Socialism and Fascism are ideological brothers.

Firstly, a list of assertions that my opponent makes.1) "both derived from the same intellectual root"2) "both hold the essential moral belief that the collective is superior to the individual"3) "both reject individual rights and property rights"4) "both require the concentration of power in the state"I would now like to define socialism and fascism. Fascism: an authoritarian, hierarchical and nationalistic system of government and social organisation. Socialism: a social and economic system characterised by social ownership of the means of production. From the very start, there are major and clear difference which are all worthy of their own analysis. The most important of which, is that fascism is on the far-right, while socialism is on the hard left to far-right. This means that fascism advocates for a strictly hierarchical system of society, orchestrated by an absolutely strong authoritarian government, which puts this ideology at the far end of the right wing. Socialism on the other hand advocates for a completely unhierarchical system of society, to the point where society is owned by the workers as a whole, without any such hierarchical private property. Because the extents of socialism can differ in being democratic, undemocratic, totalitarian or even anarchist, this places socialism anywhere between the far-left and the hard left, depending on the circumstances of the socialism. Secondly, fascism and socialism have fundamentally different origins. The origins of active fascism were created almost exclusively in early-20th century Italy, drawing from ideas of philosphers in the past century from around Europe. Early Italian fascism has often been described as being formed in direct opposotion to the Italian socialists, particularly due to fascism's interventionism in the First World War, while the socialists were opposed due to their strong sense of internationalism. However, the two sides became even more polarised after the result of the Russian Revolution, where the strong elements of socialism praised the Bolshevik takeover of Russia, while fascism was fundamentally against Lenin's rise. In fact, this lead Mussolini and other fascists to campaign themselves explicitly as anti-Marxists and anti-communists, in the years after the First World War. Thirdly, although socialism can be characterised as a rejection of capitalism and its values, fascism is not simply a rejection. At it's core of ideology, Marxist socialism is strongly opposed to the notion of private property, while fascism strongly supports the concept of private property and market forces. They both had major criticisms of the bourgeois capitalist systems that had developed in Europe, but fascism was very comfortable to keep capitalists owning factories and workers having to work for wages. Socialism on the hand was a direct attempt in reversing this hierarchy, by empowering the workers to rise up and own the factories. Fourthly, socialism as an ideology does not necessitate a centralised totalitarian state. While it's true that all Marxist-Leninist and Maoist regimes in recorded history have been authoritarian and demanded authoritarianism, socialism is not necessarily authoritarian while fascism requires a totalitarian state in every possible way. There are many forms of socialism which not only don't require totalitarianism, they are ideologically opposed to it. These are all fairly similar, with names such as libertarian socialism, anarchist communism, anarchist syndicalism, anarchist mutualism and libertarian communism. For the sake of simplicity, I will be referring to all of these broadly as anarchist socialism. The social ownership of the means of production can be theorised in a purely state-free way, as well as some notion of democratic socialism when applied to a social ideology instead of purely an economic theory. Then in your arguments, you make a few strange claims. i) "Mussolini's fascism involved belligerent nationalism. Franco's did not. "I have to ask you, on what planet was Francisco Franco not nationalist? You only have to go as far as the third paragraph of his Wikipedia article [1] to see; "Franco's ultranationalist faction received military support from several fascist groups, most notably from Nazi Germany and the Kingdom of Italy, while the Republican side was supported by Spanish communists and anarchists. "As far as Franco goes, we only have to look at what Spanish nationalism includes. Most notably, it is the unity of Spain in contrast to the nationalist movements of Catalonia and Basque in particular, as well as other autonomist movements throughout Spain. ii) "Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal. "As property rights are a social construct, they have required and continue to require a state to uphold and enforce their principles. Fascism is no exception to this, although it is marked by an interventionist state to maintain a hierarchy. Throughout the Third Reich for example, wealthy industrialists still had all the functions of their ownership over their assets. In fact, it was often even easier to do so because of fascism's removal of trade unions and revolutionary proletariat agitators. The state's control over industry was essentially to enforce that hierarchy, most notably in removing Jewish owners of businesses. Saying that fascism is essentially against property rights is really just an arbitrary statement. You might as well apply it to any other major capitalist country, such as the United States, the United Kingdom or Germany, since the government has the power to intervene in the state and pass laws that controls commerce. You could still own a business in Nazi Germany. You simply couldn't in the Soviet Union with Stalin. iii) "Socialism/Communism emerged as a political doctrine following Rousseau, the upheaval of the French Revolution [. .. ] Robespierre's reign of terror"I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding among many people over the basic events of the French Revolution. The works of those now referred to as the Enlightment thinkers such as Voltaire, Rousseau, Montesqieu, Descartes and others were largely written well before the French Revolution. Initially, the French Revolution seemed to be a more simple popular uprising that brought promise of constitutional monarchy, which ended with the radicalisation of the Montagnards political clubs, and the Parisian proletariat, then called the sans-culottes. Contrary to popular misconception, this was not a revolution of arbitrary totalitarianism from the start. Furthermore, the ideas of Marxism are distinct from those of the Enlightenment thinkers. Of course the thinkers of the 18th century were influential to Marx, they were influential to virtually every philosopher of the 19th century. They just weren't particularly influential to Marx and Engels as they were to other thinkers. In fact, earlier forms of socialist ideology that predate Marx's famous works have a greater influence from these French philosophers. iv) "I have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit. The difference between them and myself is that I have really put into practice what these peddlers and penpushers have timidly begun. .. I had only to develop logically what Social Democracy repeatedly failed in because of its attempt to realize its evolution within the framework of democracy. National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with the democratic order. "This may be my most important paragraph, because I am asking you to withdraw this quote that you have used. You have tried to characterise Hitler as being intrinsically inspired from the works of Marx, despite his very first victims being Marxists and communists. However, you are relying on a quote from Hermann Rauschning, a conservative German politician who was a member of the Nazi Party before emigrating to the United States in 1936. [2]You are quoting from Hitler Speaks (known as Voice of Destruction in US copies), where Rauschning attempts to write down conversations that he had with Hitler. At best the historical accuracy of this work is debateable, and at worst it is downright discarded from any meaningful historical use into research about the Third Reich. It is believed that Rauschning only met Hitler a few times and not in private, leading the consensus of historians to believe that the quotes attributed to Hitler are mostly fabrications. I am certainly not accusing you of being purposefully misleading to the readers of this debate, but this is a very misleading quote that you are using and so I ask you, with great respect, to withdraw it. [Provisional sources for two people featured in this round. ] [1] . https://en.wikipedia.org...[2] . https://en.wikipedia.org...