Try to sell me on fascism. What positive qualities does it have?

[adaher]

@Hector_St_Clare

3. Fascism is broadly used by its critics nowadays to mean something like “authoritarian ethnic tribalism”, and by that very broad criterion there are a lot of regimes which could be called fascist, including maybe a couple in Europe today, which have widely varying levels of economic performance. Whether they have additional ‘benefits’ depends on whether you think ethnic tribalism itself is a benefit or a cost.

I think that there must be a difference between ordinary nationalist dictatorships, which have existed since the dawn of civilization, and fascism. There was a lot more of a real ideology in fascism, whereas normal dictatorships just tended to be, “Don’t question authority and we won’t bother you.” Fascism, like Communism, wanted to brainwash their publics with very specific ideas:

1. Racial purity good.

2. Democracy bad.

3. Capitalism bad.

4. In the long term, replacing Christianity with paganism.

So whereas a normal dictatorship just tends to be the absence of democracy and civil liberties, fascism sought to create an entirely new society. It was a revolutionary ideology.

[DrDeth]

@adaher

I think that there must be a difference between ordinary nationalist dictatorships, which have existed since the dawn of civilization, and fascism. There was a lot more of a real ideology in fascism, whereas normal dictatorships just tended to be, “Don’t question authority and we won’t bother you.” Fascism, like Communism, wanted to brainwash their publics with very specific ideas:

1. Racial purity good.

2. Democracy bad.

3. Capitalism bad.

4. In the long term, replacing Christianity with paganism.

So whereas a normal dictatorship just tends to be the absence of democracy and civil liberties, fascism sought to create an entirely new society. It was a revolutionary ideology.

3? Nazi Germany was a hotbed of capitalism.
4? Doubtful.

1? Was Italy into racial purity?

I mean, we never had that many Fascist nations. Germany, Italy, Romania & Hungary?

[LSLGuy]

@Hector_St_Clare

I think this is about right. Have you seen the Inglehart-Welzel “cultural map of the world” thing? The mindset you’re talking about is essentially people who score low on the “Self expression vs. Survival” axis. Anglo American societies tend towards the self-expression pole, but a lot of other societies (particularly Eastern Europeans and to some extent Middle Eastern cultures) score far towards the Survival pole.

Eastern European nations are interesting in that while they’re highly secularized and often fairly favourable towards left-wing economics, they’re also extremely far towards the ‘survival’ pole (i.e. intolerant of cultural and ethnic difference), which is why the western European left-right axis doesn’t really work very well in the eastern European context (or for that matter in the Middle Eastern context, which is why secular Arab nationalists are often sort of difficult for western political thinkers to categorize as left or right).

Good info. For those who, like me, hadn’t seen Inglehart-Welzel, here’s the wiki with a decent explanation but no picture: Inglehart–Welzel cultural map of the world - Wikipedia.
And here’s a picture and article: https://web.archive.org/web/20131019112321/http://www.worldvaluessurvey.org/wvs/articles/folder_published/article_base_54.

@DrDeth

3? Nazi Germany was a hotbed of capitalism.
4? Doubtful.

1? Was Italy into racial purity?

I mean, we never had that many Fascist nations. Germany, Italy, Romania & Hungary?

Agree our sample size is small. And relatively short-lived. Good thing! But that means we don’t really know how a fascist nation would evolve over a generation or two. We’ve only seen the immature baby forms. Nasty though they were/are.
My impression of Nazi Germany is that it was corporatist or crony capitalist rather than entrepreneurially capitalist.

IOW, the conglomerates and other business insiders did very well dealing with the government and in turn got helpful legislation or decrees. Stability was the highest value which meant no strikes, no confiscations, and plenty of cash for the insiders in charge. Something a bit in the model of the so-called “oligarch” era of post-Soviet Russia before Putin’s siloviki figured out how to confiscate much of that for themselves.

Conversely, the word “capitalist” as used in the US today is not so much celebrating the right of the DuPonts and Rockefellers to continue enjoying their generations-old family fortunes. It’s much more attuned to the idea of the Musks and Zuckerbergs being able to create big businesses and keep the vast bulk of the value created for themselves. Sort of lottery-winner capitalism. Plus the idea that the public at large, to the degree they have any spare money, are allowed to invest it in stocks, not just put it in banks. So they too can buy a ticket to the (much) lower rungs of the lottery payout.

IMO bottom line: Nazi Capitalism = Big business good; small business immaterial. Stability good; economic disruption (Schumpeter’s creative destruction) bad.
As to Italy and racial purity, Mussolini made much of the Roman heritage. They were a race of conquerors, bred for millennia to rule. Compared to the Nazis they weren’t quite as full of the idea that there were inferiors living in their midst. But there were certainly inferiors living in nearby countries. Italy’s and Italians’ rightful destiny was to rule those places, just as Caesar had done in his day.
Ultimately, nationalism is just another variation on Us-ism. There’s an Us and there’s a Them. Them = bad; Us = good.

In a compact ethno-culturally homogenous country there’s not much difference between Us = all current residents of Slobovia, Us = all multi-generational ethnic Slobovians, and Us = all adherents to the main Slobovian religion. Trying to parse out which strand is the main one in Slobovia is difficult bordering on meaningless.

As applied to a non-compact non-homogenous place like the 21st Century USA, that multi-dimensional uniformity falls apart. In the ideal, as exemplified by the Statue of Liberty, the USA is an idea and anyone willing to embrace the idea is welcome and immediately becomes a fully paid-up member of the club. The “melting pot” or “stew” model where all the old group-isms and allegiances fade or are completely subsumed into the new.

More realistically, some of that origin stuff remains. So most of us can be USA boosters, but with more affinity for, say, western Europe than, say, Namibia. Etc., for the other dimensions of group membership.
The problem right now of course is that there are still parts of the USA that are in fact compact and ethno-culturally homogenous. As well as physically and psychologically insular and increasing economically irrelevant / doomed. For them, Us = an increasingly embattled sorta-minority that was once the ruling majority. Or so they think they remember. Them = a tide washing over Us. Hence the “take back our country” rhetoric.

[BigT]

I still like the “nationalist, authoritarian, populist” as the base definition. Additionally, I think there must be authoritarian violence. And there must be one or more groups, within the country, on whom all social ills are blamed.

If there’s more to it, then I’d like to hear it.

In my understanding, communism isn’t nationalist, BTW. Communism, when it spread, wasn’t about a nation taking over another nation because it was better, unlike how fascism spread. It doesn’t seem that communism put any sort of national purity test on anything.

But I admit that I didn’t follow this stuff too closely. It’s only since Trump that I’ve even cared about fascism outside of just what happened in World War II.

[msmith537]

Fascism is the only ideology that embraces the rights of men and women everywhere! Marching forward with their brothers and sisters in arms behind our Great Leader into a brighter tomorrow! Today!!

[Malthus]

There is no really strong definition of “fascism” as an ideology.

The Nazis, for example, had a tendency to just make shit up as they went along when it came to economic matters, and as for religion - well, that depended on which Nazi you talked to (Himmler was “into” bizarre mystical neo-paganism for the SS, Hitler himself thought that was pretty cracked - but didn’t step in to put a stop to it).

Really, they were a sort of grab-bag of popular early 20th century notions - “scientific racism”, eugenics, nationalist mythologizing, futurism, oddball occultism, anti-Semitism, cult of the great man, popular social Darwinism - all mixed together in various combinations and often, like Spinal Tap, ‘turned up to 11’; Mussolini, for example, wasn’t as big on anti-Semitism as the Nazis, until pressured by Hitler.

What unites all these things?

I’d say, above all, the notion that society should be run by a self-selected group of the most ‘fit’, chosen exactly because of their ruthless cunning, and lead by a ‘great man’ who is the most ruthless and cunning of the lot; that in effect might makes right; that no-holds-barred competition is a positive good - both between societies and in choosing the group of leaders and the ‘great man’ to lead overall.

The great man and the self-selected grip of leaders under him have every right to order society as they see fit; to ensure its purity of thought and composition by eliminating despised minorities and works; to enforce their particular ideals and ideas on the remainder.

What virtue does this ideology possess?

Its advocates would point to nature; that it is, in effect, not hypocritical - it worships at the altar of success. The best become leaders, and we know they are the best, because they forced their way into leadership over the bodies of the less-best. Lead by the best, most competitive leaders, fascist society will then be geared for competition against other societies. If that competition succeeds, then that fascist society is best.

Fascist society (so the argument goes) is better than a democracy. In a democracy, leadership is chosen by the whim of the led. The herd only wants comfort and safety, not struggle and excellence. The herd doesn’t care if it contains the sick, the unfit, the lazy. The future belongs to the fascists, who will improve the stock by culling it; order the herd with vigor; and organize the herd to succeed against all comers.

[Melbourne]

@k9bfriender

Fascism is awesome, if you are the one in charge.

As noted above, Fascisim as a general insult can mean anything you want, but as a political philosophy “strength in unity” or " populist ultranationalism" are not the same thing as “dictatorship”

And neither Hitler nor Franco ever achieved any where near the amount of personal political authority of Stalin (drawing on a national tradition of personal authority), or the amount of state political authority of Mao (drawing on a national tradition of state authority).

[etasyde]

@Malthus

There is no really strong definition of “fascism” as an ideology.

What? No, that’s patently false.

Fascism as a word was made up from thin air by Benito Mussolini. He laid out it’s exact definition in his work - freely available online as nobody wants to own that copyright - “The Doctrine of Fascism.”

@Malthus

The great man and the self-selected grip of leaders under him have every right to order society as they see fit; to ensure its purity of thought and composition by eliminating despised minorities and works; to enforce their particular ideals and ideas on the remainder.

@Malthus

Fascist society (so the argument goes) is better than a democracy. In a democracy, leadership is chosen by the whim of the led. The herd only wants comfort and safety, not struggle and excellence. The herd doesn’t care if it contains the sick, the unfit, the lazy. The future belongs to the fascists, who will improve the stock by culling it; order the herd with vigor; and organize the herd to succeed against all comers.

These bits aren’t at all far off the mark, though. He used flowery language but the end result is pretty much the same.

[Malthus]

@etasyde

What? No, that’s patently false.

Fascism as a word was made up from thin air by Benito Mussolini. He laid out it’s exact definition in his work - freely available online as nobody wants to own that copyright - “The Doctrine of Fascism.”

These bits aren’t at all far off the mark, though. He used flowery language but the end result is pretty much the same.

What Mussolini had to say about Fascism isn’t definitive though, unless you wish to argue that Nazism isn’t really “Fascism”, and that the term is confined to what Mussolini said.

For example, there isn’t a word in Mussolini’s document about anti-Semitism; there is nothing in it about the primacy of the Aryan race, or any “master race”. Yet these things are absolutely central to German Nazism.

Fact is that no two “fascist” states had the same ideology; they admired Mussolini’s results, but did not necessarily follow his ideological musings.

Which was really the point. Fascism is about results, not ideology. Some results were common to all (primacy of the state run by a great man); some were definitely not (eliminate the Jews, establish an Aryan master race).

That ideology wasn’t very well-defined by what it was, more so by what fascists tended to reject (liberalism, democracy, human rights) plus what they tended to espouse (as stated in my post), which varied over time and place; so efforts to determine what the fascist ideology actually was must perforce concentrate on what various fascist groups actually had in common, and not Mussolini’s or even Hitler’s writings alone - as neither held any sort of patent on the term!

Nor were the fascists in any way consistent. Look for example at the fascist treatment of religion. The fascists varied from claiming to be defenders of the Catholic Church in defiance of atheist Communists (as in Spain) to outright hostility towards the Church (at times) in Germany; some Nazis wished to establish their own, pagan, rituals (event though Hitler himself thought they were nuts).

[ralfy]

Not much if money matters more, and more so once that money becomes irrelevant.