Jim Huntzinger | On November 29, 2018

The raised fist, sometimes associated with Socialism and resistance.

Statism in its fascist form “attempts to secure economic growth and prosperity by fusing a ‘partnership’ between business and the State, absorbing business into the State in this process.”  While communism “[when] faced with existing institutions that threaten the power of the state – be they corporations, churches, the family, tradition – the Communist impulse is by and large to abolish them, while the fascist impulse is by and large to absorb them.”[1]  Essentially, “fascism is a form of hyper-interventionism amounting to socialism.”[2]

In fact, economist Ludwig von Mises in Human Action discusses that there is not much difference between fascism and socialism,[3] only “trivial technicality,” as Daniel James Sanchez describes it.  Sanchez summaries Mises distinction:

The only way in which “socialism of the Russian or Lenin pattern” (as Mises termed the more familiar variant of socialism) is distinct from the Zwangswirtschaft [which is basically German for “compulsory economy”] is in the nonessential fact it has no such veneer of faux-private ownership.  Its socialism is simply more overt.

Another way of stating this is as follows.  In the populist propaganda of Bolshevism, under “socialism of the Russian or Lenin pattern the people ostensibly own the state, and the state in turn owns the means of production.   While, under the sham capitalism of Nazism and “socialism of the German or Hindenburg pattern,” the people ostensibly own the means of production, but the state in turn owns the people.

Thus these occupants of different political “poles” really occupy the same ground and are only separated by a trivial technically: the existence or absence of a sham market.   Each variant of socialism does indeed have its own distinctive path.  But it has nothing to do with “left vs. right,” “poor vs. rich,” or “weak vs. powerful.”  Rather, it is a matter of “bureaucratization vs. interventionism.”  Bureaucratization, by forthrightly gobbling up the market bite by bite, leads to the overt socialism of the Russian or Lenin pattern.   Interventionism, by subtly crippling the market and replacing it incrementally with a network of government diktats, leads to the sham market of socialism of the German or Hindenburg pattern.[4]

Lew Rockwell reveals collectivism is a lie, and a lie from Lucifer himself because only the individual with God can build true prosperity.  Rockwell divulges the lie when he explains that we, as individuals, must build it ourselves.  This illustrates the analogy of Lucifer versus God is parallel to the State versus the Individual.  The collectivist state “fastens a huge, violent, lumbering state on the free market that drains its capital and productivity like a deadly parasite on a host.”[5]  Government can only consume or destroy wealth, and as Ludwig von Mises astutely asserted, “State interference in economic life, which calls itself ‘economic policy’, has done nothing but destroy economic life.”[6]

This is why American at its founding attached itself to God the Creator, not to the State.

Originally published on Townhall Finance.

Jim Huntzinger

Jim Huntzinger began his career as a manufacturing engineer with Aisin Seiki (a Toyota Group company and manufacturer of automotive components) when they transplanted to North America to support Toyota. Over his career he has also researched at length the evolution of manufacturing in the United States with an emphasis on lean’s influence and development. In addition to his research on TWI, he has extensively researched the history of Ford’s Highland Park plant and its direct tie to Toyota’s business model and methods of operation.

Huntzinger is the President and Founder of Lean Frontiers and a graduate from Purdue University with a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology and received a M.S. in Engineering Management from the Milwaukee School of Engineering. He authored the book, Lean Cost Management: Accounting for Lean by Establishing Flow, was a contributing author to Lean Accounting: Best Practices for Sustainable Integration.