We hear the word “fascist” a lot in today’s political climate, mainly thrown at those on the right as an epithet.

It seems to be applied to someone mainly authoritarian, but probably racist is up there too. Lumped in there are people who fly American flags, because they are patriotic > nationalist > xenophobic > racist, etc.

Years ago I decided I didn’t really know enough about what fascists actually believe, and so I decided to start reading some source material to find out, not what non-fascists say about fascists, but what do the fascists themselves say. This book is NOT by fascists, but it does attempt to look at the ideology in an objective light.

I’m drawing the comments here from Zeev Sternhell’s paper called Fascist Ideology. Much of what he writes, I was already aware of through reading source materials, but his recap of the intellectual climate of the time, along with his emphasis on the actual ideology as the defining element of a movement was enlightening for me.

Too often we think in terms of very imprecise relations, such as I mentioned above, as being enough to classify someone. So the modern left tends to see any authoritarian look on the right as “fascist”. But authoritarianism, while a part of fascism, isn’t enough to define someone as fascist. Communism is also authoritarian, as is monarchy, as are theocratic regimes like Iran and Afghanistan. Neither is being nationalist. Almost all nations and people are “nationalist” to various degrees. Nor is racism a marker of fascism. Even though the Nazi’s were explictly racialist in their particular form of fascism, fascism per se doesn’t require racialism at all, and in fact, it wasn’t a part of Italian fascism until much later under German influence. More on that in a few paragraphs.

The overriding ideological basis in fascism is their understanding of the nation. It was their views on the nation that pretty much laid down the foundation of everything else. If the ideological basis isn’t there, then some structural similarities aren’t enough to define something as fascism.

The two main places fascism popped up: Italy and Germany, were both European nations with long histories, that were unable to unite until relatively late- both around 1870. This left them both in weakened positions among the other strong nations of Europe, and in somewhat of a inferiority complex, and feeling like they had something to prove. This would prove to be decisive in why they went fascist, while other nations didn’t.

Almost all the intellectuals of fascism began as socialists. As a very brief refresher, Marx defined socialism as the economic system that would arise after capitalism collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions. Marx held that capitalism would continue to concentrate power and wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer until the working class would finally understand that they were being oppressed as a class (class consciousness), rise up, overthrow the capitalist and bourgeoisie, and seize the means of production, forming what he called the dictatorship of the proletariat. They would abolish private property and live collectively, not for personal gain, but for the good of the collective society. There would need to be a State to direct this at first, but eventually, the State would be abolished as unnecessary. Marx saw the working class all over the world as natural brothers, that would unite against the capitalists.

The pre-fascist thinkers came to see the Marxist socialist idea of class consciousness, which would lead to class conflict and the dictatorship of the proletariat, as unnecessarily divisive. The better way would be to unite all society behind the nation, developing national consciousness. In Germany, this national consciousness was replaced by a race consciousness. They would use the socialist collective model of working together to form a new type of society, but the focus was on national, rather than international socialism.

A few other intellectual threads was weaving through Europe at the same time- Romanticism, which stressed the subjectivity, imagination, passion and intuition, heroism as a response to rationalism and economic materialism; and Darwinism, which many thinkers took too far in its concept of the survival of the fittest.

The ideological foundations of fascism start with the particular concept of the nation.

Fascist thought that the liberal notion of humans as formed prior to society and then grouping together to form societies, is fundamentally wrong. Fascism says humans are formed by pre-existing social realities. Language, habits, values, instincts, and loyalties all precede choice. Man as an individual then is a later abstraction, not a natural unit. Society isn’t a contract, or an aggregation of wills, it is a body, an organism with a living, historical reality. The nation was what shaped individuals, whether they choose it or not. The nation was embodied in its language, customs, transmitted through education and memory, expressed in myths, symbols, and rituals. Every people has a national spirit, a particular, historical, and non-universal culture.

The nation then has a shared historical trajectory, that trajectory produces characteristic values and instincts, and those values are what expresses what flourishes for that people, and therefore, the nation has interests independent of individual opinions. The nation has direction, tendency, telos (purpose or goal) and exists in action. The State is what gives that will consciousness.

From this, individuals are understood to be analogous to cells in the body. Cells don’t vote on the body’s direction, and cells that act independently of the body are cancerous. Then from this, the fascists conclude that individual rights are conditional, dissent threatens coherence, and pluralism is pathology, not diversity, which is why repression follows so directly.

The liberal promise of individuals being born with inalienable rights, being allowed freedom to determine their own direction as long as it doesn’t infringe on the rights of others, is absolutely contrary to fascism. Liberalism considers men equals, which means debate to come to resolutions. Fascism considers this nonsense. It sees nature as a natural hierarchy, and the Darwinist notion of survival of the fittest means that not only will the strong survive against the weak, it actually good to eliminate the weak. It saw the natural differences of men and deduced the best should lead the lesser, this was natural and good.

What does fascism believe?

Civilization is in an existential crisis that requires total solutions, and only a total revolution- spiritual, moral, political and social- can save society.

Fascism is a revolt against liberal modernity. It is a total rejection of liberal civilization: individualism and natural rights, parliamentary democracy and pluralism, rationalism, positivism and enlightenment universalism, and bourgeois materialism and the pursuit of comfort. Liberal democracy is seen as not only inefficient, but decadent, emasculating, and corrosive.

The collective over the individual, who has no intrinsic value outside the community. Rights exist only through the State, and man’s humanity is realized only through collective life. Society is the end, man is the means.

I’ll state here that the fascists, like many today, set up a straw man around the concept of individualism. The fascists saw individualism as elevating greed and self-interest over everything else. The collectivism they got from Marx was a belief that when we all work towards a goal, we will achieve it and overcome societal problems. But individualism was never pushed as elevating greed; it was an essential part of freeing the individual from the tyranny of rulers. It never said there was no difference in men’s capabilities, or that they should only pursue their own self-interests. The point was that individuals were accepted as being free moral agents with a right to define their own goals, provided they didn’t infringe on others equal rights.
The collective, on the other hand, while it sounds more cooperative and considerate, actually removes all individual members’ rights and subjects them to the “collective” will, which will always be defined by a small group of leaders.

Democracy and Parliamentarism are fundamentally false. Parliaments are rule by detached elites masquerading as representation. Debate and compromise inherent in parliaments are weak, and universal suffrage empowers mediocrity and stifles excellence.

Social Darwinism shows a natural hierarchy; elites are biologically and spiritually superior. Equality is a myth contradicted by nature. Therefore fascism believes in rule by a minority, contempt for mass democracy, and accepts domination as the natural law.

Human behavior is driven by instinct, emotion, myth, and will. Rational argument breeds doubt, division, and paralysis, and intellectualism is hostile to unity and vitality.

Fascism celebrates action, violence and heroism. Action is a metaphysical principle: action is life, inaction is decay, and violence is regenerative, not pathological. Heroism, sacrifice, and struggle are treated as moral virtues, means of national rebirth, and antidotes to bourgeois decadence. War and conflict are not aberrations, but expressions of vitality.

Fascism is anti-capitalist, but not anti-property, socialist, but anti-Marxist, collectivist but nationalist. It rejects class struggle and integrates workers into the national community. Corporatism is a means of harmonizing interests, and the State will control the economy through authority, not ownership.

The State is the supreme organizing principle, reconciling social conflict, directing economic life, and embodying the moral unity of the nation.

Fascism is a new way of living in society, and totalitarian in its dominion over society. Nothing exists outside the State, no moral or social autonomy is tolerated, and dissent is considered a pathological deviation. The aim is a new man, a new morality, a new civilization.

Unity requires embodiment of the nation’s will in a leader, who will incarnate its history, destiny, and virtues. The cult of the leader resolves political fragmentation, social pluralism, and individual dissent.

Fascism will function as a political religion and faith, offering meaning, belonging, and transcendence, and replacing liberal rationalism with collective myth. The mystical dimension is essential.

In summary, I’m not sure that any of the current movements in America qualify as fascist, if fascism needs to start from this ideological basis. There are some that are pretty close in a lot of their beliefs, and granted, from what I’ve read of fascism from actual American fascists, fascism will appear differently in different nations because they are inherently nationalist movements that must consider the native national elements.

Given the fascist notion of the nation, developed in Italy, that the pre-existing nation is what formed the individuals, and that the nation had a direction and telos given its “particular, historical, and non-universal culture”, it’s perhaps a tough sell in the Americas, were every nation is essentially composed of immigrants from elsewhere. So some of the base elements that fascists referred to are missing, and yet we managed to assemble a nation without them. Perhaps this is why fascists in the US tend to imitate either Italian or German fascists, because they either don’t understand the intellectual underpinnings of fascism, or perhaps because the elements necessary for it are missing here.