Friendly fascism : the new face of power in America / Bertram Gross ; cover design by Mauricio Diaz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gross, Bertram, author.

Contributor:

Diaz, Mauricio, cover designer.

Series:

Forbidden bookshelf.

Forbidden Bookshelf

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Elite (Social sciences)--United States.

Elite (Social sciences).

United States--Politics and government.

United States.

United States--Economic policy.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (399 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New York : Open Road Media, 2016.

New York, New York : Open Road Integrated Media, 2016.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

A look at corporate authoritarianism that William Shirer called “the best thing I’ve ever seen on how America might go fascist democratically.” In 1980, US capitalist politics wore a “nice-guy mask,” a troubling disguise to cover up a creeping despotism in which the ultra-rich and corporate overseers were merging with a centralized state power in order to manage the populace. This immanent corporate authoritarianism threatened to subvert constitutional democracy. But unlike the violent and sudden usurpations that led to fascism in the days of Hitler, Mussolini, and the Japanese empire builders, this new “smiling” American breed of fascism was gaining ground through gradual and silent infringements on the freedoms of the American people. First published over three decades ago, Friendly Fascism is uncannily predictive of the threats and realities of current political and economic power trends. Author Bertram Gross, a presidential adviser during the New Deal era, traces the history and logic of declining democracy in First World countries and pinpoints capitalist transnational growth and inappropriate responses to global crises as the sources of late twentieth-century despotism in America. Gross issues ever-urgent warnings about what happens when big business and big government become bedfellows—chronic inflation, recurring recession, overt and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of the environment—and simultaneously proffers a practical shift of perspective that could help US citizens build a truer democracy. He imagines an America in which heroes are no longer needed and the leadership is a group of non-elitists who “recognize the ignorance of the wise as well as the wisdom of the ignorant.”

Contents:

Cover Page; Title Page; Dedication; Contents; Series Introduction; Introduction; Preface, 1985; Introduction: A Patriotic Warning; ONE: The Roots of Friendly Fascism; 1. The Rise and Fall of Classic Fascism; Italy, Germany, Japan; Breeding Grounds of Fascism; The Axis; Anti-Fascist Failures; Fascist Exploits; Fascist Ideologies; Destruction of the Axis; Indestructible Myths; 2. The Takeoff Toward a New Corporate Society; The Sun Never Sets on America's "Free World"; The Golden International; Big Welfare for Big Business; More Rational Corporate Planning

Technology: Starting, Stopping, Suppressing3. The Mysterious Establishment; The Castles of Power; The Ultra-Rich; The Corporate Overseers; The Chief Executive Network; Executive Managers; Junior and Contingent Members; Conflicts Among the Few; Purges and Conversions; Purifying Ideologies; 4. The Side Effects of Success; An Abundance of Frustrations; Falling Apart: Work, Community, Family; Loneliness and Alienation; Crime: The Dirty Secrets; The Erosion of Authority; 5. The Challenge of a Shrinking Capitalist World; New Losses to Communism; Creeping Socialism; Third World Demands

Detente: A Cooler Cold WarInstability at the Top; 6. Old Crises in New Forms; Untamed Recession; The Hidden Unemployed; The New Inflation: Hyena's Delight; The Dynamite of Class Conflict; Limited War; Unlimited Overkill; TWO: The Specter of Friendly Fascism; 7. The Unfolding Logic; Making the Most of Crises; Consolidating Power; The Cat Feet of Tyranny; Many Paths; 8. Trilateral Empire or Fortress America?; American Retrenchment; A "True Empire"; Alternative Outcomes; 9. The Friendly Fascist Establishment; From Floundering Establishment to Super-America, Inc.; A Righteous Presidency

Remolding MilitarismThe Restructuring of the Radical Right; New Ideologies of Central Power; Triplespeak; 10. Friendly Fascist Economics; More Stagflation; More Money Moving Upward; An Abundance of Shortages; More Waste and Pollution; More Nuclear Poison; More Junk and Disservices; 11. Subverting Democratic Machinery; Integrating Separate Branches; Friendly Fascist Federalism; Community Carnivals; Contrapuntal Party Harmony; Union-Busting and the Slow Meltdown; The Lessons of the Watergate Conspiracy; Unhinging an Anti-Establishment White House; Coups D'Etat American-Style

12. Managing Information and MindsInformation as the March; The Symbolic Environment; Image as the Reality; Narrowing the Scope of Controversy; Manufacturing Opinion by Polling; The Electronic Throne; Monitoring as the Message; Womb-to-Tomb Dossiers; Economic and Social Vindicators; Educational Authoritarianism; Custodial Functions; 13. Incentives for System Acceptance; Extended Professionalism; Job, Prometheus, Faust; For Consumers: Kidnapper Candy; Servitude's Services; Conditional Benefactions; Rationed Payoffs; The Effulgent Aura; 14. The Ladder of Terror; The Rungs of Violence

Precision Purging

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (ebrary, viewed February 12, 2016).

ISBN:

9781497689404

1497689406

OCLC:

935669619