The honest definition of fascism is that it is the merger of corporation and state. Fascism is an economic system, and I emphasize system because it is antithetical to the non-system of laissez faire free markets. It’s a form of command economy like socialism, where costs are socialized and profits are subsequently privatized by the state rather than retained. Sweden is fascist. No more a monarchy than China is a people’s democratic republic.
The supposed purpose is “efficiency” in the utilitarian sense. It was popularized by the early American Progressive intellectual class and later the Fabian socialists in England, at the behest of their corporate masters, the people who endowed their universities and lobbied their bureaucracies. People like Rockefeller. Rockefeller famously condemned capitalism, moralized that “competition is a sin” because it was wasteful. He likened fascism to rose gardening where you sacrifice the weaker bulbs for the good of the strong.
Public schools especially universities are a model of this. We pay collectively for what is essentially job training of the upper middle class and research and development for large businesses. It has the most likely effect of consolidation of society into ever larger endeavors, a natural fit for the military which is why that association is probably justified.
Utopian thinking was trendy even through WWII when it was politically correct for a president like FDR to be good friends with Stalin. Uncle Joe and Uncle Sam. Trotsky, still championed by the New York City banking class from which he came, was much more of a fascist than a straight communist although there’s no strict difference in the sense that while you might desire or claim to desire the relinquishing of state power at some point, bureaucracy has a nature unto its own. The word took on negative connotations after (and not a moment sooner) Mussolini lost the war.
So many people who are strictly fascist take on other names for themselves, “Neo-conservative”, literal Trotskyite communists. But the larger group is probably middle of the road American Democrats and establishment Republicans. Entirely devoid of philosophy, they would never recognize themselves as such, but they are for all practical purposes. For instance, what difference does it make if you support schools, police, military, or other institutions for pragmatic rather than philosophical purposes, if pragmatism lends itself to the same outcome?
Dictionaries get it wrong because they are written by fascists. They use the word as a slur against political opponents like libertarians, perhaps the most inappropriate use imaginable. It tends to be interchanged with all the garden variety moral character assassinations, racist/sexist/xenophobic/etc... Antifa is an Orwellian name for a group whose chief objective is the eradication of free speech. Schools openly teach it in terms of guilt by association. They describe fascism as an ideology, and leave it at that. Well what is the ideology? Uhh, it’s associated with militarism, nationalism, racism, strong charismatic leaders... That’s the textbook definition verbatim. It’s all nonsense. I can think of only one accurate use in recent news media. The CEO of Whole Foods described Obamacare as not socialist but fascist, in terms of it being a merger of corporation and state. Too bad he sold out for Amazon.
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