When we speak of concepts like “totalitarianism” and “corporatism,” it is often assumed that fascism stands very far from the liberal market society that went before it, and which we are still experiencing today. But if we pay closer attention to Italian fascism’s economic policies, especially during the 1920s, we can see how some combinations typical of both the last century and our own were experienced already in the first years of Benito Mussolini’s rule. A case in point is the association between austerity and technocracy. By “technocracy,” I refer to the phenomenon whereby certain policies that are common today (such as cuts in social spending, regressive taxation, monetary deflation, privatizations, and wage repressions) are decided by economic experts who advise governments or even directly take over the reins themselves, as in several recent cases in Italy.
When Liberals Fell in Love With Benito Mussolini
Tag: HM Treasury
Rail strikes: RMT chief Mick Lynch says Sir Keir Starmer must ‘cosy up to working class people’ to be effective in Opposition + UK Truss government delivers class war budget
UK’s New Prime Minister Makes No Apologies for Favoring the Wealthy
UK’s New Prime Minister Makes No Apologies for Favoring the Wealthy
Truss also went out of her way to channel Britain’s first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, who remains as iconic among the Tory Party base as Ronald Reagan is for Republicans in the U.S. Truss has studied Thatcher’s body language, has adopted her dress style — as Twitter users were quick to point out — and has reached for many of the same rhetorical tools. Yet, style notwithstanding, she has nowhere near the ideological consistency or heft of a Thatcher.
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It will take all of Truss’s shape-shifting talents, and then some, to turn around the election ship for the Conservatives over the coming two years, which is the time span that Truss has before the next general election must be called. In the meantime, as the U.K. grapples with a deepening economic crisis, all of the new prime minister’s public statements suggest that the country is going to be dragged ever-further rightward into a deregulated, anti-union, Brexit-hued future.
God Save The UK!
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 