The Red Threat

There has been an increasingly loud cry from some conservative and Republican circles that Barack Obama is leading this country down the path of socialism. There is weeping and gnashing of teeth from them and they are yelling from the roof tops that the end of days (for the American way of life) is at hand. They look at the "radical" bailouts, budgets, and government programs as proof that Obama will be the ruin of this nation. Unfortunately for them (and the people that pin their hopes on Obama to save us), what Obama is doing is nothing new - and it certainly is not socialism. What it is are the same tricks and "solutions" the government has been using for years, and a political/economic theory that has far worse connotations.

Every President since at least Wilson has been using the same techniques that Obama is now using. Presidents like FDR reveled in the thought that the government could be used as a personal savior to each and every citizen. Even Republican superheros like Reagan, massively increased the size of the government and its expenditures. One would be quite hard pressed to find any differences between the last President and this one. What people fail to realize is that a change in velocity is not a change in direction. In fact, Obama's massive increase in spending and government intervention isn't particularly out of the ordinary either. For the most part, the government has increased dramatically from one administration to another. People are just beginning to notice because 2 may not be that much bigger then 1, but 1,000,000 is much larger then 500,000.

Through all this, the United States is still not marching on an inevitable path towards socialism. The state has no intentions (or desire) of seizing the means of production and distributing the profit. What we are actually moving towards is an increasingly corporatist system. In this system, the government and private enterprises are working together at the expense of the American people. One doesn't have to look further then the TARP programs to see these ideals in action. The banks still keep their profits, but the debt is publicized so that they don't have to face any of the consequences of their actions. Farm subsidies, auto "loans", and many other government expenditures are also examples of this. The entire Federal Reserve system is based on corporatist ideals as a private institution is working hand-in-hand with the Federal Government. Where this is leading us to has been best described by Mussolini:

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power”.