Defining Fascism

Lawrence lawrence at krubner.com
Fri Jul 6 00:44:42 PDT 2001


Brad Delong wrote:
> A nice argument, but it increases one's fear that China or India may
> develop their own forms of fascism in the future...

There are regimes that follow the rule of law, there are regimes that are guided by a single personality. To me, that is the main distinction. I don't think it matters much whether a country is formally Fascist or Communist or Socialist or Capitalist, what matters is how much law there is, and how much does personality (associated with the rule of strength and bullying) matter?

After Timothy McViegh was executed, I read in one of the papers that many of the victims families were disappointed. One woman said that he simply went to sleep, seemingly without pain, which, she felt, was wrong. She wanted him to suffer as much as he had made others suffer. She would have preferred, as I recall reading, that he have explosives strapped to him and have them set off. She wanted him to die with great pain. To me, the article was a reminder. Democracy in America is never automatic. The fascist impulse will always be with us.



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