In IBM's case, the Department of Justice found that their efforts were mired in failure. Unfortunately, IBM was so central to the economic operations of Germany and occupied Europe that it was necessary to preserve IBM's role in the economy of Europe so as not to jeopardize the postwar occupation.
Part II-Present Corporatist America and Comparisons with Fascist Italy-
When the Wall Street Journal, the United States' newspaper of record for financial affairs makes an explanatory note, it gives us all pause. Gerald F. Driscoll in "An Economy of Liars" takes aim at both the Obama and George W. Bush administrations when he speaks about the present economic reality and asserts "We call that system not the free-market, but crony capitalism. It owes more to Benito Mussolini than to Adam Smith ("An Economy of Liars" 2010)."
If a communist agitator on the proverbial soapbox spouted this statement, it could be easily dismissed. However, now the major economic beacons of the country are sounding in shrill alarm, realizing what has happened. They understand that the country is in deep trouble and that the initial $700 billion dollar bailout is just the beginnings of the problems.
Every administration in U.S. History wants to be perceived as outsiders and populists. Both the Obama and second Bush administrations, like Mussolini before them, have presented themselves as populist regimes that would benefit the majority of the population. Like the Fascist corporatist state of Italy, the present U.S. system is now actually a spoils system that is designed to reward the economic and political elites that elevated the political officials to prominence.
To further elaborate upon this, columnist Sean Olender in a San Francisco Chronicle op-ed piece described the $700 billion dollar bailout "nothing short of a final step on the path to the end of the republic. The secretary (Treasury Secretary Paulson) claims he can only be effective if his decisions are beyond judicial review (Bailout Tests How Much the American Public Will Tolerate Theft" 2008).
If the government is now beyond judicial review, we have entered the defined zone of fascism and there is no measurable limit to how far things can be pushed. Before things go too far, we must recover the basis of liberal Western economics.
In the history of the United States, there is hope in recapturing the legislation, innovation and wisdom of the last Great Depression's leadership (yes, let us call the present economic downturn by its actual designation). FDR in a message to Congress on April 29, 1938 delivered a speech on curbing monopolies and observes:
Unhappy events abroad have retaught us two simple truths about the liberty of a democratic people.
The first truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism -- ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power.
The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way as to sustain an acceptable standard of living
Once it is realized that business monopoly in America paralyzes the system of free enterprise on which it is grafted, and is as fatal to those who manipulate it as to the people who suffer beneath its impositions, action by the government to eliminate these artificial restraints will be welcomed by industry throughout the nation (Webpage).
The pathetic performance of the present Washington administration current bailout schemes against the New Deal of 1933 is stark by contrast. The administration claims to basing its policies on John Maynard Keynes and FDR's New Deal is truly specious. A quick referral to the historical record will illustrate this immediately.
For instance immediately with the first "Hundred Days," FDR's administration churned direct relief to get the speculation out of the banking system and restore confidence. We have mentioned the Glass-Steagall that eliminated speculative investment products and securities from being sold in banks. The fact that the inaugurations were then in March and not in January shows the immediacy of the New Deal program (2006, p. 305). The liberal Western model worked sixty years ago and can again now.
Part III -- the Atlantic Charter, Bretton Woods, and Financial Resurrection:
World War II grew out of the unsatisfactory resolution of World War One. The economies of the West were irrevocably molded by these world wars. For this...
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