Post WW1, an Italian political philosopher came up with the term "Fascism"... I forgot his name off the top of my head. This guy influenced Mussolini and even was the ghost writer for Mussolini in his Book about fascism.
Mussolini styled his form and philosophy of government around this concept. Fascism is... Mussolini.
It's like Nazism. If you don't have an NDSAP party ID number issued pre-1945, you're not a Nazi.
Fascism, as defined by Mussolini... is (to summarize)
https://sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/2B-HUM/Readings/The-Doctrine-of-Fascism.pdf
Mussolini defined fascism as being a left-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism
"Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual. And if liberty is to be the attribute of living men and not abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State. The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, fascism… interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered – as it should be – from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and tending to express itself in the conscience and will of the mass, of the whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing as one conscience and one will, along the self-same line of development and spiritual formation. Not a race, or a geographically defined region, but a people, historically perpetuating itself; a multitude unified by an idea and imbued with the will to live, the will to power, self-consciousness, personality...."
Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually allies with the political right, especially after attaining state power. This is even more complicated when discussing Nazism, which as a socio-political movement began as a form of National Socialism, but altered its character once Hitler was handed state power in Germany. See: Fascism and ideology. A minority of scholars and political commentators argue that fascism is a form of corporatist socialism similar to that in other countries with extensive state regulation of the economy. See Fascism and ideology and Economics of fascism.
And please note... when it is noted that Fascism is "Anti-Liberal" that isn't the 21st Century of Liberalism. The classic definition of liberalism is limited gov't, religious freedom and respect for the free market.
Just because someone is anti-Democracy doesn't mean they're fascist. EVERY single form of Authoritarian philosophy is anti-Democratic.
= new reply since forum marked as read
