Corporatism: Because It’s Impossible to Talk Sensibly about Fascism

Originally published at Am I the Only One Dancing?. Please leave any comments there.

(Photo credit: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com)

The CEO of Whole Food, John Mackey, has gotten a lot of the left blogosphere up in arms after stating in an interview earlier this week that “Obamacare is a form of fascism”. Want to unpack that statement and examine it?

First, let’s set some ground rules. Fascism is not identical to Nazism, and it is not necessary to be a proponent of Nazi ideology to be fascist. There were various fascist dictatorships in the 20th century, and not all were Nazi. So let’s get Godwin’s Rule out of the way. However, to give credit where credit is due, I suspect John Mackey was misusing the term ‘fascism’ to mean ‘corporatism’ and not ‘Nazism’.

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