The Dark Age of Money: Milton Friedman and the Rise of Monetary Fascism

[Selatius]

28. The other term I've seen bandied about is "friendly fascism."

They compare it to Nazi Germany but without the oppression and without the suspension of elections or concentration camps. We still have elections and freedom of the press, but the monied interests have the cash to fund political campaigns and run an army of lobbyists who write bills for those politicians to pass, and as far as freedom of the press goes, freedom of the press belongs to those who own one. Rich, powerful people own such things; poor people, not so much.

Often, I'll simply call it corporatism. It's a merger of corporate and state power in the interests of major and institutional shareholders at the expense of everyone else. Instead of embarking in a campaign of colonialism across the world, the corporate leadership moves into host countries to extract resources and undervalue the labor of the people who work for them. Countries that stand in the way of that goal tend to be brought down through military coups or have their government bought out through bribery and kickbacks. In a small number of cases, problem countries are dealt with violent military intervention from the outside.