The real definition of fascism is an economic system in which ownership of the means of production nominally remains in private hands, but where the state to some degree directs how that property will be used. (As opposed to using “fascism” as an all-purpose term of opprobrium, that is.)
The Maryland legislature has just overriden Governor Ehrlich’s veto of an anti-Wal Mart bill that compels all companies within a description that applies only to Wal Mart to either spend at least 8 percent of its payroll on “health care” or be subject to fines called taxes. You can read about it here.
This is fascism, although we already have plenty of it in the US (and a fortiori, Maryland). It’s also a bill of attainder — legislation aimed at just a single person or entity. I don’t know if the Maryland constitution prohibits bills of attainder, but such legislation ought to be prohibited.
Effects? Possibly, W-M would just pay the added taxes as a cost of doing business in Maryland. That obviously encourages other states to do the same thing. If the states can horn in on tobacco profits, why not use an equally lame excuse to horn in on Wal-Mart profits? Or W-M might rearrange its compensation package so as to avoid the penalty. That makes many workers worse off, since they might very well have preferred added spendable money to health coverage. After all, some W-M employees have adequate health coverage through other means and political meddling with their compensation may take away cash in return for something they value little or not at all.
Or Wal-Mart could consider shutting down all Maryland operations (it’s already reconsidering plans to expand) and making this a lesson to the meddlers.
Big Labor — and this is a Big Labor political operation from start to finish — often turns to politics to get what it can’t get in the voluntary operations of the free market. This is a textbook case to show the point.
