Fascism

Fascism

 * The enemy of my enemy is my enemy

From Fascism

Fascism is a radical, authoritarian or totalitarian nationalist or ultranationalist political ideology. Fascists paradoxically promote violence and war as actions that create positive transformation in society. Fascists exalt militarism as providing national regeneration, spiritual renovation, vitality, education, instilling of a will to dominate in people's character, and creating national comradeship through military service. Fascists view conflict as an inevitable fact of life that is responsible for all human progress

Ultimately, it is easier to define fascism by what it is against than by what it is for. Fascism is anti-anarchist, anti-communist, anti-conservative, anti-democratic, anti-individualist, anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-bourgeois, and anti-proletarian. It entails a distinctive type of anti-capitalism and is typically, with few exceptions, anti-clerical. Fascism rejects the concepts of egalitarianism, materialism, and rationalism in favour of action, discipline, hierarchy, spirit, and will. In economics, fascists oppose liberalism (as a bourgeois movement) and Marxism (as a proletarian movement) for being exclusive economic class-based movements.

Indeed, fascism is perhaps best described as "anti-ism"; that is, the philosophy of being against everyone and everything all of the time. The only place where fascism makes any sense is bootcamp. But if fascists had their way they would turn the entire world into one big never-ending boot camp.

Capitalism can be thought of as a sort of economic fascism. The belief that if we all try to drive each other out of business then we can all get rich.

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Hitler
See also:

A report prepared during the war by the United States Office of Strategic Services describing Hitler's psychological profile states:

He has been able, in some manner or other, to unearth and apply successfully many factors pertaining to group psychology

Capacity to appeal to the most primitive, as well as the most ideal inclinations in man, to arouse the basest instincts and yet cloak them with nobility, justifying all actions as means to the attainment of an ideal goal.

Appreciation of winning confidence from the people by a show of efficiency within the organization and government. It is said that foods and supplies are already in the local warehouses when the announcement concerning the date of distribution is made. Although they could be distributed immediately the date is set for several weeks ahead in order to create an impression of super-efficiency and win the confidence of the people. Every effort is made to avoid making a promise which cannot be fulfilled at precisely the appointed time

Hitler's ability to repudiate his own conscience in arriving at political decisions has eliminated the force which usually checks and complicates the forward-going thoughts and resolutions of most socially responsible statesmen. He has, therefore, been able to take that course of action which appeals to him as most effective without pulling his punches. The result has been that he has frequently outwitted his adversaries and attained ends which would not have been as easily attained by a normal course. Nevertheless, it has helped to build up the myth of his infallibility and invincibility.

Equally important has been his ability to persuade others to repudiate their individual consciences and assume that role himself. He can then decree for the individual what is right and wrong, permissible or impermissible and can use them freely in the attainment of his own ends. As Goering has said: "I have no conscience. My conscience is Adolph Hitler."

This has enabled Hitler to make full use of terror and mobilize the fears of the people which he evaluated with an almost uncanny precision.

His primary rules were: never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

From Political views of Adolf Hitler

After World War I, Hitler stayed in the army, which was mainly engaged in suppressing socialist uprisings across Germany, including in Munich, where Hitler returned in 1919. In July 1919 Hitler was appointed Verbindungsmann (intelligence agent) of an Aufklärungskommando (reconnaissance commando) of the Reichswehr, both to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate the German Workers' Party (DAP). Much like the political activists in the DAP, Hitler blamed the loss of the First World War on Jewish (i.e. Bolsheviks) intrigue at home and abroad. Hitler became impressed with founder Anton Drexler's antisemitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas.

On the orders of his army superiors, Hitler applied to join the party, and within a week was accepted. Hitler was discharged from the army on 31 March 1920 and began working full-time for the party. Displaying his talent for oratory and propaganda skills, with the support of Drexler, Hitler became chief of propaganda for the party in early 1920. Party members promulgated their 25-point manifesto on 24 February 1920 (co-authored by Hitler, Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder, and Dietrich Eckart). At the same time the party changed its name to the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NS-DAP), commonly known as the Nazi Party.

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Brownshirts
From Sturmabteilung, Stennes Revolt, and Beefsteak Nazi

The Sturmabteilung (SA), literally Storm Battalion (i.e. stormtroopers), functioned as the original paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party. The SA developed by organizing and formalizing the groups of ex-soldiers and beer hall brawlers. It played a significant role in in the 1920s and 1930s. Its primary purposes were providing protection for Nazi rallies and assemblies, disrupting the meetings of opposing parties, fighting against the paramilitary units of the opposing parties, especially the Red Front Fighters League of the Communist Party of Germany, and intimidating Slavs, Romanis, trade unionists, and, especially, Jews – for instance, during the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses. The SA were also called the "Brownshirts" (Braunhemden) from the color of their uniform shirts.

In 1922, the Nazi Party created a youth section, the Jugendbund (youth band), for young men between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Its successor, the Hitler Youth (Hitlerjugend or HJ), remained under SA command until May 1932.

In the second half of 1922 Hyperinflation caused many personal fortunes to be rendered worthless. When the German government failed to meet its reparations payments and French troops marched in to occupy the industrial areas along the Ruhr in January 1923, widespread civil unrest was the result. By November 1923, the US dollar was worth 4,210,500,000,000 German marks. French and British economic experts began to claim that Germany deliberately destroyed its economy to avoid war reparations.

The book, “Adolf Hitler: His Life and His Speeches,” by Baron Adolf Victor von Koerber was published in early fall of 1923. The book compares Hitler to Jesus, likening his moment of politicization to Jesus’ resurrection and using terms such as ‘holy’ and ‘deliverance’. It also argues that it should become ‘the new bible of today’. It is now suspected that Hitler himself wrote the book.

The Beer Hall Putsch was a failed coup attempt on 8–9 November 1923 by the Nazi Party leader Adolf Hitler and other leaders, including Gregor Strasser a regional head of the SA in Lower Bavaria, to seize power in Munich, Bavaria. Röhm, Hitler, General Erich Ludendorff, Lieutenant Colonel Hermann Kriebel and six others were tried in February 1924 for high treason. Röhm was found guilty and sentenced to a year and three months in prison, but the sentence was suspended and he was granted a conditional discharge. After a few weeks in prison Strasser was released because he had been elected a member of the Bavarian Landtag

While Hitler was in prison (and writing ), Ernst Röhm helped to create the Frontbann as a legal alternative to the then-outlawed SA. At Landsberg prison in April 1924, Röhm had also been given authority by Hitler to rebuild the SA in any way he saw fit. Hitler was released on parole on 20 December 1924 and Hess ten days later. The ban on the NSDAP and SA was lifted in February 1925. When in April 1925 Hitler and Ludendorff disapproved of the proposals under which Röhm was prepared to integrate the 30,000-strong Frontbann into the SA, Röhm resigned.

Beefsteak Nazi was a term used in Nazi Germany to describe Communists and Socialists who joined the Nazi Party. These individuals were like a 'beefsteak' – brown on the outside and red on the inside. The term was particularly used for working-class members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) who were aligned with Strasserism.

As a former Marxist in his early years, Goebbels once stated "how thin the dividing line" was between communism and National Socialism, which had caused many Red Front Fighters to "switch to the SA". Goebbels expressed that sentiment in a 1925 public speech, declaring that "the difference between Communism and the Hitler faith is very slight".

The Mueller government imploded in late March 1930. Its successor, the Bruening government, was unable to obtain a parliamentary majority. Members of the SA in Berlin, led by Stennes, had for some time been voicing objections to the policies and purposes of the SA, as defined by Hitler. These SA members saw their organization as a revolutionary group, the vanguard of a national-socialist order that would overthrow the hated Republic by force. Stennes complained that advancement within the SA was improperly based upon cronyism and favoritism rather than upon merit. He objected to the general law-abiding approach that Adolf Hitler had adopted after the Beer Hall Putsch, and he and his men chafed under the Hitlerian order to terminate street attacks upon Communists and Jews. Stennes decided that action was needed to make a statement. The SA then stormed the Gau office on the Hedemannstrasse, injuring the SS men and wrecking the premises. In September 1930, as a consequence of the Stennes Revolt in Berlin, Hitler assumed supreme command of the SA as its new Oberster SA-Führer. The SA cheered and were delighted that their leader was finally giving them the recognition they felt they deserved. He sent a personal request to Röhm, asking him to return to serve as the SA's chief of staff. Röhm accepted this offer and began his new assignment on 5 January 1931. Röhm established new Gruppen which had no regional Nazi Party oversight. Each Gruppe extended over several regions and was commanded by a SA Gruppenführer who answered only to Röhm or Hitler. Many of these stormtroopers believed in the socialist promise of National Socialism and expected the Nazi regime to take more radical economic action, such as breaking up the vast landed estates of the aristocracy once they obtained national power.

Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933 by Paul von Hindenburg. Göring (the number two man in the Nazi Party) was named as Minister Without Portfolio, Minister of the Interior for Prussia, and Reich Commissioner of Aviation. The Reichstag fire occurred on the night of 27 February 1933. Göring was one of the first to arrive on the scene. (At the Nuremberg trials, General Franz Halder testified that Göring admitted responsibility for starting the fire.) The Nazis took advantage of the fire to advance their own political aims. The Reichstag Fire Decree, passed the next day on Hitler's urging, suspended basic rights and allowed detention without trial. Göring demanded that the detainees should be shot, but Rudolf Diels, head of the Prussian political police, ignored the order. After only two months in office the Reichstag body passed the Enabling Act on 24 March 1933 giving the Reich Chancellor full legislative powers for a period of four years – the Chancellor could introduce any law without consulting Parliament. Rudolf Hess was named Deputy Führer of the NSDAP on 21 April 1933. Hitler's leadership style involved giving contradictory orders to his subordinates, while placing them into positions where their duties and responsibilities overlapped. In this way, Hitler fostered distrust, competition, and infighting among his subordinates to consolidate and maximise his own power

After Hitler and the Nazis obtained national power, the SA became increasingly eager for power itself. The SA leaders argued that the Nazi revolution had not ended when Hitler achieved power, but rather needed to implement socialism in Germany (see ). The SA numbered over three million men and many saw themselves as a replacement for the "antiquated" Reichswehr. Röhm's ideal was to absorb the army (then limited by law to no more than 100,000 men) into the SA, which would be a new "people's army". This deeply offended and alarmed the army, and threatened Hitler's goal of co-opting the Reichswehr. The SA's increasing power and ambitions also posed a threat to the other Nazi leaders.

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SS and Gestapo
Originally an adjunct to the SA, the Schutzstaffel (SS), or protection squad, was placed under the control of Heinrich Himmler in part to restrict the power of the SA and their leaders. The younger SS had evolved to be more than a bodyguard unit for Hitler and showed itself better suited to carry out Hitler's policies, including those of a criminal nature. Over time the SS became answerable only to Hitler, a development typical of the organizational structure of the entire Nazi regime, where legal norms were replaced by actions undertaken under the (leader principle), where Hitler's will was considered to be above the law.

As Interior Minister of Prussia Göring had command of the largest police force in Germany. Göring detached the political and intelligence sections from the police and filled their ranks with Nazis. On 26 April 1933, Göring merged the two units as the Geheime Staatspolizei (Secret State Police), which was abbreviated by a post office clerk and became known as the "Gestapo". The first commander of the Gestapo was Rudolf Diels.

On 5 March 1933, yet another Reichstag election took place, the last to be held before the defeat of the Nazis. It was not the landslide expected by the party leadership. Goebbels finally received Hitler's appointment to the cabinet, officially becoming head of the newly created Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda on 14 March 1933.

Concerned that Diels was not ruthless enough to effectively counteract the power of the Sturmabteilung (SA), Göring handed over control of the Gestapo to Himmler on 20 April 1934. Himmler named Reinhard Heydrich (whom Hitler called "the man with the iron heart") to head the Gestapo on 22 April 1934. Himmler asked Heydrich to assemble a dossier on Röhm. Heydrich manufactured evidence that suggested that Röhm had been paid 12 million marks by French agents to overthrow Hitler. Hitler was also concerned that Röhm and the SA had the power to remove him as leader. Göring and Himmler played on this fear by constantly feeding him with new information on Röhm's proposed coup. A masterstroke was to claim that Gregor Strasser, whom Hitler hated, was part of the planned conspiracy against him. With this news Hitler ordered all the SA leaders to attend a meeting in the Hanselbauer Hotel in Bad Wiessee.

On 30 June 1934, Hitler, accompanied by SS units, arrived at Bad Wiessee, where he personally placed Röhm and other high-ranking SA leaders under arrest. (See ). The homosexuality of Röhm and other SA leaders was made public to add "shock value", even though the sexuality of Röhm and other named SA leaders had been known by Hitler and other Nazi leaders for years. Arriving back at party headquarters in Munich, Hitler addressed the assembled crowd. Consumed with rage, Hitler denounced "the worst treachery in world history."

War Is a Racket
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Einsatzgruppen
Highly recommend: War and Peace by Tolstoy

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Military-industrial complex
From Chance for Peace speech:

The Chance for Peace speech, also known as the Cross of Iron speech, was an address given by U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower on April 16, 1953, shortly after the death of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin.

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter with a half-million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. . . . This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron"

Eisenhower expressed regret for having set the precedent of large peacetime military expenditures.

From: _The White House Years 1956-61_ by Dwight D. Eisenhower:

"During the years of my Presidency, and especially the latter years, I began to feel more and more uneasiness about the effect on the nation of tremendous peacetime military expenditures.

...

But in mid-1953, after the end of the Korean War, I determined that we would not again become so weak militarily as to encourage aggression. This decision demanded a military budget that would establish, by its very size, a peacetime precedent.

...

The makers of the expensive munitions of war, to be sure, like the profits they receive...Each community in which a manufacturing plant or a military installation is located profits from the money spent and the jobs created in the area...All of these forces, and more, tend, therefore, to override the convictions of responsible officials who are determined to have a defense structure of adequate size but are equally determined that it shall not grow beyond that level. In the long run, the combinations of pressures for growth can create an almost overpowering influence. Unjustified military spending is nothing more than a distorted use of the nation's resources."

From Eisenhower's farewell address

Despite being a politician with a military background and the only general to be elected president in the 20th century, Eisenhower famously warned the nation with regards to the corrupting influence of what he describes as the "military-industrial complex".

"We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method.

Crises there will continue to be. In meeting them, whether foreign or domestic, great or small, there is a recurring temptation to feel that some spectacular and costly action could become the miraculous solution.

But each proposal must be weighed in light of a broader consideration; the need to maintain balance in and among national programs.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense. We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security alone more than the net income of all United States corporations.

Now this conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence—economic, political, even spiritual—is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet, we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved. So is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

He also expressed his concomitant concern for corruption of the scientific process as part of this centralization of funding in the Federal government:

"Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central, it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.

...

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocation, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet in holding scientific discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."

In 2011, the United States spent more (in absolute numbers) on its military than the next 13 nations combined.

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Real wages
Real wages increased with productivity until Reagan introduced supply side economics.



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The President and the Press
From The President and the Press

The President and the Press: Address before the American Newspaper Publishers Association (1961) by John F. Kennedy.

Delivered in Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, New York City, April 27, 1961.

"I want to talk about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger.

I refer, first, to the need for a far greater public information; and, second, to the need for far greater official secrecy.

In time of "clear and present danger", the courts have held that even the privileged rights of the First Amendment must yield to the public's need for national security.

If you are awaiting a finding of "clear and present danger", then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear and its presence has never been more imminent.

For we are opposed around the world by a monolithic and ruthless conspiracy that relies primarily on covert means for expanding its sphere of influence – on infiltration instead of invasion, on subversion instead of elections, on intimidation instead of free choice, on guerrillas by night instead of armies by day. It is a system which has conscripted vast human and material resources into the building of a tightly knit, highly efficient machine that combines military, diplomatic, intelligence, economic, scientific and political operations.

Its preparations are concealed, not published. Its mistakes are buried, not headlined. Its dissenters are silenced, not praised. No expenditure is questioned, no rumor is printed, no secret is revealed. It conducts the Cold War, in short, with a war-time discipline no democracy would ever hope or wish to match.

I have no easy answer to the dilemma that I have posed, and would not seek to impose it if I had one.

...our press was protected by the First Amendment...not primarily to amuse and entertain, not to emphasize the trivial and the sentimental, not to simply "give the public what it wants" – but to inform, to arouse, to reflect, to state our dangers and our opportunities, to indicate our crises and our choices, to lead, mold, educate and sometimes even anger public opinion."

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Cuban missile crisis
From Carlos Prío Socarrás:

On July 1, 1948 Carlos Prio was elected president of Cuba as a member of the Partido Auténtico. Prío, called el presidente cordial ("the cordial president"), was committed to a rule marked by civility, primarily in its respect for freedom of expression. Several public-works projects and the establishment of a National Bank and Tribunal of Accounts count among his successes.

However, violence among political factions and reports of theft and self-enrichment in the government ranks marred Prío's term. With elections scheduled for the middle of 1952, rumors surfaced of a planned military coup by long-shot presidential contender Fulgencio Batista. Prío, seeing no constitutional basis to act, did not do so. The rumors proved to be true. Batista assumed power when Prío, failing to mount a resistance, boarded a plane and went into exile.

From Bay of Pigs Invasion:

Prio's exile was the reason for the Movement led by Castro which succeeded 31 December 1958. Castro severed the country's formerly strong links with the US after nationalizing American industrial assets (banks, oil refineries, sugar and coffee plantations) along with other American owned businesses.

Castro forged strong economic links with the Soviet Union. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower was very concerned at the direction Castro's government was taking, and in March 1960 he allocated $13.1 million to the CIA to plan Castro's overthrow. The CIA proceeded to organize the operation with the aid of various Cuban counter-revolutionary forces, training Brigade 2506 in Guatemala. Eisenhower's successor, John F. Kennedy, approved the final invasion plan on 4 April 1961.

Over 1,400 paramilitaries, divided into five infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled in Guatemala before setting out for Cuba by boat on 13 April 1961. Two days later, on 15 April, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers attacked Cuban airfields and then returned to the US. On the night of 16 April, the main invasion landed at a beach named Playa Girón in the Bay of Pigs. It initially overwhelmed a local revolutionary militia. The Cuban Army's counter-offensive was led by José Ramón Fernández before Castro decided to take personal control of the operation.

As the US involvement became apparent to the world, and with the initiative turning against the invasion, Kennedy decided against providing further air cover. As a result, the operation only had half the forces the CIA had deemed necessary. On 20 April, the invaders surrendered after only three days.

From Cuban Missile Crisis:

In response to the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961 and the presence of American Jupiter ballistic missiles in Italy and Turkey, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to Cuba's request to place nuclear missiles on the island to deter a future invasion. An agreement was reached during a secret meeting between Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, and construction of a number of missile launch facilities started later that summer.

The missile preparations were confirmed when an Air Force U-2 spy plane produced clear photographic evidence of medium-range (SS-4) and intermediate-range (R-14) ballistic missile facilities. The US established a naval blockade on October 22 to prevent further missiles from reaching Cuba; The US announced it would not permit offensive weapons to be delivered to Cuba and demanded that the weapons already in Cuba be dismantled and returned to the Soviet Union.

After several days of tense negotiations, an agreement was reached between US President John F. Kennedy and Khrushchev. Publicly, the Soviets would dismantle their offensive weapons in Cuba and return them to the Soviet Union in exchange for a US public declaration and agreement to avoid invading Cuba again. Secretly, the United States agreed that it would dismantle all US-built Jupiter MRBMs, which had been deployed in Turkey against the Soviet Union.

When all offensive missiles and Ilyushin Il-28 light bombers had been withdrawn from Cuba, the blockade was formally ended on November 21, 1962.

From Anastas Mikoyan:

Khrushchev feared that Castro's hurt pride and widespread Cuban indignation over the concessions he had made to Kennedy might lead to a breakdown of the agreement between the Soviet Union and the US. To prevent that, Khrushchev decided to offer to give Cuba more than 100 tactical nuclear weapons that had been shipped to Cuba along with the long-range missiles but, crucially, had escaped the notice of US intelligence. Khrushchev determined that because the Americans had not listed the missiles on their list of demands, keeping them in Cuba would be in the Soviet Union's interests.

Anastas Mikoyan was tasked with the negotiations with Castro over the missile transfer deal. While in Havana, Mikoyan witnessed the mood swings and paranoia of Castro, who was convinced that Moscow had made the agreement with the US at the expense of Cuba's defense. Mikoyan, on his own initiative, decided that Castro and his military not be given control of the tactical nuclear weapons. During a tense, four-hour meeting, Mikoyan convinced Castro that despite Moscow's desire to help, it would be in breach of an unpublished Soviet law, which did not actually exist, to transfer the missiles permanently into Cuban hands. Castro was forced to give way and, much to the relief of Khrushchev and the rest of the Soviet government, the tactical nuclear weapons were crated and returned by sea to the Soviet Union during December 1962.

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Communism
Communism claims to be some sort of workers paradise where everyone is "on the same team" and everyone works for the common good and everyone is equal to everyone else. In reality there has never been and probably never will be a true Communist state anywhere on Earth. The states that call themselves communist states are in reality nothing more than ordinary military states. Every country that feels itself threatened by hostile neighbors invariably transforms into a military state.

Whether a country calls itself capitalist or communist or socialist or anything else the underlying power system is always the same. A core group of elite controlling everything and channeling as much wealth as possible into their own pockets. Only the coat of paint on the outside changes.

From Privatization in Russia:

In the later years of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev relaxed restrictions on private property and introduced initial market reforms. Privatization shifted Russia from the Soviet planned economy towards a market economy, and resulted in a dramatic rise in the level of economic inequality and a collapse in GDP and industrial output.

Privatization facilitated the transfer of significant wealth to a relatively small group of business oligarchs and New Russians, particularly natural gas and oil executives.

From Russian oligarch:

By the end of the Soviet era in 1991 and during Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika, many Russian businessmen imported or smuggled goods such as personal computers and jeans into the country and sold them, often on the black market, for a hefty profit.

During the 1990s, once Boris Yeltsin became President of Russia in 1991, the oligarchs emerged as well-connected entrepreneurs who started from nearly nothing and became rich through participation in the market via connections to the corrupt, but elected, government of Russia during the state's transition to a market-based economy. The so-called voucher-privatization program enabled a handful of young men to become billionaires, specifically by arbitraging the vast difference between old domestic prices for Russian commodities (e.g. gas, oil) and the prices prevailing on the world market.

Between 2000 and 2004, Putin apparently engaged in a power struggle with some oligarchs, reaching a "grand bargain" with them. This bargain allowed the oligarchs to maintain their powers, in exchange for their explicit support of – and alignment with – Putin's government. Many more business people have become oligarchs during Putin's time in power, and often due to personal relations with Putin.

During Putin's presidency, a number of oligarchs came under fire for various illegal activities, particularly tax evasion in the businesses they acquired. However, it is widely speculated and believed that the charges were also politically motivated.

In 2004, Forbes listed 36 billionaires of Russian citizenship, with a note: "this list includes businessmen of Russian citizenship who acquired the major share of their wealth privately, while not holding a governmental position".

A 2013 report by Credit Suisse found that 35% of the wealth of Russia was owned by the wealthiest 110 individuals.

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"Capitalism"

 * Privatizing profits and socializing losses
 * Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor

From Corporate welfare:

Subsidies considered excessive, unwarranted, wasteful, unfair, inefficient, or bought by lobbying are often called corporate welfare. Corporations want to reserve financial gains for themselves and pass along losses to the rest of society, potentially through lobbying the government for assistance.

Some economists consider the 2008 bank bailouts in the United States to be corporate welfare. U.S. politicians have also contended that zero-interest loans from the Federal Reserve System to financial institutions during the global financial crisis were a hidden, backdoor form of corporate welfare.

Policy analysis conducted by the Cato Institute, an American libertarian think tank, argued that United States fiscal policy allocated approximately US$92 billion in the 2006 federal budget toward programs that the authors considered to be corporate welfare. Subsequent analysis by the institute estimated that number to be US$100 billion in the 2012 federal budget.

Daniel D. Huff, professor emeritus of social work at Boise State University, published a comprehensive analysis of corporate welfare in 1993. Huff reasoned that a very conservative estimate of corporate welfare expenditures in the United States would have been at least US$170 billion in 1990.

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Counterculture
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