What is Fascism?
By Eyre
Introduction
The word ‘fascism’ now spreads fear across the mind of your average person. When you hear the word ‘fascism’, what are some of the things that you think of first? Genocide, murder, racism, anti-semitism? After 75 years since the fall of Mussolini, fascism has become nothing but a buzzword for the enemy. But what is fascism?
Fascism is above all a movement, the push for a new world on the foundation of corporatism and nationalism. Fascism is the application of corporatism to every facet of life. The fascist/corporatist state is all encompassing, with the state acting in the interests of the nation against liberalism, Marxism and multiculturalism.
Core Aspects
I will be splitting this into different sections and discussing different things that are considered core aspects of fascism; these sections are Corporatism, the State, Nationalism, Fascism’s Opponents, and then I will be talking about Fascism’s common misconceptions. Starting with;
Corporatism
To understand fascism, you must understand corporatism. (and no corporatism and corporatocracy are not the same thing). To put it simply, Corporatism is the organic form through which the nation can find expression.The Corporatist State, being the nationalist state, allows for the value of the nation to be recognised, and is more than just an economic system. It is the tool that recognised value in everything. These corporations, or syndicates, include workers, employers, and state officials to help mediate tensions between the workers and employers. The goal of these corporations is to allow for workers and employers to strive towards the collective interest of the nation, and makes it easier for workers to communicate their concerns and needs so that there is no need for class antagonisms or class struggle. This model would be applied to everything, foreign trade, finance, construction, etc. with the Financial Corporation being the most responsible out of all of them. I find this quote from the book, The Coming Corporate State by Alexander Raven Thomson, to sum up the primary responsibility of the Financial corporation quite well;
“The Financial Corporation will bear a greater responsibility than any other, and for this reason will come under more strict governmental direction. It is imperative that the nation should control its own monetary and financial affairs, and prevent their falling again into the hands of the selfish and irresponsible minority — largely alien or bound up in alien interests — which at present dictates financial policy.” pg. 18
The purpose of the state in the interactions between workers and employers are two things primarily; to ensure that collective interests are being met, and to act as a mediator between worker and employer. For example, The British Union, if they were to have become fascist, would have based their actions within corporations on the Charter of Labour, which included compulsory weekly and yearly holiday on pay, Unemployment and health insurance provided by the State, compulsory payment of overtime rates, holiday on full pay for mothers upon birth of a child, and so much more.
The Corporate State includes artists as well. As Thomson put it;
“The Corporate State will maintain a much closer contact between artist and people. The mass, in their recreational hours, will be encouraged, by reduced prices and special facilities, to visit concerts and opera, theatres and exhibitions of pictures and sculpture, so that the artist no longer lives apart as a Bohemian rebel against society, but enjoys the patronage of the people themselves.” pg. 33
If you wish to learn more about Corporatism, I would highly recommend you to read The Coming Corporate State for more info.
The State
The concept of the State has many different definitions, depending on which side you are viewing it from, Marxists will say that the state is a tool of class conflict to help the Bourgeoisie stay in power, Anarchists will say it holds the monopoly on violence and oppression, but the Fascist definition of the State is much different and very specific. As Mussolini puts it in the Doctrine of Fascism;
“The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State — a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values — interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people. No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State.” pg. 2
To put it simply, the State is not a tool to oppress the people, it is a tool to enhance the people. The state is totalitarian not because it wishes to take over every aspect of the individual’s life but rather because through the State the value and potential of every single thing can be revealed. Everything is united, with nothing left out.
As we can see, Fascism does not wish to harm the people, nor dominate them, but to unite them as one and to ensure that the people’s interests are met. And now you must be thinking; what is the Nation?
Nationalism
The definition of a nation is a group of people with common culture, heritage, language, etc.
Nationalism, the love for your nation, the need to protect your nation, is the driving force in Fascism, and what strengthens the nation and pushes them to show their strength and worth is war. As Gentile explains in Origins and Doctrine of Fascism;
“A nation — that was capable of sustaining a war that was in every way arduous, long, and bloody — a nation continuously victor over itself, tenacious in controlling the forces in act, making sacrifices in the constancy of a faith perpetually renewed, irrespective of deficiencies, disappointments, and tremendous reversals, achieving victory, in effect, through its own virtue — could be thrown into disorder and degradation without the respect and authority required by the State.” pg. 17
The State empowers the Nation, which enforces the idea that the State makes the object’s value realised.
Fascism’s Opponents
One of the most common misconceptions I see, mostly from communists, is that Fascism is liberalism in decay, or that fascism is just liberalism or social democracy. If you were to know a single thing about fascism, you would see that this is not the case. I will read two quotes from Fascist works to showcase Fascism’s anti-liberalism.
“Liberalism, with its hideous doctrines of greed and self-interest, poorly disguised as liberty, equality and fraternity, must be completely eradicated from the public mind. In its place, the British Union must set co-operation, service and patriotism, with the final realisation that no citizen may permanently enrich himself to the detriment of the nation.” — Thomson, pg. 19 of “The Coming Corporate State”.
“Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity. It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denies the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual. And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State.” — Mussolini, pg. 2 of “Doctrine of Fascism”.
As you see, Fascists in the past have rejected liberalism due to its emphasis on the individual and its materialistic, greedy nature. This does not mean that Fascism is against the individual as a whole, as Fascism believes that the individual is important as a cornerstone of the nation neither does it mean that individuals won’t have the will to do what they want. Individuals will be allowed to do as they wish, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the State, or the interests of the Nation.
Fascism also stands against Marxism for multiple reasons. Primarily due to the influence of Giovanni Gentile, the philosopher of Fascism, and Benito Mussolini, the former Marxist. The biggest force against Fascism on the part of Marxism is the conception of historical and dialectical materialism. To put it simply and to keep the philosophical jargon to a minimum, Historical materialism asserts that history is a product of class struggle, between the working class and the ruling class (Serf vs Feudal Lord, Proletariat vs Bourgeois, etc.) Fascism denies that history is primarily due to class struggle, while acknowledging that class struggle exists. Fascism includes conflicts between nations, conflict between cultures, as a driving force in history, including multiple types of conflicts aside from just one.
And here’s the part where Fascism’s argument against Marxism gets a bit more complicated. While Gentile praised Marx, and so did Mussolini, there is a problem that comes with Marx’s quote unquote ‘materialism’. Materialism itself is the philosophical belief that the individual’s mind is influenced by the material world, and not vice versa, which would be idealism. Gentile, believing strongly in idealism, criticised Marx for his contradiction in thought. This being, as Gentile argued, that applying materialism to the concept of the past is a contradiction, as history is immaterial, a conception of the human mind and events. Essentially Marx applied an idealistic concept, dialectics, to another idealistic concept, that being history. That’s about it for the opposition towards Fascism section, now it’s time to move onto the misconceptions.
Common Misconceptions
Honestly most of the common misconceptions of Fascism can be debunked just by reading Sir Oswald Mosley’s “Fascism: 100 Questions Asked and Answered”.
“Fascism is always anti-semitic”
Not really. Before World War II, there were many Jews in the National Fascist Party of Italy. Mussolini even had a Jewish mistress named Margherita Sarfatti. Point being that Mussolini and Gentile were not at all anti-Semitic, until Mussolini was forced to please Hitler because Italy was on its knees. While it would be wrong to say that anti-Semitism has never existed in Fascism, it is not a core tenet of Fascism.
To emphasize Gentile’s anti-anti-semitism, I’ll take a quote from James A. Gregor’s “Philosopher of Fascism”;
“Gentile had never displayed the least prejudice against any racial, national, or ethnic group. He had certainly never shown any antipathy towards Jews. Throughout the years in which Gentile served as director of a variety of cultural and professional institutions there was never any evidence of anti-Semitic discrimination.” pg. 103
“Fascism is anti-science”
“Science must be the basis of the technical State of Fascism.” pg. 28 (Fascism: 100 questions asked and answered & 10 Points of Fascism,Oswald Mosley)
“Fascism promotes genocide”
No… No. Mussolini never promoted genocide in his writings. Gentile never promoted genocide. Even Codreanu, one of the most antisemitic fascists in history, never promoted genocide in his writings. Mosley never promoted genocide but he did promote deportation. A lot of fascists promote deportation over genocide in their writings, perhaps due to Christian belief as in Codreanu and Mosley’s case.
“Fascism is reactionary”
This one always makes me laugh because you either have to be completely ignorant of Fascism or you’d have to not know what reactionary means. Reactionary means that you wish for a return to a previous governmental, political, and economical structure. Corporatism is not a previously enacted system, nor do you have to be a conservative to be a fascist. Believe it or not there are actually quite a few progressive fascists.
“Fascism is slavery”
Fascism is anti-slavery. With the Corporate State guaranteeing good conditions for the workers to ensure that the workers will not be treated like slaves, and the fact that when Italy took over Ethiopia they ABOLISHED slavery, just proves that Fascism is anti-slavery. And lastly;
“Fascism is far-right”
Not exactly. Fascism combines economic left-wing policies with traditionally right-wing cultural values. This is not to say that you MUST be culturally right wing to be a Fascist though. As I said before, if you did a bit of looking you can find a bunch of progressive Fascists who take influence from the philosophy of Futurism, which itself is quite progressive. In the end, Fascism is considered a third positionist ideology.
Conclusion
Fascism is not a movement that promotes intervention, genocide, or hate, but rather a force for spirituality, unity and pushing mankind to be the best they could be. If you want to learn more about Fascism, I recommend you go out of your way to read some works by fascists, these include;
Doctrine of Fascism by Mussolini
Origins and Doctrine of Fascism by Gentile
The Coming Corporate State by Thomson
Fascism: 100 Questions Asked and Answered by Mosley
Comments
Post a Comment