Atlas / Comparisons / Anarcho-Capitalism vs Italian Fascism
Anarcho-Capitalism and Italian Fascism
Measured distance across six axes
Opposite ends of the recorded space. No axis places them within three points of each other. They diverge by eight points or more on EC, AU, SC, ID.
Axis by axis
| Axis | Rothbard | PNF | Gap | Reading | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| EC · Economic organisation | +10 | +01 | 9 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CU · Social and cultural order | +01 | +08 | 7 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
| AU · Organisation of power | −10 | +09 | 19 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| SC · Scale of decision | −10 | +09 | 19 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| ID · Rule of membership | −02 | +07 | 9 | Diverges | Carries the disagreement. Any claim that these two are alike has to explain this. |
| CH · Method and tempo | +03 | +07 | 4 | Differs | Real difference, but not the dividing line. |
Each axis runs from −10 to +10; the distance is the straight-line separation across all six at once, out of a maximum of 49.0. How the scoring works →
The evidence behind the widest gaps
A distance figure is worth nothing unless the scores behind it can be checked. These are the artefacts supporting the axes that separate these two most.
Rothbard · EC +10
At the ceiling. Every function including law and defence is to be supplied by contract.
- Programme textRothbard's For a New Liberty treats taxation as theft without qualification and proposes private courts and defence agencies.
PNF · EC +01
Near the centre: private ownership retained, unions abolished, and a very large state shareholding built during the depression.
- Documented act or statuteThe IRI, created in 1933, gave the state the largest industrial holding in Europe outside the Soviet Union while leaving firms nominally private.
- Programme textThe 1927 Labour Charter organised employers and workers into state syndicates and outlawed strikes.
Rothbard · AU −10
At the floor with anarcho-communism, from the opposite economic pole. The pairing is the strongest single refutation of the one-dimensional model.
- Comparative datasetBoth traditions reject the state as such; they differ by nineteen points on the economic axis.
PNF · AU +09
Parliament, opposition parties and the free press were removed by statute between 1925 and 1928.
- Documented act or statuteThe 1926 'very fascist laws' dissolved all other parties and created a political police and a special tribunal.
- Documented act or statuteThe 1928 electoral law replaced constituency choice with a single national list drawn up by the Fascist Grand Council.
What this comparison does not establish
Proximity means similarity of stated position. It carries no claim about competence, circumstance, scale of operation, or what either organisation actually did to the people under it. Two organisations can sit close together and produce entirely different histories, because those things are not on any axis and could not be.
Anarcho-Capitalism
1970– · United States
All state functions including courts, police and defence should be supplied competitively on the market; taxation is theft.
Italian Fascism
1922–1943 · Italy
The nation as an organic whole realised in the state; violence as regenerative; liberalism and Marxism both to be destroyed.
Distance is not the whole answer. Two organisations can sit the same distance apart for entirely different reasons, and the reason is the content of any claim about them. Open the comparison in the atlas to weight the axes yourself.
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