Abstract
[I]ndustrial management has been installed in the federal government… to control the nation’s largest… industrial enterprises… [as it]… combines peak economic, political, and military decision-making. Hitherto, the combination of powers in the same hands has been a feature of statist societies--communist, fascist, and others… [S. Melman, Pentagon Capitalism, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1970, p. 1].
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Some writers place the turning point in the first half of the nineteenth century; for example, see R. A. Solo, The Political Authority of the Market System, Cincinnati: Southwestern, 1974, pp. 45–64. Other scholars claim that it occurred at the turn of the twentieth century; for examples, see J. Weinstein, The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State, Boston: Beacon, 1968, and R. H. Wiebe The Search for Order, New York: Hill and Wang, 1967.
A people’s convention in Rhode Island in 1842, representing a majority of the citizens, drafted a new constitution, held a referendum, and elected officials but the established minority government refused recognition. Thomas Wilson Dorr, a key leader of the reform, and the elected peoples’ governor, sought to establish himself in office. His “attack” was suppressed, and he was tried for treason and jailed. The Dorr War is used by many constitutional scholars as evidence that the courts began then to sustain the established power rather than the majority will of the people. See G. M. Dennison, The Dorr War, Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1976.
The Fourteenth Amendment declares that states cannot deny the life, liberty, or property of any person without due process of law. Part of the debate as the wording of the amendment was being written centered on whether “citizen” or “person” should be used. The latter word was chosen, and it is a matter of historical record that “person” would hopefully include corporations, which had been considered as “artificial beings” in the eyes of the common law. See J. W. Hurst The Legitimacy of the Business, Corporation in the Law of the United Stater, 1780–1970, Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1970, pp. 64–69.
In this case (Santa Clara County V. Southern Pacific Railroad Co., 118 U.S. 394, 3%, 1886) the Supreme Court held that a corporation was a “person” under the Fourteenth Amendment.
A large number of books and articles have been published since the 1960s which investigate the structural changes in our economic system. The writings of Peter Drucker, Robert Heilbroner, and John Kenneth Galbraith contain popular as well as scholarly insights into this matter.
For one view see “The New Mercantilism: Hoarding Jobs,” Business Week, March 31, 1973, P. 38.
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For an objective treatment of the economic arrangements under fascism, see W. G. Welk, Fascist Economic Policy, New York: Russell & Russell, 1968, pp. 23–39 and 134–179.
See (1) K. M. Dolbeare and P. Dolbeare, American Ideologies, Chicago: Rand McNally, 1973; and (2) L. T. Sargent, Contemporary Political Ideologies, Homewood: Dorsey, 1975.
H. Finer, Mussolini’s Italy, Hamden: Archron, 1964, pp. 85–86 and 129–146.
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An excellent discussion of fascist economics in Nazi Germany can be found in A. Schweitzer, “Plans and Markets: Nazi Style,” Kyklos, Vol. 30, 1977, pp. 88–115.
An excellent discussion of the popularity of Hitler and Mussolini and the evolution of fascism in Germany and Italy, can be found in: G. Allardyce, The Place of Fascism in European History, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1971, pp. 2–12.
S. W. Halperin, Mussolini and Italian Fascism, Princeton: Van Nostrand, 1964, p. 162.
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See R. Milibrand, The State in Capitalist Society, London: Quartet, 1973; and P. M. Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development, New York: Monthly Review, 1956.
F. Pollak, “Is National Socialism a New Order?” Studies in Philosophy and Social Science, 9 (1941), p. 223.
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Twight, op cit.
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The Communist, August 1933, p. 734.
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¡bid, p. 46.
Ibid, p. 48.
D. R. Fusfeld, “The Rise of the Corporate State in America” Journal of Economic Issues, March 1972, p. 2.
Ibid, p. 16.
¡bid, pp. 11 and 12.
Ibid, p. 18.
A. S. Miller, “Legal Foundations of the Corporate State,” Journal of Economic Issues,March 1972, pp. 60–61.
Ibid, p. 61.
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¡bid, p. 67.
A. S. Miller, “The Rise of the Techno-Corporate State in America,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1968, pp. 146–7.
A. S. Miller, “Legal Foundations…, op. cit., 68–71.
¡bid, p. 76.
R. A. Cook, “April 20, 1989, Fascism Comes to the United States, Commonweal, January 2, 1976, pp. 11–19.
The Triage System was used in World War Ito classify wounded soldiers to determine which persons would be given medical aid. Only those needing aid and likely to recover with it were treated.
R. A. Cookop. ciL, pp. 13–14.
Ibid, p. 75.
T. Draper, “The Specter of Weimar Social Research, Summer 1972, pp. 325–332.
Ibid, p. 340.
A. Beichman, Nine Lies About America, New York: The Library Press, 1972, p. 41.
Ibid., p. 38.
M. D. Reagan, The Managed Economy, New York: Oxford University Press, 1963, pp. 236–7.
A. Wolfe, “Waiting for Right: A Critique of the ‘Fascism’ Hypothesis, The Review of Radical Political Economics, Fall 1973, p. 47.
Ibid., p. 52.
Ibid, p. 47.
H. Morgenthau, “Remarks on the Validity of Historical Analogies” Social Research, Summer 1972, p. 364.
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Peterson, R.D. (1991). Fascism. In: Political Economy and American Capitalism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-3874-1_7
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