QUORA: ‘Is fascism a form of capitalism?’

 QUORA: ‘Is fascism a form of capitalism?’

I posted the following answer:

Unequivocally, no. 

In any analysis of competing social systems, one must give the most important weighting to fundamentals. The underlying conflict is individualism versus collectivism, and the related free society based on individual rights versus statism. Superficial similarities may and do exist among opposing social systems, including Capitalism and Fascism. But that is not how one compares and evaluates social systems. The question always boils down to the fundamental attributes. The fundamentals define the systems, always. Fundamentals may overlap and conflict, as in the case of the mixed economy. But the essential conflict is always freedom versus government control. A mixed economy is a mixture of freedom and controls.

Fascism is a form of statism. Capitalism as it is properly understood is a system of individual rights, free markets, and limited rights-protecting government, which acts as the people’s legally objective agent of self-defense. That’s the opposite of statism. Statism features centralized government control of all aspects of society, including economic and intellectual, in which individuals have no rights and exist only by permission of the state. Capitalism liberates the common person to control and govern her own life. I previously answered a similar QUORA question, ‘Is fascism a capitalist ideology?‘ 

Fascism originated in Italy. Indeed, the word “fascism” derives from the Italian word “fasci,” which literally means “group.” Fascism literally means “groupism”, an explicitly collectivist orientation. Consequently, I consider Benito Mussolini to be the definitive voice of and expert on Fascism. Since Capitalism stands for individualism, one can hardly make sense of the idea that Fascism is a form of Capitalism. Therefore, the answer to the question “Is Fascism a form of Capitalism?” is an unequivocal no.

Just as a slave whose master allows him a modicum of personal free choice is still a slave, so a state that allows business a limited amount of freedom is still a fascist state. Freedom by permission is a contradiction in terms. Freedom is acting by inalienable right, and nothing else. Freedom is acting without permission, not by permission.

With this preamble, the rest of thus essay is a republication, edited and expanded for clarity, of my answer to QUORA: ‘Is fascism a capitalist ideology?‘ 

No, Fascism is not a form of Capitalism. Fascism and Capitalism are ideological antipodes. Here are some excerpts from THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM by Benito Mussolini and the philosopher Giovanni Gentile, Italy’s “Philosopher of Fascism,”published in 1932. All italics are mine:

REJECTION OF INDIVIDUALISM AND THE IMPORTANCE OF THE STATE

Fascism is therefore opposed to all individualistic abstractions based on eighteenth century materialism.

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 [sic] of man as a historic entity.

No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State (15). Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle. Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State (16).

8. Conception of a corporative state

(16) We are, in other words, a state which controls all forces acting in nature. We control political forces, we control moral forces, we control economic forces, therefore we are a full-blown Corporative state. We stand for a new principle in the world, we stand for sheer, categorical, definitive antithesis to the world of democracy, plutocracy, free-masonry, to the world which still abides by the fundamental principles laid down in 1789. (Speech before the new National Directory of the Party, April 7, 1926, in Discorsi del 1926, Milano, Alpes, 1927, p. 120)

The Ministry of Corporations is not a bureaucratic organ, nor does it wish to exercise the functions of syndical organizations which are necessarily independent, since they aim at organizing, selecting and improving the members of syndicates. The Ministry of Corporations is an institution in virtue of which, in the centre and outside, integral corporation becomes an accomplished fact, where balance is achieved between interests and forces of the economic world. Such a glance is only possible within the sphere of the state, because the state alone transcends the contrasting interests of groups and individuals, in view of co-coordinating them to achieve higher aims. The achievement of these aims is speeded up by the fact that all economic organizations, acknowledged, safeguarded and supported by the Corporative State, exist within the orbit of Fascism; in other terms they accept the conception of Fascism in theory and in practice. (speech at the opening of the Ministry of Corporations, July 31, 1926, in Di­scorsi del 1926, Milano, Alpes, 1927, p. 250). [Again, all emphasis is mine.]

Fascism thus rejects the very essential values that form Enlightenment liberalism, which form the philosophic core ofCapitalism. Capitalism emerged out of the Enlightenment ideals of individualism, including individual rights, and the autonomy of each individual to use his own reason to govern his own life. Fascism rejects individualism. Capitalism holds that the government is the individual’s agent whose powers are constitutionally limited to protecting his liberty rights, which protect intellectual, political, and economic freedom (such as rights to freedom of speech, religion and conscience, assembly, property, and free trade). In economics, this means the separation of economics and state, in the same way as the separation of church and state. Under separation, the government polices the markets for force and fraud, but otherwise doesn’t interfere in voluntary market activity. Fascism subordinates all individuals to the state, which allows no individuals or groups to freely operate “outside the state,” which “controls all forces acting in nature [including] political forces, moral forces, [and] economic forces.”

In every fundamental respect, Fascism and Capitalism are antipodes. So why do some people so often equate the two?

For one thing, many people equate Capitalism with capitalists. The mere existence of capitalists—investors, business, corporations, etc.—is not definitive proof of a capitalist system. Private enterprise must also be free of government interference or “partnership” (cronyism) to qualify as capitalist. Capitalists, narrowly defined as a business corporation, can exist under certain forms of statism, like fascism. Capitalism, in the broader ideological (or philosophical) sense, cannot.

On the surface, fascism may look like “a form of Capitalism.” By contrast, Communism, the collectivist cousin of Fascism, abolishes even superficial private enterprise. But below the surface, Fascism and Communism are fundamentally alike—both are statist. Unlike Fascism’s ideological cousin, Communism, Fascism “allows'' a veneer of private ownership. But it is not genuine private ownership, as under Capitalism. A system by which ownership of enterprise is nominally private but over which total control is exercised through the state is in no essential respect private ownership. Genuine private ownership of business or property such as is sanctioned and secured under Capitalism implies not just a name on a document but the owner’s right of voluntary acquisition, control, use, disposal, and management. Clearly, Fascism features control, use, disposal, and management only through or by permission of the state, allowing private individual action “only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State.” Marxists seize on this superficial equivocation to link Capitalism with Fascism. And they have been quite successful at this ruse. This helps Communism set itself apart from its chief socialist rival, Fascism.

But in fact, Communism and Fascism are ideological cousins. Fascism is guild socialism expanded to include all groups as identified by the state, all of which can operate only “within the sphere of the state.” Fascism differs from Communism only superficially. Essentially, there is no difference. Both are virulently anti-individualist. Both are collectivist, or group supremacist (Fascism actually derives from fascio, which literally means “group”). Both are mystical, believing in the collective as a kind of deity separate from and supreme over the individual, for whom the state carries out what it says is the deity’s will, much like a priest, rabbi, or ayatollah represents God’s will in traditional religion. Socialists merely define the deity differently—to the communist, it’s the “proletariat”, for the Italian fascist, the” universal”, for German National Socialism, or NAZISM (an offshoot of Fascism), the race. For any kind of socialism, a deified collective is fundamental. Both Fascism and Communism are uncompromisingly totalitarian statist. Both are variants of socialism; Communist socialism is internationally oriented, Fascist socialism is nationalist. The Fascist is merely more “practical”, seeking to tailor its socialism in a way that makes it more palatable to specific national and cultural realities. For example, to avoid total economic collapse, the Fascist preserves some semblance of private initiative and profit. Fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer--that is, nominal private ownership of business but controlled by the government. A Fascist, to put it simply, is essentially a pragmatic Communist, packaging its socialism to more easily appeal to a Western culture that reveres private property rights and private enterprise. The historian Steven Pinker (and others) refers to Communism and Nazism as ideological “fraternal twins.” *

Communism and Fascism are akin to rival underworld crime families fighting a turf war. Just as crime families are united in their antipathy to the rule of law, fascism and communism are united in their radical opposition to Capitalism. The only opposite to both Fascism and Communism, and all variants thereof, is the system whose government recognizes and protects individual rights equally and at all times. That system is Capitalism. So, “Is fascism a form of capitalism?” Capitalism derives from Enlightenment liberal ideology. Fascism explicitly rejects Enlightenment values—derided by Mussolini and Gentile as “all individualistic abstractions based on eighteenth century materialism.” So the answer is obviously no, Fascism is not a form of Capitalism.

Please note once again that I consider Mussolini to be the definitive authority on Fascism, in the same way as Marx is the definitive voice on Communism. Fascism arose in Italy and, as I’ve said, is an Italian-derived term. Please note also that social systems must be judged on their fundamental philosophic principles, not superficial appearances. 

 

For a more thorough understanding, I recommend reading THE DOCTRINE OF FASCISM in its entirety, including all footnotes. As to Capitalism, properly understood as a system of political/economic/social organization, I recommend Andrew Bernstein, The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic, and Philosophic Case for Laissez Faire and Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights. I also recommend The Declaration of Independence, the United States of America’s Founding document, which states in highly essentialized form, especially in the second paragraph, the basic Enlightenment principles that enable Capitalism to emerge. For those especially interested in the philosophic transition that led to the Declaration, America's Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It by C. Bradley Thompson is invaluable.

 

* [Professor Steven Pinker stresses this point in The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined. Nazism, he explains, is a partial offshoot of Marxism:

The appearance of Marxist ideology in particular was a historical tsunami that is breathtaking in its total human impact. It led to the dekamegamurders (SIC) by Marxist regimes in the Soviet Union and China, and more circuitously, it contributed to the one committed by the Nazi regime in Germany. Hitler read Marx in 1913, and although he detested Marxist socialism, his National Socialism substituted races for classes in its ideology of a dialectical struggle toward utopia, which is why some historians consider the two ideologies “fraternal twins.” (Page 343)]

Related Reading:

 

The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein

Socialism vs. Welfare Statism: Why These Terms Matter

Don't Equate the Essence of Socialism to Capitalism

Criminal Socialism vs. a Free Society

Fascism: Back Door to Socialism that Obama and the Left Well Understand

We Need a Deeper Understanding of Socialism

A is A, and Socialism by any Other Name...

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle for The Objective Standard

QUORA: ‘Fascism was not opposed to private property or capitalism, so how can it be described as Marxist or socialist?’

QUORA: ‘Is fascism a capitalist ideology?‘ 

Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian by George Reisman

QUORA: ‘Does the government become poor in a capitalist society?’

 QUORA *: ‘Does the government become poor in a capitalist society?’

I posted this answer:

Let’s first identify the basics of capitalist society.

Economically, “capitalism” means laissez-faire—i.e., the separation of economics and state à la separation of church and state. The Government’s job is to police the markets against force, fraud, breach of contract, etc, but otherwise not interfere in people’s voluntary economic decisions and associations. More broadly, a laissez-faire capitalist society is not just economically free, but intellectually and politically free as well. Every individual’s rights to live their lives and pursue their goals and values--inalienable rights to life, liberty, contract, to earn and keep property, speak his mind, equal protection of the laws, etc.--is protected so long as one’s actions don’t violate the same rights of others.**

To secure their rights, the people establish a government as their agent. Basic functions of a capitalist government include the police, the military, the court system, and related public institutions essential to carrying out those basic tasks. The government is constitutionally limited only to powers necessary and proper to carrying out these rights-protecting functions. 

A government therefore cannot be “poor” or “rich.” The question is, is the government adequately funded?  Presumably, the government of a laissez-faire capitalist society would be adequately funded, as it is in the self-interest of the citizens that the government be able to do its job. So, the government in a laissez-faire capitalist society would (or should) never be “poor” in the sense of being inadequately funded.

There’s a mountain of confusion surrounding the function of government under laissez-faire capitalism. For clarity, I recommend The Nature of Government by philosopher Ayn Rand, available on the website of The Foundation for Economic Education.

** [The true nature of capitalism is buried under mountains of misconceptions and misrepresentations, even though capitalism in practice is evident all around us in virtually any decision we make that doesn’t involve government coercion. To balance the intellectual scales, I recommend Andrew Bernstein's books, The Capitalist Manifesto: The Historic, Economic and Philosophic Case for Laissez-Faire and Capitalism Unbound: The Incontestable Moral Case for Individual Rights.]

Related Reading:

On ‘Capitalist Government’ and Corporate Bailouts

QUORA: ‘Can democracy survive capitalism?’

QUORA: ‘Why has modern capitalism risen in the West?’

A New Textbook of Americanism Edited by Jonathan Hoenig

QUORA: ‘Do you think rational selfishness compel you to donate money to causes, e.g. curing illnesses or to education?’

 QUORA* : ‘Do you think rational selfishness compel you to donate money to causes, e.g. curing illnesses or to education?’

I posted this answer:

To be rationally selfish is to think carefully about the values likely to contribute to your happiness and flourishing within consideration for the full, long term context of your life. To be rationally selfish likewise impells you to consciously place your values in a hierarchy of importance to your life, and to act accordingly. Certainly, there can be charitable causes that can fit into your hierarchy of values and to which you deem worthy of your donation. To donate to such causes would therefore be a rationally selfish thing to do, not as a duty or a sacrifice but as a reflection of your values. The only “rule” would be that you should never, as a rationally selfish person, sacrifice a higher value for something you value less. So your donations should be made as and when you can afford it, to causes you value, but not at the expense of giving up something you value more highly, such as the welfare of your children or your next mortgage or rent payment.

Related Reading:

QUORA: Is Ayn Rand's 'Selfishness' 'the middle between altruism and selfism?'

QUORA *: ‘Is Ayn Rand wrong about altruism?’

Books to Aid in Understanding Rational Selfishness

QUORA: ‘Did Ayn Rand support the idea of giving to charity or donating your own money to help other people?’

QUORA: What does Ayn Rand think about vitrues [sic] such as charity, selflessness, and friendship?

Is Science Catching Up to the Objectivist Ethics?

QUORA: ‘What do people misunderstand about Ayn Rand's ideas?’

The Pravda-ization of the American Press

A little-discussed piece of the Democrats’ statist legislative agenda is among the most dangerous to liberty long term; the schemes to subsidize private news and media organizations through tax favoritism. Under a federal proposal, “newspapers, digital news outlets and radio and television stations could claim a payroll tax credit for employing eligible local journalists,” according to the Associated Press. On the New Jersey state level, subscribers to local journalism companies would get a tax deduction, according to the New Jersey Star-Ledger.

It’s true that all kinds of government favors are dished out to private businesses. But subsidizing media companies carries a special danger, because media companies exist at the intersection of economics and freedom of the press.

In Help save local news: Give subscribers a tax break, the New Jersey Editorial Board (SLEB) writes on NJ’s proposal;

A New Jersey lawmaker is trying to bolster local journalism after more than a decade of layoffs, with some help from the government: A tax deduction for subscribers.

Under Assemblyman Roy Freiman’s bill, you’d get a $250 deduction on your state income taxes if you subscribe to a New Jersey paper or digital publication. For most families, it would be a small savings. But every bit helps.

The obvious objection is, if private citizens don’t choose to patronize these journals, why should they be forced, through the back door of tax favors for subscribers, to pay to support these journals? If the market doesn’t support these local media companies, why should the government be bailing them out? Anticipating this line of dissent, the SLEB asks;

Why, you might ask, should newspapers get a subsidy from the government? Well, other businesses do. 

This point was inevitable. Once precedents are set, they tend to grow. And government subsidies to businesses have grown like malignant cancer. Of course, the proper response to the SLEB’s question is, Why should any business that can’t succeed in the market get a government subsidy, directly or through tax favors? The answer, of course, is that they shouldn’t. *

But there’s a much larger danger lurking than merely the economic objection. In an amazing paragraph, the SLEB seems to be pointing straight at the danger involved, without even realizing it:

[The local media] have a better-informed opinion of Joe Biden or Phil Murphy than their state assemblyman, or a massive local economic development project like the $400 million Wind Port in Salem County. “I felt that I lost my voice at the Statehouse,” Assemblyman John Burzichelli (D-Gloucester) lamented, citing the lack of quality, in-depth coverage of South Jersey.

So what Burzichelli and Freiman are doing, essentially, is looking to buy, with taxpayer money, more “quality” reporting in support of their agendas; but quality, defined by whom? What kind of editorial or news content will local newspapers, which apparently includes statewide newspapers like the Star-Ledger in the “local” category, be able to maintain when politicians they depend on for financial support are counting precisely on the local news outlet to be their “voice?” What independence will be left to them when the likes of Assemblyman John Burzichelli have legislative control over the economic lifeblood of the publication? Will an editorial board of a newspaper that is at least partially dependent on tax favors be as ready to criticize politicians or their programs—politicians who have the power to rescind the tax favors? How will a news outlet respond when Burzichelli and his ilk complain about the “quality” of some “in-depth coverage” put out by the outlet?

As I’ve said, the press is not like other businesses. With the press, as I’ve said, you’re dealing with the direct intersection of economics and First Amendment liberties. The SLEB seems to get, on some level, the inherent danger:

Because this tax break is going to the subscriber, it has the advantage of not running aid to news organizations directly, avoiding the issue of the government picking winners and losers. 

Well, how is the government indirectly “picking winners and losers” any different? Direct or indirect, it’s a distinction without a difference. President Biden’s federal bill would direct the tax break directly to the company, not the subscribers. Presumably, the SLEB is against that bill, as its stated premise indicates. But, either way, press outlets would become dependent, at least in part, on politicians for their survival.

Independence from any government interference is vital to a free press. But with media companies tethered to government for economic support, their independence would be, of necessity, at the very least compromised. 

I don’t want to get too apocalyptic here. Pravda was an organ of the ruling Communist Party of the old Soviet Union under a state that controlled the flow of information across the board.** Under the federal and NJ bills, any news outlet would be free not to take the federal tax credit to preserve their integrity, although the Jersey deduction is more problematic given that it applies to subscribers. On the surface, nothing about these bills includes any direct government requirements in regard to content. 

But we can’t minimize the danger, either. The mere fact of government financial support has got to figure into the thinking of the editors in regard to content, sooner or later. This would be especially true of economically marginal media enterprises who may feel they can’t survive without the tax favors. This government lurch into the economics of the free press is a direct assault on press independence, and by logical extension on press freedom. It is, in my view, a violation of the First Amendment’s unequivocal ban on the government abridging freedom of the press. It will, in the end, through practice and precedent, be the end of the independent press if they are not nipped in the bud. “Freedom of the press” would become a hollow slogan. 

For New Jersey, it’s bill is a continuation of the Democrats’ assault on Press freedom under Governor Phil Murphy. Now it is spreading to the Federal level. These bills set America on the road to the Pravda-ization of the American press. 

* [I have often pointed out that a tax credit or wrote-off is not a subsidy, and that’s true. But unlike education tax credits or the home mortgage interest deduction, which applies to all parents of school-age children or all homelowners without discrimination, a credit or write-off narrowly tailored to specific private entities while excluding other private entities—in this instance, “local” media but not national media—it is government favoritism, and has the same effect as a subsidy. So, in this article, I will treat tax credits, write-offs, and subsidies as essentially the same thing.]   

** [Pravda was subsequently sold off, and eventually split up, after the fall of the Soviet Union.]

Related Reading:

New Jersey Civic Information Consortium’s Immoral Taxpayer Grab

Keep the press free from the academics and the politicians by Paul Mulshine

NJ Government Takes First Step to Becoming ‘the Sole Arbiter of Truth’

N.J. just became the first state to help revive local news By Susan K. Livio -- NJ Advance Media for NJ.com

Comments and Replies to QUORA: ‘Do you think atheism or communism is the most evil ideology of all time?’

The Small Brain posted a comment under my answer to ‘Do you think atheism or communism is the most evil ideology of all time?’.  I thought it worth replying to. Here is Small Brain’s comment, followed by my reply:

Communism isn’t collectivist, although it often is. I am a Communist, and I agree with your perception of society, just look up Ego-Communism, that simple. Communists don’t believe society to be some ‘God’. Also, Communism can’t descend into tyranny, Socialism can, and often does. Those nations you mentioned were State Socialist, North Korea even claims it’s not trying to become Communist, not since 1992. For example, I’m a Anarcho-Communist, meaning I support the abolition of the government, state, wage labor, and private property, that can’t descend into tyranny, because there is no tyrannical force to use tyranny as a weapon against the masses. When you say those nations are ‘Communist’, they are really Socialist, and not Communist. Communism abolishes all forms of a government, it is the embodiment of individual freedom at its greatest extent.

I posted this reply to Small Brain:

Anarchy is logically unworkable—Anarcho-Communist, Anarcho-Capitalist, whatever—and there is plenty of historical evidence to back this up. The closest humanity has come to anarchy was the pre-state tribal hunter-gatherer existence, and it was racked with such unspeakable levels of violence as to shock modern people into utter disbelief. Other examples of life without a state are the American frontier (the “Wild West” before government) and today’s organized criminal underworld, both of which were/are exceptionally violent anarchies. (See Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined)

But pretending your Anarcho-Communist utopia is possible, let’s put your claims to the test. If, as you say, you favor abolishing wage labor and private property, while also advocating “individual freedom at its greatest extent,” then you’d be advocating voluntary communism like what has existed in the U.S. (See Charles Nordhoff, The Communistic Societies of the United States; Harmony, Oneida, the Shakers, and Others, and John Humphrey Noyes, History of American Socialisms)*. 

If you mean what you say, people who don’t share your communist ideals would be free to go about their lives unmolested and uncoerced. An entrepreneur would be free to start a business and hire workers for wages to help him achieve his business mission, people would be free to work for wages, and both would be free to privately keep whatever property they earn through their work and voluntary trade. If you are sincere, you and other like-minded people would establish your communist associations by voluntary consent, renounce wages and personal property by mutual agreement among yourselves, and leave others who prefer a “capitalist” lifestyle free to pursue their values, including wage labor and private property—just as America’s Communistic Societies lived in peaceful coexistence and harmony with their surrounding capitalistic neighbors. Any other approach but voluntary consent to establishing communism is tyrannical and must necessarily lead to Soviet Russia, Red China, Cuba, North Korea, et al.

Of course, your group’s freedom to live out their communist ideals would still require a constitutionally limited government to protect your right to do so, just as America’s communist/socialist societies depended on the U.S. government and constitution to peacefully live out their creed. Freedom without individual rights, and a government of objective laws to secure them, means the freedom to do as you please without regard for others, including to rape, rob, murder. “Individual freedom at its greatest extent” is no freedom at all. For more, see my essay Criminal Socialism vs. a Free Society.

* [Like it or not, communism is subsumed under the broader concept socialism. Historically, many communists have used the two terms interchangeably, with good reason.]

Related Reading:

Moral Rights and Political Freedom by Tara Smith

QUORA *: ‘Why do people find communism so terrifying as an idea?’

Nazism, Communism, Atheism, and the Enlightenment

Individualism vs. Collectivism: Our Future, Our Choice—Craig Biddle

Does Freedom Equal "The Wild West"?

On the Barber/Binswanger Debate: ‘Freedom: For Whom and from What?’