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As Trump rails against free trade, demands public ownership stakes in corporations that receive government funds, and (selectively) enforces antitrust law, some (stupid) people are wondering, "Is Trump a communist?"

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in reply to Cory Doctorow

He DOES have the military doing public service tasks (e.g. the National Guard picking up trash), so we have to ask. Is he instituting a stealth Public Works Administration?

But it’s probably just a “stopped clock” phenomenon: his political ignorance means that he doesn’t have any clear idea what is and isn’t socialism, so he doesn’t instinctively reject anything with even a hint of socialism about it, as a slightly more aware conservative politician would.

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in reply to Angus McIntyre

@angusm
Long ago, I equipped that the way to make conservatives and embrace a job, guarantee or healthcare in retirement for all would be to have everyone do military service.

But since the mango Stalin is found a taste for nationalization, why stop at half measures? We could have a fully centralized command and control economy just like the billionaires want.

And so we’ll get to experience capitalism running the government.

in reply to Angus McIntyre

@angusm
Fascists have nothing against a large state per se; on the contrary, within fascism, businesses and the state tend to merge into an alliance called corporatism.
in reply to Doug Belshaw

@dajb @henriksundstrom @angusm @GhostOnTheHalfShell

Whether the state absorbs business, or business absorbs the state, it seems that the end result is remarkable similar in most of the ways that matter

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in reply to David Mitchell

The most effective summary I’ve seen of this phenomenon is decision-making power is consolidated into the hands of the few

They can be consolidated into the state, or the state can confer totalitarian powers to businessman and their corporations (plutocracy). Either way you end up with a tyrannical rule. Public tyrannical rule or private parental rule, but they still control our lives.

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in reply to Cory Doctorow

US citizens have never understood there is a difference between Communism and Socialism. I note thatt someone has alredy pointed out the stopped clock phenomenon...
in reply to Cory Doctorow

Mussolini called his ”third way” corporatism at first: The merging of business and state. Looks pretty damn similar to me.

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in reply to Toni Aittoniemi

@gimulnautti Nazism and italian fascism were corporativism at its higher level. There is no politc, just business.