Anti-Putsch
There is an article in the Washington Times this morning about how fascism in America is more closely associated with liberals than with conservatives. [Link] The author makes the rather insightful point that fascism is ambiguous as there is little agreement on what it really is. My Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as:
an authoritarian and nationalistic right-wing system of government
and right wing as:
the conservative or reactionary section of a political party or system.
From which we sense the ambiguity since the circularity here indicates that for liberals to be fascists they have to be conservative. Perusal of the Britannica is somewhat more helpful:
a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition
in which it may be seen that the contention has some merit, that conservative may be seen not just as a political bent but as preservation. Regardless the problem is that dynamic things cannot be forced to be static with destroying that which is to be preserved.
For as long as I can recall, and a considerably longer period reflected in the history books, there has been considerable rhetoric in America over the marketplace as the determiner of economic and thereby, much of political, reality. We recognize, of course, that this reality is an artificial one created by humans. It is not fundamental; it has not existed since humans emerged on the planet; it may not continue indefinitely. Nonetheless, it is supposed to be one of the fundamental arbiter-gestalts of our society. That is, the marketplace would determine what goods would fail by the collective actions of the consumers that comprised its customer population.
Now let us consider the competition between higher density DVD formats, the so-called HD DVD and Blu-Ray. We rather expected this competition to play out along the lines of the one between Beta and VHS video tapes. That competition was settled by pornography sales. And no, I am not saying that capitalism is inherently pornographic, although I might advance that fascism is inherently anti-pornographic because it is itself a pornography and cannot abide any competition in that arena.
At the time of the Bate-VHS competition there were essentially two marketplace demands for tapes. One demand was for the home recording enthusiast who recorded what came into his/her television for future use. This was an inherently dispersed customer base that has dwindled over the years as the nation has dumbed down. The second demand was the pornography “industry” which had made the switch from celluloid to video tape. At that time the “legitimate” movie industry had no intention of selling their product. But since the pornography “industry” was concentrated, it prevailed in this competition.
Since then, of course, the distinction between the pornography and legitimate movie industries have eroded significantly, and hence we expected that the movie industry would determine which DVD standard would prevail. This expectation appears to be incorrect. The actual answer is that the determining agents are the big box stores who sell the movies. [Link] Apparently they are the concentrated customer, since they can in effect dictate substantial considerations to the movie industry, that determines which format abides. Indeed, the manufacturer of the loser has already canceled production. [Link]
The indication of this is that the marketplace has eroded to where its content is defined not by the consumer but by the retailer. This may look like a form of fascism, but it may instead be communism. Remember Albania? You can have any product you want so long as it is the official state product. One “brand” of soap, one “brand” of cereal, ……..
