Fascism, as Mussolini said “..should be more properly called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.” And history, as told by Michael Parenti, shows that in all fascist societies, be it Italy, Germany, Japan, Spain, and into the present, corporate power increased.

And that gain in power such as tax cuts, deregulation, subsidies for extraction of oil and minerals involves a loss of power, rights, environmental and workplace protection and wages for those who work for a living.

Part 1

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In this conclusion Michael Parenti addresses: How western capitalist states have cooperated with Fascism as they saw Fascists as bulwark against communism. He reminds us that US corporations such as Dupont, Ford, GM, ITT, had factories in fascist Germany and after the war collected money from the US tax payers for damages incurred in Allied bombing raids.

Parenti says that we might do well to stop thinking of Fascism as either or condition. To insist that you don’t have Fascism until every vestige of constitutional government is destroyed and the jackboot is on our necks is to overlook the antidemocratic manifestations in many “democracies”. There is Fascism in the pin striped suit – he says.

When the power of capital is untrammeled, Parenti says, all of us are at risk. The environment, the sacred forests, the creatures of the sea. The real burden to society are not the poor but the corporate rich we can no longer afford them.

Part 2

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