The Coming Corporate State

'The Coming Corporate State' contains the blue-print or master plan for the complete restructuring of the British economy that would have followed the advance to power of the British Union of Fascists led by Oswald Mosley. It would have involved the greatest redistribution of wealth ever to take place in Britain. The author of this book, and architect of the British Corporate State, was Scots-born Alexander Raven Thomson: the Director of Policy and leading intellectual of the British Union. Raven describes how all businesses above a certain size would pass into the common ownership of a corporate body comprising workers, managers and consumers. The profits of each business would go directly to the people who worked in that business - rather than to absentee shareholders (as with capitalism) or to the state (as with orthodox socialism). All major decisions would be determined by a Board comprising the three groups of stakeholders already described. This policy drew on the syndicalist tradition long popular in southern Europe but developed and refined to serve the needs of British working people. The British Corporate State would also have been a key element in British Union's proposed system of electoral reform based on a vocational franchise. As communism, state socialism and capitalism have become increasingly discredited as economic role models for the 21st century, the syndical ideas of Raven, Sorel, Orage and Arthur Penty demand closer examination.

Alexander Raven Thomson outlines the (pre-WW2) British Union of Fascists economic proposals to "Democratise" Britain's economic system. The Coming Corporate State sets out in clear and precise terms the economic infrastructure that would be put in place once the British Union of Fascists came to power. British Union would transfer ownership of all industrial and commercial organisations above a certain size to one of eighteen Corporations covering every aspect of business activity. The Corporate State is a means of equating economic forces to the needs of the Nation. It is designed to end the chaos and disorder of the present economic system, and replace them by an organised economy. It is designed to break the hidden dictatorship of vested interests and alien financiers who exploit present conditions for their own benefit. These powers have driven Labour Governments out of office, they dictate the policies of National Governments, but they will never control a Corporate State. It is interesting to note that many points of the British fascist program have actually been silently realised not only in Britain but also in Europe and America. A must read for everyone.

Alexander Raven Thomson outlines the (pre-WW2) British Union of Fascists economic proposals to "Democratise" Britain's economic system. The Coming Corporate State sets out in clear and precise terms the economic infrastructure that would be put in place once the British Union of Fascists came to power. British Union would transfer ownership of all industrial and commercial organisations above a certain size to one of eighteen Corporations covering every aspect of business activity. "The Corporate State is a means of equating economic forces to the needs of the Nation. It is designed to end the chaos and disorder of the present economic system, and replace them by an organised economy. It is designed to break the hidden dictatorship of vested interests and alien financiers who exploit present conditions for their own benefit. These powers have driven Labour Governments out of office, they dictate the policies of National Governments, but they will never control a Corporate State." It is interesting to note that many points of the British fascist program have actually been silently realised not only in Britain but also in Europe and America. A must read for everyone.

Most people in the United States have been trained to recognize fascism in movements such as Germany’s Third Reich or Italy’s National Fascist Party, where charismatic demagogues manipulate incensed, vengeful masses. We rarely think of fascism as linked to the essence of monopoly-finance capitalism, operating under the guise of American free-enterprise. But, as Michael Joseph Roberto argues, this is exactly where fascism’s embryonic forms began gestating in the United States, during the so-called prosperous 1920s and the Great Depression of the following decade. Drawing from a range of authors who wrote during the 1930s and early 1940s, Roberto examines how the driving force of American fascism comes, not from reactionary movements below, but from the top, namely, Big Business and the power of finance capital. More subtle than its earlier European counterparts, writes Roberto, fascist America’s racist, top-down quashing of individual liberties masqueraded as “real democracy,” “upholding the Constitution,” and the pressure to be “100 Percent American.” The Coming of the American Behemoth is intended as a primer, to forge much-needed discourse on the nature of fascism, and its particular forms within the United States. The book focuses on the role of the capital-labor relationship during the period between the two World Wars, when the United States became the epicenter of the world-capitalist system. Concentrating on specific processes, which he characterizes as terrorist and non-terrorist alike, Roberto argues that the interwar period was a fertile time for the incubation of a protean, more salable form of tyranny – a fascist behemoth in the making, whose emergence has been ignored or dismissed by mainstream historians. This book is a necessity for anyone who fears America tipping ever closer, in this era of Trump, to full-blown fascism.

This book develops a number of new conceptual tools to tackle some of the most hotly debated issues concerning the nature of fascism, using three profoundly different national contexts in the inter-war years as case studies: Italy, Britain and Norway. It explores how fascist ideology was the result of a sustained struggle between competing internal factions, which created a precarious, but also highly dynamic, balance between revolutionary/totalitarian and conservative/authoritarian tendencies. Such a balance meant that these movements were hybrids with a surprising degree of internal diversity, which cannot be explained away as simple opportunism or lack of ideological substance. The book's focus on fascist ideology's internal variety and aggregative potential leads it to argue that when fascism "succeeded," this was less an effect of its revolutionary ideas, than of the opposite – namely, its power to integrate elements from other pre-existing ideologies. Given the prevailing opinion that fascism is revolutionary by definition, the book ultimately poses a challenge to the dominant view in the field of fascist studies.

The history and ideologies of the Far Right in Britain have been well documented, but there has been little understanding of the movement's cultural foundations. This text explores the cultural history of fascism and the Far Right and mines a seam of intense interest for both academics and students, as well as for the general reader. The book demonstrates that British fascism is essentially not just a political movement, but one that has as its goal the establishment of an all-embracing fascist culture in Britain. The contributions cover film, theatre, music, literature, the visual arts and the mass media. Striking examples of the material that they examine include fascist marching songs, "Aryan music", the creation of Mosley as a "matinee idol", even "fascist science", the cult of the "New Fascist Man" and fascist "masculinity" and "feminity". The authors demonstrate the persistence of the Far Right cultural forms from Mosley's British Union of Fascists within the present National Front and British National Party.

Ralph Nader has fought for over fifty years on behalf of American citizens against the reckless influence of corporations and their government patrons on our society. Now he ramps up the fight and makes a persuasive case that Americans are not powerless. In Unstoppable, he explores the emerging political alignment of the Left and the Right against converging corporate-government tyranny. Large segments from the progressive, conservative, and libertarian political camps find themselves aligned in opposition to the destruction of civil liberties, the economically draining corporate welfare state, the relentless perpetuation of America's wars, sovereignty-shredding trade agreements, and the unpunished crimes of Wall Street against Main Street. Nader shows how Left-Right coalitions can prevail over the corporate state and crony capitalism. He draws on his extensive experience working with grassroots organizations in Washington and reveals the many surprising victories by united progressive and conservative forces. As a participator in, and keen observer of, these budding alliances, he breaks new ground in showing how such coalitions can overcome specific obstacles that divide them, and how they can expand their power on Capitol Hill, in the courts, and in the decisive arena of public opinion. Americans can reclaim their right to consume safe foods and drugs, live in healthy environments, receive fair rewards for their work, resist empire, regain control of taxpayer assets, strengthen investor rights, and make bureaucrats more efficient and accountable. Nader argues it is in the interest of citizens of different political labels to join in the struggle against the corporate state that will, if left unchecked, ruin the Republic, override our constitution, and shred the basic rights of the American people.