so what's fascism? this is tough
because fascism is usually what people call
almost any political opinion they don't like
even as far back as World War II
people were calling Hitler's Germany,
Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, and
Imperial Japan fascist, not to mention
all the other countries in Europe and
South America which have been called fascist
George Orwell, who wrote 1984,
said in 1944 that if you examine the
press you will find that there is almost
no set of people certainly no political
party or organized body of any kind
which has not been denounced as fascist
in the past ten years--I have heard it
applied to farmers, shopkeepers, social
credit, corporal punishment, fox hunting,
bullfighting, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang
Kai-Shek, homosexuality, youth hostels,
astrology, women, dogs, and I do not know what else
the bad British accent is a free bonus
if you look at different
descriptions of fascism you do see some
common themes though they need explaining
one, a huge focus on
nationalism and standing for your country
not just being patriotic but way
beyond that to the point it is supposed
to be the most important thing in people's lives
two, being really invested
in the military and wanting to use it
for foreign conquest and permanent war
three, plus often organizing the party and
government in a military looking way
four, putting everyone beneath a strong leader
who runs everything with absolute power
and a lack of rights or civil liberties
this is something you see in many kinds
of political systems too but it's
definitely part of fascism
five, using violence and politics though
other types of dictatorships do this as well
six, glorifying youth and strong masculinity
seven, pushing people to conform to the
National ideal way of living to build a
single national identity
not just a repressive society but a place where
everyone is trying to be exactly the
same or they get in trouble
eight, being obsessed with tradition even if
it's a weird mash-up of traditions and
rejecting modern life
like really angry Amish people
but since fascism is fuzzy and people
argue about this let's go straight to
the horse's mouth and quote Benito
Mussolini's Italian National Fascist Party
they complained that socialists
diminish the moral value of war they say
that fascism
is built around the fatherland, an idea
that gives people a reason for existing
and is the final outcome of all history
they talk about the power of youth
they talk about the need for violence
and the creation of squads in a military fashion
fashion might mean organized
like soldiers or, since this is Italy, it
might mean militantly fashionable
the Italian fascists also talk about the
freedom that comes from being conquered
by the law and renouncing
individualistic wasteful desires
really they want to reject democracy and
individualism itself as the source of modern problems
they talk of the spiritual
power of rejecting materialism and
seeing life as a struggle and on a more
practical level the Italian fascists wanted
an eight-hour workday, a minimum wage
expansion and improvement of the
national railroads, lowering the
retirement age from 65 to 55, a national
militia, a national policy to further
Italian culture, taxing the rich, and
seizing all religious property in Italy
where the Pope lives, seizing church
property we get you a lot of moolah
they also nationalized most of the
economy under councils that included the
government, supposed experts, and control
of the labor unions
so that's fascism, what's Nazism?
first you should know that Nazi is actually an
abbreviation for National Socialists which is short
for National Socialist German Workers Party
which is in German so it's one word
that's like 6 miles long
probably they shortened it because people
kept passing out at rallies due to a lack of oxygen
Nazism is easier to nail down because
there was just one Nazi country, Germany
the Nazis were really
focused on racial superiority and purity
particularly the idea that Jewish people
needed to be removed from the German
people and state because they were
weakening and corrupting it
the Nazis were also focused on undoing the defeat
of World War I and collecting all
Germans into one country
not just getting their land and power back but
expanding the German people into new
territory and colonies, so that they
could have more pure Germans, so they
could take over more land, and so on
all of this came from the idea of social
Darwinism, which had started near the end
of the 1900s and was popular all around
the world including many places in the U.S.
basically social Darwinism was the
idea that natural selection affected
people too and so weakness
needed to be bred out of humanity
poor people, mentally handicapped people,
and criminals among others all needed to
reproduce less so that healthy well-off
people could reproduce more and keep
strengthening the human gene pool
some people, like the Nazis, didn't just
apply this to individuals but to races
which they saw as being scientific categories
good races needed to be made
better and avoid being ruined by
intermixing with bad races
the Nazis were willing to end immigration and
create a whole system of laws designed
to give second-class status to any
racial group they saw as inferior
eventually, as you surely heard, they
decided that second-class status and
kicking people out wasn't enough
they also pushed for national government
control over politics and the press as
well as having more central control of
the national government by one person: Hitler
on the more practical side they
wanted to ensure all jobs went to
Germans first, that any welfare required work,
that companies had profit sharing,
that Germany created better old-age pensions,
they wanted support for small businesses,
land reform, rent reduction, the death penalty for more crimes,
free public education into college,
public support for mothers,
making what colleges taught more practical,
an end to child labor,
mandatory sports and physical fitness,
and communal ownership of large department stores
if you don't know what
a department store is, ask your parents
the Nazis also organized their economy
into trusts that partnered companies in an
industry with the government
what's the difference between fascism and Nazism?
there are some differences but whether
you think the two are totally different
depends on how important you think those differences are
you probably noticed a lot
of similarities between what the fascists
focused on and what the Nazis wanted
neither group fully delivered on
their promises but we're focused on the
version that came to power and had the
most popularity because that's what
people chose when there were still elections
you've got the same militarism,
the same focus on conquest and national glory,
the same lack of interest in individualism,
and the same obsession
with a strong leader at the top
there are plenty of people who study this who
don't think fascism can be nailed down
as tightly as Nazism but they generally
agree that they have these things in common
Nazism is like a supercharged and
more specific version of fascism
people also argue about whether fascism
is inherently racist the way that Nazism is
there are fascist laws
about race though they are less severe
than the Nazi ones
fascist governments were also willing to speak out publicly
against Jews and talked about the
differences between superior and inferior races
at the same time fascist
governments were generally a lot less
interested in helping kill Jews and so
fewer Jews died there as opposed to in
areas the Nazis controlled
but they still killed tons of their own people
based on political beliefs and
membership in specific groups
so you have to decide how much of a distinction
you want to make between being racists
and also killing people versus killing
people because of your racism
there are a lot of interesting connections between
communism, fascism, and Nazism as well
historians have serious academic
arguments about whether you can say
they're sibling ideas--communism is older
than the other two but they all hit
their stride in the early 20th century
after the changes in war that World War I
brought about, the harm caused by the
Great Depression and World War I's
death toll, and the creation of the first mass media
it's easy to forget now that
before radio got big in the 1920s you
couldn't communicate out to everyone in
real time and that was more than 70
years before the internet, which gave
people widespread way to talk back and
to each other in real time
so draw your own conclusions about how similar
you think these different philosophies are
finally do people use these labels correctly
when they're talking about today's politics?
you can decide that for yourself
but it doesn't seem like many
people day are pushing for the full
enchilada of any of these philosophies
just pieces of them... enchilada pieces
this metaphor kind of got away from me
plus you'll notice that some of the
things all these groups have pushed for
are now common, like universal old-age
pensions and a minimum wage, which makes
it even more complicated
as George Orwell said back in the 40s people
just use these words to label anything they don't like
the closest you get to accuracy
is that some people still call
themselves socialists, though socialism
is the fuzziest bucket of all
man, "the fuzzy buckets" would be a great band name
so this was mostly focused on the
history of these ideas
there's an argument about whether a modern version
of fascism is making a comeback
I'll cover that in a future video that tries
to explain what the alt right is and
what they believe in--it'll mostly be
focused on the USA because that's what
I'm best qualified to talk about
but we'll briefly touch on Europe
and there you have it
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the next video will be on what it means when
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