Definitions
Main article: Definitions of fascism
Many diverse regimes have identified themselves as fascist, and many regimes have been labelled as fascist even though they did not self-identify as such. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and Robert O. Paxton.
Mussolini defined fascism as being a right-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism:
Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity. … The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. … Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number. … We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the ‘right’, a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the ‘collective’ century, and therefore the century of the State. (a version of the text is here).
Since Mussolini, however, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term “fascism.” Merriam-Webster defines fascism as “a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition”.[4]
Two particular definitions reflect the view that Fascism is an extreme right-wing ideology:
(1) “A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism.” --American Heritage Dictionary (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983)
(2) “Extreme right-wing totalitarian political system or views, as orig. prevailing in Italy (1922-43).” --The Pocket Oxford Dictionary (Oxford University Press, 1984)
A recent definition is that by former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton:
“Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”[5]
Paxton further defines fascism’s essence as:
“1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination.”[6]
Fascism is associated by many scholars with one or more of the following characteristics: a very high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism, a powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation, state or collective as superior to the individuals or groups composing it.
Stanley Payne’s Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism; anti-conservatism.[7] Semiotician Umberto Eco also attempts to identify characteristics of fascism in his popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt.[8] More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a “re-birth” of a conflated nation and ethnic people.[9]
Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually allies with the political right, especially after attaining state power. For example, Nazism began as a socio-political movement that promoted a radical form of National Socialism, but altered its character once Adolf Hitler was handed state power in Germany. A minority of scholars and political commentators argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that in Soviet Union.[10]
), can I assume we are debating the merits of the National ID instead? Because I don’t see what to debate about ‘Record Corporate Profits’ or ‘No Bid contracts’…both of which we’ve had for a rather long time, and both of which I have no particular problem with (the no bid contract thingy is to fix the already fucked up government procurement system…sure, it can be abused. So can bid contracts. Its the system thats fucked up, not one aspect). If anyone would like to debate those subjects, list out your problems with either of those issues and maybe we can get the ball rolling.