| Skybird |
10-03-16 08:00 AM |
Fascism is one of the slogans that get used as a weapon of verbal combat a lot without most people knowing what it actually means. Actually, defintions and understandings of it vary widely.
To me, the quintessence of it is the combination of two ideas that could in the easiest way be labelled as "nationalism" and "authoritarianism".
Famous Austrian economist R.F. Hayek gave the famous quote of "Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion." His reference is a historic one, aiming at the Reichstag state of politics before Hitler. This quote is from his great book "The road to serfdom", a book that i recommend everybody to read. It should be mandatory reading in schools, imo. But i think before that happens, Western states' governments -and non-Wetsenr ones anyway - would prefer to ban it and burn it publicly.
Regarding "nationalism" and authoritarianism", these two things get filled with live and get enacted in reality by a whole rat tail of different cultic actions, from myths about one's own ethnic peer group's "rebirth" to bombastic mass events to collective unite the crowds and reach a state of mind described as "strength through unity".
I prefer to keep totalitarianism and fascism two different things. The latter includes the first, but not necessarily does the first include the latter. Unlickly, many people use both terms synonymously, but doing so imo is wrong and not precise.
While fascism aims at a planned eocnomy, it is not really left in itself, socialist by nature. However, these political "branches" also often get carried into it and added to it from the outside. Thus you often find the combination as if it all were just one.
Nationalsocialism and fascism also should be understood as two different things which are close to each other, but not the same. Nationalsocialism is politically left by nature and essence for sure. Fascism can be, but by original cause must not necessarily be.
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