"Techno-fascism’s cold-blooded pursuit of efficiency quickly results in a state of alienation that may not be appealing to either side of the political spectrum. If Japan is any example, the collaboration between technocrats and right-wing politicians is unlikely to last forever. In 1940, the Japanese Prime Minister announced the New Order movement, which sought to overhaul the government’s structure to create a single-party state with absolute power. Mimura, the historian, said, “It reminds you a little bit of now: everything needs to be fixed, all at once. It is a little eerie to draw that historical comparison: this is the New Order in America.” Yet the power of Japan’s technocrats began to wane. When the country started faring poorly in the war, the military pushed to continue the campaign past the point that technocrats considered feasible. Kishi, the architect of technocratic Manchuria, left the government in 1944. Still, as Mimura explained, the bureaucrats had no political constituency or party to hold them accountable for their techno-fascistic program. When the U.S. sought to rebuild Japan, in part as a counterbalance to Soviet power in the region, Kishi and his colleagues were the ones who set about industrializing the nation once more. Their status as unelected officials meant, ironically, that they could stage a return to politics without “any blood on their hands,” Mimura said. In 1955, Kishi helped establish a new political party, and a few years later he became Prime Minister."
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/techno-fascism-comes-to-america-elon-musk
#TechnoFascism #USA #BigTech #SiliconValley #Japan #PoliticalEconomy
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/techno-fascism-comes-to-america-elon-musk
#TechnoFascism #USA #BigTech #SiliconValley #Japan #PoliticalEconomy