What Would Mussolini Do?

Over the next few years for better or worse, this will be the question asked. Why? Despite the fact that Il Duce is history, Il Duchess and the President now run the show.

It is trite to compare political opponents to World War II villains, but in the case of economics this works. Mussolini used an economic crisis to vault himself into power, then slowly transformed Italy into a country where the private sector could not move an inch without the government's say so.

Is it really getting that bad? Yes. In the past two months alone, Obama and Nancy Pelosi (Il Duchess) have, one or the other or both, proposed to limit executive salaries by law, fired the CEO of General Motors, contemplated taking over the banking system, forced Chrysler into a merger with a foreign company, and created such massive debt that we will only be able to pay it off by taxing the bejesus out of everyone or conquering an empire. Fascists usually end up doing both.

In a recent Wall Street Journal column, Stuart Varney explained that there was anger, not jubilation, when some of the banks had the guts to return TARP money. What the Bush Administration would have hailed as the resilience of capitalism, made the Obama crew angry. Their goal is control of the banking industry.

Nothing gets a fascist more hot and bothered than controlling a bank.

When the government takes so much control over economics, bad things happen. When a company abuses workers, the environment, or anything else, it can be held to account. Who holds the government to account when it steps beyond its bounds? During the Great Depression the government forced thousands into homelessness because some bureaucrats wanted to turn Tennessee farmland into hydroelectric power sources. Did anyone care about all those families on the streets? No, because the liberal bureaucrats kept saying it was for the greater good. For whose greater good? Certainly not those families now homeless who had been there since the 1700s. Many of them received those lands as grants for service in the Revolution. No private corporation could force those people from their property without paying them what the owner thought it was worth. And most would not have sold at any price anyone would have been willing to pay.

This is what happens when government takes over economic functions. People get hurt and there is no chance of accountability. It's called fascism. It happened before to a limited extent. What will our dabbling in fascist economics lead to this time? How many people have to have property and freedom stripped away before the voters say enough is enough?