The Final Days of Fascist Italy
Tuesday, December 27, 2011 at 3:10PM [Editor's Note: Today's commentary is from TDV's Italy correspondent, Alexander Jousse (bio below).]
TDV has done an excellent job of defining fascism of late, especially with Pete Kofod's article, "Fascism For Dummies".
Fascism was originally founded in Italy, and I can tell you first hand, Italy is still an extremely fascist country. And, when it is not fascist it is communist. As example, there are still laws in place that require a person to notify the authorities when they travel and stay elsewhere and hotels are legally obliged to notify the Carabiniere of the people staying with them. Italy still has it big syndicates. Confindustria is the main business syndicate in Italy, it has considerable influence in Italian politics which is rivalled by the communist unions.
Following this philosophy for so long, has created a deep intellectual and social malaise which is evident in two very dangerous beliefs that saturate all Italian thought. The first belief, is that all success and wealth come through the state; if one does not work for the state, one seeks patronage from the state or from someone within the state. The second belief, perhaps the most dangerous, is that wealth is finite. Therefore many believe that wealth only comes from theft; if others have made their wealth from 'theft' they are entitled to liberate their wealth from others!
Everything else follows from this, government regulation to make the world 'fair', taxes to make society 'fair'. Unfortunately the business community believes the same lies; companies want laws to get their 'fair' market share, professionals want 'fair' professions without 'unfair' competition. Everyone wants someone else to pay for their failings, or to have their grand fantasies of societal change subsidised.
This is why it will be impossible to save Italy in its current form; these ideas have been festering since it became a country. One hundred and fifty years of bad ideas are very difficult to change. The only chance for change is when this system finally collapses... but it will not be pleasant. The ruling political caste, the unions and syndicates do not want change, rather they want to set the clock back about fifteen years.
Monti's “Save Italy” legislation tries to accomplish this by changing nothing; there were no major changes to labour legislation, no simplification of the tax system, or tax reductions for individuals and no reduction of government 'Red Tape'. Instead a few bones were thrown to the public; pharmacists would have to compete with supermarkets for the sale of some medicines. The professional cartels would have been opened up to more competition. This legislation went to parliament; afterwards all traces of liberalisation were removed with only the most odious legislation remaining.
So what is this grand plan meant to save Italy?
First, capital controls. Restrict the use of cash to absurdly low levels, then force everyone to have bank accounts, then tax what is left. Payments in cash, of greater than 999 euros will be illegal with very large fines to those who do not comply. All payments coming from the state, with a value greater than 500 euros must be cleared through a bank. They also want to remove all Lire coins and notes from circulation.
Second, increase government theft. They have changed their tax collection strategy to make sure that everyone pays their 'fair share'. They will increase VAT to 23% and have added stealth taxes to petrol, diesel, gas, electricity and cigarettes. Due to local custom of tax evasion, they will start targeting people whose names are in property registers. There will be a tax on all real estate with extra waste taxes included and kindly calculated by the state on inflated property values.
These new emergency measures in Greece, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom, United States and Italy are part of a wider campaign between the parasitic State and wealth producers. The way for us to win this war, is to stop feeding the monster; remove your consent by not voting, teaching your own children, use all legal means to avoid paying taxes and finally, by moving your wealth from these fascist countries.
Alexander JousseBio: Alexander Jousse has been an anarcho-capitalist for eight years, learning through Lew Rockwell, Murray Rothbard, Ludwig von Mises and Stefan Molyneux. But most importantly thinking, observing and asking questions. Alexander has lived in Italy for the last six years and writes about the country to counter the mainstream media who appear to get their information from the propaganda wing of the old communist party. Their solutions are always the same; tax, spend and regulate! Historically Italy is a perfect example of the despotism of democracy; before the nation state period, the cities, kingdoms and republics of Italy were wealthy and free.
Reader Comments (12)
You make a lot of affirmations. from where did you learn that those steps will happen in Italy? You didn't show any kind of references to backup what you just said.
I'm a Portuguese Citizen and I'm sorry to say, but i don't believe to be living in a Fascist State... We have some pretty bad politics but this is nothing when compared to the fascist dictatorial state of Salazar, before the 25 of April Revolution. There is no kind of censorship, everyone thinks what they want and express themselves in a way that doesn't bring any kind of prejudice to other persons freedom, hell, I can even buy Gold Bullions in local jewellery shops without paying any kind of Taxes! (Yes, Gold in Portugal is VAT Free!)
Yes, there are austerity measures in place, but not like those that are being put in place, in Italy...
PS: By the way, "teach your kids at home"?? Parents have to work, in order to put food on the table, you know?
I Google translated the first draft of the "save Italy" legislation, you can follow this link to my blog http://goo.gl/i9lL1
This article uses the definition of fascism expounded in the article "fascism for dummies" http://www.dollarvigilante.com/blog/2011/12/15/fascism-for-dummies.html
In countries outside of Europe it is much easier to home school children for reasons of tax and legislation. State schooling, like anything provided by the state is inefficient; children don't need eight hours a day at school to learn. At home it is possible to show them alternative views and encourage self learning.
Hmm, I see now why you have such an opposition to the Italian Government. I won't suggest anything else about Italy's Government, since I don't live there, so I don't feel (directly at least) any kind of such fascist effects provoked by such government.
What I'm going to do is to talk about the Portuguese System and try to explain why you can't just put every one of the denominated PIIGS countries in the same bag...
IMHO, the Portuguese Nation has a common problem to every country in the World... Bad Politics and Low Cultural Level among elder citizens.
I'm going to start from the Low Cultural Level.
Portugal lived in a dictatorial fascist state from 1933 to 1974, culminating with the Cradle Revolution on the 24th of April of 1974, a date celebrated every year with a National Holiday (know more on Wikipedia, there's a nice article in English)
During that time, children were obligated to go to School from the 1st grade (5 years old) up to the 4th grade (9 years old). During this time, they were (like Jeff so well explained) indoctrinated with a fascist school system that repressed any kind of self-thinking or thoughts against the New State (Salazar's Fascist State). This system of teaching was more a system of "memorization by punishment" rather then "learning by self-teaching". What I mean is, children were obligated to memorize how things worked rather than to really learn it! After the 4th year, school was optional and most of the times (until the 60's), most children stopped going to school and helped their parents in agricultural activities, since at the time, most of the country lived from that. From those that continued their studies (which were subsidized by the state) they could graduate from several kind of professions or (if they had the money for that) go to the University which at the time was impossible for 95% of the population, because it was simply too expensive.
This created up to three or four generations of citizens that carried a large knowledge useful to their daily lives like, how to read/write correctly (up to three different languages - Portuguese, English, French), how to do the maths, chemistry, physics and also manual and technical activities like, carpenters, plumbers, electrical knowledge required professions, etc) but with one big problem, they weren't able to self-learn anything else (just like a fascist state government likes). If they are unable to self-learn, they are unable to improve themselves.
After the 25th of April's Revolution, the school system changed. It allowed freedom of speech, freedom of thinking, students are allowed to follow the path of career they wanted and are encouraged to follow a path of self-learning by teaching how filter information gathered from the search engines (if this is a Fascism system, I don't know what Democracy is...). Everything necessary is learned. Languages, maths, all the details about the country's history (from the independence in 1143, up to the dictatorial government), but now, there is one small detail that I think is the bad thing about this system... there is no kind of politics teaching!
After the 25th of April, it's a complete blackout, and IMHO, this creates generations of citizens, which are able to learn everything from the internet but loose all the interest in National Politics and how the Parliament works.
Elder generations that are unable to self-gather new knowledge and new generations that don't care about, is what allows corrupt politicians to keep their jobs and avoid prisons...
This allows corrupt politics to prevail and now, we are under austerity measures, because of that.
About the Bad Politics, well... I pretty much explain without going into detail, but I will add some other words. The Portuguese Parliament is now, in majority, constituted by a right wing coalition party. In the previous 6 years, it was, in majority, constituted by a Socialist Party (not to be confused with the Communist Party, which is a small minority and dying party, in Portugal. The situation in Portugal, which took us to the austerity measures, is to be blamed to all the governments (whether they were left or right wing), that in the last 25 years, never took the necessary steps to put Portugal in the path of Economic growth, like we were in the 60's during Salazar's Dictatorial State, which brings the question if Portugal is better without Democracy (hey... it's a fair question)
This is just a small explanation, the details are by far, worse than this...
I'm just trying to explain why you can't just put all countries in the same bag... they have very different problems.
In previous articles that Jeff wrote, I explained why an Anarchical system implemented without any kind of transition system, would simply work and in fact, would bring society into complete Chaos and much probably, would culminate in an opposition system, a Fascist system.
Why do I think this way? Because it happen in Portugal during the beginning of the XX century, were many government types, including Anarchical ones, tried to implement such systems, some of them singly, others through alliances. In fact, there were lots of anarchist groups in the beginning of the XX century, socialist libertarians, anarchist unions, communist-anarchists (which were actually, the predominant ones!). None of them brought the much needed stability to a bankrupt country, which the Fascist government brought, but at a much higher cost....
IMHO, in order to establish a Anarchical System, it is necessary to have the support of more than 50% of the global Population and in order to have such support, the population needs to be highly educated and be able to learn by themselves.
Sorry for the long post... I could write more, but for that, it would require several blog articles :)
Does the government of Spain "regulates" business? Does it issue "licenses" keeping the freedom of competition incarcerated? Does it issue counterfeit money, does it collect taxes, does it brainwash children by requiring certain things to be embedded in their brains?
I am sorry, but it does qualify as a fascist country. And democracy is simply pre-fascism. Democracy has to lead to fascism as it has a positive feedback loop, - paupers voting themselves the loot always decreases the number of owners and increases the number of paupers. Does Spain have universal suffrage or only owners are allowed to vote? Yes? So, then you know the support layer for the fascism is a democracy.
As for Italy, look, Alexander is right, the dictatorship that outlaws cash, and thinks it has the right to know where you are is fascist without any doubt.
Alexander, I like your overview, please, keep them coming!
Living in Italy I understand how you feel about Portugal; I dislike how the so called PIIGS are portrayed by the media. The current financial problems in Europe are structural, created by the Commission and member states.
Germany followed the path of trade surpluses while the southern European states followed the path of deficits; with Germany buying their bonds. This is a fairly recent problem created by the Euro. The European Central Bank (ECB) created plenty of problems with its existence and low interest policies .
While all of the European countries have different problems, the Commission, ECB and IMF will impose the same solutions on members states that are close to defaulting, regardless of the consequences.
National sovereignty has been destroyed by the Euro!
I don't know about Spain, I don't live there, I'm a Portuguese citizen and I live in Portugal :)
About market regulation, well, I'm in favor of it. Banks in the US are unregulated and look what happen there...
Unregulated companies == Base for Corporate Fascism
You're right, I don't know why did I write "Spain" :) I meant your country. One of those funky brain flops, I guess.
And you think that banks in US are unregulated? But they are regulated and very much so! No matter how much regulation, the authorities will never blame the bad consequences of their policies on regulation. They will always say that it is the lack of regulation that caused the problems.
Let us take a look at the text book example of fascism, - Hitler Germany. At first, the problems were blamed on Jews, and the solution was thought to be the extermination of that which causes the problem, - the Jews. But, as things progressed, there were much bigger problems, and they too, were blamed on non-existent Jews, not on fascism. All the way until it seemed as if a whole world was at war with Germany, only then it was promoted as a dominant social theme that the world wants to prevent Germany from succeeding.
The same thing will be observed here. Everything will be blamed on lack of regulation, until such time when it will start to look as if whole world (or all people, or all Arabs, or whatever it is they will gang up on) is determined to prevent the success of the fascist state.
There is no economic meaning for regulation. Literally. It makes zero economic sense. It is presumed that the state can make economic decisions for everyone, and this is what regulation means. However, it has been proven by Ludwig Von Mises, that such state of affair is a a destruction of economy, through squeezing the price discovery mechanism out of the market.
Again, currently, the dominant idea is that all previous central control schemes failed, because they did not have enough information. Therefore, you see that the data-mining is heavily practiced by all governments (in Italy, government wants to know which hotel you stay at, in USA, the government follows everyone on twitter and facebook, and google searches, which they have created through CIA fronts). Once the overwhelming database is compiled, they believe, then they will be able to ration every step everyone makes to BOTH: a) insure the current wealth supplying mechanism to the elites - fiat money - stands, and b) that somehow the underlying economy works without any attempt to arbitrage the shortcomings of the fiat money system.
All this will of course fail, because there is no escape from the fact that the price discovery mechanism can not be substituted by prepared price maps, because even if perfect at the point of insertion, it will be outdated one second later, but not able to discover new prices.
Why new capitchas? Did you experience a whole lot of automated posts?
The ones you had were reasonably easy. The ones you have now, frequently require another guess, even if (as I do) you painstakingly take your time transcribing the capitcha.
I have heard that this is actually because the engine wants you to do the double work, OCR-ing their scans, so it pretends that you have guessed wrong. Are you getting paid for using these OCR capitchas?
Love your blog anyway.
You never lived under a Fascist regime... my parents did and let me tell you, 50% of the times, they wish they could go back to those times for one simple reason, economy was stable and we had a coin that had a Gold Value! Search on the web and find out how many tons of gold Portugal has at the Portugal National Bank. You will be amazed... There are other things but, I'm not going off topic any more and like I said, I was just trying to demonstrate that Alexander cannot put all the Southern Europe countries with Ireland countries in the same bag...
Btw, I leave a question... what about the northern countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland)? They also have social-democratic systems and they are well in life! Even Iceland proved that the will of the people union revealed a great success against corrupt systems and decided to start all over again!
@Alexander
Yes, Euro was a big mistake and let all the countries learn from their mistakes. Greedy has a price and we are paying for it! We are paying for not caring about our political system.
I to, would prefer to go back to the Escudo.... After the Cradle Revolution, Portugal had over 600 tons of Gold... it was the gift of a Fascist regime and oh, what a gift! After that, those f... politicians ruined everything...
I just hope Italy can hold...
You never lived under a Fascist regime... my parents did and let me tell you, 50% of the times, they wish they could go back to those times for one simple reason, economy was stable and we had a coin that had a Gold Value! Search on the web and find out how many tons of gold Portugal has at the Portugal National Bank. You will be amazed... There are other things but, I'm not going off topic any more and like I said, I was just trying to demonstrate that Alexander cannot put all the Southern Europe countries with Ireland countries in the same bag...
Btw, I leave a question... what about the northern countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland)? They also have social-democratic systems and they are well in life! Even Iceland proved that the will of the people union revealed a great success against corrupt systems and decided to start all over again!
@Alexander
Yes, Euro was a big mistake and let all the countries learn from their mistakes. Greedy has a price and we are paying for it! We are paying for not caring about our political system.
I to, would prefer to go back to the Escudo.... After the Cradle Revolution, Portugal had over 600 tons of Gold... it was the gift of a Fascist regime and oh, what a gift! After that, those f... politicians ruined everything...
I just hope Italy can hold...
@Jeff, no problems with the letters thingy