An authoritarian form of statism that advocates
(Notice that between the first 2 criteria, fascism promotes political capitalism without any pretense of a free market.)
Socialists and left-liberals often refer to any form of fervent conservatism as fascism, but they are incorrect in doing so.
Many people use the term to refer to any form of authoritarianism. This usage is less incorrect, but strictly speaking, fascism requires all 4 of the above criteria.
[bk]
Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, refers to the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy in 1922-1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. The name comes from fascio, which may mean "bundle", as in a political group, but also fasces, the Roman authority symbol of a bundle of rods and axe-head.
The word fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that exalts nation and often race above the individual and uses violence and modern techniques of propaganda and censorship to forcibly suppress political opposition, engages in severe economic and social regimentation, and espouses violent nationalism and racism (ethnic nationalism).
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[wikipedia]
It has become customary among libertarians, as indeed among the Establishment of the West, to regard Fascism and Communism as fundamentally identical. But while both systems were indubitably collectivist, they differed greatly in their socio-economic content. For Communism was a genuine revolutionary movement that ruthlessly displaced and overthrew the old ruling elites; while Fascism, on the contrary, cemented into power the old ruling classes. Hence, Fascism was a counter-revolutionary movement that froze a set of monopoly privileges upon society; in short, Fascism was the apotheosis of modern State monopoly capitalism. Here was the reason that Fascism proved so attractive (which Communism, of course, never did) to big business interests in the West -- openly and unabashedly so in the 1920's and early 1930's.
Murray N. Rothbard,
"Why Conservatives Love War and the State"
(originally appeared in Left and Right, Spring 1965, pp. 4-22,
as "Left and Right: The Prospects for Liberty.")
[rothbard]
[Wilhelm] Ropke recognized that as a social and economic system fascism is not a third way between the free market and communism. It is merely another form of totalitarianism that sought to "combine its general totalitarianism with the individualistic character of society." Such a middle-of-the-road policy created an extreme interventionist state whose chief production agent was the government-created monopolist.
Fascism has a grave moral defect, Ropke argued: it fails to recognize the individual as the key social unit. Right economic reasoning, he said, begins not with the nation but with human action, and right social policy begins with the recognition that society is made up of individuals with souls. Fascism, on the other hand, by ignoring the individual soul, is socialism's close cousin because it exults in the idolatry of the state.
Mises.org: Biography of Wilhelm Ropke (1899-1966)
[mises.org]
If you study the domestic policies of the Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt Administrations, and compare them with the policies of Adolf Hitler and his mentor, Benito Mussolini, you will eventually come -- however reluctantly -- to the conclusion that World War II was not a conflict between fascism and something else, as advertised, but a conflict between competing brands of fascism.
L. Neil Smith, Empire of Lies
[elNeil]
definition of the economy of fascism: an economy in which big business reaps the profits while the taxpayer underwrites the losses
Murray N. Rothbard,
"Nixonian Socialism"
[rothbard]