Stanley George Payne (born September 9, 1934) is an American historian of modern Spain and European fascism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
His father found work as a carpenter after losing his job to the Great Depression, and eventually became the foreman of a planing mill.
His mother completed two years of nurse's training at a sanitarium in Chicago, but was forced to drop out due to lack of support from her family.
Payne uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism, and anti-conservatism.
[6] He sees elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, complete existence of large-scale capitalism as the common aim of all fascist movements.