In this piece I shall try to explicate US fascism and its connection to Ron Paul as a post-'90s political phenomenon. George W. Bush's failed presidency, the Iraq War and the mass opposition to it from the far right to the far left (and everyone in between) and the financial crash and massive crisis of the US economy and financial system from 2008 onward left the vast majority of Americans deeply disgusted with both parties and craving new leadership (historically the perfect storm for the growth of fascism especially when you add in the rapidly declining middle class).

The two party system is still as solidly entrenched as ever; looking back over the past several elections, third party candidates have never once come anywhere close to collectively garnering even five percent of the total popular vote (the closest election was in 2000 when Ralph Nadar and other independents polled roughly four percent of the popular vote). But this may change in the coming years; things may get so bad that long time Democrats will no longer feel the "we're-the-lesser-of-two-evils" appeal and throw caution to the wind hoping to improve the long term political prospects of independent progressives. The problem is the worse the GOP and their tea party allies become, the more compelled progressives feel to vote Democrat no matter what. And the Republican/Tea Party alliance will only worsen with time!!

Let's look at the most popular indie candidate out there today. It's definitely Ron Paul who though a member of the GOP is a "Libertarian" ideologically whose role it has been to confuse independent voters with populist impulses into thinking he's an anti-establishment, independent minded candidate whose sick of "business as usual." Nothing could be further from the truth. Paul is simply another ultra-Conservative, old white man from the deep South who hates abortion, the federal reserve (those damn Rothschilds!!), the social safety net, unions, non-whites and the federal government. His faux isolationism is tolerated by the rest of the warmongering GOP because he is such a great "youth candidate" drawing young people back toward the party with his popular stands on the legalization of recreational drugs, his opposition to war, his civil libertarian outlook and apparent "rugged individualism."

But he is a colossal fraud. Ron Paul is the first candidate to draw wide spread support from the ultra far right including many self avowed fascists and racists. The American Fascist Movement, whose slogan is "fascism forward!", encourages their members to support Ron Paul rather than fielding their own party candidate. Their website has this to say;



"...Ron Paul's track record speaks for itself. He has consistently voted against America's recurring wars over the past few decades which is fast guaranteeing America's financial ruin. He wants to end the Federal Reserve system which continues to print worthless dollars, contributing to our mounting 14 trillion dollar national defecit; while devaluing the U.S. currency by 96% since its' inception in 1913. These are the most crucial problems that need to be addressed by our government. The latter has proven highly ineffective and incapable of circumventing such problems at this point. Therefore, it is imperative for all Americans, from every facet of life, to educate themselves on Ron Paul's platform. The AFM urges that you read his books--especially "End the Fed." While democracy is a facade, this may be a critical moment for fascists, nationalists, and populists alike to use the democratic tool of exercizing your right to vote. Ron Paul is the one man that's capable to bring about progressive 'change' via democratic means but without the expense of American integrity or prosperity."

Forget momentarily that the monetary opinions of the quote are utterly fallacious. The appeal that Ron Paul and his faux populist, reactionary views has for American fascists is instructive; it shows how close Paul's views are to theirs and why he is their candidate. And Paul has returned the favor. In the 1990s, Paul gave his official political endorsement to David Duke, a former Klansman and Neo-Nazi, during Duke's two unsuccessful runs for the US Congress and Senate. Paul gave this statement of support for Duke in a 1990 newsletter putting an upbeat spin on Duke's unsuccessful run for the US Senate from the State of Louisiana that year (Duke had just been elected to the Louisiana State House the year before in a special election for the seat of an outgoing representative);

"Duke’s platform called for tax cuts, no quotas, no affirmative action, no welfare, and no busing…To many voters, this seems like just plain good sense. Duke carried baggage from his past, the voters were willing to overlook that. If he had been afforded the forgiveness an ex-communist gets, he might have won."

This should explain much of Paul's support from fascists and racists like David Duke and Don Black of Stormfront, a white supremacist site. Don Black, the site's founder, donated $500 to the Paul campaign in 2007 which kept the donation to the horror of many observers. The fact is that Paul articulates the views of the far right and is seen as their advocate, a man capable of mainstreaming their fascist views and making them appear "respectable." Don Black himself explains how the appeal of Paul to fascists and racists came mostly from his newsletters in the 1990s, which were often filled with racial hatred and wild anti-government conspiracy theories. The views expressed in the newsletters usually reflected the views of fascist groups race and other issues. A NYT article explains;



Mr. Black of Stormfront said the newsletters helped make him a Ron Paul supporter. “That was a big part of his constituency, the paleoconservatives who think there are race problems in this country,” Mr. Black said. “We understand that Paul is not a white nationalist, but most of our people support him because of his stand on issues,” Mr. Black said. “We think our race is being threatened through a form of genocide by assimilation, meaning the allowing in of third-world immigrants into the United States.” Mr. Black said Mr. Paul was attractive because of his “aggressive position on securing our borders,” his criticism of affirmative action and his goal of eliminating the Federal Reserve, which the Stormfront board considers to be essentially a private bank with no government oversight. “Also, our board recognizes that most of the leaders involved in the Fed and the international banking system are Jews.”

I don't wish to further elaborate on Paul's connection to US, and apparently, European fascism as the rise of the far right is a global trend. There is already ample research confirming this connection. We've long known exactly what he is as he is not even shy about openly sharing a podium with Birchers, holocaust deniers and conspiracy whackos of various strips. What interests me is the link between the rise of US fascism at a time of irreversible capitalist crisis and how Paul's beliefs conform to the unique nature of this dangerous political trend. Paul often speaks out in favor of states' rights and in fact, the crux of US conservatism and the far right has always been opposition to central government and the desire to strengthen states at the expense of Washington D.C. This grew out of the US Civil War (1861-1865) and the tenacious struggle to hang on to the institution of slavery.

Since the end of the Civil War, the US far right has always looked to enhance states' rights as a way of building an opposition to every progressive reform ever proposed. The opposition to racial equality through the states' rights meme is obvious enough. But it doesn't stop there. States rights is present in the Taft-Hartley Act (1947) allowing states to pass "right to work" laws forbidding a closed shop (effectively eliminating unions); the right to run federally mandated programs such as public relief programs like Medicaid and TANF according to state laws and fund them accordingly (which accounts for differences in federally funded programs from state to state); and make their own laws regarding a number of things from abortion to school prayer regardless of the federal Constitutionality of such laws (getting a SCOTUS decision is difficult). Thus, the core of US Fascism is the opposite of the European tradition; decentralization and states' prerogatives are the legal and political tools with which fascists are now pursuing their agenda.

Fascism isn't, therefore, necessarily centralized, consisting mostly of government repression. The history of the US deep south, the place where fascism and far right authoritarianism once actually existed, is an example of decentralized far right authoritarian rule where fascist intimidation comes as much from private civil society groups (like the KKK and various militia groups) as from the government itself. The restoration of the old South patterns of repression and the extending them nationally is the goal of fascists all over the US and Ron Paul's agenda will establish the political basis form its success while mainstreaming fascism by disguising it as traditional American individualism and "freedom."

The tenth amendment of the US Constitution is the legal anchor of states' rights. It clearly states; "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The idea was to ensure limited federal government to prevent tyranny. But conservatives have used it to press far right agenda as the federal government has usually been the source of reforms benefiting racial minorities, women, the poor and labor. An exhaustive 1999 report from Political Researchers Associates entitled Takin' It to the States: The Rise of Conservative State-Level Think Tanks by Frederick Clarkson documents the extensive proliferation of new right wing think tanks, funded mostly by big corporate interests like the Koch Brothers, in pursuit of the reduction of the federal government and the supplanting of its role by state authority. The role of these think tanks was less independent research than to create a conscious link between "academic" research and policy agenda in pursuit of conservative objectives. The report explains;



As the trend toward devolution of policy-making from the federal government to the states continues, accompanied by an increasing interest in various forms of privatization, the organizational, intellectual, financial, and policy-making strength of these organizations will further the interests and influence of the conservative movement. What’s more, the policy changes promoted so effectively by the state-level think tanks are often more extreme than anything possible at the national level. There are several reasons for this...state legislatures are often more conservative than Congress. They often reflect more local norms, which may derive from concentrations of conservative Christian activism, racial prejudices, or area business, industry, or corporate interests.

And here's the rub! It is state's rights, not the concentration of power in the hands of a central government, that allows the far right to pursue its political agenda in the US. The report situates the growth of this "think tank movement" in the early years of the Reagan Administration. After three decades of development, the alliance between these think tanks, parts of academia, conservative activists, corporations and the Republican Party has effectively brought us much of the legislative successes of the far right. The NYT piece distinguishes between Wall Street libertarians and rural, gun toting, lower middle class, anti-government libertarians. An effective political alliance between the two in an epoch of crisis is a toxic combination for democracy.

This alliance, the report points out, is embodied in a organization called the State Policy Network (SPN) founded in 1992 and functioning as a coordinating agency during the late 1990s for about 37 different state level think tanks in thirty different states. Originally, the organization and most of its constituent think tanks were mostly preoccupied with undoing the New Deal/Great Society legislation and programs by offering up such "alternatives" as private charter schools (with tax deductible tuition to fund these schools), the privatization of social security, welfare reform and the privatization of taxpayer funded state and local public services. Such an agenda was considered largely an economic "libertarian" set of public policy proposals which tended to neglect "social issues" of concern to the Christian Right such as abortion, gay rights, school prayer and creationism vs. evolution. But the merger of the two under the same roof came about, despite some earnest disagreements, in order to gain greater political effectiveness. The report explains this was not difficult and offers an explanation that deserves to be quoted at length;



Although corporate money and executives are the dominant presence in these think tanks, they nevertheless do not solely promote business interests. The tendency is to focus on conservative/libertarian campaigns, from welfare reform to school privatization. According to Byron Lamm, the longtime Executive Director of the State Policy Network, all the think tanks advocate “free market solutions to public policy, with an emphasis on individual rights and responsibility.” While there are often different emphases, determined by the interests of the leadership and the local situation, the think tanks share broad ideological agreement and nearly identical political agendas—primarily supporting privatization of most government services and advocating “free market solutions” to public policy issues from health care to the environment. Most have a strong emphasis on school privatization. They favor deregulation of business and oppose organized labor...the agenda of many SPN think tanks seems to mesh well with the Christian Right, and others are indistinguishable from the Christian Right’s agenda.

Much of this has to do with the kind of local control the Christian Right achieves over school curriculum and educational policy at the state level in their efforts to promote creationism, abstinence only sex education, school prayer and climate change denial. One interesting article from AlterNet shows how theocratic reasoning melds conveniently with the big business agenda of pro-carbon/climate change denial using a twisted interpretation of the Bible. They point out that, "The fundamentalist Cornwall Alliance claims that belief in climate change is anti-Christian, because it “rests on and promotes a view of human beings as threats to Earth’s flourishing rather than the bearers of God’s image” and implies that God’s creation is “the fragile product of chance, not the robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting product of God’s wise design and powerful sustaining.” On the other side of the same argument, some claim that with the "end times" so close at hand, why bother with the long term viability of planet earth? Either way, the climate change denial agenda equally serves the big business/theocracy political alliance.

Currently, SPN has affiliated think tanks in all fifty states. The homepage of its website proudly declares its "federalist" political orientation and further states;

"State Policy Network is the only group in the country dedicated solely to improving the practical effectiveness of independent, non-profit, market-oriented, state-focused think tanks...[Our vision is to]...build a fifty-state network of free-market think tanks that are the most effective, widely respected and successful policy research and education institutions in their respective states...State Policy Network is further committed to strengthening America's federalist system. We believe that freedom is strongest when states take the lead on most domestic policy issues."

The devolution of federal authority to the states is in no small part of a movement to shift the national tax burden from the progressive federal income tax (which falls heavier on the rich and corporations) to states and localities whose typically flat rate taxes are regressive and fall more heavily on the poor and middle class. In this policy pursuit big business has been quite successful; between the early 1950s and the present time the corporate income tax share of federal revenues fell from fully one third of all tax revenue collected to barely ten percent, according to the CBPP . The same process that relieved big business of their federal income tax liabilities (many don't even declare a federal income tax obligation every year) also shifted the burden to the states. A detailed study done in 2013 by the Taxation and Economic Policy has determined conclusively that the state and local tax system is highly unjust and regressive. They state as their main conclusion that,

"The main finding of this report is that virtually every state’s tax system is fundamentally unfair, taking a much greater share of income from middle- and low-income families than from wealthy families...Combining all of the state and local income, property, sales and excise taxes state residents pay, the average overall effective tax rates by income group nationwide are 11.1 percent for the bottom 20 percent, 9.4 percent for the middle 20 percent and 5.6 percent for the top 1 percent."

Shifting the tax burden downward is a core aspect of the far right's agenda. In this they've been largely successful. Further, if the federal government is starved of funds (the K Street "starve the beast" approach) tax collection will revert to the states which have less capacity to provide social programs and services that compete with the private sector and where heavier taxation on the middle class will instill a deeper hatred of government among the working and middle class. Furthermore, revenue starved state's and localities will be forced over time to sell off publicly held assets cheaply to the private sector in order to pay debts. Privatization will entail a further shift of income from the bottom to the top as the corporate rich gorge themselves on expensive user fees and premiums paid by consumers for services formerly provided by a more progressive tax system (before 1980, a quarter of most state budgets on average typically consisted of federal assistance. Now it is less than half that amount). The hope is to utterly decentralize government and further disaggregate the society by removing every vestige of policy that has any kind of progressive redistributive effect. Concentrating policy making at the state level better ensures this goal than preserving a large federal government. Also, local control ensures that the more powerless groups in society such as women, minorities, labor, the poor and others will lose the protections they formerly had in times of greater federal authority.

One of the greatest examples of how privatization agenda and fascism merge is the privatization of the US prison system at the state level. Big private prison contractors, such as Corrections Corporation of America, have seen a dramatic increase in profits from the national incarceration boom over the last twenty years. According to one ACLU report entitled Banking on Bondage: Private Prisons and Mass Incarceration, the private prison industry has profited enormously from currently skyrocketing incarceration rates. The report states;



Private prisons for adults were virtually non-existent until the early 1980s, but the number of prisoners in private prisons increased by approximately 1600% between 1990 and 2009. Today, for-profit companies are responsible for approximately 6% of state prisoners, 16% of federal prisoners, and, according to one report, nearly half of all immigrants detained by the federal government. In 2010, the two largest private prison companies alone received nearly $3 billion dollars in revenue, and their top executives, according to one source, each received annual compensation packages worth well over $3 million.

In February 2011, a jury convicted former Luzerene County, Pennsylvania Judge Mark Ciavarella of racketeering, money laundering, and conspiracy in connection with his acceptance of nearly one million dollars from the developer of a private juvenile facility. Prosecutors reportedly referred to these activities as a “kids for cash” scheme. Ciavarella was responsible for an enormous share of imprisoned juveniles. Indeed, in the span of five years, Ciavarella’s rulings accounted for 22% of decisions to detain children in Pennsylvania—even though Luzerne county accounts for less than 3% of Pennsylvania’s population. Ciavarella has appealed the convictions...The payments received by Ciavarella from the private prison developer ultimately led not only to Ciavarella’s criminal conviction but also to the dismissal, by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, of 4,000 juvenile cases handled by Ciavarella.

The Alabama Department of Corrections will pay a private prison company at least $500,000 for empty prison space in Mississippi. That's because the state's contract with the Tennessee-based Corrections Corporation of America requires Alabama to pay rent for 1,345 beds through March 11. The state has opted to bring most of the prisoners home early, but still must pay the $27.50 per diem cost. Alabama prison officials say the unused beds are a necessity, and the result of the state's chronic underfunding and overcrowding of prisons. Now that bed space has been freed up at state prisons, the department is sending inmates home a few at a time, but the contract requires the state to continue paying for 95 percent of the full occupancy rate...tate officials signed the emergency contract with CCA last June. Alabama's prison population had hit an all-time high of 28,440, and the Department of Corrections was facing pressure from lawsuits related to prison conditions and the backlog of state inmates in county jails. "We did what we had to do out of an emergency situation. And yes, unfortunately, it cost money," Corbett said. "It would be wiser in the long run and cheaper in the long run if you would properly fund corrections up front, as opposed to trying to correct your emergency situations on the back end," Corbett said... A spokesman for CCA said Alabama got a bargain in its per diem rate. Elsewhere, private prison companies have charged states more than $50 per inmate per day.

Yet while providing security, housing, food, medical care, etc., for six million Americans is a hardship for cash-strapped states, to profit-hungry corporations such as Corrections Corp of America (CCA) and GEO Group, the leaders in the partnership corrections industry, it's a $70 billion gold mine. Thus, with an eye toward increasing its bottom line, CCA has floated a proposal to prison officials in 48 states offering to buy and manage public prisons at a substantial cost savings to the states. In exchange, and here's the kicker, the prisons would have to contain at least 1,000 beds and states would have agree to maintain a 90 percent occupancy rate in the privately run prisons for at least 20 years.

Only two firms dominate the private correctional industry at this time, CCA and GEO, and the number of federal and state prisoners as a share of total prisoners in the entire US correctional system that are in private lockups is currently small (less than ten percent) but it is growing at an alarming rate and some of the worst prison abuses are reported in the private sector of the correctional system. The worst problem however, is that private prisons create incentives throughout the entire system to increase the prison population despite the ultimate fiscal burden it creates for state budgets. The reason is private profit. One of the more instructive and notorious examples involves a Pennsylvania Judge whose sentencing practices created a tremendous corruption scandal. The ACLU report describes the case;In addition, private correctional firms charge revenue strapped states like Alabama, exorbitant rates for prison space in other states to relieve overcrowding. A report by the Private Corrections Working Group states;Alabama is one of those states with strong lobbying efforts by SPN affiliated think tanks like the Alabama Policy Institute push for correctional facility privatization. Privatization of prisons is one area where ironically state budgetary problems often worsen rather than improve as a result. Privatization of the prison system and the rise of the nascent "security-industrial complex" creates perverse incentives to increase the prison population. The problem is private profit; no prisoners, no earnings. Over the past two decades, violent crime has declined as incarceration rates have increased; roughly six million Americans, or two percent of the total US population, are under correctional supervision either as inmates or parolees. And private corrections firms have rushed to cash in on the trend. One Huffington Post article points out;

The growth of a security-industrial complex (SIC) for profit under circumstances of growing inequality is a trend we should expect to see in late capitalism; years of chronic stagnation and an increased population of long term "hard core" unemployed makes warehousing people for slave labor quite profitable. It also limits the number of poor folks on the street reducing political pressure for change and reducing the number of Democratic Party voters to ensure GOP victories. Thus, the SIC is a form of repression and voter fraud simultaneously. This is no conspiracy theory; with Florida and its 29 electoral votes going to Democrats in every presidential election, the Republicans would be history! This is why the state of Florida would never change the current law banning ex-Felons from ever regaining their voting rights in that state. In fact, in the state of Florida, there is no automatic restoration of voting rights for any convicted felon and there is a five to seven year waiting period before one can even apply for executive clemency after the completion of parole and probation.

There are now eleven states that can legally permanently revoke an ex-felons voting rights (most have large racial minority populations). In the state of Mississippi, both violent and non-violent felons lose the right to vote in all but national elections for president and must have a bill introduced by their state representative and passed by both houses of the state legislature or receive a pardon by the governor in order to have their state voting rights restored. The law is interesting since Mississippi is safely Republican in presidential elections. It seems that the law is designed to ensure GOP victories in federal races for the US Congress and Senate and in state and local elections. It is quite clear that the prison system is a tool of political repression in the US.

Privatization is, on the whole, a large and complex issue. The privatization of taxpayer funded services has had mixed results although most of the time it results, in the long term, in lower quality services, higher deficits or lost revenue for governments, higher costs for consumers and lost jobs and lower wages and benefits for workers. And this is precisely its appeal to big business! The entire idea of publicly funded services is that there is a certain vital core infrastructure needed for society to effectively function. Most of these investments are very expensive and long term with highly diffuse and uncertain rates of return. Thus, the logic of collective action would dictate that such responsibilities be born by governments.

But public funding, especially when the source is progressive income taxes, results in the provision of services in a highly redistributive manner. The rich pay more for the same roads and bridges than the poor. This is one motivation for support for privatization, removing the redistributive nature of public funding. Of course, the rich get more out of the capital/labor relationship than does the poor; they should not object to paying slightly more for the roads their employees use to get to their jobs. But in times when capital has a harder and harder time finding profitable outlets for investment the privatization of "the commons" becomes attractive. In essence, they begin to feed on billions of dollars of publicly funded services and infrastructure in the absence of sufficient effective demand to drive the output of consumer goods and services.

It is very difficult to obtain good information on privatization at all levels of government. The federal government data is more accessible. Organizations like the Project on Government Oversight (POGO) point out that whereas the total size of the federal workforce has remained stable for years at around 2 million workers, the size of the federal contracting workforce has grown exponentially from about 4.4 million at the very end of the 1990s to about 7.6 million by 2005 (which is roughly where it stands today). POGO also points out that while spending on federal contracts had increased markedly over time; according to POGO, "the federal government awarded $336 billion and $320 billion in service contracts in fiscal years 2009 and 2010 respectively." This is some of the more recent data I could find. The point is that despite the fact that private federal contracting workers are notoriously underpaid, POGO found that the federal government would actually save money keeping most work in house. The 2011 POGO report found that not only were federal government employees less expensive than contractors in 33 of the 35 occupational classifications reviewed but that on average federal contractors billing rates were roughly five times higher than the full compensation paid to federal employees performing comparable services. The report concludes;



Contrary to popular belief, many government services are not performed by federal employees, but by contractors. The government spends hundreds of billions of dollars annually on services—in fact, approximately one-quarter of all discretionary spending now goes to service contractors—and POGO’s analysis found these contracts may be costing taxpayers, on average, 1.83 times more than if federal employees had done the work.

It is clear that privatization is more of a corporate scam than an effort to save the taxpayers money. It is also the biggest union busting scheme in a country where the vast majority of the remaining unionized workforce is in the public sector!

On the issue of labor union rights for workers Ron Paul supports right to work legislation banning closed shops but it goes even further than the union busting as usual approach. Both Ron and Rand Paul support a restoration of the Lockner SCOTUS decision of 1905 that introduces a bogus concept as a penumbral right called "the right to contract." This is similar to Bush's idea of an "enemy combatant" that allows one to evade the rules for treatment of either common criminals or POWs. The Lockner decision, overturned during the 1930s, made unconstitutional any law that governed the management-labor relationship. Here is a quote from Senator Rand Paul on Lochner v New York;

"You get to the Lochner case. The Lochner case is in 1905. The majority rules 5-4 that the right to make a contract is part of your due process. Someone cannot deprive you of determining how long your working hours are without due process. So President Obama’s a big opponent to this, but I would ask him — among the other things I’m asking him today — to rethink the Lochner case. . . . I think it’s a wonderful decision."

It is clear that the Libertarian view on organized labor is skewed and considers both parties to the historic capital/labor relationship to be one of equal partners in a voluntary business arrangement. The absurdity of this assumption is only matched by a remark by Ron Paul on the issue of organized labor. Here's a quote from Ron Paul from the Fiscal Times;

“Union power, gained by legislation, even without physical violence, is still violence. The laborer gains legal force over the employer. Economically, in the long run, labor loses… If only it were so easy to help the working class.”

So according to the Paul's and their ilk the Lochner Case simply defended the rights of twelve year old laborers to freely contract with factory owners against an unjustly intrusive government. Similarly, single mothers working full time at Walmart for $7.25/hour do "violence" to the multibillion dollar Walmart corporation by demanding their legal union rights (which Walmart violates daily). This is blatant fascist reasoning which always holds that the weak are oppressing the strong and must therefore be defeated. But, of course, fascism has always been about saving the rich from the dangers of escalating class conflict and the political instability and threat to the status quo it engenders.

A Unique American Contribution: Stateless Fascism

American history is fundamentally different from that of Europe. In Europe, large, centralized, overbearing states oppressed the people. In the US, the federal government was always the institution that defended the rights of the poor and oppressed. Beginning with the US Civil War to end slavery on up to federal efforts to ensure collective bargaining rights, the vote for women, an end to racial discrimination and now the right to health care, the US federal government defended the rights of the people against oppressive and exploitative private local civil society interests. Of course, there were obvious limits and the real objective was to achieve stability and save capitalism as a social system. Nevertheless, the US federal government was always on the side of the powerless in many historic struggles. Therefore, the defense (and resuscitation of) Federalism, the emphasis on state rights and local authority this essay has shown is the locus of oppression in US society as one of the core principles of US fascism and of people like Ron Paul, can be seen as an effort to defeat the rights of the working class majority by fascist repression. Political scientist Cory Robin elaborates further;



[Ron Paul's] real problem is his fundamentalist commitment to federalism, which would make any notion of human progress in this country impossible. Federalism has a long and problematic history in this country—it lies at the core of the maintenance of slavery and white supremacy; it was consistently invoked as the basis for opposition to the welfare state; it has been, contrary to many of its defenders, one of the cornerstones of some of the most oppressive moments in our nation's history...the path forward for the left lies in the alliance between active social movements on the ground and a strong national state. There is simply no other way, at least not that I am aware of, to break the back of the private autocracies that oppress us all.

And so we come full circle. Ron Paul represents the revival of federalism, states' rights, neo-confederate ideology and libertarianism which are all ideas meant to disaggregate civil society in its efforts to consolidate wealth and power in the hands of big business and its most effective political allies. Yet even as big capital profitably privatizes the repression required to win the class struggle against the working class majority such as private prisons, private security services, private debt collectors and their enforcement by local governments and private surveillance they are ironically centralize authority in US society not along political lines but along the lines of capital's historic laws of motion which concentrates and centralizes wealth, income, output and property. Destroying the federal government, destroys the main hope for reforms that have historically benefited the vast majority of people. The replacement of the federal government by localized and privatized repression isn't freedom just because it is stateless; it is simply stateless fascism.

A Simple Conclusion

"Getting Washington out of our lives" as the far right politicians like to say may decentralize much political decision making by shifting it to the states and localities. But since private corporations are highly centralized decision making that will hinge more and more on their power over time will not result in a less centralized society. Local problems will become more and more an issue for centralized authority whether public or private. The famous sociologist Max Weber taught that modern mass society would always be characterized by heavily bureaucratized and increasingly centralized authority the governing rules for which applied equally to public and private spheres; such an inevitability was merely a consequence of modernity not ideology. But the political shift from the federal government to the states in decision making won't result in more local power any more than transnational corporate outsourcing of production "spreads the wealth" more evenly; output effectively remains just as concentrated with only a change in logistics. Similarly, the shift of political power from Washington to the states and from public to private hands won't empower the people; it will merely concentrate and centralize private capital and its power over the daily lives of people. As Weber points out bureaucratic control can be public or private and equally oppressive in both cases. When corporations rule society they will use the same repressive methods of oppressive governments and with a lot less accountability and constraint by the legal rights of individuals. In other words, Ron Paul's agenda won't promote freedom; it will only privatize fascism.