What is fascism and how do we know we have it?

[Philippus Flavius Homovallumus]

Exactly!

I've always regarded facism as the individual existing for the state while in communism the state exists for the individual. But this assumes that they actually work, which they don't because people get in the way.

I think you have that backwards, or possibly sideways.

Facism is about the "Nation", which is the people as a race, which is why it usually turns racist. Communism talks about "the people" but is really interested in how they fit into the organs of the state as tiny cogs in the machine.

Both are intended to benefit "ordinary citiznes" and both are utterly lacking in compassion, unlike Conservativism and Liberalism, both of which give the individual intrinsic value.

Oh, and before you ask: Socialism is Communism-Lite, it still leans far to far in the direction of the individual as a statistic.