Fascism

Fascism (pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a reactionary, authoritarian nationalist political ideology.^[1][2][3][4] Fascists seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy.^[5][6] Fascism was originally founded by Italian national syndicalists in World War I who combined extreme right-wing political views along with collectivism.^[7] Scholars generally consider fascism to be on the far right.^{[8][9][10][11][12]} Confusion over whether fascism is of the left or right is due to the inability to fit the economic policies into a clear-cut category, because while fascism is considered on the right politically, fascist economic controls were left-wing, though ended up benefiting social groups considered to be supportive of right-wing parties.^[13]

Fascists believe that a nation is an organic community that requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.^[14] They claim that culture is created by the collective national society and its state, that cultural ideas are what give individuals identity, and thus they reject individualism.^[14] Viewing the nation as an integrated collective community, they see pluralism as a dysfunctional aspect of society, and justify a totalitarian state as a means to represent the nation in its entirety.^[15][16] Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state.^[17] Fascist governments forbid and suppress opposition to the fascist state and the fascist movement.^[18]

Idolization and exaltation of violence, war, and militarism are central components of fascism, which fascists see as providing positive transformation in society, in providing spiritual renovation, education, instilling of a will to dominate in people’s character, and creating national comradeship through the military service.^[19] Fascists view violence and war as actions that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality.^[20]

Fascism rejects the concepts of egalitarianism, materialism, and rationalism in favour of action, discipline, hierarchy, spirit, and will.^[21] Fascists oppose liberalism (as a bourgeois movement) and Marxism (as a proletarian movement) for being exclusive economic class-based movements.^[22] Fascists present their ideology as that of an economically trans-class movement that promotes ending economic class conflict to secure national solidarity.^[23] They believe that economic classes are not capable of properly governing a nation, and that a merit-based elite of experienced military persons must rule through regimenting a nation’s forces of production and securing the nation’s independence.^[24] Fascism perceives conservatism as partly valuable for its support of order in society but disagrees with its typical opposition to change and modernization.^[25] Fascism presents itself as a solution to the perceived benefits and disadvantages of conservatism by advocating state-controlled modernization that promotes orderly change while resisting the dangers to order in society of pluralism and independent initiative.^[25]

Fascists tend to support a “third position” in economic policy, which they believe superior to both the rampant individualism of laissez-faire capitalism and the severe control of state socialism.^[26][27] Italian Fascism and most other fascist movements promote a corporatist economy whereby, in theory, representatives of capital and labour interest groups work together within sectoral corporations to create both harmonious labour relations and maximization of production that would serve the national interest.^[28] However, other fascist movements and ideologies, such as Nazism, did not use this form of economy.^[28]