How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them

by Jason F. Stanley

Fascist movements share with social Darwinism the idea that life is a competition for power, according to which the division of society’s resources should be left up to pure free market competition. Fascist movements share its ideals of hard work, private enterprise, and self-sufficiency.

To have a life worthy of value, for the social Darwinist, is to have risen above others by struggle and merit, to have survived a fierce competition for resources. Those who do not compete successfully do not deserve the goods and resources of society.

In an ideology that measures worth by productivity, propaganda that represents members of an out-group as lazy is a way to justify placi...

This aspect of fascist ideology explains the National Socialist attitude toward the disabled, described as lebensunwertes Leben—life unworthy of life. Disabled citizens were regarded as lacking in value, because value in National Socialist ideology a...

According to these principles, one “earns” one’s freedom by accruing wealth in struggle. Those who do not “earn” their freedoms in this way do not deserve it.