What Is Fascism?

From Mises.org (Aug. 2, 2022):

Mussolini became premier in October 1922. With the innumerable arguments about the march on Rome or with the story of the violent, lawless, and outrageous tactics he used to come to power we are not concerned here. That history has been told many times. Our business is to see the use he made of his power to fashion a new form of society.

He did not have a majority in parliament. He had to form a coalition cabinet which included a moderate socialist and a member of the Popolari. Some liberal politicians saw the hope of a stable government and the General Confederation of Labor (socialist) agreed to collaborate. Mussolini, of course, began to move toward dictatorship. But the full dictatorship did not come until 1925, after the assassination of Matteoti.

We will now see the elements of the fascist society emerge—point by point. First we must note one important difference between Communism and Fascism which becomes clear here. Socialism has a definite philosophy, based upon clearly enunciated principles which had long been debated and were widely understood. Socialists disagreed among themselves on certain points and upon programs of action. But socialism as a system of social structure with an organized body of doctrine was well understood. This was not true of Fascism. Whether it was capitalist or anticapitalist, labor or antilabor, no one could say until the leaders themselves decided upon a course of action. It was improvised as the movement went along. Therefore we cannot define Fascism as a movement committed to the collection of principles enunciated in its formal proclamation of principles and objectives—the Eleven Points of San Sepolcro. Mussolini, being in pursuit of power, made that objective the mold by which his policies were formed. Behold now the erection of the great Fascist edifice.

1. He had been a syndicalist and hence anticapitalist. The original program included a demand for confiscation of war profits, confiscation of certain church property, heavy inheritance and income taxes, nationalization of arms and munitions plants, and control of factories, railroads, and public services by workers’ councils. These, Mussolini said, “we have put at the head of our program.” But in power he did none of these things. Signora Sarfatti quotes him as saying:

I do not intend to defend capitalism or capitalists. They, like everything human, have their defects. I only say their possibilities of usefulness are not ended. Capitalism has borne the monstrous burden of the war and today still has the strength to shoulder the burdens of peace…. It is not simply and solely an accumulation of wealth, it is an elaboration, a selection, a coordination of values which is the work of centuries…. Many think, and I myself am one of them, that capitalism is scarcely at the beginning of its story.

On another occasion he said: “State ownership! It leads only to absurd and monstrous conclusions; state ownership means state monopoly, concentrated in the hands of one party and its adherents, and that state brings only ruin and bankruptcy to all.” This was indeed more in conformity with his syndicalist faith, but it completely negated the original Fascist platform. The first point we shall have to settle, therefore, is that fascism is a defense of capitalist society, an attempt to make it function. This view, which Mussolini did not entertain when he began, he came around to as he saw that Italy, in spite of all the disorder, had no mind to establish a socialist state. Moreover, he attached to himself the powerful industrialists and financiers of Milan and Rome along with many of the nobles, two of those powerful minorities essential to his general aims. Thus he molded Fascism into a powerful weapon to beat down the Red menace. But it was Italy which molded him to this philosophy, new for him, the man who, when the factories were occupied, had applauded the act of the workers. [read more]