In the early 70’s America was protecting its capitalist interests abroad in Vietnam, while at home there was growing dissent from the public. At the time, President Nixon was determined to undermine opposition to the war and the Democratic Party. One of the products of Nixon’s abuse of power was the Watergate scandal, in which a burglary was foiled at the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee. Nixon ordered the entire affair to be covered up in an attempt to hide the truth from Congress and the American people. Eventually President Richard Nixon was forced to resign from office, and over 30 Nixon administration officials and campaign staff were convicted. Many of America’s military abuses were also made public, especially those of the CIA in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. In this week in capitalism, 1974, President Nixon announced he would resign following damaging revelations in the Watergate scandal he tried so hard to keep confidential.

Luckily today the American people have computers and cell phones, so stealing information is much easier for the current president. Not only does the current president continue to authorize the warrantless surveillance of anyone he deems suspicious (liberals, protestors, reporters) but there is virtually no serious political opposition to his actions. The current administration has indeed learned from the mistakes of Watergate, sedating the same checks and balances which called for Nixon’s impeachment in the 70’s. Bush’s impeachable offenses include warrantless surveillance, misleading Congress on the reasons for the Iraq war, violating laws against torture, and subverting the Constitution’s separation of powers.

In a prophetic article 1973, Noam Chomsky wrote:

“The Watergate affair and the sordid story that has unfolded since are not without significance. They indicate, once again, how frail are the barriers to some form of fascism in a state capitalist system in crisis. There is little prospect for a meaningful reaction to the Watergate disclosures, given the narrow conservatism of American political ideology and the absence of any mass political parties or organized social forces that offer an alternative to the centralization of economic and political power in the major corporations, the law firms that cater to their interests, and the technical intelligentsia who do their bidding, both in the private sector and in state institutions… Fortunately for us and for the world, McCarthy was a mere thug and Nixon’s mafia overstepped the bounds of acceptable trickery and deceit with such obtuseness and blundering vulgarity that they were called to account by powerful forces that had not been demolished or absorbed. But sooner or later, under the threat of political or economic crisis, some comparable figure may succeed in creating a mass political base, bringing together socioeconomic forces with the power and the finesse to carry out plans such as those that were conceived in the Oval Office. Only perhaps he will choose his domestic enemies more judiciously and prepare the ground more thoroughly.”

An anonymous quote says that “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned. In a sense, corporations are fascist institutions under the complete control of a person or group of persons, in which the common worker has no say. It is because of this that Democracy and Capitalism cannot co-exist because they’re fundamentally contradictive. It is when capitalism dictates American policy that democracy takes a backseat to the interests of dictators, and America itself becomes fascist. Such a crisis was narrowly averted in 1974. Nixon was a threat to socialists, the organized working class, and any group in general which did not support his agenda. The president unlawfully used the FBI, CIA and IRS against his opponents. Thirty years later and Nixon’s offenses are tame in comparison to those openly conducted by the Bush administration.

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