For decades, a simplified narrative has permeated public discourse: Fascism and Nazism are unequivocally "far-Right" ideologies. This label, often wielded by politicians, media outlets, and academics, not only oversimplifies history but also obscures the collectivist and statist roots of these movements. By reducing them to mere insults, we risk missing the broader lessons about totalitarianism. It's time to examine their core elements, state supremacy, economic control, and the erosion of individual rights, beyond the Left-Right binary. While mainstream scholarship places them on the far-Right due to ultranationalism and anti-egalitarianism, their heavy reliance on centralised planning echoes Left-wing collectivism, challenging the neat categorisation.
The Socialist Influences in Early Fascism
Benito Mussolini, the founder of Italian Fascism, didn't emerge from conservative circles. Born in 1883, he was raised in a socialist household, his father was a blacksmith and ardent socialist and became a prominent figure in the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). As editor of the party's newspaper Avanti!, Mussolini championed Marxist ideas and class struggle from 1912 to 1914. His split with the PSI wasn't over economics but foreign policy: He supported Italy's entry into World War I, viewing it as a catalyst for revolution, while the party favoured neutrality. Expelled in 1914, Mussolini founded the Fascist movement in 1919, blending nationalism with socialist methods like state intervention and worker syndicates.
Giovanni Gentile, often called the "philosopher of Fascism," co-authored The Doctrine of Fascism (1932) with Mussolini. While some attribute to Gentile the quote calling fascism "a form of socialism, in fact, its most viable form," the document itself critiques socialism as materialistic and class-divisive, positioning fascism as a "spiritual" alternative that unifies the nation under the state. Yet, fascism's practices, corporate syndicates controlling industries, state-directed labour, and economic planning, reflected collectivist tendencies, effectively subordinating private enterprise to national goals.
This statism contrasts sharply with classical conservatism or American Right-wing values, which emphasise limited government, free markets, and individual property rights. Critics argue fascism's "third way" economics borrowed from socialism while rejecting its internationalism.
Hayek's Insight: The Slippery Slope from Planning to Tyranny
Friedrich Hayek, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who fled Nazi-occupied Austria, provided a prescient analysis in his 1944 book The Road to Serfdom. Witnessing the rise of both Soviet communism and Nazi Germany, Hayek rejected the idea that fascism was a capitalist backlash against socialism. Instead, he saw it as the inevitable endpoint of socialist planning.
Hayek argued that centralised economic planning requires coercive enforcement: Planners must prioritise resources, suppress dissent, and control information to maintain unity. In Germany, social democratic policies in the Weimar era paved the way for Nazi totalitarianism, as economic controls necessitated political ones. "The rise of fascism and Nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies," Hayek wrote.
This framework explains why both communist and fascist regimes devolved into authoritarianism, despite differing rhetoric. Hayek's warning remains relevant: Even well-intentioned planning can erode freedoms.
National Socialism: Collectivism in Ultranationalist Garb
Nazism, or National Socialism, is often cited as far-Right due to its racism, militarism, and hierarchy. Yet, its economic and social policies featured heavy state intervention: The Nazis expanded welfare programs, controlled wages and prices, and directed industries toward war production, often through cartels rather than full nationalisation. Hitler persecuted communists and socialists, but the party's name and early platform included anti-capitalist planks like profit-sharing and land reform.
Conservative author Dinesh D'Souza argues in works like The Big Lie that postwar academics, sympathetic to Left-wing ideas, rebranded Nazism as Right-wing to distance socialism from its horrors. However, this view is contentious; historians counter that Nazis were anti-Leftist, privatised some sectors, and allied with conservatives. Scholarly consensus leans toward fascism as a far-Right phenomenon, rejecting class struggle for national unity.
Labelling fascism solely "Right-wing" ignores its hybrid nature, blending Right-wing nationalism with Left-wing statism. This oversimplification serves political agendas but hinders understanding totalitarianism's dangers, regardless of origin. Hayek's caution, that planning leads to coercion, applies broadly. By studying these ideologies holistically, we better guard against authoritarianism in any form.
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2025/10/once_and_for_all_fascism_is_not_right_wing.html