Thursday, July 2, 2026

Fascism and Nazism are Cousin Ideologies

The popular view that Nazism is just Fascism with German characteristics is definitely wrong, there were other German groups at the time who were much closer to being that, and if anything German National Socialism is older than Italian Fascism. However they do have key similarities alongside the important differences. 

Others who have put much time into distinguishing them on YouTube like TIK and TheJayLino have this issue of wanting to blame the conflation only on Mussolini and Hitler’s wartime alliance even though they know full well the conflation was already happening before the War.  They know that Arnold Leese put Fascist in the name of his group even though he despised Mussolini and was using Hitler as his model. And they might know that Marxist Philosophers were already writing theories of Fascism predicated on including the Nazis in 1934.

The core philosophical distinction is a Hitler quote about the State deriving its authority from The Nation contrasted with a Mussolini quote about the Nation being defined by The State. The other differences you can point out are arguably derivative from that. It means they can manifest in ways where what the State is doing is pretty similar, even more similar than Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were, but at their core would still be mutually exclusive ideas.

It also means that National Socialism can have a greater diversity of positions on The State, including rejecting it entirely, the Posse Comitatus ideology is basically Anarcho-Nazism. And that a Fascism can in-turn redefine what its Nation is if it wants, hence both Moseley and some surviving Italian Fascists moving to Pan-European Nationalism after the War.  Globalist Fascism is also theoretically possible, just combine the Globalist Class Collaborationist State-Socialism of H.G. Wells with Sorleianism inspired State Corporatism. 

Sometimes TheJayLino contradicts his one definition. Not in a video proper but replying to a comment he said he viewed the SSNP (Syrian Social Nationalist Party) as Fascist, but on this core diction Antoun Saadeh definitionally a National Socialist. He viewed the Syrian Nation as an eternal organic entity that the State derives its authority from. Combined with his intense Antisemitism he was firmly a Nazi. The SSNP backed the March 1949 Syrian Coup which was also backed by Walter Rauf and the CIA.  Pierre Gemayel did indeed hold the Fascist view of The State.

TheJayLino defines Fascism as a development of Sorelian Syncialism. He considers Geroges Sorel the principal forefather of Fascism, Fascism is still not fully formed in Sorel’s own writings, but it took only a little nudging for Geroges Valois and Eduard Berth to form Fascism out of Sorel.

In that context I’d argue that Houston Steward Chamberlain is to Nazism what Gergoes Sorel is to Fascism, the gist of just about everything is there in his 1899 book Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, it too only needed one more push. He had been read by Henry M. Hyndman who founded a National Socialist Party in Britain in 1916, and was a cited influence by Rudolf Jung, Hitler in Mein Kampf and Alfred Rosenberg the chief Philosopher of the NSDAP (their Giovani Gentile).

In-spite of their differences Chamberlain and Sorel have a few Intellectual common ancestors. 

Both openly cited Proudhon as an influence as I talked about when I discussed Proudhon being a War Monger

But the most important one is Thomas Carlyle. On my main blog I talked about Calryle’s Heroarchy as the grandfather of both Fascism and Nazism in the context of talking about how Heroarchy manifests in some popular entertainment media

Their differences perhaps partially manifest in part in how only Chamberlain read Carlyle directly, while for Sorel the Carlyle influence was filtered through William James.

Proudhon and Carlyle also have a common intellectual ancestor in Immanuel Kant, that is why one of the core things Fascism and Nazism have in common is both being Idealists. Carlyle was a more direct student of Kant while Proudhon’s Kantianism was filtered through Hegel. But I will not consider all intellectual descendants of Kant or Hegel cousins to Fascism and Nazism in any way that politically matters. Karl Marx was influenced by Hegel and Nietzsche by the most Un-Hegelian student of Kant as well as Carlyle, but both also ultimately rejected Idealism specifically criticizing Kant and Hegel and Carlyle (and Marx wrote against Proudhon). But Nietzsche remains someone Fascists and Nazis could still pull from, while Marx came to represent everything they oppose.

This means there can be other Cousins to Fascism and Nazism that are distinct from both by also descending from either Carlyle or Poroudhin if not both.  

Like Charles Maurras’s Integral Nationalism, he too cited Proudhon as an influence. He in turn influenced both the Cagulards and Rexism in Belgium. 

Post Civil War Neoconfederate ideologies tend to have Carlyle filtered through Geroge Fitzburgh and probably some indirect Proudhon with their Federalism (Proudhon did support the Confederacy in-spite of his opposition to Slavery). And Crlyle also influenced Northern White Supremacists via people like Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Ze’ev Jabotinsky was also an ardent reader of Thomas Calryle. And there was arguably some indirect Proudhon influence. So while only some of his followers adopted Fascism, Jabotinsky himself was already a Cousin.

I also think fantasy writer E. R. Eddison’s ideology has some strong Heroarchy and Proudhonian vibes even though he said he hated the Nazis and Fascists. Perhaps the same can be said of Robert E. Howard.

The only thing making me hesitant to count Ayn Rand and her Objectivism is that she self identified as a Materialist.

But modern Left Wing Anarchists are not true Proudhonians no matter how much they misguidedly claim to be. The French Forefather of modern Left Wing Anarchism was Joseph Dejacue.  Fascists and most Nazis are also very un Proudhonian by not being Anarchists, but again it is chiefly his view of War and Violence that I cite as influential to Fascism and Nazism.

In addition to their intellectual ideological common ancestors Fascism and Nazism developed similarities in Praxis tied to the historical context of their manifestation. Both started as Leftists who were Pro-War in 1914 and tied to that adopted Nationalism over Internationalism. And then how their not so ideologically educated foot soldiers were WW1 veterans driven by paranoid Anti-Bolshevism to join strike breaking paramilitary gangs. That’s why the American Legion liked to identify with the Fascists, but their core ideology was just defending the Roosevelt-Wilson status quo.

No comments:

Post a Comment