Progressive corporatism?

Now there is a joke that comrades Cheney, Paulson, Bernanke & Boehner are running a socialist take-over of Amerika with a $700 billion financial bailout. David Brooks says there is a potential for "progressive corporatism."(1) That would explain some things.

On September 25, the federal government negotiated within itself on how to conduct the bailout. Simultaneously the government took over Washington Mutual, the largest takeover in history for that kind of private bank.(2) The bank ended up sold to J.P. Morgan.

The longer the Amerikans wait to bail out the banks, the more the equivalent of the U.$. credit rating in the world goes into the toilet. Ron Paul and Newt Gingrich spoke in public against the bailout. One wonders if they are serious or just trying to negotiate with Democrats.

The longer the U.$. debate goes on without Congress's support for a bailout, the more the news stays in the headlines. The emphasis on economic scares might appear to help Obama. On the other hand, if Democrats in Congress appear to stall, they may receive some blame too.

The German Finance Minister echoed China, Venezuela and others in seeing a multi-polar world.

"'The US will lose its status as the superpower of the world financial system. This world will become multi­polar' with the emergence of stronger, better capitalised centres in Asia and Europe, Mr Steinbrück told the German parliament. 'The world will never be the same again.'"(3)

It's an exciting time to be a finance minister.

Opinion vacillated in a wild two days of polling. At first, only 30% of the public supported the bailout.(4) What we saw as of the 26th was an historic split between the labor aristocracy and traditional petty-bourgeoisie. The labor aristocracy on the one hand did not want to pay for the bailout of Wall Street and did not even see any larger international ramifications. The traditional petty-bourgeoisie with more at stake in Wall Street, more cosmopolitanism and more analytical knowledge supported the bailout. MIM has spoken before of situations where we see the imperialists cleave from their labor aristocracy. The top imperialists see the situation as urgent, while the labor aristocracy does not.

As of the 26th, House Republicans took up the labor aristocracy line, the same exploiter base that thinks that Third World trade does not matter and that Mexicans are a drain on the economy through crime. The trouble for the House Republicans' bargaining posture was that if they let things go on, they were electing Obama for sure and reducing their own numbers. David Brooks spoke of the extinction of the Republican Party.(5) And before all this happened, over 80% of the country thought it was off track.

If Democrats and Republicans bury their differences and hand off to a professional association, then it would seem that corporatism is moving forward in the united $tates. It's partly a question of how far the "end of ideology" goes or do class conflicts or partisan conflicts still assert themselves.

Corporatism was Mussolini's and Hitler's idea of how to fuse the interests of various classes and the state. The idea comes to the mind at the moment, because the whole bourgeoisified country has an interest in opposing bank collapse and the collapse of the dollar. The result is some kind of state-capitalism, social- democracy or socialism. With no exploited class to kick ass in the midst of this meltdown, it won't be socialism in the united $tates, though the opportunity is there on a silver platter.

So MIM is left pondering the parallels with German corporatism and whether there is a broader impetus in U.$. society for fascism. The Nazis disarmed the communists first. They had to use weapons. Here, it is not necessary. So if urgent class conflict prevents corporatism, the road to corporatism is clear in the United $tates.

What happened was not a case of the House Democrats' passing bills vetoed by Bush. Rather, the Bush administration went to Congress for increased tools to takeover banks. The takeovers are handled differently in different countries, but the result is usually fascist, social-democratic or socialist--not what Amerika thinks of itself, "free market."

The House Republican option of "insurance" was a joke, as if an industry could not mismeasure and incorrectly predict premiums necessary for massive failures. Had there been a real socialist-inclined proletariat, it would have asked Nancy Pelosi to lead the way for a takeover of the banks long ago. Instead, Democrats have taken the position that they can also oppose Bush, which is what they usually do. The House Democrats are demanding support from House Republicans or no takeover bill--good politics and more proof there is not public opinion support for even a hint of social-democracy. If there were support for social-democracy, Pelosi could have gone forward with Bush regardless of the House Republicans.

For structural reasons, comrades Cheney, Bernanke, Paulson and Boehner have to do what they have to do. For them to even raise the topic that ends up in social-democratic or outright socialist discussion in other countries has landed our comrades a screaming fit from the labor aristocracy. Again, there could hardly be better proof of MIM's third cardinal principle on the labor aristocracy. The labor aristocracy will be dragged into the future last, in spite of its Euro-Amerikan nationalism supported by countless pseudo-Marxist parties.

Hell freezes over; comrade Bush leads government takeover of the banks and some other problems still stay the same--just so everyone knows where they rank. Brooks may be correct, we should all consider to what extent there is room for progressive corporatism, given that anti-bourgeois class struggle is dead inside the united $tates. Of course, imperialism is still imperialism driven to war, but within that one has to wonder what progressive corporatism has in its repertoire.

Notes:
1. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/23/opinion/23brooks.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
2. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/business/26wamu.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin
3. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/1d6a4f3a-8aee-11dd-b634-0000779fd18c.html
4. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/just_30_think_government_should_bail_out_the_markets
5. http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/26/clueless/