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Economic Fascism

Breeauna Sagdal, Senior Senior Writer and Research Fellow | Author

April 6, 2024

Giovanni Gentile, was a neo-Hegelian philosopher, and the intellectual author of the “doctrine of fascism,” which he co-authored  with Benito Mussolini. Influenced by Hegel, Nietzsche, and Karl Marx, Gentile believed that all private action should serve the state’s interests.

“Fascism is a form of socialism, in fact, it is its most viable form,” Gentile wrote in his economic postulates, while defending compulsory state corporatism.

Gentile, like Mussolini, understood that a free society would not accept an authoritarian (state centered) regime, without incremental steps and the correct framing or socially engineered messaging to garner tacit agreement from the public.

Among the most prominent forms of economic fascism is the centralized authority to direct and plan the economy, trade, or commerce through restrictive and coercive methods. Centralization is defined as a sole individual, or a limited number of unelected individuals, who have been delegated the authority to control or manipulate the market—typically framed as a necessity for national security or for the welfare of the public (collective).

“Government alone,” Mussolini insisted, “is in the right position to see things from the point of view of the general welfare.” The government’s responsibility is to determine how much money is invested, how and where it should be invested and how the results will be judged.

In Italy after 1925, this was accomplished through the administrative state (the state within the state), such as the National Fascist Confederation of Industry, the National Fascist Confederation of Agriculture, the National Fascist Confederation of Commerce and the National Fascist Confederation of Banking.

After 40 years of Chevron doctrine being upheld in the United States, “highly trained experts” within administrative agencies have been given such deference to interpret the laws passed by Congress, it’s now generally accepted among scholars that these agencies have the authority to promulgate new rules, beyond the scope of what Congress intended.

Citing the constitutional basis for the legality of American fascism (the interstate commerce clause, and preemptive doctrine), attorney Charlotte Twight, examines the economic consequences of interventions in her 2002 book Dependent on D.C.: The Rise of Federal Control over the Lives of Ordinary Americans. Outlined are the affects of the administrative state,  such as: licensing, regulation, and rate making; product control; increasing the power of the executive branch; control over labor and agriculture; import-export and foreign exchange controls.

For the purpose of H.R 7521, the so-called “TikTok Ban,” we will zero-in on the aforementioned affects of the administrative state,  bearing in mind the framework of economic fascism and social engineering.

According to a Nov. 6, 2023 Congressional Report, entitled “Sanctions Primer: How the United States Uses Restrictive Mechanisms to Advance Foreign Policy or National Security Objectives,” the number of Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs) has risen by 900 percent since 2000, as the U.S increasingly uses sanctions as a weapon.

“Restricting Economic Transactions and Use of Financial Services The President is authorized to impose a variety of economic and financial restrictions pursuant to enacted statute directing the imposition of sanctions, such as under IEEPA during a declared national emergency.”

It should be noted that President Joseph R.Biden declared just such an emergency on Feb. 28, 2024, days before H.R 7521, the so-called TikTok ban, was introduced, then passed by the House.

The Report continues;

“The Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) oversees such restrictions, often in coordination and consultation with other departments, as directed by the President through executive order.

Restrictions often include:
 
- blocking access to and prohibiting transactions related to property within the jurisdiction of the United States of - designated persons;
- prohibiting transactions between persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction and designated individuals;

- and blocking access by designated individuals to the U.S. financial system.

“The executive branch or Congress may also prohibit or restrict investment by U.S. persons in foreign assets, or prohibit or restrict U.S. financial institutions from making loans or providing credits to designated persons.”

According to the language of H.R 7521, Section (g)(c)”Definitions” the bill applies to;

“a person subject to the direction or control of a foreign person or entity.” When the President determines that a person or entity poses a risk to national security, the President merely needs to issue a public notice via OFAC, and then notify Congress 30 days prior, outlining a classified annex and description of assets that must be divested (sold).

The Process

Due to the declared state of emergency, invoking IEEPA on Feb. 28, 2024, and the rules issued by the Department of Commerce CFIUS and the Treasury OFAC, any U.S citizen suspected or accused of violating sanctions by operating in commerce or trade with a Specially Designated National on the OFAC list, is subject to civil asset forfeiture, blocked access to banking within the U.S financial system, in addition to prohibitions of transactions that include tangible assets like real-estate and intangible property like holdings, shares, or securities.

Absolutely nothing at law prohibits;the use of sanctions against citizens of the United States, orenforcement of fines and jail time,  should a citizen of the U.S. violate sanctions laws.

In fact,  U.S citizens and Nationals are essentially indistinguishable on the Treasury’s “Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List.”

Calls For Blocking Access to Real Property via CFIUS

Gov. Kristi Noem recently appeared on FOX News, sounding the alarm on America’s food security. Noem, seemingly unfazed by the vast centralization of power to the USDA, and EPA – currently blocking access to food production – instead pointed at the CCP boogeyman, yet again, demanding that the federal government interfere in the sales of land.

In fact,  Congress is reviewing various policies right now that would further centralize power to the POTUS, administered through CFIUS and OFAC, for real-estate transactions.

H.R 840 e.g. “requires the President to take actions necessary to bar foreign persons (individuals or entities) from purchasing public or private real estate in the United States for the five-year period beginning from this bill’s enactment.”

Again,  we see the same arbitrary language;

“(ii) any entity over which control is exercised or exercisable by a foreign national, foreign government, or foreign entity.”

“The Foreign Investment Risk Act of 2018 strengthened the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) by among other measures giving it more jurisdiction over real estate transactions. Specifically, CFIUS now has jurisdiction to review purchases and leases of real estate by foreign natioals regardless of whether the transactions involve United States businesses. More action is still needed to make the rules of CFIUS more strict,” the bill reads.

The Rise of Authoritarianism

Fascism did not occur overnight, but is generally regarded as the rise of corporate socialism, an economic system that is used to coerce control and behavioral modification.

This concept can best be outlined today by what’s known as “Stakeholder Capitalism,” and the rise of public-private partnership agreements. Stakeholder capitalism orients secondary and tertiary interactions or casual relationships as the long-term impacts of doing business.  Stakeholders are not actually shareholders of the corporation, instead stakeholder capitalism asserts that the business ethos has impacts upon the collective that must be adjusted—not for return on investment, but for the common good.

And who knows what is best for the common good? The state of course. Therefore,  adopting the state’s dogmatic view of the common good, becomes adopted as the price of doing business.

The True Entity of Concern

If you want to know who the true enemy of the state is, the actual target of the “boogeyman” Hegelian Dialectic, listen carefully to each faction’s leader. Many have fallen prey to a left v right paradigm without recognizing the ideological undertones of both sides lead in the same direction. The collective is shielded so long as it toes the line, as the true target is the individual.

“Anti‐individualistic,” Mussolini wrote, “The Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. Fascism is opposed to classical liberalism [or libertarianism, as it’s also called] that denies the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State… If classical liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government.”

President Franklin Delano Roosevelt embraced economic fascism when he signed the National Industrial Recovery Act (1933) that empowered him to authorize the administrative state to restrict output, maintain above‐market prices and wages.

Today, the United States hurdles towards ever-increasing fascist policies, centralizing authority over commerce, trade, transactions,  and the means of production.  While planning the economy, current framers are implementing behavioral guidelines to determine who can transact, and under what circumstances.

Through the centralization of power,  corporations are selected and protected from bureaucratic scrutiny based upon their usefulness to the regime. This may look like the adoption of the Voluntary Carbon Market, censorship, DEI initiatives, campaign donations, or prioritizing immutable characteristics in hiring practices, but the root driver is state intervention by a centralized authority.

Justifications for these actions range based upon targeted demographics,  but the end result remains the rise of the state and the end of individual rights,  ownership and liberty—the road to owning nothing.

https://www.americaoutloud.news/tiktok-ban-sanctions-economic-fascism-and-the-slow-road-to-owning-nothing/