There are two main modern traditions of authoritarian economies. After ignominious experimentation with their severe forms in the twentieth century, today these forms are discredited by their own demonstration. But the full lessons of history remain unlearned.

Government which organizes economic activity based on centralized ownership of property acts as a forced monopoly, since it both engages in production and trade, and makes the rules for production and trade. This tradition is commonly known as socialism, and in its complete form, communism. Basically, this involves the state appropriating the functions of business unto itself, removing the decisions necessary to guide economic action from the control of the individual, and making the individual a direct employee of the state. The state attempts to distribute what is created as evenly as possible, working to limit individual advantage.

Government which does not assume the role of a business directly is capable only of appropriation and redistribution of capital which has already been produced, regulation, and other interference with exchanges of existing capital. This tradition in its more extreme form existed as fascism.

In both cases, distribution of what is created tends to be wasted and hits false barriers all along the way, because there is little personal incentive for efficiency. In both cases, corruption is very likely, because in both cases government is composed of real people whose human nature is no longer an asset, but a problem. In the case of interference with private exchange, officials are likely to interfere for their own profit in business activities of their own, or interfere because they have been paid to intervene on the behalf of certain businessmen, or extort money from businesses in exchange for advantages or being left alone. In the case of government which owns property and engages in exchanges like a business, there is little personal advantage involved with being productive, and little personal accountability for mismanagement and failure. This is why officials charged with the administration of property and goods owned by a government frequently turn to the black market to obtain personal advantage. In both fascism and socialism, competition is lacking which might provide a check against corruption.

Both fascism and socialism focus on the controlled redistribution of what has already been accomplished, rather than more and greater accomplishment. In fact, there is an underlying assumption that what exists and has value is a finite amount with a fixed value. This contradicts any ability of the individual to posit subjective, personal understandings of value.

The difference between fascism and socialism is a fine point in practice. In intent they may differ, but in practice both tend toward consolidation of political power. Socialism typically favors central ownership to a greater degree (in the extreme of communism, all appreciable property is centralized) while fascism emphasizes state control over exchanges more than state control over property itself. With different emphasis, both are based on forced intervention with the individual human acts of creation and voluntary exchange, making creation and exchange involuntary.

The economic fascism which began in the 1920s in Italy under Mussolini's National Fascists, and in the 1930s in Germany under Hitler's National Socialists, evolved as a variant of socialism with different goals. The principles of central state authoritarianism and collectivism were the same, in an extreme and at the time more palatable form for being more nationalist, and positioning select industries owned by a select few businessmen to exploit the system in exchange for political support. Likewise, the characteristics of that early fascism in economic terms are still present today, although they are not described as such. The practical characteristics of fascist economics are that:

1) The state is more important than the individual. Forming his own definition of fascism, Mussolini stated, "The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone." Under fascism, individual freedom is considered dangerous and threatening to the power of the state, more often than it is considered desirable room for individual expression and achievement. Mussolini also said, "Fascism reasserts the rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual." In short, like socialism, fascism is collectivist rather than individualist.

2) Government-business 'partnerships' are formed to organize new initiatives designed to improve or expand existing major businesses and industries.

3) Major industries which are deemed essential are planned centrally, with the collusion of both politicians and prominent corporate executives. This central planning seeks market 'order,' disdaining the 'chaos' which is actually the complexity of independent action within a free market.

4) Mercantilism and protectionism are established to favor major domestic industries at the expense of foreign imports. In a fascist economy, the people who live outside of the borders of the state are considered means for the profit of industries within the state, rather than partners for mutual advantage.

The essential definition of fascism which can be distilled from these characteristics is the co-interference of business in government and government in business, so that the two are inseparable. In fascism there is no major business which is not connected to central planning, and the avowed interests of the state are heavily determined by the wishes of prominent business figures who lead corporations. It is worth noting that economic fascism was more commonly referred to as corporatism by promoters. Today the corporation continues to be the means to consolidate and control modern economies, a container in which individual economic action is more easily managed and integrated with political rule, under the complex systematization of corporate law.

All of the four characteristics of fascism listed above are also present today in the vast majority of modern states, to varying degrees. The differences between the economies of the 'liberal democracies' which are professed to have free markets, and the economies of Mussolini's Italy or Hitler's Germany, are merely ones of degree and stylistic variation. Just as those tyrants exercised extreme control over personal expression in general, they presided over severe economic control. Just as liberal democratic states allow for more freedom in general, they allow more economic freedom. Yet the telltale marks of fascism are discernable in modern economies, though usually in more moderate forms. This is because the most prevalent economic systems today are just variations on a theme: the economic dominance of the state, control over exchanges within the state and between states, and what has evolved within that system.

"Virtually all of the specific economic policies advocated by the Italian and German fascists of the 1930s have also been adopted in the United States in some form, and continue to be adopted to this day."

— Thomas J. DiLorenzo

The varied protestors against supposedly disparate concerns such as imperialism, protectionism, monopolies, corporate subsidies, global trade management, price fixing, taxation, tariffs, planned economic development, sanctions, industrial cartels, or corporate irresponsibility should become aware that these are all aspects of economic fascism. These concepts have all been discussed as though they are distinctive in some sense, but they are just different guises of the same sort of economy and the same sort of society: statist, interventionist, compulsive, and collectivist. Do not be distracted by the confusion of sanitized terminology (which has assisted mightily in the extension of the substance of economic fascism and socialism thus far). Instead, we should focus on the foundation of principles and their effects in practice. We then see that economically, fascism and socialism rest on control and dominance, as do the modern states which are wrongly described as supporting free markets and free enterprise.

The dominant economic system today within the political system of "liberal democracy" is a combination of the economic fascist and socialist traditions. If we must classify this system, after carefully examining the facts, we should call it fascism. It is characterized above all by the collusion of governmental and private business, the interests of both indivisibly intertwined in a web of political influence and control — control over competitors, control over personal freedom, control over individual economic identity and the achievement of subjective, personal definitions of profit.

The partial economic interventionism of government under modern liberal democracies has more in common with extreme economic fascism than with the free market of Promethean capitalism. We need to reconsider a worldview that regards America as diametrically opposed to the economy of a highly socialist fascist state, such as China. In reality, the American economy has a great deal in common with the Chinese economy; though it is more free by degrees, it is nonetheless operating by the same principles. Virtually every country is fascist today, differing only in degree and kind of economic freedom which has met with interference from the encroachment of the state and from the commingling of business and government which is inevitable in a statist society. The varying interference of the state in freedom which is not obviously economic is also a matter of degree, rather than delineating entirely different species of societies.

For the most part, property is defined as being private in the "liberal democracies," although there is some socialistic state ownership. For the most part, that private property is nominally private for the majority of uses, and actually subject to appropriation, control, regulation, and of course fundamental definition by the state. Whenever there is a question of the sovereignty of the individual or the state over anything of value (land, money, time, labor, ideas) the "common good" as defined by the politicians of the state always wins over the private interests of the individual by definition, in even the most liberal "liberal democracy." As Hitler and Mussolini both found, even the most tyrannical economic supervision and rule can become acceptable to citizens of a democratic state as long as a shell of private property remains in name, and as long as business still makes a profit, though consolidated into strict corporate containers within a tangled web of political control.

"Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories?"

— Adolf Hitler

Because many wealthy businessmen seek stability so that they can enjoy their success, prosperity within a controlled market may actually serve to perpetuate fascist controls. This was the Chinese rulers' plan after Tienanmen Square showed them their grip was tenuous; they would buy off the unruly with cell phones and cars produced from the moderate economic freedom of a mere relaxation of the rules. Fascist administrators of markets are not always so cynical, but a tendency is present everywhere to give up on full freedom once personal success has been achieved within the system. The less wealthy are the ones who are often left to demand it. If they are persuaded by those who would maintain power over exchange, lured by the false promises of redistribution, most of the wealthy will be most unlikely to speak up for them. The wealthy are already satisfied — they do not have the same need for a real free market. Consider the example of the past: whenever minor fascism of a more liberal state becomes extreme fascism, major business leaders who speak out against this are a rare prize indeed.

The economies which are commonly regarded as 'free-market capitalist' are nothing of the sort. The control of authority has interfered and been involved all along. These economies are the result of private-personal-individual-and-consensual enterprise, ownership, productivity, and economic decisions in an interdependent, interconnected evolution with the centralized political power of government. It is also inaccurate to describe these economies as 'partially free-market' because they have evolved under controlled circumstances over many years, to be characterized today by limited independent decision and action. Their character is far from communism, but it is also far from the free market of individuals in Promethean capitalism. The repeated claim that 'liberal democracies' represent free-market capitalism is a sham. They have market economies — but not free-market economies. Their politicians often proclaim 'free trade,' as long as this only extends to nations, not the exchanges of individual people within them. These states are schizophrenic, caught between the economic rationales of authoritarianism and freedom. Upon realizing this, reasons for the failures of these economies become apparent. The common cause of problems within systems other than Promethean capitalism is the mixing of commerce and force, the co-interference of business and government.

Part of defining Promethean capitalism is defining what it is not. It is not exploitation. It is not invasive control over economic decisions. It is not the heavy cultural influence of centralized economics. It is not forced interference with individual life, which is permissible today most often in the financial sphere. It is not controlled definition or exchange of capital in any sense of the word. Nor does it suffer from the symptoms of control which belong to socioeconomic systems in practice today, and in the past.

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