"Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection"
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A cold, almost prosecutorial sentence: Wallace isn’t warning about ordinary partisan ambition so much as naming a species of enemy. “All their deceit” compresses a sprawling political landscape into a moral diagnosis, the kind meant to stiffen a reader’s spine. The target is a coalition that understands modern governance as a two-handed grip: the state’s coercive authority and the market’s everyday discipline. Used “simultaneously,” those forces stop being checks on each other and become a closed circuit, turning policy into profit and profit back into policy.
The phrase “final objective” matters. It implies strategy, patience, and a long game - the opposite of the messy, improvisational democracy Wallace wanted to defend. And “capture political power” borrows the language of takeover rather than electoral contest, suggesting illegitimacy even when the machinery looks legal. This is a rhetorical move with consequences: once power is described as capture, compromise starts to look like collaboration.
“Common man” is classic New Deal populism, but Wallace’s twist is the timeline: “eternal subjection.” That’s not simply poverty or inequality; it’s a permanently engineered status hierarchy. Subtextually, he’s arguing that fascism isn’t only jackboots and salutes. It can arrive in a suit, through monopolies, privatized influence, and regulatory capture - an authoritarianism that feels like normal commerce.
Context sharpens the edge. Wallace, a vice president turned internal dissident, spent the 1940s warning about “American fascism,” fearing that corporate concentration and militarized politics could merge. The line works because it refuses comfort: the danger isn’t a single demagogue; it’s an ecosystem of interests fluent in both money and law.
The phrase “final objective” matters. It implies strategy, patience, and a long game - the opposite of the messy, improvisational democracy Wallace wanted to defend. And “capture political power” borrows the language of takeover rather than electoral contest, suggesting illegitimacy even when the machinery looks legal. This is a rhetorical move with consequences: once power is described as capture, compromise starts to look like collaboration.
“Common man” is classic New Deal populism, but Wallace’s twist is the timeline: “eternal subjection.” That’s not simply poverty or inequality; it’s a permanently engineered status hierarchy. Subtextually, he’s arguing that fascism isn’t only jackboots and salutes. It can arrive in a suit, through monopolies, privatized influence, and regulatory capture - an authoritarianism that feels like normal commerce.
Context sharpens the edge. Wallace, a vice president turned internal dissident, spent the 1940s warning about “American fascism,” fearing that corporate concentration and militarized politics could merge. The line works because it refuses comfort: the danger isn’t a single demagogue; it’s an ecosystem of interests fluent in both money and law.
Quote Details
| Topic | Freedom |
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