Down from bureaucracy Book

You won't learn anything about fascism if you read this book, but you will learn about a very popular analysis of emerging neoliberalism from 1979. What the author is really explaining is the reduction of democracy as a result of corporate-friendly govt. policies and increasing economic inequality at the end of the 70s. The process he's describing also fits what some political scientists in later years aptly describe as a "hollowing out" of democratic institutions. The general drive of the book is toward increased democracy, and many of the predictions he makes about things like surveillance and media seem prescient when read in retrospect. However, the book also redefines both fascism and corporatism in ways that are not helpful for anyone who seriously wants to understand what either of these things mean. "Corporatism" in the sense that Mussolini meant is not simply corporate friendly govt. friendly policy, which is how it is often colloquially used by Americans today. It means the actual replacement of existing govt. bodies, independent labor unions and political parties, with industrial councils. In other words, corporatism in the fascist sense is a kind of ultra-nationalist syndicalism. This matters because fascism is a form of right wing populism, and while this book argues that this "classic' version of fascism will never return, we can see around the world today that fascist movements can indeed spring up to oppose what they call "corporatism" by which they often mean 'big business"which they perceive in conspiratorial terms. In libertarian lingo today "corporatism" often means "govt. regulation of business, and in this case, they are simply repeating incorrect arguments associating welfare-state policies and social democracy with fascism in the way that many right-wing activists did in the 1930s during the New Deal. In order to effectively combat fascism it is important to be able to address how and why right wing ultra-nationalists are able to effectively win people over with what often seem like left wing and anti-establishment sentiments against capitalism, that simultaneously turn these arguments toward authoritarian, radically anti-regulatory capitalism, and/or even genocidal remedies.