CONTENTS
- "Fourteen defining characteristics of fascism"
- A definition of "fascism" (with historical background)
Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism
by Dr. Lawrence Britt • May 2003
Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each. They are:
1. Powerful and continuing nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the recognition of human rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic, or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists; terrorists; etc.
4. Supremacy of the military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion, and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled mass media
Sometimes the media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with national security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and government are intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate power is protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labour power is suppressed
Because the organizing power of labour is the only real threat to a fascist government, labour unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for intellectuals and the arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with crime and punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant cronyism and corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
fascism • Originally, the term denoted only the Italian political party founded by Benito Mussolini in the aftermath of World War I, and the state that was created during the 1920s following the party's seizure of power, although in ordinary usage it has since become a generic term used to refer to almost any authoritarian right-wing ideology, political party, or state. It nevertheless retains a certain precision within political sociology. In the latter context, it has come to refer to parties, ideologies, or states that either advocate or embody a typically terroristic domination of a fused state apparatus, within which there is no separation of powers or rule of law, by a single party infused with a frequently racist and always nationalist petit-bourgeois ideology. On this basis, the German Nazi (National Socialist) Party founded by Adolf Hitler, the ideology he elaborated, and state that he created after his seizure of power, have become the archetypes of fascism in place of their Italian equivalents. Naturally, there were many variations on the fascist themes current in inter-war Europe, and these are concisely discussed in Eugen Weber, Varieties of Fascism, 1964.
SOURCE: A Dictionary of Sociology. John Scott and Gordon Marshall. Oxford University Press, 2009. Oxford Reference Online. Accessed: November 6, 2010 [http://www.oxfordreference.com]
0 comments:
Post a Comment