What do communism, socialism, fascism, and nazism have in common? Centralized, planning-based collectivism.

Germany was the intellectual cradle of Marxism. Its thinkers widely helped spread socialist ideas before drifting into nazism. These doctrines, though different in values and morality, share the same architecture: they place the State and its power at the center of everything. Nazism didn’t arise from an excess of capitalism, but from an intellectual slide toward collectivism: a strong state, a directed economy, planning, and the suppression of individual liberties in the name of the “common good.” The only difference lies in the moral objective: the socialist acts for the class, the fascist for the nation or the race. But the engine remains the same — collective planning.

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Marx conceptualized class struggle and established the foundations of collectivism. His heirs, like Werner Sombart, adapted these ideas, transforming Marxist thought into a state system for Germany. Sombart, a convinced Marxist, saw economic planning as the engine of German progress. Seduced by the idea of a strong national identity, he contributed to the birth of national-socialism — that is, the fusion of Marxist collectivism with German nationalism.

From Stalin to Mussolini, from Hitler to Mao, they all applied the same recipe, simply adjusting the ingredients according to their values. All glorified the State. All sacrificed the individual for the collective.

Mussolini said: “Everything within the State, nothing against the State, nothing outside the State.”, Stalin: “The individual is nothing, the collective is everything.”, and Hitler: “The State must not protect the individual, but the species.”

These sentences summarize the same cult: that of the supreme State. All claim to be anti-capitalist, yet they end up tolerating a partial, controlled capitalism — useful to their plans, but tightly supervised by the State. Marx himself viewed capitalism as the stepping stone toward socialism, a transitional tool on the road to the collectivist society.

On paper, socialism and fascism look opposed. One claims to defend the people, equality, and social progress; the other, order, hierarchy, and the nation. But in practice, both rely on a directed economy, a strong and interventionist State, and the erosion of individual liberties.

According to Hayek, the transition from socialism to fascism is easy: the collectivist framework is already in place — only the morality needs to change. Socialism creates a society accustomed to planning, which becomes fertile ground for fascism. When society shifts, collectivists simply change the flag, not the method.

In 1928, the German state controlled 53% of the GDP. The authorities controlled nearly all economic activities of the nation. Since the State directed or influenced almost every economic activity, almost every personal goal depended on State decisions. As a consequence, if the State controls nearly everything, it must decide what matters and what doesn’t for almost every individual life. In other words, the State ends up determining the hierarchy of values and therefore what is “worth doing” in society, because people’s personal goals cannot be achieved without its intervention. This widespread presence of the State meant that many individual decisions already depended on the State apparatus. This alone does not explain the rise of fascism, but it did provide an institutional environment in which a totalitarian regime like nazism found it easier to impose its control.

Even today, the left has mutated: it no longer truly defends the working class but instead focuses on minorities. Yet the tools remain the same — a strong State, interventionism, planning. Meanwhile, the far right gathers those disappointed by this left, nostalgic for a protective State centered on the nation. Two sides of the same coin: planning-based collectivism.

Planning is a form of social engineering — flexible and amoral. The collective doesn’t matter: class, race, nation, or minority. What matters is the power to plan, to direct, to constrain. Planning doesn’t care about moral purpose: it works just as well to “redistribute wealth by class” as to “preserve national purity.”

The engine of planning-based collectivism rests on a vague and ill-defined notion: the “social goal,” or in other words, the common good or collective well-being. But the good of whom, and in common with whom? How do you determine what is “good” or “moral” for an entire society? These questions remain unanswered — yet the planner assumes the right to decide them as if managing a machine. But the well-being of a person depends on infinite factors, and everyone evaluates it differently. These values often contradict one another from one individual to another, making the idea of a single universal goal an illusion. Individual freedom precisely allows each person to pursue what they deem good for themselves, without submitting to an authoritarian vision of the good.

This is why the common good, often presented as society’s guiding star, becomes dangerous when defined globally. Its ambiguity invites those who seize it to decide what it means and then impose their interpretation on everyone. Gradually, this captured “common good” becomes a justification for coercive measures, and any opposition is treated as a threat to the collective objective. This is how an abstract ideal hardens and slips into totalitarianism, as seen when the “good of the class” or the “good of the race” became a pretext for exploiting individuals. The real common good should instead emerge from the sum of individual well-beings — a natural result of everyone’s freedom, rather than an ideal imposed from above through centralized planning.

Unfortunately, planning-based collectivism always leads to the same place: clientelism. When the State becomes the distributor of privileges, everyone seeks to benefit. The citizen becomes dependent on subsidies, aid, the political “gift.” And every gift is financed… with their own money.

Collectivism takes away your voice. It replaces direct democracy with over-representation. It makes you vote for people who will decide how to use your money, claiming to do so for your own good.

When the market regulates the economy, every euro in your pocket is a direct vote. You dislike a company? You stop buying its products. The sanction is immediate. But when the State becomes a monopoly and funds its services by force through taxation, your power to choose disappears. No competition, no alternative, no voice. Ballots replace free choice, and promises replace accountability.

When a politician “offers” you assistance, remember: that money comes from your pocket. You become dependent on someone who pretends to help you using your own resources. This is the essence of collectivism: individuals stripped of their freedom in the name of solidarity.

Collectivism decides for you how your money should be used and how you should live. And to maintain itself, the strong State must become coercive: coercive “for your own good,” coercive at the expense of your liberties. Equality and the social goal then serve as a justification for suppressing individual freedom. But why should we be forced to contract with ideologies we consider harmful?

Voting means choosing your taxes. Money is the concrete extension of freedom: if you lose the right to spend, you lose the right to choose.

Planning-based collectivism is a well-oiled, shape-shifting machine. Close the door on it, and it enters through the window. It presents itself alternately as progressive, nationalist, or social. But always, it concentrates power, stifles initiative, and replaces responsibility with coercion.

History shows that societies often begin on the left and end in fascism. The left is a waiting room for fascism and totalitarianism. Only liberalism — the strict limitation of State power — prevents this drift. Without a collective goal, there is no coercive plan.

Planning-based collectivism is persuasive and ever-changing, capable of seducing the masses by continuously reinventing itself. Its perversity lies in the fact that the very people who suffer from it end up asking the State to solve the problems… the State itself created. As Einstein said: “You cannot solve a problem with the same thinking that created it.”

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