European Fascism Essay examples -- European Fascist Regimes

Fascism is both an outgrowth of and a reaction against nineteenth-century liberalism. Nineteenth-century liberals argued for laissez-faire economics, the equality of men (and it was, explicitly, men), and the universality of human progress and human reason. Underlying all of these ideals was the sanctity of the individual. By the 1920s, though, these liberal ideals were challenged (Paxton 36-41). Laissez-faire economics led to dingy, heartless industrial towns; anthropological research called into question the equality of all people; economic crises threatened to drop the newly emerging middle-class into the proletariat, arguing against progress; and the mass annihilation of human life in the Great War eroded belief in rationality. Fascist regimes developed in response to the crumbling world view of the West. Fascists offered a “national revival in which racial purity, mass fervor and authoritarian rule somehow reinforced one another” (Paxton 218). By defining the nation in opposition to other races, fascists promoted a sense of inclusiveness and security.