Fascism is a "collectivist" term. The original expression, used by its author, was: "i FASCI di combattimento" or "the fighting bands/groups". Used as a call to arms.
In Italian: o Fascio means bundle or fagot, e.g.: a bundle of twigs (fagotto). o FASCI is the plural of fascio. o Fascia means band, as in sash. But can also mean "to bind" (infasciare). o Fasce is the plural of fascia. The words can have some synonymity.
Fascism from "fascismo" - derived from "fascio" - both Italian words, the latter, in turn, derived from the latin: fasces_(s.) - fascis_(pl.).
The Roman "fasces" was an axe "bundled" within sticks or rods. The Romans used it as a symbol of authority.
In Mussolini's agricultural Italy, the word fascio was very commonplace in the vernacular. And not just in the farm. E.g.: an emigrant shouldering a bundle of personal belongings (fagotto).
Here's one definition of fascism. Italian political movement established, in Milan, on 23 March 1919, by Benito Mussolini.
As to its philosophy, let's turn to the author himself... you be the judge.
If you, like me, have ever seen a news photo of a protesting leftoid, hauling a sign which includes the word "facist" [sic], you may find the Duce's own words ironic.
Mussolini's words - 1933: A fascist world is not this materialistic world which manifests itself superficially, where man is a self-sufficient individual apart from other men, governed by a natural law, which instinctively leads him to live an egoistical and temporal life. Fascist man is a patriot of his coutry,
[sic - he is governed by a] moral law which binds together individuals and generations in tradition and a common cause, who suppresses the instinctually narrow life of pleasure, in order to achieve, through duty, a superior life experience, free of temporal and spatial boundaries - a life, where the individual, by way of self-abnegation, by sacrifizing his personal interests, in death itself, achieves an entirely spiritual existence where he will find his value as a man.
the above is my translation from: http://www.piralli.it/dottrina.htm Il mondo per il fascismo non è questo mondo materiale che appare alla superficie, in cui l'uomo è un individuo separato da tutti gli altri e per sé stante, ed è governato da una legge naturale, che istintivamente lo trae a vivere una vita di piacere egoistico e momentaneo. L'uomo del fascismo è individuo che è nazione e patria, legge morale che stringe insieme individui e generazioni in una tradizione e in una missione, che sopprime l'istinto della vita chiusa nel breve giro del piacere per instaurare nel dovere una vita superiore libera da limiti di tempo e di spazio: una vita in cui l'individuo, attraverso l'abnegazione di sé, il sacrifizio dei suoi interessi particolari, la stessa morte, realizza quell'esistenza tutta spirituale in cui è il suo valore di uomo.