Yeah, I wondered when that lunatic Ayn Rand would come up in this conversation.
On the topic of Nazism and capitalism, here's this from that Commounist souce, Wikipedia:
Economic Theory
Nazi economic theory concerned itself with immediate domestic issues and separately with ideological conceptions of international economics.
Domestic economic policy was narrowly concerned with three major goals:
* Elimination of unemployment
* Elimination of hyperinflation
* Expansion of production of consumer goods to improve middle and lower-class living standards.
All of these policy goals were intended to address the perceived shortcomings of the Weimar Republic and to solidify domestic support for the party. In this, the party was very successful. Between 1933 and 1936 the German GNP increased by an average annual rate of 9.5 percent, and the rate for industry alone rose by 17.2 percent. However, many economists argue that the expansion of the Germany economy between 1933 and 1936 was not the result of the Nazi party, but rather the consequence of economic policies of the late Weimar Republic which had begin to have an effect.
In addition, it has been pointed out that while it is often popularly believed that the Nazis ended hyperinflation, that the end of hyperinflation preceded the Nazis by several years.
This expansion propelled the German economy out of a deep depression and into full employment in less than four years. Public consumption during the same period increased by 18.7%, while private consumption increased by 3.6% annually. However, as this production was primarily consumptive rather than productive (make work projects, expansion of the war-fighting machine, initiation of the draft to remove working age males from the labor force), inflationary pressures began to rear their head again, although not to the highs of the Weimar Republic. These economic pressures, combined with the war-fighting machine created in the expansion (and concomitant pressures for its use), has led some commentators to the conclusion that a European war was inevitable for these reasons alone. Stated another way, without another general European war to support this consumptive and inflationary economic policy, the Nazi domestic economic program was unsupportable. This is not to say that other more important political considerations were not to blame. It is only meant to state that economics have been, and are a primary motivating factor for any society to go to war.
Internationally, the Nazi party believed that a international banking cabal was behind the global depression of the 1930s. The control of this cabal was identified with the ethnic group known as Jews, providing another link in their ideological motivation for the destruction of that group in the holocaust. However, broadly speaking, the existence of large international banking or merchant banking organizations was well known at this time. Many of these banking organizations were able to exert influence upon nation states by extension or withholding of credit. This influence is not limited to the small states that preceded the creation of German Empire as a nation state in the 1870s, but is noted in most major histories of all European powers from the 1500s onward. In fact, some transnational corporations in the 1500 to 1800 period (the Dutch East India Company for one good example) were formed specifically to engage in warfare as a proxy for governmental involvement, as opposed to the other way around.
Using more modern nomenclature, it is possible to say that the Nazi Party was against transnational corporations power vis-a-vis that of the nation state. This basic anti-corporate stance is shared with many mainstream center-left political parties, as well as otherwise totally opposed anarchist political groups.
It is important to note that the Nazi Party's conception of international economics was very limited. As the National Socialist in the name NSDAP suggests, the party's primary motivation was to incorporate previously international resources into the Reich by force, rather than by trade (compare to the international socialism as practiced by the Soviet Union and the COMECON trade organization). This made international economic theory a supporting factor in the political ideology rather than a core plank of the platform as it is in most modern political parties.
In a economic sense, Nazism and Fascism are related. Nazism may be considered a subset of Fascism, with all Nazis being Fascists, but not all Fascists being Nazis. Nazism shares many economic features with Fascism, featuring complete government control of finance and investment (allocation of credit), industry, and agriculture. Yet in both of these systems, corporate power and market based systems for providing price information still existed. Quoting Benito Mussolini: "Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power."
Rather than the state requiring goods from industrial enterprises and allocating raw materials required for their production (as in socialist / communist systems), the state paid for these goods. This allows price to play an essential role in providing information as to relative scarcity of materials, or the capital requirements in technology or labor (including education, as in skilled labor) inputs to produce a manufactured good. Additionally, the unionist (strictly speaking, syndicalist) veneer placed on corporate labor relations was another major point of agreement. Both the German and Italian fascist political parties began as unionist labor movements, and grew into totalitarian dictatorships. This idea was maintained throughout their time in power, with state control used as a means to eliminate the assumed conflict between management labor relations.
Effects
These theories were used to justify a totalitarian political agenda of racial hatred and suppression using all the means of the state, and suppressing dissent.
Like other fascist regimes, the Nazi regime emphasized anti-communism and the leader principle (fuhrerprinzip), a key element of fascist ideology in which the ruler is deemed to embody the political movement and the nation...
Hey. look. a) Nazi government and corporations were very closely tied; b) economics are primary in the causes of war; c) capitalist governments create corporations--like the British East India Company--to carry on war all the time.
Good thing we don't have any heavy corporate involvement, or private contractors carrying out military assignments, in Iraq or anywhere else, ain't it?
I guess you can argue that these are corporations, and the problem is they're not really capitalist, but that seems a little weird. I guess you could take comfort from the info on unions--but they did say, "veneer," not core, and personally I'd read real unions as deeply subversive of Fascism, which is probably why the Nazis and fascists always wipe them out.
Next up: Capitalism 101: human nature and acquisition! what absolute, surplus, and exchange value are!! how profit works!!!
Preview trailer: See, in capitalism everybody competes for everything in an economic arena (generally speaking, there's also some sort of ideological mechanism for pretending that this arena is separate from, "real life," and that the true values are elsewhere, while simultaneously asserting that the economic is in fact primary after all...such contradictions are everywhere); there's no consideration of human values as such; the whole point is to get more than the next guy; when you, "get more," you use what you got to get more still; the "winners," have more of what they took from everybody else than anybody else; the general theory is that this rising tide raises all boats.
What, you never heard it's a dog-eat-dog world out there? Never heard about, "keeping up with the Joneses?" Never had that vague feeling that too much ain't enough, the desire to go shopping just to go shopping? never known anybody who as hard as they worked, never got ahead? anybody who got screwed out of a raise, a promotion, a job? anybody who worried all the time about bills?
That's what capitalism is as a "lived experience," dude.
I still say Dan Quayle is the perfect illustration of why the assertion that capitalism is fair is hilariously wrong.
