'via Blog this'
LP: What the hell is Newsweek thinking of? I bet next they'll love Hitler's parades.
Students of the 1930s know that English and European aristocrats were typically pro-Hitler because he brought stability to Germany and looked to be a bulwark against the advance of Communism. Il Duce was seen as more grandiose and buffoon-like but similarly useful. As William Manchester wrote at the close of the second volume of his biography of Churchill:
Because their possessions were great, the appeasers has much to lose should the red flag fly over Westiminster. That is why they had felt threatened by the hunger riots of 1932. It was also the driver of their exorbitant fear and distrust of the new Russia. They had seen a strong Germany as a buffer against Bolshevism, had thought their security would be strengthened if they sidled up with the fierce, virile Third Reich. Nazi coarseness, anti-Semitism, the Reich’s dark underside, were rationalized; time, they assured one another, would blur the jagged edges of Nazi Germany. So with their eyes opened, they sought accommodation with a criminal regime, turned a blind eye to its inequities, ignored its frequent resort to murder and torture, submitted to extortion, and having sold out all who had sought to stand shoulder to shoulder with Britain and keep the bridge against the new barbarism, led England herself into the cold, damp shadow of the gallows, friendless save for the demoralized republic across the Channel.
It is a sick irony that Ferguson, a long-time enthusiast for English and American imperialism, and in particular, the need for America to be a more aggressive empire to promote democracy, is now praising an authoritarian regime that helped bring Britain to its knees.
In ECONNED, we noted:
In other words, “free markets” ideology, with its libertarian idealism, has in fact produced Mussolini-style corporatism. And until we learn to call the resulting looting by its proper name, it is certain to continue.
But rather than see the crisis and the resulting high unemployment as a failure of “free markets” ideology, its boosters are recommending more of the same.
Read more at http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/09/niall-ferguson-advocates-fascism-and-newsweek-legitmates-it.html#wdBP9c1JLjpOItMH.99
Nothing like having an official Bad Day. First, super duper tech problems (I don’t want to bore you, and this should never have happened in the first place). Then I get sent a message from someone I know well (friend and writer on finance and economics) who sends an e-mail that he got from a Congressional staffer with a Newsweek cover image of Niall Ferguson touting This was just posted by Naked Capitalism where the post originated. The sad part is that it really isn't such a stretch to actually believe people would be saying this.
ReplyDeleteThe last part is from the Naked Capitalism website:
Mussolini as a job creator. They and I were taken in by a spoof. I suppose the three of us can rationalize it that reality had gotten so bad that what ought to be recognizable as parody looks like the real deal. And to add insult to injury, the post I wrote was actually pretty good. Major oopsie.