"So what does Mussolini have in common with the Libertarians?"
When what I actually asserted was that,
"Libertarianism, logically leads to fascism at best, ..."
To which came the reply:
"How does Libertarianism logically lead to expanded government interference?"
Followed by the first question above.
What is being passed off as a modern ([sic] neoclassical oxymoronic much! or neoliberal from corporatist conservatism? Sure! Clue, what was a liberal perspective in the days if John Locke is no where near liberal today) politico-socioeconomic stance by rightwing ideologues who are adept at using false nomenclature to conceal the intent and motives of their ideology is a plutocratic ploy to maintain their exploitive power through wealth. Proto Nazis, and proto Fascists like Murray Rothbard, Hans-Hermann Hope, Frederich August von Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Milton Friedman, et al., have since the earliest days of Carl Menger (c. 1880) served the plutocratic caste who longed for the days before democracy, before political equality, serfdom, slavery, the days of Courtier class, absolute power answering to none, and monarchies. Fascism is merely extremely retrogressive conservatism, complete with its castes, racism, aristocratic and plutocratic snobs, playing out in rhetorical, emotional, political, and financial manipulation of the masses to produce a stampede of frothing at the mouth stupidity, so the white male privilege is protected and rich boys get their way at the expense of their minions. Those miseducated hordes calling themselves libertarians, a Tea Party, fiscal conservatives, neoliberals, and a host of similarly fictive labels that are intentionally dishonest.
These so-called libertarians (I suggest we call them oxymorons) flip liberty from a freedom from coercion to the freedom to coerce. That freedom-from and freedom-to dynamic is a key aspect of many ideologies. This includes theisms especially, and all "isms" that are not anti-"isms," like atheism, which is anti-theism. I have also determined through years of thought experiment that ideologies, "isms," are an authoritarian tool of manipulation and that there are anti-ideologies* (the "ism" suffix is an unfortunate linguistic convention). These ideologies--all of which are authoritarian, manipulative, and baseless--also include all forms of capitalism, Republicanism with its nationalism, conservatism, racism, white male chauvinism, sexism, etc., and neoliberalism which is a misnomer for retrogressive economic classism. This inversion of liberty makes their libertarianism authoritarian, which is oxymoronic at best, or impossible as anything other than the mischaracterization of feudalistic subjugation of the exploitable.
Oxymoronic Libertarianism is sold as being all about rugged individualism, individual liberty, individual power but, like every imposed artificial structure, it breaks down because it is false and due to the imbalance it causes in a perpetually balancing system. At the level of social interaction, where cooperation meets control, where expertise meets exploitation, and where desperation meets competition, individuality is weak and their brand of liberty produces social outcasts ripe for forced servitude. Capitalism produces social structures where controlled experts are forced through exploitation to be competitive, then drained of the power (value) they produce. Authoritarian hierarchies are designed to exploit the weaknesses of individualism and reward loyalty to the institution and system. Because of two points, the first of which is supremacy of psychological manipulation, not only employees but also those influenced through the market, that is patrons, consumers, even competitors will be under the influence of said company's ideologies. Even if the individual holds her ground, her voice will be swamped. And secondly, the accumulation of wealth, the real power, will without a doubt be used to suppress the individual whose voice doesn't conform.
The Libertarian's liberties are suspended, not by an accountable government for the sake of social cohesion and cooperation, but by loyalty to a totalitarian capitalist enterprise for the sake of survival then power through profit, expediency, and monopoly. Or worse, forced conformity in an ideological manipulation station, like a church or a university. This herd mentality, in turn, exposes the fallacies of even the propped-up markets, blunts social progress and innovation, leaves as the only option inter-corporate warfare, intra-corporate power mongering, and eventually feudalism, warlords, and slavery. This state will be supplanted by an extremely ridged dictator or worse a theocracy. All of whom will use the psychological manipulation of fascism. So as a baseless ideology, oxymoronic libertarianism, better termed as antisocial individualism in its falsehood leads to totalitarianism. As an interactive system, this oxymoronic fiction of an individualistic social animal fails on the grounds that it becomes very animalistic which is extremely antisocial.
Although, this is quite damning to the fascio-capitalistic pseudo-libertarian and a direct answer to the question, it is even more fatal to Neoliberalism, and forget freedom or liberty in the context of capitalism.
I have witnessed fascists' assertions that Fascism is the control of industry by the government, it is not, and this diversionary ploy is typically evinced by newly indoctrinated Friedmaniacs in lunchtime circle-jerks, or social media threads of which intellectually honest people have grown tired. Contrary to what you may think, or may have been taught, fascism is simple to understand. If you consider who uses fascism, how it is used, what it is used for, when historically it emerges, who it is used against, and filter out the tangential, peripheral, and ancillary conditions it emerges as an anthology of extremist ideologies motivating the basest of psychological states in the lowliest of demographics to support extreme conservatism. Extreme in how retrogressive, how backward, and how, in consequence, immoral the goal of their conservatism would be. Fascism can be understood from the viewpoint of the public as a partnership, a complicit government with capitalists, to the detriment of the population at large, with the purpose of empowering the plutocrats who populate both government and capitalist institutions as well as the revolving door in between.
But Fascism is, actually, only a step on the way to the logical conclusion of neoliberalism (which I described above) from the democracy we have now. For as governments concede the power to protect the people and capitalists garner that power through the accumulation of numbers and the real power, financially based, government will become the complicit protector and puppet of the emergent corporatist system which is Feudalism and serfdom all over again.
If you are wondering how this could come about, just watch the News - it is happening right now. Even with a cursory understanding of Hitler's Germany, gathered through a perusal of authoritative history on the subject. It is easy to see the chilling similarities in Germany, during Hitler's rise through the religio-political socioeconomic system of Fascist apologetics, and the last forty years of events in the US. Hitler availed himself to a multi-tiered approach (because it was made readily available by Ludwig von Mises, et al., in economics, Martin Luther's writings in religion, the consequences of WWI for politics and social vilification), just as the rightwing in this country has been doing since the dawn of the antebellum South felt threatened before the Civil War. The rhetorical ploys of fascism, extremely retrogressive conservatism, need an enemy, or some emotional focal point. Hitler used the economic devastation of a global depression to finally tip the political balance in his favor after a decade of ideological suppression of those people, the outsiders, gypsies, gays, Jews, progressives, labor unions, any but the true German conservatives. He would expound for hours in vitriolic diatribes about the evil "atheistic communists" at the Homeland's gate, to instill fear and loathing in the ignorant masses. A group ripe for such manipulation through their Teutonic myths and Christian ideologies. It didn't matter that Hitler's unbelievable brutality was on par with that of Stalin's in a system that was neither true communism nor Marxism, and that they both were a dictatorship based on a cult of personality. Stalin learned basic properties of his style from years in seminary. This is truth of authoritarian red in twentieth century history, but I digress.
After gaining the trust of the masses with his simple black and white, either you're in or out, with us or against us exclusionary ideology that appealed to the baser instincts of the masses under the guise of a positively Christian (another ideology that appeals to baser emotions), he was free to mandate regulations that lead to Nazism through a political process structured through retrogressive conservatism or Fascism. Around the world, the would be Libertarians of the Austrian School, standing there with their mouth agape, wondering where it went wrong, were then tossed aside in a war torn pile of confusion. They thought they were free of the opinions and voting rights of the "outsiders," those Elitists, those that didn't follow their god, didn't live or work hard like they did, those that met challenges in different ways, those that were not supposed to be qualified to take their jobs. They thought they were free. The libertarians were glad to see business booming do to the public regulations and deregulation of the German Military Industrial Complex. They thought they were free to pursue happiness; they thought, then the BS started, the technocratic excuses, the rationalizations, the hardliners and purists. In a viral sort of way, this is another commonality today's oxymoronic libertarians share with Mussolini.
You see, libertarianism has a serious flaw, an irrational blindspot common to ideologies of this nature, and it's not readily visible to those who long for the freedom to be self-serving, selfish, or self-centered. It remains totally undetectable to those suffering from a Dunning-Kruger illusion. We are members of a social species, a society. And in a society, individual ambitions must collaborate within the constraints of a social contract. The Libertarian is left with only the semblance of freedom, the myth of liberty, a childish wish that can lead to so many heinous ideologues gaining power of which Hitler and Mussolini were only two. But more specifically to the conservative perspective known as fascism, neoliberalism has another flaw that is, at its root, far worse than selfishness, it is based on an adaptation of Herbert Spencer's Social elitism (sadly, this was inappropriately mischaracterized as Social Darwinism), a Lamarckian variant on selection and survival of the fittest, a jungle mentality that states; Those that can should, and those that can't, should be left behind. Forgetting, for obvious reasons, that we are all in this precariously balanced, interwoven network of nature, together. The social contract is with all entities of this system. This is what Ayn Rand never understood. And, this is why our Founding Fathers wrote a living, changeable, developing, and progressive governing document.
So, Mussolini's Fascism manipulated a popular longing for social, national, and cultural supremacy. The population, like these oxymoronic libertarians, did not understand that this leads to, and is fueled by, social elitism (Herbert Spencer's, survival of the fittest). The consequences of which, leaves powerful institutions (like churches and other corporations), not individuals, at the helm, while destabilizing governments, societies, and the environment. Then these manipulated masses find themselves at the whim of powerful cabals, oligarchs, and corporations.
