Aw, c'mon. Socialism is anything except Limbaugh Rightism, you know it's the truth, just admit it!
XYZ is a socialist / communist, revisited
- Thread starter Bruno@MT
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Aw, c'mon. Socialism is anything except Limbaugh Rightism, you know it's the truth, just admit it!
granfire
Sr. Grandmaster
Aw, c'mon. Socialism is anything except Limbaugh Rightism, you know it's the truth, just admit it!
I read so on the intrawebz, so it has to be true!
(you know, billi said so!)
You've all got it wrong.
THe Nazis were socialist, because they used the word "Socialist" in their name.
They said they were socialists, and so they were.
The old East Germany was a Democracy, because they were the German Democratic Republic.
North Korea? Clearly a Democratic Republic, since they're the People's Democratic Republic of Korea.
China? Reoublican, it is, after all, the People's Republic of China.
Cuba is also a republic, simply, the Republic of Cuba.
:lfao:
THe Nazis were socialist, because they used the word "Socialist" in their name.
They said they were socialists, and so they were.
The old East Germany was a Democracy, because they were the German Democratic Republic.
North Korea? Clearly a Democratic Republic, since they're the People's Democratic Republic of Korea.
China? Reoublican, it is, after all, the People's Republic of China.
Cuba is also a republic, simply, the Republic of Cuba.
:lfao:
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
You've all got it wrong.
THe Nazis were socialist, because they used the word "Socialist" in their name.
They said they were socialists, and so they were.
The old East Germany was a Democracy, because they were the German Democratic Republic.
North Korea? Clearly a Democratic Republic, since they're the People's Democratic Republic of Korea.
China? Reoublican, it is, after all, the People's Republic of China.
Cuba is also a republic, simply, the Republic of Cuba.
:lfao:
DAMN!!! Then that means....... we're...... United.... Sorry I can't buy that one... the rest...WELL YEAH!!!!
But the USA being United...Nah I don't believe that
I've been reading the comments, and it seems more along the lines that some people consider the Nazi's as socialist because of their having had a very strong centralized goverment leading a planned economy all for the public interest of course. They tend to mention Socalist as part of National Socialist because they think it is fitting for the economic system as the Nazi's imposed.
But, to give those posters that much credit would make it more difficult to take shots at them and have so much fun at their expense.
I know, I know. The shell of private ownership that the Nazi's did allow PROVES conclusively and without a doubt that they weren't anything like socialists.
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
Well...no
But just in case anyone is legitimately interested
Capitalism
Communism
Fascism
Nazism
Republic
Socialism
And Before anyone asks why I put one before or after another..its in ALPHABETCAL ORDER
I swear anyone starts something about that.... and to quote Charlie Browns little sister …I’ll thump ya
Xue Sheng
All weight is underside
On the other hand, by that standard Alexander Hamilton was a socialist.
:hmm: George Washington did not like the idea of political parties..... what's that make him
I have to say that if debate and conversation drives people away, well, I guess they should find somewhere where people simply agree with them. I have been called names and been criticized a lot here on the study, and yet, here I stand. This whole thread is essentially based on my threads, thank you, showing that much energy to refute me is complimentary. Since a lot of the people who seem to have stopped posting are on the left, Tez seems to be one, but it could be she has obligations somewhere else right now, it is not very impressive. Someone disagrees with your opinions, so you leave not real impressive. I know the only person I have ever launched on is Steve Bjj because he can be a pretty rude guy. I have for the most part tried to be polite, and have posted what I find in a non-threatening way. I can't say it has always been reciprocated, but hey, that's the nature of strong political debate. Especially when you are debating people on the left. At least they aren't participtating in thuggery.
Granfire is the only person I have put on my ignore list because of consistent rudeness, not because I simply disagree with differing opinions, a few others are on the short list to join granfire but I like to read what the other side has to say so I have done my best to ignore the rude behavior. Apparently, if some people have left, it is because they don't like people who disagree with them. I mean come on. You don't even have to look at the posts of people you don't like. You can even put them on the ignore list so you don't even have to take active measures to not read their posts.:angel:
THis is the study, it allows people to talk about politics. You have to come to the study by an act of will, you are not forced here either. Come on. If you can't deal with someone elses views, how are you going to handle an actual physical threat in the real world.
Granfire is the only person I have put on my ignore list because of consistent rudeness, not because I simply disagree with differing opinions, a few others are on the short list to join granfire but I like to read what the other side has to say so I have done my best to ignore the rude behavior. Apparently, if some people have left, it is because they don't like people who disagree with them. I mean come on. You don't even have to look at the posts of people you don't like. You can even put them on the ignore list so you don't even have to take active measures to not read their posts.:angel:
THis is the study, it allows people to talk about politics. You have to come to the study by an act of will, you are not forced here either. Come on. If you can't deal with someone elses views, how are you going to handle an actual physical threat in the real world.
:hmm: George Washington did not like the idea of political parties..... what's that make him
Smart.
On the other hand, by that standard Alexander Hamilton was a socialist.
Possibly. Now we are in to degrees. More of a mixed economy. The heavier the level of Federalism, the closer it gets to socialism, don't you think?
Here is something from one of my favorite sources:
http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id9.html (the clickable index below is at the end of this paper on why hitler is a socialist.)
Clickable Index:
A modern Leftist
Mises on Nazim and Bolshevism
Insane?
The country gentleman with majolica pots
Party programme
A Galbraithian Leftist
Eugenics
Feminism
Nazis were Greens
A population theorist
More Leftist than racist
Genocide is socialist
Mussolini and the fractious Left
Tom Wolfe on Nazism
Quote from Goebbels
Leftist election posters
Left/Right categorization inadequate?
Denials of Hitler's Leftism: Kangas
Peikoff on Nazi Leftism
Why the enmity between Nazis and the "Reds"?
But he was a nationalist!
There have always been Leftist nationalists
Stalin the nationalist
Non-Marxist objections
Neo-Nazis are different
Why was Hitler so powerful?
Love between the leader and the led
A democrat rather than a revolutionary
Post election manoeuvres
Hitler's socialist deeds
Conservatives and Hitler
Why Hitler's nationalism is confusing
Hitler's magic mix
Nationalism as a novelty
Nazism bourgeois?
Hitler was popular
Stalin as a national socialist
Ho Chi Minh as a national socialist
Is racism Rightist?
Other Fascists were not antisemitic
Distinguishing Hitler and Stalin
The holocaust
Fascism and Mussolini
Nazism in Germany today
Fascism in contemporary Russia
A final summary
References for the paper:
REFERENCES
Adorno,T.W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J. & Sanford, R.N. (1950). The authoritarian personality New York: Harper.
Ardrey, R. (1961) African genesis London: Collins
Brown, R.(1986) Social psychology (2nd. Ed.) N.Y.: Free Press. Harper
Bullock, A. (1964) Hitler: A study in tyranny N.Y.: Harper
De Corte, T.L. (1978) "Menace of Undesirables: The Eugenics Movement During the Progressive Era", University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
De Felice, R. (1977) Interpretations of Fascism Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P.
Dietrich, D.J. (1988) National renewal, anti-Semitism, and political continuity: A psychological assessment. Political Psychology 9, 385-411.
Feuchtwanger, E.J. (1995) From Weimar to Hitler: Germany 1918-33. N.Y.: St Martin's Press.
Fischer, C.J. (1978) The occupational background of the S.A.'s rank and file membership during the depression years , 1929 to mid-1934. In: Stachura, P. The shaping of the Nazi state. London: Croom Helm.
Galbraith, J.K. (1969) The affluent society 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Gregor, A.J. (1979) Italian Fascism and developmental dictatorship Princeton, N.J.: Univ. Press.
Hagan, J. (1966) Modern History and its Themes Croydon, Victoria, Australia: Longmans.
Heiden, K. (1939) One man against Europe Harmondsworth, Mddx.: Penguin
Herzer, I. (1989) The Italian refuge: Rescue of Jews during the holocaust Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press
Lipson, L. (1993) The ethical crises of civilization Newbury Park: Sage.
Locke, R. (2001) Rethinking History: Were the Nazis Really Nationalists? FrontPageMagazine.com. August 28
Madden, P. (1987) The social class origins of Nazi party members as determined by occupations, 1919-1933. Social Science Quarterly 68, 263-280.
O'Sullivan, N. (1983) Fascism. London: Dent.
Pickens, D. (1968) Eugenics and the Progressives. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press
Ray, J.J. (1984). Half of all racists are Left-wing. Political Psychology, 5, 227-236.
Ray, J.J. & Furnham, A. (1984) Authoritarianism, conservatism and racism. Ethnic & Racial Studies 7, 406-412.
Richmond, M. (1998) Margaret Sanger's eugenics. See here or here.
Ritzler, B.A. (1978) The Nuremberg mind revisited: A quantitative approach. J. Personality Assessment 42, 344-353.
Roberts, S.H. (1938) The house that Hitler built N.Y.: Harper.
Schoeck, H. (1969) Envy: A theory of social behaviour London: Martin Secker & Warburg.
Shirer, W.L. (1964) The rise and fall of the Third Reich London: Pan
Skidelsky, R. (1975) Oswald Mosley London: Macmillan.
Sniderman, P.M., Brody, R.A. & Kuklinski, J.H. (1984) Policy reasoning and political values: The problem of racial equality. American Journal of Political Science 28, 75-94.
Steinberg, J. (1990) All or nothing: The Axis and the holocaust London: Routledge.
Taylor, A.J.P. (1963) The origins of the second world war. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Toland, J. (1976) Adolf Hitler Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday.
Unger, A.L. (1965) Party and state in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Political Quarterly 36, 441-459.
Zillmer, E.A., Archer, R.P. & Castino, R. (1989) Rorschach records of Nazi war criminals: A reanalysis using current scoring and interpretation practices. J. Personality Assessment 53, 85-99.
Stalin as a National Socialist
As has been mentioned already, Hitler's strategy for popularity was not lost on Stalin. Quite soon after Hitler invaded Russia, Stalin reopened the Russian Orthodox churches and restored the old ranks and orders of the Russian Imperial army to the Red Army so that it became simply the Russian Army and stressed nationalist themes (e.g. defence of "Mother Russia") in his internal propaganda. As one result of this, to this day Russians refer to the Second World War as "the great patriotic war". Stalin may have started out as an international socialist but he ended up a national socialist. So Hitler was a Rightist only in the sense that Stalin was. If Stalin was Right-wing, however, black might as well be white.
Hitler's Socialist Deeds
When in power Hitler also implemented a quite socialist programme. Like F.D. Roosevelt, he provided employment by a much expanded programme of public works (including roadworks) and his Kraft durch Freude ("power through joy") movement was notable for such benefits as providing workers with subsidized holidays at a standard that only the rich could formerly afford. And while Hitler did not nationalize all industry, there was extensive compulsory reorganization of it and tight party control over it. It might be noted that even in the post-war Communist bloc there was never total nationalization of industry. In fact, in Poland, most agriculture always remained in private hands.
For more details of how socialist the German economy was under the Nazis, see Reisman. Excerpt:
"What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.
The Left/Right division is at fault
Faced with the challenge to their preconceptions constituted by the material I have so far presented, some people take refuge in the well-known fact that political attitudes are complex and are seldom fully represented by a simple division of politics into Left and Right. They deny that Hitler was Leftist by denying that ANYBODY is simply Leftist.
I don't think this gets anybody very far, however. What I have shown (and will proceed to show at even greater length) is that Hitler fell squarely within that stream of political thought that is usually called Leftist. That is a fact. That is information. And that is something that is not now generally known. And no matter how you rejig your conception of politics generally, that affinity will not go away. It is commonly said that Nazism and Communism were both "authoritarian" or "totalitarian" -- which is undoubtedly true -- but what I show here is that there were far greater affinities than that. Basic doctrines, ideas and preachments of Nazis and Communists were similar as well as their method of government.
But, as it happens, the Left/Right division of politics is not just some silly scheme put out by people who are too simple to think of anything better. There is a long history of attempts to devise better schemes but they all founder on how people in general actually vote and think. Most people DO organize their views in a recognizably Left/Right way. For a brief introduction to the research and thinking on the dimensionality of political attitudes, see here
http://constitutionalistnc.tripod.com/hitler-leftist/id9.html (the clickable index below is at the end of this paper on why hitler is a socialist.)
Clickable Index:
A modern Leftist
Mises on Nazim and Bolshevism
Insane?
The country gentleman with majolica pots
Party programme
A Galbraithian Leftist
Eugenics
Feminism
Nazis were Greens
A population theorist
More Leftist than racist
Genocide is socialist
Mussolini and the fractious Left
Tom Wolfe on Nazism
Quote from Goebbels
Leftist election posters
Left/Right categorization inadequate?
Denials of Hitler's Leftism: Kangas
Peikoff on Nazi Leftism
Why the enmity between Nazis and the "Reds"?
But he was a nationalist!
There have always been Leftist nationalists
Stalin the nationalist
Non-Marxist objections
Neo-Nazis are different
Why was Hitler so powerful?
Love between the leader and the led
A democrat rather than a revolutionary
Post election manoeuvres
Hitler's socialist deeds
Conservatives and Hitler
Why Hitler's nationalism is confusing
Hitler's magic mix
Nationalism as a novelty
Nazism bourgeois?
Hitler was popular
Stalin as a national socialist
Ho Chi Minh as a national socialist
Is racism Rightist?
Other Fascists were not antisemitic
Distinguishing Hitler and Stalin
The holocaust
Fascism and Mussolini
Nazism in Germany today
Fascism in contemporary Russia
A final summary
References for the paper:
REFERENCES
Adorno,T.W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J. & Sanford, R.N. (1950). The authoritarian personality New York: Harper.
Ardrey, R. (1961) African genesis London: Collins
Brown, R.(1986) Social psychology (2nd. Ed.) N.Y.: Free Press. Harper
Bullock, A. (1964) Hitler: A study in tyranny N.Y.: Harper
De Corte, T.L. (1978) "Menace of Undesirables: The Eugenics Movement During the Progressive Era", University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
De Felice, R. (1977) Interpretations of Fascism Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard U.P.
Dietrich, D.J. (1988) National renewal, anti-Semitism, and political continuity: A psychological assessment. Political Psychology 9, 385-411.
Feuchtwanger, E.J. (1995) From Weimar to Hitler: Germany 1918-33. N.Y.: St Martin's Press.
Fischer, C.J. (1978) The occupational background of the S.A.'s rank and file membership during the depression years , 1929 to mid-1934. In: Stachura, P. The shaping of the Nazi state. London: Croom Helm.
Galbraith, J.K. (1969) The affluent society 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin
Gregor, A.J. (1979) Italian Fascism and developmental dictatorship Princeton, N.J.: Univ. Press.
Hagan, J. (1966) Modern History and its Themes Croydon, Victoria, Australia: Longmans.
Heiden, K. (1939) One man against Europe Harmondsworth, Mddx.: Penguin
Herzer, I. (1989) The Italian refuge: Rescue of Jews during the holocaust Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press
Lipson, L. (1993) The ethical crises of civilization Newbury Park: Sage.
Locke, R. (2001) Rethinking History: Were the Nazis Really Nationalists? FrontPageMagazine.com. August 28
Madden, P. (1987) The social class origins of Nazi party members as determined by occupations, 1919-1933. Social Science Quarterly 68, 263-280.
O'Sullivan, N. (1983) Fascism. London: Dent.
Pickens, D. (1968) Eugenics and the Progressives. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press
Ray, J.J. (1984). Half of all racists are Left-wing. Political Psychology, 5, 227-236.
Ray, J.J. & Furnham, A. (1984) Authoritarianism, conservatism and racism. Ethnic & Racial Studies 7, 406-412.
Richmond, M. (1998) Margaret Sanger's eugenics. See here or here.
Ritzler, B.A. (1978) The Nuremberg mind revisited: A quantitative approach. J. Personality Assessment 42, 344-353.
Roberts, S.H. (1938) The house that Hitler built N.Y.: Harper.
Schoeck, H. (1969) Envy: A theory of social behaviour London: Martin Secker & Warburg.
Shirer, W.L. (1964) The rise and fall of the Third Reich London: Pan
Skidelsky, R. (1975) Oswald Mosley London: Macmillan.
Sniderman, P.M., Brody, R.A. & Kuklinski, J.H. (1984) Policy reasoning and political values: The problem of racial equality. American Journal of Political Science 28, 75-94.
Steinberg, J. (1990) All or nothing: The Axis and the holocaust London: Routledge.
Taylor, A.J.P. (1963) The origins of the second world war. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Toland, J. (1976) Adolf Hitler Garden City, N.Y. : Doubleday.
Unger, A.L. (1965) Party and state in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. Political Quarterly 36, 441-459.
Zillmer, E.A., Archer, R.P. & Castino, R. (1989) Rorschach records of Nazi war criminals: A reanalysis using current scoring and interpretation practices. J. Personality Assessment 53, 85-99.
Stalin as a National Socialist
As has been mentioned already, Hitler's strategy for popularity was not lost on Stalin. Quite soon after Hitler invaded Russia, Stalin reopened the Russian Orthodox churches and restored the old ranks and orders of the Russian Imperial army to the Red Army so that it became simply the Russian Army and stressed nationalist themes (e.g. defence of "Mother Russia") in his internal propaganda. As one result of this, to this day Russians refer to the Second World War as "the great patriotic war". Stalin may have started out as an international socialist but he ended up a national socialist. So Hitler was a Rightist only in the sense that Stalin was. If Stalin was Right-wing, however, black might as well be white.
Hitler's Socialist Deeds
When in power Hitler also implemented a quite socialist programme. Like F.D. Roosevelt, he provided employment by a much expanded programme of public works (including roadworks) and his Kraft durch Freude ("power through joy") movement was notable for such benefits as providing workers with subsidized holidays at a standard that only the rich could formerly afford. And while Hitler did not nationalize all industry, there was extensive compulsory reorganization of it and tight party control over it. It might be noted that even in the post-war Communist bloc there was never total nationalization of industry. In fact, in Poland, most agriculture always remained in private hands.
For more details of how socialist the German economy was under the Nazis, see Reisman. Excerpt:
"What Mises identified was that private ownership of the means of production existed in name only under the Nazis and that the actual substance of ownership of the means of production resided in the German government. For it was the German government and not the nominal private owners that exercised all of the substantive powers of ownership: it, not the nominal private owners, decided what was to be produced, in what quantity, by what methods, and to whom it was to be distributed, as well as what prices would be charged and what wages would be paid, and what dividends or other income the nominal private owners would be permitted to receive. The position of the alleged private owners, Mises showed, was reduced essentially to that of government pensioners.
The Left/Right division is at fault
Faced with the challenge to their preconceptions constituted by the material I have so far presented, some people take refuge in the well-known fact that political attitudes are complex and are seldom fully represented by a simple division of politics into Left and Right. They deny that Hitler was Leftist by denying that ANYBODY is simply Leftist.
I don't think this gets anybody very far, however. What I have shown (and will proceed to show at even greater length) is that Hitler fell squarely within that stream of political thought that is usually called Leftist. That is a fact. That is information. And that is something that is not now generally known. And no matter how you rejig your conception of politics generally, that affinity will not go away. It is commonly said that Nazism and Communism were both "authoritarian" or "totalitarian" -- which is undoubtedly true -- but what I show here is that there were far greater affinities than that. Basic doctrines, ideas and preachments of Nazis and Communists were similar as well as their method of government.
But, as it happens, the Left/Right division of politics is not just some silly scheme put out by people who are too simple to think of anything better. There is a long history of attempts to devise better schemes but they all founder on how people in general actually vote and think. Most people DO organize their views in a recognizably Left/Right way. For a brief introduction to the research and thinking on the dimensionality of political attitudes, see here
This paper, points out that even neo-nazis are lefties, although they claim to be on the right.
But Neo-Nazis are Rightist!
A remaining important objection to the account I have given so far is that Hitler's few remaining admirers in at least the Anglo-Saxon countries all seem to be on the political far-Right. In discussing that, however, I must immediately insist that I am not discussing antisemitism generally. Antisemitism and respect for Hitler are far from the same thing. Although vocal support for antisemitism was in Hitler's day widespread across the American political spectrum -- from Henry Ford on the Right to "Progressives" on the Left -- such support is these days mostly to be found on the extreme Left and for such people Hitler is anathema. And the antisemitism of the former Soviet leadership also shows that antisemitism and respect for Hitler are not at all one and the same.
But in the Anglosphere countries Hitler DOES still have his admirers among a tiny band of neo-Nazis and it is true that these are usually called the extreme Right. They normally refer to themselves as "The Right", in fact. How do I know that? I know that because I in fact happen to be one of the very few people to have studied neo-Nazis intensively. And I have reported my findings about them in the academic journals -- see here and here. But if Hitler was a socialist, how come that these "far-Rightists" still admire him?
Before I answer that, however, I must point out that the description "Far-Right" is a great misnomer for the successors of Hitler in modern-day Germany. As we will see below, modern-day German neo-Nazis are demonstrably just as Leftist as Hitler was. So are American, British and Australian neo-Nazis also Leftist in any sense?
The answer to that is a simple one: They are pre-war Leftists, just as Hitler was. They are a relic in the modern world of thinking that was once common on the Left but no longer is. They are a hangover from the past in every sense. They are antisemitic just as Hitler was. They are racial supremacists just as Hitler was. They are advocates of discipline just as Hitler was. They are advocates of national unity just as Hitler was. They glorify war just as Hitler did etc. And all those things that Hitler advocated were also advocated among the prewar American Left.
That does however raise the question of WHY such thinking is seen as "Rightist" today. And the answer to THAT goes back to the nature of Leftism! The political content of Leftism varies greatly from time to time. The sudden about-turn of the Left on antisemitism in recent times is vivid proof of that. And what the political content of Leftism is depends on the Zeitgeist -- the conventional wisdom of the day. Leftists take whatever is commonly believed and push it to extremes in order to draw attention to themselves as being the good guys -- the courageous champions of popular causes. So when the superiority of certain races was commonly accepted, Leftists were champions of racism. So when eugenics was commonly accepted as wise, Leftists were champions of eugenics -- etc. In recent times they have come to see more righteousness to be had from championing the Palestinian Arabs than from championing the Jews so we have seen their rapid transition from excoriating antisemitism to becoming "Antizionist".
But the thinking of the man in the street does not change nearly as radically as Leftists do. Although it may no longer be fashionable, belief in the superiority of whites over blacks is still widespread, for instance. Such beliefs have become less common but they have not gone away. They are however distinctly non-Leftist in today's climate of opinion so are usually defined as "Rightist" by default. So the beliefs of the neo-Nazis are Rightist only in the default sense of not being currently Leftist. They are part of the general stream of popular thinking but that part of it which is currently out of fashion. I say a little more on that elsewhere.
And so it is because the old-fashioned thinking of the neo-Nazis is these days thoroughly excoriated by the Left that they see themselves as of the Right and reject any idea that they are socialists. I can attest from my own extensive interviews with Australian neo-Nazis (see here and here) that they mostly blot out any mention of Hitler's socialism from their consciousness. The most I ever heard any of them make out of it was that, by "socialism", Hitler was simply referring to national solidarity and everybody pulling together -- which was indeed a major part of Hitler's message and which has been a major aim of socialism from Hegel on. And things like autarky and government control of the whole of society were attractive to them too so they were in fact far more socialist than they would ever have acknowledged. They don't realize that they are simply old-fashioned Leftists. Since most of the world seems to have forgotten what pre-war Leftism consisted of, however, that is hardly surprising.
And the neo-Nazis are assisted in their view of themselves as Rightist by Hitler's anticommunism. The falling-out among the Nazis and the Communists was in Hitler's day largely a falling-out among thieves but the latter half of the second world war made the opposition between the two very vivid in the public consciousness so that opposition has become a major part of the definition of what Nazism is. And Marxism/Leninism was avowedly internationalist rather than racist. Lenin and the Bolsheviks despised nationalism and wished to supplant national solidarity with class solidarity. Given the contempt for Slavs often expressed by Marx & Engels, one can perhaps understand that Lenin and his Russian (Slavic) Bolsheviks concentrated so heavily on Marx & Engels's vision of international worker solidarity and ignored the thoroughly German nationalism also often expressed by Engels in particular.
That class-war was the best way to better the economic position of the worker was, however, never completely obvious. The Fascists did not think so nor did most Leftists in democratic countries. Nonetheless, the internationalist and class-based (rather than race-based) nature of Communism did have the effect in the postwar era of identifying Leftism with skepticism about patriotism, nationalism and any feeling that the traditions of one's own country were of great value. The result of this was that people with strong patriotic, nationalist and traditionalist feelings in the Anglo-Saxon countries felt rather despised and oppressed by the mostly Leftist intelligentsia and sought allies and inspiration wherever they could. And Hitler was certainly a great exponent of national pride, community traditions and patriotism. So those who felt marginalized by their appreciation of their own traditional values and their own community must have been tempted in some extreme cases to feel some sympathy for Hitler.
But Neo-Nazis are Rightist!
A remaining important objection to the account I have given so far is that Hitler's few remaining admirers in at least the Anglo-Saxon countries all seem to be on the political far-Right. In discussing that, however, I must immediately insist that I am not discussing antisemitism generally. Antisemitism and respect for Hitler are far from the same thing. Although vocal support for antisemitism was in Hitler's day widespread across the American political spectrum -- from Henry Ford on the Right to "Progressives" on the Left -- such support is these days mostly to be found on the extreme Left and for such people Hitler is anathema. And the antisemitism of the former Soviet leadership also shows that antisemitism and respect for Hitler are not at all one and the same.
But in the Anglosphere countries Hitler DOES still have his admirers among a tiny band of neo-Nazis and it is true that these are usually called the extreme Right. They normally refer to themselves as "The Right", in fact. How do I know that? I know that because I in fact happen to be one of the very few people to have studied neo-Nazis intensively. And I have reported my findings about them in the academic journals -- see here and here. But if Hitler was a socialist, how come that these "far-Rightists" still admire him?
Before I answer that, however, I must point out that the description "Far-Right" is a great misnomer for the successors of Hitler in modern-day Germany. As we will see below, modern-day German neo-Nazis are demonstrably just as Leftist as Hitler was. So are American, British and Australian neo-Nazis also Leftist in any sense?
The answer to that is a simple one: They are pre-war Leftists, just as Hitler was. They are a relic in the modern world of thinking that was once common on the Left but no longer is. They are a hangover from the past in every sense. They are antisemitic just as Hitler was. They are racial supremacists just as Hitler was. They are advocates of discipline just as Hitler was. They are advocates of national unity just as Hitler was. They glorify war just as Hitler did etc. And all those things that Hitler advocated were also advocated among the prewar American Left.
That does however raise the question of WHY such thinking is seen as "Rightist" today. And the answer to THAT goes back to the nature of Leftism! The political content of Leftism varies greatly from time to time. The sudden about-turn of the Left on antisemitism in recent times is vivid proof of that. And what the political content of Leftism is depends on the Zeitgeist -- the conventional wisdom of the day. Leftists take whatever is commonly believed and push it to extremes in order to draw attention to themselves as being the good guys -- the courageous champions of popular causes. So when the superiority of certain races was commonly accepted, Leftists were champions of racism. So when eugenics was commonly accepted as wise, Leftists were champions of eugenics -- etc. In recent times they have come to see more righteousness to be had from championing the Palestinian Arabs than from championing the Jews so we have seen their rapid transition from excoriating antisemitism to becoming "Antizionist".
But the thinking of the man in the street does not change nearly as radically as Leftists do. Although it may no longer be fashionable, belief in the superiority of whites over blacks is still widespread, for instance. Such beliefs have become less common but they have not gone away. They are however distinctly non-Leftist in today's climate of opinion so are usually defined as "Rightist" by default. So the beliefs of the neo-Nazis are Rightist only in the default sense of not being currently Leftist. They are part of the general stream of popular thinking but that part of it which is currently out of fashion. I say a little more on that elsewhere.
And so it is because the old-fashioned thinking of the neo-Nazis is these days thoroughly excoriated by the Left that they see themselves as of the Right and reject any idea that they are socialists. I can attest from my own extensive interviews with Australian neo-Nazis (see here and here) that they mostly blot out any mention of Hitler's socialism from their consciousness. The most I ever heard any of them make out of it was that, by "socialism", Hitler was simply referring to national solidarity and everybody pulling together -- which was indeed a major part of Hitler's message and which has been a major aim of socialism from Hegel on. And things like autarky and government control of the whole of society were attractive to them too so they were in fact far more socialist than they would ever have acknowledged. They don't realize that they are simply old-fashioned Leftists. Since most of the world seems to have forgotten what pre-war Leftism consisted of, however, that is hardly surprising.
And the neo-Nazis are assisted in their view of themselves as Rightist by Hitler's anticommunism. The falling-out among the Nazis and the Communists was in Hitler's day largely a falling-out among thieves but the latter half of the second world war made the opposition between the two very vivid in the public consciousness so that opposition has become a major part of the definition of what Nazism is. And Marxism/Leninism was avowedly internationalist rather than racist. Lenin and the Bolsheviks despised nationalism and wished to supplant national solidarity with class solidarity. Given the contempt for Slavs often expressed by Marx & Engels, one can perhaps understand that Lenin and his Russian (Slavic) Bolsheviks concentrated so heavily on Marx & Engels's vision of international worker solidarity and ignored the thoroughly German nationalism also often expressed by Engels in particular.
That class-war was the best way to better the economic position of the worker was, however, never completely obvious. The Fascists did not think so nor did most Leftists in democratic countries. Nonetheless, the internationalist and class-based (rather than race-based) nature of Communism did have the effect in the postwar era of identifying Leftism with skepticism about patriotism, nationalism and any feeling that the traditions of one's own country were of great value. The result of this was that people with strong patriotic, nationalist and traditionalist feelings in the Anglo-Saxon countries felt rather despised and oppressed by the mostly Leftist intelligentsia and sought allies and inspiration wherever they could. And Hitler was certainly a great exponent of national pride, community traditions and patriotism. So those who felt marginalized by their appreciation of their own traditional values and their own community must have been tempted in some extreme cases to feel some sympathy for Hitler.
And so we once again miss the point altogether, and come full circle from the original post:From the paper, a section on the economist Von Mises:
(For those who are unaware of it, Von Mises was an Austrian Jewish intellectual and a remarkably prescient economist. He got out of Vienna just hours ahead of the Gestapo. He did therefore have both every reason and every opportunity to be a close observer of Nazism. So let us also read a bit of what he said about the Nazi economy
The Nazis did not, as their foreign admirers contend, enforce price control within a market economy. With them price control was only one device within the frame of an all-around system of central planning. In the Nazi economy there was no question of private initiative and free enterprise. All production activities were directed by the Reichswirtschaftsministerium. No enterprise was free to deviate in the conduct of its operations from the orders issued by the government. Price control was only a device in the complex of innumerable decrees and orders regulating the minutest details of every business activity and precisely fixing every individual's tasks on the one hand and his income and standard of living on the other.
What made it difficult for many people to grasp the very nature of the Nazi economic system was the fact that the Nazis did not expropriate the entrepreneurs and capitalists openly and that they did not adopt the principle of income equality which the Bolshevists espoused in the first years of Soviet rule and discarded only later. Yet the Nazis removed the bourgeois completely from control. Those entrepreneurs who were neither Jewish nor suspect of liberal and pacifist leanings retained their positions in the economic structure. But they were virtually merely salaried civil servants bound to comply unconditionally with the orders of their superiors, the bureaucrats of the Reich and the Nazi party.
***So yes, I still think Hitler was a lefty and a socialist.***
(For those who are unaware of it, Von Mises was an Austrian Jewish intellectual and a remarkably prescient economist. He got out of Vienna just hours ahead of the Gestapo. He did therefore have both every reason and every opportunity to be a close observer of Nazism. So let us also read a bit of what he said about the Nazi economy
The Nazis did not, as their foreign admirers contend, enforce price control within a market economy. With them price control was only one device within the frame of an all-around system of central planning. In the Nazi economy there was no question of private initiative and free enterprise. All production activities were directed by the Reichswirtschaftsministerium. No enterprise was free to deviate in the conduct of its operations from the orders issued by the government. Price control was only a device in the complex of innumerable decrees and orders regulating the minutest details of every business activity and precisely fixing every individual's tasks on the one hand and his income and standard of living on the other.
What made it difficult for many people to grasp the very nature of the Nazi economic system was the fact that the Nazis did not expropriate the entrepreneurs and capitalists openly and that they did not adopt the principle of income equality which the Bolshevists espoused in the first years of Soviet rule and discarded only later. Yet the Nazis removed the bourgeois completely from control. Those entrepreneurs who were neither Jewish nor suspect of liberal and pacifist leanings retained their positions in the economic structure. But they were virtually merely salaried civil servants bound to comply unconditionally with the orders of their superiors, the bureaucrats of the Reich and the Nazi party.
***So yes, I still think Hitler was a lefty and a socialist.***
Missing the point even more:
And let us look at the words of someone who was actually in Germany in the 1930s and who thus saw Nazism close up. He said:
"If I'd been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist. I could see how they'd become passionate about saving the nation. It was a time when you didn't believe there was a future unless the world was fundamentally transformed."
So who said that? It was the famous historian, Eric Hobsbawm (original surname: Obstbaum), who became a Communist instead and who later became known as perhaps Britain's most resolute Communist. Hobsbawn clearly saw only slight differences between Communism and Nazism at that time. And as this summary of a book (by Richard Overy) comparing Hitler and Stalin says:
"But the resemblances are inescapable. Both tyrannies relied on a desperate ideology of do-or-die confrontation. Both were obsessed by battle imagery: 'The dictatorships were military metaphors, founded to fight political war.' And despite the rhetoric about a fate-struggle between socialism and capitalism, the two economic systems converged strongly. Stalin's Russia permitted a substantial private sector, while Nazi Germany became rapidly dominated by state direction and state-owned industries.
And let us look at the words of someone who was actually in Germany in the 1930s and who thus saw Nazism close up. He said:
"If I'd been German and not a Jew, I could see I might have become a Nazi, a German nationalist. I could see how they'd become passionate about saving the nation. It was a time when you didn't believe there was a future unless the world was fundamentally transformed."
So who said that? It was the famous historian, Eric Hobsbawm (original surname: Obstbaum), who became a Communist instead and who later became known as perhaps Britain's most resolute Communist. Hobsbawn clearly saw only slight differences between Communism and Nazism at that time. And as this summary of a book (by Richard Overy) comparing Hitler and Stalin says:
"But the resemblances are inescapable. Both tyrannies relied on a desperate ideology of do-or-die confrontation. Both were obsessed by battle imagery: 'The dictatorships were military metaphors, founded to fight political war.' And despite the rhetoric about a fate-struggle between socialism and capitalism, the two economic systems converged strongly. Stalin's Russia permitted a substantial private sector, while Nazi Germany became rapidly dominated by state direction and state-owned industries.
And why "A" is for Awesome, which Men Are!
As a note, post 23,24 and 26 invited the response that I gave on why hitler was a socialist. It seems that some on the political left, (okay, I think more than some) can look at something and make it that which it is not, and then take something else and not see it as it is. For example, and this relates to the topic at hand, the left sees clearly that abortion rights are in the constitution, but the right to own and carry a firearm are not. Much like Hitler being a socialist, they can pick out certain items to make it look like palin is a socialist, but with papers by a PH.D., a book by a Ph.D in economics, commentary by another economist and a book researched by Jonah Goldberg, they cannot see that Hitler was truly a lefty, not a righty, and a socialist.
