Ethics of Fascism

8/8/2019 Ethics of Fascism

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The Ethics of FascismAuthor(s): T. V. SmithSource: International Journal of Ethics, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Jan., 1936), pp. 151-177Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2989352

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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM'T. V. SMITH

ASCISM s an opportunism,ut anopportunismrow-ing a philosophy upon demand.2 The German type offascism we shall here ignore: first, because we want tobe brief and clear; second, because when we- hink we think with

our brains; third, because we think that those who think withtheir blood think so confusedly that we must wait for their bloodto cool or to be let, before we can fruitfully invest them with aphilosophy. Upon the Italian type of fascism we shall concen-trate, if one may be said to concentrate upon so grand a flourishof phrase, upon so violent a thrust of action. Mussolini's pathto power cannot but remind us, indeed, of one of Pirandello'splays; for Mussolini was so ubiquitous with his loyalties whilehe was on the make as to appear to be six or more powers insearch of a portfolio. That there was method in his madness,however, the event itself discloses. "To be grandly vague," asHerman Finer has put it, "is the shortest route to power; for ameaningless noise is that which divides us least."3 There wasfrankness as well as method in the madness. "Our programme

I A partial chapter from a forthcoming book devoted to the ethics of the majorpolitical "isms" now competing for allegiance the world over.2 For a brief but enlightening discussion of what facism is, when conceived ana-lytically, the reader is referred to H. Arthur Steiner's "Facism in America?" AmericanPoliticalScienceReview,XXIX (October, 935), 82I-30. Fascism,says Steiner,hassix characteristics, all of which must be present before the manifestation is authentic:

"(i) the rejection of democracy; (2) a dictatorial technique; (3) repression of individualfreedom; (4) repression of organized labor; (5) intense nationalism; and (6) a reaction-ary perspective."3Mussolini's Italy (London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd., I935), p. i6. From this excel-lent and up-to-date volume I shall draw not a few quotations for my exposition,

without further acknowledgment. The few facts and conclusions borrowed from him areappropriately indicated.The source of other quotations is Herbert W. Schneider's collected source materialpublished as an Appendix to his Making the Fascist State (New York: Oxford Uni-

versity Press, I928).I5I


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I52 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICSis simple," says Mussolini before his March on Rome: "we wishto govern Italy."

With power achieved by means now known, and progressivelyconsolidated since, Mussolini has achieved a somewhat more in-tegrated character; and with this integration the Duce has ar-ticulated what, with measured tolerance, may be called a moralphilosophy. To this philosophy we shall now direct our atten-tion, without being for a moment unaware of how much fascismstill remains the opportunism that it became on its way topower.The tactics of opportunism as a bid for power have subse-quently, indeed, been rationalized as the necessity and the de-sirability of inconsistency. According to one admiring biogra-pher, Margherita Sarfatti, Mussolini boasts that "Fascism doesnot possess an armoury of theoretical doctrines, because everysystem is an error, and every theory a prison." This same em-phasis comes with more speculative weight, and not with lessgrace, from Gentile, the main technical philosopher of the fas-cist uprising (a lineal descendant through, though not with,Croce of German Romantic Idealism), who says that "above allI beware of confusing doctrine and philosophy with the sys-tematic expositions that can be made verbally in well con-structed treatises; and I am convinced that the true doctrine isthat which is expressed in action rather than in words andbooks. . ..)4

Without now emphasizing the inconsistencies or as yet touch-ing upon its philosophy as such, let us place fascism in a contextas intelligible and fruitful as possible for democratic readers.Individuals we make fundamental to all political "isms," con-ceiving politics as the art of "who gets what when," and ac-knowledging as the major political problem the discovery anddissemination of a type of individualism that can be made in-

4With trueingenuity, f not with a touch of ironic nsight,Gentilehas at last re-ducedto practicalsagacitythe Duce's tortuouscourse: "The true resolutionsof theDuce are alwaysthosewhichare both formulated ndcarriedout."


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I53clusive of all individuals. Liberalism we conceive as the politicalattempt to make politics profit as many individuals as it con-cerns, namely all. Now as to fascism, how does it connect withindividualism, our postulated foundation for all political doc-trines? Though it inveighs heavily against the individualismespoused by liberalism, fascism too seeks to derive justificationfrom its devotion to certain individuals. The two individuals,however, to which it is devoted are so extreme in their polarityas to range from arid abstraction to bellicose concreteness.. Firstin time is the individual Mussolini; but first in logic is the nationas individual.

I. FASCISM AS CORPORATE INDIVIDUALISMPutting things first in importance also first in time, we shall

follow initially the clue of the logic; but let no one be surprisedif and when this clue leads us to the very lair of the lion.5 For an"individual" that does not have eyes and ears is impotent to seeor hear until some one lends it these organs; an "individual"that does not have a mouth can voice nothing until somebodylends it a tongue; and an "individual" that does not have abrain must think what somebody, anybody, who loans it hisbrain thinks that it ought to think. The nation is such an "indi-vidual," but to fascist theory an individual it is. That it is averitable individual, the highest of all individuals, this is thecornerstone of fascist philosophy; that its unquestioned serviceis the moral vocation of the individual citizen, this is both thecornerstone and the superstructure of fascist ethics.

Both these propositions Mussolini has made unambiguouslyclear to, and decisively operative in, the Italian nation. Musso-lini is not alone in the modern world in making nationalism intoa religion which subverts to itself traditional religious allegiance.But he is alone, or almost alone, in boasting of what he is doing

5Mussolini with obvious pride thus boasts of his birthday: "The sun had sinceeight days entered into the constellation of the Lion." He has made to ring throughoutItaly the saying, "Better the life of a lion for a day, than that of a sheep for a hundredyears."


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I54 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICS-doing it overtly and proudly. "Fascism," as the accepted ver-sion of its creed runs, "is a religious conception. . . .. Whoeversees only consideration of mere expediency in the religious pol-icy of the fascist regime has not understood that fascism beyondbeing a system of government is also and above all a system ofthought." In his famous "Essay" in the Italian Encyclopaedia(I932), from which we shall have often to quote as from aphilosophic charter of fascism, Mussolini in developing what hechooses to represent as a "spiritualized view" declares that "toFascism the world is not this material world which appears onthe surface, in which man is an individual separated from all theothers." The world is, rather, an "organic whole" in which,culturally and metaphysically speaking, the nation-state be-comes the smallest authentic unit. For fascism the state is in-deed declared to be "absolute, before which individuals andgroups are relative."

Now the converse of this state absoluteness is the inferiorityof human individuality. "Whoever attributes an absolute valueto the life of man," says Mussolini, "condemns the world toimmobility." Whatever one think as to the cogency of the con-clusion, he can well see that for fascists there follows perforcewhat Mussolini says is true, that "life is not the only good, it isnot an end in itself, but a means." But to tie the means and theend together in meaningful relation, "Fascism affirms the Stateas the true reality of the individual." Since this is so, it followsauthoritatively if not logically for Mussolini that "The judge ofsuch things cannot be the individual but only the State."

Now what the state judges, with regardto the individual, is ingeneral that man's life is a debt owed to the state to be paidwhen and as, though with no if, the state judges to be required.Mussolini's definitive declaration follows: "The great word giv-en by Fascism to the Italians is this: there are no rights withouta duty having been first fulfilled." "We say, first duties andthen rights." The practical fruits of this conviction have beenadvertised throughout Italy in the maxim: "Believe! Obey!


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I55Work! Fight!" The fascist oath makes mandatory this philoso-phy of life as a constant principle of party membership: "In thename of God and of Italy, I swear to execute the orders of theDuce and to serve with all my powers, and, if necessary, withmy blood, the cause of the Fascist Revolution." In Signor Gi-uriata's version of the Ten Commandments of Fascism, thethird commandment is: "Use your intelligence to understandthe orders that you receive and all your enthusiam for obedi-ence." In a later, more pointed, version of the decalogue, theeighth commandment draws the duty to an unambiguous pre-scription: "Mussolini is always right." The individual's subor-dination to this state super-individuality follows from the fascistdogma that "All is in the State, nothing outside the State,nothing against the State"; and devotion to that dogma is in-tended by the Duce and his moral allies to lead to "a life inwhich the individual by means of the negation of himself, thesacrifice of his particular interests, even by his death, realizesthat entirely spiritual existence in which resides his value as aman."6

The moral mission of man becomes, then, his glad service tothe state, with a clairvoyance of, if not secret preference for,death as the final seal of the noblest service. Certainly the moreaustere the service, the more blind the obedience, the moreworthy becomes the discipline and the purer the character re-sulting therefrom. As Mussolini says: "The true, the wise, theholy discipline consists in obedience even when to obey dis-pleases and especially when it represents a sacrifice." The oathitself, as we have seen, plays up the nobility of death, which alsoit renders likely.

6 Cf. Professor Gentile: "What more energetic affirmation of the value of life thanthe voluntary sacrifice of the citizen who dies for his country." "Fascism has reestab-lished a love of martyrdom for the ideal of our country."Professor Rocco: "For Fascism, society has historical and immanent ends of pres-ervation, expansion, improvement, quite distinct from those of the individuals whichcompose it; so distinct in fact that they may even be in opposition. Hence the necessity,for which the older doctrines make little allowance, of sacrifice, even up to total immola-tion of individuals, in behalf of society."


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I56 INTERNATIONAL OURNALOF ETHICSPutting now both aspects of the faith together, we come to

Mussolini's final formulation between the great, the real indi-vidual, which the state is, and the small (what Gentile calls the"illusory") individual, which the separate citizen is: "Fascismreaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual."Nothing is too great for the state to ask of its citizens, nothing istoo great for the individual citizen to render the state. Crueltyperpetrated by the citizen because enjoined by the state be-comes what Gentile describes as "holy violence." Death for thestate is ethically better than life for one's self; indeed, as alreadyremarked, it is difficult in reading fascist literature, even of thephilosophers, to escape the feeling that death for the state isbetter than life in and for it.Enough, however, of this never ending fascistic emphasis.This is not a new theory of the state nor even a new applicationof the theory. It is a conception as old as Plato and an applica-tion as new as Hitler. The only distinctive thing (if that be dis-tinctive as, for instance, against Germany and Russia) is thedegree of acceptance of it which Mussolini has enforced uponthe Italian nation. I say "enforced" not merely because of theviolence with which the fascist regime was initiated nor yet be-cause of the glorification of violence which Mussolini preaches,but primarily because of the clear disseverance in theory of thewill of the nation from the wills of its several citizens. It hasbeen more usual than otherwise for tyrants, ancient and mod-ern, to operate under the benevolent guise of voicing and ful-filling the wants of the citizens, considered separately. The doc-trine has usually been kept by the philosophers as somethingesoteric, and fed to the people only in the form of its obviousutilities. Mussolini, however, not exclusively but conspicuouslydrives at the "needs" of citizens as submerged elements of thestate, their separate "wants" regardless, notwithstanding.With an audacity that is breath-taking, coming as it does on theheels of a democratic century, he recovers for secular use thesaintly austerity of uttermost individual sacrifice. He proclaims


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I57the decadence of democracy, the futility of parliament, the in-feriority of women, the natural inequality of men, the completesupersession of the seasoned doctrine of liberalism that consentis the basis of all just authority; and for all alike he prescribesthe realization of individuality through and only through self-immolation.

The nation is the supreme moral entity (for Gentile, "theethical substance of the individual"); and for all practical pur-poses the state is the nation.7 The will of the nation is not thetabulated wills of all the citizens, nor yet of a majority of thecitizens. No; indeed, it need not in a pinch correspond to thewills of any of the citizens. The citizens are citizens of the state,not the state a creation in any sense of the citizens. The state isan individual, a true individual, the only authentic individual.It creates other individuals by appointing their duties, and itaccords them rights only in the light of their performance of theduties appointed. There are here no "ifs" and "ands"-"theirsnot to reason why, theirs but to do and die."

Now all this were splendid, were it what it seems to be: theveritable wardship of an inferior to a superiorreality. For thereis no doubt whatsoever that the human individual feels himselfto be sufficiently fragmentary as to acknowledge with gratitudethe authority of another who will guarantee to complete him.I once heard a former convict fervently praise a certain stateprison, because, said he, "there they made a man out of me."Now, for a simple fact, confessional though it be, few of us feelouselves sufficiently whole when we are isolated from our fel-lows. We are not good if detached. So we join this associationand that in an effort to become actually what we feel ourselvesonly potentially to be. We join this group to fulfil our fun, that7Upon this matter, which has agitated the theorists of the regime no little, Gentile,after declaring that "the Party is the nation in so far as it is a programme," causes theapparent contradiction to disappear if the identification be made only to mean "thatthe Fascist Party, being the conscience of the State, or the ideas which ferment in itand which it tends to effectuate, has not in its followers and in its leaders difference,differences to overcome between idea and reality, programmes and will, laws andcitizens."


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I58 INTERNATIONAL OURNALOF ETHICSone to develop our skill, another one to discipline our fugitivedesires, still another to focus our adoration, and yet a final one,perhaps, to still our loneliness, to appease our sexual hungers,and to insure our continuity through procreation. But in join-ing voluntary associations we do not give way completely ouroption upon ourselves: we can quit what we have thus joined,if it is not fulfilling subsequently the purpose which motivatedour allegiance to it.

The state, however, is not such an institution. We do notordinarily join it, nor can we with ease un-join it. If by strenu-ous effort or cruel propulsion we leave one state, we find it stillin us, even while we seek another to restore ourselves. We are inthe state from birth, of it by location, for it by prescription."For the fascist," so runs the creed, "all is in the State andnothing human or spiritual exists and much less has any valueoutside the State." Now since the state is not naturally an in-stitution of consent, it easily becomes an institution of coercion.The coercion may take the mild form of acquiescence out of fearof isolation or from motives of prudence, or of course it may betransmuted by an act of will into loyalty: men learning to wantwhat they get rather than seeking vainly to get what they want.The degree to which it removes itself from consent renders cru-cial the knowledge of who this state is that edges the individualout of what historically he has regardedhis birthright. Who areits eyes and ears, who its voice, who its conscience?

The answer to these questions brings us sharply up from thehigh ethicality of super-individualism to the second individualwhom fascism serves-to Benito Mussolini. It is he to whom allthis vaunting obedience of idealistic impulse is pointed; it isfrom him that there issue the much talked-of "duties" whichcondition all "rights," even the right to live. The Duce's broth-er, Arnaldo, writes him the sentiment of Italy: "All the fascistshave this merit: they do not question the Chief." To the eighthnew commandment, already quoted, we add now as honor to the"chief" the tenth: "One thing must be dear to you above all:


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I59the life of the Duce." And to both, we add the first as requiemto the citizen: "Know that the Fascist, and in particular thesoldier, must not believe in perpetual peace."

II. FASCISM AS RATIONALIZED EGOISMWe have come to this narrowed individuation through dis-

covering that the nation, which the citizens are asked to serve astheir moral vocation, is for practical purposes the state andthrough the subsequent discovery that the state is not all itscitizens, but only some. "The State is not a number, the sum ofthe individuals forming the majority of the people," writesMussolini. "All," continues the Duce, "is the principal adjec-tive of democracy, the word which has filled the twentieth cen-tury with itself. It is time to say: A few and chosen." Throughthe principle which he describes as "the immutable, beneficialand fruitful inequality of mankind," he comes to what he calls"the most significant because the most moral, coherent, andtrue idea that is actuated in the people through the conscienceand will of a few, and even of one, which ideal tends to realizeitself in the conscience and will of all." "Starting from the Na-tion," as Mussolini further says, "we arrive at the State, whichis the government in its tangible expression. But we are theState: by means of a process we wish to identify the Nationwith the State."

Now the "we" of the preceding quotation from the Duce isclearly coterminous with the "few" before it and the "few" boilsdown in the quotation to "one." There is no doubt in Musso-lini's mind, in Italy (or for Ethiopia) who that "one" is. As thecommon expression is in Italy, voiced to Mussolini by hisbrother Arnaldo, "Only you are able to make the Nation andthe Party move in step with each other."

Nor is all this praise and self-gratulation merely the lyricismof theory, as it is in Mussolini's mentor, Nietzsche. We are con-sidering, be it remembered, one of the most powerful politicalpersonalities in Europe today. He practices what he preaches;


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i6o INTERNATIONAL OURNALOF ETHICSfor he is the Duce of fascism, prime minister of Italy, head of thecabinet, minister of the parliament, president of the corporativeassociations and assemblies, direct controller of the localauthorities, the controller of the grand council of fascism, andthe leader of the fascist party-not to mention that he iscommander-in-chief of the navy now patrolling the Mediter-ranean and of the army now [November, I935] operatingagainst Ethiopia in violation of the covenant of the League ofNations.

Thus has it come about that in the evolution of this identifi-cation of the big individual and of the puny human individual asystem has been supplanted in which, as Ferrero, the fascisthistorian, scornfully says, "Thirty million men were governedby thirty persons for the benefit of three hundred thousandfamilies." The democratic system, thus sardonically described,has been now supplanted by a system in which forty million aregoverned, and all the millions of the Western world made inse-cure, by one person for the prime benefit of a single family, thenewly founded House of Mussolini. Has not the wife of thisHouse been selected to head the arduous procession, so glorifiedin Italy, of child-production for the sake of war-making? Hasnot one son-in-law been honored with a first-class ambassador-ship, another been made leader of air forces in high honor andadventure in Ethiopia? Has not a son yet in his 'teens beenmade major recipient of the first glory of air operations in Abys-sinia? Have not the still younger members of the House beenmade recipients of the nation's prestige bestowed upon grimlypurposive childhood? And has not another member of theHouse been made head of the all-important bureau that manu-factures fascist truth, elsewhere called propaganda? Moreover,as negative counterpart, has not every other aspirant to House-hood been caught in the act, and, as far as prudence permitted,relegated to oblivion: Matteotti sent surreptitiously to a graveof violence, Balboa ostracized to Lybia, Grandi demoted from


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM i6ian actorupon the world's uridstage of diplomacy o someob-scurerole?8

In the light of all this and more,let no knowingone declarethat fascism s not an individualism,noryet denythat ourMus-solini is an individualistof the deepestdye. It does not detractfroman elementalindividualistthat out of all the numbersofmen who are candidatesfor liberty he knows that liberty oflife andhappinessbelongs irstto "NumberOne." Suchpracticerepresents he oldest and the rankesttype of individualism.Ithas come to flower,it has gone to seed, in fascistItaly. No, itmust not be thought to detract from the individualismof anegoist that he showssustainedpreference or his "dear self."Nor needwe belittle the high orderof prudenceand astutenessof this greatapostleofindividualismn furtheringhis own nter-est by denyingthat he laborsfor the welfareof that individualwhoselife is the sacredsubject (and object) of the tenth com-mandmentof the decalogueof fascism,nor that he sharesoppor-tunity, when share it he must, with the family that most en-hances his own power and prestige. He only does in all thiswhat each of us would do if we were base enough to espousethatkindof individualism,canny enoughto masterits means,and cruelenoughto practiceit.

Solet us not laborthe obvious. Allhonor,the rather, o Mus-solini- of the kindof "honor" hat dishonor s. But what shallwe say or think of a nation of other individualswho find theirindividuality n debasementbeforeone who realizeshis person-ality in ways therebydeniedthem? I do not refer to the waythey feel on dress paradesor while listeningto the Duce's in-toxicatingeloquence,but to the stillmoment,the after-thought.Howeverthey feel, if we arewise,we will not think of them, in

8 Cf. the rapid, prudential but silent change of ministries, enumerated by Finer asfollows: "In thirteen years there have been six Ministers in the Colonial Ministry,four in the Ministry of Justice, six in the Ministry of Finance, five in the Ministry ofWar, five in the Ministry of the Marine, two in the Air Ministry, four in Agriculture,seven in Education, five in Public Works, six in the Ministry of Communications" (op.Cit., p. 252 n.).


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i62 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICSfinal soberness, what we have said above in our first heat. Wedo better to save the ugly thought, to stay the cruel word, forthose of our own nation who having tasted the first fruits of anindividualism which at least seeks to permit each man to besomebody without making all other men nobodies, then turntheir backs upon the promised land of liberalism and plot a re-turn to the fleshpots of primitive egoism.

Of the Italian people, it is both more just and more realistic tothink a generous thought and to say a more percipient word.They have never known the fruits of a social order in which toallow as many things as possible to as many citizens as possiblehad become the order of the day. Italy is a poor land, andMussolini has declared that "a poor country cannot affordliber-ty." We may agree that it is a poor land which cannot affordliberty, without ourselves losing faith in the potentiality of apeople whose actuality is so poor. History itself counsels suchforbearance. Machiavelli was but rationalizing Italian practiceat a time when his nearest Anglo-Saxon counterpart, ThomasHobbes, only echoed the theory of a practice dying in Englandfrom the then already distant days of Magna Charta. Mazziniand Garibaldi but voiced a national unity in which freedomcould thrive; they achieved neither the unity nor the freedom.The several prisons through which Mussolini, during what toItalians was a "liberal" regime, threaded his way to freedom ofexpression tell an eloquent story of the historic social distancein Italy between liberal profession and liberal fact, though itmust also be observed that the intemperance which he claimedthe right to voice showed equally well how the sensitivity tojustice which has usually characterized socialism (a doctrinewhich he then espoused) chose in Italy the garb of the gutter.9

9 Note this characterization of Mussolini, the early Socialist agitator, by a Republi-can newspaper: "Vulgar; indecent; livid; nauseating; insensate; a vagabond in thepay of Jewish societies; pretentious; conscienceless; paranoic; an exalted who madlyabandoned himself to the obscene dance of provocations; in the pay of the police; astupid figure; a ferocious madman; a self-styled Socialist; a rancorous inciter; an un-scrupulous liar; a most vile and delinquent sower of hatred; a trickster; a hack-writer


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM i63When language s habituallyusedas a meansof assaultingper-sonality, other instrumentsof assault are never far from thebelt. Divided as Italy was, downto, and even duringthe War,into bellicosecities, into belligerent regions, into violent anti-thetical groups;characterizedas Italians were by a domesticbraggadocioas partialcompensation or foreigndisdain; ndoc-trinated as the peoplewereby a spiritualorderwhosedevotionto individual iberty must always be challenged romthe rear fit is ever to be foundin the van-Italy cannot ay at the doorofany tyrant the ringingindictmentof robberywhich might be,laid at such a doorby a nation where liberties have been pro-fusely, and safely, allowed. Indeed, in the light of all this, ifMussolini'sdeclarationthat "fascismis not a commodityforexport" was not so frequentlycontradictedby such statementsas that "war s to man as maternityis to woman"and"Fascism... . believes neither in the possibilitynor the utility of per-petual peace"andbeliedby the silent influencehis prestigehasin freer ands, the view would be easy that fascism s the purgerequiredby fate in order hat Italy may becomesufficientlyuni-fied and disciplinedas eventually to permit liberties safely.IoUnder these joint circumstances,however,such a view is noteasy. It is, nevertheless,possible,and the one the liberalmusttake, unlesshe take somethingworse. Suchstrenuouspathsarethe ways Fate has sent certain other peoples into civilizedmaturity.

III. DANGERS ARISING FROM THE INDIVIDUALISM OFEGOISM AND THE RELIGION OF FASCISM

If other nations, why not Italy? The general, and generous,answer is assent to this line of thought. But tolerance here isrendered hazardous by two considerations. The first is war; thehardly worth the contemptof gentlemen;a maniac;a criminallyunaticliar;an im-becile;a cretin;and, to boot, a disgusting eptile" ibid.,pp. 52-53).

IO Cf. the hard judgmentupon his peopleof GiovanniPapini,authorof a popularlife of Christ: "ThisItaly, without a unity of its vision, needs someone o beat it, sothat it shall awaken,and someone o inciteit in order hat it shallact."


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i64 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICSsecond is religion. The two come perilously near to meeting bythe surdlike logic which often unites extremes.

i. External aggression and internal unity.-So discrepant isthe liberty Mussolini allows himself and the exactions requiredof others that it always threatens the regime.", It is so with alltyrants. Prudence requires constant vigilance against the haz-ard. Men are so nervously organized that constant vigilance forthe sake of prudence becomes over-vigilance for the sake ofstrategy. "Offense is the best defense." A nation regimentedis hard to control. There are not enough trivial and harmlessoutlets for energy. When everything is made important, noth-ing remains important under the strain. Even life becomes reck-less and cheap. Men unified through a strenuous purpose mustat times be put to action in the service of the purpose. It is diffi-cult to regiment men save against somebody; and Mussolini hasnot even undertaken to do it. "I do not believe in perpetualpeace," he says, "not only that, I consider it depresses and nega-tives the fundamental virtues of man which only in bloody ef-fort reveal themselves in the full light of the sun."

Prepared for by philosophers of violence (Nietzsche, Sorel,Pareto), proclaimed by an intemperate personality, brought topower by no genteel means (though the March on Rome seemsto have been comfortably enough negotiated in a Pullman), thefascist regime has grimaced this way and that, gesticulated in alldirections at once, and in general brought itself to the homelyimpasse: "put up or shut up!" "Sic semper tyrannis." To shutup is to lose caste, and for a tyrant to lose much caste is to loseall power. Now, since Mussolini's type of individualism is pow-er-motivated, this alternative is out of the question.

The other alternative is-well, for the moment, is action inEthiopia. But it might be any other aggression, and wouldeventually have to be some other, if not this. Selfish motivesapart, other nations are inextricably involved. They dare not

XI The discrepancy, mean, in powerand deference-discrepanciesar moreim-portantsociallyand politicallythan those of wealth.


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I65let Italy alone in completetolerancefor her strenuousway ofcoming to a nationhoodso reliant as not to have to feed onindividualboasting or party roistering,and on collectivema-rauding.The conscienceof the civilizedworldis troubled;andtensionsgrowto suchan extent that the very peace of theworldis threatenedby actionthat neednot meanmuch moreto Mus-solini than the saving of his regimein Italy. Considering henature of modernwars, the challenge to general peace is athreatto civilization tself. Weneednot be alarmist n order osay this. We must say it in orderto be realistic. That, then, isone reasonwhy Italy cannotwith completeequanimityon thepart of other nationsbe allowedto go the easy way to nationalunity. In suchmethod is as muchground o fearforcivilizationas to hope for the unificationandpacificationof Italy. Serioushazardsto all nations is such a price to allow for the achieve-ment of stable nationalityby one, that the society of nationscouldnot but expresssolicitudeover the presentpracticeof amethod of unification admittedly not without precedent. Amethodthat is madness s a methodnot easily allowedby sanepersons-not even to a madman.

2. Externalcompulsionand a diseasedconscience.-More ulti-mately hazardousto moralprogress,even independentof itsincitementagainstworldpeace, is the religiouselementin fas-cism, indeedin any moderntyranny. In speakingof the "reli-gious"elementin fascismI do not referto the famousConcor-dat (I929) in whichthe state recognizedCatholicismas the reli-gion of Italy. Apart from the financial improvementof thechurchunderthe termsof the treaty, the church's tatusis littlechangedthereby;it is only formallyacknowledged o be whatit actuallyis in Italy. The fact that it is so gives, to be sure,un-consciouspredispositiono the Italianpeopleto breathethe in-sinuating ethylene of the new and more important religion.That religion s ecstaticnationalism,with its centraldoctrineofstate ethicality, to which we have already alluded. "Whatwouldthe State be," queriesMussolini,"if it did not possessa


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i66 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICSspiritof its own,a moralityof its own,which is whatgives forceto its laws,and by which it succeeds n making tself obeyedbyits citizens?"Of this statolatry we have alreadyremarked n our prelim-inary canvass,that it is both an ancientand an honorabledoc-trine. It has a philosophyas old and brilliant as Plato and aritual as ancient and sonorousas the Catholic church,as theChristianchurch,as the Jewish church. It draws rich suste-nance from the liveliest wonderand the deepest prejudiceofman: wonder at the discrepancybetweenthe puny works pro-ducedby men separatelyand the miracleswroughtby men to-gether; prejudicethat where there is a name, it must be thename of something.Has not the name "church" omein Chris-tendomto be the name of a body actuallyas realas, and mys-tically more mportantthan, individualbelievers?If this refer-ence doesnot fully reveal the importanceof the doctrine, et itbe furtherrecalledthat it was for the sake of this somethingnJudaism hat twogreat Jews,JesusandSpinoza,wereexecrated;for the sake of this somethingin Christianitythat GiordanoBruno and Savonarolawere purged by the Catholic,Servetusand ThomasMoreby the Protestantchurch.Not to find somegreatvalue where menhave heroicallypos-tulatedandfoughtforsuchtranscendentvalue wouldshakeourconfidence n the competencyof human judgment, includingour own. For the doctrineof the "mysticalbody" is but theyoungerbrotherof the Platonicnotion of the mysticalbody ofthe socialorganism,as it is but the olderbrotherof Mussolini'smysticalbody of the state. The innumerablebrothers hat car-ry on the traditionof this Family Mystical are the ghostly le-gions that hoverover Italian cohortsin Africato inspiritthemin life, to comfortthem in death. Suchmysticismis the easiestmeaningmen have found for this most puzzlingproblem,thismiracleof morale.In saying so we reveal the actual value which fascismem-bodiesas well as the mythicalvaluewhichit worships. This sa-


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM i67cred symbol of "nation" is the secular sacrament which fascistsfollow through the weary night of superimposed discipline, eveninto some bleaker dawn of death. It is a doctrine so meaty as tonourish to social maturity that sickly notion of Mussolini's, thathe himself as one individual and the Italian people are made aunit through his right and ability to speak for them-one in themystic union named "we." This passion for solidarity can easilybecome a social frenzy, for it enshrines the deepest sense of se-curity known to men. It fosters an illusion of almost completesafety. It lifts to the highest the deepest feelings we have of oneanother, the feeling born of fulfilment in a crowd.

Let no democrat deny the high estimate set upon this feeling.The early days of democracy's devotion to fraternity will shamehis memory.' The fact that contemporary citizens of a democra-cy do not often experience this elation save in mobs, of whichsubsequently they are ashamed, need not shut their eyes to theelemental value of community. Growing up is not so much out-growing as overgrowing this lower level. Some people eat theirmeat raw; others require it cooked; but cooked meat is meat.Solidarity may operate as raw gregariousness or as refined citi-zenship. However it operate, it enshrines the value of com-munity-a value which fathers our finest manifestations offriendship, comradeship, fellowship. There is something herenot adequately seized by any name, something so precious thatrather than lose it, or in order to recover it, men will go to thelast extremes.

Under the impact of liberalism and capitalism Mussolini feltthat the Italians were no longer a people, and under the fore-shadowed incidence of Marxism he felt that they stood nochance to recover what from the days of imperial Rome he be-lieved to have been progressively lost to them. He found in him-self a power little understood by those who possess it, a power toelectrify people and to shock them into a united response. Hiswords, though written, his words even when translated, aresomewhat psychic. They are liquified action. At his call, men


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i68 INTERNATIONAL OURNALOF ETHICSgathered; when he said "Come," they came; "Go," they went.All this strange influence he has turned to power. Power woncalled for more power at the unappeasing board of Barmecide,until still more power was required in order prudently to protectthe power he already had. Then must the frenzy of fraternal-ism be kept up or all power lost.

Now Mussolini's expectation, based upon his necessity, thata people can always be kept geared up to what he calls "thehighest ideal tension" is by no means realistic. Against thissteep expectation of Mussolini's and against Gentile's austereearnestness: "We have no time to lose. Even in our sleep wemust give account of the talents entrusted to us"-against allsuch high-tension philosophies of state older nations know that,precious as is the sense of community, the ecstatic practice of itspresence is a matter of wise intermissions. Its fervor can besaved only by not being too constantly maintained.

The great danger, then, of this high-geared religion is boththat it will wreck others in its fanaticism and that it will wreakhavoc on its own devotees by fatal, even revolutionary, reces-sion from its ardent but deadening tension. Was it not Mephis-topheles who drew Faust on to romantic ruin with the hope of ahigh moment to be forever maintained at the peak? Faust losthis soul in the romantic quest. Fascism represents the romanceof state action and state passion during the glad days and ec-static nights of honeymooning. For sanity, and safety, theworld must wait until the honeymoon "takes" on the bride-groom, slowing "love down to kindliness," or until the brideputs by her indulgent smile and responds to the deepeningfrown of the groom in a manner more livable for the long hardjourney of life.3. Fascism and the economicmeans to a goodlife.-We mustnot, however, rush this ecstatic marriage to the divorce courtsuntil we have taken something of an inventory of the economicunderstanding upon which the union is based. Dropping the


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM i69marital, not to say martial, figure, we are far from unawareof theclaims of social inventiveness and its promise of eventual generalwelfare made by fascism in the economic field. The first claim isbased primarily upon the "corporations" that have at last(I934) been consummated as the basis of economic order. All inregard to them, however, is yet inchoate. Mussolini himself de-clared at this formal inauguration that "It is yet premature tosay what developments the Corporative system may have inItaly and elsewhere from the point of view of the production anddistribution of goods." Whatever they may yet become, we dowell- to see in them so far the use Mussolini has made ofhis earlier devotion, through Sorel, to the notion of syndicalism.But his corporate idea is syndicalism without the general strikeor any form of violence on the part of workers, that is, it is syn-dicalism under the "Corporate State," which allows no openvoice against itself. Though vague in conception and even asyet indefinite in function, the corporation in Italy is the now ac-cepted pattern for organizing the workers, for organizing thecapitalists, and for making the two work together as if in har-mony. It is, moreover, in theory the way economic interests assuch have of making themselves properly felt in the politicalstate.

The final voice of the corporations must, however, take itscues from the political party, that is, at last from Mussolinihimself. The opening section of the much vaunted Charter ofLabor makes this unmistakably clear: "The Italian nation is anorganism having ends, life, and means of action superior tothose of the separate individuals or groups of individuals whichcompose it." Now, much may, for a fact, be said in favor of theformal resurrection of the medieval guilds. Indeed, much hasbeen said, notably by the guild socialists in England, upon thenecessity and beneficence of some autonomous representation ingovernment of the economic element. But all that has been saidand all that may be said with the intent to make representation


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I70 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICSmore just and effective must indeed be largely unsaid before itbecome applicable to corporations in a country whose auto-cratic ruler treats the existing organ of representation, parlia-ment, in the fashion indicated by Mussolini's boast that the de-cisions of policy in Italy "are decisions which I alone mature; ofwhich, as is proper, no one can have previous knowledge, noteven those interested... . " This procedure, he continues,"belongs to what people have come to call my style of govern-ment, to which I naturally intend to remain faithful."

Now, the economic results claimed from the functioning ofthese newly operative corporations in Italy must, necessarily,be evaluated in the setting furnished by fascism. The fascists'emphasis has been loudly upon the sacredness of labor and uponthe primacy of production in the concern of the state. More-over, statistics are available upon the decrease of strikes andlockouts (the formerhaving decreased from I54 in I927 to 2I inI932, the latter from 15 in 1927 to 2 in I93212), upon conditionsof work, upon rewards of labor, and upon various aspects of theItalian security program (old age, unemployment, health, childprotection, parental assistance, etc.). None of these, however,are peculiar to Italy, and therefore none exclusively creditableto fascism, save cessation of industrial violence. All the othersare not only common to other countries, they are even morenotable in some democratic countries. The one that is distinc-tive is itself distinctive against only those countries which havemaintained the freedom of both workers and capitalists so as toleave strikes and lockouts possible and to get them accepted asthe least of two relevant evils. Italy is not only a poor country(only one-third as fortunate in per capita wealth as Britain, lessfortunate even in comparisonwith America); it remains for allthe efforts and talk of fascists a backward country as regardsthestandard of living and its dispersion. To Mussolini's dictumthat "a poor country cannot afford liberty," we reply that it is

22 Finer,op. Cit.,p. 505.


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I7Iindeed a poor country that cannot afford liberty (to more thanone or a few).

The one distinctive thing (shared of course with other dic-tatorships) is the central function of coercion, within and with-out the industrial life. Other countries have corporations, in-deed are more effectively "corporated" than is Italy;13 butItaly has coerced corporations into existence and will coerce thedirection of their growth. The test of the final effectiveness ofcorporations as agencies of the economic life of Italy and, evenmore, the ground of their ethical significance is found in the dic-tatorship, an old perversity, rather than in any newly inventeddevice known as "corporations." Agreeing, as we do, withFiner, that "The Dictatorship is the necessary rack and screwof the Corporate system; all the rest is subordinate machin-ery, 14we must borrow our tentative judgment of the corporatesystem from our settled judgment of dictatorship as a moraliz-ing agency.

The form of fascist economic philosophy which is most inde-pendent of this borrowed judgment is that which concerns pri-vate property. This too is of course closely connected with thedictatorship, but its superior independence is attested by thefact that it might with more likelihood survive the regime, as isseen by the approximations to it of liberal policies in othercountries. The economic crisis throughout the capitalistic worldMussolini has diagnosed as being not merely "in" but "of" thecapitalistic system itself. Coming to power as he overtly did ona wave of antipathy to communism, and-a fact never to beforgotten-with the aid of great industrialists, he has beenestopped from going as far as some critics believe he secretly in-clines, toward undermining the basis of private property. "If

I3 See John Dewey, Individualism Old and New, for an analysis of the Americancomparison. Jerome Davis, in Capitalism and Its Culture, gives a concrete notion ofhow far this "corporacy" extends throughout the capitalistic structure.'4 Ibid., p. 499.


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I72 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICSthe past century was the century of capital," he has said, "thetwentieth is that of the power and glory of labor."

His hold upon the laboring classes of Italy has no doubt beenincreased and intensified through such frequent glorification oflabor's role. Speaking of formal equality before the law, which hecredits to liberalism, he adds, in the recent speech inauguratingthe corporations, that "the Fascist century maintains, even con-solidates this principle, but adds another to it, not less formid-able, the equality of men before labor understood as a duty andas a right, as creative joy which must expand and ennoble exist-ence, not mortify or depress it." He appends at once, however,as the opportunist must who willy-nilly pays the stipulatedprice for power: "Such basic equality does not exclude, butrather demands, the clearest differentiation of ranks from thepoint of view of functions, merit, and responsibility." It is thislatter, and ever repeated, matter of "responsibility" which rep-resents the keynote of his philosophy of property (touching bothlabor and capital), he of course being the final judge of "respon-sibility": when, where, how much, from whom, to whom.

"Whoever says hierarchies," he elsewhere declares, "is com-mitted to a scale of human values; whoever says a scale of hu-man values says a scale of human responsibilities and duties;who says hierarchy says discipline." Now private property it-self is a disciplining agent: its getting often requires concentra-tion, its maintenance thrift, and its utilization foresight. Allthis Mussolini sees, and would gladly maintain. But, on theother side, private ownership, in conferring upon some the rightto deny to others access and use, bestows a liberty that may notbe dutifully utilized. Indeed, if the property right be main-tained as natural or absolute, property would shut the state it-self out. Now Mussolini is not to be shut out of anything.What's in a maxim-all in the state, nothing without the state,nothing against the state !-if the power be lacking to imple-ment its principle?


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I73All this Mussolini enunciates to the effect that fascists will

not devote themselves to "an economic system which puts theaccent on individual profit, but are concernedwith the collectiveinterest." This enunciation he implements with reference toproperty by divorcing ownership and initiative. The state isconcerned to develop and maintain initiative and morale, underdiscipline, of course, devoted to state-defined responsibilities.Where private ownership enhances initiative and does not di-vert it to forbidden channels, ownership is to be encouraged forthe sake of its own contribution to discipline; where it fails theone or perpetrates the other, the errormust be corrected by thestate.

The Duce neatly formulates this principle in the declarationthat "The intervention of the State in economic productionoccurs only when private initiative is lacking or is insufficient,or when the political interests of the State are involved. Suchintervention may assume the form of control, encouragement,and direct management." Postulating that nothing is outsidethe state and assuming that there is nothing which is not"affected with public welfare," as our Supreme Court has it,Mussolini has been able without touching the fact of privateownership to safeguard its social functioning, fascisticallydefined.All this is made clear, as we have said, in the Charter of La-bor, and is subsequently made as effective as it has yet beenmade, through various laws and decrees. What the Charter didnot need to make clearer than it was is the ever recurring factthat ownership, production, distribution all take tone and re-ceive direction from the will of the dictator. He it is who defineswhere duties begin and where they end; he judges when andwhere ownership and initiative conflict; he seats and unseatsthe ministers of state, directors of corporations, judges ofcourts. Wherever we turn, we find not only what is prescribedbut how it is to be performed, integrally connected with an


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I74 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICSover-system which arose without consent, flourishes by subdu-ing criticism, and endures, so long as it endures, by grace of su-perior brute strength. This system, we have seen, depreciatesfinite individuality, inflates the state through a mystical con-ception, and appropriates both, as far as may be, for purposesof maintaining in power the one man who profits most from it:Mussolini, who gluts himself on power and publicly gloats overhis glut.

IV. A CONCLUDINGJUDGMENT UPON THE ETHICSOF FASCISMSuch, then, is our deference to fascism, economic and politi-

cal. We have heard its leader. We have attended to its philoso-pher. We have not paraded its agencies of administration: suchis not our problem. We have acknowledged its real value, shin-ing above its ostensible values.

Values that would be real in another context we have seen soenervated by being made instruments to ignoble ends that wehave passed them by largely in silence. Let us now say one spe-cific word upon them. Sacrifice, for instance, is never a good initself; nor is it good when made by one for the sake of anotherwithout the one's consent. Noble in sound, because risen to re-spectability in a more humane world than that of fascism, sacri-fice is prostituted wherever arbitrarily exacted. Such sacrifice isnot a test of character; it is a mark of the decay of individualcharacter. Obedience,again, may be a virtue, but only whenmade to causes whose merits are visible without the glint of thebayonet. Strenuosity, too, is a good, but it hides moral vacuityand physical drudgery when not self chosen. "To live danger-ously," a phrase often on fascist lips, might itself become amoral way of life, if freely chosen or if arduously inflicted by asituation whose only other alternative is to live cowardly. Butto have one man set dangers for others to endure for the sake ofthe one who sets them; to have one man put in hazard all self-


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I75chosen goods of his own nation and all prized increments ofprecious tradition in other nations-to have it so, as in fascistItaly, is to make danger despicable and its acceptance the actof an arrant braggart or of a soul basely weaned from selfhood.To multiply dangers intentionally before the dangers set bynature have been overcome or the ones superinduced by in-evitable social maladjustment have been lessened, this is to addcruelty to necessity and to scar the face of magnanimity withutter meanness.

If it be rejoined that Mussolini after all has not made theItalian world but, taking what he found, has, like the rest of us,actually made the best of it, I reply that it is possibly so, that itis probably not so. The only way to decide the issue is to dis-miss coercion as the major reliance, and let the facts speak forthemselves. Men have faced dangers uncoerced, have obeyedleaders under hardships, have made sacrifices for causes whichcommanded allegiance, have, in a word, lived dangerously withhonor. If the Italian people are what Mussolini's actions brandthem, if they are so pusillanimous as not willingly to play thepart of men merely because they are men, then their regenera-tion is a work for some good god, not a task for an arrogant ty-rant. So to indict a people, however, is to brand one's self pusil-lanimous, though to succeed at making the indictment stick isto reveal a people confused to the point of temporary impotence.No bravery abroad, even if forthcoming, can cover up thecowardice at home of those who will not call their lives theirown and claim their liberties for themselves. So much for thefictitious virtues of fascism.

The one real value of fascism which shines above all pretend-ed values is that of community. It is the value which underdemocracy has been sought as fraternity, under present com-munism as comradeship, and, before democracy and commun-ism, under religion as communion of saints. To acknowledgethe real, the deep, the lasting value of this priceless thing called


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I76 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ETHICSby fascists"solidarity," s not, however, to become gulliblebe-forethe putative values with whichfascismseeks to invest andsecurecommunity. We acknowledge he end, community;wedeny the means, coercion.The form, moreover, n which fas-cism conceivesand seeks this end is itself unrefined. A splurgeof gregariousnesss one form of community, but not a highform. It is what civilized men know and disdain as the mob-mind. The high-sounding ascisticindividualismof mystic im-port and of a far-awaysocial incidence,we have seen reduce t-self to the lowest form of individualism, he belligerenttype,near brotherto what is not individualism,but individualism'sbastard, pure egoism. Naked self-assertionhas no ethics; itcannot acquirean ethics by being mystically rechristened-only the devil could be godfatherto it. It is the denial ofethics.

What, then, shallwe now confirmas our finaljudgmentuponthe so-called, but loudly called, "ethicality of the FascistState"? If we distinguishits moralityfrom its ethics-its ra-tionalizedcustoms romthe idealendstheyserve-we shall thenbe passingjudgmentuponwhat ethics really is, "the theoryofthe hopefora goodlife for all." Andsucha judgmentuponfas-cismmust be profoundlyadverse. For its theoryof life is a baseindividualism (either personal or group egoism) devoted topowerandintentuponmaintaining t by coercion. Ethics as thetheoryof the hopethat all whompoliticsconcernsmaybe madeto benefitfromit, such authenticethics must rank Italian fas-cismas an ethicalpretenderof the lowest order.The goodsfascismguarantees o its one identifiable ndividu-al, Mussolini,areof an inferiorgrade,beingsuchgoodsthat forhim to have is for others to lack. Moreover,its guarantyofthese inferiorpower-goodsto him is precarious.Uneasy liesthat head which poses with so scornful a frown. Such loudethicalpretensesas he and his satellitesraise,attendedas theyarewith suchpredisposition ndpractice,nerve us to propound


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THE ETHICS OF FASCISM I77as final the ancient question, "On what meat hath this ourCaesar fed that he is grown so great?"

The answer is easy to give, but hard to contemplate at thishour of civilization: he has fed upon avarice, fear, pathetichope, and cruelty in Italy; in other lands, upon the slow strug-gles of civilized peoples to succeed at a higher but harder enter-prise than his own; upon the growing will of nations to respectone another and to compose their conflicts peaceably; upon theserenity of parents the world over who know not now what theymay hope, because of him, for the future of their children. Uponthe meat of power, personal and political, has this our Caesarfed-upon crass power, the surest enemy of ethics because thefinal poison of life.

UNIVERSITYOF CHICAGO

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Ethics of Fascism