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Semi-protected edit request on 24 September 2019

Please change: Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] to: Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far left-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] 212.92.123.152 (talk) 10:00, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

•  Not done See the first banner at the top of this talk page. --MarioGom (talk) 10:03, 24 September 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 September 2019

Would like the words "far right-wing" removed from the first sentance in the first paragraph. Far right-wing does not truely explain real fasicms. any political part can be fascist. By singling out one party creates a false identity and will hide real fascism. Real right-wingers do not not like a dictatorship or government control as specified in Merriams-Webster definition " individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader." TheRealAmerican1 (talk) 02:33, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: This has already been discussed countless times, and "far-right" is not a single party anyway. Please see Talk:Fascism/FAQ. Grayfell (talk) 02:36, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Right Wing idealolgy?

Please do explain how Fascism is “right wing”. The farther “right” on the false political scale you travel, the more likely you are to end up with anarchy. No governmental control. Please change this to actually make sense and not confound those looking for answers. Jeric293 (talk) 13:16, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

Talk page protection

Hi. Before the month of temporary protection comes to an end, I think it might be useful to reach an agreement and explore the lawful options regarding how to systematically tackle the issue of IPs and sockpuppeteers that will inevitably come to this talk page asking for "right-wing" to be changed to "left-wing". The presence of the banner on top and the constant archiving cannot be an efficient solution (trolls don't care about the banner, and don't read into the archives). The archiving can even become slightly aggressive and lead to controversies, as this one reported by myself in the AN/I. In that thread, User:Acroterion had more than one thing to say about the strategies for protecting the talk page, and I think it is worth to discuss about them directly here. I am not an expert of what is and is not technically possible on WP regarding page protection, but I think it's an important matter. As it might be inferred, I am against any generalized "ban" on further discussions on the topic "right-wing in the lede" that results in plain deletion or archiving of talk-page contributions of long-term and good-faith editors. I am – of course – in favour of a "ban" against vandalism, trolling, IPs, fascism-is-left-wing nonsense, etc., which is the point of this thread I just started. How do we implement the (hopefully selective) ban?

I take the freedom to quote here Acroterion's contributions to that thread, so that we have a basis to start with. --Ritchie92 (talk) 09:08, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

• I semi-protected the talkpage a couple of days ago, in part to remove the incentive to aggressively archive contentious drive-by edit requests. I don't see a present reason for archiving things right away now that there isn't a daily parade of new editors and IPs landing on the talkpage to demand that the article be altered to fit their POV or to explain that academic sources should be ignored in favor of partisan commentary. The semi-protection of the talkpage is something of a last resort - as evidenced by the above, the repetitive partisan talkpage activity was eroding the patience of experienced editors. The protection is for a month, and I welcome suggestions for a longer-term solution that doesn't involve lots of archiving or daily patient explanations to agenda-driven new editors.. Acroterion (talk) 12:10, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

• Continuing my comment from above, I've semi-protected the talkpage for a month, which appears to have dealt with the proximate cause of the dispute in this thread. As WP:PROTECT notes, semi-protection of article talkpages is to be used sparingly. However, that policy was formulated primarily to deal with occasional individual vandals and POV-pushers. What's appearing on Talk:Fascism and similar pages is a steady stream of new editors and IPs who are convinced that fascism, for instance, is a handy universal label to apply to people they oppose, and expect the article to reflect that POV rather than reflecting academic and historical analysis. These editors are clogging the talkpages. I see no reason to believe that this will change when protection expires, and some longer-term solution will be needed.

• Right now, WP:PROTECT suggests that semi-protected talkpages redirect edit requests to WP:RFED, which isn't really set up to deal with that sort of traffic. I think we're going to need a project space page linked on long-term semi-protected talkpages that can handle this traffic, where editors with the patience and inclination to do so can winnow serious requests from the forum speech and trolling, allowing the article talkpages to be used as intended, and allowing editors on those topics some rest. That project page can link to WP policy, offer suggestions on reading archived discussions, and perhaps help to educate newcomers on how to approach perennially contentious topics. Acroterion (talk) 17:09, 23 July 2019 (UTC)

— User:Acroterion

As I have said before I (personally) do not see this as an issue, just say "not going to happen" and let it run its course. Once we have answered we can (if we want) ignore it, or respond with "NAy, nay, and thrice nay". I dislike the ideas of shutting down any question no matter how dumb until it has been considered.Slatersteven (talk) 09:19, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

The point is that many are not just "dumb questions", but purposeful partisan trolling, disconnected "edit requests", or weird self-made political theories. WP:NOTAFORUM must be enforced: Material unsuitable for talk pages may be subject to removal per the talk page guidelines. --Ritchie92 (talk) 09:34, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

True, and to my mind you feed them when you react how they want. We can enforce policy just by saying no, and then leaving the trolls to stew.Slatersteven (talk) 09:41, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Having watched this phenomenon for years, it is my feeling that it's not going to go away, and that it will make normal talkpage discussion here difficult for the foreseeable future. Terms like fascism and racism are weaponized, and their use in partisan circles has little to do with their actual meaning or significance. Accordingly, we get the random edit requests, which can be ignored fairly easily, and we get more productive threads clogged with partisan commentary and griping from naive editors, and outright trolling, pushing other editors' buttons. I don't expect it to get better, and in a few weeks we'll still have to deal with it. I would rather not extend protection without an alternate process. Probably VP/P would be the best venue for a broad discussion, since the problem is broader than this talkpage - it's just the most acute manifestation, and I believe we need a new or better process for the project as a whole to handle misinformed editors and malicious trolling, while not excluding new editors and IPs with useful suggestions. The situation is similar to the introduction of extended confirmed protection, and this might be a trial run for a new process. Talkpages are meant for discussion of article improvement, not for the education of individual people who want to argue with the sourced article content. Acroterion (talk) 12:17, 24 July 2019 (UTC)

Fascism=Left-wing is a popular discussion point in far right websites drawing a stream of historical revisionists to this and other articles about the extreme right. I don't think it will end, and suggest permanent semi-protection. There is precedent: Mass killings under communist regimes was fully protected from 2011 to 2018. TFD (talk) 02:14, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

I wouldn't want to see what happened there to become a precedent; full protecting an article for seven years isn't really a meaningful answer, and as a result of it the article was stuck in a really shoddy state (there was one particular edit to the lead that never had consensus but which stayed stuck there because it happened to be the version that got protected; the nature of edit requests for protected pages meant that after that consensus was required to remove it even though it had been a bold edit to begin with. But more generally our sourcing and editorial standards improved a lot over seven years, and nobody was realistically going to go through the fairly torturous and often-thankless process of fixing it in a draft or via edit requests.) I mean obviously semi-protection is different because it's not that hard for people to get the ability to edit, and the unusual thing here is applying it to talk anyway; but I'm leery about anyone pointing to that particular incident as a precedent for anything. It is more an article that slipped through the cracks than anything else. --Aquillion (talk) 06:39, 25 July 2019 (UTC)

• Permanent semi-protection is the way to go, IMO. In any case, if someone really wants to post, all they need to do is to register an account and make 10 edits. That's a pretty low bar. --K.e.coffman (talk) 02:18, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
• Permanent semi-protection including at article talk is critical here. It won't stop the socks, but at least it will require they create an account which is subject to checkuser. Simonm223 (talk) 12:28, 25 July 2019 (UTC)
• Permanent semi-protection is really the only way to be sure. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:17, 26 July 2019 (UTC)
• Permanent semi-protection I'm not sure that a complete ban on discussion of the placement of "right-wing" in the lead or its wording is necessary (the discussion above seems to be proceeding in an orderly fashion), but there definitely needs to be some measure to deal with the constant spam of newly arrived very aggrieved users who can't be bothered to read even the most recent talk page post, which already addressed the exact same questions. Just looking through the archives, you can see that's been going on for years, and has certainly intensified in the past few months. Maybe eventually it'll slow down enough that the semi-protection isn't necessary, but it doesn't look like that will happen soon. But in the meantime, if more experienced, long-term editors still want to discuss the issue, then that shouldn't be prevented. Red Rock Canyon (talk) 05:05, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

Since there seems to be a general sentiment for permanent semi-protection, then it would be helpful to craft an edit notice to explain that, perhaps integrated with or in support of the FAQ. Acroterion (talk) 12:27, 27 July 2019 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose to permanent protection: Policy and longstanding community consensus expressly, directly disallows this, even in cases of substantial disruption. Look, insofar as I spend a lot of time responding to RfCs, I have seen a the uptick in disruption linked to articles relating to right wing politicians and politics, and I can well imagine how the drumbeat of comments from new editors in this space--predicated more in their perceptions about the WP:truth than our relevant content policies could grow tedious, but this proposal (aside from being something that cannot be authorized in this space as a procedural matter) would be a clear case of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Let's recognize a few relevant points of policy and community consensus here (and please forgive me for the length of the following comments, but there is a lot of unpack and consider here, which I feel the !votes above do not take enough account of):

1) As Slatersteven points out, the article itself remains protected and thus these editors, no matter how vocal and persistent, cannot alter it. Therefor this proposal is in no way necessary to protect our froward-facing content and is being proposed merely to spare our editors the annoyance of regularly seeing new editors make poor and redundant arguments for changes to the article. And I'm sorry, but that is just not a compelling enough reason to violate the community prohibition on long-term protection, even if we give our regulars here every benefit of the doubt as to the fact that they propose this measure not to suppress countervailing views (and honestly, the distance between those two motives is short and subject to conflation and unconcious bias, even in very experienced editors).

2) At the end of the day, this remains the encyclopedia that anyone can edit: permanently protecting the article itself is already an extreme step, and there is a reason why the community, despite many long and arduous periods of disruption across many articles over the years (yes, including numerous talk pages that put this one to shame in terms of disruption), has consistently found permaneant protection of talk pages to be a step too far in using tools to shut down potential disruptive discussion, in that it is likely to shut down a lot more input than just that of the disruptive elements. Remember, WP:Consensus can change: I doubt very much that it is going to change with regard to the issues here that are the points of contention, but that's really beside the point--we simply do not shut down further discussion on a topic, no matter how convinced we are that we've got it right as it is. We sometimes censure or block individual editors who cannot WP:DROPTHESTICK, but what we do not do permanently shut down discussion to an entire class of editor (here, non-extended confirmed), many of whom will be acting in good faith, nor do we ever declare an issue "settled" such that any disagreement as to that point is discouraged. The banner at the top of the page already pushes the line on what our policies say should be done to forestall further discussion on a standing consensus: this proposal would clear that line by miles.

3) Even if we were going to adopt this approach in this particular case, it could not be done in this space, by a group of editors working on the article itself and arguing against an approach to the content, the discussion of which would be hindered or prohibited by this proposal. This is not a content issue, and therefor it does not fall under the purview of WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. We already have a policy/strong community consensus that says in express, direct terms that permanent protection is not to be used in this way. As a procedural matter, that policy cannot be overruled in this space, no matter how many interested editors !vote for it, and no matter how convinced those editors are of the necessity. A carve-out of this nature would need to be made through either a WP:PROPOSAL at Wikipedia talk:PROTECT or at a central community discussion space like WP:VPP.

4) There are potential unintended consequences to this approach which could actually make the disruption to the article far worse: allowing edit requests functions as a kind of pressure release valve for new (or even just blatantly WP:NOTHERE) editors. They may nit get their way, but at least they have expressed their dissatisfaction over the issue--many probably move on thereafter and forget that they ever even commented here. However, if you thwart their ability to be heard at all, and give them the impression they are being WP:CENSORED, some will make it a mission to make sure they are heard. They way they would do that in this case is by registering a new account for the sole purpose of getting above the extended-confirmed edit count and returning here to enforce their view. At that point, their new status allows them not just to continue the rhetorical battle here, but also to directly edit the article, increasing disruption and allowing in-advisable changes to the content of the article itself that otherwise would not have been made. In extreme cases, such editors may even aggregate on off-project spaces to share their grievances at being shut out of the discussion and organize disruption. And that's not a fantastical projection in the slightest: it happens every day on this project.

So, on the whole, while I certainly can understand the vexation of editors here having to look at the same or similar requests over and over again, that is at the end of the day simply just the nature of the beast for certain articles, and something that has to be accepted by editors choosing to volunteer their time on certain disruption-prone articles. Regardless, our policies are clear on this matter: we do not permanently close down access to discussion and the consensus process to all non-registered editors, as it is too antithetical to numerous core principles of the project, and those looking to change this and establish a new standard should take their arguments to the appropriate policy/community pages. This of course does not technically prohibit an admin from applying temporary semi-protection to the page repeatedly, but at some point this is likely to be perceived as de facto permanent protection and would need to be discussed. Regardless, use of a permanent protect function on the talk page would clearly be against policy, and I can tell you that there are plenty of editors like me who, while 1000% sympathetic to the kind of disruption taking place on articles such as this right now, would nevertheless have to oppose that move as inconsistent with policy. This situation does raise the question (which Acroterion touches upon in their nuanced and thoughtful comments about the balance of interests here) of what new tools/processes we might develop to address situations where the disruption is particularly pervasive--that's definitely fruitful grounds for discussion, but as Acroterion has also already pointed out, VPP is probably the appropriate space for it, as it goes beyond any one article. Snow ^{let's rap} 19:30, 24 August 2019 (UTC)

• I'd be satisfied with permanent semi-protection. The other possibility would be for us to take this to Arbcom and request DS be place on the article; the problem here being that the dispute is mostly with whack-a-mole throw away accounts and other trolls so finding appropriate involved editors to create the case could prove bothersome. Simonm223 (talk) 14:11, 26 August 2019 (UTC)

You don't absolutely need a named account to bring an issue before ArbCom; you only need to make a case for substantial disruption. Rather, the real problem that I perceive with such an approach is that DS are not super effective with regard to random IP edit inquiries. However, I would submit to you that the way you have framed the issue there begs the ultimate question and thereby presents a false choice: you suggest that these are the only two tolerable options, and that we absolutely must do one of them. For starts, I don't think permanent semi protection is an option at all: we have a major policy that expressly disallows this, one which represents a highly valued community priority of not denying access to the consensus process to new editors or those who (for whatever reason) choose not to register. Furthermore, insofar as this is not a content matter but rather a process / community issue, we can't just override that important principle here as a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS matter. And if we tried, someone is bound to take the matter to ArbCom, AN, or VPP, and I can almost guarantee any of those forums would result in a community consensus to reverse, meaning nothing would be gained but a giant waste of community time.

I suppose you can make the argument for an WP:IAR approach, but I just don't see it, personally. It would be one thing if were talking about something directly impacting the article's content, but we're not: we're talking about a lot of annoying redundant edit requests. And if the balancing test is between the two options of 1) having a little clutter on the article talk page and its archives/regulars having to look at redundant requests on the one hand, and 2) disenfranchising every single un-registered editor from every further content discussion regarding this highly important article for an indefinite term of time, on the other hand, then I have to say that the annoyance of having to respond to (or hell, just note and ignore) the requests is by far the lesser of two evils--or in any event, the one policy/community consensus tells us to embrace first, of the options. Snow ^{let's rap} 05:05, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

Our semi-protect has been off for less than what? A week? And we've already had "make it say left wing" edit requests, an edit-war over fascism being a far-right ideology and pretty egregious WP:NPA violations (an editor accused of being a fascist). I'd say the case for substantial disruption is pretty strong. And an Arbcom finding could overrule the Protection Policy, no? Simonm223 (talk) 12:26, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

"an Arbcom finding could overrule the Protection Policy, no?"

Probably? I don't think that particular question has ever been addressed by the community or the committee itself, but let's put it this way: given the rather broad respect for ArbCom's remit these days, I'd say if they decided to place indefinite page protection on article, I suspect it would not create a furor of objection from the community. But it probably would lead to extended debate, insofar as it does abrogate the long-standing community consensus that we do not permanently protect talk spaces (which is largely seen as curing the disease by killing the patient). In any event, if anybody thinks the matter is fit for ArbCom's review, there's no reason to discourage them from taking the matter to the committee. However, by comparison, we (a handful of editors on a talk page) are certainly not remotely empowered to ignore the express wording of WP:PROTECT, which says that permanent protection is not to be used on talk pages, which is momentous WP:CONLEVEL above anything we might decide here. As such, I doubt very much that any admin is likely to risk their own credibility with the bit by applying permanent protection against the express wording of the very policy that defines the limitations of one of the relevant tool, especially since it would be likely to be undone shortly thereafter in a very public way.

All of which means that the editors here who really feel that there are exceptional circumstances warranting permanent talk page protection will need to make that case in one of a few ways: 1) Take it to ArbCom (as discussed above), 2) Add wording to WP:PROTECT via a WP:PROPOSAL at Wikipedia talk:PROTECT (it would probably need to be advertised at WP:VPP and/or WP:CD, insofar as it would be a significant change to a major policy), or 3) One could maybe could get this cleared at WP:AN/WP:ANI; it's debatable that this is an appropriate approach towards abrogating such an important policy as WP:PROTECT, but at least if you got a large enough turn-out in an AN/I discussion, you'd have a higher WP:CONLEVEL than just half a dozen involved editors on a talk page. However, I must tell you bluntly that I don't think either ArbCom or the community (whether solicited through VPP or AN/I) are likely to support changing the policy or creating a carve-out for these circumstances. I don't doubt that the disruption here has been noteworthy (again, I volunteer a lot of time to RfC and I've seen how bad it can get in the last couple of years when it comes to major articles concerning certain political concepts and individuals), but the community has dealt with much larger and more problematic incidences of disruption over the years, and in none of those cases did it decide that permanent talk page protection was a justified response. Advocates for breaking with long-standing consensus to apply it here would need to make a very substantial case to get ArbCom or the larger community on board for changing that principle. That would mean a much more robust case for disruption than what you've discussed above. For example, when you say:

"Our semi-protect has been off for less than what? A week? And we've already had "make it say left wing" edit requests..."

The simpler solution (by far) is simply to ignore these requests, at least insofar as we are talking about the ones coming from drive-by editors who themselves have taken no time to address the standing consensus. Why is it that you feel just ignoring such requests is not in the power of the editors here? Such requests are a minor annoyance at best: they don't reach our forward facing content, and the clutter to the talk page is manageable (especially if one does not feed the trolls). Ignoring these requests would be much less of a headache than all the debate that would be required to create a carve-out for permanent page protection on this one article. And it leaves our many good faith IP editors with access to discussion and consensus processes: robbing them of that access would require more significant justification than "we don't want to see redundant edit requests, and we don't have the strength of will to just ignore them when they do occur." It's just not a reasonable, in-proportion reaction to the scale of the problem.

"...[and] an edit-war over fascism being a far-right ideology"

Which involved extended-confirmed editors. The article itself is already under permanent semi-protection. Adding that protection to the talk page would not have prevented any edit wars to the article itself (which non-extended-confirmed editors already are prohibited from editing). Look, I'm totally sympathetic to your views here, believe me, and if you can gain consensus to permamently protect the article through an appropriate forum, I won't lose any sleep over the IPs not being able to push the "its not right wing" angle here against consensus. But this has to be handled through appropriate processes and we do need to discuss the inevitable implications of making a major change to the manner in which our page protection policy operates, particularly insofar a it would open a window for certain talk pages to become "experienced editors only" spaces. That's clearly against policy and community consensus as they stand now. If that's going to change (with substantial consequences for the openness of this project when it comes to controversial topics), it needs to take place at a higher level than this talk page, and with a higher threshold of community involvement. Snow ^{let's rap} 00:29, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Fascism=socialism is a fairly popular issue on a number of fringe websites that encourage their followers to change this article. So is the gun control led to the Holocaust argument. While there is nothing wrong with these people participating, it is disruptive for them to jump into the discussion without at the minimum having some familiarity with Wikipedia principles. In particular NOSYN requires the article to report conclusions in reliable sources rather than form our own conclusions through evaluation of the evidence. TFD (talk) 17:08, 28 August 2019 (UTC)

• Request for admin involvement This discussion has been dormant for roughly two weeks, so far we have one strident oppose and otherwise unanimous local support; but the point has been raised that considering the relatively unique nature of the request, local support may not be sufficient. Of course, we've also fielded two further "make it say left wing" requests in that time. Because this nonsense is never-ending. So where do we stand? Simonm223 (talk) 12:08, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

A few options occur:

1) Probably the easiest to implement would be to post a notice at WP:VPP regarding this discussion. Given the potential implications of changing the current default approach to WP:PROTECT, it should generate further discussion. So long as the posting at VPP is neutral and does a decent job of discussing the existing approach outlined in the policy and the unique circumstances arguing for an exception here, any result that is reached after a second wave of discussion involving a significant number of editors pulled in from VPP would give a better WP:CONLEVEL argument.

2) However, even better in this regard would be just opening a separate (but overlapping) discussion at VPP, asking the same question being asked here, but in a more general "should we be able to apply longter protection to the talk pages of articles which exhibit qualities X, Y, and Z" (whatever those may be). If the answer is in the affirmative, it will mean the consensus here with regard to this page will have been pre-validated and we can ask an admin to apply the protection immediately after the VPP discussion closes. This will also make it easier to validate what will likely be perceived as a need to also adjust the language of WP:PROTECT to that effect.

3) Which leads to our third option: we could simply raise the issue at Wikipedia talk:PROTECT directly, through a normal WP:PROPOSAL process.

4) You could try your luck at just getting a single admin to validate this course of action at WP:AN. I dislike this option for a few reasons. I think it will only defer the larger question of whether this course of action is appropriate, or policy consistent (increasing the likelihood of a arduous ANI filing) and as an enforceable remedy will not quell further disagreement here to the same extent that the consensus of a broader community consensus will. And that's assuming you can convince an admin to stick their foot in the matter: I would not be surprised if most refuse to apply the page protect policy in anything other than strict conformity with its wording.

5) As someone else already suggested, we could take the matter to ArbCom to request the review it for suitability as WP:Discretionary sanctions topic. Or even just to get their opinion as an advisory matter regarding whether current policy allows us to indefinitely protect talk pages.

Of the options, I prefer 2 by a considerable margin, but in any event, those are all the paths forward from this point that I can perceive, under existing policies and processes. Snow ^{let's rap} 12:33, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Do you have any proposals for wording at VPP? I'm just interested in getting some action on this ongoing and complicated disruption issue, I'm rather neutral about how to go about achieving action (though I'm also in favour of reaching out to ArbCom if necessary). Simonm223 (talk) 12:39, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

The only problem with ArbCom is that they are presently short-handed: they've had a rash of departures recently and were already struggling with the current workload of full cases before that. I'm not sure they are in a mood to take an advisory opinion. But in principle, if someone can convince them, their input would be very useful. As to VPP, I think I could put together a prompt for consideration that faithfully and comprehensively represents both the existing consensus on the issue as codified in the policy and the argument for why an exception may be warranted for this and other articles seeing a high influx of non-registered and WP:NOTHERE users. But I'm afraid I'll need to deliver it perhaps as late as tomorrow, depending on how my schedule pans out today. Snow ^{let's rap} 12:51, 11 September 2019 (UTC)

Discussion at village pump

For those who may have missed it - I've started the ball rolling at VPP. Simonm223 (talk) 15:01, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Incredibly biased (Focusing on the statement by Roderick Stackelberg)

Wow, this article is incredibly biased, what I find especially troubling and disturbing is how it included the statement from Stackelberg (who's not a particularly well-known and widely-recognized expert in the matter to begin with) that says "the more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be"; essentially saying that everyone in the right is racist and discriminates while everyone in the left supports equality and peace and inclusion, it's basically saying that the right is evil and the left is not. The inclusion of this statement is incredibly shameless and should be eliminated altogether; beside, no other sources or statements are cited in support of this assessment and I doubt any reputable source could be found that would. By the way, another less important note: the scholarly opinion on whether fascism is right or left-wing in the political geometry is far from a consensus and many believe fascists can belong to both ideologies; anyone with common sense could recognize this as fascism is simply an ideology that promotes and uses authoritarianism and strict control of the media and the society, none of these tenets are mutually exclusive with far-left ideologies; saying that all fascists belong to the right-wing essentially says that only people in the right can be evil fascist villains and that is physically impossible for someone on the left to be authoritarian, something that can be easily disproven by simply looking to the examples of leaders of the likes of Kim Jong Un, Stalin and Pol Pot; they were in the far left and they weren't especially supportive of civil liberties were they? All in all, this article is extremely embarrassing and in need of serious revision and rewrite (no wonder many people accuse Wikipedia of liberal bias), but we can start by eliminating that disturbing and incorrect statement I mentioned above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.225.172.224 (talk) 00:26, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

I would partly agree with you and challenge the reasoning for describing Fascism as "Right Wing". Mussolini who created the Fascist movement was an active member of The Italian Socialist Party and a contributor to many anti-capitalist articles and the Editor to Avanti! the official newspaper of the Socialist Party. To say he went from an extreme Left Wing Socialist to the Far Right makes no sense and I see no plausible reasoning for this opinion. This I feel is a Left Wing opinion of a monster that the editors would not want to associate themselves with. Left Wing on the whole wants to interfere with every citizen from birth to death whereas Right Wing wants just the opposite. The Left is more intrusive it can be supportive but not necessarily so, there is a difference. The Right is more egotistical, but not always to the detriment of others. That is the basic and fundamental approach of either political ideology. Trying to make Fascism a Right Wing concept is ludicrous. Darmech (talk) 18:56, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

The view that the Left is more supportive of equality is generally accepted. Certainly very few on the right would suggest that wealth be redistributed according to each person's needs, because they believe that unequal rewards are either natural or encourage enterprise. People have different abilities and some people work harder than others. In fact there was greater equality of wealth in Stalin's Soviet Union than there is in today's successor states. TFD (talk) 01:17, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Roderick Stackelberg is of course a leading specialist often cited by scholars on Nazi Germany and European history--as demonstrated by a google scholar search here. Since the days of the French Revolution the "right" has favoured and the "left" has opposed monarchy, aristocracy, inherited titles, the established church (esp Catholic Church) and inherited wealth. To be far-left or far-right means to oppose the established political rules and "extreme-right/left" = to advocate violence to fight the established rules. Rjensen (talk) 03:10, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

@Rjensen: I like your explication for "far-" vs. "extreme-". Is there a source for it? I'd like to keep it in my back pocket for when these arguments come up again. Beyond My Ken (talk) 03:13, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

thanks! here's a standard US textbook that's close: Edward Sidlow; Beth Henschen (2005). America at Odds. Cengage. p. 16.

The OP appears to be trying to view the Stackelberg statement through the narrow lens of race, rather than broad views of economics, which is what Stackelberg is talking about. Not everything is about race, nor do all discussions about equality boil down to race, at least outside of the United States, nor is everything to do with left and right a subject for grievance. Acroterion (talk) 03:18, 23 September 2019 (UTC)

Yes, especially the last thing. I think the IP's gut reaction that "absolute equality" equals good and "unavoidable inequality" equals evil is... well, it certainly has nothing to do with improving the article. Someguy1221 (talk) 14:34, 26 September 2019 (UTC)

I don't see anything remarkable about Mussolini's change in his political views. Many people change their views - I certainly did. And our article on Mussolini says "After being ousted by the Italian Socialist Party for his support of Italian intervention, Mussolini made a radical transformation, ending his support for class conflict and joining in support of revolutionary nationalism transcending class lines.[7] He formed the interventionist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia and the Fasci Rivoluzionari d'Azione Internazionalista ("Revolutionary Fasci for International Action") in October 1914", but I presume Darmech thinks someone isn't telling the truth here. Darmech seems to start with the position that the right doesn't want to control people. If you start there, you are fighting history. Doug Weller talk 13:50, 19 December 2019 (UTC)

"Left Wing on the whole wants to interfere with every citizen from birth to death" Uhhh, no? Literally the farthest-left ideology is anarchism. This is absurdly ignorant. Adamsmo (talk) 08:10, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

I might be flogging a dead horse here, but I think it is necassary to give emphasis to how incorrect the claim that Stackelberg is not "a particularly well-known and widely-recognized expert in the matter to begin with" is. Stackelberg has, for instance, edited The Routledge Companion to Nazi Germany (2007). The Routledge Companions are literally the first place scholars go when collecting information on a topic, and within a field as crowded as WWII studies being allowed to edit one is extremely prestigious. Sirion123 (talk) 14:13, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Please provide a citation to back up the claim " The Routledge Companions are literally the first place scholars go when collecting information on a topic". Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:26, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Try this evaluation: "With 'Hitler's Germany', Roderick Stackelberg has performed one of those indispensable but not necessarily most glamorous of scholarly tasks: writing a text on a familiar subject that synthesises the state of scholarship in a way that combines clarity with sophistication, familiar themes with recent debates, the main outlines of the political narrative with the incorporation of insights from intellectual, cultural, social and international history. The work is especially valuable as the vast specialist literature on the Nazi regime grows beyond the bounds of manageability. The book should be of great help to the undergraduate first coming upon the subject, the graduate student seeking an entry into the literature and professors refreshing their undergraduate lectures and graduate seminars."--quoting J Herf in Contemporary European History (2001) Cambridge University Press DOI:10.1017/S0960777301003101 pp 519-520. Rjensen (talk) 04:56, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

My question was not in regard to Stackelberg, it is to the claim made about the Routledge Companions series. Beyond My Ken (talk) 05:01, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

The easiest answer would be "ask any university librarian", as they will invariably show you to the reference section, where the Routledge Companions are a staple. Taking the latter for granted, one can then for instance refer to the latest edition of the venerable "The Craft of Research" (p. 70). For an online source, how about https://cloud.lib.wfu.edu/blog/research-like-a-librarian/reference-resources/ ? That the sources do not refer specifically to Routledge Companions stem from an understanding that the same publishers need not publish in all fields, and for people at the very beginning of their studies, a subject encyclopedia is likely to be an easier source to handle. For what it is worth, the reliability of Routledge as a publisher is amply demonstrated in Wikipedia's own article about the ranking of academic publishers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rankings_of_academic_publishers . Sirion123 (talk) 07:00, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Racism

I'm not an expert, I would not dream of editing the page itself, I have no qualification to do so.

But I'm concerned that the definition needs clarification, and that this is becoming urgent in the modern Social Media world.

I have been in discussions with people on Social Media who are claiming that various groups are fascist. The DNC in the US, and the EU being two examples.

When I challenge people on how they could possibly call these groups "fascist" some of them point me to this article and claim that since Wikipedia defines fascism as an authoritarian regime, and this appears to be the primary qualification according to the page then they are justified in calling, for example, the EU fascist simply because it has authority.

Now obviously there are counter arguments, and I can just hear a number of people asking me as they read this why I would bother entering a discussion with people like that.

But I do think this sort of thing matters. Popularism is causing a lot of damage around the world and people are attracted to it by exactly this kind of argument.

As I said, I'm no expert, but I would urge people who are to consider if it is justifiable to put Racism front and center in the definition. I don't think any regime that actually called itself fascist made it into power without blaming one of more out groups for everything that was wrong in the state they were trying to take over. I don't think any near miss (a failed self proclaimed fascist who actually had some political success, like Oswald Mosley for example) wasn't cultivating votes by doing the same thing.

So isn't a policy of racism, especially the blaming of social ills on out group(s), a necessary pre-condition for calling someone fascist?

Can we not say that Fascism is a form of government that elevates racism to public policy, and then tag on the fact that they are universally authoritarian?

If this is of no interest to the academics concerned with editing the page, could you consider as an alternative making it clear up front that "authoritarian" doesn't just mean "has authority". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:982:A60A:1:783C:4444:A81B:B57B (talk) 15:34, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

The "far right-wing" and especially the "ultranationalism" bit from the first sentence are important. The EU is the exact sort of thing that fascists loathed (they hated any institution that had an international or, in modern terms, "globalist" character - it was one of their really big objections to mainstream socialism.) I'm not sure how we could make that more clear. We could perhaps mention race a bit more, though - the fascist devotion to an ethnostate is important to understanding what is meant by "ultranationalism" (ie. a German ultranationalism that excluded Jews), and the article should probably go into more detail on that. We'd need proper sources, though I suspect many of the ones already in the article do discuss it. But either way there's no reasonable way the EU could be called "ultranationalist"; ultranationalists are its most bitter opponents. --Aquillion (talk) 15:41, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

As our article on the subject says (and the one we link to) authoritarianism is a "strong central power and limited political freedoms".Slatersteven (talk) 15:44, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

There is an expectation that readers will understand the meaning of basic political terms such as authoritarian or be able to look them up in a dictionary or just click the links in articles. I don't think the people you meet on social media misunderstand the term, they are using superlatives. In other words they are exaggerating. If the EU were literally fascist, Brexiteers would be arrested or shot. TFD (talk) 17:58, 27 September 2019 (UTC)

Racism would not be the most accurate term, for it was not entirely persecution based on race. While it was in Nazi Germany and to a lesser extent in Italy, I would argue it was absent in Spain and Portugul. Wandavianempire (talk) 17:12, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Fascism is not associated with any political party by its very definition

Why in the world is Fascism being associated with the "political right" when the political right when the Merriam-Webster Dictionary does not associate it as such?

fascism noun fas·​cism | \ ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi- \ Definition of fascism 1often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition 2: a tendency toward or actual exercise of strong autocratic or dictatorial control early instances of army fascism and brutality — J. W. Aldridge

Also.....just for my friends out there that think Hitler was NOT a socialist. His little group that he led was LITERALLY called the National SOCIALIST Workers' Party. Socialism is defined as an economic system, not a form of government. So to say that Hitler was Far-Right is false, seeing that the far american left wants socialism. So what was Hitler....really? A democratic socialist. You cannot possibly argue that. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Gwill99 (talk • contribs) 17:55, 7 October 2019 (UTC) — Gwill99 (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

Yes and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is democratic, and the KOALA BEAR is a bear.Slatersteven (talk) 18:00, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

You are confusing National Socialism with socialism. Clicking the links will explain it. I do wonder if this could be usefully added to the FAQ. Black Kite (talk) 18:08, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

The horseshoe theory explains this very well. The far left and far right have more in common than different, but are the far left and far right nonetheless. Victor Salvini (talk) 18:19, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Per no original research, facts in articles are based on what reliable sources (i.e., textbooks) say, not contributors personal conclusions. So while you may think fascism is left wing, the moon landing was faked and Elvis is still alive, you'll need sources that say that. As general advice, you might want to read what experts say about subjects before you form conclusions about them. TFD (talk) 19:46, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

So is Wikipedia actually allowing people to make false assertions even after being shown it’s false? I agree, it appears this was written by some far-left liberal hoping to use Wikipedia to falsely create a new definition, without any citation, to include “right wing”. Pcmediahost (talk) 21:17, 7 October 2019 (UTC)— Pcmediahost (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.

@Pcmediahost: Then you clearly didn't read the article at all. Among the sources cited are:

• Peter Davies; Derek Lynch (2002). The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. Routledge. pp. 1–5.
• Griffin, Roger. Fascism. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1995. pp. 8, 307.
• Aristotle A. Kallis. The fascism reader. New York: Routledge, 2003. p. 71.
• Hartley, John (2004). Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The key concepts (3rd ed.). Routledge. p. 187. ISBN 978-0-521-55982-9.
• Wilhelm, Reich (1970). The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Harper Collins. ISBN 978-0-285-64701-5.
• Mary Hawkesworth; Maurice Kogan (1992). Encyclopaedia of Government and Politics: Volume 1. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-71288-7.

If you're going to suggest that Routledge, Oxford UP, or Harper Collins are unreliable, we're going to show you the door. Maybe the problem is that you've trapped yourself in a far-right echo chamber? Ian.thomson (talk) 21:33, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

I agree that the far right and far left are almost the same but I have a feeling these are trolls. No sources being posted by em other than a dictionary def. Victor Salvini (talk) 21:46, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

• Of course they're trolls. To be honest, there probably needs to be some sort of "block on sight" answer to statements such as the lunatic one above (Pcmediahost). I believe there is currently a discussion to semi-protect this page; it would be a very good idea. Black Kite (talk) 22:30, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

If you ask me, all pages on major things like this should have basic protection. Victor Salvini (talk) 22:32, 7 October 2019 (UTC)

Anyone who thinks there can be such a thing as a "far-left liberal" has no business anywhere near articles about politics. Doug Weller talk 10:33, 8 October 2019 (UTC)

Source removed

• [[Bryan Caplan]]. "Fascism" in ''The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism'' [https://books.google.com/books?id=yxNgXs3TkJYC Sage 2008] {{doi|10.4135/9781412965811.n103}} pp. 66–168

Leaving aside the paid spamming of Caplan by Vipul, this seems very dubious and certainly WP:UNDUE. Caplan's extreme Randian libertarian views are obviously WP:FRINGE, but, more importantly, he's not a historian, so the relevance of an "encyclopedia of libertarianism" - a necessarily political book - is not at all clear when discussing the high level topic of fascism, especially given the plethora of much more relevant sources. Guy (help!) 12:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

This seems like a case of WP:JUSTDONTLIKEIT to me, but regardless I don't see any other economists in the list of secondary sources it was deleted from so it seems like it's worth preserving. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 12:45, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Pelirojopajaro, there are no other economists in there, so we should include a fringe one? That makes no sense whatsoever. Guy (help!) 17:16, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Well if you look at the Definitions of fascism page you'll find more than one economist... Your opinion of what is fringe means nothing. Pelirojopajaro (talk) 17:31, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

Just a quick look. The very first one is Dean Baker writing in New Political Economy. PackMecEng (talk) 17:24, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

"Fringe" is defined very clearly at WP:FRINGE, and said definition is not 'someone's opinion'. - Sumanuil (talk) 22:20, 12 February 2020 (UTC)

It's a view that has little recognition in the literature on fascism and therefore does not belong. I note that the author cites A. James Gregor, who is already listed in this article and probably presents a more reasoned argument for Caplan's position. I note that Caplan cites the fact that Fascists spent more money on welfare in the 1930s as evidence that they were becoming more socialist, without mentioning that the decade saw record levels of unemployment and is known as the Great Depression. TFD (talk) 19:01, 14 February 2020 (UTC)

Different left vs. right in Europe and USA

Isn't the left vs. right spectrum different in the U.S. compared to in Europe? In Europe, the size scope and ability of the government stays the same from the left to the right (as a rule of thumb), so the major distinction is who is it for. While in the United States the argument from left to right is much more an argument of what should the government be able and what should they do. Basically the Europian right will still fit in the American left. At least that is the appearance. So doesn't this at least mean that in the European definition it may be far-right and by the American definition less far-right or even towards the left? If I'm wrong then what am I missing, and if I'm correct can the article be changed to reflect that? (I know how to but I don't want to without any feedback because I'm probably not seeing something) — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 (talk • contribs) 21:10, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

NadavMeiri1, "Basically the Europian right will still fit in the American left" - this is most certainly not true, not only in part because "the European right" is a very broad term. "I know how to but I don't want to without any feedback because I'm probably not seeing something" - To put it bluntly , but becasue you asked so nicely, you seem to be missing a basic understanding of what fascism is. Literally from the first, and completely random introductory book from my local library - any other (reliable) book would give you a similar definition:

Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. Fascist nationalism is reactionary in that it entails implacable hostility to socialism and feminism, for they are seen as prioritizing class or gender rather than nation. This is why fascism is a movement of the extreme right. Fascism is also a movement of the radical right because the defeat of socialism and feminism and the creation of the mobilized nation are held to depend upon the advent to power of a new elite acting in the name of the people, headed by a charismatic leader, and embodied in a mass, militarized party.

(Passmore, Kevin. Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, 2002.) Mvbaron (talk) 22:30, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Mvbaron, "authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy" that's from the page, I don't know about you but that doesn't sound like the right in the United States. I'm personally towards the right politicly (in the U.S.) and I can tell you that someone on the right in the U.S.A. doesn't like dictatorial power of government, and tends to want the rights and freedoms (ontop of they prefer more freedom from the government hand) which are in the constitution like the first amendment which is in direct conflict with the suppression of opposition because one of the first amendments reason of existing is to stop that (again generalities but we sort of need to talk that way).

"the right in the U.S.A. doesn't like dictatorial power of government." Not in my experience. But it depends on how broadly you define 'dictatorial', and some people think even the most basic regulation is 'dictatorial'. - Sumanuil (talk) 04:25, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Sumanuil, what is your experience then? Because as a rule of thumb the farther right you go in the U.S. the smaller and less powerful the government (or at least thats the idea).

That's the idea. But 'small government' doesn't seem to apply to everything, especially things favored by the left. They'll regulate those to death. - Sumanuil (talk) 04:52, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Care to give me an example? As well as do you have anything on the rest if we would omit the dictatorial power bit because with that out it still doesn't sound like the right. As well as that my whole point is that there is a difference between left and right the way it's used in Europe compared to the United States which allows for the case that in the American sense it isn't necessarily far-right, while in the European sense can be. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 (talk • contribs) 05:09, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Can you name any far right groups in the U.S. that are called far right on the basis of devotion to small government? TFD (talk) 05:17, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

My primary purpose in bringing this up was to address the fact that many things may be called far-right when they are not. Libertarians seek to maximize political freedom and autonomy, emphasizing freedom of choice, voluntary association, and individual judgment. They may not be called far-right but that is because in my eyes the mixing up (deliberate or accidental) of the European and American left-right political system allows Fascism to take that spot. So do you not see the position that it looks like it's actually on the left but they just mix up the systems to call it alt-right? — Preceding unsigned comment added by NadavMeiri1 (talk • contribs) 05:28, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I have yet to see a source for the claim that “ there is a difference between left and right the way it's used in Europe compared to the United States“. Much of the rest of your points rest on conflating the right with the far right: not everyone on the right will endorse dictatorial power (libertarians don’t), but it is a characteristic of the far right - there’s no contradiction here. Fascism is a far-right ideology, as my little quote above has put much better than I could.

But this whole conversation is getting into WP:NOTAFORUM territory - I won’t be replying anymore unless there are specific proposals (based on reliable sources) on how to change the article. Mvbaron (talk) 06:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Whilst it is true that the European right tends to be more left then the US right this is not true of the far right. It may be the case that Europe's far right might be closer to the American right, that in no way means they are (by American standards) left wing (or even close). The far right tends to have the same issues close to their hearts irrespective of their geographical location.Slatersteven (talk) 08:29, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I guess what I'm having a hard time understanding is how can something be going one way (like the general rule with the American right) and suddenly do a 180 and do opposite stuff like violating the first amendment as a major part and restricting as many rights and freedoms as possible (basically). (and I agree this is starting to get into the more like a forum realm I'll find a source, but that's my major lapse in understanding a 180 that largely doesn't seem to make sense) Like why is it that the left goes nicely and logically and then for the right logical progression, and then something that sounds like it takes a 180 if you can find something explaining that it would be nice (explaining why it's that way not just declaring it is) NadavMeiri1 (talk) 16:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

This is not a general forum, it is a pager for discussing how to improve the article. You have now drifted away from any semblance of that.Slatersteven (talk) 16:48, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Since this seems a common enough thing to come up that it's on the faq maybe add a bit in the article at least addressing this because it seems common enough that addressing it would actually make sense. (like small and towards the end not front and center but there). Because I can't find anything that addresses this that doesn't declare it's far-right and that's that. Since you guys seem to understand it better, a bit about it would be awesome and probably aid a lot of people's understandings. NadavMeiri1 (talk) 16:58, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

A common enough thing? Lets get a couple of things clear. Facism is an extreme right wing thing. The only real difference between the right wing on this side of the pond to that side is the 5000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean. The rest of this Trolling is as clear as mud. -Roxy, the PROD. . wooF 18:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry that all logic shows that if you use a normal train of thought it doesn't even look like it's on the right. And I said common because it's in the faq for this page. That's my idea to address it, if you want to discuss this properly then this isn't the place to do it but I'd be happy to share how I see it, but this isn't a forum so not the place (not this talk page at least). And this is why I think it should be addressed in this article because simply declaring it's on the far-right evidently doesn't work. NadavMeiri1 (talk) 20:21, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

There is no difference between the meaning of far right in the U.S. and Europe. The problem seems to be that a number of editors are misinformed and feel strongly about this, but no reason to think this forms a significant part of the population. This seems to derive from W. Cleon Skousen, who was the intellectual guide of the John Birch Society and Glenn Beck University. In his article "What is Left? What is Right?" he argued that we have been using the terms the wrong way around since the beginning. Hence the the French Revolution was right-wing while absolute monarchism, which they overthrew, was left-wing.

In answer to your original posting, political parties are pragmatic to some degree and change policies based on changing circumstances. Government spending under Ronald Reagan for example was twice as high a percentage of the GDP than it was under FDR's New Deal. That doesn't mean that Reagan was twice as far to the left.

TFD (talk) 20:52, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for an answer but it still doesn't seem like the right for some reason (I think it's the big government restricting a lot of your rights), and isn't every country left-right system is different for stuff specific for the country like the constitution and what's in it for the United States. And again address this because if someone looks at the article and it simply declares that it's far-right and they're American (or whoever you want) and it doesn't sound like the right to them and there is no explanation everything is stating it is and if you want to know why then your trolling. I think we can agree that that isn't the most constructive or helpful thing. Because if there is an explanation that makes sense I'm happy to consed that I'm wrong, but I think that explanation should be on the article so that people that are looking for it can find it. NadavMeiri1 (talk) 21:01, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

To clarify what I want to be added is for the 'that doesn't sound like the right' not necessarily this specific argument, sorry for being ambiguous. NadavMeiri1 (talk) 01:05, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Even if you were correct, information in articles is based on the conclusions published in reliable sources not what editors think. There's a lot of misinformation out there and some editors are unhappy about articles on climate change, evolution, 911 and the moon landing. I suggest that you read books about fascism by accredited historians rather than whatever websites you visit. TFD (talk) 03:06, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not saying it isn't based in reliable sources but I have yet to find an explanation rather than a declaration if you can find a good explanation then send it, and am I trying to say tear out the bit on the far-right? No, but my suggestion is at the end of the article address (in the appropriate manner) the arguments that it isn't far-right like a good explanation on why is more than enough and just put it in the last not reference bit just so it exists for all who want to see (it seems connected enough to the topic) like this whole situation is because using some logic it doesn't seem like it's on the right and there isn't anything that has an explanation rather than a straight declaration. I don't blindly follow or believe anything especially if there is a logical conflict, but I love to learn so if there is a good explanation I'd be happy to say that I'm wrong but at this point, I want an explanation and I'm sure there are others so whoever has that explanation should stick it into the article for people like me to see that we're wrong (assuming you're correct). If you have any issue with that I'd frankly be surprised, it's an open invitation to state what you act like is common knowledge and prove me utterly wrong, have at it, please. NadavMeiri1 (talk) 03:26, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

That's beyond the scope of this article. By comparison if the article about Vermont said most of its inhabitants were white, we wouldn't enter into a discussion on its talk page about what that term meant. TFD (talk) 03:58, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

But the difference is the census is using empirical data that doesn't need interpreting (like in this form, I understand you need to interpret data but you get the point). As well as you can't ask them why, they don't really care about the why, but when you're talking about let's say something that isn't objective data the 'why do you say that' plays a much bigger factor and we run into the declaration issue which requires blind trust which I personally am not going to belive you if you say just trust me and there's a quite obvious contradiction there. It's like with let's take physics the difference in how time acts at different speeds if someone said just trust me I wouldn't, but if I ask for even the slightest explanation and they try I'll probably have a higher chance of believing them, it seems like there is an aversion to even trying to explain something because look an expert declared it so. Unless there is an explanation or someone wants to actually do the added bit, I think this matter is closed (mostly so this doesn't become more of a forum then we've already made it). Thanks for the attempt at feedback. NadavMeiri1 (talk) 04:20, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

NadavMeiri1, I gave you an explanation in the first reply in this lengthy thread now. The passage I cited clearly said. “This is why fascism is a movement of the extreme right.” And “Fascism is also a movement of the radical right because ...” and lists reasons for these two claims, It doesn’t just state the fact, it gives reasons as to why. Have you read the quote I provided? Mvbaron (talk) 07:12, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Being white is not an empirical fact, but a matter of perception. But we examine the various interpretations of white people in that article, not in every article that uses the term. TFD (talk) 15:01, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Mvbaron, I forgot it was there my bad, I do want to talk about it but this isn't the place, if there is a good place to discuss this without violating a 'this isn't a forum' rule then I'll head over there I'd love to discuss this further but I don't want this to become more of a forum. I won't respond to this thread anymore to minimize the violating of the before mentioned rule, but if there's like a Reddit page or something to that effect then I'll go there. But I will no longer respond to this thread. NadavMeiri1 (talk) 18:32, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

What is fascism

Can we at least discus it rather than edit war? So what is the objection to the definition?Slatersteven (talk) 23:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• The removed content seems to have been acceptable for several years, removal comments are mentioning MOS whereas Reliable or verifiable sources seems more appropriate. I'm not impressed by the comments in the removal edit summaries and failure to come to talk. Having made that comment I'm bowing out of the conversation I think.Djm-leighpark (talk) 23:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• I don't really care all that much, I just objected to the all-caps mention of the Chicago MOS when Wikipedia has its own (and its own lists of reliable sources). - Sumanuil (talk) 01:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

OK we know why it was resorted, now why was it removed (and no Chicago MOS is not as valid reason, we have our own).Slatersteven (talk) 09:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Long section of material commented out

I don't know how long it has been the case, but the following long section on Fascist economy was commented out of the article. It needs to be checked to see if everything in it has been re-inserted elsewhere, or if some parts of it should be added.

Economic policies

Further information: Economics of fascism

According to Bruce Pauley, Fascist governments exercised control over private property but did not nationalize it. According to Patricia Knight, they did, with the Italian Fascist government coming to own the highest percentage of industries outside the Soviet Union. The Nazis also nationalized some business. In fact, the "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the Nazi party, adopted in 1920, demanded "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations." Other scholars noted that big business developed an increasingly close partnership with the Nazi and Fascist governments as it became increasingly organized. Business leaders supported the government's political and military goals, and in exchange, the government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies. Nazi Germany transferred public ownership and public services into the private sector, while other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry. In his book, Big Business in the Third Reich, Arthur Schweitzer notes that, "Monopolistic price fixing became the rule in most industries, and cartels were no longer confined to the heavy or large-scale industries. ... Cartels and quasi-cartels (whether of big business or small) set prices, engaged in limiting production, and agreed to divide markets and classify consumers in order to realize a monopoly profit.

Fascists pursued economic policies to strengthen state power and spread ideology, such as consolidating trade unions and putting them under state or party control. Attempts were made by both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to establish "autarky" (self-sufficiency) through significant economic planning, but neither achieved economic self-sufficiency.

National corporatism, statism and national syndicalism

Italian Fascism's economy was based on corporatism, and a number of other fascist movements similarly promoted corporatism. Oswald Mosley of the British Union of Fascists, describing fascist corporatism, said that "it means a nation organized as the human body, with each organ performing its individual function but working in harmony with the whole". Fascists were not hostile to the petit-bourgeoisie or to small businesses, and they promised these groups, alongside the proletariat, protection from the upper-class bourgeoisie, big business, and Marxism. The promotion of these groups is the source of the term "extremism of the centre" to describe fascism.

Fascism blamed capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and communists for exploiting it. In Italy, the Fascist period presided over the creation of the largest number of state-owned enterprises in Western Europe, such as the nationalisation of petroleum companies into a single state enterprise called the Italian General Agency for Petroleum (Azienda Generale Italiani Petroli, AGIP). Fascists made populist appeals to the middle class, especially the lower middle class, by promising to protect small businesses and property owners from communism, and by promising an economy based on competition and profit while pledging to oppose big business.

In 1933, Benito Mussolini declared Italian Fascism's opposition to the "decadent capitalism" that he claimed prevailed in the world at the time, but he did not denounce capitalism entirely. Mussolini claimed that capitalism had degenerated in three stages, starting with dynamic or heroic capitalism (1830–1870), followed by static capitalism (1870–1914), and reaching its final form of decadent capitalism or "supercapitalism" beginning in 1914. Mussolini said that Italian Fascism acknowledged the positive achievements of dynamic and heroic capitalism for its contribution to industrialism and its technical developments, but that it did not favor supercapitalism, which he claimed was incompatible with Italy's agricultural sector.

Thus Mussolini claimed that Italy under Fascist rule was not capitalist in the contemporary use of the term, which referred to supercapitalism. Mussolini denounced supercapitalism for causing the "standardization of humankind" and for causing excessive consumption. Mussolini claimed that at the stage of supercapitalism, "a capitalist enterprise, when difficulties arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state's arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously." He saw Fascism as the next logical step to solve the problems of supercapitalism and claimed that "our path would lead inexorably into state capitalism, which is nothing more nor less than state socialism turned on its head. In either event, the result is the bureaucratization of the economic activities of the nation." Mussolini claimed that dynamic or heroic capitalism and the bourgeoisie could be prevented from degenerating into static capitalism and then supercapitalism if the concept of economic individualism were abandoned and if state supervision of the economy was introduced. Private enterprise would control production but it would be supervised by the state. By the late 1930s and the 1940s, Italian Fascism completely denounced capitalism as an obsolete and oppressive system, Mussolini in 1940 at the entry of Italy into World War II, said:

This conflict must not be allowed to cancel out all our achievements of the past eighteen years, nor, more importantly, extinguish the hope of a Third Alternative held out by Fascism to mankind fettered between the pillar of capitalist slavery and the post of Marxist chaos. The proponents of these obsolete doctrines must understand that the Fascist sword has been unsheathed twice before, in Ethiopia and in Spain, with known results.

— Benito Mussolini, 1940.

Italian Fascism presented the economic system of corporatism as the solution that would preserve private enterprise and property while allowing the state to intervene in the economy when private enterprise failed.

Other fascist regimes were indifferent or hostile to corporatism. The Nazis initially attempted to form a corporatist economic system like that of Fascist Italy, creating the National Socialist Institute for Corporatism in May 1933, which included many major economists who said that corporatism was consistent with National Socialism. In Mein Kampf, Hitler spoke enthusiastically about the "National Socialist corporative idea" as one that eventually would "take the place of ruinous class warfare". The Nazis later came to view corporatism as detrimental to Germany and institutionalizing and legitimizing social differences within the German nation. Instead, the Nazis began to promote economic organization that emphasized the biological unity of the German national community.

Hitler continued to refer to corporatism in propaganda, but it was not put into place, even though a number of Nazi officials such as Walther Darré, Gottfried Feder, Alfred Rosenburg, and Gregor Strasser were in favor of a neo-medievalist form of corporatism, since corporations had been influential in German history in the medieval era.

Spanish Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera did not believe that corporatism was effective and denounced it as a propaganda ploy, saying "this stuff about the corporative state is another piece of windbaggery".

Economic planning

Fascists opposed the laissez-faire economic policies that were dominant in the era prior to the Great Depression. After the Great Depression began, many people from across the political spectrum blamed laissez-faire capitalism, and fascists promoted their ideology as a "third way" between capitalism and communism.

Fascists declared their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering. Nazis and other antisemitic fascists considered finance capitalism a "parasitic" "Jewish conspiracy". Fascist governments introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of economic interventionist measures.

Fascists thought that private property should be regulated to ensure that "benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual." Private property rights were supported but were contingent upon service to the state. For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labour than he would find profitable." They promoted the interests of successful small businesses. Mussolini wrote approvingly of the notion that profits should not be taken away from those who produced them by their own labour, saying "I do not respect—I even hate—those men that leech a tenth of the riches produced by others".

According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, "dirigisme" was an inherent aspect of fascist economies. The Labour Charter of 1927, promulgated by the Grand Council of Fascism, stated in article 7: "The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation", then continued in article 9: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management."

Beyond My Ken (talk) 00:47, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Reflist

Discussion about the material

This is interesting. I checked several stable versions of the article for the past five years and noticed that it was commented out in all of those, too (here's an example from 2015). Then I skipped to December 2012 and it was commented out even then (!!!). I didn't go back further than that. So this is a block of text that was, for all intents and purposes, removed from the article more than 7-8 years ago (who knows how long ago exactly). It's going to be hard to figure out which parts of it were already reworked into the article long ago and which were not, after 8+ years of edits. So if any of it is to be re-inserted, it should be treated as new material, with the sources checked to see if they really say what they are cited as saying. I'm suspicious about the excessive reliance on direct quotes and paraphrases from fascist leaders (especially Mussolini - I see two whole paragraphs that simply list things that Mussolini said, with another blockquote from Mussolini after them). I doubt the secondary sources just report those statements uncritically. Ohff (talk) 05:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Finally had some time to do some investigating. The material was commented out on 13 October 2012 with this edit, with the edit summary "Commented out economics section, removing the incoherent religion section that has no coherent topic and makes no sense." The edit was made by User:R-41, one of the primary authors of the article, [1] who was, however, indefinitely blocked by his own request in April 2013. [2][3] Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:41, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

For anyone planning to re-insert any of this, the version of the article to use to get the references is this one. I'd suggest that if material is checked out and re-inserted, it be struckout in the text above, so there's no deplication of effort. Beyond My Ken (talk) 01:45, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The problem with the removed material is that although it is probably well sourced, it doesn't follow the way these facts would be arranged in reliable sources about each of these issues. For example, most sources say that Nazism had no economic ideology, but followed popular opinion, the interests of their donors and the necessities of the war. That needs to be explained before we say that the 1925 program called for the nationalization of some industries, the Nazis nonetheless privatized industry and they exerted control in order to meet war production goals. TFD (talk) 02:06, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Neverthesless, the article now has a firm structure in place for discussion of fascist economics, and I find it difficult to believe that anything in the commented-out material which is not already covered can't be included within that structure, as long as it's properly sourced.

Further, we are not reliant on reliable sources for the structure of our articles, only for the factual material which is included in them. It is -- or should be -- irrelevant to us that Author A approaches the material from one pathway, and Academic B from another, while Writer C takes a totally different over-arching viewpoint. None of these sources determine for us how the material is to be approached in our article, it could be A's, it could be B's, or C's, or it could be whatever grows up organically as the article matures. There is no one "right" way. Beyond My Ken (talk) 02:42, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Since this article is about fascist ideology, the implication when you mention their ever changing policies following WW1, the roaring twenties, the Depression and the war is that somehow they are part of fascist ideology rather than pragmatic responses to circumstances. You need to explain the relation of policy to ideology. You also need to explain how their policies contrasted with others faced with the same problems. For example, during WW2, did the U.S. and UK also command businesses to produce armaments, or was that a specifically fascist approach? It should be clear from the Great Recession and the corona virus pandemic that ideology is not the sole factor determining government policy.

Incidentally we had a similar discussion about Jews and money. The article while reliably sourced had been modeled on an article in a far right source. The conclusion was that the arrangement of facts was misleading.

TFD (talk) 05:34, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Note the first sentence, "According to Bruce Pauley, Fascist governments exercised control over private property but did not nationalize it." Pauley wrote, "Compared with the massive and truly totalitarian intervention of the Soviet state in the Russian economy, the role of the state in the economic affairs of both Italy and Germany seems almost trivial." (Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini, ed. 4 (2014).) So the text cherry-picks facts to present a thesis in conflict with the actual source. It presents a view very close to fascist apologetics.

TFD (talk) 06:03, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Unrelated to the discussion above, I'd like to offer my opinion on the commented-out material. I think that there is definitely useful information about fascist economic views in it, information which may or may not already be present in the article. But if anyone wants to work on this (I would want to at some point, but I just got back after a long hiatus and I can't commit to anything beyond gnome-mode for now), I think it would be more fruitful to simply read the sources cited here and write new text based on them, rather than attempting to use the old text as-is.

I say this for a couple of reasons. For one thing, as I mentioned before, I think too much of this material is simply reporting statements from fascist leaders (the Nazi 25-point program, a quote from Oswald Mosley, three whole paragraphs on Mussolini's statements, lines from Mein Kampf and Primo de Rivera, more Mussolini, etc.). If we had all those in the article right now, I'd say we should trim them, and definitely include the secondary-source commentary on them, rather than just going with "Mussolini said...".

Secondly, too many sentences simply say that "fascists" supported something or took a certain stance, as if there was a fascist consensus on the idea or policy in question, when there usually wasn't. I have not checked the specific cited pages in the sources, but some of those authors are familiar to me and I am quite certain that they are speaking of the views of specific fascists at specific times, not making pronouncements about fascism in general. That would have to be checked and fixed.

So basically, I think this material has potential, and the sources are good, but I would be very apprehensive about just copying text directly back into the article. Ohff (talk) 06:07, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Regarding its structure, I have no opinion at this time. Ohff (talk) 06:09, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Finding similar cases

Props to Beyond My Ken for the discovery above, which (FYI) prompted me to suggest in the Village pump for miscellany (absent knowing a better place to suggest it) that someone with the technical know-how should look for any other such very long HTML comments in article-space. -sche (talk) 18:42, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Just following up to say that a discussion at WP:RAQ has resulted in a partial (soon, perhaps, to be complete) list of other articles with long hidden sections or comments like this, of which there are a surprising number, including a staggering 58,000-byte hidden section in James Lick. -sche (talk) 00:13, 9 September 2020 (UTC)

Trump and fascism

Curious if you guys have had many edit requests to have Donald Trump included as a fascist. I'm on the left and arguing Trump and his administration were not fascist is still an unpopular view. Even smart people will argue in earnest, non-hyperbolically, that we've been living under fascsim here in the U.S. So just curious if that fight has made it's way here Joeletaylor (talk) 19:47, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

Of course it has. Fascism scholars do not consider him a fascist or even extreme right. There are obviously some parallels, such as xenophobic nationalism, but that has its roots in American tradition, and has also been exploited by supposed liberals such as Joe Biden. TFD (talk) 20:30, 9 November 2020 (UTC)

"Far-left fascism"

The latin root "fasc" means "pertaining to a bundle", which isn't necessarily left nor right on a modern political spectrum, though it can be both.

Conforming, by government authority, to far-left communism, socialism, and de-importance of the individual is also described by the word fascism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Neaumusic (talk • contribs) 23:51, 11 January 2021 (UTC)

Now that President Trump has declared that the US is under siege from "far-left fascism", we should be prepared for a brand-new round of edit requests seeking to remove the description of fascism as a right-wing ideology. We should remind drive-by editors who make these requests that Wikipedia follows what WP:reliable sources say, and that no reliable source, either academic or from the media, describes fascism as left-wing. Politicians say many things in the course of their attempts to be elected or re-elected, and their statements are not considered to be reliable sources of information. Beyond My Ken (talk) 06:31, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

The above is incorrect. The Road to Serfdom, by Hayek, published in 1944, traces the roots of Fascism and Nazism. Chapter 12, the Socialist Roots of Nazism, refutes the claim that Nazism has no link to the "left". Much of the book shows the birth of fascism/nazism is rooted in the socialism of the 19th century. Hannah Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, does not put fascism/nazism on the right but categorizes it with Stalinism as "totalitarian". Finally, if you read the platform of the Nazi party in 1920 (https://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm) it is clearly a socialist policy platform with nationalist overtones. I have little expectation that these facts will influence wikipedia, as wikipedia in political subjects is biased and censored. Aseidave (talk) 21:45, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

It is not that the article or Wikipedia is biased, it is a fact. --Germanico5468504 (talk) 22:05, 7 January 2021 (UTC)

Fascism as all other anti-democratic ideologies doesn't fall on the same left-right scale as democratic movements. Theres LEFT wing extremists who went from far-left to fundamentalist far-left and then theres the EXTREMISTS that renegated the "moderate" far-left and shifted to opose that same far left (thats whar RIGHT WING extremists are). But there are no RIGHT wing involved in any of these ideologies since they all continued to be anti- "all-things-right". Everyone who is in the right of the democratic spectre is correct to refer to the anti democratic far-righ (fascism) as far left sicne they are talking about something that ideologicvally is opposed to EVERYTHING of the democratic right. In the same way that far-left democratic/ant-democratic ideologies are correct to refer to fanti-democratic far right (fascism) as far-right because basically it is what it is relative to them ... the renegation of everything they defended. Both situations are viewed form completelly diferent prespectives so they are both correct and wrong at the same time. Sotavento (talk) 22:02, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

And since the german far-right(aka the NSDAP) took ideas from both the american democratic and the italian fascist ideologies at the same time they can't be categorized as any extreme of the spectre. Fascism (italy) is by its own definition a far-left movement gone rogue!Sotavento (talk) 22:10, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

With regards to "no reliable source, either academic or from the media, describes fascism as left-wing" ... I'd be willing to be that some do (maybe Fox News?), but "reliable" in this context generally means one of the sources that routinely and consistently endorses Democratic candidates ie. a mainstream US news channel or newspaper. I don't know if you would seriously make the argument that academia is a hotbed of right-wing thought either. So, in essence what you're saying, is that sources that lean pretty consistently to the left all agree that a pejorative, controversial ideology describes the right. Hardly a surprising development, and one that few would need an encyclopedia for. At the end of the day, when it comes to subjective issues, the majority of people believe that which mostly resembles one's own views. Is this encyclopedic? Given that most mainstream sources are fairly openly "liberal", maybe, but in this case, when it basically boils down to a political insult, and you're quoting one side of said argument and declaring it definitive, it definitely doesn't seem like it. Opie8 (talk) 08:00, 5 January 2021 (UTC)