Niccolò Machiavelli's Fascism Is Capitalism

Mariam Khan

Upton Sinclair, an American author and reformer, once said, “Fascism is capitalism plus murder.” Picture this: you own two cows, you would give them to the government and then the government would sell you some milk. However, if you do not give up the cows, you get imprisoned or even worse, get killed. Fascism is a form of an extremely right-winged government where they are totalitarian in nature as well as anti-democratic. The government embraced the idea of controlling everything the people, also known as subjects, living in that certain area would do. Fascism started in Italy with Benito Mussolini and he was influenced by people like Niccolò Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, and G.W.F. Hegel. These three men influenced the development

He was the writer of The Prince, where it guided leaders to rule their state. In the book, Machiavelli instructs leaders to use any means necessary to keep people in line. To keep people in line, force was definitely a necessity but he also said to use lies to correlate with it. Machiavelli believed that the state was like an organic being, in other words, being equivalent to a “human body with the brain in control” (John Mack). In his book, he states that human nature is evil and that human beings can be fooled through appearances. Since fascism is about having full control of the subjects residing in that form of government, Machiavelli says that you should keep your subjects in such a state where they are unable to harm you and to keep them in a state that it looks like you are doing them a favour. Despite my opposition to the fascist philosophies of Machiavelli, his way of guiding leaders is credible and very smart. Making your citizens believe that you in power are doing them a favour is so cunning and manipulative and would make the citizens of that place reliant on your power and demands. Machiavelli believed that even though Princes should be strict, they should occasionally make a show and perform acts of clemency. In other words, let the people off the hook for a crime committed. Even though he said to be occasionally lenient, he also said to be cruel to people when necessary. In his book he says, “A prince

Hegel. He was very influential in Nazi Germany. Hegel believed that a state has a spirit of its own and that the individual spirits come together and make a national spirit. I think that is shown in Nazi Germany because the spirits of the Nazis came together and became one and then ended up becoming a national spirit. They ended up influencing a lot that went on in Germany during that time, regardless of whether it was through fear and force. Hegel believed that freedom was being obedient to the state and in terms of war, war was a good thing to have. Nazi doctrines are very consistent with what Hegel says because both had a lot of nationalism among the powerful, which were the Nazis. The ideas of these philosopher thinkers were mostly interpreted correctly by the Nazi and Fascist doctrines, however, there were some ideas that were completely booted out when it came to full power and the