What is the current American economy: capitalism, socialism or fascism?
Nouriel Roubini writes in a recent essay:
This is a crisis of solvency, not just liquidity, but true deleveraging has not begun yet because the losses of financial institutions have been socialised and put on government balance sheets. This limits the ability of banks to lend, households to spend and companies to invest...
Some, however, argue that the economy is more like fascism than socialism. For example, leading journalist Robert Scheer writes:
...The marriage of highly concentrated corporate power with an authoritarian state that services the politico-economic elite at the expense of the people is more accurately referred to as "financial fascism"
. After all, even Hitler never nationalized the Mercedes-Benz company but rather entered into a very profitable partnership with the current car company's corporate ancestor, which made out quite well until Hitler's bubble burst....
So what do we really have: socialism-for-the-giants, fascism or an economy which calls itself "capitalism" but which allows looting?
Ultimately, it doesn't matter. They are just different brand names for the same basic type of economy. All three systems allow giant businesses which are friendly to the government to keep enormous private profits but to pass the losses on to the government and ultimately the citizens.
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/10/capitalism-socialism-fascism-or.html