>>1355
There are some very different definitions out there, so I understand why you reconsidered yours. Wikipedia has a page dedicated specifically to varying definitions of fascism. I can't say I have a rigorous definition either.
tl;dr: something similar to Umberto Eco and Emilio Gentile's descriptions on that wiki page
One issue is that if we look at two of the most famous ideologies labeled as fascism, Mussolini's corporative Fascist regime (where the term fascism comes from) and Hiter's (so-called) anti-semitic "National Socialism" regime, they are ideologically very different, despite some similarities and Hitler's unrequited simping of Mussolini.
In fact, there was an international meeting of fascist organizations, the 1934 Montreax Fascist conference, with participants from 13 difference countries. They couldn't really figure out a "universal fascism".
The sad truth is that Italian Fascism (aka Classical Fascism) had some historical roots in syndicalism and other left-wing movements. "National Socialism", ironically, does not have roots in socialism, and purged the left-side of their party in the Night of the Long Knives. So the two main fascist parties have truly fundamental differences.
Because of these core differences, I believe it's not useful to take a "school of thought" or goal-oriented approach to definition like most do with socialism (often defined along the lines of abolishing private property or establishing public control over the means of production). Because if we did take this approach, then since Nazism and Classical Fascism are so opposed, we wouldn't consider Nazism to be fascism. The term fascism would be useless - no-one cares if the USA is literally 1920s Italian Fascism or not.
And I think that calling fascism a useless term is academically a valid take, it's a notoriously nebulous term just like socialism is, often reduced to a general insult, but to avoid defining it is not really an answer to your question, because there are these similar regimes and ideologies which must be analyzed and recognized. Because of this, I appreciate Eco's term ur-fascism; more details on that later
Another issue is that fascists lie all the time. I know, politicians lie, propaganda and realpolitik exist, but fascists lie so much that there is no real foundation beneath their house of sticks - modern neo-fash base their ideology upon the lies of their dead leaders! I think it's fair to say their ideology promotes being reactive, not proactive. "Ride the tiger", don't spend years scientifically analyzing the state and economy. But really, I believe the people attracted to this ideology tend to see no intrinsic value in truth and ideological honestly. They say things to win, not to improve society or learn about the world.
For example, in that conference I mentioned, the leader of the Falange movement issued a public statement that the Falange as an organisation would not be represented, claiming that the Falange was "not a Fascist movement", although the following year he asserted that the Falange was the "sole Fascist movement of Spain" in a private report to the Italian embassy.
Another example, Mussolini was amazingly flip-floppy when it came to the Jewish Question. It would take too long to summarize here, so refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini#Views_on_antisemitism_and_race . They contradicted themselves constantly, it's bizarre.
Even the DAP's decision to change name to the NSDAP (against Hitler's wishes) was to appeal to left-wing workers in the wake of their rise. Pure optics. Yet neo-Nazis still call themselves "National Socialists" despite living in red-scared societies and them trying to appeal to anti-socialists instead of socialists.
There is no ideological sincerity nor consistency in these movements. So to define them by their own word or writings is a fool's errand.
Some people make the mistake of taking a list of shared characteristics and mistaking that for a definition. Some definitions include characteristics, that's fine, but then you get people who say "[country] has a very powerful leader, state control, a big military, national pride/racism and suppression of political opposition. Therefore it's fascism" as if that doesn't describe most countries to some degree. This is often used to associate M-L states, or really any state someone doesn't like, with fascism, despite huge and obvious ideological differences and differing outcomes as a result. It's not a useful tool for understanding, it's just using "fascism" as a slur for propaganda.
I believe it is futile to strictly define fascism, rather one must necessarily resort to characterizing it.
To my shame, I haven't dived into the scholarly and Marxist definitions, like Umberto Eco's "Ur-Fascism", which (from my surface glance) seems to characterize its traits and method of operation very well. I agree with its emphasis on syncretism and other self-contradiction - this is a core aspect of it. And as I mentioned earlier, I believe it was smart to use a new-but-related term, ur-fascism, instead of just fascism.
I also generally agree with Emilio Gentile's ten constituent elements.
Some Marxist writers characterize fascism as simply an extreme, shameless form of bourgeois rule (Brecht, Dimitrov), not some new form - it is not a state above both the proletariat and bourgeoisie, as fascists often claim, nor is it the petite-bourgeoisie overthrowing finance capital, a middle-class uprising. It's just finance capital.
Trotsky somewhat differs in their letter to a friend, "What is Fascism", where they characterize it as a primarily petite-booj mass movement, directed and financed by big capitalist powers, employing socialist demagogy, which Trotsky claims is necessary for the creation of the mass movement. And I think there's merit to this perspective, because fascist parties don't seem to be invented directly by the haute booj, yet the haute booj still direct them. Compare this with electoral socdem parties - the haute booj usually end up directing them even if these parties aren't founded by them or populated by them. Neither Mussolini nor Hitler were rich industrialists. So while I see truth in the previously-listed Marxist definitions that it's just finance capital in control, this is overly simplistic for my taste, just like "capitalism in decay" and "socdem is moderate wing of fascism" slogans.
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I know this is wordswordswords in a meme thread, but it's an important question which is tough to answer.
