Bill Bonner (author)

Benito Mussolini (left) and Adolf Hitler(right), the fascist leaders of Italy and Nazi Germany, respectively

Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of radical, right-wing, authoritarian ultranationalism,^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy,^[5] which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.^[6] The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I before it spread to other European countries.^[6] Opposed to liberalism, Marxism, and anarchism, fascism is placed on the far-right within the traditional left–right spectrum.^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11]

Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society, the state, and technology. The advent of total war and the total mass mobilization of society had broken down the distinction between civilians and combatants. A “military citizenship” arose in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner during the war.^[12]^[13] The war had resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines and providing economic production and logistics to support them, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.^[12]^[13]

Fascists believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and regard the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for armed conflict and to respond effectively to economic difficulties.^[14] Such a state is led by a strong leader—such as a dictator and a martial government composed of the members of the governing fascist party—to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society.^[14] Fascism rejects assertions that violence is automatically negative in nature and views political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation.^[15]^[16]^[17]^[18] Fascists advocate a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky(national economic self-sufficiency) through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.^[19]

Since the end of World War II in 1945, few parties have openly described themselves as fascist, and the term is instead now usually used pejoratively by political opponents. The descriptions neo-fascist or post-fascist are sometimes applied more formally to describe parties of the far-right with ideologies similar to, or rooted in, 20th-century fascist movements.^[6]^[20]

Etymology

The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio meaning “a bundle of sticks”, ultimately from the Latin word fasces.^[21] This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates. According to Mussolini‘s own account, the Fascist Revolutionary Party (Partito Fascista Rivoluzionario or PFR) was founded in Italy in 1915.^[22] In 1919, Mussolini founded the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento in Milan, which became the Partito Nazionale Fascista (National Fascist Party) two years later. The Fascists came to associate the term with the ancient Roman fasces or fascio littorio^[23]—a bundle of rods tied around an axe,^[24] an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate^[25] carried by his lictors, which could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command.^[26]^[27]

The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.^[28] Similar symbols were developed by different fascist movements: for example, the Falange symbol is five arrows joined together by a yoke.^[29]

Definitions

Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have long debated the exact nature of fascism.^[30] Each group described as fascist has at least some unique elements, and many definitions of fascism have been criticized as either too wide or narrow.^[31]^[32]

One common definition of the term focuses on three concepts:

the fascist negations (anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism);
nationalist authoritarian goals of creating a regulated economic structure to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture; and
a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic leadership.^[33]^[34]^[35]

According to many scholars, fascism—especially once in power—has historically attacked communism, conservatism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the far-right.^[36]

Historian Stanley Payne identifies three main strands in fascism. His typology is regularly cited by reliable sources as a standard definition. First, Payne’s “fascist negations” refers to such typical policies as anti-communism and anti-liberalism. Second, “fascist goals” include a nationalist dictatorship and an expanded empire. Third, “fascist style” is seen in its emphasis on violence and authoritarianism and its exultation of men above women and young against old.^[37]

Roger Griffin describes fascism as “a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism“.^[38] Griffin describes the ideology as having three core components: “(i) the rebirth myth, (ii) populist ultra-nationalism, and (iii) the myth of decadence”.^[39] Fascism is “a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism” built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist “armed party” politics opposing socialism and liberalism and promising radical politics to rescue the nation from decadence.^[40]

Robert Paxton says that fascism is “a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion”.^[41]

Racism was a key feature of German fascism, as they made the Holocaust a high priority. According to the historiography of genocide, “In dealing with the Holocaust, it is the consensus of historians that Nazi Germany targeted Jews as a race, not as a religious group.”^[42] Umberto Eco,^[43]Kevin Passmore,^[44] John Weiss,^[45] Ian Adams,^[46] and Moyra Grant^[47] stress racism as a characteristic component of German fascism. The Encyclopedia Britannica says, “Hitler envisioned the ideal German society as a Volksgemeinschaft, a racially unified and hierarchically organized body in which the interests of individuals would be strictly subordinate to those of the nation, or Volk.”^[48] Fascist philosophies vary by application, but remain distinct by one theoretic commonality. All traditionally fall into the far-right sector of any political spectrum, catalyzed by afflicted class identities over conventional social inequities^[6]

Historian John Lukacs argues that there is no such thing as generic fascism. He claims that National Socialism and communism are essentially manifestations of populism and that states such as National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy are more different than similar.^[49]

Position in the political spectrum

Most scholars place fascism on the far right of the political spectrum.^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10]^[11] Such scholarship focuses on its social conservatism and its authoritarian means of opposing egalitarianism.^[50]^[51] Roderick Stackelberg places fascism—including Nazism, which he says is “a radical variant of fascism”—on the political right by explaining: “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”.^[52]

Fascism’s origins, however, are complex and include many seemingly contradictory viewpoints, ultimately centered around a myth of national rebirth from decadence.^[53] Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who drew upon both left-wing organizational tactics and right-wing political views.^[54]

Italian Fascism gravitated to the right in the early 1920s.^[55]^[56] A major element of fascist ideology that has been deemed to be far-right is its stated goal to promote the right of a supposedly superior people to dominate, while purging society of supposedly inferior elements.^[57]

In the 1920s, the Italian Fascists described their ideology as right-wing in the political program The Doctrine of Fascism, stating: “We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the ‘right,’ a fascist century”.^[58]^[59] Mussolini stated that fascism’s position on the political spectrum was not a serious issue for fascists: “Fascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on the mountain of the center … These words in any case do not have a fixed and unchanged meaning: they do have a variable subject to location, time and spirit. We don’t give a damn about these empty terminologies and we despise those who are terrorized by these words”.^[60]

Major Italian groups politically on the right, especially rich landowners and big business, feared an uprising by groups on the left such as sharecroppers and labour unions.^[61] They welcomed Fascism and supported its violent suppression of opponents on the left.^[62] The accommodation of the political right into the Italian Fascist movement in the early 1920s created internal factions within the movement. The “Fascist left” included Michele Bianchi, Giuseppe Bottai, Angelo Oliviero Olivetti, Sergio Panunzio, and Edmondo Rossoni, who were committed to advancing national syndicalism as a replacement for parliamentary liberalism in order to modernize the economy and advance the interests of workers and common people.^[63] The “Fascist right” included members of the paramilitary Squadristi and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI).^[63] The Squadristi wanted to establish Fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, including Alfredo Rocco, sought to institute an authoritarian corporatist state to replace the liberal state in Italy while retaining the existing elites.^[63] Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.^[63]

After King Victor Emmanuel III forced Mussolini to resign as head of government and placed him under arrest in 1943, Mussolini was rescued by German forces. While continuing to rely on Germany for support, Mussolini and the remaining loyal Fascists founded the Italian Social Republic with Mussolini as head of state. Mussolini sought to re-radicalize Italian Fascism, declaring that the Fascist state had been overthrown because Italian Fascism had been subverted by Italian conservatives and the bourgeoisie.^[64] Then the new Fascist government proposed the creation of workers’ councils and profit-sharing in industry, although the German authorities, who effectively controlled northern Italy at this point, ignored these measures and did not seek to enforce them.^[64]

A number of post-World War II fascist movements described themselves as a “third position” outside the traditional political spectrum.^[65] Spanish Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera said: “[B]asically the Right stands for the maintenance of an economic structure, albeit an unjust one, while the Left stands for the attempt to subvert that economic structure, even though the subversion thereof would entail the destruction of much that was worthwhile”.^[66]

“Fascist” as a pejorative

The term “fascist” has been used as a pejorative,^[67] regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum.^[68] George Orwell wrote in 1944 that “the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless … almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist'”.^[68]

Communist states have sometimes been referred to as “fascist”, typically as an insult. For example, it has been applied to Marxist regimes in Cuba under Fidel Castro and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh.^[69] Chinese Marxists used the term to denounce the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet Split, and likewise the Soviets used the term to denounce Chinese Marxists^[70] and social democracy (coining a new term in “social fascism“).

In the United States, Herbert Matthews of The New York Times asked in 1946: “Should we now place Stalinist Russia in the same category as Hitlerite Germany? Should we say that she is Fascist?”.^[71] J. Edgar Hoover, longtime FBI director and ardent anti-communist, wrote extensively of “Red Fascism”.^[72] The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s was sometimes called “fascist”. Historian Peter Amann states that, “Undeniably, the Klan had some traits in common with European fascism—chauvinism, racism, a mystique of violence, an affirmation of a certain kind of archaic traditionalism—yet their differences were fundamental….[the KKK] never envisioned a change of political or economic system.”^[73]

Professor Richard Griffiths of the University of Wales^[74] wrote in 2005 that “fascism” is the “most misused, and over-used word, of our times”.^[32] “Fascist” is sometimes applied to post-World War II organizations and ways of thinking that academics more commonly term “neo-fascist“.^[75]

History

Nineteenth-century roots

According to Encyclopædia Britannica^{[better source needed]} the roots of fascism are either tied to the Jacobin movement or a 19th-century backlash against the Enlightenment.^[76] Historians such as Irene Collins and Howard C Payne see Napoleon III, who ran a ‘police state’ and suppressed the media, as a forerunner of fascism.^[77] According to David Thomson,^[78] the Italian Risorgimento of 1871 led to the ‘nemesis of fascism’. William L Shirer^[79] sees a continuity from the views of Fichte and Hegel, through Bismarck, to Hitler; Robert Gerwarth speaks of a ‘direct line’ from Bismarck to Hitler.^[80] Julian Dierkes sees fascism as a ‘particularly violent form of Imperialism‘.^[81]

Fin de siècle era and the fusion of Maurrasism with Sorelianism (1880–1914)

The historian Zeev Sternhell has traced the ideological roots of fascism back to the 1880s and in particular to the fin de siècle theme of that time.^[82]^[83] The theme was based on a revolt against materialism, rationalism, positivism, bourgeois society and democracy.^[84] The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism, irrationalism, subjectivism and vitalism.^[85] The fin-de-sièclemindset saw civilization as being in a crisis that required a massive and total solution.^[84] The fin-de-siècle intellectual school considered the individual only one part of the larger collectivity, which should not be viewed as an atomized numerical sum of individuals.^[84] They condemned the rationalistic individualism of liberal society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society.^[84]

The fin-de-siècle outlook was influenced by various intellectual developments, including Darwinian biology; Wagnerian aesthetics; Arthur de Gobineau‘s racialism; Gustave Le Bon‘s psychology; and the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Henri Bergson.^[86] Social Darwinism, which gained widespread acceptance, made no distinction between physical and social life, and viewed the human condition as being an unceasing struggle to achieve the survival of the fittest.^[86] Social Darwinism challenged positivism’s claim of deliberate and rational choice as the determining behaviour of humans, with social Darwinism focusing on heredity, race, and environment.^[86] Social Darwinism’s emphasis on biogroup identity and the role of organic relations within societies fostered legitimacy and appeal for nationalism.^[87] New theories of social and political psychology also rejected the notion of human behaviour being governed by rational choice and instead claimed that emotion was more influential in political issues than reason.^[86] Nietzsche’s argument that “God is dead” coincided with his attack on the “herd mentality” of Christianity, democracy and modern collectivism; his concept of the übermensch; and his advocacy of the will to power as a primordial instinct, were major influences upon many of the fin-de-siècle generation.^[88] Bergson’s claim of the existence of an “élan vital” or vital instinct centred upon free choice and rejected the processes of materialism and determinism; this challenged Marxism.^[89]

Gaetano Mosca in his work The Ruling Class (1896) developed the theory that claims that in all societies an “organized minority” will dominate and rule over the “disorganized majority”.^[90]^[91]Mosca claims that there are only two classes in society, “the governing” (the organized minority) and “the governed” (the disorganized majority).^[92] He claims that the organized nature of the organized minority makes it irresistible to any individual of the disorganized majority.^[92]

Charles Maurras

Georges Sorel

French nationalist and reactionary monarchist Charles Maurras influenced fascism.^[93] Maurras promoted what he called integral nationalism, which called for the organic unity of a nation and Maurras insisted that a powerful monarch was an ideal leader of a nation. Maurras distrusted what he considered the democratic mystification of the popular will that created an impersonal collective subject.^[93] He claimed that a powerful monarch was a personified sovereign who could exercise authority to unite a nation’s people.^[93] Maurras’ integral nationalism was idealized by fascists, but modified into a modernized revolutionary form that was devoid of Maurras’ monarchism.^[93]

French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel promoted the legitimacy of political violence in his work Reflections on Violence (1908) and other works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve a revolution to overthrow capitalism and the bourgeoisie through a general strike.^[94]In Reflections on Violence, Sorel emphasized need for a revolutionary political religion.^[95] Also in his work The Illusions of Progress, Sorel denounced democracy as reactionary, saying “nothing is more aristocratic than democracy”.^[96] By 1909 after the failure of a syndicalist general strike in France, Sorel and his supporters left the radical left and went to the radical right, where they sought to merge militant Catholicism and French patriotism with their views—advocating anti-republican Christian French patriots as ideal revolutionaries.^[97] Initially Sorel had officially been a revisionist of Marxism, but by 1910 announced his abandonment of socialist literature and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce that “socialism is dead” because of the “decomposition of Marxism”.^[98] Sorel became a supporter of reactionary Maurrassian nationalism beginning in 1909 that influenced his works.^[98] Maurras held interest in merging his nationalist ideals with Sorelian syndicalism as a means to confront democracy.^[99]Maurras stated “a socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as a well made glove fits a beautiful hand”.^[100]

Enrico Corradini

The fusion of Maurrassian nationalism and Sorelian syndicalism influenced radical Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini.^[101] Corradini spoke of the need for a nationalist-syndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a willingness to fight.^[101] Corradini spoke of Italy as being a “proletarian nation” that needed to pursue imperialism in order to challenge the “plutocratic” French and British.^[102] Corradini’s views were part of a wider set of perceptions within the right-wing Italian Nationalist Association (ANI), which claimed that Italy’s economic backwardness was caused by corruption in its political class, liberalism, and division caused by “ignoble socialism”.^[102] The ANI held ties and influence among conservatives, Catholics and the business community.^[102] Italian national syndicalists held a common set of principles: the rejection of bourgeois values, democracy, liberalism, Marxism, internationalism and pacifism; and the promotion of heroism, vitalism and violence.^[103] The ANI claimed that liberal democracy was no longer compatible with the modern world, and advocated a strong state and imperialism, claiming that humans are naturally predatory and that nations were in a constant struggle, in which only the strongest could survive.^[104]

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Italian modernist author of the Futurist Manifesto (1909) and later the co-author of the Fascist Manifesto (1919)

Futurism was both an artistic-cultural movement and initially a political movement in Italy led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who founded the Futurist Manifesto (1908), that championed the causes of modernism, action, and political violence as necessary elements of politics while denouncing liberalism and parliamentary politics. Marinetti rejected conventional democracy based on majority rule and egalitarianism, for a new form of democracy, promoting what he described in his work “The Futurist Conception of Democracy” as the following: “We are therefore able to give the directions to create and to dismantle to numbers, to quantity, to the mass, for with us number, quantity and mass will never be—as they are in Germany and Russia—the number, quantity and mass of mediocre men, incapable and indecisive”.^[105]

Futurism influenced fascism in its emphasis on recognizing the virile nature of violent action and war as being necessities of modern civilization.^[106] Marinetti promoted the need of physical training of young men, saying that in male education, gymnastics should take precedence over books, and he advocated segregation of the genders on this matter, in that womanly sensibility must not enter men’s education whom Marinetti claimed must be “lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic”.^[107]

Benito Mussolini (here in 1917 as a soldier in World War I), who in 1914 founded and led the Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria to promote the Italian intervention in the war as a revolutionary nationalistaction to liberate Italian-claimed lands from Austria-Hungary

World War I and its aftermath (1914–1929)

At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Italian political left became severely split over its position on the war. The Italian Socialist Party (PSI) opposed the war but a number of Italian revolutionary syndicalists supported war against Germany and Austria-Hungary on the grounds that their reactionary regimes had to be defeated to ensure the success of socialism.^[108] Angelo Oliviero Olivetti formed a pro-interventionist fascio called the Fasci of International Action in October 1914.^[108] Benito Mussolini upon being expelled from his position as chief editor of the PSI’s newspaper Avanti! for his anti-German stance, joined the interventionist cause in a separate fascio.^[109] The term “Fascism” was first used in 1915 by members of Mussolini’s movement, the Fasci of Revolutionary Action.^[110]

The first meeting of the Fasci of Revolutionary Action was held on 24 January 1915^[111] when Mussolini declared that it was necessary for Europe to resolve its national problems—including national borders—of Italy and elsewhere “for the ideals of justice and liberty for which oppressed peoples must acquire the right to belong to those national communities from which they descended”.^[111] Attempts to hold mass meetings were ineffective and the organization was regularly harassed by government authorities and socialists.^[112]

German soldiers parading through Lübeck in the days leading up to World War I. Johann Plenge‘s concept of the “Spirit of 1914” identified the outbreak of war as a moment that forged nationalistic German solidarity

Similar political ideas arose in Germany after the outbreak of the war. German sociologist Johann Plenge spoke of the rise of a “National Socialism” in Germany within what he termed the “ideas of 1914” that were a declaration of war against the “ideas of 1789” (the French Revolution).^[113]According to Plenge, the “ideas of 1789” that included rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism were being rejected in favor of “the ideas of 1914” that included “German values” of duty, discipline, law and order.^[113] Plenge believed that racial solidarity (Volksgemeinschaft) would replace class division and that “racial comrades” would unite to create a socialist society in the struggle of “proletarian” Germany against “capitalist” Britain.^[113] He believed that the “Spirit of 1914” manifested itself in the concept of the “People’s League of National Socialism”.^[114] This National Socialism was a form of state socialism that rejected the “idea of boundless freedom” and promoted an economy that would serve the whole of Germany under the leadership of the state.^[114] This National Socialism was opposed to capitalism because of the components that were against “the national interest” of Germany, but insisted that National Socialism would strive for greater efficiency in the economy.^[114]^[115] Plenge advocated an authoritarian rational ruling elite to develop National Socialism through a hierarchical technocratic state.^[116]

Impact of World War I

Fascists viewed World War I as bringing revolutionary changes in the nature of war, society, the state and technology, as the advent of total war and mass mobilization had broken down the distinction between civilian and combatant, as civilians had become a critical part in economic production for the war effort and thus arose a “military citizenship” in which all citizens were involved to the military in some manner during the war.^[12]^[13] World War I had resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines or provide economic production and logistics to support those on the front lines, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.^[12]^[13] Fascists viewed technological developments of weaponry and the state’s total mobilization of its population in the war as symbolizing the beginning of a new era fusing state power with mass politics, technology and particularly the mobilizing myth that they contended had triumphed over the myth of progress and the era of liberalism.^[12]

Members of Italy’s Arditi corps (here in 1918 holding daggers, a symbol of their group), which was formed in 1917 as groups of soldiers trained for dangerous missions, characterized by refusal to surrender and willingness to fight to the death. Their black uniforms inspired those of the Italian Fascist movement.

Impact of the Bolshevik Revolution

The October Revolution of 1917—in which Bolshevik communists led by Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia—greatly influenced the development of fascism.^[117] In 1917, Mussolini, as leader of the Fasci of Revolutionary Action, praised the October Revolution, but later he became unimpressed with Lenin, regarding him as merely a new version of Tsar Nicholas.^[118] After World War I, fascists have commonly campaigned on anti-Marxist agendas.^[117]

Liberal opponents of both fascism and the Bolsheviks argue that there are various similarities between the two, including that they believed in the necessity of a vanguard leadership, had disdain for bourgeois values and it is argued had totalitarian ambitions.^[117] In practice, both have commonly emphasized revolutionary action, proletarian nation theories, one-party states and party-armies.^[117] However, both draw clear distinctions from each other both in aims and tactics, with the Bolsheviks emphasizing the need for an organized participatory democracy and an egalitarian, internationalist vision for society while the fascists emphasize hyper-nationalism and open hostility towards democracy, envisioning a hierarchical social structure as essential to their aims.

With the antagonism between anti-interventionist Marxists and pro-interventionist Fascists complete by the end of the war, the two sides became irreconcilable. The Fascists presented themselves as anti-Marxists and as opposed to the Marxists.^[119] Mussolini consolidated control over the Fascist movement, known as Sansepolcrismo, in 1919 with the founding of the Fasci italiani di combattimento.

The Fascist Manifesto of 1919

In 1919, Alceste De Ambris and Futurist movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti created The Manifesto of the Italian Fasci of Combat (the Fascist Manifesto).^[120] The Manifesto was presented on 6 June 1919 in the Fascist newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia. The Manifesto supported the creation of universal suffrage for both men and women (the latter being realized only partly in late 1925, with all opposition parties banned or disbanded);^[121] proportional representation on a regional basis; government representation through a corporatist system of “National Councils” of experts, selected from professionals and tradespeople, elected to represent and hold legislative power over their respective areas, including labour, industry, transportation, public health, communications, etc.; and the abolition of the Italian Senate.^[122] The Manifesto supported the creation of an eight-hour work day for all workers, a minimum wage, worker representation in industrial management, equal confidence in labour unions as in industrial executives and public servants, reorganization of the transportation sector, revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance, reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55, a strong progressive tax on capital, confiscation of the property of religious institutions and abolishment of bishoprics, and revision of military contracts to allow the government to seize 85% of profits.^[123] It also called for the fulfillment of expansionist aims in the Balkans and other parts of the Mediterranean,^[124] the creation of a short-service national militia to serve defensive duties, nationalization of the armaments industry and a foreign policy designed to be peaceful but also competitive.^[125]

Residents of Fiume cheer the arrival of Gabriele d’Annunzio and his blackshirt-wearing nationalist raiders, as D’Annunzio and Fascist Alceste De Ambrisdeveloped the quasi-fascist Italian Regency of Carnaro (a city-state in Fiume) from 1919 to 1920 and whose actions by D’Annunzio in Fiume inspired the Italian Fascist movement

The next events that influenced the Fascists in Italy was the raid of Fiume by Italian nationalist Gabriele d’Annunzio and the founding of the Charter of Carnaro in 1920.^[126] D’Annunzio and De Ambris designed the Charter, which advocated national-syndicalist corporatist productionism alongside D’Annunzio’s political views.^[127] Many Fascists saw the Charter of Carnaro as an ideal constitution for a Fascist Italy.^[128] This behaviour of aggression towards Yugoslavia and South Slavs was pursued by Italian Fascists with their persecution of South Slavs—especially Slovenes and Croats.

Italian Fascists in 1920

In 1920, militant strike activity by industrial workers reached its peak in Italy and 1919 and 1920 were known as the “Red Years”.^[129]Mussolini and the Fascists took advantage of the situation by allying with industrial businesses and attacking workers and peasants in the name of preserving order and internal peace in Italy.^[130]

Fascists identified their primary opponents as the majority of socialists on the left who had opposed intervention in World War I.^[128] The Fascists and the Italian political right held common ground: both held Marxism in contempt, discounted class consciousness and believed in the rule of elites.^[131] The Fascists assisted the anti-socialist campaign by allying with the other parties and the conservative right in a mutual effort to destroy the Italian Socialist Party and labour organizations committed to class identity above national identity.^[131]

Fascism sought to accommodate Italian conservatives by making major alterations to its political agenda—abandoning its previous populism, republicanism and anticlericalism, adopting policies in support of free enterprise and accepting the Catholic Church and the monarchy as institutions in Italy.^[132] To appeal to Italian conservatives, Fascism adopted policies such as promoting family values, including promotion policies designed to reduce the number of women in the workforce limiting the woman’s role to that of a mother. The fascists banned literature on birth control and increased penalties for abortion in 1926, declaring both crimes against the state.^[133] Though Fascism adopted a number of anti-modern positions designed to appeal to people upset with the new trends in sexuality and women’s rights—especially those with a reactionary point of view—the Fascists sought to maintain Fascism’s revolutionary character, with Angelo Oliviero Olivetti saying: “Fascism would like to be conservative, but it will [be] by being revolutionary”.^[134] The Fascists supported revolutionary action and committed to secure law and order to appeal to both conservatives and syndicalists.^[135]

Prior to Fascism’s accommodations to the political right, Fascism was a small, urban, northern Italian movement that had about a thousand members.^[136] After Fascism’s accommodation of the political right, the Fascist movement’s membership soared to approximately 250,000 by 1921.^[137]

Fascist violence in 1922

Beginning in 1922, Fascist paramilitaries escalated their strategy from one of attacking socialist offices and homes of socialist leadership figures to one of violent occupation of cities. The Fascists met little serious resistance from authorities and proceeded to take over several northern Italian cities.^[138] The Fascists attacked the headquarters of socialist and Catholic labour unions in Cremona and imposed forced Italianization upon the German-speaking population of Trent and Bolzano.^[138] After seizing these cities, the Fascists made plans to take Rome.^[138]

Benito Mussolini with three of the four quadrumvirsduring the March on Rome (from left to right: unknown, de Bono, Mussolini, Balbo and de Vecchi)

On 24 October 1922, the Fascist party held its annual congress in Naples, where Mussolini ordered Blackshirts to take control of public buildings and trains and to converge on three points around Rome.^[138] The Fascists managed to seize control of several post offices and trains in northern Italy while the Italian government, led by a left-wing coalition, was internally divided and unable to respond to the Fascist advances.^[139] King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy perceived the risk of bloodshed in Rome in response to attempting to disperse the Fascists to be too high.^[140] Victor Emmanuel III decided to appoint Mussolini as Prime Minister of Italy and Mussolini arrived in Rome on 30 October to accept the appointment.^[140] Fascist propaganda aggrandized this event, known as “March on Rome“, as a “seizure” of power because of Fascists’ heroic exploits.^[138]

Fascist Italy

Historian Stanley G. Payne says Fascism in Italy was:

A primarily political dictatorship….The Fascist Party itself had become almost completely bureaucratized and subservient to, not dominant over, the state itself. Big business, industry, and finance retained extensive autonomy, particularly in the early years. The armed forces also enjoyed considerable autonomy….The Fascist militia was placed under military control….The judicial system was left largely intact and relatively autonomous as well. The police continued to be directed by state officials and were not taken over by party leaders…nor was a major new police elite created….There was never any question of bringing the Church under overall subservience…. Sizable sectors of Italian cultural life retained extensive autonomy, and no major state propaganda-and-culture ministry existed….The Mussolini regime was neither especially sanguinary nor particularly repressive.^[141]

Mussolini in power

Upon being appointed Prime Minister of Italy, Mussolini had to form a coalition government because the Fascists did not have control over the Italian parliament.^[142] Mussolini’s coalition government initially pursued economically liberal policies under the direction of liberal finance minister Alberto De Stefani, a member of the Center Party, including balancing the budget through deep cuts to the civil service.^[142] Initially, little drastic change in government policy had occurred and repressive police actions were limited.^[142]

The Fascists began their attempt to entrench Fascism in Italy with the Acerbo Law, which guaranteed a plurality of the seats in parliament to any party or coalition list in an election that received 25% or more of the vote.^[143] Through considerable Fascist violence and intimidation, the list won a majority of the vote, allowing many seats to go to the Fascists.^[143] In the aftermath of the election, a crisis and political scandal erupted after Socialist Party deputy Giacomo Matteotti was kidnapped and murdered by a Fascist.^[143] The liberals and the leftist minority in parliament walked out in protest in what became known as the Aventine Secession.^[144] On 3 January 1925, Mussolini addressed the Fascist-dominated Italian parliament and declared that he was personally responsible for what happened, but insisted that he had done nothing wrong. Mussolini proclaimed himself dictator of Italy, assuming full responsibility over the government and announcing the dismissal of parliament.^[144] From 1925 to 1929, Fascism steadily became entrenched in power: opposition deputies were denied access to parliament, censorship was introduced and a December 1925 decree made Mussolini solely responsible to the King.^[145]

Catholic Church

In 1929, the Fascist regime briefly gained what was in effect a blessing of the Catholic Church after the regime signed a concordat with the Church, known as the Lateran Treaty, which gave the papacy state sovereignty and financial compensation for the seizure of Church lands by the liberal state in the nineteenth century, but within two years the Church had renounced Fascism in the Encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisogno as a “pagan idolotry of the state” which teaches “hatred, violence and irreverence”.^[146] Not long after signing the agreement, by Mussolini’s own confession the Church had threatened to have him “excommunicated”, in part because of his intractable nature and that he had “confiscated more issues of Catholic newspapers in the next three months than in the previous seven years”.^[147] By the late 1930s, Mussolini became more vocal in his anti-clerical rhetoric, repeatedly denouncing the Catholic Church and discussing ways to depose the pope. He took the position that the “papacy was a malignant tumor in the body of Italy and must ‘be rooted out once and for all,’ because there was no room in Rome for both the Pope and himself”.^[148] In her 1974 book, Mussolini’s widow Rachele stated that her husband had always been an atheist until near the end of his life, writing that her husband was “basically irreligious until the later years of his life”.^[149]

The National Socialists of Germany employed similar anti-clerical policies. The Gestapo confiscated hundreds of monasteries in Austria and Germany, evicted clergymen and laymen alike and often replaced crosses with a swastikas.^[150] Referring to the swastika as the “Devil’s Cross”, church leaders found their youth organizations banned, their meetings limited and various Catholic periodicals censored or banned. Government officials eventually found it necessary to place “Nazis into editorial positions in the Catholic press”.^[151] Up to 2,720 clerics, mostly Catholics, were arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned inside of Germany’s Dachau concentration camp, resulting in over 1,000 deaths.^[152]

Corporatist economic system

The Fascist regime created a corporatist economic system in 1925 with creation of the Palazzo Vidioni Pact, in which the Italian employers’ association Confindustria and Fascist trade unions agreed to recognize each other as the sole representatives of Italy’s employers and employees, excluding non-Fascist trade unions.^[153] The Fascist regime first created a Ministry of Corporations that organized the Italian economy into 22 sectoral corporations, banned workers’ strikes and lock-outs and in 1927 created the Charter of Labour, which established workers’ rights and duties and created labour tribunals to arbitrate employer-employee disputes.^[153] In practice, the sectoral corporations exercised little independence and were largely controlled by the regime and employee organizations were rarely led by employees themselves, but instead by appointed Fascist party members.^[153]

Aggressive foreign policy

In the 1920s, Fascist Italy pursued an aggressive foreign policy that included an attack on the Greek island of Corfu, aims to expand Italian territory in the Balkans, plans to wage war against Turkey and Yugoslavia, attempts to bring Yugoslavia into civil war by supporting Croat and Macedonian separatists to legitimize Italian intervention and making Albania a de facto protectorate of Italy, which was achieved through diplomatic means by 1927.^[154] In response to revolt in the Italian colony of Libya, Fascist Italy abandoned previous liberal-era colonial policy of cooperation with local leaders. Instead, claiming that Italians were a superior race to African races and thereby had the right to colonize the “inferior” Africans, it sought to settle 10 to 15 million Italians in Libya.^[155] This resulted in an aggressive military campaign known as the Pacification of Libya against natives in Libya, including mass killings, the use of concentration camps and the forced starvation of thousands of people.^[155] Italian authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, half the population of Cyrenaica in Libya, from their settlements that was slated to be given to Italian settlers.^[156]^[157]

Hitler adopts Italian model

Nazis in Munich during the Beer Hall Putsch

The March on Rome brought Fascism international attention. One early admirer of the Italian Fascists was Adolf Hitler, who less than a month after the March had begun to model himself and the Nazi Party upon Mussolini and the Fascists.^[158] The Nazis, led by Hitler and the German war hero Erich Ludendorff, attempted a “March on Berlin” modeled upon the March on Rome, which resulted in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in November 1923.^[159]

International impact of the Great Depression and the buildup to World War II

Benito Mussolini (left) and Adolf Hitler (right)

The conditions of economic hardship caused by the Great Depression brought about an international surge of social unrest. According to historian Philip Morgan, “the onset of the Great Depression…was the greatest stimulus yet to the diffusion and expansion of fascism outside Italy”.^[160] Fascist propaganda blamed the problems of the long depression of the 1930s on minorities and scapegoats: “Judeo–Masonic–bolshevik” conspiracies, left-wing internationalism and the presence of immigrants.

In Germany, it contributed to the rise of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party, which resulted in the demise of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the fascist regime, Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1933, liberal democracy was dissolved in Germany and the Nazis mobilized the country for war, with expansionist territorial aims against several countries. In the 1930s, the Nazis implemented racial laws that deliberately discriminated against, disenfranchised and persecuted Jews and other racial and minority groups.

Fascist movements grew in strength elsewhere in Europe. Hungarian fascist Gyula Gömbös rose to power as Prime Minister of Hungary in 1932 and attempted to entrench his Party of National Unity throughout the country. He created an eight-hour work day, a forty-eight-hour work week in industry and sought to entrench a corporatist economy; and pursued irredentist claims on Hungary’s neighbors.^[161] The fascist Iron Guard movement in Romaniasoared in political support after 1933, gaining representation in the Romanian government and an Iron Guard member assassinated Romanian prime minister Ion Duca.^[162] During the 6 February 1934 crisis, France faced the greatest domestic political turmoil since the Dreyfus Affair when the fascist Francist Movement and multiple far-right movements rioted en masse in Paris against the French government resulting in major political violence.^[163] A variety of para-fascist governments that borrowed elements from fascism were formed during the Great Depression, including those of Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Yugoslavia.^[164]

Integralists marching in Brazil

In the Americas, the Brazilian Integralists led by Plínio Salgado claimed as many as 200,000 members although following coup attempts it faced a crackdown from the Estado Novo of Getúlio Vargas in 1937.^[165] In the 1930s, the National Socialist Movement of Chile gained seats in Chile‘s parliament and attempted a coup d’état that resulted in the Seguro Obrero massacre of 1938.^[166]

During the Great Depression, Mussolini promoted active state intervention in the economy. He denounced the contemporary “supercapitalism” that he claimed began in 1914 as a failure because of its alleged decadence, its support for unlimited consumerism and its intention to create the “standardization of humankind”.^[167] Fascist Italy created the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI), a giant state-owned firm and holding company that provided state funding to failing private enterprises.^[168] The IRI was made a permanent institution in Fascist Italy in 1937, pursued Fascist policies to create national autarky and had the power to take over private firms to maximize war production.^[168] While Hitler’s regime only nationalized 500 companies in key industries by the early 1940s,^[169] Mussolini declared in 1934 that “[t]hree-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state”.^[170] Due to the worldwide depression, Mussolini’s government was able to take over most of Italy’s largest failing banks, who held controlling interest in many Italian businesses. The Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, a state-operated holding company in charge of bankrupt banks and companies, reported in early 1934 that they held assets of “48.5 percent of the share capital of Italy”, which later included the capital of the banks themselves.^[171] Political historian Martin Blinkhorn estimated Italy’s scope of state intervention and ownership “greatly surpassed that in Nazi Germany, giving Italy a public sector second only to that of Stalin’s Russia”.^[172] In the late 1930s, Italy enacted manufacturing cartels, tariff barriers, currency restrictions and massive regulation of the economy to attempt to balance payments.^[173] Italy’s policy of autarky failed to achieve effective economic autonomy.^[173] Nazi Germany similarly pursued an economic agenda with the aims of autarky and rearmament and imposed protectionist policies, including forcing the German steel industry to use lower-quality German iron ore rather than superior-quality imported iron.^[174]

World War II (1939–1945)

In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, both Mussolini and Hitler pursued territorial expansionist and interventionist foreign policy agendas from the 1930s through the 1940s culminating in World War II. Mussolini called for irredentist Italian claims to be reclaimed, establishing Italian domination of the Mediterranean Sea and securing Italian access to the Atlantic Ocean and the creation of Italian spazio vitale (“vital space”) in the Mediterranean and Red Sea regions.^[175] Hitler called for irredentist German claims to be reclaimed along with the creation of German Lebensraum(“living space”) in Eastern Europe, including territories held by the Soviet Union, that would be colonized by Germans.^[176]

Emaciated male inmate at the Italian Rab concentration camp

From 1935 to 1939, Germany and Italy escalated their demands for territorial claims and greater influence in world affairs. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935resulting in its condemnation by the League of Nations and its widespread diplomatic isolation. In 1936, Germany remilitarized the industrial Rhineland, a region that had been ordered demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria and Italy assisted Germany in resolving the diplomatic crisis between Germany versus Britain and France over claims on Czechoslovakia by arranging the Munich Agreement that gave Germany the Sudetenland and was perceived at the time to have averted a European war. These hopes faded when Hitler violated the Munich Agreement by ordering the invasion and partition of Czechoslovakia between Germany and a client state of Slovakia in 1939. At the same time from 1938 to 1939, Italy was demanding territorial and colonial concessions from France and Britain.^[177] In 1939, Germany prepared for war with Poland, but attempted to gain territorial concessions from Poland through diplomatic means.^[178] The Polish government did not trust Hitler’s promises and refused to accept Germany’s demands.^[178]

The invasion of Poland by Germany was deemed unacceptable by Britain, France and their allies, resulting in their mutual declaration of war against Germany that was deemed the aggressor in the war in Poland, resulting in the outbreak of World War II. In 1940, Mussolini led Italy into World War II on the side of the Axis. Mussolini was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity to carry out a long war with France or the United Kingdom and waited until France was on the verge of imminent collapse and surrender from the German invasion before declaring war on France and the United Kingdom on 10 June 1940 on the assumption that the war would be short-lived following France’s collapse.^[179] Mussolini believed that following a brief entry of Italy into war with France, followed by the imminent French surrender, Italy could gain some territorial concessions from France and then concentrate its forces on a major offensive in Egypt where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces.^[180] Plans by Germany to invade the United Kingdom in 1940 failed after Germany lost the aerial warfare campaign in the Battle of Britain. In 1941, the Axis campaign spread to the Soviet Union after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa. Axis forces at the height of their power controlled almost all of continental Europe. The war became prolonged—contrary to Mussolini’s plans—resulting in Italy losing battles on multiple fronts and requiring German assistance.

Corpses of victims of the German Buchenwald concentration camp

During World War II, the Axis Powers in Europe led by Nazi Germany participated in the extermination of millions of Poles, Jews, Gypsies and others in the genocide known as the Holocaust.

After 1942, Axis forces began to falter. In 1943, after Italy faced multiple military failures, the complete reliance and subordination of Italy to Germany, the Allied invasion of Italy and the corresponding international humiliation, Mussolini was removed as head of government and arrested on the order of King Victor Emmanuel III, who proceeded to dismantle the Fascist state and declared Italy’s switching of allegiance to the Allied side. Mussolini was rescued from arrest by German forces and led the German client state, the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany faced multiple losses and steady Soviet and Western Allied offensives from 1943 to 1945.

On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian communist partisans. On 30 April 1945, Hitler committed suicide. Shortly afterwards, Germany surrendered and the Nazi regime was systematically dismantled by the occupying Allied powers. An International Military Tribunal was subsequently convened in Nuremberg. Beginning in November 1945 and lasting through 1949, numerous Nazi political, military and economic leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes, with many of the worst offenders receiving the death penalty.

Post-World War II (1945–present)

Juan Perón, President of Argentina from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, admired Italian Fascism and modelled his economic policies on those pursued by Fascist Italy

The victory of the Allies over the Axis powers in World War II led to the collapse of many fascist regimes in Europe. The Nuremberg Trials convicted several Nazi leaders of crimes against humanity involving the Holocaust. However, there remained several movements and governments that were ideologically related to fascism.

Francisco Franco‘s Falangist one-party state in Spain was officially neutral during World War II and it survived the collapse of the Axis Powers. Franco’s rise to power had been directly assisted by the militaries of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during the Spanish Civil War and Franco had sent volunteers to fight on the side of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. The first years were characterized by a repression against the anti-fascist ideologies, a deep censorship and the suppression of democratic institutions (elected Parliament, Constitution of 1931, Regional Statutes of Autonomy). After World War II and a period of international isolation, Franco’s regime normalized relations with the Western powers during the Cold War, until Franco’s death in 1975 and the transformation of Spain into a liberal democracy.

Giorgio Almirante, leader of the Italian Social Movement from 1969 to 1987

Historian Robert Paxton observes that one of the main problems in defining fascism is that it was widely mimicked. Paxton says: “In fascism’s heyday, in the 1930s, many regimes that were not functionally fascist borrowed elements of fascist decor in order to lend themselves an aura of force, vitality, and mass mobilization”. He goes on to observe that Salazar “crushed Portuguese fascism after he had copied some of its techniques of popular mobilization”. ^[181] Paxton says that: “Where Franco subjected Spain’s fascist party to his personal control, Salazar abolished outright in July 1934 the nearest thing Portugal had to an authentic fascist movement, Rolão Preto’s blue-shirted National Syndicalists […] Salazar preferred to control his population through such “organic” institutions traditionally powerful in Portugal as the Church. Salazar’s regime was not only non-fascist, but “voluntarily non-totalitarian,” preferring to let those of its citizens who kept out of politics “live by habit”.^[182] Historians tend to view the Estado Novo as para-fascist in nature,^[183]possessing minimal fascist tendencies.^[184] In Argentina, Peronism, associated with the regime of Juan Perón from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, was influenced by fascism.^[185] Between 1939 and 1941, prior to his rise to power, Perón had developed a deep admiration of Italian Fascism and modelled his economic policies on Italian Fascist policies.^[185]

The term neo-fascism refers to fascist movements after World War II. In Italy, the Italian Social Movement led by Giorgio Almirante was a major neo-fascist movement that transformed itself into a self-described “post-fascist” movement called the National Alliance (AN), which has been an ally of Silvio Berlusconi‘s Forza Italia for a decade. In 2008, AN joined Forza Italia in Berlusconi’s new party The People of Freedom, but in 2012 a group of politicians split from The People of Freedom, refounding the party with the name Brothers of Italy. In Germany, various neo-Nazi movements have been formed and banned in accordance with Germany’s constitutional law which forbids Nazism. The National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) is widely considered a neo-Nazi party, although the party does not publicly identify itself as such.

Golden Dawn demonstration in Greece in 2012

After the onset of the Great Recession and economic crisis in Greece, a movement known as the Golden Dawn, widely considered a neo-Nazi party, soared in support out of obscurity and won seats in Greece‘s parliament, espousing a staunch hostility towards minorities, illegal immigrants and refugees. In 2013, after the murder of an anti-fascist musician by a person with links to Golden Dawn, the Greek government ordered the arrest of Golden Dawn’s leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos and other Golden Dawn members on charges related to being associated with a criminal organization.

Tenets

Robert O. Paxton finds that the transformations undertaken by fascists in power were “profound enough to be called ‘revolutionary.'” They “often set fascists into conflict with conservatives rooted in families, churches, social rank, and property.” Paxton argues:

[F]ascism redrew the frontiers between private and public, sharply diminishing what had once been untouchably private. It changed the practice of citizenship from the enjoyment of constitutional rights and duties to participation in mass ceremonies of affirmation and conformity. It reconfigured relations between the individual and the collectivity, so that an individual had no rights outside community interest. It expanded the powers of the executive—party and state—in a bid for total control. Finally, it unleashed aggressive emotions hitherto known in Europe only during war or social revolution.^[186]

Nationalism

Ultranationalism combined with the myth of national rebirth is a key foundation of fascism.^[187] Dylan Riley argues that in Italy in the early 1920s:

Neither organized socialism nor the Italian liberals championed the democratic demands of the left nationalists. Fascism stepped into this vacuum, constituting itself as an antisocialist and antiliberal civil society movement. It was the failure of this counterhegemonic movement that would lead to the fascist seizure of power. Veterans’ organizations are the clearest manifestation of civic mobilization in postwar Italy.^[188]

The fascist view of a nation is of a single organic entity that binds people together by their ancestry and is a natural unifying force of people.^[189]Fascism seeks to solve economic, political and social problems by achieving a millenarian national rebirth, exalting the nation or race above all else and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.^[41]^[190]^[191]^[192]^[193] European fascist movements typically espouse a racist conception of non-Europeans being inferior to Europeans.^[194] Beyond this, fascists in Europe have not held a unified set of racial views.^[194] Historically, most fascists promoted imperialism, although there have been several fascist movements that were uninterested in the pursuit of new imperial ambitions.^[194]

Totalitarianism

Fascism promotes the establishment of a totalitarian state.^[195] It opposes liberal democracy, rejects multi-party systems and supports a one-party state. Mussolini’s The Doctrine of Fascism (1932) – partly ghostwritten by philosopher Giovanni Gentile,^[196] who Mussolini described as “the philosopher of Fascism” – states: “The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people”.^[197] In The Legal Basis of the Total State, Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt described the Nazi intention to form a “strong state which guarantees a totality of political unity transcending all diversity” in order to avoid a “disastrous pluralism tearing the German people apart”.^[198]

Fascist states pursued policies of social indoctrination through propaganda in education and the media and regulation of the production of educational and media materials.^[199]^[200] Education was designed to glorify the fascist movement and inform students of its historical and political importance to the nation. It attempted to purge ideas that were not consistent with the beliefs of the fascist movement and to teach students to be obedient to the state.^[201]

Economy

Fascism presented itself as a third position,^[when?] alternative to both international socialism and free market capitalism.^[202] While fascism opposed mainstream socialism, it sometimes regarded itself as a type of nationalist “socialism” to highlight their commitment to national solidarity and unity.^[203]^[204] Fascists opposed international free market capitalism, but supported a type of productive capitalism.^[115]^[205] Economic self-sufficiency, known as autarky, was a major goal of most fascist governments.^[206]

Fascist governments advocated resolution of domestic class conflict within a nation in order to secure national solidarity.^[207] This would be done through the state mediating relations between the classes (contrary to the views of classical liberal-inspired capitalists).^[208] While fascism was opposed to domestic class conflict, it was held that bourgeois-proletarian conflict existed primarily in national conflict between proletarian nations versus bourgeois nations.^[209] Fascism condemned what it viewed as widespread character traits that it associated as the typical bourgeois mentality that it opposed, such as materialism, crassness, cowardice, inability to comprehend the heroic ideal of the fascist “warrior”; and associations with liberalism, individualism and parliamentarianism.^[210] In 1918, Mussolini defined what he viewed as the proletarian character, defining proletarian as being one and the same with producers, a productivist perspective that associated all people deemed productive, including entrepreneurs, technicians, workers and soldiers as being proletarian.^[211] He acknowledged the historical existence of both bourgeois and proletarian producers, but declared the need for bourgeois producers to merge with proletarian producers.^[211]

While fascism denounced the mainstream internationalist and Marxist socialisms, it claimed to economically represent a type of nationalist productivist socialism that while condemning parasitical capitalism, it was willing to accommodate productivist capitalism within it.^[205] This was derived from Henri de Saint Simon, whose ideas inspired the creation of utopian socialism and influenced other ideologies, that stressed solidarity rather than class war and whose conception of productive people in the economy included both productive workers and productive bosses to challenge the influence of the aristocracy and unproductive financial speculators.^[212] Saint Simon’s vision combined the traditionalist right-wing criticisms of the French Revolution combined with a left-wing belief in the need for association or collaboration of productive people in society.^[212] Whereas Marxism condemned capitalism as a system of exploitative property relations, fascism saw the nature of the control of credit and money in the contemporary capitalist system as abusive.^[205] Unlike Marxism, fascism did not see class conflict between the Marxist-defined proletariat and the bourgeoisie as a given or as an engine of historical materialism.^[205] Instead, it viewed workers and productive capitalists in common as productive people who were in conflict with parasitic elements in society including: corrupt political parties, corrupt financial capital and feeble people.^[205] Fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler spoke of the need to create a new managerial elite led by engineers and captains of industry—but free from the parasitic leadership of industries.^[205] Hitler stated that the Nazi Party supported bodenständigen Kapitalismus(“productive capitalism”) that was based upon profit earned from one’s own labour, but condemned unproductive capitalism or loan capitalism, which derived profit from speculation.^[213]

Fascist economics supported a state-controlled economy that accepted a mix of private and public ownership over the means of production.^[214] Economic planning was applied to both the public and private sector and the prosperity of private enterprise depended on its acceptance of synchronizing itself with the economic goals of the state.^[215] Fascist economic ideology supported the profit motive, but emphasized that industries must uphold the national interest as superior to private profit.^[215]

While fascism accepted the importance of material wealth and power, it condemned materialism which identified as being present in both communism and capitalism and criticized materialism for lacking acknowledgement of the role of the spirit.^[216] In particular, fascists criticized capitalism not because of its competitive nature nor support of private property, which fascists supported—but due to its materialism, individualism, alleged bourgeois decadence and alleged indifference to the nation.^[217] Fascism denounced Marxism for its advocacy of materialist internationalist class identity, which fascists regarded as an attack upon the emotional and spiritual bonds of the nation and a threat to the achievement of genuine national solidarity.^[218]

In discussing the spread of fascism beyond Italy, historian Philip Morgan states:

Since the Depression was a crisis of laissez-faire capitalism and its political counterpart, parliamentary democracy, fascism could pose as the ‘third-way’ alternative between capitalism and Bolshevism, the model of a new European ‘civilization’. As Mussolini typically put it in early 1934, “from 1929…fascism has become a universal phenomenon… The dominant forces of the 19th century, democracy, socialism, liberalism have been exhausted…the new political and economic forms of the twentieth-century are fascist'(Mussolini 1935: 32).^[160]

Fascists criticized egalitarianism as preserving the weak, and they instead promoted social Darwinist views and policies.^[219]^[220] They were in principle opposed to the idea of social welfare, arguing that it “encouraged the preservation of the degenerate and the feeble.”^[221] The Nazi Party condemned the welfare system of the Weimar Republic, as well as private charity and philanthropy, for supporting people whom they regarded as racially inferior and weak, and who should have been weeded out in the process of natural selection.^[222] Nevertheless, faced with the mass unemployment and poverty of the Great Depression, the Nazis found it necessary to set up charitable institutions to help racially-pure Germans in order to maintain popular support, while arguing that this represented “racial self-help” and not indiscriminate charity or universal social welfare.^[223] Thus, Nazi programs such as the Winter Relief of the German People and the broader National Socialist People’s Welfare (NSV) were organized as quasi-private institutions, officially relying on private donations from Germans to help others of their race—although in practice those who refused to donate could face severe consequences.^[224] Unlike the social welfare institutions of the Weimar Republic and the Christian charities, the NSV distributed assistance on explicitly racial grounds. It provided support only to those who were “racially sound, capable of and willing to work, politically reliable, and willing and able to reproduce.” Non-Aryans were excluded, as well as the “work-shy”, “asocials” and the “hereditarily ill.”^[225] Under these conditions, by 1939, over 17 million Germans had obtained assistance from the NSV, and the agency “projected a powerful image of caring and support” for “those who were judged to have got into difficulties through no fault of their own.”^[225] Yet the organization was “feared and disliked among society’s poorest” because it resorted to intrusive questioning and monitoring to judge who was worthy of support.^[226]

Action

Fascism emphasizes direct action, including supporting the legitimacy of political violence, as a core part of its politics.^[17]^[227] Fascism views violent action as a necessity in politics that fascism identifies as being an “endless struggle”.^[228] This emphasis on the use of political violence means that most fascist parties have also created their own private militias (e.g. the Nazi Party’s Brown shirts and Fascist Italy’s Blackshirts).

The basis of fascism’s support of violent action in politics is connected to social Darwinism.^[228] Fascist movements have commonly held social Darwinist views of nations, races and societies.^[229] They say that nations and races must purge themselves of socially and biologically weak or degenerate people, while simultaneously promoting the creation of strong people, in order to survive in a world defined by perpetual national and racial conflict.^[230]

Age and gender roles

Members of the Piccole Italiane, an organization for girls within the National Fascist Party in Italy

Members of the League of German Girls, an organization for girls within the Nazi Party in Germany

Fascism emphasizes youth both in a physical sense of age and in a spiritual sense as related to virility and commitment to action.^[231] The Italian Fascists’ political anthem was called Giovinezza (“The Youth”).^[231] Fascism identifies the physical age period of youth as a critical time for the moral development of people who will affect society.^[232]

Walter Laqueur argues that:

The corollaries of the cult of war and physical danger were the cult of brutality, strength, and sexuality….[fascism is] a true counter-civilization: rejecting the sophisticated rationalist humanism of Old Europe, fascism sets up as its ideal the primitive instincts and primal emotions of the barbarian.^[233]

Italian Fascism pursued what it called “moral hygiene” of youth, particularly regarding sexuality.^[234] Fascist Italy promoted what it considered normal sexual behaviour in youth while denouncing what it considered deviant sexual behaviour.^[234] It condemned pornography, most forms of birth control and contraceptive devices (with the exception of the condom), homosexuality and prostitution as deviant sexual behaviour, although enforcement of laws opposed to such practices was erratic and authorities often turned a blind eye.^[234] Fascist Italy regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation before puberty as the cause of criminality amongst male youth, declared homosexuality a social disease and pursued an aggressive campaign to reduce prostitution of young women.^[234]

Mussolini perceived women’s primary role as primarily child bearers and men, warriors—once saying: “War is to man what maternity is to the woman”.^[235] In an effort to increase birthrates, the Italian Fascist government gave financial incentives to women who raised large families and initiated policies intended to reduce the number of women employed.^[236] Italian Fascism called for women to be honoured as “reproducers of the nation” and the Italian Fascist government held ritual ceremonies to honour women’s role within the Italian nation.^[237] In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a “major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment” and that for women, working was “incompatible with childbearing”. Mussolini went on to say that the solution to unemployment for men was the “exodus of women from the work force”.^[238]

The German Nazi government strongly encouraged women to stay at home to bear children and keep house.^[239] This policy was reinforced by bestowing the Cross of Honor of the German Mother on women bearing four or more children. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Nazi propaganda sometimes promoted premarital and extramarital sexual relations, unwed motherhood and divorce, but at other times the Nazis opposed such behaviour.^[240]

The Nazis decriminalized abortion in cases where fetuses had hereditary defects or were of a race the government disapproved of, while the abortion of healthy pure German, Aryan fetuses remained strictly forbidden.^[241] For non-Aryans, abortion was often compulsory. Their eugenics program also stemmed from the “progressive biomedical model” of Weimar Germany.^[242] In 1935, Nazi Germany expanded the legality of abortion by amending its eugenics law, to promote abortion for women with hereditary disorders.^[241] The law allowed abortion if a woman gave her permission and the fetus was not yet viable^[243]^[244] and for purposes of so-called racial hygiene.^[245]^[246]

The Nazis said that homosexuality was degenerate, effeminate, perverted and undermined masculinity because it did not produce children.^[247] They considered homosexuality curable through therapy, citing modern scientism and the study of sexology, which said that homosexuality could be felt by “normal” people and not just an abnormal minority.^[248] Open homosexuals were interned in Nazi concentration camps.^[249]

Palingenesis and modernism

Fascism emphasizes both palingenesis (national rebirth or re-creation) and modernism.^[250] In particular, fascism’s nationalism has been identified as having a palingenetic character.^[187]Fascism promotes the regeneration of the nation and purging it of decadence.^[250] Fascism accepts forms of modernism that it deems promotes national regeneration while rejecting forms of modernism that are regarded as antithetical to national regeneration.^[251] Fascism aestheticized modern technology and its association with speed, power and violence.^[252] Fascism admired advances in the economy in the early 20th century, particularly Fordism and scientific management.^[253] Fascist modernism has been recognized as inspired or developed by various figures—such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Ernst Jünger, Gottfried Benn, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Knut Hamsun, Ezra Pound and Wyndham Lewis.^[254]

In Italy, such modernist influence was exemplified by Marinetti who advocated a palingenetic modernist society that condemned liberal-bourgeois values of tradition and psychology, while promoting a technological-martial religion of national renewal that emphasized militant nationalism.^[255] In Germany, it was exemplified by Jünger who was influenced by his observation of the technological warfare during World War I and claimed that a new social class had been created that he described as the “warrior-worker”.^[256] Jünger like Marinetti emphasized the revolutionary capacities of technology and emphasized an “organic construction” between human and machine as a liberating and regenerative force in that challenged liberal democracy, conceptions of individual autonomy, bourgeois nihilism and decadence.^[256] He conceived of a society based on a totalitarian concept of “total mobilization” of such disciplined warrior-workers.^[256]

Criticism

Fascism has been widely criticized and condemned in modern times since the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II.

Anti-democratic and tyrannical

Hitler and Spanish dictator Francisco Franco in Meeting at Hendaye, on 23 October 1940

One of the most common and strongest criticisms of fascism is that it is a tyranny.^[257] Fascism is deliberately and entirely non-democratic and anti-democratic.^[258]^[259]^[260]

Unprincipled opportunism

Some critics of Italian fascism have said that much of the ideology was merely a by-product of unprincipled opportunism by Mussolini and that he changed his political stances merely to bolster his personal ambitions while he disguised them as being purposeful to the public.^[261] Richard Washburn Child, the American ambassador to Italy who worked with Mussolini and became his friend and admirer, defended Mussolini’s opportunistic behaviour by writing: “Opportunist is a term of reproach used to brand men who fit themselves to conditions for the reasons of self-interest. Mussolini, as I have learned to know him, is an opportunist in the sense that he believed that mankind itself must be fitted to changing conditions rather than to fixed theories, no matter how many hopes and prayers have been expended on theories and programmes”.^[262] Child quoted Mussolini as saying: “The sanctity of an ism is not in the ism; it has no sanctity beyond its power to do, to work, to succeed in practice. It may have succeeded yesterday and fail to-morrow. Failed yesterday and succeed to-morrow. The machine first of all must run!”.^[262]

Some have criticized Mussolini’s actions during the outbreak of World War I as opportunist for seeming to suddenly abandon Marxist egalitarian internationalism for non-egalitarian nationalism and note to that effect that upon Mussolini endorsing Italy’s intervention in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, he and the new fascist movement received financial support from foreign sources, such as Ansaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies^[263] as well as the British Security Service MI5.^[264] Some, including Mussolini’s socialist opponents at the time, have noted that regardless of the financial support he accepted for his pro-interventionist stance, Mussolini was free to write whatever he wished in his newspaper Il Popolo d’Italia without prior sanctioning from his financial backers.^[265] Furthermore, the major source of financial support that Mussolini and the fascist movement received in World War I was from France and is widely believed to have been French socialists who supported the French government’s war against Germany and who sent support to Italian socialists who wanted Italian intervention on France’s side.^[266]

Mussolini’s transformation away from Marxism into what eventually became fascism began prior to World War I, as Mussolini had grown increasingly pessimistic about Marxism and egalitarianism while becoming increasingly supportive of figures who opposed egalitarianism, such as Friedrich Nietzsche.^[267] By 1902, Mussolini was studying Georges Sorel, Nietzsche and Vilfredo Pareto.^[268] Sorel’s emphasis on the need for overthrowing decadent liberal democracy and capitalism by the use of violence, direct action, general strikes and neo-Machiavellianappeals to emotion impressed Mussolini deeply.^[269] Mussolini’s use of Nietzsche made him a highly unorthodox socialist, due to Nietzsche’s promotion of elitism and anti-egalitarian views.^[267]Prior to World War I, Mussolini’s writings over time indicated that he had abandoned the Marxism and egalitarianism that he had previously supported in favour of Nietzsche’s übermenschconcept and anti-egalitarianism.^[267] In 1908, Mussolini wrote a short essay called “Philosophy of Strength” based on his Nietzschean influence, in which Mussolini openly spoke fondly of the ramifications of an impending war in Europe in challenging both religion and nihilism: “[A] new kind of free spirit will come, strengthened by the war, … a spirit equipped with a kind of sublime perversity, … a new free spirit will triumph over God and over Nothing”.^[106]

Ideological dishonesty

Fascism has been criticized for being ideologically dishonest. Major examples of ideological dishonesty have been identified in Italian fascism’s changing relationship with German Nazism.^[270]^[271] Fascist Italy’s official foreign policy positions were known to commonly utilize rhetorical ideological hyperbole to justify its actions, although during Dino Grandi‘s tenure as Italy’s foreign minister the country engaged in realpolitik free of such fascist hyperbole.^[272] Italian fascism’s stance towards German Nazism fluctuated from support from the late 1920s to 1934, when it celebrated Hitler’s rise to power and meeting with Hitler in 1934; to opposition from 1934 to 1936 after the assassination of Italy’s allied leader in Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss, by Austrian Nazis; and again back to support after 1936, when Germany was the only significant power that did not denounce Italy’s invasion and occupation of Ethiopia.

After antagonism exploded between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy over the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss in 1934, Mussolini and Italian fascists denounced and ridiculed Nazism’s racial theories, particularly by denouncing its Nordicism, while promoting Mediterraneanism.^[271] Mussolini himself responded to Nordicists’ claims of Italy being divided into Nordic and Mediterranean racial areas due to Germanic invasions of Northern Italy by claiming that while Germanic tribes such as the Lombards took control of Italy after the fall of Ancient Rome, they arrived in small numbers (about 8,000) and quickly assimilated into Roman culture and spoke the Latin language within fifty years.^[273] Italian fascism was influenced by the tradition of Italian nationalists scornfully looking down upon Nordicists’ claims and taking pride in comparing the age and sophistication of ancient Roman civilization as well as the classical revival in the Renaissance to that of Nordic societies that Italian nationalists described as “newcomers” to civilization in comparison.^[270] At the height of antagonism between the Nazis and Italian fascists over race, Mussolini claimed that the Germans themselves were not a pure race and noted with irony that the Nazi theory of German racial superiority was based on the theories of non-German foreigners, such as Frenchman Arthur de Gobineau.^[274] After the tension in German-Italian relations diminished during the late 1930s, Italian fascism sought to harmonize its ideology with German Nazism and combined Nordicist and Mediterranean racial theories, noting that Italians were members of the Aryan Race, composed of a mixed Nordic-Mediterranean subtype.^[271]

In 1938, Mussolini declared upon Italy’s adoption of antisemitic laws that Italian fascism had always been antisemitic,^[271] In fact, Italian fascism did not endorse antisemitism until the late 1930s when Mussolini feared alienating antisemitic Nazi Germany, whose power and influence were growing in Europe. Prior to that period there had been notable Jewish Italians who had been senior Italian fascist officials, including Margherita Sarfatti, who had also been Mussolini’s mistress.^[271] Also contrary to Mussolini’s claim in 1938, only a small number of Italian fascists were staunchly antisemitic (such as Roberto Farinacci and Giuseppe Preziosi), while others such as Italo Balbo, who came from Ferrara which had one of Italy’s largest Jewish communities, were disgusted by the antisemitic laws and opposed them.^[271] Fascism scholar Mark Neocleous notes that while Italian fascism did not have a clear commitment to antisemitism, there were occasional antisemitic statements issued prior to 1938, such as Mussolini in 1919 declaring that the Jewish bankers in London and New York were connected by race to the Russian Bolsheviks and that eight percent of the Russian Bolsheviks were Jews.^[275]

References …

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism

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[100]

Sharyl Attkisson
Attkisson on a USAF B-52 in 1999
Born	Sharyl Lynn Thompson 26 January 1961 (age 57) Sarasota, Florida, U.S.
Residence	Leesburg, Virginia
Education	Riverview High School University of Florida
Occupation	Writer, journalist, television correspondent
Spouse(s)	James Howard Attkisson (m. 1984)
Children	daughter (born ~1995)
Website	sharylattkisson.com fullmeasure.news
Notes
^[1]^[2]^[3]

Lawrence B. Lindsey


4th Director of the National Economic Council
In office January 20, 2001 – December 12, 2002
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Gene Sperling
Succeeded by	Steve Friedman
Personal details
Born	July 18, 1954 (age 64) Peekskill, New York, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Susan Lindsey (Divorced 2013)
Children	3
Residence	Clifton, Virginia
Education	Bowdoin College (BA) Harvard University (MA, PhD)

Date(s) conducted	Right	Wrong	Undecided	Lead	Sample	Conducted by	Polling type
8-9 Jul 2018	Brexit Secretary David Davis and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson resign.^[302]
8-9 Jul 2018	42%	46%	12%	4%	1,669	YouGov	Online
6 Jul 2018	The UK Cabinet agrees the Chequers Statement, setting out a proposal on the future UK-EU relationship.^[303]
3-4 Jul 2018	41%	46%	13%	5%	1,641	YouGov	Online
25-26 Jun 2018	43%	46%	11%	3%	1,645	YouGov	Online
19-20 Jun 2018	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,663	YouGov	Online
18-19 Jun 2018	43%	44%	13%	1%	1,606	YouGov	Online
11-12 Jun 2018	43%	46%	12%	3%	1,638	YouGov	Online
4-5 Jun 2018	44%	44%	13%	0%	1,619	YouGov	Online
28-29 May 2018	40%	47%	13%	7%	1,670	YouGov	Online
20-21 May 2018	43%	44%	13%	1%	1,660	YouGov	Online
13-14 May 2018	44%	45%	12%	1%	1,634	YouGov	Online
8-9 May 2018	43%	45%	12%	2%	1,648	YouGov	Online
30 Apr-1 May 2018	42%	47%	11%	5%	1,585	YouGov	Online
24-25 Apr 2018	42%	45%	13%	3%	1,668	YouGov	Online
16-17 Apr 2018	42%	45%	13%	3%	1,631	YouGov	Online
9-10 Apr 2018	42%	46%	12%	4%	1,639	YouGov	Online
26-27 Mar 2018	42%	45%	13%	3%	1,659	YouGov	Online
5-6 Mar 2018	43%	45%	12%	2%	1,641	YouGov	Online
2 Mar 2018	Theresa May makes Mansion House speech, outlining the UK Government’s policy on the future UK-EU relationship.^[304]
26-27 Feb 2018	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,622	YouGov	Online
19-20 Feb 2018	42%	45%	12%	3%	1,650	YouGov	Online
12-13 Feb 2018	42%	46%	12%	4%	1,639	YouGov	Online
5-6 Feb 2018	43%	44%	13%	1%	2,000	YouGov	Online
28-29 Jan 2018	40%	46%	14%	6%	1,669	YouGov	Online
16-17 Jan 2018	45%	44%	12%	1%	1,672	YouGov	Online
7-8 Jan 2018	42%	46%	12%	4%	1,663	YouGov	Online
19-20 Dec 2017	42%	45%	12%	3%	1,610	YouGov	Online
15 Dec 2017	The European Council decides to proceed to the second phase of the Brexit negotiations.^[305]
10-11 Dec 2017	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,680	YouGov	Online
4-5 Dec 2017	42%	45%	13%	3%	1,638	YouGov	Online
7-8 Nov 2017	42%	46%	12%	4%	2,012	YouGov	Online
23-24 Oct 2017	43%	45%	12%	2%	1,637	YouGov	Online
18-19 Oct 2017	42%	45%	14%	3%	1,648	YouGov	Online
10-11 Oct 2017	42%	47%	11%	5%	1,680	YouGov	Online
22-24 Sep 2017	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,716	YouGov	Online
22 Sep 2017	Theresa May makes Florence speech, in an attempt to ‘unblock’ the Brexit negotiations.^[306]
30-31 Aug 2017	44%	44%	12%	0%	1,658	YouGov	Online
21-22 Aug 2017	43%	45%	11%	2%	1,664	YouGov	Online
31 Jul-1 Aug 2017	45%	45%	10%	0%	1,665	YouGov	Online
18-19 Jul 2017	43%	43%	14%	0%	1,593	YouGov	Online
10-11 Jul 2017	45%	43%	12%	2%	1,700	YouGov	Online
21-22 Jun 2017	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,670	YouGov	Online
19 Jun 2017	Brexit negotiations begin.^[307]
12-13 Jun 2017	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,651	YouGov	Online
8 Jun 2017	United Kingdom general election, 2017
5-7 Jun 2017	45%	45%	10%	0%	2,130	YouGov	Online
30-31 May 2017	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,875	YouGov	Online
24-25 May 2017	46%	43%	11%	3%	2,052	YouGov	Online
16-17 May 2017	46%	43%	11%	3%	1,861	YouGov	Online
3-14 May 2017	45%	41%	14%	4%	1,952	GfK	Online
9-10 May 2017	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,651	YouGov	Online
2-3 May 2017	46%	43%	11%	3%	2,066	YouGov	Online
25-26 Apr 2017	43%	45%	12%	2%	1,590	YouGov	Online
20-21 Apr 2017	44%	44%	12%	0%	1,590	YouGov	Online
18-19 Apr 2017	46%	43%	11%	3%	1,727	YouGov	Online
12-13 Apr 2017	45%	43%	12%	2%	2,069	YouGov	Online
5-6 Apr 2017	46%	42%	11%	4%	1,651	YouGov	Online
29 Mar 2017	The United Kingdom invokes Article 50.^[308]
26-27 Mar 2017	44%	43%	13%	1%	1,957	YouGov	Online
20-21 Mar 2017	44%	44%	12%	0%	1,627	YouGov	Online
1-15 Mar 2017	46%	41%	13%	5%	1,938	GfK	Online
13-14 Mar 2017	44%	42%	15%	2%	1,631	YouGov	Online
10-14 Mar 2017	49%	41%	10%	8%	2,003	Opinium	Online
27-28 Feb 2017	45%	44%	11%	1%	1,666	YouGov	Online
21-22 Feb 2017	45%	45%	10%	0%	2,060	YouGov	Online
12-13 Feb 2017	46%	42%	12%	4%	2,052	YouGov	Online
30-31 Jan 2017	45%	42%	12%	3%	1,705	YouGov	Online
17-18 Jan 2017	46%	42%	12%	4%	1,654	YouGov	Online
17 Jan 2017	Theresa May makes Lancaster House speech, setting out the UK Government’s negotiating priorities.^[309]
9-12 Jan 2017	52%	39%	9%	13%	2,005	Opinium	Online
9-10 Jan 2017	46%	42%	12%	4%	1,660	YouGov	Online
3-4 Jan 2017	45%	44%	11%	1%	1,740	YouGov	Online
18-19 Dec 2016	44%	44%	12%	0%	1,595	YouGov	Online
4-5 Dec 2016	44%	42%	14%	2%	1,667	YouGov	Online
28-29 Nov 2016	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,624	YouGov	Online
14-15 Nov 2016	46%	43%	11%	3%	1,717	YouGov	Online
19-20 Oct 2016	45%	44%	11%	1%	1,608	YouGov	Online
11-12 Oct 2016	45%	44%	11%	1%	1,669	YouGov	Online
2 Oct 2016	Theresa May makes Conservative Party Conference speech, announcing her intention to invoke Article 50 by 31 March 2017.^[310]
13-14 Sep 2016	46%	44%	10%	2%	1,732	YouGov	Online
30-31 Aug 2016	47%	44%	9%	3%	1,687	YouGov	Online
22-23 Aug 2016	45%	43%	12%	2%	1,660	YouGov	Online
16-17 Aug 2016	46%	43%	11%	3%	1,677	YouGov	Online
8-9 Aug 2016	45%	44%	12%	1%	1,692	YouGov	Online
1-2 Aug 2016	46%	42%	12%	4%	1,722	YouGov	Online
13 Jul 2016	Theresa May becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.^[311]
v t e

Date(s) conducted	Remain	Leave	Neither	Lead	Sample	Conducted by	Polling type
15 Dec 2017	The European Council decides to proceed to the second phase of the Brexit negotiations.^[312]
8-10 Dec 2017	46%	43%	12%	3%	2,006	ICM	Online
5-8 Dec 2017	51%	41%	8%	10%	1,509	BMG Research	Online
30 Nov-1 Dec 2017	49%	46%	6%	3%	1,003	Survation	Online
14-17 Nov 2017	45%	45%	10%	0%	1,509	BMG Research	Online
18-24 Oct 2017	44%	40%	16%	4%	1,648	YouGov	Online
19-20 Oct 2017	46%	45%	9%	1%	1,005	Opinium	Online
17-20 Oct 2017	47%	44%	8%	3%	1,506	BMG Research	Online
4-5 Oct 2017	49%	45%	6%	4%	2,047	Survation	Online
23 Sep 2017	46%	47%	6%	1%	1,174	Survation	Online
22 Sep 2017	Theresa May makes Florence speech, in an attempt to ‘unblock’ the Brexit negotiations.^[313]
19-22 Sep 2017	45%	44%	12%	1%	2,004	Opinium	Online
15-20 Sep 2017	47%	47%	5%	0%	1,614	Survation	Online
12-15 Sep 2017	47%	43%	10%	4%	1,447	BMG Research	Online
12-15 Sep 2017	45%	45%	10%	0%	2,009	Opinium	Online
15-18 Aug 2017	47%	44%	9%	3%	2,006	Opinium	Online
8-11 Aug 2017	46%	45%	9%	1%	1,512	BMG Research	Online
23-24 Jul 2017	46%	43%	11%	3%	1,609	YouGov	Online
14-15 Jul 2017	47%	48%	5%	1%	1,024	Survation	Online
11-14 Jul 2017	46%	45%	9%	1%	1,518	BMG Research	Online
28-30 Jun 2017	52%	44%	5%	8%	1,017	Survation	Telephone
23-30 Jun 2017	46%	42%	13%	4%	1,661	YouGov	Online
16-21 Jun 2017	46%	50%	4%	4%	5,481	Panelbase	Online
19 Jun 2017	Brexit negotiations begin.^[314]
16-17 Jun 2017	50%	48%	3%	2%	1,005	Survation	Online
10 Jun 2017	48%	46%	6%	2%	1,036	Survation	Online
8 Jun 2017	United Kingdom general election, 2017
2-7 Jun 2017	46%	51%	3%	5%	3,018	Panelbase	Online
2-5 Jun 2017	47%	44%	9%	3%	1,503	BMG Research	Online
26 May-1 Jun 2017	47%	49%	4%	2%	1,224	Panelbase	Online
25-30 May 2017	35%	38%	27%	3%	1,199	Kantar TNS	Online
19-22 May 2017	45%	45%	10%	0%	1,499	BMG Research	Online
12-15 May 2017	47%	50%	3%	3%	1,026	Panelbase	Online
5-9 May 2017	47%	49%	4%	2%	1,027	Panelbase	Online
28 Apr-2 May 2017	48%	49%	3%	1%	1,034	Panelbase	Online
21-24 Apr 2017	45%	45%	10%	0%	1,552	BMG Research	Online
20-24 Apr 2017	46%	50%	4%	4%	1,026	Panelbase	Online
28-31 Mar 2017	46%	46%	8%	0%	1,576	BMG Research	Online
23-30 Mar 2017	44%	43%	14%	1%	1,643	YouGov	Online
29 Mar 2017	The United Kingdom invokes Article 50.^[315]
21-24 Feb 2017	45%	46%	9%	1%	1,543	BMG Research	Online
19-24 Jan 2017	43%	44%	13%	1%	1,643	YouGov	Online
17 Jan 2017	Theresa May makes Lancaster House speech, setting out the UK Government’s negotiating priorities.^[316]
6-9 Jan 2017	44%	45%	11%	1%	1,520	BMG Research	Online
14-21 Dec 2016	44%	43%	13%	1%	1,569	YouGov	Online
6-9 Dec 2016	43%	46%	11%	3%	1,532	BMG Research	Online
25-27 Nov 2016	46%	47%	6%	1%	2,035	ComRes	Online
22-25 Nov 2016	43%	43%	14%	0%	1,523	BMG Research	Online
20-25 Oct 2016	44%	43%	13%	1%	1,631	YouGov	Online
19-24 Oct 2016	45%	43%	12%	2%	1,546	BMG Research	Online
10-12 Oct 2016	44%	44%	12%	0%	1,002	Survation	Online
2 Oct 2016	Theresa May makes Conservative Party Conference speech, announcing her intention to invoke Article 50 by 31 March 2017.^[317]
16-20 Sep 2016	42%	46%	11%	4%	1,601	YouGov	Online
31 Aug-9 Sep 2016	43%	45%	13%	2%	1,711	YouGov	Online
20-27 Jul 2016	43%	44%	13%	1%	1,673	YouGov	Online
13 Jul 2016	Theresa May becomes Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.^[318]
3-4 Jul 2016	45%	45%	10%	0%	1,820	YouGov	Online
29-30 Jun 2016	48%	42%	9%	6%	2,006	Opinium	Online
29-30 Jun 2016	45%	37%	19%	8%	1,017	BMG Research	Online
23 Jun 2016	United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, 2016
v t e

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Photo portrait of Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn
Born	July 31, 1909 Tobelbad (now Haselsdorf-Tobelbad), Austria-Hungary
Died	May 26, 1999 (aged 89) Lans, Austria

Jordan Peterson
Peterson at the University of Toronto, 2017
Born	Jordan Bernt Peterson June 12, 1962 (age 55) Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Residence	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Citizenship	Canadian
Education	Political science (B.A., 1982) Psychology (B.A., 1984) Clinical psychology (Ph.D., 1991)
Alma mater	University of Alberta McGill University
Spouse(s)	Tammy Roberts (m. 1989)
Children	2
Website	jordanbpeterson.com
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology
Institutions	McGill University (1985–1993) Harvard University (1993–1998) University of Toronto (1998–present)^[1]
Thesis	Potential psychological markers for the predisposition to alcoholism (1991)
Doctoral advisor	Robert O. Pihl

Paul Ekman

Born	February 15, 1934 (age 83) Washington, D.C.
Residence	United States
Known for	Microexpressions, Lie to Me
Spouse(s)	Mary Ann Mason, J.D., Ph.D.
Awards	Named by the American Psychological Association as one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th century based on publications, citations and awards (2001) Honorary Degree, University of Fernando Pessoa, Portugal (2007) Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters, Adelphi University (2008) Honorary Degree, University of Geneva, Switzerland (2008) Named of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by Time Magazine (2009) Honorary Degree, Lund University, Sweden (2011)
Scientific career
Fields	Psychology Anthropology
Doctoral advisor	John Amsden Starkweather
Influences	Charles Darwin, Silvan Tomkins

Michael Wolff
Wolff in Rome, Italy (June 2008)
Born	August 27, 1953 (age 64)
Occupation	Columnist, Internet entrepreneur, television commentator
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Vassar College, Columbia University
Spouse	Alison Anthoine
Website
www.newser.com

Top 1%	Top 5%	Top 10%	Top 25%	Top 50%	Bottom 50%	All Taxpayers
Number of Returns	1,395,620	6,978,102	13,956,203	34,890,509	69,781,017	69,781,017	139,562,034
Adjusted Gross Income ($ millions)	$1,997,819	$3,490,867	$4,583,416	$6,690,287	$8,614,544	$1,094,119	$9,708,663
Share of Total Adjusted Gross Income	20.58%	35.96%	47.21%	68.91%	88.73%	11.27%	100.00%
Income Taxes Paid ($ millions)	$542,640	$824,153	$974,124	$1,192,679	$1,336,637	$37,740	$1,374,379
Share of Total Income Taxes Paid	39.48%	59.97%	70.88%	86.78%	97.25%	2.75%	100.00%
Income Split Point	$465,626	$188,996	$133,445	$77,714	$38,173
Average Tax Rate	27.16%	23.61%	21.25%	17.83%	15.52%	3.45%	14.16%
Note: Does not include dependent filers

Year	Total	Top 0.1%	Top 1%	Top 5%	Between 5% & 10%	Top 10%	Between 10% & 25%	Top 25%	Between 25% & 50%	Top 50%	Bottom 50%
Source: Internal Revenue Service.
1980	93,239	932	4,662	4,662	9,324	13,986	23,310	23,310	46,619	46,619
1981	94,587	946	4,729	4,729	9,459	14,188	23,647	23,647	47,293	47,293
1982	94,426	944	4,721	4,721	9,443	14,164	23,607	23,607	47,213	47,213
1983	95,331	953	4,767	4,767	9,533	14,300	23,833	23,833	47,665	47,665
1984	98,436	984	4,922	4,922	9,844	14,765	24,609	24,609	49,218	49,219
1985	100,625	1,006	5,031	5,031	10,063	15,094	25,156	25,156	50,313	50,313
1986	102,088	1,021	5,104	5,104	10,209	15,313	25,522	25,522	51,044	51,044
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
1987	106,155	1,062	5,308	5,308	10,615	15,923	26,539	26,539	53,077	53,077
1988	108,873	1,089	5,444	5,444	10,887	16,331	27,218	27,218	54,436	54,436
1989	111,313	1,113	5,566	5,566	11,131	16,697	27,828	27,828	55,656	55,656
1990	112,812	1,128	5,641	5,641	11,281	16,922	28,203	28,203	56,406	56,406
1991	113,804	1,138	5,690	5,690	11,380	17,071	28,451	28,451	56,902	56,902
1992	112,653	1,127	5,633	5,633	11,265	16,898	28,163	28,163	56,326	56,326
1993	113,681	1,137	5,684	5,684	11,368	17,052	28,420	28,420	56,841	56,841
1994	114,990	1,150	5,749	5,749	11,499	17,248	28,747	28,747	57,495	57,495
1995	117,274	1,173	5,864	5,864	11,727	17,591	29,319	29,319	58,637	58,637
1996	119,442	1,194	5,972	5,972	11,944	17,916	29,860	29,860	59,721	59,721
1997	121,503	1,215	6,075	6,075	12,150	18,225	30,376	30,376	60,752	60,752
1998	123,776	1,238	6,189	6,189	12,378	18,566	30,944	30,944	61,888	61,888
1999	126,009	1,260	6,300	6,300	12,601	18,901	31,502	31,502	63,004	63,004
2000	128,227	1,282	6,411	6,411	12,823	19,234	32,057	32,057	64,114	64,114
The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
2001	119,371	119	1,194	5,969	5,969	11,937	17,906	29,843	29,843	59,685	59,685
2002	119,851	120	1,199	5,993	5,993	11,985	17,978	29,963	29,963	59,925	59,925
2003	120,759	121	1,208	6,038	6,038	12,076	18,114	30,190	30,190	60,379	60,379
2004	122,510	123	1,225	6,125	6,125	12,251	18,376	30,627	30,627	61,255	61,255
2005	124,673	125	1,247	6,234	6,234	12,467	18,701	31,168	31,168	62,337	62,337
2006	128,441	128	1,284	6,422	6,422	12,844	19,266	32,110	32,110	64,221	64,221
2007	132,655	133	1,327	6,633	6,633	13,265	19,898	33,164	33,164	66,327	66,327
2008	132,892	133	1,329	6,645	6,645	13,289	19,934	33,223	33,223	66,446	66,446
2009	132,620	133	1,326	6,631	6,631	13,262	19,893	33,155	33,155	66,310	66,310
2010	135,033	135	1,350	6,752	6,752	13,503	20,255	33,758	33,758	67,517	67,517
2011	136,586	137	1,366	6,829	6,829	13,659	20,488	34,146	34,146	68,293	68,293
2012	136,080	136	1,361	6,804	6,804	13,608	20,412	34,020	34,020	68,040	68,040
2013	138,313	138	1,383	6,916	6,916	13,831	20,747	34,578	34,578	69,157	69,157
2014	139,562	140	1,396	6,978	6,978	13,956	20,934	34,891	34,891	69,781	69,781

Year	Total	Top 0.1%	Top 1%	Top 5%	Between 5% & 10%	Top 10%	Between 10% & 25%	Top 25%	Between 25% & 50%	Top 50%	Bottom 50%
Source: Internal Revenue Service.
1980	$1,627	$138	$342	$181	$523	$400	$922	$417	$1,339	$288
1981	$1,791	$149	$372	$201	$573	$442	$1,015	$458	$1,473	$318
1982	$1,876	$167	$398	$207	$605	$460	$1,065	$478	$1,544	$332
1983	$1,970	$183	$428	$217	$646	$481	$1,127	$498	$1,625	$344
1984	$2,173	$210	$482	$240	$723	$528	$1,251	$543	$1,794	$379
1985	$2,344	$235	$531	$260	$791	$567	$1,359	$580	$1,939	$405
1986	$2,524	$285	$608	$278	$887	$604	$1,490	$613	$2,104	$421
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
1987	$2,814	$347	$722	$316	$1,038	$671	$1,709	$664	$2,374	$440
1988	$3,124	$474	$891	$342	$1,233	$718	$1,951	$707	$2,658	$466
1989	$3,299	$468	$918	$368	$1,287	$768	$2,054	$751	$2,805	$494
1990	$3,451	$483	$953	$385	$1,338	$806	$2,144	$788	$2,933	$519
1991	$3,516	$457	$943	$400	$1,343	$832	$2,175	$809	$2,984	$532
1992	$3,681	$524	$1,031	$413	$1,444	$856	$2,299	$832	$3,131	$549
1993	$3,776	$521	$1,048	$426	$1,474	$883	$2,358	$854	$3,212	$563
1994	$3,961	$547	$1,103	$449	$1,552	$929	$2,481	$890	$3,371	$590
1995	$4,245	$620	$1,223	$482	$1,705	$985	$2,690	$938	$3,628	$617
1996	$4,591	$737	$1,394	$515	$1,909	$1,043	$2,953	$992	$3,944	$646
1997	$5,023	$873	$1,597	$554	$2,151	$1,116	$3,268	$1,060	$4,328	$695
1998	$5,469	$1,010	$1,797	$597	$2,394	$1,196	$3,590	$1,132	$4,721	$748
1999	$5,909	$1,153	$2,012	$641	$2,653	$1,274	$3,927	$1,199	$5,126	$783
2000	$6,424	$1,337	$2,267	$688	$2,955	$1,358	$4,314	$1,276	$5,590	$834
The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
2001	$6,116	$492	$1,065	$1,934	$666	$2,600	$1,334	$3,933	$1,302	$5,235	$881
2002	$5,982	$421	$960	$1,812	$660	$2,472	$1,339	$3,812	$1,303	$5,115	$867
2003	$6,157	$466	$1,030	$1,908	$679	$2,587	$1,375	$3,962	$1,325	$5,287	$870
2004	$6,735	$615	$1,279	$2,243	$725	$2,968	$1,455	$4,423	$1,403	$5,826	$908
2005	$7,366	$784	$1,561	$2,623	$778	$3,401	$1,540	$4,940	$1,473	$6,413	$953
2006	$7,970	$895	$1,761	$2,918	$841	$3,760	$1,652	$5,412	$1,568	$6,980	$990
2007	$8,622	$1,030	$1,971	$3,223	$905	$4,128	$1,770	$5,898	$1,673	$7,571	$1,051
2008	$8,206	$826	$1,657	$2,868	$905	$3,773	$1,782	$5,555	$1,673	$7,228	$978
2009	$7,579	$602	$1,305	$2,439	$878	$3,317	$1,740	$5,058	$1,620	$6,678	$900
2010	$8,040	$743	$1,517	$2,716	$915	$3,631	$1,800	$5,431	$1,665	$7,096	$944
2011	$8,317	$737	$1,556	$2,819	$956	$3,775	$1,866	$5,641	$1,716	$7,357	$961
2012	$9,042	$1,017	$1,977	$3,331	$997	$4,328	$1,934	$6,262	$1,776	$8,038	$1,004
2013	$9,034	$816	$1,720	$3,109	$1,034	$4,143	$2,008	$6,152	$1,844	$7,996	$1,038
2014	$9,709	$986	$1,998	$3,491	$1,093	$4,583	$2,107	$6,690	$1,924	$8,615	$1,094

Year	Total	Top 0.1%	Top 1%	Top 5%	Between 5% & 10%	Top 10%	Between 10% & 25%	Top 25%	Between 25% & 50%	Top 50%	Bottom 50%
Source: Internal Revenue Service.
1980	$249	$47	$92	$31	$123	$59	$182	$50	$232	$18
1981	$282	$50	$99	$36	$135	$69	$204	$57	$261	$21
1982	$276	$53	$100	$34	$134	$66	$200	$56	$256	$20
1983	$272	$55	$101	$34	$135	$64	$199	$54	$252	$19
1984	$297	$63	$113	$37	$150	$68	$219	$57	$276	$22
1985	$322	$70	$125	$41	$166	$73	$238	$60	$299	$23
1986	$367	$94	$156	$44	$201	$78	$279	$64	$343	$24
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
1987	$369	$92	$160	$46	$205	$79	$284	$63	$347	$22
1988	$413	$114	$188	$48	$236	$85	$321	$68	$389	$24
1989	$433	$109	$190	$51	$241	$93	$334	$73	$408	$25
1990	$447	$112	$195	$52	$248	$97	$344	$77	$421	$26
1991	$448	$111	$194	$56	$250	$96	$347	$77	$424	$25
1992	$476	$131	$218	$58	$276	$97	$374	$78	$452	$24
1993	$503	$146	$238	$60	$298	$101	$399	$80	$479	$24
1994	$535	$154	$254	$64	$318	$108	$425	$84	$509	$25
1995	$588	$178	$288	$70	$357	$115	$473	$88	$561	$27
1996	$658	$213	$335	$76	$411	$124	$535	$95	$630	$28
1997	$727	$241	$377	$82	$460	$134	$594	$102	$696	$31
1998	$788	$274	$425	$88	$513	$139	$652	$103	$755	$33
1999	$877	$317	$486	$97	$583	$150	$733	$109	$842	$35
2000	$981	$367	$554	$106	$660	$164	$824	$118	$942	$38
The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
2001	$885	$139	$294	$462	$101	$564	$158	$722	$120	$842	$43
2002	$794	$120	$263	$420	$93	$513	$143	$657	$104	$761	$33
2003	$746	$115	$251	$399	$85	$484	$133	$617	$98	$715	$30
2004	$829	$142	$301	$467	$91	$558	$137	$695	$102	$797	$32
2005	$932	$176	$361	$549	$98	$647	$145	$793	$106	$898	$33
2006	$1,020	$196	$402	$607	$108	$715	$157	$872	$113	$986	$35
2007	$1,112	$221	$443	$666	$117	$783	$170	$953	$122	$1,075	$37
2008	$1,029	$187	$386	$597	$115	$712	$168	$880	$117	$997	$32
2009	$863	$146	$314	$502	$101	$604	$146	$749	$93	$842	$21
2010	$949	$170	$355	$561	$110	$670	$156	$827	$100	$927	$22
2011	$1,043	$168	$366	$589	$123	$712	$181	$893	$120	$1,012	$30
2012	$1,185	$220	$451	$699	$133	$831	$193	$1,024	$128	$1,152	$33
2013	$1,232	$228	$466	$721	$139	$860	$203	$1,063	$135	$1,198	$34
2014	$1,374	$273	$543	$824	$150	$974	$219	$1,193	$144	$1,337	$38

Year	Total	Top 0.1%	Top 1%	Top 5%	Between 5% & 10%	Top 10%	Between 10% & 25%	Top 25%	Between 25% & 50%	Top 50%	Bottom 50%
Source: Internal Revenue Service.
1980	100%	8.46%	21.01%	11.12%	32.13%	24.57%	56.70%	25.62%	82.32%	17.68%
1981	100%	8.30%	20.78%	11.20%	31.98%	24.69%	56.67%	25.59%	82.25%	17.75%
1982	100%	8.91%	21.23%	11.03%	32.26%	24.53%	56.79%	25.50%	82.29%	17.71%
1983	100%	9.29%	21.74%	11.04%	32.78%	24.44%	57.22%	25.30%	82.52%	17.48%
1984	100%	9.66%	22.19%	11.06%	33.25%	24.31%	57.56%	25.00%	82.56%	17.44%
1985	100%	10.03%	22.67%	11.10%	33.77%	24.21%	57.97%	24.77%	82.74%	17.26%
1986	100%	11.30%	24.11%	11.02%	35.12%	23.92%	59.04%	24.30%	83.34%	16.66%
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
1987	100%	12.32%	25.67%	11.23%	36.90%	23.85%	60.75%	23.62%	84.37%	15.63%
1988	100%	15.16%	28.51%	10.94%	39.45%	22.99%	62.44%	22.63%	85.07%	14.93%
1989	100%	14.19%	27.84%	11.16%	39.00%	23.28%	62.28%	22.76%	85.04%	14.96%
1990	100%	14.00%	27.62%	11.15%	38.77%	23.36%	62.13%	22.84%	84.97%	15.03%
1991	100%	12.99%	26.83%	11.37%	38.20%	23.65%	61.85%	23.01%	84.87%	15.13%
1992	100%	14.23%	28.01%	11.21%	39.23%	23.25%	62.47%	22.61%	85.08%	14.92%
1993	100%	13.79%	27.76%	11.29%	39.05%	23.40%	62.45%	22.63%	85.08%	14.92%
1994	100%	13.80%	27.85%	11.34%	39.19%	23.45%	62.64%	22.48%	85.11%	14.89%
1995	100%	14.60%	28.81%	11.35%	40.16%	23.21%	63.37%	22.09%	85.46%	14.54%
1996	100%	16.04%	30.36%	11.23%	41.59%	22.73%	64.32%	21.60%	85.92%	14.08%
1997	100%	17.38%	31.79%	11.03%	42.83%	22.22%	65.05%	21.11%	86.16%	13.84%
1998	100%	18.47%	32.85%	10.92%	43.77%	21.87%	65.63%	20.69%	86.33%	13.67%
1999	100%	19.51%	34.04%	10.85%	44.89%	21.57%	66.46%	20.29%	86.75%	13.25%
2000	100%	20.81%	35.30%	10.71%	46.01%	21.15%	67.15%	19.86%	87.01%	12.99%
The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
2001	100%	8.05%	17.41%	31.61%	10.89%	42.50%	21.80%	64.31%	21.29%	85.60%	14.40%
2002	100%	7.04%	16.05%	30.29%	11.04%	41.33%	22.39%	63.71%	21.79%	85.50%	14.50%
2003	100%	7.56%	16.73%	30.99%	11.03%	42.01%	22.33%	64.34%	21.52%	85.87%	14.13%
2004	100%	9.14%	18.99%	33.31%	10.77%	44.07%	21.60%	65.68%	20.83%	86.51%	13.49%
2005	100%	10.64%	21.19%	35.61%	10.56%	46.17%	20.90%	67.07%	19.99%	87.06%	12.94%
2006	100%	11.23%	22.10%	36.62%	10.56%	47.17%	20.73%	67.91%	19.68%	87.58%	12.42%
2007	100%	11.95%	22.86%	37.39%	10.49%	47.88%	20.53%	68.41%	19.40%	87.81%	12.19%
2008	100%	10.06%	20.19%	34.95%	11.03%	45.98%	21.71%	67.69%	20.39%	88.08%	11.92%
2009	100%	7.94%	17.21%	32.18%	11.59%	43.77%	22.96%	66.74%	21.38%	88.12%	11.88%
2010	100%	9.24%	18.87%	33.78%	11.38%	45.17%	22.38%	67.55%	20.71%	88.26%	11.74%
2011	100%	8.86%	18.70%	33.89%	11.50%	45.39%	22.43%	67.82%	20.63%	88.45%	11.55%
2012	100%	11.25%	21.86%	36.84%	11.03%	47.87%	21.39%	69.25%	19.64%	88.90%	11.10%
2013	100%	9.03%	19.04%	34.42%	11.45%	45.87%	22.23%	68.10%	20.41%	88.51%	11.49%
2014	100%	10.16%	20.58%	35.96%	11.25%	47.21%	21.70%	68.91%	19.82%	88.73%	11.27%

Year	Total	Top 1%	Top 5%	Top 10%	Top 25%	Top 50%
1980	$80,580	$43,792	$35,070	$23,606	$12,936
1981	$85,428	$47,845	$38,283	$25,655	$14,000
1982	$89,388	$49,284	$39,676	$27,027	$14,539
1983	$93,512	$51,553	$41,222	$27,827	$15,044
1984	$100,889	$55,423	$43,956	$29,360	$15,998
1985	$108,134	$58,883	$46,322	$30,928	$16,688
1986	$118,818	$62,377	$48,656	$32,242	$17,302
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
1987	$139,289	$68,414	$52,921	$33,983	$17,768
1988	$157,136	$72,735	$55,437	$35,398	$18,367
1989	$163,869	$76,933	$58,263	$36,839	$18,993
1990	$167,421	$79,064	$60,287	$38,080	$19,767
1991	$170,139	$81,720	$61,944	$38,929	$20,097
1992	$181,904	$85,103	$64,457	$40,378	$20,803
1993	$185,715	$87,386	$66,077	$41,210	$21,179
1994	$195,726	$91,226	$68,753	$42,742	$21,802
1995	$209,406	$96,221	$72,094	$44,207	$22,344
1996	$227,546	$101,141	$74,986	$45,757	$23,174
1997	$250,736	$108,048	$79,212	$48,173	$24,393
1998	$269,496	$114,729	$83,220	$50,607	$25,491
1999	$293,415	$120,846	$87,682	$52,965	$26,415
2000	$313,469	$128,336	$92,144	$55,225	$27,682
The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
2001	$1,393,718	$306,635	$132,082	$96,151	$59,026	$31,418
2002	$1,245,352	$296,194	$130,750	$95,699	$59,066	$31,299
2003	$1,317,088	$305,939	$133,741	$97,470	$59,896	$31,447
2004	$1,617,918	$339,993	$140,758	$101,838	$62,794	$32,622
2005	$1,938,175	$379,261	$149,216	$106,864	$64,821	$33,484
2006	$2,124,625	$402,603	$157,390	$112,016	$67,291	$34,417
2007	$2,251,017	$426,439	$164,883	$116,396	$69,559	$35,541
2008	$1,867,652	$392,513	$163,512	$116,813	$69,813	$35,340
2009	$1,469,393	$351,968	$157,342	$114,181	$68,216	$34,156
2010	$1,634,386	$369,691	$161,579	$116,623	$69,126	$34,338
2011	$1,717,675	$388,905	$167,728	$120,136	$70,492	$34,823
2012	$2,161,175	$434,682	$175,817	$125,195	$73,354	$36,055
2013	$1,860,848	$428,713	$179,760	$127,695	$74,955	$36,841
2014	$2,136,762	$465,626	$188,996	$133,445	$77,714	$38,173
Source: Internal Revenue Service.

Year	Total	Top 0.1%	Top 1%	Top 5%	Between 5% & 10%	Top 10%	Between 10% & 25%	Top 25%	Between 25% & 50%	Top 50%	Bottom 50%
Source: Internal Revenue Service.
1980	15.31%	34.47%	26.85%	17.13%	23.49%	14.80%	19.72%	11.91%	17.29%	6.10%
1981	15.76%	33.37%	26.59%	18.16%	23.64%	15.53%	20.11%	12.48%	17.73%	6.62%
1982	14.72%	31.43%	25.05%	16.61%	22.17%	14.35%	18.79%	11.63%	16.57%	6.10%
1983	13.79%	30.18%	23.64%	15.54%	20.91%	13.20%	17.62%	10.76%	15.52%	5.66%
1984	13.68%	29.92%	23.42%	15.57%	20.81%	12.90%	17.47%	10.48%	15.35%	5.77%
1985	13.73%	29.86%	23.50%	15.69%	20.93%	12.83%	17.55%	10.41%	15.41%	5.70%
1986	14.54%	33.13%	25.68%	15.99%	22.64%	12.97%	18.72%	10.48%	16.32%	5.63%
The Tax Reform Act of 1986 changed the definition of AGI, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
1987	13.12%	26.41%	22.10%	14.43%	19.77%	11.71%	16.61%	9.45%	14.60%	5.09%
1988	13.21%	24.04%	21.14%	14.07%	19.18%	11.82%	16.47%	9.60%	14.64%	5.06%
1989	13.12%	23.34%	20.71%	13.93%	18.77%	12.08%	16.27%	9.77%	14.53%	5.11%
1990	12.95%	23.25%	20.46%	13.63%	18.50%	12.01%	16.06%	9.73%	14.36%	5.01%
1991	12.75%	24.37%	20.62%	13.96%	18.63%	11.57%	15.93%	9.55%	14.20%	4.62%
1992	12.94%	25.05%	21.19%	13.99%	19.13%	11.39%	16.25%	9.42%	14.44%	4.39%
1993	13.32%	28.01%	22.71%	14.01%	20.20%	11.40%	16.90%	9.37%	14.90%	4.29%
1994	13.50%	28.23%	23.04%	14.20%	20.48%	11.57%	17.15%	9.42%	15.11%	4.32%
1995	13.86%	28.73%	23.53%	14.46%	20.97%	11.71%	17.58%	9.43%	15.47%	4.39%
1996	14.34%	28.87%	24.07%	14.74%	21.55%	11.86%	18.12%	9.53%	15.96%	4.40%
1997	14.48%	27.64%	23.62%	14.87%	21.36%	12.04%	18.18%	9.63%	16.09%	4.48%
1998	14.42%	27.12%	23.63%	14.79%	21.42%	11.63%	18.16%	9.12%	16.00%	4.44%
1999	14.85%	27.53%	24.18%	15.06%	21.98%	11.76%	18.66%	9.12%	16.43%	4.48%
2000	15.26%	27.45%	24.42%	15.48%	22.34%	12.04%	19.09%	9.28%	16.86%	4.60%
The IRS changed methodology, so data above and below this line not strictly comparable
2001	14.47%	28.17%	27.60%	23.91%	15.20%	21.68%	11.87%	18.35%	9.20%	16.08%	4.92%
2002	13.28%	28.48%	27.37%	23.17%	14.15%	20.76%	10.70%	17.23%	8.00%	14.87%	3.86%
2003	12.11%	24.60%	24.38%	20.92%	12.46%	18.70%	9.69%	15.57%	7.41%	13.53%	3.49%
2004	12.31%	23.06%	23.52%	20.83%	12.53%	18.80%	9.41%	15.71%	7.27%	13.68%	3.53%
2005	12.65%	22.48%	23.15%	20.93%	12.61%	19.03%	9.45%	16.04%	7.18%	14.01%	3.51%
2006	12.80%	21.94%	22.80%	20.80%	12.84%	19.02%	9.52%	16.12%	7.22%	14.12%	3.51%
2007	12.90%	21.42%	22.46%	20.66%	12.92%	18.96%	9.61%	16.16%	7.27%	14.19%	3.56%
2008	12.54%	22.67%	23.29%	20.83%	12.66%	18.87%	9.45%	15.85%	6.97%	13.79%	3.26%
2009	11.39%	24.28%	24.05%	20.59%	11.53%	18.19%	8.36%	14.81%	5.76%	12.61%	2.35%
2010	11.81%	22.84%	23.39%	20.64%	11.98%	18.46%	8.70%	15.22%	6.01%	13.06%	2.37%
2011	12.54%	22.82%	23.50%	20.89%	12.83%	18.85%	9.70%	15.82%	6.98%	13.76%	3.13%
2012	13.11%	21.67%	22.83%	20.97%	13.33%	19.21%	9.96%	16.35%	7.21%	14.33%	3.28%
2013	13.64%	27.91%	27.08%	23.20%	13.40%	20.75%	10.11%	17.28%	7.31%	14.98%	3.30%
2014	14.16%	27.67%	27.16%	23.61%	13.73%	21.25%	10.37%	17.83%	7.48%	15.52%	3.45%

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Ann Coulter
Coulter at the 2013 Conservative Political Action Conference.
Born	Ann Hart Coulter December 8, 1961 (age 55) New York City, New York, U.S.
Nationality	American
Alma mater	Cornell University(BA) University of Michigan(JD)
Occupation	Author, columnist, political commentator
Political party	Republican^[1]
Website	anncoulter.com
Signature

David Stockman


Director of the Office of Management and Budget
In office January 21, 1981 – August 1, 1985
President	Ronald Reagan
Preceded by	Jim McIntyre
Succeeded by	Jim Miller
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan‘s 4th district
In office January 3, 1977 – January 21, 1981
Preceded by	Edward Hutchinson
Succeeded by	Mark Siljander
Personal details
Born	David Alan Stockman November 10, 1946 (age 70) Fort Hood, Texas, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Jennifer Blei (1983–present)^[1]
Education	Michigan State University (BA) Harvard University
Website	Official website

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by Edward Hutchinson	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Michigan’s 4th congressional district 1977–1981	Succeeded by Mark Siljander
Political offices
Preceded by Jim McIntyre	Director of the Office of Management and Budget 1981–1985	Succeeded by Jim Miller

Agency overview
Seal of the National Security Agency
Flag of the National Security Agency
NSA Headquarters, Fort Meade, Maryland
Formed	November 4, 1952; 64 years ago^[1]
Preceding agency	Armed Forces Security Agency
Headquarters	Fort Meade, Maryland, U.S. 39°6′32″N 76°46′17″WCoordinates: 39°6′32″N 76°46′17″W
Motto	“Defending Our Nation. Securing The Future.”
Employees	Classified (30,000–40,000 estimate)^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]
Annual budget	Classified (estimated $10.8 billion, 2013)^[6]^[7]
Agency executives	Admiral Michael S. Rogers, U.S. Navy, Director of the National Security Agency Richard Ledgett, Deputy Director of the National Security Agency
Parent agency	United States Department of Defense
Website	www.nsa.gov

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