Fascism: when people believe that power comes from the position of leadership itself.
Most definition try to list a series of characteristics of what a fascist government does, but it’s very hard to create a consistent list that works in every situation. Instead I think it makes more sense to look at the root cause, why do all those different government act in similar ways?
Like most other “isms” fascism is a belief. It’s something that people believe, and what they believe changes how they view the world, what they see as possible or appropriate. If people believe that the power to lead comes from just holding a certain position, then we there’s a couple immediate results of that. Whoever becomes leader is both justified in whatever it takes to achieve that position (once they have it) and creates a situation where the leader is above the law because they can change it to suit them.
The reason why there’s lots of easily recognizable similarities between fascist regimes is that there’s two factors at work:
- How a belief like that is created and/or allowed to exist. Most other forms of government are believed to derive their power from either: the people (various democracies), divine right (monarchies and similar) or obvious force (dictators, conquerors, coups, etc.). It takes a somewhat unusual situation for people to want to, or be compelled to, believe that authority comes from the position of power
- Leaders don’t all have the same goals, but a fascist leader has to share in the belief. They can’t believe in true democracy or anything like that. Also, this means you can have a “good” fascist government if you happen to have a leader who uses the power of the position responsibly.
But usually we end up with common themes like:
- nationalism (which strengthens the position of leadership)
- suppression of opposition (because anyone opposing the leader is by default wrong)
- strong classicism/racism/segmentation in the culture and economy which is a natural result of believing the role/position is a determination of character and worth
- Corruption of institutions that rely on strong leadership, classes, or a chain of command
Looking at things this way makes it clearer why it’s so hard to spot the moment when fascism takes over, because it’s defined by the shifting beliefs of lots of people, and so hard to stop. Often when we want to fight against fascism we do it by fighting against the person who currently wields power, or by trying to remove them from their position, which strengthens the belief that the position is the source of the leader’s power.
This definition also means that fascism isn’t a binary choice. It’s a spectrum, as more people start to share the belief (whether they agree with each other on other political views or not), then we’ll tend to see more characteristics that are typical of fascist countries.
Which leads to the obvious question about fascism in America. And it seems clear that the US is a country where the view that power comes from the position tends to be somewhat popular. Look at the importance we place in the position of president, we treat it like the ultimate creator and arbiter of policy, and it’s far and away the most important election in the American psyche. But really the president is an executive position, it’s there to carry out the policies that are created by congress. And elections for congress, and state legislators arguably should be much more important.
If we want to reverse what fascist tendencies we see in our own country we need to work to change the belief of a great number of people. To see elected positions as responsibilities, not rewards or coronations.