The Economy of Evil https://historicly.substack.com/p/the-economy-of-evil Esha Dec 10, 2019 The Political Economy under Fascism should scare us. It is all too familiar.
Benito Mussolini became Prime Minister in October 1922. Nazis rose to power in 1933 in Germany. On December 3, 1922, they passed a law where they promised to reduce the size and function of the government, reform tax laws and also reduce spending. This was followed by mass privatization. After the trains were privatized, the services became slower and more irregular, contrary to the popular myth.
To remove "government waste," Mussolini removed the federal government from remote areas in Italy. This meant that rural farmers, peasants, and workers no longer had the protection of the federal government against abuse from agribusiness. Instead, they were entirely under the mercy of big businesses.
On May 2, 1933, Adolf Hitler sent his Brown Shirts to all union headquarters. Union leaders were beaten, and sent to prison or concentration camps. On top of that, the Nazi party, expropriated union funds (money workers paid for union membership). On January 20, 1934, the Nazis passed the Law Regulating National Labor. The act explicitly took power away from the government to set minimum wages and working conditions.
Fascism isn't the merger of corporations and government that is too vague, and too easy to confuse. Fascism is government functions being replaced by private corporations. Fascism is when the public good is replaced by private profit.