Socialism vs. Fascism

The conservative propaganda is confusing people with their accusation that Obama is taking us into fascism by pushing government control of and involvement in business. Fascism is a government controlled by and in the service of big business to ensure subservience of the masses to business interests and desires for aggrandizement and bigger profit.

Socialism is a system of government which control in various ways business activities and often own part of them in the service of the masses, focusing on the welfare of the people rather that of the corporate elite.

There is no indication that Obama’s efforts are to increase corporate power or to move us further into a government of , by and for business interests which had been the policies of the previous administration and is the essential ingredient of fascism. On the contrary he is moving us towards a state of affairs which promises to benefit the people through such things as his proposed health reforms and some measures which would cut down the gap between the income of the middle class and that of the upper one, the redistribution of wealth naturally loathed by the upper classes and condemned by them as being communistic and subversive of the American faith.

The response of the right is generating a class warfare which may lead us to dramatic consequences or to a conservative rescue through a kind of police state which indeed would be the fulfillment of the fascist ideology.

Fascism and communism of the Soviet and Chinese kind have a lot in common. But socialism leads into another direction, towards handing out to the people the service of the state and ensuring a measure of equality in the distribution of wealth. That is neither communism not fascism.