I think that the mechanism by which Socialist and Communist systems move towards Facism is actually pretty simple and is inherent to the single party nature of both systems. Both systems begin with a single governing party which has won over the majority of people to the idea that everybody should be working for the welfare of all. A necessary step in winning over the majority is to make it easy for them. This is done by essentially convincing them that they are already doing the things which are for the welfare of all. Carpenters are told that they’ve been furnishing the people, bakers are told that they’ve been feeding the people, and it all sounds as if things will stay the same. However, there will also be people that have an ambition for power and will wish to move up in the ranks of the party. To do this often requires a stunt of some sort to draw attention to themselves and to demonstrate their commitment to the welfare of the people. So, they look around for things and/or people that are unpopular or less popular and they start a campaign to have the unpopular activity, thing, or people forbidden or forced to change. This campaign results in new regulations aimed at enforcing the change, and the ambitious would be party official achieves their desired power. As this repeats over and over again, the regulations pile up until the government is ruling all aspects of life by which point it has effectually become Fascist.
Conversely, when the people work for themselves and choose government representatives that support that notion, regulations only tend to arise when people are needlessly dying or harming others. Thus if one truly wishes to prevent Fascism, the best way to do so is to preach Capitalism.
Copyright 2017 Jonathan Wayne Hart
