Public-Private Partnerships, The Undermining of Free Enterprise, and the Emergence of "Soft Fascism"

"Sustainable Development: The Hidden Threat to Liberty" was presented to the Austrian Scholars Conference 2006, March 18, 2006 Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama. One of the presenters was Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Steven Yates.

Over the past decade, the expression public-private partnership has crept into our public lexicon. What is a public-private partnership? What purposes were they supposedly created to serve? What, on the other hand, is free enterprise? Are the two compatible? In answering these questions we shall see that although advocates of public-private partnerships frequently speak of economic development, public-private partnerships really amount to economic control—they are just one of the key components of the collectivist edifice being built up around the idea of sustainable development. Within the economic arena of sustainable development is the emergence of what we might call soft fascism: a system that fits the dictionary definitions of fascism but whose totalitarian effects will be felt primarily by those who wish to walk their own paths in life rather than walk the paths the sustainable developers are in the process of laying down.

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