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Please change: Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] to: Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far left-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] 212.92.123.152 ( talk) 10:00, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
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Would like the words "far right-wing" removed from the first sentance in the first paragraph. Far right-wing does not truely explain real fasicms. any political part can be fascist. By singling out one party creates a false identity and will hide real fascism. Real right-wingers do not not like a dictatorship or government control as specified in Merriams-Webster definition " individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader." TheRealAmerican1 ( talk) 02:33, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Please do explain how Fascism is “right wing”. The farther “right” on the false political scale you travel, the more likely you are to end up with anarchy. No governmental control. Please change this to actually make sense and not confound those looking for answers. Jeric293 ( talk) 13:16, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi. Before the month of temporary protection comes to an end, I think it might be useful to reach an agreement and explore the lawful options regarding how to systematically tackle the issue of IPs and sockpuppeteers that will inevitably come to this talk page asking for "right-wing" to be changed to "left-wing". The presence of the banner on top and the constant archiving cannot be an efficient solution (trolls don't care about the banner, and don't read into the archives). The archiving can even become slightly aggressive and lead to controversies, as this one reported by myself in the AN/I. In that thread, User:Acroterion had more than one thing to say about the strategies for protecting the talk page, and I think it is worth to discuss about them directly here. I am not an expert of what is and is not technically possible on WP regarding page protection, but I think it's an important matter. As it might be inferred, I am against any generalized "ban" on further discussions on the topic "right-wing in the lede" that results in plain deletion or archiving of talk-page contributions of long-term and good-faith editors. I am – of course – in favour of a "ban" against vandalism, trolling, IPs, fascism-is-left-wing nonsense, etc., which is the point of this thread I just started. How do we implement the (hopefully selective) ban?
I take the freedom to quote here Acroterion's contributions to that thread, so that we have a basis to start with. -- Ritchie92 ( talk) 09:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
- I semi-protected the talkpage a couple of days ago, in part to remove the incentive to aggressively archive contentious drive-by edit requests. I don't see a present reason for archiving things right away now that there isn't a daily parade of new editors and IPs landing on the talkpage to demand that the article be altered to fit their POV or to explain that academic sources should be ignored in favor of partisan commentary. The semi-protection of the talkpage is something of a last resort - as evidenced by the above, the repetitive partisan talkpage activity was eroding the patience of experienced editors. The protection is for a month, and I welcome suggestions for a longer-term solution that doesn't involve lots of archiving or daily patient explanations to agenda-driven new editors.. Acroterion (talk) 12:10, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
- Continuing my comment from above, I've semi-protected the talkpage for a month, which appears to have dealt with the proximate cause of the dispute in this thread. As WP:PROTECT notes, semi-protection of article talkpages is to be used sparingly. However, that policy was formulated primarily to deal with occasional individual vandals and POV-pushers. What's appearing on Talk:Fascism and similar pages is a steady stream of new editors and IPs who are convinced that fascism, for instance, is a handy universal label to apply to people they oppose, and expect the article to reflect that POV rather than reflecting academic and historical analysis. These editors are clogging the talkpages. I see no reason to believe that this will change when protection expires, and some longer-term solution will be needed.
- Right now, WP:PROTECT suggests that semi-protected talkpages redirect edit requests to WP:RFED, which isn't really set up to deal with that sort of traffic. I think we're going to need a project space page linked on long-term semi-protected talkpages that can handle this traffic, where editors with the patience and inclination to do so can winnow serious requests from the forum speech and trolling, allowing the article talkpages to be used as intended, and allowing editors on those topics some rest. That project page can link to WP policy, offer suggestions on reading archived discussions, and perhaps help to educate newcomers on how to approach perennially contentious topics. Acroterion (talk) 17:09, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Material unsuitable for talk pages may be subject to removal per the talk page guidelines.-- Ritchie92 ( talk) 09:34, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
Since there seems to be a general sentiment for permanent semi-protection, then it would be helpful to craft an edit notice to explain that, perhaps integrated with or in support of the FAQ. Acroterion (talk) 12:27, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
"an Arbcom finding could overrule the Protection Policy, no?"
"Our semi-protect has been off for less than what? A week? And we've already had "make it say left wing" edit requests..."
"...[and] an edit-war over fascism being a far-right ideology"
For those who may have missed it - I've started the ball rolling at VPP. Simonm223 ( talk) 15:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Wow, this article is incredibly biased, what I find especially troubling and disturbing is how it included the statement from Stackelberg (who's not a particularly well-known and widely-recognized expert in the matter to begin with) that says "the more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be"; essentially saying that everyone in the right is racist and discriminates while everyone in the left supports equality and peace and inclusion, it's basically saying that the right is evil and the left is not. The inclusion of this statement is incredibly shameless and should be eliminated altogether; beside, no other sources or statements are cited in support of this assessment and I doubt any reputable source could be found that would. By the way, another less important note: the scholarly opinion on whether fascism is right or left-wing in the political geometry is far from a consensus and many believe fascists can belong to both ideologies; anyone with common sense could recognize this as fascism is simply an ideology that promotes and uses authoritarianism and strict control of the media and the society, none of these tenets are mutually exclusive with far-left ideologies; saying that all fascists belong to the right-wing essentially says that only people in the right can be evil fascist villains and that is physically impossible for someone on the left to be authoritarian, something that can be easily disproven by simply looking to the examples of leaders of the likes of Kim Jong Un, Stalin and Pol Pot; they were in the far left and they weren't especially supportive of civil liberties were they? All in all, this article is extremely embarrassing and in need of serious revision and rewrite (no wonder many people accuse Wikipedia of liberal bias), but we can start by eliminating that disturbing and incorrect statement I mentioned above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.225.172.224 ( talk) 00:26, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
I'm not an expert, I would not dream of editing the page itself, I have no qualification to do so.
But I'm concerned that the definition needs clarification, and that this is becoming urgent in the modern Social Media world.
I have been in discussions with people on Social Media who are claiming that various groups are fascist. The DNC in the US, and the EU being two examples.
When I challenge people on how they could possibly call these groups "fascist" some of them point me to this article and claim that since Wikipedia defines fascism as an authoritarian regime, and this appears to be the primary qualification according to the page then they are justified in calling, for example, the EU fascist simply because it has authority.
Now obviously there are counter arguments, and I can just hear a number of people asking me as they read this why I would bother entering a discussion with people like that.
But I do think this sort of thing matters. Popularism is causing a lot of damage around the world and people are attracted to it by exactly this kind of argument.
As I said, I'm no expert, but I would urge people who are to consider if it is justifiable to put Racism front and center in the definition. I don't think any regime that actually called itself fascist made it into power without blaming one of more out groups for everything that was wrong in the state they were trying to take over. I don't think any near miss (a failed self proclaimed fascist who actually had some political success, like Oswald Mosley for example) wasn't cultivating votes by doing the same thing.
So isn't a policy of racism, especially the blaming of social ills on out group(s), a necessary pre-condition for calling someone fascist?
Can we not say that Fascism is a form of government that elevates racism to public policy, and then tag on the fact that they are universally authoritarian?
If this is of no interest to the academics concerned with editing the page, could you consider as an alternative making it clear up front that "authoritarian" doesn't just mean "has authority". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:982:A60A:1:783C:4444:A81B:B57B ( talk) 15:34, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Racism would not be the most accurate term, for it was not entirely persecution based on race. While it was in Nazi Germany and to a lesser extent in Italy, I would argue it was absent in Spain and Portugul. Wandavianempire ( talk) 17:12, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Why in the world is Fascism being associated with the "political right" when the political right when the Merriam-Webster Dictionary does not associate it as such?
fascism noun fas·cism | \ ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi- \ Definition of fascism 1often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition 2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control early instances of army fascism and brutality — J. W. Aldridge
Also.....just for my friends out there that think Hitler was NOT a socialist. His little group that he led was LITERALLY called the National SOCIALIST Workers' Party. Socialism is defined as an economic system, not a form of government. So to say that Hitler was Far-Right is false, seeing that the far american left wants socialism. So what was Hitler....really? A democratic socialist. You cannot possibly argue that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwill99 ( talk • contribs) 17:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC) — Gwill99 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
The horseshoe theory explains this very well. The far left and far right have more in common than different, but are the far left and far right nonetheless. Victor Salvini ( talk) 18:19, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
So is Wikipedia actually allowing people to make false assertions even after being shown it’s false? I agree, it appears this was written by some far-left liberal hoping to use Wikipedia to falsely create a new definition, without any citation, to include “right wing”. Pcmediahost ( talk) 21:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)— Pcmediahost ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
I agree that the far right and far left are almost the same but I have a feeling these are trolls. No sources being posted by em other than a dictionary def. Victor Salvini ( talk) 21:46, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
If you ask me, all pages on major things like this should have basic protection. Victor Salvini ( talk) 22:32, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Leaving aside the paid spamming of Caplan by Vipul, this seems very dubious and certainly WP:UNDUE. Caplan's extreme Randian libertarian views are obviously WP:FRINGE, but, more importantly, he's not a historian, so the relevance of an "encyclopedia of libertarianism" - a necessarily political book - is not at all clear when discussing the high level topic of fascism, especially given the plethora of much more relevant sources. Guy ( help!) 12:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
"Fringe" is defined very clearly at WP:FRINGE, and said definition is not 'someone's opinion'. - Sumanuil ( talk) 22:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Isn't the left vs. right spectrum different in the U.S. compared to in Europe? In Europe, the size scope and ability of the government stays the same from the left to the right (as a rule of thumb), so the major distinction is who is it for. While in the United States the argument from left to right is much more an argument of what should the government be able and what should they do. Basically the Europian right will still fit in the American left. At least that is the appearance. So doesn't this at least mean that in the European definition it may be far-right and by the American definition less far-right or even towards the left? If I'm wrong then what am I missing, and if I'm correct can the article be changed to reflect that? (I know how to but I don't want to without any feedback because I'm probably not seeing something) — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 ( talk • contribs) 21:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. Fascist nationalism is reactionary in that it entails implacable hostility to socialism and feminism, for they are seen as prioritizing class or gender rather than nation. This is why fascism is a movement of the extreme right. Fascism is also a movement of the radical right because the defeat of socialism and feminism and the creation of the mobilized nation are held to depend upon the advent to power of a new elite acting in the name of the people, headed by a charismatic leader, and embodied in a mass, militarized party.
(Passmore, Kevin. Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002.) Mvbaron ( talk) 22:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
"the right in the U.S.A. doesn't like dictatorial power of government." Not in my experience. But it depends on how broadly you define 'dictatorial', and some people think even the most basic regulation is 'dictatorial'. - Sumanuil ( talk) 04:25, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
That's the idea. But 'small government' doesn't seem to apply to everything, especially things favored by the left. They'll regulate those to death. - Sumanuil ( talk) 04:52, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Care to give me an example? As well as do you have anything on the rest if we would omit the dictatorial power bit because with that out it still doesn't sound like the right. As well as that my whole point is that there is a difference between left and right the way it's used in Europe compared to the United States which allows for the case that in the American sense it isn't necessarily far-right, while in the European sense can be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 ( talk • contribs) 05:09, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
My primary purpose in bringing this up was to address the fact that many things may be called far-right when they are not. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, and individual judgment. They may not be called far-right but that is because in my eyes the mixing up (deliberate or accidental) of the European and American left-right political system allows Fascism to take that spot. So do you not see the position that it looks like it's actually on the left but they just mix up the systems to call it alt-right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 ( talk • contribs) 05:28, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I guess what I'm having a hard time understanding is how can something be going one way (like the general rule with the American right) and suddenly do a 180 and do opposite stuff like violating the first amendment as a major part and restricting as many rights and freedoms as possible (basically). (and I agree this is starting to get into the more like a forum realm I'll find a source, but that's my major lapse in understanding a 180 that largely doesn't seem to make sense) Like why is it that the left goes nicely and logically and then for the right logical progression, and then something that sounds like it takes a 180 if you can find something explaining that it would be nice (explaining why it's that way not just declaring it is) NadavMeiri1 ( talk) 16:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Can we at least discus it rather than edit war? So what is the objection to the definition? Slatersteven ( talk) 23:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
OK we know why it was resorted, now why was it removed (and no Chicago MOS is not as valid reason, we have our own). Slatersteven ( talk) 09:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't know how long it has been the case, but the following long section on Fascist economy was commented out of the article. It needs to be checked to see if everything in it has been re-inserted elsewhere, or if some parts of it should be added.
Economic policies
According to Bruce Pauley, Fascist governments exercised control over private property but did not nationalize it. [1] According to Patricia Knight, they did, with the Italian Fascist government coming to own the highest percentage of industries outside the Soviet Union. [2] The Nazis also nationalized some business. [3] In fact, the "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the Nazi party, adopted in 1920, demanded "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations." [4] Other scholars noted that big business developed an increasingly close partnership with the Nazi and Fascist governments as it became increasingly organized. Business leaders supported the government's political and military goals, and in exchange, the government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies. [5] Nazi Germany transferred public ownership and public services into the private sector, while other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry. [6] In his book, Big Business in the Third Reich, Arthur Schweitzer notes that, "Monopolistic price fixing became the rule in most industries, and cartels were no longer confined to the heavy or large-scale industries. ... Cartels and quasi-cartels (whether of big business or small) set prices, engaged in limiting production, and agreed to divide markets and classify consumers in order to realize a monopoly profit. [7]
Fascists pursued economic policies to strengthen state power and spread ideology, such as consolidating trade unions and putting them under state or party control. [8] Attempts were made by both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to establish " autarky" (self-sufficiency) through significant economic planning, but neither achieved economic self-sufficiency. [9]
National corporatism, statism and national syndicalism
Italian Fascism's economy was based on corporatism, and a number of other fascist movements similarly promoted corporatism. Oswald Mosley of the British Union of Fascists, describing fascist corporatism, said that "it means a nation organized as the human body, with each organ performing its individual function but working in harmony with the whole". [10] Fascists were not hostile to the petit-bourgeoisie or to small businesses, and they promised these groups, alongside the proletariat, protection from the upper-class bourgeoisie, big business, and Marxism. The promotion of these groups is the source of the term "extremism of the centre" to describe fascism. [11]
Fascism blamed capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and communists for exploiting it. [12] In Italy, the Fascist period presided over the creation of the largest number of state-owned enterprises in Western Europe, such as the nationalisation of petroleum companies into a single state enterprise called the Italian General Agency for Petroleum (Azienda Generale Italiani Petroli, AGIP). [13] Fascists made populist appeals to the middle class, especially the lower middle class, by promising to protect small businesses and property owners from communism, and by promising an economy based on competition and profit while pledging to oppose big business. [11]
In 1933, Benito Mussolini declared Italian Fascism's opposition to the "decadent capitalism" that he claimed prevailed in the world at the time, but he did not denounce capitalism entirely. Mussolini claimed that capitalism had degenerated in three stages, starting with dynamic or heroic capitalism (1830–1870), followed by static capitalism (1870–1914), and reaching its final form of decadent capitalism or " supercapitalism" beginning in 1914. [14] Mussolini said that Italian Fascism acknowledged the positive achievements of dynamic and heroic capitalism for its contribution to industrialism and its technical developments, but that it did not favor supercapitalism, which he claimed was incompatible with Italy's agricultural sector. [14]
Thus Mussolini claimed that Italy under Fascist rule was not capitalist in the contemporary use of the term, which referred to supercapitalism. [14] Mussolini denounced supercapitalism for causing the "standardization of humankind" and for causing excessive consumption. [15] Mussolini claimed that at the stage of supercapitalism, "a capitalist enterprise, when difficulties arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state's arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously." [16] He saw Fascism as the next logical step to solve the problems of supercapitalism and claimed that "our path would lead inexorably into state capitalism, which is nothing more nor less than state socialism turned on its head. In either event, the result is the bureaucratization of the economic activities of the nation." [17] Mussolini claimed that dynamic or heroic capitalism and the bourgeoisie could be prevented from degenerating into static capitalism and then supercapitalism if the concept of economic individualism were abandoned and if state supervision of the economy was introduced. [18] Private enterprise would control production but it would be supervised by the state. [19] By the late 1930s and the 1940s, Italian Fascism completely denounced capitalism as an obsolete and oppressive system, Mussolini in 1940 at the entry of Italy into World War II, said:
This conflict must not be allowed to cancel out all our achievements of the past eighteen years, nor, more importantly, extinguish the hope of a Third Alternative held out by Fascism to mankind fettered between the pillar of capitalist slavery and the post of Marxist chaos. The proponents of these obsolete doctrines must understand that the Fascist sword has been unsheathed twice before, in Ethiopia and in Spain, with known results.
— Benito Mussolini, 1940. [20]Italian Fascism presented the economic system of corporatism as the solution that would preserve private enterprise and property while allowing the state to intervene in the economy when private enterprise failed. [19]
Other fascist regimes were indifferent or hostile to corporatism. The Nazis initially attempted to form a corporatist economic system like that of Fascist Italy, creating the National Socialist Institute for Corporatism in May 1933, which included many major economists who said that corporatism was consistent with National Socialism. [21] [22] In Mein Kampf, Hitler spoke enthusiastically about the "National Socialist corporative idea" as one that eventually would "take the place of ruinous class warfare". [23] The Nazis later came to view corporatism as detrimental to Germany and institutionalizing and legitimizing social differences within the German nation. Instead, the Nazis began to promote economic organization that emphasized the biological unity of the German national community. [24]
Hitler continued to refer to corporatism in propaganda, but it was not put into place, even though a number of Nazi officials such as Walther Darré, Gottfried Feder, Alfred Rosenburg, and Gregor Strasser were in favor of a neo-medievalist form of corporatism, since corporations had been influential in German history in the medieval era. [25]
Spanish Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera did not believe that corporatism was effective and denounced it as a propaganda ploy, saying "this stuff about the corporative state is another piece of windbaggery". [26]
Economic planning
Fascists opposed the laissez-faire economic policies that were dominant in the era prior to the Great Depression. [27] After the Great Depression began, many people from across the political spectrum blamed laissez-faire capitalism, and fascists promoted their ideology as a " third way" between capitalism and communism. [28]
Fascists declared their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering. [29] Nazis and other antisemitic fascists considered finance capitalism a " parasitic" " Jewish conspiracy". [30] Fascist governments introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of economic interventionist measures. [31]
Fascists thought that private property should be regulated to ensure that "benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual." [32] Private property rights were supported but were contingent upon service to the state. [33] For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labour than he would find profitable." [34] They promoted the interests of successful small businesses. [35] Mussolini wrote approvingly of the notion that profits should not be taken away from those who produced them by their own labour, saying "I do not respect—I even hate—those men that leech a tenth of the riches produced by others". [36]
According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, " dirigisme" was an inherent aspect of fascist economies. [37] The Labour Charter of 1927, promulgated by the Grand Council of Fascism, stated in article 7: "The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation", then continued in article 9: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management." [38]
Beyond My Ken ( talk) 00:47, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
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This is interesting. I checked several stable versions of the article for the past five years and noticed that it was commented out in all of those, too (here's an example from 2015). Then I skipped to December 2012 and it was commented out even then (!!!). I didn't go back further than that. So this is a block of text that was, for all intents and purposes, removed from the article more than 7-8 years ago (who knows how long ago exactly). It's going to be hard to figure out which parts of it were already reworked into the article long ago and which were not, after 8+ years of edits. So if any of it is to be re-inserted, it should be treated as new material, with the sources checked to see if they really say what they are cited as saying. I'm suspicious about the excessive reliance on direct quotes and paraphrases from fascist leaders (especially Mussolini - I see two whole paragraphs that simply list things that Mussolini said, with another blockquote from Mussolini after them). I doubt the secondary sources just report those statements uncritically. Ohff ( talk) 05:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Unrelated to the discussion above, I'd like to offer my opinion on the commented-out material. I think that there is definitely useful information about fascist economic views in it, information which may or may not already be present in the article. But if anyone wants to work on this (I would want to at some point, but I just got back after a long hiatus and I can't commit to anything beyond gnome-mode for now), I think it would be more fruitful to simply read the sources cited here and write new text based on them, rather than attempting to use the old text as-is.
I say this for a couple of reasons. For one thing, as I mentioned before, I think too much of this material is simply reporting statements from fascist leaders (the Nazi 25-point program, a quote from Oswald Mosley, three whole paragraphs on Mussolini's statements, lines from Mein Kampf and Primo de Rivera, more Mussolini, etc.). If we had all those in the article right now, I'd say we should trim them, and definitely include the secondary-source commentary on them, rather than just going with "Mussolini said...".
Secondly, too many sentences simply say that "fascists" supported something or took a certain stance, as if there was a fascist consensus on the idea or policy in question, when there usually wasn't. I have not checked the specific cited pages in the sources, but some of those authors are familiar to me and I am quite certain that they are speaking of the views of specific fascists at specific times, not making pronouncements about fascism in general. That would have to be checked and fixed.
So basically, I think this material has potential, and the sources are good, but I would be very apprehensive about just copying text directly back into the article. Ohff ( talk) 06:07, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Props to Beyond My Ken for the discovery above, which (FYI) prompted me to suggest in the Village pump for miscellany (absent knowing a better place to suggest it) that someone with the technical know-how should look for any other such very long HTML comments in article-space. -sche ( talk) 18:42, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Curious if you guys have had many edit requests to have Donald Trump included as a fascist. I'm on the left and arguing Trump and his administration were not fascist is still an unpopular view. Even smart people will argue in earnest, non-hyperbolically, that we've been living under fascsim here in the U.S. So just curious if that fight has made it's way here Joeletaylor ( talk) 19:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
The latin root "fasc" means "pertaining to a bundle", which isn't necessarily left nor right on a modern political spectrum, though it can be both.
Conforming, by government authority, to far-left communism, socialism, and de-importance of the individual is also described by the word fascism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neaumusic ( talk • contribs) 23:51, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Now that President Trump has declared that the US is under siege from "far-left fascism", we should be prepared for a brand-new round of edit requests seeking to remove the description of fascism as a right-wing ideology. We should remind drive-by editors who make these requests that Wikipedia follows what WP:reliable sources say, and that no reliable source, either academic or from the media, describes fascism as left-wing. Politicians say many things in the course of their attempts to be elected or re-elected, and their statements are not considered to be reliable sources of information. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 06:31, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
The above is incorrect. The Road to Serfdom, by Hayek, published in 1944, traces the roots of Fascism and Nazism. Chapter 12, the Socialist Roots of Nazism, refutes the claim that Nazism has no link to the "left". Much of the book shows the birth of fascism/nazism is rooted in the socialism of the 19th century. Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, does not put fascism/nazism on the right but categorizes it with Stalinism as "totalitarian". Finally, if you read the platform of the Nazi party in 1920 ( https://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm) it is clearly a socialist policy platform with nationalist overtones. I have little expectation that these facts will influence wikipedia, as wikipedia in political subjects is biased and censored. Aseidave ( talk) 21:45, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
It is not that the article or Wikipedia is biased, it is a fact. -- Germanico5468504 ( talk) 22:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Fascism as all other anti-democratic ideologies doesn't fall on the same left-right scale as democratic movements. Theres LEFT wing extremists who went from far-left to fundamentalist far-left and then theres the EXTREMISTS that renegated the "moderate" far-left and shifted to opose that same far left (thats whar RIGHT WING extremists are). But there are no RIGHT wing involved in any of these ideologies since they all continued to be anti- "all-things-right". Everyone who is in the right of the democratic spectre is correct to refer to the anti democratic far-righ (fascism) as far left sicne they are talking about something that ideologicvally is opposed to EVERYTHING of the democratic right. In the same way that far-left democratic/ant-democratic ideologies are correct to refer to fanti-democratic far right (fascism) as far-right because basically it is what it is relative to them ... the renegation of everything they defended. Both situations are viewed form completelly diferent prespectives so they are both correct and wrong at the same time. Sotavento ( talk) 22:02, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
And since the german far-right(aka the NSDAP) took ideas from both the american democratic and the italian fascist ideologies at the same time they can't be categorized as any extreme of the spectre. Fascism (italy) is by its own definition a far-left movement gone rogue! Sotavento ( talk) 22:10, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
With regards to "no reliable source, either academic or from the media, describes fascism as left-wing" ... I'd be willing to be that some do (maybe Fox News?), but "reliable" in this context generally means one of the sources that routinely and consistently endorses Democratic candidates ie. a mainstream US news channel or newspaper. I don't know if you would seriously make the argument that academia is a hotbed of right-wing thought either. So, in essence what you're saying, is that sources that lean pretty consistently to the left all agree that a pejorative, controversial ideology describes the right. Hardly a surprising development, and one that few would need an encyclopedia for. At the end of the day, when it comes to subjective issues, the majority of people believe that which mostly resembles one's own views. Is this encyclopedic? Given that most mainstream sources are fairly openly "liberal", maybe, but in this case, when it basically boils down to a political insult, and you're quoting one side of said argument and declaring it definitive, it definitely doesn't seem like it. Opie8 ( talk) 08:00, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
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Please change: Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] to: Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far left-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] 212.92.123.152 ( talk) 10:00, 24 September 2019 (UTC)
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Would like the words "far right-wing" removed from the first sentance in the first paragraph. Far right-wing does not truely explain real fasicms. any political part can be fascist. By singling out one party creates a false identity and will hide real fascism. Real right-wingers do not not like a dictatorship or government control as specified in Merriams-Webster definition " individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader." TheRealAmerican1 ( talk) 02:33, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Please do explain how Fascism is “right wing”. The farther “right” on the false political scale you travel, the more likely you are to end up with anarchy. No governmental control. Please change this to actually make sense and not confound those looking for answers. Jeric293 ( talk) 13:16, 26 September 2019 (UTC)
Hi. Before the month of temporary protection comes to an end, I think it might be useful to reach an agreement and explore the lawful options regarding how to systematically tackle the issue of IPs and sockpuppeteers that will inevitably come to this talk page asking for "right-wing" to be changed to "left-wing". The presence of the banner on top and the constant archiving cannot be an efficient solution (trolls don't care about the banner, and don't read into the archives). The archiving can even become slightly aggressive and lead to controversies, as this one reported by myself in the AN/I. In that thread, User:Acroterion had more than one thing to say about the strategies for protecting the talk page, and I think it is worth to discuss about them directly here. I am not an expert of what is and is not technically possible on WP regarding page protection, but I think it's an important matter. As it might be inferred, I am against any generalized "ban" on further discussions on the topic "right-wing in the lede" that results in plain deletion or archiving of talk-page contributions of long-term and good-faith editors. I am – of course – in favour of a "ban" against vandalism, trolling, IPs, fascism-is-left-wing nonsense, etc., which is the point of this thread I just started. How do we implement the (hopefully selective) ban?
I take the freedom to quote here Acroterion's contributions to that thread, so that we have a basis to start with. -- Ritchie92 ( talk) 09:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
- I semi-protected the talkpage a couple of days ago, in part to remove the incentive to aggressively archive contentious drive-by edit requests. I don't see a present reason for archiving things right away now that there isn't a daily parade of new editors and IPs landing on the talkpage to demand that the article be altered to fit their POV or to explain that academic sources should be ignored in favor of partisan commentary. The semi-protection of the talkpage is something of a last resort - as evidenced by the above, the repetitive partisan talkpage activity was eroding the patience of experienced editors. The protection is for a month, and I welcome suggestions for a longer-term solution that doesn't involve lots of archiving or daily patient explanations to agenda-driven new editors.. Acroterion (talk) 12:10, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
- Continuing my comment from above, I've semi-protected the talkpage for a month, which appears to have dealt with the proximate cause of the dispute in this thread. As WP:PROTECT notes, semi-protection of article talkpages is to be used sparingly. However, that policy was formulated primarily to deal with occasional individual vandals and POV-pushers. What's appearing on Talk:Fascism and similar pages is a steady stream of new editors and IPs who are convinced that fascism, for instance, is a handy universal label to apply to people they oppose, and expect the article to reflect that POV rather than reflecting academic and historical analysis. These editors are clogging the talkpages. I see no reason to believe that this will change when protection expires, and some longer-term solution will be needed.
- Right now, WP:PROTECT suggests that semi-protected talkpages redirect edit requests to WP:RFED, which isn't really set up to deal with that sort of traffic. I think we're going to need a project space page linked on long-term semi-protected talkpages that can handle this traffic, where editors with the patience and inclination to do so can winnow serious requests from the forum speech and trolling, allowing the article talkpages to be used as intended, and allowing editors on those topics some rest. That project page can link to WP policy, offer suggestions on reading archived discussions, and perhaps help to educate newcomers on how to approach perennially contentious topics. Acroterion (talk) 17:09, 23 July 2019 (UTC)
Material unsuitable for talk pages may be subject to removal per the talk page guidelines.-- Ritchie92 ( talk) 09:34, 24 July 2019 (UTC)
Since there seems to be a general sentiment for permanent semi-protection, then it would be helpful to craft an edit notice to explain that, perhaps integrated with or in support of the FAQ. Acroterion (talk) 12:27, 27 July 2019 (UTC)
"an Arbcom finding could overrule the Protection Policy, no?"
"Our semi-protect has been off for less than what? A week? And we've already had "make it say left wing" edit requests..."
"...[and] an edit-war over fascism being a far-right ideology"
For those who may have missed it - I've started the ball rolling at VPP. Simonm223 ( talk) 15:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Wow, this article is incredibly biased, what I find especially troubling and disturbing is how it included the statement from Stackelberg (who's not a particularly well-known and widely-recognized expert in the matter to begin with) that says "the more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be"; essentially saying that everyone in the right is racist and discriminates while everyone in the left supports equality and peace and inclusion, it's basically saying that the right is evil and the left is not. The inclusion of this statement is incredibly shameless and should be eliminated altogether; beside, no other sources or statements are cited in support of this assessment and I doubt any reputable source could be found that would. By the way, another less important note: the scholarly opinion on whether fascism is right or left-wing in the political geometry is far from a consensus and many believe fascists can belong to both ideologies; anyone with common sense could recognize this as fascism is simply an ideology that promotes and uses authoritarianism and strict control of the media and the society, none of these tenets are mutually exclusive with far-left ideologies; saying that all fascists belong to the right-wing essentially says that only people in the right can be evil fascist villains and that is physically impossible for someone on the left to be authoritarian, something that can be easily disproven by simply looking to the examples of leaders of the likes of Kim Jong Un, Stalin and Pol Pot; they were in the far left and they weren't especially supportive of civil liberties were they? All in all, this article is extremely embarrassing and in need of serious revision and rewrite (no wonder many people accuse Wikipedia of liberal bias), but we can start by eliminating that disturbing and incorrect statement I mentioned above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.225.172.224 ( talk) 00:26, 23 September 2019 (UTC)
I'm not an expert, I would not dream of editing the page itself, I have no qualification to do so.
But I'm concerned that the definition needs clarification, and that this is becoming urgent in the modern Social Media world.
I have been in discussions with people on Social Media who are claiming that various groups are fascist. The DNC in the US, and the EU being two examples.
When I challenge people on how they could possibly call these groups "fascist" some of them point me to this article and claim that since Wikipedia defines fascism as an authoritarian regime, and this appears to be the primary qualification according to the page then they are justified in calling, for example, the EU fascist simply because it has authority.
Now obviously there are counter arguments, and I can just hear a number of people asking me as they read this why I would bother entering a discussion with people like that.
But I do think this sort of thing matters. Popularism is causing a lot of damage around the world and people are attracted to it by exactly this kind of argument.
As I said, I'm no expert, but I would urge people who are to consider if it is justifiable to put Racism front and center in the definition. I don't think any regime that actually called itself fascist made it into power without blaming one of more out groups for everything that was wrong in the state they were trying to take over. I don't think any near miss (a failed self proclaimed fascist who actually had some political success, like Oswald Mosley for example) wasn't cultivating votes by doing the same thing.
So isn't a policy of racism, especially the blaming of social ills on out group(s), a necessary pre-condition for calling someone fascist?
Can we not say that Fascism is a form of government that elevates racism to public policy, and then tag on the fact that they are universally authoritarian?
If this is of no interest to the academics concerned with editing the page, could you consider as an alternative making it clear up front that "authoritarian" doesn't just mean "has authority". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:982:A60A:1:783C:4444:A81B:B57B ( talk) 15:34, 27 September 2019 (UTC)
Racism would not be the most accurate term, for it was not entirely persecution based on race. While it was in Nazi Germany and to a lesser extent in Italy, I would argue it was absent in Spain and Portugul. Wandavianempire ( talk) 17:12, 11 February 2020 (UTC)
Why in the world is Fascism being associated with the "political right" when the political right when the Merriam-Webster Dictionary does not associate it as such?
fascism noun fas·cism | \ ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi- \ Definition of fascism 1often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition 2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control early instances of army fascism and brutality — J. W. Aldridge
Also.....just for my friends out there that think Hitler was NOT a socialist. His little group that he led was LITERALLY called the National SOCIALIST Workers' Party. Socialism is defined as an economic system, not a form of government. So to say that Hitler was Far-Right is false, seeing that the far american left wants socialism. So what was Hitler....really? A democratic socialist. You cannot possibly argue that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwill99 ( talk • contribs) 17:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC) — Gwill99 ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
The horseshoe theory explains this very well. The far left and far right have more in common than different, but are the far left and far right nonetheless. Victor Salvini ( talk) 18:19, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
So is Wikipedia actually allowing people to make false assertions even after being shown it’s false? I agree, it appears this was written by some far-left liberal hoping to use Wikipedia to falsely create a new definition, without any citation, to include “right wing”. Pcmediahost ( talk) 21:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)— Pcmediahost ( talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
I agree that the far right and far left are almost the same but I have a feeling these are trolls. No sources being posted by em other than a dictionary def. Victor Salvini ( talk) 21:46, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
If you ask me, all pages on major things like this should have basic protection. Victor Salvini ( talk) 22:32, 7 October 2019 (UTC)
Leaving aside the paid spamming of Caplan by Vipul, this seems very dubious and certainly WP:UNDUE. Caplan's extreme Randian libertarian views are obviously WP:FRINGE, but, more importantly, he's not a historian, so the relevance of an "encyclopedia of libertarianism" - a necessarily political book - is not at all clear when discussing the high level topic of fascism, especially given the plethora of much more relevant sources. Guy ( help!) 12:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
"Fringe" is defined very clearly at WP:FRINGE, and said definition is not 'someone's opinion'. - Sumanuil ( talk) 22:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)
Isn't the left vs. right spectrum different in the U.S. compared to in Europe? In Europe, the size scope and ability of the government stays the same from the left to the right (as a rule of thumb), so the major distinction is who is it for. While in the United States the argument from left to right is much more an argument of what should the government be able and what should they do. Basically the Europian right will still fit in the American left. At least that is the appearance. So doesn't this at least mean that in the European definition it may be far-right and by the American definition less far-right or even towards the left? If I'm wrong then what am I missing, and if I'm correct can the article be changed to reflect that? (I know how to but I don't want to without any feedback because I'm probably not seeing something) — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 ( talk • contribs) 21:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. Fascist nationalism is reactionary in that it entails implacable hostility to socialism and feminism, for they are seen as prioritizing class or gender rather than nation. This is why fascism is a movement of the extreme right. Fascism is also a movement of the radical right because the defeat of socialism and feminism and the creation of the mobilized nation are held to depend upon the advent to power of a new elite acting in the name of the people, headed by a charismatic leader, and embodied in a mass, militarized party.
(Passmore, Kevin. Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002.) Mvbaron ( talk) 22:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)
"the right in the U.S.A. doesn't like dictatorial power of government." Not in my experience. But it depends on how broadly you define 'dictatorial', and some people think even the most basic regulation is 'dictatorial'. - Sumanuil ( talk) 04:25, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
That's the idea. But 'small government' doesn't seem to apply to everything, especially things favored by the left. They'll regulate those to death. - Sumanuil ( talk) 04:52, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Care to give me an example? As well as do you have anything on the rest if we would omit the dictatorial power bit because with that out it still doesn't sound like the right. As well as that my whole point is that there is a difference between left and right the way it's used in Europe compared to the United States which allows for the case that in the American sense it isn't necessarily far-right, while in the European sense can be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 ( talk • contribs) 05:09, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
My primary purpose in bringing this up was to address the fact that many things may be called far-right when they are not. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, and individual judgment. They may not be called far-right but that is because in my eyes the mixing up (deliberate or accidental) of the European and American left-right political system allows Fascism to take that spot. So do you not see the position that it looks like it's actually on the left but they just mix up the systems to call it alt-right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 ( talk • contribs) 05:28, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I guess what I'm having a hard time understanding is how can something be going one way (like the general rule with the American right) and suddenly do a 180 and do opposite stuff like violating the first amendment as a major part and restricting as many rights and freedoms as possible (basically). (and I agree this is starting to get into the more like a forum realm I'll find a source, but that's my major lapse in understanding a 180 that largely doesn't seem to make sense) Like why is it that the left goes nicely and logically and then for the right logical progression, and then something that sounds like it takes a 180 if you can find something explaining that it would be nice (explaining why it's that way not just declaring it is) NadavMeiri1 ( talk) 16:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
Can we at least discus it rather than edit war? So what is the objection to the definition? Slatersteven ( talk) 23:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
OK we know why it was resorted, now why was it removed (and no Chicago MOS is not as valid reason, we have our own). Slatersteven ( talk) 09:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I don't know how long it has been the case, but the following long section on Fascist economy was commented out of the article. It needs to be checked to see if everything in it has been re-inserted elsewhere, or if some parts of it should be added.
Economic policies
According to Bruce Pauley, Fascist governments exercised control over private property but did not nationalize it. [1] According to Patricia Knight, they did, with the Italian Fascist government coming to own the highest percentage of industries outside the Soviet Union. [2] The Nazis also nationalized some business. [3] In fact, the "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the Nazi party, adopted in 1920, demanded "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations." [4] Other scholars noted that big business developed an increasingly close partnership with the Nazi and Fascist governments as it became increasingly organized. Business leaders supported the government's political and military goals, and in exchange, the government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies. [5] Nazi Germany transferred public ownership and public services into the private sector, while other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry. [6] In his book, Big Business in the Third Reich, Arthur Schweitzer notes that, "Monopolistic price fixing became the rule in most industries, and cartels were no longer confined to the heavy or large-scale industries. ... Cartels and quasi-cartels (whether of big business or small) set prices, engaged in limiting production, and agreed to divide markets and classify consumers in order to realize a monopoly profit. [7]
Fascists pursued economic policies to strengthen state power and spread ideology, such as consolidating trade unions and putting them under state or party control. [8] Attempts were made by both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to establish " autarky" (self-sufficiency) through significant economic planning, but neither achieved economic self-sufficiency. [9]
National corporatism, statism and national syndicalism
Italian Fascism's economy was based on corporatism, and a number of other fascist movements similarly promoted corporatism. Oswald Mosley of the British Union of Fascists, describing fascist corporatism, said that "it means a nation organized as the human body, with each organ performing its individual function but working in harmony with the whole". [10] Fascists were not hostile to the petit-bourgeoisie or to small businesses, and they promised these groups, alongside the proletariat, protection from the upper-class bourgeoisie, big business, and Marxism. The promotion of these groups is the source of the term "extremism of the centre" to describe fascism. [11]
Fascism blamed capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and communists for exploiting it. [12] In Italy, the Fascist period presided over the creation of the largest number of state-owned enterprises in Western Europe, such as the nationalisation of petroleum companies into a single state enterprise called the Italian General Agency for Petroleum (Azienda Generale Italiani Petroli, AGIP). [13] Fascists made populist appeals to the middle class, especially the lower middle class, by promising to protect small businesses and property owners from communism, and by promising an economy based on competition and profit while pledging to oppose big business. [11]
In 1933, Benito Mussolini declared Italian Fascism's opposition to the "decadent capitalism" that he claimed prevailed in the world at the time, but he did not denounce capitalism entirely. Mussolini claimed that capitalism had degenerated in three stages, starting with dynamic or heroic capitalism (1830–1870), followed by static capitalism (1870–1914), and reaching its final form of decadent capitalism or " supercapitalism" beginning in 1914. [14] Mussolini said that Italian Fascism acknowledged the positive achievements of dynamic and heroic capitalism for its contribution to industrialism and its technical developments, but that it did not favor supercapitalism, which he claimed was incompatible with Italy's agricultural sector. [14]
Thus Mussolini claimed that Italy under Fascist rule was not capitalist in the contemporary use of the term, which referred to supercapitalism. [14] Mussolini denounced supercapitalism for causing the "standardization of humankind" and for causing excessive consumption. [15] Mussolini claimed that at the stage of supercapitalism, "a capitalist enterprise, when difficulties arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state's arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously." [16] He saw Fascism as the next logical step to solve the problems of supercapitalism and claimed that "our path would lead inexorably into state capitalism, which is nothing more nor less than state socialism turned on its head. In either event, the result is the bureaucratization of the economic activities of the nation." [17] Mussolini claimed that dynamic or heroic capitalism and the bourgeoisie could be prevented from degenerating into static capitalism and then supercapitalism if the concept of economic individualism were abandoned and if state supervision of the economy was introduced. [18] Private enterprise would control production but it would be supervised by the state. [19] By the late 1930s and the 1940s, Italian Fascism completely denounced capitalism as an obsolete and oppressive system, Mussolini in 1940 at the entry of Italy into World War II, said:
This conflict must not be allowed to cancel out all our achievements of the past eighteen years, nor, more importantly, extinguish the hope of a Third Alternative held out by Fascism to mankind fettered between the pillar of capitalist slavery and the post of Marxist chaos. The proponents of these obsolete doctrines must understand that the Fascist sword has been unsheathed twice before, in Ethiopia and in Spain, with known results.
— Benito Mussolini, 1940. [20]Italian Fascism presented the economic system of corporatism as the solution that would preserve private enterprise and property while allowing the state to intervene in the economy when private enterprise failed. [19]
Other fascist regimes were indifferent or hostile to corporatism. The Nazis initially attempted to form a corporatist economic system like that of Fascist Italy, creating the National Socialist Institute for Corporatism in May 1933, which included many major economists who said that corporatism was consistent with National Socialism. [21] [22] In Mein Kampf, Hitler spoke enthusiastically about the "National Socialist corporative idea" as one that eventually would "take the place of ruinous class warfare". [23] The Nazis later came to view corporatism as detrimental to Germany and institutionalizing and legitimizing social differences within the German nation. Instead, the Nazis began to promote economic organization that emphasized the biological unity of the German national community. [24]
Hitler continued to refer to corporatism in propaganda, but it was not put into place, even though a number of Nazi officials such as Walther Darré, Gottfried Feder, Alfred Rosenburg, and Gregor Strasser were in favor of a neo-medievalist form of corporatism, since corporations had been influential in German history in the medieval era. [25]
Spanish Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera did not believe that corporatism was effective and denounced it as a propaganda ploy, saying "this stuff about the corporative state is another piece of windbaggery". [26]
Economic planning
Fascists opposed the laissez-faire economic policies that were dominant in the era prior to the Great Depression. [27] After the Great Depression began, many people from across the political spectrum blamed laissez-faire capitalism, and fascists promoted their ideology as a " third way" between capitalism and communism. [28]
Fascists declared their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering. [29] Nazis and other antisemitic fascists considered finance capitalism a " parasitic" " Jewish conspiracy". [30] Fascist governments introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of economic interventionist measures. [31]
Fascists thought that private property should be regulated to ensure that "benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual." [32] Private property rights were supported but were contingent upon service to the state. [33] For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labour than he would find profitable." [34] They promoted the interests of successful small businesses. [35] Mussolini wrote approvingly of the notion that profits should not be taken away from those who produced them by their own labour, saying "I do not respect—I even hate—those men that leech a tenth of the riches produced by others". [36]
According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, " dirigisme" was an inherent aspect of fascist economies. [37] The Labour Charter of 1927, promulgated by the Grand Council of Fascism, stated in article 7: "The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation", then continued in article 9: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management." [38]
Beyond My Ken ( talk) 00:47, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
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This is interesting. I checked several stable versions of the article for the past five years and noticed that it was commented out in all of those, too (here's an example from 2015). Then I skipped to December 2012 and it was commented out even then (!!!). I didn't go back further than that. So this is a block of text that was, for all intents and purposes, removed from the article more than 7-8 years ago (who knows how long ago exactly). It's going to be hard to figure out which parts of it were already reworked into the article long ago and which were not, after 8+ years of edits. So if any of it is to be re-inserted, it should be treated as new material, with the sources checked to see if they really say what they are cited as saying. I'm suspicious about the excessive reliance on direct quotes and paraphrases from fascist leaders (especially Mussolini - I see two whole paragraphs that simply list things that Mussolini said, with another blockquote from Mussolini after them). I doubt the secondary sources just report those statements uncritically. Ohff ( talk) 05:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)
Unrelated to the discussion above, I'd like to offer my opinion on the commented-out material. I think that there is definitely useful information about fascist economic views in it, information which may or may not already be present in the article. But if anyone wants to work on this (I would want to at some point, but I just got back after a long hiatus and I can't commit to anything beyond gnome-mode for now), I think it would be more fruitful to simply read the sources cited here and write new text based on them, rather than attempting to use the old text as-is.
I say this for a couple of reasons. For one thing, as I mentioned before, I think too much of this material is simply reporting statements from fascist leaders (the Nazi 25-point program, a quote from Oswald Mosley, three whole paragraphs on Mussolini's statements, lines from Mein Kampf and Primo de Rivera, more Mussolini, etc.). If we had all those in the article right now, I'd say we should trim them, and definitely include the secondary-source commentary on them, rather than just going with "Mussolini said...".
Secondly, too many sentences simply say that "fascists" supported something or took a certain stance, as if there was a fascist consensus on the idea or policy in question, when there usually wasn't. I have not checked the specific cited pages in the sources, but some of those authors are familiar to me and I am quite certain that they are speaking of the views of specific fascists at specific times, not making pronouncements about fascism in general. That would have to be checked and fixed.
So basically, I think this material has potential, and the sources are good, but I would be very apprehensive about just copying text directly back into the article. Ohff ( talk) 06:07, 8 July 2020 (UTC)
Props to Beyond My Ken for the discovery above, which (FYI) prompted me to suggest in the Village pump for miscellany (absent knowing a better place to suggest it) that someone with the technical know-how should look for any other such very long HTML comments in article-space. -sche ( talk) 18:42, 11 July 2020 (UTC)
Curious if you guys have had many edit requests to have Donald Trump included as a fascist. I'm on the left and arguing Trump and his administration were not fascist is still an unpopular view. Even smart people will argue in earnest, non-hyperbolically, that we've been living under fascsim here in the U.S. So just curious if that fight has made it's way here Joeletaylor ( talk) 19:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)
The latin root "fasc" means "pertaining to a bundle", which isn't necessarily left nor right on a modern political spectrum, though it can be both.
Conforming, by government authority, to far-left communism, socialism, and de-importance of the individual is also described by the word fascism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neaumusic ( talk • contribs) 23:51, 11 January 2021 (UTC)
Now that President Trump has declared that the US is under siege from "far-left fascism", we should be prepared for a brand-new round of edit requests seeking to remove the description of fascism as a right-wing ideology. We should remind drive-by editors who make these requests that Wikipedia follows what WP:reliable sources say, and that no reliable source, either academic or from the media, describes fascism as left-wing. Politicians say many things in the course of their attempts to be elected or re-elected, and their statements are not considered to be reliable sources of information. Beyond My Ken ( talk) 06:31, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
The above is incorrect. The Road to Serfdom, by Hayek, published in 1944, traces the roots of Fascism and Nazism. Chapter 12, the Socialist Roots of Nazism, refutes the claim that Nazism has no link to the "left". Much of the book shows the birth of fascism/nazism is rooted in the socialism of the 19th century. Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, does not put fascism/nazism on the right but categorizes it with Stalinism as "totalitarian". Finally, if you read the platform of the Nazi party in 1920 ( https://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm) it is clearly a socialist policy platform with nationalist overtones. I have little expectation that these facts will influence wikipedia, as wikipedia in political subjects is biased and censored. Aseidave ( talk) 21:45, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
It is not that the article or Wikipedia is biased, it is a fact. -- Germanico5468504 ( talk) 22:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)
Fascism as all other anti-democratic ideologies doesn't fall on the same left-right scale as democratic movements. Theres LEFT wing extremists who went from far-left to fundamentalist far-left and then theres the EXTREMISTS that renegated the "moderate" far-left and shifted to opose that same far left (thats whar RIGHT WING extremists are). But there are no RIGHT wing involved in any of these ideologies since they all continued to be anti- "all-things-right". Everyone who is in the right of the democratic spectre is correct to refer to the anti democratic far-righ (fascism) as far left sicne they are talking about something that ideologicvally is opposed to EVERYTHING of the democratic right. In the same way that far-left democratic/ant-democratic ideologies are correct to refer to fanti-democratic far right (fascism) as far-right because basically it is what it is relative to them ... the renegation of everything they defended. Both situations are viewed form completelly diferent prespectives so they are both correct and wrong at the same time. Sotavento ( talk) 22:02, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
And since the german far-right(aka the NSDAP) took ideas from both the american democratic and the italian fascist ideologies at the same time they can't be categorized as any extreme of the spectre. Fascism (italy) is by its own definition a far-left movement gone rogue! Sotavento ( talk) 22:10, 18 October 2020 (UTC)
With regards to "no reliable source, either academic or from the media, describes fascism as left-wing" ... I'd be willing to be that some do (maybe Fox News?), but "reliable" in this context generally means one of the sources that routinely and consistently endorses Democratic candidates ie. a mainstream US news channel or newspaper. I don't know if you would seriously make the argument that academia is a hotbed of right-wing thought either. So, in essence what you're saying, is that sources that lean pretty consistently to the left all agree that a pejorative, controversial ideology describes the right. Hardly a surprising development, and one that few would need an encyclopedia for. At the end of the day, when it comes to subjective issues, the majority of people believe that which mostly resembles one's own views. Is this encyclopedic? Given that most mainstream sources are fairly openly "liberal", maybe, but in this case, when it basically boils down to a political insult, and you're quoting one side of said argument and declaring it definitive, it definitely doesn't seem like it. Opie8 ( talk) 08:00, 5 January 2021 (UTC)