Aris,
“All the parts in the list of elements I gave, noel, would in fact apply to Mussolini and his supporters.”
Jews were safe in Italy until 1943, when Germany occupied the country. Unlike the rest of Europe, Italians were active, not passive, in their efforts to protect their Jewish countrymen. Modern China, on the other hand, does not even make an effort to conceal racial prejudice, nor did Stalin, the Vichy French, or the Hungarians.
“You instead however only define fascism by some economic aspect that nobody, not even the fascists themselves, actually even care about, rather than the aspects of fascism that both the victims of fascism and the supporters of fascism actually are interested in.”
You are getting equivocal again. First, I did not define fascism by a single differentiating aspect, Second, you fast forward to pejoratively redefine fascists. Do they call themselves fascists?
“To say whether something is X or isn't X, might be a definitional game to you, but the actual point is that such a question should be equivalent to "Does it act like X in all relevant ways that people are interested in?"
Your reasoning is entirely circular, and I am not playing a game with you.
“By your definition even neonazis that actively actually label themselves fascists (and are proud of it) wouldn't fit in your definition, because they don't care about the economy so much.”
Okay, so we are no longer talking about proud boys, but wanna-be bad boys. The misfits that you are referencing would have been objects of derision to Hitler’s schutz staffel troops. Nazism actually had a well developed ideology that made them extraordinarily dangerous. Your low-functioning punks would not have made it through basic training, much less pass entrance testing for intelligence.
No, “neo-Nazis” are dress-up pretenders.
“With your definition, noel, in fact there hasn't existed a single fascist since Mussolini and Hitler's death.”
No, that simply is not true. The modern Chinese CCP fits the definition of fascism very well, and there is nothing comical about their public displays of military preparation. The fallen USSR also fit nicely under the fascist designation. Modern Russia differs from its earlier permutation in precisely the area of private ownership of industry.
“According to you neither Franco, nor Salazar, nor Pinochet, nor the Greek junta of the colonels would be called fascists, and certainly not Putin or Orban, am I right?“
Franco was a bonafide fascist, but a very poorly organized one. He should have never attempted to run a country. Salazar was clearly not fascist, but authoritarian nonetheless, and unlike Franco was an effective administrator. Pinochet was, like Franco, a military strong-man, but fascist, no. Regarding your Greek colonel junta, did they lay any claim to ideological motives? Putin heads a kleptocracy, but also yearns for mother Russia’s rightful place at the head of nations. If he had a real economy to plunder, I could see a return to fascism in Russia.
"Bolshevism was everything that you described as fascist"
“I'm all in favour of extending the term to cover certain left-wing groups, but when you can't even accept as fascists people who'd everyone would recognize as classical standard-variety traditional fascists, what's the point?
The point is to make words useful by not applying them so liberally that they lose utility. Fascism cannot simply mean, “Bad Guys”.
