New Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is wasting no time in her efforts to concentrate power in the hands of the federal government. She just unveiled her proposal for a “Green New Deal,” which aims to switch the country’s sources of electricity to 100% renewable resources. Given the attention on climate change, it’s not surprising that the self-avowed democratic socialist would roll out such an endeavor to begin her career in the House of Representatives.
It may come as a surprise to some, but Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal isn’t exactly a socialist proposal.
It is fascism.
But it should make sense. Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, to which the Green New Deal obviously recalls, was a fascist policy. Roosevelt, like his Progressive-era peers, were enamored by fascism. His economic advisor and later appointed governor of Puerto Rico, Rexford Tugwell, was an outspoken admirer of Benito Mussolini and his fascist policies. In his diary, he said that “I find Italy doing many of the things which seem to me necessary.”
Unfortunately, the term “fascist” quickly became a slur to use against political opponents without any regard to its meaning. With World War II pitting the supposedly “pro-freedom” United States and its allies against the Axis powers featuring the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy, fascism became synonymous with Hitler. But the economic planning by the European fascists was not very different from the economic planning submitted by the American fascists since the end of the 19th Century. Instead of being called fascists, however, these Americans took the name “Progressives.”
Writers such as Friedrich Hayek and John T. Flynn warned about such movements in their books The Road to Serfdom and As We Go Marching, respectively. Their expositions of the growth of fascism in Europe and comparisons to the same movements in the United States were largely ignored. One example of a symptom of this problem is that Progressives in the United States today are seen as diametrically opposed to fascism.
Somehow Ocasio-Cortez can propose her Green New Deal without many people pondering what she’s actually asking for. The first line of it establishes a “Select Committee” from the government to oversee the program. The select committee would be tasked with the following:
- The select committee shall have authority to develop a detailed national, industrial, economic mobilization plan (hereinafter in this section referred to as the “Plan for a Green New Deal” or the “Plan”) for the transition of the United States economy to become carbon neutral and to significantly draw down and capture greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and oceans and to promote economic and environmental justice and equality. In furtherance of the foregoing, the Plan shall:
- be prepared in consultation with experts and leaders from business, labor, state and local governments, academia and broadly representative civil society groups and communities;
- be driven by the federal government, in collaboration, co-creation and partnership with business, labor, state and local governments, research institutions and civil society groups and communities;
- be executed in no longer than 10 years from the start of execution of such Plan;
- provide opportunities for high income work, entrepreneurship and cooperative and public ownership; and
- additionally, be responsive to, and in accordance with, the goals and guidelines relating to social, economic, racial, regional and gender-based justice and equality set forth in paragraph
- In addition to preparing the Plan as set forth in paragraph (2)(A)(i), the select committee shall prepare draft legislation for the enactment of the Plan (hereinafter in this section referred to as the “draft legislation”), in accordance with this section. Such draft legislation may be prepared concurrently with the development of the Plan, or as the select committee may otherwise deem appropriate, provided that such finalized draft legislation shall be completed in accordance with the timing set forth in paragraph (5)(B)(ii).
Her plan oozes of the corporatism well-known in fascism yet it will be described as the federal government extending a hand to work together with the private sector in order to respect the autonomy of private interests. A centrally organized and planned system for the market will be nefariously described as providing efficiency where the market could not. They will ask: “If the market is suitable to structure the economy, why haven’t the private interests come together like this already?”
Don’t be fooled. In its simplest definition, fascism is the private ownership but central control of property, so autonomy is necessarily stripped from the private interests in favor of the central planners.
Socialist supporters need not worry about Ocasio-Cortez’s apparent abandonment of socialism for fascism. As John T. Flynn described in his aforementioned book As We Go Marching, fascism is a necessary step in the direction of socialism since one does not actually own private property if he does not have the ability to control it. Since central planning is doomed to failure given its inability to solve the economic calculation problem because it rejects the information provided by prices, private actors will be blamed for getting in the way of progress and more power will be given to the central planners. The endgame of the planned economy is the ownership of the means of production by the central planners. This, of course, will be sold as the ultimate efficiency, but will just be socialism.
To answer the question of why the private interests haven’t undertaken the proposals of the Green New Deal, it’s because they already addressed the questions and rejected them. They have done this implicitly through the price system. Maybe one day “renewal resources” will be able to solely provide the energy needs of the world, but as of today, it is not the case. If they do pursue such projects, they are all but certainly destined to result in the destruction of wealth, which is the signal to the market that it is a bad idea to pursue them. It is only with future technological developments that these projects may realize economic productivity. In his book, The Vampire Economy, Günter Reimann eloquently describes this impatience with technology in Nazi Germany that still rings true today:
Science, particularly modern chemistry, enables us to reproduce almost all “natural” products. Furthermore, chemistry gives us other completely new products, different from anything in nature. Today it may be economically unsound to manufacture them in quantity because of insufficient technical development; tomorrow they may well revolutionize production and consumption.
Criticism of ersatz production in Germany and other totalitarian states must not be regard as denying the likelihood of further technical progress. It seems certain that progress will not be frozen at today’s level. Already trends are discernible which indicate that we are witnessing only the beginning of a new technical revolution. To grasp the implications fully is not yet possible.
The throngs of supporters of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez will sing the praises of this policy while simultaneously decry their opponents, especially Donald Trump, as fascists. While their opponents very well might be fascists, they will be completely unaware that the pleasant-sounding term, “Progressive,” they use for themselves only thinly veils the fascism they so ardently support.
And they will happily parade Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez—and she will happily acquiesce—as the face of their fascism.
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