Fascism vs. Socialism

“Fascist!” “Socialist!”

I don’t know if there exists two more emotionally-charged, historically significant, and utterly vacuous words in our political discourse today.

For a good many people, these terms are meaningfully meaningless, in that they are just insults to throw around whenever you hear an opinion you don’t like.

Any further meaning is unwanted or useless.

But for those of us who nonetheless care about the truth, this article seeks to answer a deceptively simple question — When it comes to fascism and socialism, what’s the difference?

Afterall, these are the two great political systems of the twentieth century, and each went horribly wrong. So, how are we to understand them in relation to one another?

The typical narrative is that one of them (fascism) is an extreme of the right, and another (socialism) is an extreme of the left. And like most “typical narratives” it is customarily divorced from fact.

There is another narrative, usually espoused by conservatives, that fascism and socialism are really just the same thing:

“Nazi literally means ‘National Socialist’ lib-tard!!”

And that, truth be told, is another weak narrative of the right which seems to compel no one, perhaps because of the glaringly obvious differences between Hitler’s Germany and the Soviet Union.

The truth is that there are many differences, too many in fact, to cover in a single post.

There are, however, three core differences stemming from the philosophical to the economic. They are:

1. Fascism’s denial of the “End of History”

2. Its imposition of class structure

3. Its corporatist regime

By examining these differences, we can readily see that fascism is both quite distinct from socialism, and undoubtedly another form of leftist extremism.

The significance here is greater than simply being able to “shut down liberals” or clearing our political discourse of unnecessary invective.

When we appreciate the historical triumph of fascism over socialism, we see more clearly where our own country is heading. We see the true nature of threats emerging already in this century.

Let’s begin.

Defining Terms

As with anything, establishing clear terms is the first order of business. There are four in this case, each of which could be the subject of entire books:

• Right-wing

• Left-wing

• Fascism

• Socialism

Each of these are in a sense vague and impossible to define — one of the many reasons political labels are generally useless.

Let’s take fascism, for example.

“Fascism” is a notoriously difficult word to define. There is a massive corpus of work on fascism, with competing academic theories of its nature and origins.

As I pointed out in my “What Is Truth?” article, however, just because a topic is complicated for PhDs doesn't mean it has to be complicated for normal persons.

So, I’ll use the definitions I think most people are comfortable with, and which are generally incontrovertible.

By Fascism, I mean the system of political philosophy instantiated by Benito Mussolini in 1925 in Italy, and which became the system adopted by Adolf Hitler in Germany.

Mussolini literally came up with the word “fascist,” literally wrote the book defining fascism (along with Giovanni Gentile), and self-identified his government as fascist.

Hitler, while not ever directly calling himself fascist, nonetheless admitted on numerous occasions that his government was essentially fascist.

So this seems like as good a definition of fascism as any.

By Socialism, I mean mainline Marxism as historically indistinct from communism.

That is, a system of political and economic philosophy laid out in the corpus of Marx’s work and which was later championed by Lenin/Trotsky.

By Right-wing, I mean a set of beliefs and goals that are generally defined by classical liberalism of the Lockean tradition, which emphasizes individual natural rights, political freedom, and a narrow “negative” role for government.

By “negative” I mean that the government does not provide anything, but rather defends, or secures, things that are best done so by the government. It does not grant the rights of its people, for example, it simply secures them.

By Left-wing, I mean a set of goals and beliefs which are generally defined by progressivism, which emphasizes the collective or public interest over individual interests, the use of scientistic secular philosophy to improve the human condition, and the need for a strong positive role for government in the shaping of society’s character.

By “positive role” I mean that the government is in the business of actively forming a society’s culture and markets — its values, systems, morality, economic interests, etc.

A citizen's rights, under this view, are provided by the State, or are derived from the State’s moral authority, rather than merely secured by it.

Now that we have good operating definitions of these ideas, we'll use the writings of Giovanni Gentile to analyze the differences between socialism and fascism.

Few people know Gentile’s name anymore, but he was once a famous Italian philosopher.

He earned the moniker — “The Philosopher of Fascism.” Along with Mussolini, he defined fascism in several works including the Enciclopedia Italiana.

Gentile is the philosophical foundation of fascism, so he is the perfect person to teach us what the historical fascists believed.

A Hegelian Hellhole

Okay, bear with me — it's about to get a little philosophical.

The most critical and foundational difference between fascism and socialism is fascism's rejection of what I’ll call the “End of History.”

What could I mean by that? Well, it all has to do with Hegel.

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770 - 1831) was a renowned philosopher in the German Idealist tradition.

Assuming you don’t love reading 18th century German Idealism in your pastime, you probably don’t know what Hegel would have to do with fascism.

A lot, as it turns out.

You see, Hegel was very influential, and in particular, one German theorist was rather smitten with him.

His name was Karl Marx.

Now little Karl wanted to grow up to be just like Hegel. So he became an avid student of Hegel’s philosophy and discovered something interesting....

One of the most important and unique contributions that Hegel made to philosophy was the idea that history progresses along an inevitable track of “enlightenment.”

In other words, history can be described as a process of finite creatures becoming ever more like the “infinite consciousness” of Hegel’s Absolute Spirit (i.e. God).

He believed that God’s consciousness was somehow “realized” over-time by each individual person’s finite consciousness becoming more and more like the infinite.

As a result, Hegel’s account of history is one where we start as barbarians and continue along a path of perpetual enlightenment until History (capital H) culminates in an “End” or Telos.

When I say “we” I don’t mean each of us individually accomplishes this in our lifetime. Rather Hegel thought humans over eons and epochs become progressively more perfect.

Just as certain individuals are more enlightened than others (e.g. philosophers), certain cultures are more enlightened than others as well (e.g. Christian Europe).

This “teleological” vision of History means that societies are never really regressive, even if they go through dark times.

Instead, all societies eventually and inevitably arrive at perfect enlightenment.

That is the meaning of the “End of History,” which some thinkers still subscribe to today (e.g. Francis Fukuyama’s famous book The End of History)

Marx was rather taken with this idea, and though Marx was not an idealist, the influence of Hegel is clear in his work.

For instance, Marx argued that capitalism would eventually collapse in on itself, and that a proletariat revolution was an inevitable event in history.

Marx talked about the end of capitalism, because he thought about economies in a Hegelian framework.

He believed there was something better out there than capitalism, and if that was true, then it would necessarily come about as History became more progressive.

He constructed a particular vision of what this End of History should look like — his answer was the socialist utopia.

This socialist utopia is characterized by the absolution of the government, absolution of socio-economic class, and the absolution of private property.

This may seem like pie-in-the-sky thinking to us today, but in Marx’s day this was a legitimate Hegelian vision.

This is also precisely what Gentile and Mussolini came to reject — that history progresses to some inevitable End.

Gentile, a student of Marx and also Hegel, eventually left socialism (along with Mussolini) because he did not believe that the proletariat would necessarily rise up on their own.

Instead, Gentile argued that the proletariat needed help from a strong authoritarian government in order to provide social justice.

It is important to note here that Gentile did not contest Marx’s vision of the Good — a utopia where capitalism is defeated and everyone is rich and free.

What the fascists contended is that mainline socialism was unrealistic. The utopia could not arrive necessarily on its own, it would have to be built from the top-down.

This is the rock on which fascism was built, and it accounts for every other difference from socialism.

The Imposition of Class Structure

Once you have rejected the inevitability of history, it becomes clear that you will need a powerful, permanent government to ensure the utopian society.

Marx had argued for an essentially anarchist vision. He believed the State would eventually “dissolve itself” as people became ever more enlightened in their Hegelian way.

As people eliminated things like private property, money, social structures and became fully communitarian, the State would have no more role to play.

Mussolini and Gentile believed that if mainline socialists seriously tried to pursue this, it would result in massive starvation and chaos.

(This of course did in fact occur).

As a result, Gentile argued that socio-economic classes needed to be preserved in a fascist regime. Why? To avoid chaos and disorder.

Mussolini and Gentile were interested in making the Italian people great, and they saw Marx’s mechanism of change as likely to destroy the country.

They weren’t interested in a theory that could result in mass starvation of the Italian people. They wanted the Italian people to be the most glorious and powerful on Earth.

Gentile, in Hegelian fashion, saw fascism as the perfected capitalist system, rather than the overthrow of the capitalist system.

Capitalism was responsible for getting Italy to a certain point, now all that was needed was a strong-man like Mussolini to take over, subdue the greedy capitalists, and achieve the Utopia.

Thus, Gentile envisioned a permanent State that would continually enforce class structure.

Like the Philosopher King of Plato’s Republic, Gentile’s State would wisely dictate which people should be in which jobs and classes to ensure maximal happiness of everyone.

A vision in stark contrast with socialism.

Corporatist Regime

The most commonly referenced and obvious difference between fascism and socialism is the continued existence of corporations.

Under Marx, capitalists controlled society at the expense of everyone else. When the revolution occurred, the means of production would be seized and shared by everyone.

Corporations are the first thing to go.

Once again, Gentile wondered how this was going to happen in practice.

Mussolini, Hitler, and Gentile were wise enough to notice that all of society’s goods depended on the production of these corporations.

They agreed that capitalism was exploitative, but what if capitalists could be controlled by a morally authoritative State. Such a State could ensure social justice without risking economic collapse.

That's where the all-powerful fascist State comes in.

Under fascism, the beatific vision of the Left is achieved by using corporations as the fetters of society. Rather than destroy them, control them.

In socialism, the State decides what to produce, by how much, who it’s given to, and at no price.

In fascism, the State controls who produces what, who they can sell it to, and at what price.

Conclusion

So, is fascism identical with socialism? Clearly not. Is it some form of right-wing extremism? Clearly not.

Far and away the biggest difference between fascism and socialism is the rejection of Hegel and the insistence on a permanent State to enforce order.

For Marx and Lenin, the world operated on Hegelian train tracks, marching forward to inevitable perfection.

Gentile, Mussolini, and Hitler were smarter than this.

They knew people would never go for socialism on their own. In order to achieve the Socialist Good, they would need to seize complete authority.

(This is evidently why you should not be a Machiavellian by the way — visions of "the Good" can be very brutally wrong).

In the end, they were right.

Lenin eventually had to bring back the price system. He had to let companies invest in Russia. He had to continue to enforce law and order.

Stalin’s government was anything but transitory. His people did starve. His people were reduced to abject poverty, falling half a century behind the developed world.

The story is not unique to Russia.

Everywhere that socialism has been tried, it has always suffered from the failures of socialism and then evolved into fascism.

Cuba, Cambodia, Venezuela, Albania, North Korea, Lao, Vietnam, etc. etc.

The supposedly “communist” China of today is almost identical to the kind of fascist regime Mussolini built.

Why? Because fascism works better than socialism. It is more realistic.

Does that make it right-wing? Not any more than a traditional conservative is made “left-wing” for being more realistic than a libertarian anarchist.

It is still a leftist philosophy. Nothing it believes coincides with the definition of right-wing that most Americans have today.

Not to mention it originated as a socialist doctrine.

So, what should we take away from these differences?

At the very least we should call a spade a spade. America today is far more fascist than it is socialist. In my opinion, it is already more fascist than it is capitalist.

Perhaps we should stop looking over our shoulder for the phantom of socialism, and look ahead to the demon of fascism staring us blankly in the face?

As always, thanks for reading!

Further Reading

There are a number of great books on this topic, unfortunately many of them are rather academic. For a popular treatment, I would recommend Dinesh D'Souza's book, The Big Lie.

If you are looking for a deep-dive, then you can do no better than A. James Gregor, the preeminent scholar on fascism.

I have also included some other helpful links.

The Big Lie by Dinesh D'Souza

Giovanni Gentile: Philosopher of Fascism by A. James Gregor

The Ideology of Fascism by A. James Gregor

Fascism: Past, Present and Future by Walter Laqueur

Fascism: A History by Roger Eatwell

• Eatwell's book is another fantastic resource about the history of fascism and its intellectual origins. He makes covers the history of French and English fascism as well. It is not terribly long and very-well written.

"A Historiography of Fascism" by Glenn-lain Steinback

• This is an excellent overview of the current scholarship on fascism, that really lays out the history of the debate for those who are interested. You won't get any clarity on the question I've posed in this article, but it's a great place to begin if you're interested in the debate.