January 17, 2024

The political adage “If you cannot beat them, join them” has been well-known for centuries. So, the Left made one extra step and arrived at the “if you cannot beat them, lead them.” The Left has been trying (unsuccessfully) various methods to eliminate capitalists and private property.

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Eventually, Leftists learned their lesson and decided to preside over private property instead of confiscating and spreading it around. Lenin used it (the so-called “New Economic Policy” in the Soviet Union 1921-1928), Mussolini used it, Hitler used it, and the Chinese used it. It blatantly violates a well-demarcated borderline between the government and the governed. However, by now, it is the cornerstone of globalism.

Note that the systematic and deliberate infiltration of the state into private economic affairs did not begin with Mussolini. In 17th-century France, for example, Chief Minister Cardinal Richelieu established state-sponsored and state-directed cartels. That resulted in public-private entities that were granted monopoly status in their respective fields. Richelieu aimed not to build a proto-fascist state per se; his cravings were more down-to-earth: France had a war to win. (The following definitions are used: “Socialism is a state of society where most wealth, either de jure or de facto, belongs to a government. Fascism is a form of Socialism where most wealth de facto but not de jure belongs to a government.)

Nevertheless, Cardinal Richelieu deployed state power to consolidate state power even more. His offer to the French merchants was one they could not refuse: guaranteed profits under the protection of the state or guaranteed imprisonment at the Bastille.

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The resultant economic landscape in France in the middle of the 17th century comprised numerous stable, privately-owned cartels controlled directly or indirectly by the government. Nevertheless, it did strengthen and consolidate French economic power, especially concerning rivals — the Habsburgs and England. However, the other side of the same coin was unavoidable — the government-chartered monopolies, insulated by the state from external competition, pressed the brakes on innovations. In the end, Cardinal Richelieu led the Habsburgs to bankruptcy and France to the dominant power on the European continent.

England and her colonies were provided more economic freedom during the same period. That sealed the fate of two revolutions at the end of the 18th century. The French had no choice but to continue their Left turn. On the other hand, the thirteen overseas British colonies turned Right.

The story of the proto-fascist policies of Richelieu demonstrates the theme observable in all future left-wing economies: a short-term boost in economic activity due to crushing, inescapable state intervention, and then, in the long run, unavoidable decline and stagnation. As it is known, the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, Cuba, Venezuela, and the entire Soviet bloc post-World War II followed this course. The demise of Communist China is inevitable for the same reason. A similar fate is awaiting the Davos Oracles of “stakeholder capitalism.” From that outlook, all four of Dumas’s three musketeers were the first proto-anti-fascists.

State-managed “stakeholder capitalism” was known in the 1600s as mercantilism. To use 21st-century terminology, Cardinal Richelieu established a form of stakeholder capitalism in France, where the government served as the only principal stakeholder.

Karl Schwab publicizes “the third way,” “stakeholder capitalism,” as the ultimate solution. His “capitalism” must be quoted because it corresponds to free-market capitalism in only the remotest sense. Note that National Socialists of the Third Reich also run under the banner (or, rather, the smokescreen) of “the third way.” Schwab is painfully aware that “the stakeholder concept competed head-on with Friedman’s notion that ‘the business of business is business’—and it ultimately lost out.”

There are no surprises here. Schwab’s “stakeholder capitalism” is just a reformulated branch of leftism, rebranded for the 21st century, commonly known as Fascism. Of course, it is not a replica of 20th-century Fascism; it has been updated and modified to incorporate “climate change,” digital technologies, and the pandemic, and has expanded global outreach. “Planet’s health” becomes the central stakeholder in the global economic system.