By Cliff Potts

Dateline: September 15, 2025

The Fascist Sales Pitch

It sounds tidy in a boardroom: “The USA is a business. It should be run like one.” This idea has been floated by authoritarian politicians, right-wing think tanks, and corporate apologists for decades. The pitch is simple: efficiency, profit, and “strong leadership” will clean up the mess of democracy.

But the line is a lie. It is fascist propaganda dressed in MBA jargon, designed to replace citizen sovereignty with consumer loyalty and to hand the republic over to a CEO-strongman.

Citizens Are Not Employees

The U.S. Constitution does not establish shareholders or a CEO. It enshrines citizens as the sovereign authority. The people are not customers or employees; they are the very owners of the system, endowed with rights that cannot be revoked because they are “unprofitable.”

If the United States were a business, the poor, elderly, and disabled would be expendable—discarded for not producing returns. That is not democracy. That is Mussolini’s corporate-state fascism in practice (Paxton, 2004).

Profit Versus People

Businesses exist to maximize returns. Nations exist to safeguard rights, provide common defense, and promote the general welfare. These are not interchangeable missions. Applying the logic of profit to governance inevitably means prioritizing markets over human beings.

This is why neoliberal regimes slash social services, privatize water, and sell off infrastructure to the highest bidder—all in the name of “efficiency.” Efficiency becomes a euphemism for dismantling protections (Harvey, 2007).

The Myth of Efficiency

Democracy is not supposed to be efficient. It is supposed to be accountable. Debate, compromise, and transparency are what keep power from concentrating in one pair of hands. A corporation runs on hierarchy; a republic runs on law.

The fascist fantasy of “running America like a business” is not about fixing potholes faster. It is about silencing dissent, crushing labor, and installing a strongman under the guise of management (Sternhell, 1994).

The Republic, Not the Boardroom

The United States is not a business. It is a constitutional republic built on rights, not returns. Treating it like a corporation is not reform—it is betrayal.

Conclusion

The next time some cigar-chomping wannabe Caesar tells you “America is a business,” remember this: you are not a customer in his store—you are the owner of the goddamn building. And if he doesn’t like it, he can take his golden parachute and jump straight into the trash bin of history. Understand?

References

Harvey, D. (2007). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.

Paxton, R. O. (2004). The Anatomy of Fascism. Vintage.

Sternhell, Z. (1994). The Birth of Fascist Ideology. Princeton University Press.

https://endfascism.xyz