Mr. Moderate

There is much debate over whether or not fascism is an economic system. (See Definitions of fascism.) There is agreement, however, that fascism is anti-socialist and, consequently, also anti-communist (communism is clearly viewed as a radical form of socialism). Fascist governments are inherently totalitarian in ideology, and go to extreme lengths to suppress individualistic expressions of opinion on any matter. The idea of a fascist government is to forge the people into a unified whole which will immediately effect the will of the leader.

It is only by implication, then, that we arrive at the fascist economic system. Business leaders are presumed to be subservient to the political leadership. Each head of a corporation was then in a position similar to a general of an army of the state. Accordingly, fascist leaders and their captains of industry would suppress anything that looked like a workers movement (a union, for instance). In fascist ideology, the unified power of the state was the supreme ideal, and dissent of any sort from that ideal unity was not tolerated. At the time of the rise of fascism, communist and socialist power blocks were comprised primarily of the lower working classes, so those blocks became the enemies of the fascist state.

In the fascist system, the economic evils of monopoly power were avoided by the subservience of business leaders to the political hierarchy. If the people (consumers) complained about being taken advantage of by a monopoly business, the political leaders could (and did) intervene. Benito Mussolini became famous for making the trains in Italy run on time. He could do that because, as a totalitarian dictator, no business leader dared to cross him. When the people complained about the trains not running on time, Mussolini simply ordered that this be taken care of. Besides, having the trains run on time was consistent with his emphasis on order and unity within the society.

The fascist economic system never received much of a trial because the political oppression it was associated with was so detestable to the vast majority of civilized humanity. There is only one decent idea in fascist economics for us to take away in any case. That idea is the concept that business, even the largest of business, is necessarily subservient to the government through which the people express their political will to control the fraudulent and/or oppressive excesses of businesses.