Oglesby Thinks Fascism Lies Ahead Unless U.S. Stops Economic Trends

"Americans are now being bested by the desire to create the total system of the total world, and what lies ahead is Fascism," Carl Oglesby, retiring president of the Students for a Democratic Society, told a Radcliffe audience Saturday.

Speaking at a Radcliffe Alumnae Association forum on "How to Achieve World Community," Oglesby said Saturday that if certain trends in our economy continue unchecked, "we may be faced with the unpleasant choice between Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brand New World."

He recognizes in our society a tendency that he calls "incipient American totalitarianism, and it appears to be coming fast."

This tendency, Oglesby feels, derives from the image we have of our role in the socio-economic structure of the world. "The U.S. sees itself as a frontier of western civilization," an image that connotes a conflict between good and evil. "The wilderness," or what we must conquer to preserve our society, lies anywhere that Western values have not yet penetrated.

Flow of History

He views the United States thus caught up in a circle, trapped in the flow of history by its expansionist policies. "When Imperialism is no longer strong enough to support our welfare state, we must look to the warfare state to boost our economy. When this in turn fails, we will choose the totalitarian state."

Matching our imperialistic impulse, Oglesby continued, is a strong American desire for economic efficiency, obtained by equating public with private interests. "Just as the Inquisition was the Crusades turned inwards, totalitarianism is the logical interior of the mature imperialist state."

According to Oglesby, by 1970, 200 large firms in America, together with 50 businesses in Western Europe, will control three-fourths of the total world economy. "There is no longer any difference between Big Business and Big Government, and this is Fascism."

He maintains that the American people are being frightened by the threat of communist encroachment on the "Frontier" into supporting further centralization of the economy at the expense of their personal freedoms.

The remedy Oglesby proposed is "decentralization and the creation of human communities," which he later clarified as a stricter enforcement of anti-trust legislation. As things stand, "our humanity is being pounded out of us by the consolidated power of a nationalist corporate welfare capitalism. Get the Government out of people's private lives."