The word "fascism" actually has a real meaning. The left misuses the word on a regular basis. They shout it as a slur against anyone they don't happen to like. But the notorious Italian fascist Benito Mussolini summed up the word's essence when he said: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." Does that definition along with the current state of the world arouse any curiosity? Ron Paul tackles fascism on today's Myth-Busters. Don't miss it!
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
The word "fascism" actually has a real meaning. The left misuses the word on a regular basis. They shout it as a slur against anyone they don't happen to like. But the notorious Italian fascist Benito Mussolini summed up the word's essence when he said: "Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power." Does that definition along with the current state of the world arouse any curiosity? Ron Paul tackles fascism on today's Myth-Busters. Don't miss it!
Be sure to visit http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com for more libertarian commentary.
Hello everybody and thank you for tuning into the Liberty Report.
As you can see we've had some technical problems.
We do not have video today.
We are going to record this audio but we still want to get our message out about myth busters.
Chris are you with us today to talk about the myth busting that we're going to do?
Yes Dr. Paul.
Today we're going to talk about fascism and there's a lot of myths that surround that.
One of the most prominent is what fascism actually is.
A lot of people on the left use it as a derogatory term against people that they just don't happen to like.
It's used, funnily enough, against people that support the free market, which fascism has nothing to do with that.
So to start us off, Dr. Paul, please define what fascism is.
Okay, I will do that, but first I'll try to describe the myth, and you've already alluded to it, and that is the myth comes from the left, and they want to get people to believe, and some of them I guess do believe it, that fascism is an extension of free markets, and obviously it's not.
So it is not an extension of free markets.
So what is it then?
Well, it's a system that actually is not ancient.
There's been all kinds of statism and socialistic programs for a long period of time.
But fascism that we know about it today was actually started in the last century and they have a label to this.
But people understand what crony capitalism is because that's when the government gets cozy with big business and they deal and they give business benefits.
Now the left then comes along and say, aha, business people, this is what the extension of free markets are.
No, this is the extension of government and people who want special benefits and want to rip off the rest of the people.
So they get in bed with government and that is a real concern and a real threat to us today.
But there's another term that is used that goes along with that and that is interventionism.
This is something that Mises talked about a lot because he would call it economic intervention and regulations and special favors and inflationism and central banking.
But he didn't call this socialism.
He didn't call it fascism.
But if you had interventionism, which is something that the Keynesians like, the Keynesian economists like intervention and planning, that if you continue to work with interventionism, Mises' prediction was that it would drift to and most likely morph into a fascist system.
He didn't say that it was going to morph into and become Marxism.
And so far that's really been generally the case in our country.
So often, though, you know, they talk about the communism and fascism, but one thing that we know is that they're different, but the people who like statism and control and power, it's not a big problem for them to at one time be a Nazi fascist and then accept communism because I think it's power that they want.
Now, one thing that I have observed over the years, and I could be challenged on this, I think fascism is more dangerous because it's more seductive because in the beginning especially, it's not as damaging as communism because they developed this partnership with big business and business, you know, they still want to make profits, even though immorally and by the benefits of the state.
But I think it holds things together and people say, well, this is not so different than what we deal with.
And it probably produces products more efficiently than pure Marxism does.
So that's why we have to be aware of it.
There are all degrees of it, but it's the extremism of combining business and government that it becomes fascism.
But then there's a lot of other characteristics of fascism that develop and go along with this in addition to the economic collaboration.
Yes, and you make a great point about fascism being more seductive.
It's actually known as creating a vampire economy, whereas socialism and communism are quick to take down an economy.
Fascist economy, it bleeds you dry very slowly and over time.
And we're going to talk about different presidential policies and how that's progressed throughout the decades in America.
We'll start with FDR.
Many people are under the impression that FDR ushered in socialist policies.
We even see it today with the campaign of Bernie Sanders.
A lot of his supporters will say, yeah, well, FDR, FDR did this and socialism.
But it wasn't the Marxists that caught the central planner's eyes in America back then in FDR's days.
It was actually the fascists in Italy, specifically Benito Mussolini.
He got a lot of good press in the United States.
So please, Dr. Paul, explain how FDR's policies were not modeled after Lenin in Russia, but after Mussolini in Italy.
Yeah, and the myth there is that most people say that FDR was a socialist, and technically speaking, he was not a socialist.
And the same accusation goes against Obama.
They say he's a socialist.
But no, it doesn't mean that he's less harmful, but he's not, in the true sense of the word, a socialist.
He's closer to a fascist.
But Mussolini actually was the one that coined the word fascism in 1919.
So fascism was started in a way by him because the Nazi type of fascism was an outgrowth of Mussolini, and most people would think it's the other way around.
But he endorsed this whole idea that there would be aggressive use of state power.
The state is very, very important.
And there's an absolutism that the state is correct.
And if you look at some of the things that they believe in, it really has a wide opening door for neoconservatism.
Because the fascists endorse the principle, Mussolini did, of a dictator.
He'd endorsed the principle of having an empire.
And I guess what?
We have an American empire that we talk about all the time.
And then there's the principle of extreme nationalism.
And we hear vibes of that coming from some of the candidates now.
And it sounds good.
And people get very confused at being a patriotic, decent American versus when does that morph into extremism based on nationalism and a special type of treatment of the people.
And we're sort of drifting that way, too, because it's a belief that people are very special and superior.
Of course, most people remember the stories and history shows that that was Hitler's, the superiority of the race.
But that was established by, that principle was established by Mussolini.
But today, people aren't worried about it, but sometimes I think the word exceptional, we are exceptional people.
And of course, I've talked about why exceptionalism in promoting liberty and doing nice things is one thing.
But exceptionalism in that we will spread our might in our imperialism around the world and dictate to other people because we are superior, that is, you know, getting skirting awfully close to the principles of fascism.
But the other thing that is so seductive in corporatism, which leads to fascism, is this idea of partnership.
Governments should be partners with corporations.
And that is the biggest concern that we have today.
But we certainly are very militaristic.
We're very imperialistic.
We are now thinking that we are very superior.
We have a lot of extremism talk about extreme nationalism, and we do operate from an empire.
So although we may not have qualified for the dictatorship of a Mussolini where the state decides everything, I think we're certainly getting close, and we should be concerned for ourselves, and people should be warned of the danger.
Yes.
Next, let's move to modern times and Obamacare.
Leading up to that law, we had countless cries of how Obama was bringing socialized medicine to the United States.
But once again, it's just not true at all.
This was a partnership of business and government.
So please explain how Obamacare is really a fascist health care policy.
Yeah, and that's the myth to deal with.
It is not socialism, but that doesn't mean you should let your guard down.
But Obamacare was corporatism.
He dealt with taking care of the corporations, corporate medicine, organized medicine.
He took care of the drug companies, the insurance companies.
But he also took one leap forward from what Republicans have gone along with for so long, because we've been, you know, for 50 years, we've been increasing the involvement of the federal government in medical care.
And so it's a very bipartisan.
It's a philosophic principle that has been endorsed by the Keynesians as well as the corporatives, as well as the fascists would endorse this as well.
But what Obama did with Obamacare was that caught the attention and woke up a few conservatives, mandates.
You don't even have a choice.
You will do this, or we will fine you.
We'll put you in jail if you don't pay the fine.
You have to do that.
So this is getting very, very authoritarian, getting very close to rejecting the market entirely.
And we already have people who claim they're always for choice.
There's a group out there.
We have to have choice when they're arguing for reproductive rights, choice, choice, choice.
But they're the ones who want to deny us a choice, which should be a natural right for us, decide what we do with our own bodies medically.
They're totally inconsistent on that.
But, you know, we have certain things that we're moving toward where we can lose the market.
He's always argued that interventionism is bad and it goes in the wrong direction, but you still have market forces.
There's still supply and demand.
There's still a pricing mechanism that covers up for many of the mistakes of government.
But when they come in and they put price controls on things, you can destroy the market and close things down.
I remember very vividly in 1971 when Nixon put on wage and price controls that shortages occurred not a month or two later when the supplies were used up, but immediately because the replacement of things, the prices were fixed and there was rampant price inflation.
And the market literally stopped.
And so for a while, we operated with a very small market.
And immediately what happens is the black market grows up.
It develops rather quickly.
So that's why in the socialist and Marxist economy, there's always a black market.
And even under our conditions today, there are people who barely survive because they work in the real market.
That is, they get to keep what they earn and they do it for cash.
The other area where we have drifted very close to totally accepting or pushing us into a fascist system, and one of the things that was in the communist manifesto was to have a strong central bank, a powerful central bank.
Eminent Domain Debate00:05:14
And right now we have the insanity of this group of people in secret are smart enough to know what the interest rate should be.
So we have price controls of money, which disrupts every transaction we have.
And this is why we have such gross distortions in the marketplace.
And the corrections are not permitted.
So we keep doing more and more of the same thing.
But Obamacare is not socialism.
But if we're not careful, it's going to lead to fascism.
And we're getting awfully close.
And we better be aware of it.
Yes.
And finally, we'll finish up with promises of the future.
And just to reiterate for our listeners, the key takeaway from fascism is a marriage of big business and government.
So keep that in mind when you listen to this next quote.
And it comes from Donald Trump, who gave an energy policy speech yesterday.
He said that as president, he'd use eminent domain to clear the way for the Keystone pipeline.
And he would demand a portion of the profits for the government.
He says, quote, I want the Keystone pipeline, but the people of the United States should be given a significant piece of the profits, end quote.
Now, is that not exactly what we're talking about, Dr. Paul, a fascist policy?
That is for sure.
And the first, there's probably a couple of myths there, but the first one that pops up is the myth that eminent domain is necessary to have economic progress.
And if you look carefully at the history of development of the railroads, the ones that used gifts from the government and eminent domain, they all went bankrupt.
Hill, who had the Northwestern railroad, did it all by buying land, not using eminent domain, and he was the only one that didn't go bankrupt.
He didn't take the benefits from government.
So this idea that eminent domain is necessary for progress.
This is a mixed bags with conservatives because some are fighting this and they don't know it.
But right now, so many are not challenging this whole argument that Trump makes that eminent domain is necessary, so we should have it.
And if you look at this country, and if you look at Texas on how many pipelines there are, I'm sure there were a bunch that they used eminent domain.
But I'll bet the large majority has always been built by people buying up private land and paying a fair price for it.
So it is not necessary to have eminent demand.
Besides, it's unconstitutional because it was for public use.
And an oil company is not public use.
And no matter how they rationalize, that's a real stretch.
But this idea that is floating now is, well, okay, you know, eminent domain.
The government's helping you.
So we'll make a deal.
The deal is.
We'll get you your pipeline.
You work hard and we'll be a partner in it.
You give us your half of your profits.
And that's, boy, that is so close.
That is what makes up fascism, is the absolute partnership between business.
Most of the time it's a loose partnership because there's not a declared partnership with the medical, you know, the drug industry and the government.
But there's a quid pro quo.
They lobby and they get the regulations and they make a lot of money and they're protected.
But this is a literal agreement.
This is a contract which would make the government part owner in the pipeline that they helped build by using an immoral approach of eminent domain.
You know, it reminds me of the story when I first was elected to Congress in a special election back in 1976.
I defeated the preferred candidates by the establishment who were the liberal Democrat.
And Texas was all Democrat at the time.
There were only three Republican candidates.
But I surprised everybody, I won this special election.
So immediately afterwards, the founding fathers or the fathers at the big city of Houston, because I was representing a large portion of Houston, they had a little reception for me.
And it was sort of get to know your new congressman.
We didn't know who you were.
And some very big shots came, the finance people, the people who do have control of the politician.
And I can remember very clearly, one of the most famous people in Houston was George Brown, and he was a money man, but he was never a supporter of mine.
But he came to the reception, and he was fine.
But I remember what he said to me as we were walking out the door, and he says, just remember, it's important to maintain the partnership of business and government.
And so they're very blunt about it, and they see that, and they do promote this.
And they think they're morally superior because they admit, yeah, we want to be partners with you.
Partnership Dictatorship Risks00:00:46
And on the short run, like we said earlier, this can look beneficial.
You know, they get by with it, but it's what it turns into, which is horrible because it becomes dictatorship.
And then there's all these other things that add on.
If they have economic controls and partnerships, then you have the dictatorship and the empire building and strong nationalism and all these other things.
So hopefully, Chris, this will be a little bit of a help to our listeners.
And I appreciate you being with us today, Chris.
Yes, glad we were able to get the show in.
Wonderful.
And I'd like to let the audience know that we'll be on the air in regular fashion soon.
And thank you very much for tuning in to the Liberty Report.