Fascism (pronounced: /ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a radical, authoritarian or totalitarian nationalist or ultranationalist political ideology.[1][2] Fascists paradoxically promote violence and war as actions that create positive transformation in society (See cognitive dissonance) and exalt militarism as providing national regeneration, spiritual renovation, vitality,[3] education, instilling of a will to dominate in people's character, and creating national comradeship through military service.[4] Fascists view conflict as an inevitable fact of life that is responsible for all human progress.[5]

Ultimately, it is easier to define fascism by what it is against than by what it is for. Fascism is anti-anarchist, anti-communist, anti-conservative, anti-democratic, anti-individualist, anti-liberal, anti-parliamentary, anti-bourgeois, and anti-proletarian.[6] It entails a distinctive type of anti-capitalism and is typically, with few exceptions, anti-clerical.[7][8] Fascism rejects the concepts of egalitarianism, materialism, and rationalism in favour of action, discipline, hierarchy, spirit, and will.[9] In economics, fascists oppose liberalism (as a bourgeois movement) and Marxism (as a proletarian movement) for being exclusive economic class-based movements.[10]

Indeed, fascism is perhaps best described as "anti-ism"; that is, the philosophy of being against everyone and everything all of the time. The only place where fascism makes any sense is bootcamp. But if fascists had their way they would turn the entire world into one big never-ending boot camp.

Fascists think fascism is cool. They think all cool people should be cool with it. Anyone that gets angry or fights back is not cool.

Now you may be wondering how anyone could be so stupid as to believe in fascism but capitalism can be thought of as economic fascism. Capitalists believe that if we all try to drive each other out of business then we will all become rich. Fascists just take it to the next level.

Fascists advocate the creation of a totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through indoctrination, physical education, and family policy including eugenics.[11] Fascists seek to purge forces, ideas, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration and produce their nation's rebirth based on commitment to the national community based on organic unity where individuals are bound together by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood.[12] Fascists believe that a nation requires strong leadership, singular collective identity, and the will and ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong.[13] Fascist governments forbid and suppress opposition to the state.[14]

Fascism was founded by Italian national syndicalists during World War I who combined left-wing and right-wing political views, but it gravitated to the right in the early 1920s.[15][16] Fascists present their ideology as that of an trans-class movement that promotes resolving economic class conflict.[17] The majority of scholars, however, consider fascism to be on the far right.[18][19][20][21]

Usage by Hitler

A report prepared during the war by the United States Office of Strategic Services describing Hitler's psychological profile states:[22][23]


See also


  1. Turner, Henry Ashby. Reappraisals of Fascism. New Viewpoints, 1975. p. 162. States fascism's "goals of radical and authoritarian nationalism".
  2. Larsen, Stein Ugelvik; Hagtvet, Bernt; Myklebust, Jan Petter. Who were the Fascists Fascists: social roots of European Fascism. p. 424."organized form of integrative radical nationalist authoritarianism"
  3. Griffin, Roger (ed.); Feldman, Matthew (ed.). Fascism: Fascism and culture. London, UK; New York, USA: Routledge, 2004. p. 185.
  4. Kallis, Aristotle. Fascist Ideology: Territory and Expansionism in Italy and Germany, 1922-1945. New York, USA: Routledge, 2000. Pp. 39-40.
  5. Hawkins, Mike. Social Darwinism in European and American Thought, 1860–1945: Nature as Model and Nature as Threat. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. p. 285.
  7. Walter Laqueur. Fascism - a reader's guide: analyses, interpretations, bibliography. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, USA: University of California Press, 1976. p. 16.
  8. Payne, Stanley, A History of Fascism: 1914–45, pp. 490, 518, 1995 University of Wisconsin Press, ISBN 299148742
  9. Frank Bealey, Allan G. Johnson. The Blackwell dictionary of political science: a user's guide to its terms. 2nd edition. Malden, Massachusetts, USA: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. p. 129.
  10. Walter Laqueur, Walter. Fascism: A Readers' Guide : Analysis, Interpretations, Bibliography. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, USA: University of California Press, 1976 (first edition, 1978 (paperback edition). p. 338.
  11. Cyprian Blamires. World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1. Santa Barbara, California, USA: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2006. p. 670.
  12. Cyprian Blamires. World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1. Santa Barbara, California, USA: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2006. Pp. 140-141.
  14. Kent, Allen; Lancour, Harold; Nasri, William Z. Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science: Volume 62 – Supplement 25 – Automated Discourse Generation to the User-Centered Revolution: 1970–1995. CRC Press, 1998. ISBN 9780824720629. p. 69.
  15. Zeev Sternhell, Mario Sznajder, Maia Ashéri. The birth of fascist ideology: from cultural rebellion to political revolution. Princeton University Press, 1994. p. 161.
  16. Cristogianni Borsella, Adolph Caso. Fascist Italy: A Concise Historical Narrative. Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA: Branden Books, 2007. p. 76
  17. Griffin, Roger. The Nature of Fascism. New York, New York, USA: St. Martins Press, 1991. pp. 222–223.
  18. Lyons, Matthew N.. "What is Fascism? Some General Ideological Features". Political Research Associates. Retrieved 2009-10-27. 
  19. Griffin, Roger: "The Palingenetic Core of Fascism", Che cos'è il fascismo? Interpretazioni e prospettive di ricerche, Ideazione editrice, Rome, 2003
  20. Stackleberg, Rodney Hitler's Germany, Routeledge, 1999, p. 3
  21. Eatwell, Roger: "A 'Spectral-Syncretic Approach to Fascism', The Fascism Reader, Routledge, 2003 pp 71–80
  24. Hitler as His Associates Know Him (OSS report, p.51)
This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original article was at Fascism. The list of authors can be seen in the page history.