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Currently working my way through original source material (remember that?) on the Fascist economic theory while reading Mussolini's "Doctrine of Fascism" I just about fell out my chair when I found the following passage:
Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence. It is opposed to classical Liberalism, which arose form the necessity of reacting against absolutism, and which brought its historical purpose to an end when the State was transformed into the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual. And if liberty is to be the attribute of the real man, and not of that abstract puppet envisaged by individualistic Liberalism, Fascism is for liberty. And for the only liberty which can be a real thing, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State. Therefore, for the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the State. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State, the synthesis and unity of all values, interprets, develops and gives strength to the whole life of the people.
The more I read, the more convinced I am that Fascism as it was practiced in Italy was undiluted quasi-religious statism. (That and T.S. Elliot must be pissed as greater individualism through submission was one of Elliot's reoccurring themes.)
Currently working my way through original source material (remember that?) on the Fascist economic theory while reading Mussolini's "Doctrine of Fascism" I just about fell out my chair when I found the following passage:
[i]Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State, which is the conscience and universal will of man in his historical existence. It is opposed to classical Liberalism, which arose form the necessity of reacting against absolutism, and which brought its historical purpose to an end when the State was transformed into the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual. And if liberty is to be the attribute of the real man, and not of that abstract puppet envisaged by individualistic Liberalism, Fascism is for liberty. And for the only liberty which can be a real thing, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State. Therefore, for the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value, outside the State. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State, the synthesis and unity of all values, interprets, develops and gives strength to the whole life of the people.[/i]
The more I read, the more convinced I am that Fascism as it was practiced in Italy was undiluted quasi-religious statism. (That and T.S. Elliot must be pissed as greater individualism through submission was one of Elliot's reoccurring themes.)
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