[Bridgeburner]

After an extended libertarian break, reading Mises and Hayek in particular, I have returned to flirt with fascism once more. If anything, they have made me even more ardently anti-communist and socialist, and in doing so I wish to find some kind of syncretic common ground between libertarianism and fascism. The logical connection seems to be corporations.

Corporations are the future. Indeed, they embody everything that I feel exist in a fascist movement. Replace nation in a fascist piece with corporation.

-Command structure that is thoroughly anti-democratic
-Highly disciplined workforce
-Meritocracy
-Ability to focus the energy of numerous individuals to fulfilling a goal
-Extremely efficient
-Potential to be militaristic or militarized. (Xe international)

As it stands corporations share many of the hallmarks of a fascist power-structure.

Fascism is economically quite left - my only concern here is that anything left of the right is ultimately doomed to fail. A Government should not attempt, nor bother with trying to manage a nation, palingenetic rebirth and run a business at the same time. Market Socialism is a failure. Many Fascists share common ground with some of the more right (paleo)Libertarians on certain issues

-Strong sense of Nationalism
-Militant Anti-Socialism
-Anti-Welfarism
-Anti-Political correctness/Newspeak
-Migration
-Tough stance on law (capital punishment, forced labor etc)
-Failure of the Youth
-Both looking for a "Rebirth" of sorts

The only real stickler between the two is the Fascist use of a command economy and the issue of civil rights/liberties. I stand convinced on the last two grounds from the Libertarian perspective.

Individuals should have basic inalienable negative rights - I do not believe in granting positive rights wholesale nor should they exist wholesale as they only encourage and foster weakness. The state should encourage self-reliance as opposed to this nanny-state mentality. Socio-Darwinism would be practiced in this form - not via Eugenics but by simple survival of the fittest. Much like how the market is ruthless in purging inefficient and failing businesses, so should the state purge weak members of society unable to take care of themselves. (a notable exception being those who have performed national service) This wouldn't be accomplished with bayonets or guns, simple indifference would do the job just as well. I for one do not mind seeing the filth of society die in the gutters once their lifelines at the expense of hardworking individuals are taken away


However, it is time to acknowledge that a) a totally free market will not be able to compete with a market that has the backing of the state. Which is why I'm opposed to a totally free market. A case in point is China. In this case what I mean to say is that instead of taking from the market via tax, the nation should give to it. Corporations wield considerable power in todays world. There is no sense stripping them of that power and alienating them - not only are they more efficient than the state in accomplishing a goal, but they are also more successful in the allocation and management of resources. A lower flat tax rate would encourage corporations and the state to be enmeshed together, a more useful and powerful ally than taking the path of the left in trying to utilize the corrupt intellectual liberal elite to engender a revolution of the masses. The state should make it its policy to actively encourage and court corporations, and rather than isolating them from the decision making process- involve them more. As it is, corporations are patriotic - they employ citizens. Now, instead of using the state as a tool to redistribute corporate wealth, the state can make it its active policy to expand corporate wealth. An expansion of corporate wealth comes to the benefit of society - corporations will have added incentive to reinvest in a state and society that actively supports their acquisition of resources/capital.

The way I see it, corporations are the new way to conquer land. No more is it done with steel and gunpowder, but rather acquisitions and property purchases. When a corporation can acquire resources for the "nation" in an imperialistic fashion without the insurgency and threat of war, there is truly an avenue for certain nations to remain ascendant.

More a series of ramblings than anything serious, I am interested in the opinions of paleolibertarians and fascists when it comes to the "other" ideology/

[Wolfman]

Corporations are the future.

I'm sorry, are you living in the 50s? There's a few dozen corporations that control nearly control the global economy.

Replace nation in a fascist piece with corporation.

In the US the nation is subservient to the government, which is subservient to the corporations. I guess the US is your ideal state.

[Tribbles]

Have in mind, that a fascist corporation is a way to structure an assembly that has the power to take political decisions within certain fields.

A commercial corporation, is something different.

Will I get started on a complicated explanation? No. Figure it out your self

I find new-speak fascinating by the way...

In my ideal-state, there will be a lot of it.

"You are not in line with the med-sec of tech-func inc-soc. You are clearly an temp-dot slash-bag! Aaaargh!"

[Rei Murasame]

Well, where to begin, this isn't joined-up properly:

I wish to find some kind of syncretic common ground between libertarianism and fascism.

This should be almost impossible though.

Strong sense of Nationalism

Libertarians may feel so, but they can only act on it by contradicting their own principles.

As for the market’s optimal operation, it requires that nothing obstruct the free circulation of men and goods, i.e., borders must be treated as unreal, which tends to dissolve common structures and values. Of course this does not mean that liberals can never defend collective identities. But they do so only in contradiction to their [own] principles.

Anti-Welfarism

Fascists only oppose welfare in the context of the liberal state, but that is not an opposition to wide-reaching social programmes.

Both looking for a "Rebirth" of sorts

Drastically different - and opposed - types of rebirth though.

If classical liberalism is the lantern of the enlightenment era, then fascism is the yawning shadow cast behind that light-bearer.

The state should encourage self-reliance as opposed to this nanny-state mentality.

But why? Why would a fascist society want to encourage self-reliance? (It wouldn't.)

Liberal freedom thus supposes that individuals can be abstracted from their origins, their environment, the context in which they live and where they exercise their choices, from everything, that is., that makes them who they are, and not someone else. It supposes, in other words, as John Rawls says, that the individual is always prior to his ends. Nothing, however, proves that the individual can apprehend himself as a subject free of any allegiance, free of any determinism. Moreover, nothing proves that in all circumstances he will prefer freedom over every other good. Such a conception by definition ignores commitments and attachment that owe nothing to rational calculation. It is a purely formal conception, that makes it impossible to understand what a real person is.

Pearson does not use the exact phrase 'group selection', but does use the terms 'intra-group selection' and 'extra-group selection'. Intra-group selection is selection within a group resulting from competition between its members. Extra-group selection (meaning literally outside-group selection) could mean selection between individual members of different groups, but it is clear from the context that Pearson intended it to mean primarily selection between groups as a whole. Pearson regarded himself as a socialist as well as a good Darwinian, and was keen to rebut claims that socialism was incompatible with natural selection. Pearson argued that as human society becomes more advanced, competition and selection within groups becomes less important, as it gives way to co-operation and collective action, whereas competition and selection between groups (tribes, nations or races) becomes even stronger.

These early writers on group selection seldom gave much attention to the problem raised, but not solved, by Charles Darwin in the Descent of Man: if the qualities promoting group success, such as co-operation and self-sacrifice, conflict with individual success within the group, how is the conflict resolved? Bernard Bosanquet's essay does however at least address the problem. His answer is essentially that there is no conflict. As society evolves, it creates a new selective environment for individuals, and this favours co-operation: 'the struggle for existence has, in short, become a struggle for a place in the community; and these places are reserved for those individuals which in the highest degree possess the co-operative qualities demanded by circumstances' (p.294).

In this case what I mean to say is that instead of taking from the market via tax, the nation should give to it.

In other words you want to subsidise and control national champions, then?

A lower flat tax rate would encourage corporations and the state to be enmeshed together

No, it wouldn't, that would just put those companies into the driver's seat and then you'd be back at the beginning of the problem.

The problem having developed like this:

Liberalization and state intervention, the two pillars of corporate liberalism, developed hand-in-hand in the period of Atlantic integration, their relative emphasis deriving from the stubbornness of either the original liberalism (as manifested, for instance, in the pre-Suez political economy of Britain) or of state monopolism (as in the case of Gaullism). The American offensives were instrumental in setting free the forces for this transformation, and in activating the fractions of the bourgeoisie involved in its evolution. The short-term cyclical developments, notably in the profit-distribution process, which will allow US to explain the modalities of actual class formation and politics in the central period under review, however, should not obscure the fact that as a whole, the era of Atlantic integration was characterized by a (Fordist) class compromise between capital and labour on the basis of a 'Keynesian' sub-ordination of petty money interests to overall levels of productive investment, and a profit-distribution structure skewed towards productive capital. The New Deal in this respect, too, marked the beginning of an era and set the standard for Europe.

In the course of the 1960s accumulation conditions in the Atlantic area were more or less equalized, blocking the trans-Atlantic escape routes for American productive capital by eliminating the gap between US and European production conditions. As part of the same development, the profit share of bank capital climbed drastically in all countries involved, and rentier incomes revived as well. By the time Richard Nixon cut the dollar from gold in August, 1971 and thus set free an exponential growth of the mass of international liquidity, banks in practically all countries in the area had already been liberated from the Keynesian shackles imposed on them in the 1930s, or were soon to do so. The unimpeded international circulation of capital which had been the aim of the architects of Atlantic integration was finally realized - at the price of the system itself. Thrown into the rapidly widening channels of international credit, the mass of savings centralized by Atlantic bank capital served to facilitate the transfer of key segments of the productive apparatus of the North Atlantic heartland to new zones of implantation in the periphery.

This wave of internationalization, which widened the scope of the present crisis, also destroyed the very structure of Atlantic integration. By breaking the territorial coincidence of mass production and mass consumption, it undermined the capital-labour compromise and the complementarity of circulation relations; by allowing untrammeled competition in the search for new outlets for capital, and in the mobilization of peripheral elites, it destroyed the fundamental unity of purpose which had hitherto constituted the cornerstone of the hegemonial strategy of the Atlantic bourgeoisie.

Which brings back thoughts like this:

If the machinery for distribution in the present economic system of the world is incapable of properly distributing the productive wealth of nations, then that system is false and must be altered. The important part of the present development is the anti-capitalist sentiment that is permeating our people.

While the current terrible economic crisis is ruining or on the way to ruining the medium producers, and the working masses suffer the nightmare of unemployment like never before, the amount of profits obtained by the beneficiaries of the present order, the magnates of the banking system, is extremely high.

Hence the urgent task of the producers is this: To destroy the liberal system, putting an end to political cliques and to the sharks of the banking establishment. But in order to bring this about two possibilities open up: the Communist route or the path of National-Labour ("Nacional-Sindicalismo"). There are no other ways out. The two aspire to pulverize this order of things; the two want a new order.

[starman2003]

In the US the nation is subservient to the government, which is subservient to the corporations.

Wild exaggeration. It's subservient to the dopey electorate. If the corporations had their way, there wouldn't be big social spending or minimum wage laws, and the US wouldn't have angered gulf oil producers by backing Israel in '73.

[Wolfman]

Wild exaggeration.

Not really.

It's subservient to the dopey electorate.

Who tend to vote for the guy with more money. There's a positive relationship between success at the polls and the size of the campaign account. And who does most of the those donations? Our elected officials have to pass legislation that favors companies like Walmart, because Walmart is as much responsible for a Senator's reelection as the people in his district. Maybe even more then the voters. Elected representatives also are well known to get what amounts to bribes from corporations (such as going out drinking, taking vacations, "campaign donations", etc). And even in legislative sessions corporations get more of a word in then anyone else. They can afford better (and more) lobbyists then any other single group. A group has actually done a study showing that corporations have a nearly 1,000% profit from its legislative lobbying.

I'd have sort of figured a Fascist would know these things.

If the corporations had their way, there wouldn't be big social spending or minimum wage laws

Social spending is a fairly minor part of our national expenses. And it even acts in the interest of corporations, since Walmart gets subsidized by the gov because it pays its employees so poorly the majority rate welfare, which is less money Walmart has to pay. And with both (Socialist moment), its really just about giving the proletariat something to keep them busy so they don't notice how badly they're getting fucked over in their work place.

the US wouldn't have angered gulf oil producers by backing Israel in '73.

That's because Nixon is a lunatic.

[Tribbles]

Nice slicing everybody, excellent team-work

Just printed out that Alain De Benoist article, seems interesting. Looking forward to strengthening my anti-liberal views.

[starman2003]

Who tend to vote for the guy with more money. There's a positive relationship between success at the polls and the size of the campaign account.

John Connolly once spent $ 10 million and got only a single delegate in the primaries. And the size of the campaign account largely reflects popularity, as more people donate. A good test of this issue: Imagine some conservative with much more $ than the dems, vowing to dump social security--he'd win by a landslide.

Social spending is a fairly minor part of our national expenses.

Come on....
If corporations were really in control, it wouldn't have been necessary for so many of them to relocate overseas.

That's because Nixon is a lunatic.

No, it's because jewish voters and money trumped--by far--the oil lobby, which if it had its way would've had the US avoid oil reprisals.

[Wolfman]

John Connolly once spent $ 10 million and got only a single delegate in the primaries.

The study I'm referencing is from the US, and looked specifically at the Senate, Congress, and Presidential races over a period of two decades. Also, since this was a study of correlation, there will of course be exceptions, but that doesn't change the positive relationship between the two.

And the size of the campaign account largely reflects popularity, as more people donate.

The majority of donations comes from corporations and the upper classes.

If corporations were really in control, it wouldn't have been necessary for so many of them to relocate overseas.

That's mostly because of labor unions.

No, it's because jewish voters and money trumped--by far--the oil lobby

Hmmm....

[starman2003]

The study I'm referencing is from the US, and looked specifically at the Senate, Congress, and Presidential races over a period of two decades. Also, since this was a study of correlation, there will of course be exceptions, but that doesn't change the positive relationship between the two.

Sure tweedledee can beat tweedledum if he has more money. But both have to favor policies acceptable to the voters.

That's mostly because of labor unions.

Which the corporations and the rich would've quashed had they been really dominant.

Hmmm....

Jewish votes must count for more than money; I assume "big oil" can match their $ but not their influence on policy, not by a longshot.

[The Immortal Goon]

There's a fair amount of overlap between fascism and libertarianism in that they both spring from the frustrated and impossible desires of the petit-bourgeois. I'm cribbing Trotsky a fair bit, which I think is fair as he's one of the few contemporaries who came up with a theory about fascism that has not really been kicked down. You can almost certainly skip the quotes, I just add them for reference if anybody is interested.

But in short:

1847, the Corn Laws are repealed. This was a reformation of the capitalist system. It's no coincidence that as business became more dependent upon "monopolist" forms of business (ie, The concentration of production; the monopolies arising therefrom; the merging or coalescence of the banks with industry), that suddenly these huge corporations and monopolies suddenly pushed for reforms. Minimum wage, ten hour work days, so days off a week - and so on and so forth.

I'll sum up the quote so you can skip it if you want, but these big businesses found it easier to give in to labor demands and strangle their competition.

The competition of manufacturer against manufacturer by means of petty thefts upon the workpeople did no longer pay. Trade had outgrown such low means of making money; they were not worth while practising for the manufacturing millionaire, and served merely to keep alive the competition of smaller traders, thankful to pick up a penny wherever they could. Thus the truck system was suppressed, the Ten Hours’ Bill [2] was enacted, and a number of other secondary reforms introduced — much against the spirit of Free Trade and unbridled competition, but quite as much in favour of the giant-capitalist in his competition with his less favoured brother. Moreover, the larger the concern, and with it the number of hands, the greater the loss and inconvenience caused by every conflict between master and men; and thus a new spirit came over the masters, especially the large ones, which taught them to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to acquiesce in the existence and power of Trades’ Unions, and finally even to discover in strikes — at opportune times — a powerful means to serve their own ends. The largest manufacturers, formerly the leaders of the war against the working-class, were now the foremost to preach peace and harmony. And for a very good reason. The fact is that all these concessions to justice and philanthropy were nothing else but means to accelerate the concentration of capital in the hands of the few, for whom the niggardly extra extortions of former years had lost all importance and had become actual nuisances; and to crush all the quicker and all the safer their smaller competitors, who could not make both ends meet without such perquisites. Thus the development of production on the basis of the capitalistic system has of itself sufficed — at least in the leading industries, for in the more unimportant branches this is far from being the case — to do away with all those minor grievances which aggravated the workman’s fate during its earlier stages. And thus it renders more and more evident the great central fact that the cause of the miserable condition of the working-class is to be sought, not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself.

In short, now, you have the complete and total victory of the haute-bourgeoisie against the petite-bourgeoisie. Going backward at this point is now all but impossible. There is an efficient world system in place that had crushed the old form of capitalism while at the same time having grown from it.

This is, essentially, why you're not going to be able to start a lumber company in your backyard and compete with Georgia-Pacific.

And yet, the petite-bourgeoisie still exist. They were there shouting for Napoleon III to come and save them, to arrest the progress of the haute-bourgeoisie and at the same time peel back the small gains of the proletariat that had helped to strangle them in the first place.

While their power existed but diminished in time for both the British and French, the petite-bourgeoisie in Germany had some sway deep into the 20th Century, screaming for a saviour to - again - arrest the corruption of the haute-bourgeoisie while controlling the out-of-control demands of the proletariat. This became especially shrill in the case of Germany as the build up described above happened later, after the creation of imperial capital.

As such, in Germany's case, there's still a bit of a peasantry that's now also in trouble. For two, the petite bourgeois and their ilk don't melt in to the proletariat as much as the proletariat fall in to particularly drastic unemployment. Third, and perhaps most important, you had a lot of these same people who had served in the military. There was a lingering respect for the authority - which may be over emphasized - but also a certain level of dehumanization and a demand to have fought for something that led to a general belief in parliamentary democracy to collapse amongst all the affected classes. The Nazis were a group that could appeal to a lot of these people.

In this, there's a deliberate parallel to both Bonapartism and a deliberate attempt to place the petite bourgeoisie in to historical context, including their role within the Jacobins.

Regardless, while some of the proletariat may have, indeed, have wanted a socialist system - many were drawn to the blustering of the Nazis like these middle classes. In part because the big bourgeois elements opposed the Nazis. When 1918 election came up, however, the remaining democrats and socialists voted in social-democrats:

But the party that stood at the head of the proletariat returned the power to the bourgeoisie. In this sense the Social Democracy opened the era of counter-revolution before the revolution could bring its work to completion. However, so long as the bourgeoisie depended upon the Social Democracy, and consequently upon the workers, the regime retained elements of compromise. All the same, the international and the internal situation of German capitalism left no more room for concessions. As Social Democracy saved the bourgeoisie from the proletarian revolution, fascism came in its turn to liberate the bourgeoisie from the Social Democracy. Hitler’s coup is only the final link in the chain of counterrevolutionary shifts.

And this, really, is where the big bourgeois elements get on board.

The big bourgeoisie likes fascism as little as a man with aching molars likes to have his teeth pulled. The sober circles of bourgeois society have followed with misgivings the work of the dentist Pilsudski, but in the last analysis they have become reconciled to the inevitable, though with threats, with horse-trades and all sorts of bargaining. Thus the petty bourgeoisie's idol of yesterday becomes transformed into the gendarme of capital.

However, fascism was just an attempt to repair a system to fit in to the world that it came from. It offered a way to overcome the initial problems of the system, not destroy it - Those petite-bourgeoisie crying for the Nazis to liberate them, of course, did not find liberation. There was no liberation to be had because the system they were clawing to regain had died a century prior.

Fascism in power, like Bonapartism, can only be the government of finance capital. In this social sense, it is indistinguishable not only from Bonapartism but even from parliamentary democracy. Each time, the Stalinists made this discovery all over again, forgetting that social questions resolve themselves in the domain of the political. The strength of finance capital does not reside in its ability to establish a government of any kind and at any time, according to its wish; it does not possess this faculty. Its strength resides in the fact that every non-proletarian government is forced to serve finance capital; or better yet, that finance capital possesses the possibility of substituting for each one of its systems of domination that decays, another system corresponding better to the changed conditions. However, the passage from one system to another signifies the political crisis which, with the concourse of the activity of the revolutionary proletariat may be transformed into a social danger to the bourgeoisie. The passage of parliamentary democracy to Bonapartism itself was accompanied in France by an effervescence of civil war. The perspective of the passage from Bonapartism to fascism is pregnant with infinitely more formidable disturbances and consequently also revolutionary possibilities.

The prolonged domination of finance capital by means of reactionary social demagogy and petty-bourgeois terror is impossible. Having arrived in power, the fascist chiefs are forced to muzzle the masses who follow them by means of the state apparatus. By the same token, they lose the support of broad masses of the petty bourgeoisie. A small part of it is assimilated by the bureaucratic apparatus. Another sinks into indifference. A third, under various banners, passes into opposition. But while losing its social mass base, by resting upon the bureaucratic apparatus and oscillating between the classes, fascism is regenerated into Bonapartism.

And this is why libertarianism is vaguely fascist. I'm overstating the similarity, of course. The fascists themselves have their own idea of what's going on, but their followers will turn to be libertarians in a generation. They come from the same doomed class screaming for salvation by a system that has long since become extinct.

It's part of the reason why, as a prominent example, Heinlein is both simultaneously viewed as a libertarian and a fascist.

[Tribbles]

Loads of high-minded theory and criticism of those in power (Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Social Democrats and so on) who Trotsky is envious at for having succeeded in gaining power, while he himself failed.

In a book of Trosky that I read called "Terror and revolution" Trotsky advocated centralization of power in Kreml, and was in agreement with Lenin. At the point this book was written (1919 or so) Trotsky had a good career going, and was a happy (but militant and cruel) man.

Why so, the big drama and the kicks and blows against everyone later on? What was Troskys alternative? I feel that Trosky is as non-serious as Stalinists who go around claiming to be fascists, and that everyone except Stalin are idiots - I have much more respect for the communists who appreciate all the Soviet leaders, from Lenin to Gorbatsjov, and take both their weaknesses and positive contributions seriously.

Clear positions are important for good debates.

[Wolfman]

Sure tweedledee can beat tweedledum if he has more money. But both have to favor policies acceptable to the voters.

I don't know what point you think you're making. Its a simple fact that in US federal elections, there is a positive correlation between size of a politicians war chest and there success rate.

Which the corporations and the rich would've quashed had they been really dominant.

Giving in to the odd union demand prevents them turning violent. In the beginning of the labor movement corporations ignored the demands of their workers, and the workers turn violent. Corporations collectively decided it was easier to pretend to care then to go through and just kill off anyone who complains.

[Fasces]

That relationship is less than clear, given the US tendency toward private financing of elections, and the limits that exist on potential donations in terms of size. It is possible that the more popular candidate receives more donations, thus gaining a larger war chest for the elections.

[starman2003]

I don't know what point you think you're making.

In a democracy popularity counts most.

Giving in to the odd union demand prevents them turning violent. In the beginning of the labor movement corporations ignored the demands of their workers, and the workers turn violent. Corporations collectively decided it was easier to pretend to care then to go through and just kill off anyone who complains.

But worker's salaries rose to the point where there was an exodus of manufacturing jobs. In other words, the corporations essentially gave up here and went elsewhere--hardly indicative of dominance.

[Wolfman]

In a democracy popularity counts most.

Popularity going into an election matters less then the number of corporations willing to hand you large sums of money.

But worker's salaries rose to the point where there was an exodus of manufacturing jobs. In other words, the corporations essentially gave up here and went elsewhere--hardly indicative of dominance.

They left slowly, blamed it on the workers (instead of their own greed), and their leaving makes life easier for them.

[The Immortal Goon]

Loads of high-minded theory and criticism of those in power (Mussolini, Hitler, Stalin, Social Democrats and so on) who Trotsky is envious at for having succeeded in gaining power, while he himself failed.

No theory and criticism of the left, (Kollontai, Trotsky, CLR James, Fourth International and so on) and instead a baseless assumption of envy and motive - established from writing mostly pulled from before the supposed motive even occurred.

Great post!

Incidentally, even the Stalinists ended up using a modified version of Trotsky's analysis of fascism because the one they came up with didn't work. And it's to their credit they had to find another theory instead of insisting that something that was increasingly problematic was still theoretically true.

[starman2003]

Popularity going into an election matters less then the number of corporations willing to hand you large sums of money.

I don't think so. Winning elections requires appealing to the masses, which often look down on big corporations. Money helps, no doubt, but it's not everything--far from it.

They left slowly, blamed it on the workers (instead of their own greed), and their leaving makes life easier for them.

It would've been far easier for them to stay and just suppress worker ambitions, had that been possible. It wasn't.

[Rich]

Trotsky's theory was bollocks because it was based on Marxism which was also bollocks. The idea that the Nazi's acted in the interests of the finance capitalists is as ridiculous as that the Bolsheviks acted in the interests of the Working class. If the Nazi state had survived longer you would have seen the further encroachment on the So called big bourgeoisie by the interests of Nazi bureaucrats like Himmler and Goering.

There is certainly divergence of power in societies. There is also abuse of power by the powerful. Perceived economic self interest is a powerful motivation amongst the owners of the means of production, but the whole Marxist concept of class is nonsense. In serious political conflict ideology is commonly far more important than economic self interest, but even when economic self interest prevails the state is a powerful autonomous force, it is never the hostage of some Marxist defined Class.

The popular front was a dose of sanity within Communist madness. Lenin himself never faced such a situation, as the Constituent assembly was never even called prior to the Bolshevik takeover. However he did engage in third period style ultra leftist madness, with his revolutionary defeatist policy. Lenin was only saved from the fruits of his own madness by the victory of the Western allies over Germany in November 1918.

[Wolfman]

I don't think so. Winning elections requires appealing to the masses, which often look down on big corporations. Money helps, no doubt, but it's not everything--far from it.

In the US mass appeal is less important then insulting your opponent. I recall reading a study which said that the majority of votes cast in US elections are not really for a candidate, but against his opponent (the good old 'voting for the lesser evil' kind of thing). Which is why a politician can get elected with 55% of the vote, and as soon as they're in office their approval rating is 45%. The best way to get this 'I'm the lesser evil' type of deal is to mock your opponent and dig up (or just make) dirt. That requires money to hire PIs or the like, and money to get advertisements. You could probably get a Nazi elected in this country if he had the money to insult his opponents.

It would've been far easier for them to stay and just suppress worker ambitions, had that been possible. It wasn't.

But as they left they blamed workers, and continue to blame workers. This is causing our society to suppress worker ambitions. Staying and beating the populace into cooperation makes it very obvious that they run the show, and we (the middle->lower classes) are the ones with no real authority in this society. By leaving and making it our fault, they make it so it seems like we're the repressing jack asses.