Democracy And Free Markets: Is That All?

Recap and Refocus (June 1 – June 8)

In summary I have proposed (reminded us):

First, that democracies tend towards tyranny. This is classical political theory that says the fragmentation of individuals from each other which happens under democracy leads to the crowd’s desire for a strong man to maintain order—and this happens unless the strongest person and the elites do have a recognized legitimate place in the system, and the three are in balance with each other. Representative democracy is a complex intermediate case. The theory of balance with an expert culture that actually makes decisions (see William Greider’s Who Will Tell The People?) with representative governance is not well worked out. It certainly doesn’t seem very democratic, and our absolute need to feel that we are a democracy may get in the way of our being a slightly more successful republic.

Second, that free markets tend towards monopoly unless restrained by regulations (classical and neoclassical economic theory) and to the extent that the Regulators are also the regulated, regulation itself hurries the move towards monopoly rather than restrains it. Also we must admit that currently ‘fee" pertains to capital and technology markets, but not to labor, which is forced–at the point of a gun–to stay put.

By virtue of shared interests and financial leverage political campaigns are determined by cash and who owns (or manages) the cash is determined by regulation. The result is that governments, corporate ownership, and top management become woven into a single fabric, which, when it is the dominant structure in society, is called fascism.

I’ve also been clear that this is always the trend in history but what counts is whether it is, or is becoming, dominant.

Why would we think that the steps from ww1 to ww2 to now would involve a major discontinuity? Continuity is a better assumption. After all, today we deal with the same problems Europe and a world system of empires were dealing with in the 19th and 20th centuries – power, governance, status, wealth, technology. That is still our problem, and new solutions look very much like old ones.

I have also suggested that technology, if we look at automobiles, telephones, spectrum based media, energy we see the requirements for large bureaucracies which become woven into the fabric I have just described. The current struggles over the Internet, bandwidth, and copyright illustrate some of the current issues.

So I have two questions. First do we agree that we have a problem? Second, do we agree on how we got here? Third, do we agree on what to do about it?

In medical terms, do we have a patient, do we have a diagnosis, and do we have a course of therapy?

Policy and Ideology

A bad sign is the lack of reality about Iraq—both on the deeper strategic level of the relation of poverty and faith, and the fact level of actualities. The Christian Science Monitor said recently that the estimated civilian dead in Iraq from the incursion was 10,000. The number of military dead could be even higher.

It amazes me that the leading business community doesn't complain about the loss of American "market capital", that soft asset of being admired, and whose dedication to reason and quality was at least fairly positive if not outstanding. We have become the used car salesman (wow, have we got a war for you. solve all your problems and no collateral damage.)of late empire. There came a time when the Roman empire was auctioned off to what ever General could pay the winning bid.

Mussolini's Ghost

In Iraq and elsewhere, the appeal of fascism proves tenacious

By David Ronfeldt

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This opinion article appeared in the Los Angeles Times on May 25, 2003.

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Despite comparisons to Josef Stalin's communist government in Russia, Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime actually had far more in common with the fascist systems of 20th century Europe. And that is why de-Baathification is proving so difficult. People like being liberated from dictatorship, but not necessarily from fascism.

What's the difference? Fascism is no mere dictatorship. Yes, it imposes a centralized and organic—if not totalitarian—structure, enforced by a single party, secret police and paramilitary thugs. But that is not what keeps fascism in power and explains its appeal. Fascism is a total system of existence that willingly engages a broad spectrum, even a majority, of elites and masses. At its core, fascism has a deeply mythic allure; it proposes a quest to overcome dystopian times and achieve a utopian rebirth of a nation's supposed greatness. Thus fascism rules the mind as well as the body—and both mind and body come to idolize it.

In this quest, fascism is fiercely anti-liberal because it values order far more than freedom and brooks no boundaries between public and private, or state and society. Yet fascism is also anti-conservative; it aims to transform the status quo on behalf of all, not preserve it for the sake of a few.

And although fascism is normally secular in its ends and means, it has a messianic quality, for it promises national redemption and progress to break through to an exquisite new millennium. Indeed, fascism vows to create not only a new order but also a new man—one who has a radiant sense of identity and purpose, the better to ensure that the rebirth endures.

All this shines in the iconic fascisms of the mid-20th century: Benito Mussolini's in Italy (the standard for many scholars), Adolf Hitler's in Germany (the racist and totalitarian extreme) and the Falangist movement in Spain (which flowed later into the semi-fascist regime of Francisco Franco). Significant, though eclectic, tendencies also emerged outside Europe, notably in South Africa, Argentina and Japan.

Where and why does fascism take hold? It cannot happen anywhere; some tendencies, perhaps, but not fascism as a system. First, it requires a modernizing nation that has a serious state, a significant private business sector and a complex civil society.

The ultranationalism so characteristic of fascism resembles an extreme tribalism, but societies that turn fascist are too advanced to be considered tribal. Moreover, though studies of totalitarianism typically view communism and fascism as quite similar, they have a key difference that often gets overlooked: the role of a private sector and a market system, however weak. Communism must be rid of them, but fascism aims to strengthen them, albeit in a suborned way.

Second, fascism requires that this modernizing society be suffering from deep disturbances and grievances. There should be a widespread sense of disaster, alarm and disarray stemming, say, from a lost war, a severe economic depression, pervasive corruption scandals or humiliating foreign interference. It's a point that applies to the making of terrorists as well as fascists: Whatever the political, economic or social details, people feel that they and their nation are facing an "absolute disaster."

Under these conditions, longing can arise for national rebirth, not to mention a great charismatic leader to show the way. People at large are so fed up, furious, divided and fearful about the condition of their nation that, if fascism's exponents manage to seize office through election or force, it is not that hard to make people succumb to fascism's promises to reunite them, overcome obstacles and organize a strong system. A leadership cult and grandiose assertions of national solidarity, sovereignty and independence spread fascism's mythic appeal as its media, intelligence and coercive apparatuses expand to ensure compliance.

Why be reminded of these basics? Because Americans are not used to thinking about fascism as a system anymore. And because fascism—unlike communism—is far from dead or obsolete. The spread of the market system, pro-democracy pressures and other aspects of globalization are having ambivalent effects around the world. There are new signs of progress in many societies. But not in all.

Some modernizing nations are having wrenching difficulties adapting to globalization and other pressures to build ever more open, competitive, complex systems. Some also face external and internal threats that can be hyped to arouse ultranationalism and distract citizens from domestic problems. Thus the conditions for fascism, which were centered in Europe many decades ago, are likely to recur in new places. Already in this century we have had to wage two wars against fascism: first against Slobodan Milosevic's regime in Serbia and now in Iraq.

We also keep having to tussle with fascism-inspired regimes that have taken hold elsewhere—notably the Hindu-nationalist one in India and Oscar Chavez's in Venezuela. These instances are more harbingers than holdovers from past trends.

It is easier to sound a warning about a new round of fascism in far-off places than to specify where or in what variety and numbers. But some future possibilities—Russia or a new Islamic caliphate?—would prove much riskier for the West than others. It will take more than the superb, innovative military power of the United States to deter and prepare for this future.

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David Ronfeldt, a senior political scientist at RAND, is co-author of "Networks and Netwars: The Future of Terror, Crime, and Militancy" (2001, RAND).

Read other op-eds by the author.

Partly, I suppose, it's those sweeping predictions of disaster. "...democracies tend toward tyranny" (23:1). The evidence of recent history is certainly in the opposite direction. The very varied pushes toward "democracy" in various parts of the world during the last three or four decades -- in South and Southeast Asia, in Latin America, in Eastern Europe -- might not fit anyone's image of what "democracy" should ideally be. But the outcomes, in dozens of countries, simply don't fit any reasonable definition of "tyranny."

Governance in Singapore is centralized, but far from tyrannical.

Despite the huge differences in governance in Latin America's democratic trend, it would be hard to find a real tyranny outside of Cuba -- and like some his ex-sponsors, Castro is finding his own act difficult to follow.

None of the ex-Communist countries in Eastern Europe could now be described as a tyranny. Russia certainly isn't -- a commercial oligopoly in some degree, a mess in many ways, but hardly a tyranny nowadays. (I don't know enough about the ex-Soviet "republics" of Central Asia to testify about them; there may be a tyranny here and there, but it's hardly a consequence of trying and failing to be democracies.)

So we're left with the "industrial democracies." Japan was certainly a tyranny when we fought WWII. But now? Looks more like a nobody-in-charge system these days. Western Europe? It's hard to find a real-life tyranny there; indeed, short of tyrants, it's hard to find even strong charismatic leaders there just now.

So where is the referent in Doug's generalization: "democracies tend toward tyranny"? Must be the U.S. of A. I'd better argue this case in another chapter. I see many dangers in the way American governance is developing; but "tyranny" seems to me one of the least likely eventualities.

That's enough, probably too much, for tonight. Continued in other comments this week.

What a disturbing lesson it is for those of us who follow more traditional paths of conflict resolution--studying the history and dynamics of a situation, carefully nurturing relations with the parties in conflict, attempting to open channels of communication, taking pains to seek balanced and just solutions, mutually arrived at. I'd be interested in what those of you who have given your lives to consulting, diplomacy and arbitration think about these developments. And what you think about their implications for building democratic societies.

Harlan, the operative word is "tend". Absent some kind of a balance among the one the few and the demos. That is why "managed representative democracy" is so interesting—because it forces us to think through how it really operates and if the "tend" is balanced, or operative by itself, in which case the fascist outcome will emerge.

Also, it is the US that is the primary example since, using the Spengler analysis, empires are more prone to the "tend" than others. But current France, Germany, Japan, Italy (my god, Berlusconi) are all managed quasi-democracies. Japan is closer to the Singapore model than generally acknowledged.

—which wouldn't be terrible, except

1. Freedom of speech compromised (it certainly is in the US - people are afraid to speak out on campus, in the press, in congress. It is much more of a repressive than a conversational social space.)

2. Wealth concentrated through the abuse of acquired power.

3. The problem of the "Collapse of Complex Societies" and the problem of mismanagement, since infrastructure (Halliburton, Bechte, Carlyle) companies are mechanisms of wealth transfer and represent the infrastructure costs.

So, Dick, when you use the phrase "building democratic societies" could you mean "managed representative democracies"? If so, do we need to be more discerning?

(If you haven't looked, I’ve posted references to two articles about the future of democracy in the "democracy and participation" topic, and also I put a link to the Rand Corporation Fascism article.)

http://www.rand.org/hot/op-eds/052503LAT.html

From this week’s New Yorker:

Hertzberg came to WBSI once.

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?talk/030609ta_talk_hertzberg

What does democratic-imperial mean?

The following excerpt doesn’t sound much like the U.S. today.

The result of 9/11 may have been widespread alarm but that was short-lived and certainly not part of a trend. After Afghanistan and Iraq, I don’t think people feel that the nation is facing an absolute disaster from terrorism.

As you have pointed out before, there are trends and cycles. For instance, despite business cycles and their impact on the stock market, the overall long-term trend has been positive.

Is the long-term trend of national sentiment one that is moving towards a feeling of absolute disaster? The various polls I posted earlier would seem to suggest that national sentiment is closely tied to the economy and that until this year has been positive for several years. The poll for this year was ambiguous. I think these polls are more of an indication of short term or cyclical sentiment. What do we have to look at that would give us an indication of the long-term trend? Is it even possible to have a long-term trend that is negative when the long-term trend in economic growth is positive? Is the long-term trend in sentiment not linked to the long-term trend of a narrowing of democracy and capitalism? Is the long-term trend in sentiment not important as opposed to a prolonged cyclical event with other factors in place? Psychologically, is fascism so linked in the minds of Americans to the Nazis that it isn't even a consideration?

From the New Yorker Article, "a critical mass of Americans will notice." The article not only sounds like healthy dissent but also expresses confidence that a critical mass of Americans can make a difference despite the government/ business control.

The state cutbacks referenced in the article might be the catalyst to wake us up from our complacency. Are the problems mentioned in the article indicative of a long-term trend or cyclical developments given that both the country and states have moved from surplus to deficit in the past 2 to 3 years? How serious would these problems or other problems have to become before the nation feels that it is facing an absolute disaster? The RAND article seems to suggest that our problems would have to become considerably worse.

I think it was a tactical approach. For a RAND person to write that fascism is at hand would be too, well, difficult. The fact that he says it at all must be seen as a rather amazing event. But the end of the article says that the US may be the place.

So how to look at it? This week the FCC decision (some muttering in congress), the tax bill, not much of a sign of reaction, the fishery study last week of big fish down 85%,not much reaction. We are comatose, because we do not have democratic institutions. We go after terror instead of auto deaths at 40k per year, environmental damage, fishery depletion... if this were a business it would not be a good way to run it, except from the standpoint of the owners. The 2 million in jail! Social hurt. Social cost.

The word from the G* today was on privatizing water in Africa. My fundamental argument against it being cyclic is that the US economy is under pressure to cut prices (or let the dollar fall). Both run the prospect of deficits. Which means the government does more borrowing - and for every dollar borrowed, someone has leant it and gets the interest.

Is there a tech-driven economic recovery? I just don't see it. There are some mixed signs, but the job downsizing is still going on.

"Free markets tend towards monopoly," Doug goes on to say. He does add "unless restrained by regulations," which is of course what most U S governments have been doing through most of our history. It is in fact our regulatory efforts -- not just federal, but state (e.g., insurance) and local (e.g., planning and zoning real estate), that have made the U.S. "free market" so comparatively successful.

I cherish the memory of a woman named Rita Klimova, an economist who was the first Czechoslovak ambassador to the United States (after Vaclav Havel's 1989 "velvet revolution" and before the Czech-Slovak divorce). During a colloquy in Minneapolis with business leaders and academic economists, she was asked how her country would make sure markets were free, and she erupted: You send all your best economists to Prague, she said, to tell us about free markets. We know all about free markets; we've had black markets for years. Why don't your experts tell us about all the public agencies you use to regulate your markets so they stay free?

This is maybe not the right week, given the FCC's decision to release the big media companies from some important regulatory constraints, to celebrate Doug's "unless" clause. But it certainly is clear from our national experience that a genuinely free market requires BOTH entrepreneurial free enterprise AND pro-market public policies expressed through public regulation.

There are many ways in which the regulated naturally try to suborn the regulators. But despite what's going on in Washington these days, I'm not prepared to sign onto Doug's pessimistic assumption that this is "the trend in history." Indeed, we're already more successful in making "free markets" work than most other countries -- even if we haven't yet learned to explain to less experienced countries that "free markets" require a partnership of public authority and private enterprise.

In sum: Democracy doesn't "tend" toward tyranny, and free markets don't "tend" toward monopoly -- unless we give up and let that happen.

I think that right at this moment in time none of us has a real keen understanding or memory of 3 years ago. Well, anyway, I don't really remember with much detail what my friends and others, whose thoughts I value (whether I agree or not), had to say about current events of that time.

It's time consuming to dig up polls from back then which may or may not be accurate. And looking for actual public records is even more so. And also there is the question of reliability regarding such. One advantage to these conferences is that 3 years hence each of us will have a reliable source for data about what was being said and considered. Assuming these conferences continue, that may prove to be one of the major values. It's really quite a unique opportunity to build a reliable database of one’s own thoughts and others. That should, in a few years time, perhaps make it easier to distinguish between cycle and trend. That's hard to do right now.

John and Harlan have both expressed reservations about Doug's possible 'extreme' view, and I share their view somewhat, in that I tend to see much of what is happening as simply the natural result of a 2 party system.

Are there any objective criteria we can apply to determine whether events of the past few years indicate a trend or a cycle?

One implication is that there are many forms of tyranny, and another is that it is as much over the mind as over the body. I note also that it doesn't specify what constitutes 'oppressive'. A look at Merriam's shows oppressive as "unreasonably burdensome or severe."

This is so vague as to be a purely subjective condition. I, for example, find the air travel restrictions unreasonably burdensome, and they were clearly imposed by the government (in some people's view quite unnecessarily).

Are business and government presently allying themselves in such a way as to unreasonably burden the citizens? One could easily enough make a case for that—which could then easily enough be argued by another.

What are the criteria? Are there any?

I think the Rand article was not trying to say that we are fascistic, but we have the makings of it, if the people felt there was a disaster. Well, that could happen overnight. Then it might not be difficult for our charismatic Commander in Chief to bypass Congress and the judiciary, if not to actually close them down. Didn't Oliver Cromwell simply walk into Parliament and announce its dissolution?

Harlan, you are a wonderfully optimistic and soothing voice. I'm a bit surprised, however, that you don't find contemporary events deeply disturbing. Maybe I'm the only one here that does! Unless I'm reading them wrongly, there are many conservatives and libertarians who really do not believe in regulation on either markets or democracy, and they currently populate some of our think tanks, and have great influence on our administration. We have been on a deregulation binge for years. The FCC action yesterday is sure to be followed by a rush of monopolistic mergers--and that force is surely what Doug is referring to when he uses the term "tend" when describing unfettered capitalism, markets and democracy. Of course they need to be regulated, but not everyone thinks so.

Paul Krugman in this morning's Times said that the lies told by the administration to persuade Congress and the American people to go to war in Iraq amount to a much worse scandal than Iran Contra or Watergate. Apparently the administration's response was, "The New York Times is in no position to lecture anyone on credibility."

And the administration's response to the Inspector General's scathing report on the treatment of detainees was something like, "We don't need to apologize for doing everything we legally can to protect the American people from the threat of terrorism."

Ya gotta hand it to them. They aren't going to be humbled by the mechanisms we now have in place. I'm afraid they will continue to get away with such audacity. Unless, of course, Congress comes alive.

What further confuses me is that among most of my friends whom I have learned to trust over the years are equally concerned with the conduct of our current administration -- concerns which do not seem to me or to them to be just the temporary product of a two party government.

I don't recall such concerns since the New Deal, when those who were not in the Franklin Roosevelt camp, and who referred to the President as THAT MAN, predicted huge and irreversible changes in the nation that they loved and cherished. AND THEY WERE RIGHT! The nation they cherished did change irreversibly. Back then, the changes were to my youthful approval. Today, I am afraid that the changes I see as an old man are also heading into irreversibility, to my dismay.

Harlan: I have never before so ardently hoped that you, an old friend, are right and hope that I am off base. The only ray of light that I see is that the forecast that your wisdom suggests is more likely to be on target than mine!

Now, let it be said, I too am optimistic. That is because I think we have a small chance of getting though this gracefully (though it is too late for the two million in jail, the millions who died in small wars since 1945, or even since 1990).

But it will be a sea shift in perception and culture. I posted early article | Posted March 27, 2003:

The Other Superpower

by Jonathan Schell

The Nation

As the war began, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld promised a "campaign unlike any other in history." What he did not plan or expect, however, was that the peoples of earth--what some are calling "the other superpower"--would launch an opposing campaign destined to be even less like any other in history. Indeed, Rumsfeld's campaign, a military attack, was in all its essential elements as old as history. The other campaign--the one opposing the war--meanwhile, was authentically novel. In the pages that follow, The Nation gives a snapshot of it in fourteen countries. If news has anything to do with what is new, then this campaign's birth and activity are the real news. What emerges is a portrait of a world in resistance."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030414&s=schell

But the difficulties are intense. the emergence of digitalization, broad band and money is an ethos whose roots we do not see. We like the fruits, but as Dee Hock said: "the purpose of business is to separate the consumer from the realities of production." How many tears were shed in the production of the food we ate today, and the beverages we drank?

We live for openings to possibilities, but we have to live among the trend lines in the meanwhile.

That history really happens we need to face. We so easily assume a sort of oscillation between left and right, up and down, bull and bear. The see-saw model is very unsatisfying to me, but people love it. The economic people, from wall street to federal agencies, and inside business, believe that it is just cycles. And since it has been down, it must go up. Real money has never believed it, and spent time buying real estate around the world for the last thirty years. Best investment. Just as real money now is afraid of the US economy and looks to own in China. Sounds risky, but not as risky - they say - as the US economy.

Part of my optimism is that if we are pressed, local and regional initiatives can take off, including local currencies. I had diner last night with a man who has made documentaries on the high morale in some aspects of the current Argentinean situation "because the government is gone." Could the US government just turn out to be irrelevant? Dreaming. But working behind the scenes with a group of democrats to define the party - almost empty handed. There is no there there. No core belief, no purpose for the nation. It is not felt that "life liberty and the pursuit of happiness are furthered by anything the government can do. I don't believe it, but they do.

What could they do:

1. sustainability as a guidance to economic activity

2. high value on entrepreneurial rather than old style industry.

3. strong environmental regulation to support 1 and 2.

4. education to support 1-3

5. a spirit of realistic generosity towards the rest of the world, and the rest of the US that has been missing out.

6. rethinking corporate charters. (see posting in news)

7. more art, conversation, and thoughtfulness.

In fact, they seem to want to increase their shopping given the recent statistics. Is this complacency the result of a narrowing of democracy and capitalism or is it the result of democracy and capitalism giving the public what they want so that on balance they are reasonably satisfied or at least not dissatisfied enough to do anything about it.

If circumstances change such that fascism is an alternative, as Dick has said isn’t that more a result of the type of changes mentioned in the RAND article than a trend in democracy and capitalism?

Douglass Carmichael I misplaced the corporate reference. but the treating of corporations as persons is under increasing attack. It was a mistake legally, and could be undone, repositioning the corporations as subject to state charter provisions.

Douglass Carmichael John, we need to investigate the conditions for "absolute disaster." I think that is far too strong. It requires economic and military uncertainty, and a lack of ideas for being positive. It requires a public that is apathetic or intelligently disengaged (voting rates seem to indicate this). It used to be the demagogue with mobs in the streets. Now it is media and people captivated at home allowing a drift at the top rather than pushing for one from the streets.

What kind of government do we really have? Who here knows their state and federal reps? Who looks forward in friendship with reporters to the news of the day? Why do we have the new tax policy? Why does presidential speech have so little meaning and no accountability? (my tax cuts will create a million jobs.) is the government, our government, engaged with the issues that concern us?

Don, your reference to the sea change with Roosevelt is so interesting. It was, and it was a "defining moment for the country" and one the right (speaking loosely) would like to undo. To get rid of the welfare state, break social security, get people focused back on good behavior and family support systems, and to reinvigorate the churches, a nation under god, not a platform for social engineering. Is the Roosevelt fulcrum point the place of leverage for current politics?

Perhaps the real struggle is not dealing with business or democracy at all, but with culture. It is the shadow side of the fascism discussion.

But note, people like us don't want stupid or tyrannical solutions, but discussion, learning, intelligence, compassion. These days "democracy" [managed representative] and markets [free for capital] are treated as the essential and sufficient condition. if it requires also enlightened regulation and real citizen participation, are we in danger of losing what we think we find so essential?

Richard, I'm not clear why you thought I was implying that human nature "is truly some kind of dog eat dog condition". Human nature includes all kinds of behaviors. I'm simply saying that if those among us who are most powerful are not also most committed to the best in human nature, it bodes ill for everybody.

FEMA was created in a series of Executive Orders. A Presidential Executive Order, whether Constitutional or not, becomes law simply by its publication in the Federal Registry. Congress is by-passed. Executive Order Number 12148 created the Federal Emergency Management Agency that is to interface with the Department of Defense for civil defense planning and funding. An "emergency czar" was appointed. FEMA has only spent about 6 percent of its budget on national emergencies, the bulk of their funding has been used for the construction of secret underground facilities to assure continuity of government in case of a major emergency, foreign or domestic. Executive Order Number 12656 appointed the National Security Council as the principal body that should consider emergency powers. This allows the government to increase domestic intelligence and surveillance of U.S. citizens and would restrict the freedom of movement within the United States and grant the government the right to isolate large groups of civilians. The National Guard could be federalized to seal all borders and take control of U.S. air space and all ports of entry.

Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. These Executive Orders have been on record for nearly 40 years and could be enacted by the stroke of a Presidential pen:

Here are just a few Executive Orders associated with FEMA that would suspend the Constitution and the Bill of Rights:

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 10990 allows the government to take over all modes of transportation and control of highways and seaports.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 10995 allows the government to seize and control the communication media.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 10997 allows the government to take over all electrical power, gas, petroleum, fuels and minerals.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 10998 allows the government to seize all means of transportation, including personal cars, trucks or vehicles of any kind and total control over all highways, seaports, and waterways.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 10999 allows the government to take over all food resources and farms.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 11000 allows the government to mobilize civilians into work brigades under government supervision.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 11001 allows the government to take over all health, education and welfare functions.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 11002 designates the Postmaster General to operate a national registration of all persons.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 11003 allows the government to take over all airports and aircraft, including commercial aircraft.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 11004 allows the Housing and Finance Authority to relocate communities, build new housing with public funds, designate areas to be abandoned, and establish new locations for populations.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 11005 allows the government to take over railroads, inland waterways and public storage facilities.

· EXECUTIVE ORDER 11051 specifies the responsibility of the Office of Emergency Planning and gives authorization to put all Executive Orders into effect in times of increased international tensions and economic or financial crisis.

(Participant) Kip, if it is fascism it is a rolling fascism as it serves different, often competing special interest groups. The requirements for "we want more" for different groups, not just business, are often in conflict. This competitive environment is contrary to the idea of monopoly.

Douglass Carmichael Not in economic theory, John, which shows that in order to compete, alliances and conglomerates get formed. It isn't the rules of sports where you can trade players but not merge teams.

Kip, thanks for that important list. It leads to my next week opening, see new item: Main topic week June 8-15.

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