Progressive Corporatism and the Resistance

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"At this point, I think that the relevant political divide is not between the two parties. It is between the forces of Progressive Corporatism and the (much smaller) forces of The Resistance."

Excellent point. Republicans are socialist light. Had McCain won the presidency, his policies would have been no different from Obama's. Obama's victory saved Republicans the embarassment of promoting all out socialism.

Robert Higgs has been calling this for some time. He refers to it as "participatory fascism."

I don't know about dividing the situation between two sides.

I highly doubt that any other persons in office would be advocating what we advocate on the libertarian side of the ball.

If they did, they'd obviously be disqualified for office.

Progressive corporatism is a very impressive moniker. Now, we need to popularize this to make sure that the vast sweeping movement of change can be easily identified, traced and fought.

We are in the Stimunism phase.

Congratulations on the InstaCircle©, by the way:
Arnold Kling on Prrogressive Corporatism and the resistance thereto.

Liberal Fasiscm is what Progressive Corporatism is also know as. As an American who has studied history ( I am a CPA, BS at Univ Of Ill at Chicago) and an MBA in International Business, I have studied what Italy, Spain, Germany and several eastern European ans South American nation did in the 1930s. What PBO is trying to do is very, very close to what was done in these countries in the 1930s. Argentina was widely considered a near big power in the early 1900 hundreds, but after Peron, Mr then Mrs, Argentina is a second rate nation, with Italy, Spain, Hungary, Germany and France not far ahead. Is this what WE THE PEOPLE are going to stand for? A SECOND 1776 is needed NOW.

If you want to popularize this principle - Progressive Corporatism - I think that you should drop the designator 'Progressive', and simply use Corporatism.

Otherwise I think that you'll find that your arguments are dismissed out of hand, simply for the fact that Corporatism will be mistaken for a free market principle due to the root 'corporate' and its association w/ commercial corporations. Most people will regard Progressive Corporatism as a self-contradictory term - i.e. Progressives oppose free markets and so they are anti-Corporatist by definition. 99% of your efforts would go to debating this argument.

The National Socialist Democratic Party, otherwise called the Obama Administration, is now and always has been socialist. They use the term "progressive" because "liberal" has fallen out of favor and they believe they can improve their arguments for a reversion to Europe 1930 by using the term progressive. "Fool all of the people some of the time and some of the people all of the time" and those are pretty good odds. Fascist Italy was called a corporatist state at the time. That was understood to mean medium to large businesses were controlled directly or indirectly by the government and the little guys were intimidated as required. Given where Geithner wants to go coupled with the new "Americorps" Act, we are moving there very rapidly. Oh, and don't forget Obama is ramping up the Afghanistan/Pakistan war so he has something with which to divert the attention of the masses and to create a continuing "crisis."

Max wrote: "If you want to popularize this principle - Progressive Corporatism - I think that you should drop the designator 'Progressive', and simply use Corporatism."

I half agree - substitute "Progressive" with "Public" and you'll get conservatives on board.

That is, if you're interested in building a coalition to stop Public Corporatism.

I think there is too much fixation on trying to shoehorn today's events into the socialism/capitalism debate.
For example, check out William Geider's piece in the Nation -
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090413/greider?rel=hp_picks

and Simon Johnson's piece in Atlantic -
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200905/imf-advice

Both make the point that there is a very cozy and incestuous relationship between Wall Street and Washington, and the political parties, both right and left, have a mutually beneficial relationship with the very companies they claim to regulate.

The GOP is not really in favor of anything resembling a "free market" and the Democrats are not really enemies of the corporations.

The furious debate and name calling only hides the fact that both parties have become indebted to the moneyed powers, and act mostly in its interest.

Max,
but aren't those the important arguments to be making?