What was the origin of the now ubiquitous term

[pnwmom]

"corporatization"? Is it a Green term? A Nader term? Or what? (When I hit "check spelling" it doesn't show up in the choices, so it's a nonstandard word.)

So, excuse me for being dumb, but what does it mean . . . exactly?

Are all NAFTA or CAFTA politicians automatically corporatists? Was Bill Clinton a corporatist?

[davepc]

1. the term goes back to a Pope in the late 1800's

by the early 1920's some other Italians had adopted the idea and refined it a bit.

They were called fascists.

" Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini

but corporatism as a political or economic system in one form or another is probably as old as capitalism.

[pnwmom]

4. So when DU'ers say a politician is a corporatist, what they really mean is

that person is a fascist?

[The2ndWheel]

5. If you go by Mussolini's definition, nt

[davepc]

7. 'fascist' has a lot more baggage then just its economic underpinnings

so to call some one a corpratist isn't necessarily to compare them to Mussolini or Hitler.

Both "classical" Laissez-faire free market capitalism and modern social democratic philosophy adhere to a separation of corporate and state power, with the former (at its ideological purity) believe corporate power is best left to be regulated by the forces of the free market, and the later believing government exists in part to be a check against corporate power excess.

fascists/corporatists believe that governments JOB is to promote and assist corporate power. "whats good for GM is good for America!" etc.

[redqueen]

2. NAFTA and CAFTA defenders, who do not agree

that any reforms are needed in order to make the setup more fair to labor and more protective of the local environment... those are corporatists.

And yes, Bill Clinton is a corporatist.

[pnwmom]

3. Do you agree with the first poster? So does that make Clinton a fascist?

[redqueen]

6. Not necessarily.

However, wasn't the whole 'free speech zones' thing started under his watch? Perhaps fascism-enabler is more accurate.

Also, I think you're twisting the other poster's words. They said if you use Mussolini's definition, then yes... not that they agreed that this was the case.

[coalition_unwilling]

8. Fascism strives for a one-party state

under a banner of extreme nationalism, militarism and anti-individualism, according to Robert Paxton's "Anatomy of Fascism." By that token, I would argue that Clinton was more a "right-
centrist" than a "fascist."

[pnwmom]

9. Why a right-centrist? Why not just a centrist,

given that some of his positions were more on the left?

[coalition_unwilling]

10. The principal reason I place him at the right-center is

welfare reform, which took a bad situation and made it much worse for the poor and working poor. Then there's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" which I see as a center-right solution to the issue of gays in the military. (Contrast it with Truman's executive order desegrating the armed forces. Truman was no radical leftist, either.)

[davepc]

11. Don't forget NAFTA

Biggest backstab of the labor movement by the left up till that time.

[coalition_unwilling]

12. True, I had forgotten about NAFTA -- we are now

reaping its whirlwind, in the form of massive migration of workers from south of the border. Many of them were forced northward by economic exigencies brought on by NAFTA.