“Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
While this was originally written by Italian philosopher Giovanni Gentile, Benito Mussolini took this statement and made it his own
The word “fascism” gets tossed around a lot, but let’s look at the history behind it so we can better understand this political movement. Mussolini used to confidently declare that the 20th century would be the century of fascism. And while he was roundly defeated in World War II, his ideology may have been the winner in the long run.
Fascism was never a well-developed school of thought, in the way Marxism and Leninism were. It emerged as a response to socialism in the aftermath of the First World War.
Mussolini’s fascism
While Italy was technically one of the Allies during World War I, most Italians did not want to fight. Italy still had a far lower standard of living than most of the rest of Europe at this time. Mussolini loved fighting, though, and published opinion pieces in the pro-war newspaper he founded, Il Popolo d’Italia (The People of Italy). As an example of his mindset, you can read his article “Trenchocracy” about the new spiritual elite he believed would emerge as a result of engaging in warfare.
In this 1917 article, he also refers to “an anti-Marxist socialism, a national socialism,” which, as history nerds know, is what Hitler called his political movement, too.
After World War I, when Italy did not get the territory it had been promised, the Italians were humiliated. Mussolini wrote up a manifesto in 1919 that included a mixture of progressive and conservative demands. For example, while Mussolini loved war and soldiers, he hated arms manufacturers and proposed an 85% tax on war profits. He also advocated abolishing the monarchy.
In 1921, however, when Mussolini officially formed his Fascist party, he dropped the progressive demands for a free republic and supported the monarchy.
Why the change?
Well, between 1919 and 1921, the landowning class decided they really liked Mussolini. Wealthy Europeans had watched in horror as Bolshevik revolutionaries in Russia slaughtered the royal family and proceeded to throw Russia into absolute chaos.
Italy had its own share of leftist agitators, too, who absolutely terrified the genteel classes. Mussolini had been a socialist for a while, but he separated himself from them in his glorification of war. Because Mussolini didn’t like socialists and because he enjoyed organizing gangs to fight against anyone he didn’t like, the landowning classes were more than happy to use him to fight against socialist groups. They supplied him with trucks and weapons and let him do their dirty work.
Mussolini’s Fascist party won very few elections. But they were put into power by a wealthy elite that feared communism above everything else.
And once in power, Mussolini worked to make it complete. In 1922 he coined the word “totalitarianism” to describe his idea of a state that encompassed all facets of life. Of course, Mussolini personally failed. But his ideas lived on.
How fascism is different from communism
Communism and fascism are similar in that both states discount the importance of the individual. The cults of personality involved in Communism have made those regimes easily identifiable. Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and the Kim family of North Korea: all these men created regimes so obviously horrible that very few people claim to want communism anymore.
But fascism is a little different in that it allows for more independent business functions as long as those businesses support the aims of the ruler. While Mussolini created a cult of personality for himself, it’s not as necessary to the fascist system, especially with our 21st-century mega-corporations. We may not see posters of our leaders all over our walls, but corporate logos are so ubiquitous we don’t even notice them anymore.
And with fascism, corporations can be the arm that wields the whip.
Meanwhile, in America, corporations punish dissenters.
The U.S. and the rest of the Western world like to talk a good game when it comes to democracy, but how truly democratic are our societies? How are dissenters treated? We like to think that the Western world is a beacon of freedom because people like Alex Jones and Joseph Mercola aren’t locked up. But are they treated like equal citizens?
The OP knows personally what happens to truly independent media outlets. We’ve been the victim of downgrading, which affects advertising and how the site earns money. We’ve also been targeted for deliberate defunding.
And we’re hardly alone.
Dr. Mercola was recently debanked, as we wrote about here. He wasn’t being accused of any crimes. His voice is merely inconvenient for the establishment. Law enforcement can’t get him for anything, so they got the corporate powers to punish him.
Some anonymous women have made rape and harassment allegations against Russell Brand. Though he hasn’t been found guilty of anything, his YouTube channel has been demonetized. Once again, even though charges against him have not been verified in a court of law, corporate powers have been used to punish him.
American Express slashed outspoken Trump supporter and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell’s business account by 90% without explanation. Again, Mike Lindell didn’t break any laws. He’s not going to jail, but corporate powers are making his life miserable and affecting his ability to earn a living.
Modern sensibilities make the average citizen laugh at Mussolini’s war-glorifying, marching, shouting, macho persona. However, we are undoubtedly living under a kind of soft fascism, where corporations work with the state to further its agenda. Business still goes on as usual in many sectors, which is why most of us are still living in somewhat comfortable houses and are not starving yet. But we do not have the same kind of government we had 80 years ago.
You might be wondering why this matters.
You may be thinking to yourself, we know who the bad guys are. Who cares what we call them?
Language affects our ability to work together. If we don’t agree on how to identify the enemy, how can we support each other against it? In Genesis, when people get too uppity by building the Tower of Babel, how does God throw a monkey wrench in the project? He makes people unable to understand each other’s languages, which takes away their ability to collaborate.
Language matters.
Do you think the other side doesn’t understand this? Antifa calls itself “antifascist,” while it might very well be the organization most perfectly aligned with Mussolini’s original fascists. They wear black, smash things, and are supported by wealthy interest groups just like Mussolini’s thugs.
Inconvenient history is rewritten.
More importantly, as the press insists on calling Trump a fascist while totally ignoring Antifa, we are living in an age of rewriting history. Just look at what happened in Canada.
When Ukrainian President Zelensky attended a meeting of the Canadian Parliament on September 22, Speaker Anthony Rota introduced Jaroslav Hunka as a war who fought for the First Ukrainian Division “against the Russians.”
Time out. Russia was on the side of the Allies, fighting with the Canadians in World War II.
So, what was Ukrainian Jaroslav Hunka up to during that time?
Turns out that the First Ukrainian Division was also known as the Waffen SS Galicia Division or the SS 14th Waffen Division, a voluntary unit under the command of the Nazi division. The Canadian Parliament gave a standing ovation to a member of the Nazi SS.
The Germans recruited this unit specifically to fight the Soviets. The Germans were well aware of the old hatred between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians and used it to their advantage. While modern sources insist that no one can prove that the Galicia Division participated in the Holocaust, they have been found guilty of war crimes against Poles.
And Galician Jews remember the story a little differently. If you want an eyewitness account of what Jews living in Galicia went through under the Ukrainians, I strongly recommend Alan Levy’s book Nazi Hunter: The Wiesenthal File.
At this point in history, it should be obvious that the Galicia Division was controversial at the very least, and members of that division probably shouldn’t be given a standing ovation and treated as heroes in countries that allegedly prize freedom.
The state-corporate merger is a looming threat.
If we don’t watch our language, if we just support the “current thing,” we run the risk of letting fascism run amok. Canadian Parliament just honored someone who fought for actual, card-carrying fascists.
If you like to read, I strongly recommend reading a history book once in a while, even if it’s only one a year. What you read online is too easy to change and too easy to manipulate. I’ve had my Simon Wiesenthal book for almost twenty years. I got it at a time when we weren’t all pretending that fighting Russians excuses every other atrocity.
Don’t let yourself get dumbed down. Don’t label anyone you dislike a fascist. The state-corporate merger was a specific political movement, one that has only gotten stronger since Mussolini’s humiliating demise. Calling things by their proper names helps us to recognize what we’re up against.
What are your thoughts?
Is this different from your perceived opinion of fascism? What are some other examples of corporations punishing those who go against the status quo? How can we fight something as big as this?
Let’s discuss it in the comments section.
About Marie Hawthorne
A lover of novels and cultivator of superb apple pie recipes, Marie spends her free time writing about the world around her.
So ist es ganz einfach erklärt. Und damit wird schon klar das es keine Linke Macht sein kann. Sie regieren nirgendwo in Europa, GB, USA. Und wenn, dann in einer Koalition wie sie in Berlin existiert. Dort ist sie ein nichts sagender Beipack Zettel der Herrschenden um von sich abzulenken, der auch nichts gegen gezinkte Wahlen unternehmen kann oder will. Diese Linken profitieren nur von den Geldern des Volkes, so wie alle Parteien und kassieren zugleich die Lobbygehälter und Prämien der Wirtschaft. Es sind System integrierte Linke. Sie wollen alles reformieren obwohl sie wissen das das Unsinn ist.
english:
That’s how it’s explained quite simply. And that makes it clear that it cannot be a left-wing power. They don’t rule anywhere in Europe, GB, USA. And if so, then in a coalition like the one that exists in Berlin. There it is a meaningless piece of paper from the rulers to distract from themselves, who cannot or do not want to do anything about rigged elections. These leftists only benefit from the people’s money, like all parties, and at the same time collect lobby salaries and bonuses from business. They are system-integrated leftists. They want to reform everything even though they know it’s nonsense.
eine neuere und bessere Welt, oder..?
Meine Großmutter hat vielmals gesagt, “Mit den Dummen dreht man die Welt um.”
Finally, an article that understands fascism. This is the story of the United States. They use idealistic socialism to make people think they are establishing a just and equitable society, but it is the same old idea of subjugation of the people so that the pigs can live in luxury. Many US companies cooperated with the Germans. They could have managed their invasions of other nations without the help of Switzerland, but not without the help of General Motors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_companies_involved_in_the_Holocaust
I too hate how some of the isms are misappropriated and people are associated with them when they are polar opposite of the viewpoint. Fascism is a good example. Fascism does encompass corporatism. But its main ingredient is nationalism. Fascism is a viewpoint that was created to organize the people against what they perceived as the enemy, unfettered capitalism. Laissez Faire capitalism to be exact.
The US had Laissez Faire capitalism until the 1930s. Its where the workers had no rights and the corporations had all of the rights along with the men that owned them, the Robber Barons. In the US, socialism took place and FDR was elected, banishing Laissez Faire capitalism. The US became a Democratic Socialist state for all purposes.
Socialism is another misused word. Its used as a boogeyman by others to try to turn citizens away from things that are good for them and to return us to Laissez Faire capitalism. But socialism isnt only left wing. Its right wing as well.
Each culture/country had this reckoning in the 1920s and 30s. Russia kicked off first and replaced royal rule with Marxist Socialism. It then became Leninism (Lenin’s form before becoming Stalinism (Stalin’s form). In Germany the post World War 1 economy was killing the common man while corporations ran amok.
Nazism was created to combat Stalinism but corporations and nationalists pushed the government to its final form. Many try to tie socialism to the Nazis, and to a certain extent Nazism is a form of socialism, but its a right wing form of socialism. Initially all socialists were invited to join the party, but as Nazism started turning more right wing, the left wing socialists started abandoning the party.
The infamous Night of the Long Knives was when the Nazis divorced themselves from the left wing socialists and rounded them to be placed in forced work camps i.e. concentration camps. So the world currently runs between Communism (Left Wing) and Fascism (Right Wing) and Socialism runs between the two in various iterations. Conservatism and Liberalism are forms of socialism. But as Socialism became a bad word, that link was disavowed. And so when people think of Socialism, they immediately think of the far left form, not of its actual meaning.
James Gregg: Thank you for your well-thought overview of the political-socioeconomic model transition from pre-depression (1930) capitalism > to the pre-WWII FDR era of centrally-planned Socialism/Keynesianism. It is obvious you have given the topic considerable thought. If you have the inclination to invest your valuable time; here is a Google Docs link to a working manuscript of my observations and research into seeking the optimum political-economy model – by seeking the goals of socialism and harnessing the market efficiencies of the Austrian model of capitalism. My conclusion is that the most equitable model is a market-based juxtaposition of David Ricardo’s “Ricardian Socialism” and Henry George’s “Georgism”.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1KOsd36mpOGRFpgrLsmNn0KNo7QwdIwgz9EZiQqVNkJ8/edit?usp=sharing
James Gregg you are so confused. Marie Hawthorne wrote an excellent well researched article on the meaning of fascism and the importance of using correct language. And then you come along and do exactly what she is trying to prevent. I will correct some of your awful misuse of language.
First of all “Democratic Socialist” is an oxymoron. Socialism is the state ownership and control of the means of production. Soviet Russia, Red China and North Korea are all examples of socialist countries. Democratic means the people are in control which is the opposite of socialism. Under capitalism the people are in control. Karl Marx’s “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” is also an oxymoron as written and in practice. True communism ie a “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” cannot be achieved anymore than a perpetual motion machine. FYI Karl Marx was a socialist.
Your statement that “socialism isnt only left wing. Its right wing as well.” is so much nonsense I had to laugh. Perhaps you would have made more sense if you gave your definition of left and right. But I doubt it.
More of your nonsense is “socialism is a boogeyman by others to try to turn citizens away from things that are good for them” and “Conservatism and Liberalism are forms of socialism.”
I cannot think of any conservative that wants “state ownership and control of the means of production.”. Conservative do believe in helping those in need and there are many examples of conservative/religious organizations doing charitable work not only at home but abroad. BTW: The government helping those in need is not socialism.
Socialists like yourself will insist that under socialism people will have more “things that are good for them”. Do you know that years ago West Germany and communist East Germany were separated by the Berlin Wall? After the Berlin wall fell the people in West Germany all rushed to the East Germany side because life was so much better there than under the capitalism system in West Germany. In fact all of Germany became communist – NOT! Sarcasm.
So what are the political definitions of left and right. Clearly Marxism/communism/socialism is on the left. But why do people say Hitler and his National Socialist party are on the right when socialist is in their name. How different were the Nazis from the communists/socialists. Not much when it comes down to individual freedom. In practice the Nazis allowed the nominal control of businesses by the owners. But the Nazis decided what the businesses must produce to support the state. Fascism would be a more accurate description of the economic system of the Nazis. Nazi Germany and communist Russia were both ruled by a dictatorship with ultimate control of the economy by the state. Individual freedom was completely subject to the goals of the state in both cases. Dissent was not allowed. The communist/socialist goal of a classless egalitarian society in which workers owned the means of production has never been achieved by the communists/socialists and never will. The communist party is always the ruling class. The communists/socialists/fascists/Nazis are all on the left side of the political spectrum of individual freedom. Capitalism is on the right side of the political spectrum of individual freedom.
Consider the fact that millions of people are migrating illegally to the greatest capitalist country on earth. The United States. How many migrants are flooding into communist Venezuela and North Korea?
Your post reminds me of an old Russian joke: Question: What would happen if North Africa became communist? Answer: Within ten years, they’d have to start importing sand.
Thank you John Adams for pointing out Greggs hot mess of nonsense.
You are welcome 1stMarineJarHead. James Gregg’s post is a perfect example of this George Orwell quote:
“The most effective way to destroy people is to deny and obliterate their own understanding of their history.”
Thank You! You wrote what I was thinking, only you stated it better than I could’ve. His response was nonsense.
You are welcome Carla H. Just trying to help Marie and Daisy.
“Conservatism and Liberalism are forms of socialism.”
Not.
Conservatism is simply seeking to conserve cultural traditions and the status quo. Liberalism is simply seeking to maximize liberty for individuals as well as for artificial entities such as corporations.
In my opinion, the best government would be an optimal combination of these goals: preserve the culture(s) while dissolving artificial barriers like race, class, caste, and so forth. I believe the writers of the Constitution for the United States of America mostly reached that form of government; however, while the Federalist Papers are studied in better government schools today, the ANTI-Federalist Papers are neglected. A perusal of the Anti-Federalist Papers reveals the faults in the US Constitution which have all come to pass as the objectors to the Constitution had predicted.
A merger of state and corporate power, unfortunately, what is being referred to as a State is already an incorporated foreign for-profit corporation, see the United States Code which is the by-laws of this corporation, USC 28 3002 15 A, “United States” means—(A)a Federal corporation. Why not call it what it is Corporatocracy? This has NOT been your government for the last 162 years. Time to wake up boys and girls.
https://archive.org/details/watch_europa
“American Express slashed outspoken Trump supporter and MyPillow founder Mike Lindell’s business account by 90%…”
I dunno why you have a cancel line thru the above statement so perhaps it’s been retracted? Lindell voluntarily used a business model that relied on constant borrowing and a close alliance with the banking sector. He could just as easily self financed his inventories and expenses and even saved money in the process.
So ……
I discussed this very issue in https://blaisevanne.substack.com/p/introducing-fasco-marxism and https://blaisevanne.substack.com/p/fascism-and-marxism-brothers-from
Having lived in Europe and studied Marxism, there are a few comments to try to clarify the air:
1) Marxists lie. They have no affinity to the truth. You can’t trust a word that they say. They will deny that they are Marxists and call other Marxists “right wing” if they think such lies help their cause.
2) Marxism is ultimately about state control. In Leninism, it is a corporatism where the state exercises its control by owning all industry. In Fascism, the state allows private ownership of corporations, but the state has the ultimate control. Possibly the best example of fascism in action today is communist China.
3) The terms “left” and “right” when discussing the different flavors of Marxism came from 1930s when snobbish elites purred over their daiquiris which form of socialism was preferable without considering other options.
4) No form of Marxism is nationalistic, but they use nationalism in order to get wider acceptance and support among the populous. The Nazis were in good standing in the Socialist International. Stalin emphasized Russian nationalism in his “Great Patriotic War” against the Germans. Chinese communists today claim that the Chinese are the master race who needs more Lebensraum to succeed. And the best Lebensraum that they eye is the U.S. Lower 48 with all its crop lands.
5) The choice is not between socialism and laissez-faire capitalism, rather it is between morality, individual rights, rule of law and civilization vs. the law of the jungle, might (wealth) makes right, perverted justice or the lack thereof, and the destruction of the individual. Crony capitalism is a de facto form of Marxism / Fascism, devoid of morality, which like all other forms of Marxism is a marriage of government and industry.
There’s an old saying in English, “Actions speak louder than words.” With the Marxists constant lying (see point one above) and changing the meanings of words, we need to look at their actions to see what they really stand for.
Excellent! Well said!
I have been a student of history since I was in high school and found out how much information in our textbooks was incorrect, patently false, and there were many things that were totally left out or ignored. My father had told me well before that to be aware that the school system, while in general at that time was very good, could and would manipulate information. And they sure did. I graduated in 1971 as the schools across the country, starting with colleges, began to teach and present the leftist, progressive, Social Democratic form of government (though not by those names or using those words) as the way America should be governed and run.
There were not very many alternative news sources that I found could be trusted at the time. I had very limited resources so I had to spend what little money I had in places where I got the most information, and most accurate information, that I could. Actually, my credo for News Reporting is complete and accurate. Fair and Balanced is open to all sorts of interpretation. As are all the other News company slogans. Off subject. Sorry.
Anyway, our family was a gun owning and shooting family so I had an interest in weapons of many types. I bought things like Guns & Ammo (mostly for Mel Tappan’s survival articles, but for the gun information, too.), and a few others.
Then I tried an early issue of Soldier of Fortune and found many of the articles published within it were about historical events, all the way back to the Romans up to then contemporary times. And a few future scenarios, too. In those pages I kept finding discrepancies between what I had been taught and what I was seeing in then current MSM. So I started to dig deeper. And discovered that SOF was far more accurate and complete than anything else I was seeing.
The same thing happened when the library ended up with a copy of the Wall Street Journal that someone donated. I read that from cover to cover, and like SOF, besides the specific articles that each was created to report, there were other news and information articles that varied from other MSM sources. I know it is not quite the same now, but at that time it was one of my trusted sources for financial and political news.
I wound up scrapping up enough money to get one-year subscribtions for each one. Then, after a profitable plumbing/electrical job, my dad bought us a Radio Shack digital shortwave receiver and a ‘police’ scanner. He mostly listened to the scanner, though I kept my one ear tuned to it, but the shortwave was my baby. I found a reasonably priced CW and RTTY decoder that I hooked up to it and began getting not just shortwave voice broadcasts from around the world, but news service RTTY and a few US government embassy RTTY dispatches. Some of the Government stuff was encrypted so I could not read it, but almost all of the News Service stuff was in the open.
I was hearing news stories from around the world, as well as many here in the states hours before the stories were printed or broadcast through US news services. It really opened my eyes even wider about the information the average US citizen was getting. And when, in relation to when it happened.
Now, SOF was a magazine so there was a delay between happen and publication for contemporary things, but that made no difference for the historical articles. And the RTTY dispatches over the are were often only minutes after something happened, and in a couple of case I happened to be listening when they happened, during an ongoing event with updates every few minutes as the reporters were in precarious positions and were telephone in their report to the local news service office which was then sending it by RTTY shortwave link.
Anyway, yes, I have understood the perceived and the real differences between political terms and definitions for many years. And seen how people react to, form opinions based upon, and act upon those often incorrect or misapplied words. And been the subject of some of them myself.
Since I am a writer, also from way back when, semantics and words usage has been a major part of my life, and often a pet peeve.
Similar to one of the statements in another reply, those that wish to subjugate us use terms that, even while they know rile us up, are diversionary to try to keep us from knowing what they actually are trying to do. The main one that I tend to hammer on is ‘gun control’.
They are not talking about ‘gun control’ as it might apply to firearms. Their goal is Total Civilian Disarmament. Just look at some of the EU countries and Great Britain. First firearms, a long time ago, and then longer knives, and now even many kitchen knives.
Those out to rule the world will use any means to first camouflage their goals and the means they will use to reach them, and that includes propaganda techniques that include twisting words, redefining words, and the one that is part of the reason I want complete and accurate news, and not Fair and Balanced or any other news company slogan, is the use of adjectives in supposedly hard news pieces, rather than opinion pieces.
When a report includes adjectives that are actually an opinion on the person or subject, then it is not accurate reporting. There should be almost no adjectives used in the news, except well labeled opinion pieces. This is not the place to give examples. They are easier to pick up in written articles rather than audio as they go past too fast. When on paper or the screen you can look at them again if you need to in order to process how that word is, in fact, the reporter’s opinion, not a fact that is part of the news. And those opinions are all over the news, without being labeled as such.
It is the same way with fascist, communist, democracy, democracy as a form of government, a republican form of government, and so on. I have a list of many different types of political systems and forms of government. It is long, with many shadings and overlaps. There is no way a reporter is going to even refer to such things, much less try to explain them accurately and fully.
Okay. I better get off my soapbox. I tend to ramble and just keep going. Sorry for that.
Just my opinion.
Thank you, Jerry D Young. Good advice, to recognize opinion pieces by adjectives, regardless where the article is placed or identified.
Liberal-fascism: rule by a corporatist oligarchy, behind a false front of liberal democracy and “human rights”. Managed via the CFR/UN/WEF network of corporations, foundations, NGOs, captured govt agencies, and the media.
“29.3: These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the ‘purposes and principles’ of the United Nations.” — Universal Declaration of Human Rights
https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights
censorship is doomed to fail because the truth gets out anyway. dems love 1a when they can use it to spray their dogma, not-so-much when republicans use it to rub dems nosess in their bidness. biden-ness. something like that. blessed be, chin up, get some z’s, see ya tomorree
Wait – are you trying to pretend that that piece of filth is true?
“Don’t label anyone you dislike a fascist. The state-corporate merger was a specific political movement, one that has only gotten stronger since Mussolini’s humiliating demise. Calling things by their proper names helps us to recognize what we’re up against.”
The CEOs and other corporate stooges who colluded with the Biden administration’s all-of-government censorship are in fact fascists, even if they do not recognize their own mental illness.
You explain the small difference between fascism and communism well. Under one you have industry nominally in private hands but they can only use it how the state dictates, and in the other the state outright owns it. Either way you get the same result though.