The “Fascist” Ad Hominem As an Act of Projection

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Thomas J. DiLorenzo
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A definition of “projection” is when one baselessly accuses others of doing something unsavory, immoral, or illegal that he is actually doing. For example, a thief who, without proof, accuses others of being thieves. This is what socialists do when they call their intellectual and political opponents “fascists” or compare them to Hitler. Fascism is socialism, as Lew Rockwell recently reminded us in an essay entitled “National Socialism Was Socialist.” Socialists calling opponents of socialism fascists and Hitler-like is a classic example of projection. 

Socialists started out claiming that their goal was forced egalitarianism with the means being government ownership of the means of production. Then, according to Ludwig von Mises, it also came to be defined as government control of the private means of production through pervasive government regulation, controls, and regimentation. The ostensible goal was still egalitarianism but the means were different. In the 1976 edition of The Road to Serfdom F. A. Hayek wrote that by that time socialism also meant the pursuit of egalitarianism by yet another means – income redistribution through the institutions of the welfare state and the progressive income tax.

Today socialism is defined by its self-described “woke” practitioners as “diversity, equity, and inclusion” (DEI), a synonym for egalitarianism, along with comprehensive central planning through regulation in the name of “fighting climate change” (i.e., the “Green New Deal”). What these definitions of socialism have in common is that they would all require totalitarian governmental power and the further abolition of property rights, the rule of law, civil liberties, constitutionalism, and economic freedom in general, all in the name of “equity,” the new buzz word for socialist egalitarianism. 

Today’s socialists see Donald Trump and his political followes as their main obstacle, so naturally they relentlessly label them as fascists and Hitler-like. A typical Washington Post headline was “How Trump’s Rhetoric Compares with Hitler’s.” Another one was “Yes, It’s OK to Compare Trump to Hitler.” National Public Radio’s web site had a headline announcing that “Donald Trump Used Language in a Speech that Echoed Hitler.” Joe Biden once publicly announced that “Trump echoes language you heard in Nazi Germany.” “Calling Trump Hitler has become part of the routine” of the Biden campaign, wrote POLITICO in early 2024, before it became “part of the routine” of the Harris campaign.

In reality it is today’s “woke” cultural Marxists in government, universities, the so-called “media,” the entertainment industry, and much of corporate America – including the people and institutions quoted above – who are the real fascists. They are the political children of the early twentieth century Italian communist Antionio Gramsci, who taught them that the road to socialism should proceed with a “long march through the institutions.” Their socialist long march as been concluded with the capture of all of the above-mentioned institutions. They are now busy rigging elections, “cancelling” anyone who disagrees with them, using “lawfare” to imprison their political opponents, and using the powers of government to try to destroy the First Amendment. Hillary Clinton, the widely acknowledged instigator of the “Russia Hoax,” the biggest political lie in memory, recently proposed prison sentences for anyone spreading “misinformation” ( i.e., criticizing her political agendas) on the internet. Talk about projection on steroids. 

Fascism IS Socialism

Benito Mussolini, who ruled over fascist Italy, called himself an “international socialist” before he relabeled himself as a “national socialist,” which is what a fascist was defined as in the nineteenth century. Private enterprise was permitted in fascist Italy but was regulated and controlled with an iron fist by fascist politicians. As such, it was socialism as Mises explained. 

The 2007 edition of The Road to Serfdom, published by the University of Chicago Press, included an appendix that was an essay by F.A. Hayek entitled “Nazi Socialism.” “The socialist character of National Socialism has been quite generally unrecognized,” wrote Hayek. This is remarkable on its face: Why would something called “national socialism” not be considered socialism?! (Hint: Because socialists understand that Hayek was right when he wrote in The Road to Serfdom that under socialism “the worst rise to the top” in politics. Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro, Ceausescu, and the rest were not just aberrations). 

“Pervasive anti-capitalism was at the heart of national socialism,” Hayek said. The Nazi Party Platform “was full ideas resembling those of the early socialists” including “a fierce hatred of anything capitalistic – individual profit seeking, large-scale enterprises, banks, joint-stock companies, department stores, international finance and loan capital, the system of ‘interest slavery.’” 

Hayek described German national socialism as “a violent anti-capitalist attack” with “The End of Capitalism” being its slogan. “All of the leading men” of German and Italian fascism “began as socialists and ended as Fascists or Nazis,” he wrote. 

Mussolini wrote in his book Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions that “The fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with the State. It is opposed to classical liberalism.” “If classical liberalism spells individualism,” said the fascist dictator, “Fascism spells government.” Mussolini announced with great bombast that the twentieth century was “the collective century, and therefore the century of the State.” What socialist would not approve of that?

The Italian and German fascists adopted both kinds of socialism that Mises described: They nationalized many industries, more than half in Germany, and the rest were de facto nationalized with pervasive government regulatory control and regimentation. 

Nazi apologist Paul Lensch was a self-professed Marxist, a member of the Reichstag who praised the “war socialism” of World War I, and the author of Three Years of World Revolution. In it he followed Mussolini in denouncing “English liberalism” and especially individualism (i.e., respect for all individuals) and called for replacing these “inherited political ideas” with “Socialism,” which “must present a conscious and determined opposition to individualism.” Accordingly, the fundamental philosophical plank of the “25-Point Program of the Nazi Party” was “The Common Good Comes Before the Private Good,” with of course the state defining what “the common good” is. A classic definition of collectivism. 

As good socialists the Nazis in their platform demanded that capitalist “usurers and profiteers [bankers and entrepreneurs] . . . must be punished with death.” The media were to be under strict government control to eliminate “known lies” about fascism, essentially identical to Hillary Clinton’s recent proposal to imprison spreaders of “misinformation” about her political preferences.

As with all twentieth-century socialist regimes the Nazis demanded monopolistic, centralized governmental power and the abolition of federalism, states’ rights, and decentralization. “We demand the formation of a strong central power in the Reich” and “unlimited authority of the central parliament over the whole Reich.” That of course is exactly what today’s “woke” cultural Marxists want with their election rigging, censorship, lawfare, and calls to abolish the Constitution, the Supreme Court, the electoral college, and anything else that would stand in the way of “unlimited authority” in the central government. They know exactly what they are doing because they are, after all, fascists.