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Definition:
Fascism is a political system which developed in Italy and Nazi Germany during the
1920s and 30s. The term itself is derived from an Italian word for the bundle of sticks
around an axe, a symbol which was originally used by Roman consuls and which Mussolini
had adopted for his own nationalistic and authoritarian political movement, founded in 1919.
As a form of government, fascism is opposed to individual liberty, capitalism conducted for the purpose of private gain, and all non-governmental forms of association which might tend to weaken a person's loyalty to the primary group, which is the state. Fascism is a form of totalitarianism in which devotion to the group over self-interest is emphasized.
In his book The Anatomy of Fascism, Robert O. Paxton offers this working definition of fascism:
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
Also Known As: none
Alternate Spellings: none
Common Misspellings: none
Related Resources:
What are Political and Legal Philosophy
The Philosophy of Politics and the Philosophy of Law are often studied separately, but they are presented here jointly because they both come back to the same thing: the study of force. Politics is the study of political force in the general community, while jurisprudence is the study of how laws can and should be used to achieve political and social goals.What is Philosophy?
What is philosophy? Is there any point in studying philosophy, or is it a useless subject? What are the different branches of philosophy - what's the difference between aestheitcs and ethics? What's the difference between metaphysics and epistemology?
