Is the USA now a fascist state?

[muriel_volestrangler]

67. You need to know what Mussolini meant by 'corporatism' and 'corporate power'

It's not businesses that get called corporations in the USA.

Corporatism

The fascist economic theory corporatism called for organizing each of the major sectors of industry, agriculture, the professions, and the arts into state- or management-controlled trade unions and employer associations, or “corporations,” each of which would negotiate labour contracts and working conditions and represent the general interests of their professions in a larger assembly of corporations, or “corporatist parliament.” Corporatist institutions would replace all independent organizations of workers and employers, and the corporatist parliament would replace, or at least exist alongside, traditional representative and legislative bodies. In theory, the corporatist model represented a “third way” between capitalism and communism, allowing for the harmonious cooperation of workers and employers for the good of the nation as a whole. In practice, fascist corporatism was used to destroy labour movements and suppress political dissent. In 1936, for example, the economic program of the French Social Party included shorter working hours and vacations with pay for “loyal” workers but not for “disloyal” ones, and benefits were to be assigned by employers, not the government. The Nazi “Strength Through Joy” program, which provided subsidies for vacations and other leisure activities for workers, operated on similar principles.

Extensive corporatist legislation was passed in Italy beginning in the late 1920s, creating several government-controlled unions and outlawing strikes. The Salazar regime in Portugal, using the Italian legislation as its model, outlawed the Trade Union Federation and all leftist unions, made corporatist unions compulsory for workers, and declared strikes illegal—all of which contributed to a decline in real wages. Croatian, Russian, Argentine, Brazilian, and Chilean fascism also proposed corporatist solutions to labour-management strife.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/202210/fascism/219368/Conservative-economic-programs#toc219369

Also, the authenticity of the quote is disputed:

Disputed

Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power.
This misunderstanding of the meaning of 'corporatzione' spread rapidly in the United States after appearing in a column by Molly Ivins (24 November 2002). It is repeated often and sometimes attributed to the "Fascism" entry in the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana, but does not appear there. See "Mussolini on the Corporate State" by Chip Berlet which discusses the corporatzione - councils of workers, managers and other groups set up by the Fascist Party to control the economy and everyone in it.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini

Translation of the Enciclopedia Italiana article: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/students/modules/hi153new/timetable/wk10/muss_fascism/