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• Needs of the State Supercede Needs of Individual (Score:1)

  by GeekOnDemand (3249)

  I would say fascism is any ideology where individual or minority group needs/rights are superceded by the needs/rights of the state. I suppose that "state" could be replaced by any "authority figure"... so I could say "my boss is a fascist" if his needs supercede mine without discussion. Fascism is a combination of myopia and selfishness on the part of those in authority.
  • Re:Needs of the State Supercede Needs of Individua (Score:2)

    by rafael (2125)

    That's much too broad for a definition. You need to add some more characteristics : * the state controls every aspect of the life -- unions, political parties, media, judiciary system. Political opposition is considered unpatriotic and is forbidden. * economically, fascism is opposed to both liberal capitalism and to communism. The economy is indirectly state-controlled, via regroupments of corporations, which are controlled by private tycoons with sympathies for the state, that helps them maintaining lar
  • Re: (Score:2)

    by pudge (1)

    I would say fascism is any ideology where individual or minority group needs/rights are superceded by the needs/rights of the state.

    So any government that taxes the rich is fascist?
    
    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jdavidb (1361)

      +1, insightful

      Actually, that would make any government that taxes at all, fascist.

      --
      J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pudge (1)

        Actually, that would make any government that taxes at all, fascist.

        Not necssarily. He talked about individual/minority rights superceding state interests, and you could make the argument that where everyone is taxed equally (or even proportionally) that you are not going after individual/minority rights (although you could also make the opposite case). But there's no such argument to be made for progressive taxation: that is, quite clearly, putting the rights of minorities (in this case, the rich) below the interests of the state.
        
        Anyway, fascism is, as rafael said, mark
• I don't worry about it (Score:2)

  by jdavidb (1361)

  For me the only truly meaningful distinctions are between freedom/liberty and socialism/control. I've got a razor-sharp clear-cut distinction in my mind between what is and is not politically right and wrong. Anything that ever violates individual liberty boils down to socialism in one way or another, because it boils down to social control of what should be controlled individually.

  To me fascism is just another word for one type of socialism, and it's a word that carries more connotation than denotation

  --
  J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
  • Re: (Score:2)

    by schwern (1528)

    That's amazing. I know politicians in debates often like to bend their answer to a question into a self-serving, prepared statement, but to see such a pure example! Two paragraphs manage to slide from answering a question about the definition of fascism to falling upon socialism to beating on a straw man caricature of the "left" and finally complaining about your own critics.
    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jdavidb (1361)

      There's nothing self-serving about my desire for freedom for all people.

      --
      J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
• Fascism=hard to define (Score:1)

  by scot (6695)

  I did a thesis in undergraduate comparing the nature of government of the three countries of the Axis(Japan,Germany, and Italy)which are generally referred to as "Fascist". The main thing I learned from my research in the literature was that among historians and political scientists there was not a real consensus on a generally accepted definition of fascism. The political systems of the above three countries were different enough that you couldn't define fascism by pointing to them as a set.
  • Re: (Score:2)

    by jdavidb (1361)

    Furthermore many of the policies of Germany and Italy were actually not that much different from the United States. It was a time of great advance for socialism and progressivism. Germany, Italy, and the U.S. were all having a big admiration party for each other's projects and "achievements" before things turned sour and we started looking at going to war with each other. FDR admired a lot of what Hitler did, and vice versa.

    --
    J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers
• 'Tis a many-faceted beastie (Score:2)

  by drhyde (1683)

  Clearly, minority rights being superceded to a great extent by the interests of the state is a pre-requisite, but it's a pre-requisite for all totalitarianism, not just fascism.

  I managed to come up with four features which are common in fascism. They can all appear elsewhere, although in milder forms, but fascist states have historically exhibited all or almost all of them to extremes.

  • leadership cult: fascism always has a strong leader, although there can be a certain degree of manipulation of who is
• May soon have an answer (Score:2)

  by jdavidb (1361)

  This weekend I bought almost all of the Uncle Eric Books about economics, politics, and history (I already had two of them). Looks like all of the new books I bought talk about fascism, and somewhere in there, he's going to have some definitions. It looks like he views fascism as something distinct from socialism; but since both amount to social control over resources, I don't think I will ever think that way. :) But he's very insightful and thoughtful, and it'll be a good read.

  --
  J. David works really hard, has a passion for writing good software, and knows many of the world's best Perl programmers