, in the end they are both about control to the point of a dictatorship.

Put simply:
Communism is about government controlling the means of production.
Socialism is about The People owning the means of production. What they don't tell you is that in order for it to be managed there must be some centralized authority (IE: Government) to govern where things go and how its all allocated. Which means in the end the government controls the means of production.

That's why socialist and communist countries have always turned into a dictatorship. And frankly, a dictatorship is nothing more than a form of monarchy.

In the end, communism is actually more truthful than socialism.

The reason that socialism SOUNDS great is because it convinces people that they will be in control. That they'll have a say. And they'll have "equal" amounts of material goods and as such they're equal to what is considered the rich now a days. Of course it never ends up that way for the very same reason that they wanted an "equal" amount of material goods. Socialism is based on greed. The haves vs the have nots.

There is really only one way in which Socialism would be successful. And that will be when we have enough energy to provide for everyone with no worries AND have something to the effect of replicators from Star Trek available for all. After all, if you can just replicate items there's really no reason for many of today's manufacturers to even exist. Manufacturers will be regulated to making large complex items such as vehicles and buildings. Of course by this point there really isn't a point to socialism and a democracy like we have in the US would be far preferable.

 

That might be believable if he hadn't said "It’s way past time to put the end to the era of shareholder capitalism".

 

They’re pitching a return to the norm - view of capitalism. I suppose one could say a post-Friedman form of Capitalism. If you recall Friedman argued executives are only beholden to shareholders. Giving both a primacy they hadn’t known.That wasn’t the prevailing point of view. It gained traction and was influential in our corporate governance structure and much more. Idiocy followed. Sorry. Doing the same thing expecting a different result is normally considered insanity. Insanity followed: Anti-Trust, M&A, what once was considered nothing more than manipulation magically wasn’t and made legal—hell that’s only a small slice of the Reagan era.

The only thing to fear is donor class fear mongering itself.

There are different ways to practice Capitalism. This thread is donor class dung and if you had hopes of transforming the Republican Party to a working class entity you’ve got one hell of a fight on your hands. Focus! You’ll get more of the same economic idiocy unless you do

 

As a modern day practicing Fascist, I would like to give my response and in doing so I would like to clearly contextualize Fascism VS Communism first by highlighting the irony of Stalin's statement. It's actually that democracy is the moderate wing of communism(if Social democracy were the moderate wing of fascism, the AXIS powers could have more aligned with what they described as Plutocratic England(future UK) and the US. This is clear, it wasn't to be. By contrast, Stalin's USSR did align with the Allies. Part of it military convenience, but a good portion ideological.

So that's one way we can distinguish that the Fascist Movement didn't have anything to do with contemporary democracy as we know it. Now, as it pertains to Mussolini he was largely a socialist for most of his early life(until he advocated for pro-war views which led to the creation of Fascism. When it comes to the Communist outlook, it is largely on the basis of class and racial warfare.(Hence, again, the communist and the democrat have way more in common.). They believed in the hordeing of wealth and natural resources, and they believed in the have and have-nots and if the have-nots(who were bigger) would join forces then they could eventually have.

The Fascist movement took some of it, but also it transformed into a new ideology, that of Statehood. The sigma of Fascism is the bundle of sticks. The sticks, individually would crumble but together would be indestructible. The Italian People for Italy, Italy for the Italians.(and this core belief also for Germany's National Socialism or Nazi). It became much less about the racial and class struggle(especially so in Mussolini's case, we needn't go over the man with the mustache. That's already known.) and more about in Italy's case for example: Access to the Mediterranean sea.

But even with Hitler's known racist ideology, deep at the core of his National Socialist movement was: Germany for the Germans. It was this focus on the homeland and its connection between its citizens, that was the core difference between the syndicalist movements, and the modern western movements which they were opposed.

As we've seen in our contemporary democracy, Washington's politicians could never dare speak 'America for the Americans'. You saw them go apoplectic when it came to Trump's speech, calling it 'frightening'. There is nothing frightening about unifying all of America, regardless of creed for the Americans. Now the time has come for us to demand a government that serves our interests, above the interests of 'who we are'. They had the last American century and they squandered it.

 

Funny the shareholders share no responsibility. I see “shareholders” on PF often criticizing capitalism while actively engaged (and bragging about) extracting as much profit as possible without contributing to productivity.

I also saw those most critical of “shareholder capitalism” pre-Covid support measures than ensured every dollar spent during the pandemic went to the largest, most “wealthy” corporations for two years.

Yes, the shareholders have more responsibility than the “capitalists” at the end of the day. But they won’t use that responsibility for the common good. They want an authoritarian to force them to be responsible. Nutty.

 

Yes, particularly so human nature. Try as they might, they fail to understand their collectivism works against a deeply ingrained behavior that most humans have: self interest. By comparison, they never seem to grasp that capitalism works with self interest and, when properly organized, to mutual benefit.

 

Why should they?

 

This is a tangent, but implying that somehow Russia rejected the fascists and chose to "align" with the West is ridiculous. When given the freedom of choice, Stalin chose to join the fascists as it gave him an opportunity to carve up Poland. It's only after that decision bit him in the ass did Stalin "align" with the West, and only until Germany was no longer a threat. After that, the USSR simply returned to expanding and exporting its own brand of authoritarianism.

There is little meaningful difference between fascism and what the USSR became, either before or after WWII.

 

It's indeed a tangent, and it was a shortened one of a very complicated tale. No, the USSR did not align herself with the Fascists not even with the Molotov-Rippentoff decision. By many accounts in USSR high command, it was meant to extend the border towards Germany. They wanted a buffer and by agreeing with the Germans, that's exactly what they had gotten. All that was left afterwards were the Soviet 5 year plans for 'industrialization'.

This gets us into the ever complicated 'who chose to go to war'. Both sides of the account admit to the mass of Russian forces along said border, but a distinction between offense and defense units is what differs between the two theories. Regardless of this, NS Germany always ideologically opposed the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union in kind felt much the same. When the dust settles, war between them was inevitable.

It's a convenient fairy tale to ascribe the USSR to the Fascist States, seeing as the USSR in its own form of debauchery had no qualms with purging both government officials and civilians. They literally, by every source noted are not the same. Only in the sense of a central authority, maybe. And even then the USSR was never one whole country and that's why its dissolution was inevitable.

Germany/Italy only dissolved in military defeat, not political disunion.

 

Sorry, that description of events is so stripped of what's relevant it's divorced from reality.

The USSR -- like France, like the UK, and like the US -- had a choice. Within a wide range of degree, they could either align with or oppose Nazi Germany. When the USSR had the freedom to choose, they chose to side with fascism. They're choice was logical in a way as one tends to align with kindred spirits. It is only when the USSR faced the literal destruction of their country did they decide the Allies were perhaps the better option, and then only for as long as that threat to their existence remaned.

IMO, the Soviets chose to huddle up with fascism as it was something they understood because, for all intents and purposes, it was something they practiced.

 

i've literally read the texts, speeches, etc and historical recordings of the events and you laughably tell me with no sources of your own about what went down. That's just laughable. What you think(or rather, would like to think from a conservative-American point of view) is not what happened on the ground from the 1930's to the end of the war.

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/molotov-ribbentrop-pact

Read the very first paragraph. The Soviets were under no illusions about why they made the deal that they made. But their ideological opposition still very much remained. That's why the world was in shock. In your elementary view of it, both systems have an authoritarian bent, therefore they're the same is just LOL.

TLDR: Research pal, do a lot more of it.

 

I don't care what you've read or what you think you've learned; the implied assertion you're making that the Soviet Union chose to align with the Allies is blithering nonsense. They only joined the Allies after a gun was figuratively and literally put to their head; that is not choice; that is necessity.

 

People who choose to be generous are happier and healthier.

People who subscribe to some religious based code of morals “should” follow those codes relating to generosity.

People who are strictly secular humanists should practice generosity because science has shown generosity has positive health and happiness effects on the generous and on society as a whole.

People who subscribe to neither code should take everything they can get their hands on. Authoritarianism should keep it’s grubby hands completely off the whole subject.

 

Well, being anti-Individualist control freaks it figures that socialists of all stripes are not going to grasp that, even when they understand it perfectly well. The last thing the fanboys and girls of hierarchal centralized power and control are going to abide is self-interest.

To reinforce the point, here's a little bleat from someone who knew a thing about socialism of all stripes, and it's worth noting that if one replaced the word "fascist" with the word "progressive" it would remain accurate and true:

"Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State...The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people."
-- from "The Fascist Manifesto" by Benito Mussolini (and Giovanni Gentile)

Bonus quote:

"...in the great river of Fascism one can trace currents which had their source in Sorel, Peguy, Lagardelle of the Movement Socialists..."

 

Very good and all very true. They don't use the word socialism (except Sanders who gussies it up a lot) because "progressive" is a far more acceptable word to the masses.