True enough: We can put socialism and fascism on a table and stare at them all we like, and all we may see will be differences. What is required to go beyond this is to widen our context of knowledge. For instance, let's say we draw two geometrical figures on the chalkboard: a scalene and an isosceles. If we focus merely on these two concretes, without widening our context, we will see nothing but difference. The two triangles have different angles, different side lengths, different locations, different sizes. Now imagine that we introduce a foil: We draw a square on the board. The difference between the first two triangles is still there, but is made insignificant by the even greater difference between the triangles, on the one hand, and the square on the other. This process of differentiation allows us to see the triangles as similar. If we are able to isolate an essential characteristic of the group (a difference bewteen the triangles and squares which explains all or most of the other differences between them), we can then integrate this group of similars into a single mental unit, uniting it by a common definition, i.e., forming a concept.(2)
We can treat social systems in the same way in which we treat geometical figures. As we observed before, there are probably innumerable differences between socialism and fascism. But what happens if we introduce a foil here, as well? Let's imagine that we introduce a third type of social system. Rather than having society control all property, and rather than having dictatorship in one form or another, we introduce a system in which individuals are free to follow the dictates of their own mind. Rather than having a system in which the choice is between the abridgment of political freedom or the abridgment of economic freedom, we introduce one in which no one's freedom is to be abridged. In short, we introduce capitalism : the social system in which all property is privately owned, and the government's function is restricted to the protection of individual rights.
Once we remember the possibility of the existence of such a system, the differences between socialism and fascism become trivial, superficial and, above all, non-essential. Differentiation of socialism and fascism from capitalism permits the recognition of their similarity. They do differ from each other, but only in the way in which the scalene and the isosceles differ from each other: in degree, but not in kind. Socialism and fascism are each forms of statism, forms of government in which the government is given complete or extensive control over the lives of its citizens.
