Is this an example of Fascism?

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Project_Mersh
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Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Project_Mersh »

I would argue this is NOT an example of fascism but I am looking for some outside opinion and/or input.

Quick background:
There is a large city in the United States which is currently considering requiring all private contractors who bid on city projects to disclose if they have worked on Donald Trump's proposed border wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Argument:
"The fascism displayed by city government officials looking to discriminate against contractors bidding for legal work while simultaneously that same government claims to decry fascism is some of the best irony I've seen recently. Furthermore, fascism can be described as a suppression of opposition or control of commerce and/or industry. It's autocracy that seeks to utilize its power to create social regiment, oftentimes with the threat of economic harm."

Do you agree with the above argument or if you disagree please explain how? Thank you.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

Project_Mersh wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:13 am I would argue this is NOT an example of fascism but I am looking for some outside opinion and/or input.

Quick background:
There is a large city in the United States which is currently considering requiring all private contractors who bid on city projects to disclose if they have worked on Donald Trump's proposed border wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.

Argument:
"The fascism displayed by city government officials looking to discriminate against contractors bidding for legal work while simultaneously that same government claims to decry fascism is some of the best irony I've seen recently. Furthermore, fascism can be described as a suppression of opposition or control of commerce and/or industry. It's autocracy that seeks to utilize its power to create social regiment, oftentimes with the threat of economic harm."

Do you agree with the above argument or if you disagree please explain how? Thank you.

This is lacking in detail.
My first thought is that the City authorities hold a mandate from the people and can be removed by the people. They also have a duty, in a democratic country to uphold the law where it agrees with natural justice.
I'm not clear what you mean by "discriminate against", in this context.
bobevenson
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by bobevenson »

You can call it whatever you want, but it's obviously an improper question to ask, and whoever is responsible for it should be summarily fired.
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Sir-Sister-of-Suck
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Sir-Sister-of-Suck »

I don't know if it's 'fascism' - I'm especially hesitant to use the word since it seems to have no strict meaning anymore - but maybe discrimination. Is this a real world scenario or a hypothetical? I can't find what city you're talking about on google.
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-1-
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by -1- »

Fascism is in the public's mind a way to do away with the Jews by murdering them.

I don't think bidding on a contract has to do with murdering anyone.

However, the bidding on a contract may, and I emphasize "may", be an indicative of sentiments opposing Mexican illegal immigration. Which may be racially biassed, as no sentiments are against Canadians dropping in to find illegal employment opportunities.

So, in a very round-about way, this is a policy aimed at racial discrimination.

On the other hand, they are discriminating by discrimination against those who may or may not be discriminative. This is also an unjust form of discrimination.

I think the entire city council ought to be examined for paranoid schizophrenia.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

-1- wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 7:49 am Fascism is in the public's mind a way to do away with the Jews by murdering them.

I don't think bidding on a contract has to do with murdering anyone.

However, the bidding on a contract may, and I emphasize "may", be an indicative of sentiments opposing Mexican illegal immigration. Which may be racially biassed, as no sentiments are against Canadians dropping in to find illegal employment opportunities.

So, in a very round-about way, this is a policy aimed at racial discrimination.

On the other hand, they are discriminating by discrimination against those who may or may not be discriminative. This is also an unjust form of discrimination.

I think the entire city council ought to be examined for paranoid schizophrenia.
The concept that immigration is bad, is utterly bankrupt in the right wing's own terms.
More people, competing for more jobs means the Repugs can pay out less wages to their staff. this improves their competitive edge.
So why to the right make more fuss about immigration?
Here's why.
The activities of corporate competition have forced people into growing poverty. The right being the party of business are basically responsible for this and have legislated against unions and reduced worker rights and protections. Rather than take the blame they use immigration as a scape-goat.
And whilst Manuel mows their lawns, they put out subtle hate speech to the listening throng.
Last edited by Hobbes' Choice on Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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-1-
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by -1- »

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:20 am The concept that immigration is bad it utterly bankrupt in the right wings own terms.
Too many grammar mistakes. Please clean this ^ up, Hobbes' Choice.
Hobbes' Choice wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:20 am More people, competing for more jobs means the Repugs can pay out less wages to their staff. this improves their competitive edge.
So why to the right make more fuss about immigration?
Here you propose your own question which I am not interested in at the moment, as it does not pertain to the topic (as given by the OP) but caters to your riding your own stick-horse.

Here're more things that I have already known, and I don't need your lecturing on obvious stuff that even a five-year old knows. What you say is not untrue, but it is an insult to me by your assuming I hadn't known these.
Hobbes' Choice wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:20 am Here's why.
The activities of corporate competition have forced people into growing poverty. The right being the party of business are basically responsible for this and have legislated against unions and reduced worker rights and protections. Rather than take the blame they use immigration as a scape-goat.
And whilst Manuel mows their lawns, they put out subtle hate speech to the listening throng.
I said what you said is not untrue; but you do have a misplaced reference. It is the employers who pay less wages, but it is false to blame the employers for that. It is simply that the labour force has a highly elastic demand-price curve, and as unemployment grows, the wages of the employed plummet. This is not the fault of the employers or of the right or of business... it is the fault, if you like to call it that, of the economic laws.

You can seek different solutions to this... including re-structuring the entire society for more equitable distribution of wealth either through taxation, or by decreasing the amount of work an hourly-paid employee is allowed to work in a given period. But of course right- and left-wing Americans would rather commit mass murder than introduce a socialist-type economy and protective-like social change.
Londoner
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Londoner »

Project_Mersh wrote: Sat Aug 12, 2017 1:13 am
"The fascism displayed by city government officials looking to discriminate against contractors bidding for legal work while simultaneously that same government claims to decry fascism is some of the best irony I've seen recently.
That assumes the meaning of 'fascism' is to 'discriminate against contractors bidding for legal work'. That seems an odd definition; everybody discriminates against certain contractors, they would say for good reasons. For example, would the USA accept a bid from a North Korean firm for a defence contract? Or from a drugs cartel to provide border security?
Furthermore,fascism can be described as a suppression of opposition or control of commerce and/or industry. It's autocracy that seeks to utilize its power to create social regiment, oftentimes with the threat of economic harm."
Again, every state seeks to control commerce etc. to some extent. If we took this as a definition we would have to say socialism was also fascism, nationalism was also fascism and so on, in which case the meaning of 'fascism' would describe every system except anarchy.

Your background was:
There is a large city in the United States which is currently considering requiring all private contractors who bid on city projects to disclose if they have worked on Donald Trump's proposed border wall along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Surely the city is fighting fascism? Trump's proposal to build a wall will further restrict the free movement of labor and thus the right of firms to employ whoever they want, and thus amounts to suppression or control of commerce and industry.
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Hobbes' Choice
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

The concept that immigration is bad, is utterly bankrupt in the right wing's own terms.
More people, competing for more jobs means the Repugs can pay out less wages to their staff. this improves their competitive edge.
So why to the right make more fuss about immigration?
Here's why.
The activities of corporate competition have forced people into growing poverty. The right being the party of business are basically responsible for this and have legislated against unions and reduced worker rights and protections. Rather than take the blame they use immigration as a scape-goat.
And whilst Manuel mows their lawns, they put out subtle hate speech to the listening throng.
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Seleucus
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Seleucus »

I'd say that people who identify as fascists, who believe the kind of things you would find in a genuinely fascist work like H.R. Morgan's Fascism: The Total Society, would not see the above as an example of fascism because it doesn't seem to be an example of nationalist socialism. Not sure the source of this definition, but I don't see it as a good one for the reasons just mentioned, "fascism can be described as a suppression of opposition or control of commerce and/or industry. It's autocracy that seeks to utilize its power to create social regiment, oftentimes with the threat of economic harm".
Skip
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Skip »

[considering requiring all private contractors who bid on city projects to disclose if they have worked on Donald Trump's proposed border wall ]

It seems to me, any contractor's work-performance, contract-fulfillment and regulation-compliance, employment and tax-payment history should be a matter of public record anyway.

[ - fascism can be described as a suppression of opposition or control of commerce and/or industry. It's autocracy that seeks to utilize its power to create social regiment, oftentimes with the threat of economic harm.]
It can be described that way, though not very accurately, but how is it relevant to the matter in hand?

[ - display of fascism - discriminate against contractors bidding for legal work ]

Who said that's the reason for asking? I can think of several equally if not more, valid reasons.
EG. If they're bidding on something as big as that project is supposed to be, how can they take on another one? Before I awarded them my contract, I would want to know that the company isn't going to put all its resources in the more lucrative contract, and renege on my project.
EG. If they actually do work on the wall, given Trump's own record, the contractor may be bankrupt before they even get started on my project, taking the down-payment in tax-money with them.
Could be simple fiscal responsibility.
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Seleucus
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Seleucus »

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 2:21 pm The concept that immigration is bad, is utterly bankrupt in the right wing's own terms.
More people, competing for more jobs means the Repugs can pay out less wages to their staff. this improves their competitive edge.
There are two different things that had been called rightism. One is traditionalism, the other is liberalism. They are quite different. The new right is traditionalist and rejects (neo-)liberalism. Liberalism is seen as a threat to traditionalism, the new right would agree that, "corporate competition have forced people into growing poverty. The right being the party of business are basically responsible for this".
And whilst Manuel mows their lawns
Rightists see leftism as an expression of resentment by the inferior, a point no doubt well understood by everyone, having been developed in Nietzsche's Genealogy. Manuel respects tradition, he is hard working, building his wealth and his family. He doesn't see those who are wealthy and powerful as "evil", he aspires to success for himself and his decedents.
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Seleucus
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Seleucus »

-1- wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 11:51 amYou can seek different solutions to this... including re-structuring the entire society for more equitable distribution of wealth either through taxation, or by decreasing the amount of work an hourly-paid employee is allowed to work in a given period. But of course right- and left-wing Americans would rather commit mass murder than introduce a socialist-type economy and protective-like social change.
Hard working people of course do not want the hours they may work legislatively limited, and are not interested in being taxed to pay for your lazy ass.
Skip
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Skip »

Or, E.G. the city might want to know whether the contractor is the kind of short-sighted, greedy, irresponsible corporate citizen that would undertake an ecological and economic, not to mention political and social, disaster such as building that proposed wall.
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Seleucus
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Re: Is this an example of Fascism?

Post by Seleucus »

Skip wrote: Tue Oct 03, 2017 4:49 pm Or, E.G. the city might want to know whether the contractor is the kind of short-sighted, greedy, irresponsible corporate citizen that would undertake an ecological and economic, not to mention political and social, disaster such as building that proposed wall.
Build the wall!
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