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Capitalism and Socialism; money and power.

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
The fact that there were many different inter-squabbling socialist factions can't hide the fact they did all call themselves well, socialist. Whether someone else wants to sniff & say they weren't true socialists leaves us w/ saying they were ok, the bad socialists.

But they weren't even socialists. They had private property in Nazi Germany. They had private entities controlling the means of production. They had wealthy people. They had titled aristocrats and nobles still around. These are not indicators of a socialist, anti-monarchist, or anti-capitalist regime.

It doesn't matter what they called themselves. At one time, there was an entity known as the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

If you always believe what a government calls itself, then you must believe that North Korea is a People's Democratic Republic. Is that what you believe?

fwiw, (& I'm not sure if it makes any difference) Fascism was Italian. The big mantra of both National Socialism and Fascism was that they were not capitalist, they were not Communist, they were the third way between the two. Bottom line it's still hard to somehow say they were conservative right wingers. Lots of folks, even today, call themselves the "third way" between capitalism & communism --and they're no way around it left of center.

The salient features of fascism are nationalism, racism, and/or ultra-patriotism - intense love of nation above all other things. Whether it's socialist, capitalist, authoritarian, or libertarian makes no real difference, as long as love of nation overrides all other considerations.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
What part of our economy is not capitalist, i.e., controlled by the owner/investor?
The funny answer....
License plate manufacture

The real answer....
Government exercises power that is very much like ownership.
Some things I've experienced in business.....
- Work hours & wages of hourly employees.
- Employer & employee conduct on the job.
- Days & hours of operation (for some retail businesses).
- Signage & advertising.
- Environmental effects.
- Consumer relationships.
- Business relationships.
- Market restrictions.
- Dictating financing relationships.
 

Pete in Panama

Active Member
Again though, NK propagandists will call themselves democratic. Should we call them such just because they claim to be them, when it doesn't fit any reasonable description of the political theory or underlying philosophy? Certainly many people are quick to remind that many Scandamavisns are after all not real socialists, even when plenty of then call themselves such. Though with the frequency of times things which just general centrist policy globally is called socialist I can scarcely fault some heavy sighing at colloquial use of the term.

In any case, I do not view political theory as just a left right spectrum but the oft referred to quadrant system, with an x and y axis, with many ways. Communism is a lot more diverse than capitalism, existing in three of the four if not all four quadrants, being that it's not just an economic but also philosophical and social framework. But there's also a lot in the y axis that isn't about either capitalism or communism.
We've got a problem w/ what we mean by "socialist". There are standard definitions, there are the masses of those that say they espouse what they call socialism, but if you reject all these then we can agree that you've come up w/ an exclusive definition of socialism that "proves" Hitler wasn't one.

Meanwhile the two most famous groups that folks think of when they hear the word socialist were the Soviet Socialists and the National Socialists --two groups that had a lot in common. A sample party platform could easily fit both (from here):

...wealth redistribution schemes, as well as his desire for central planning

11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.

12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.

13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.

14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.

15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions...
More info here. Of course you could easily provide links to other sites showing how Hitler was not a socialist, but perhaps we could agree that the subject is controversial w/ evidence on both sides, and we are each free to choose the direction we want to go.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
We've got a problem w/ what we mean by "socialist". There are standard definitions, there are the masses of those that say they espouse what they call socialism, but if you reject all these then we can agree that you've come up w/ an exclusive definition of socialism that "proves" Hitler wasn't one.

Meanwhile the two most famous groups that folks think of when they hear the word socialist were the Soviet Socialists and the National Socialists --two groups that had a lot in common. A sample party platform could easily fit both (from here):

More info here. Of course you could easily provide links to other sites showing how Hitler was not a socialist, but perhaps we could agree that the subject is controversial w/ evidence on both sides, and we are each free to choose the direction we want to go.

I'm not sure how controversial it is. For most of my life, I've observed that most folks I've known perceive the "left-right" political spectrum such that the Soviets would be viewed as Communists on the far-left, while Western democratically-oriented socialists were considered more moderate. The US Socialist Party made it very clear that they were not Soviet or Communist.

National Socialists, despite their name, have been commonly viewed to be on the far-right by most people. The idea that "Hitler was a left-wing socialist" has only come on the scene within the past few years, in some creatively revisionist attempt to build a specious argument that socialists in the US all secretly support Hitler. It's a classic "guilt-by-association" tactic, and a very shoddy one at that.

It would make as much sense to say "Hitler was a Christian" and try to associate all of Christianity with Hitler. (I think some people may have actually tried that, but it usually falls flat, because it's so transparent and ridiculous.)
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
What part of our economy is not capitalist, i.e., controlled by the owner/investor?
Federal, state, and local social services, including things like Medicare, Social Security, and even the U.S. Armed Services. Even the government itself. And those are just for starters.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Federal, state, and local social services, including things like Medicare, Social Security, and even the U.S. Armed Services. Even the government itself. And those are just for starters.
But those examples are all basically just 'proxy consumers', not producers. They buy what they decide we need, for us, with our money. And they have little, if any, control over those vendors/producers.
 

Revoltingest

Pragmatic Libertarian
Premium Member
Federal, state, and local social services, including things like Medicare, Social Security, and even the U.S. Armed Services. Even the government itself. And those are just for starters.
Those aren't the "means of production".
In fact, the military is the "means of destruction".
 

Pete in Panama

Active Member
...National Socialists, despite their name, have been commonly viewed to be on the far-right by most people...
So what I'm getting is that if we put it to a vote you believe that I'd have to agree. There are a lot of folks that say the National Socialists were not true socialists but whether they're the majority is debatable. If it's a matter of definitions --how we define "socialist" and how we define "national socialist" we find a lot of similarities.

Something that overwhelms the discussion at this point is the mass of passions where folks really really want the Nazis to be right wing, well, just because --and there's no discussion.

So we can end it there if u want.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
So what I'm getting is that if we put it to a vote you believe that I'd have to agree. There are a lot of folks that say the National Socialists were not true socialists but whether they're the majority is debatable. If it's a matter of definitions --how we define "socialist" and how we define "national socialist" we find a lot of similarities.

Something that overwhelms the discussion at this point is the mass of passions where folks really really want the Nazis to be right wing, well, just because --and there's no discussion.

So we can end it there if u want.

But they were always considered right-wing. It's you and others on the right who really really want the Nazis to be left-wing. The fact that you keep bringing it up (as if it's even relevant to a discussion about capitalism and socialism in the modern day) shows the kind of desperation it must take to keep harping on this point.
 

ADigitalArtist

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
We've got a problem w/ what we mean by "socialist". There are standard definitions, there are the masses of those that say they espouse what they call socialism, but if you reject all these then we can agree that you've come up w/ an exclusive definition of socialism that "proves" Hitler wasn't one.

Meanwhile the two most famous groups that folks think of when they hear the word socialist were the Soviet Socialists and the National Socialists --two groups that had a lot in common. A sample party platform could easily fit both (from here):

More info here. Of course you could easily provide links to other sites showing how Hitler was not a socialist, but perhaps we could agree that the subject is controversial w/ evidence on both sides, and we are each free to choose the direction we want to go.
It's not really controversial. Only a very small population of polisci, usually political pundits of the right rather than historians or polisci, try to say that national socialists were either socialist or left leaning, as a 'gotcha' argument rather than any sound criticism of what socialism represents.

That I can find websites for and against any proposition certainly does not merit it being considered equally weighted.
 
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metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
But those examples are all basically just 'proxy consumers', not producers. They buy what they decide we need, for us, with our money. And they have little, if any, control over those vendors/producers.
That's not the point, as what they, or any other group, "produces" doesn't have to be hard goods. We, like all countries nowadays, are considered to have "mixed economies".
 

PureX

Veteran Member
That's not the point, as what they, or any other group, "produces" doesn't have to be hard goods. We, like all countries nowadays, are considered to have "mixed economies".
The only challenge I've ever seen in the U.S. to the total control of the capital investor over the production of goods and services are emergency controls that had to be implemented to save the worker's and the consumer's lives and well-being. Like health and safety regulation, and labor protections, that had to be written into law and enforced as such because capitalism has no concern whatever for the health or safety of anyone. It's all about the capital investor using his/her 'extra' money to capture yet more 'extra money'. The system does not care who the investor is, or how they got that 'extra money', or who gets hurt in the pursuit of a maximum return on the capital invested. It's a totally amoral system, which is why we keep having to write laws and install oversight to try and protect the humans involved in the system.
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
So what I'm getting is that if we put it to a vote you believe that I'd have to agree. There are a lot of folks that say the National Socialists were not true socialists but whether they're the majority is debatable. If it's a matter of definitions --how we define "socialist" and how we define "national socialist" we find a lot of similarities.

Something that overwhelms the discussion at this point is the mass of passions where folks really really want the Nazis to be right wing, well, just because --and there's no discussion.

So we can end it there if u want.
We can find a lot of similarities between Nazi Germany and the modern United States:
  • Hero worship of the Head of State
  • A mixed healthcare system heavily subsidized by taxpayer money
  • A powerful military that is widely revered and seen as the solition to all foreign policy problems
  • Domestic politics with a strong nationalistic rhetoric and a heavy emphasis on fighting "communists"
  • An aggressive foreign policy that sees similarly-sized states primarily as enemies
  • Powerless unions and a largely subjugated workforce
  • Heavy reliance on foreign workers being forced to work in poor conditions
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
Libertarianism is also across left-right spectrum but the most extreme opposite of fascism on the compass is anarcho-communism which is both socialist and extremely libertarian.
Indeed! I have been talking at length in the past about the authoritarian nature of capitalist society, and how a free society that was worthy of the name would have to, at the very least, divest itself of some major elements of capitalism, particularly those that are currently most prominent (oppression of the working class, enforcement of exclusively capitalist control over the means of production, suppression of alternative or anti-capitalist ways of life)
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
But they weren't even socialists. They had private property in Nazi Germany. They had private entities controlling the means of production. They had wealthy people. They had titled aristocrats and nobles still around. These are not indicators of a socialist, anti-monarchist, or anti-capitalist regime.

It doesn't matter what they called themselves. At one time, there was an entity known as the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither Holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.

If you always believe what a government calls itself, then you must believe that North Korea is a People's Democratic Republic. Is that what you believe?



The salient features of fascism are nationalism, racism, and/or ultra-patriotism - intense love of nation above all other things. Whether it's socialist, capitalist, authoritarian, or libertarian makes no real difference, as long as love of nation overrides all other considerations.
Haven't you heard? Hitler favorably mentioned socialism in 3-4 of his literally hundreds of speeches, and the Strasser brothers called themselves "socialist" before one of them was murdered by his party "friends", which is sufficient to call the NSDAP a socialist movement, despite the fact that they neither desired nor implemented collective ownership of the means of production.

In other news, the Kim regime in North Korea is a democracy, because they call their country the Democratic Republic of Korea, and Hugo Chavez was a champion of liberty and freedom because he called himself "the Liberator" once.
 

Pete in Panama

Active Member
We can find a lot of similarities between Nazi Germany and the modern United States:
  • Hero worship of the Head of State
  • A mixed healthcare system heavily subsidized by taxpayer money
  • A powerful military that is widely revered and seen as the solition to all foreign policy problems
  • Domestic politics with a strong nationalistic rhetoric and a heavy emphasis on fighting "communists"
  • An aggressive foreign policy that sees similarly-sized states primarily as enemies
  • Powerless unions and a largely subjugated workforce
  • Heavy reliance on foreign workers being forced to work in poor conditions
Maybe I'm wrong but I'm getting the hint that you're unhappy w/ things. Is there anything I can do to help u?
 

metis

aged ecumenical anthropologist
Haven't you heard? Hitler favorably mentioned socialism in 3-4 of his literally hundreds of speeches, and the Strasser brothers called themselves "socialist" before one of them was murdered by his party "friends", which is sufficient to call the NSDAP a socialist movement, despite the fact that they neither desired nor implemented collective ownership of the means of production.
The use of the term "socialist" was a selling point by the NAZI's as there had developed a literal hatred for capitalism because there were no safety nets in place as their economy collapsed. But fascism is not on the same side of the "ledger" as socialism is, plus we need to remember that Marxist teachings allowed for autocracy if the system couldn't be changed through democracy. Therefore, Marxism is really a bit of an anomaly as compared to other socialist movements that believed that this process needed to be done democratically.

The unfortunate reality is that all too many people equate "socialism" with "communism" and also with "Marxism", whereas these are not synonymous terms.
 

Kooky

Freedom from Sanity
The use of the term "socialist" was a selling point by the NAZI's as there had developed a literal hatred for capitalism because there were no safety nets in place as their economy collapsed. But fascism is not on the same side of the "ledger" as socialism is, plus we need to remember that Marxist teachings allowed for autocracy if the system couldn't be changed through democracy. Therefore, Marxism is really a bit of an anomaly as compared to other socialist movements that believed that this process needed to be done democratically.

The unfortunate reality is that all too many people equate "socialism" with "communism" and also with "Marxism", whereas these are not synonymous terms.
The NSDAP had no love for Marx or any related theorists or activists, so whatever authoritarian tendencies one might find in Marxist literature would have been quite irrelevant to the theorists of National Socialism, if we can even call them that.

What little foundational literature existed for Nazism remained largely superficial, and was quickly purged when those ideological origins became inconvenient to attract financially potent and politically influential investors like the Krupp family or the Hindenburgs.

Unlike Marxism or even socialism in general, fascist movements like National Socialism remain largely a political aesthetic or practice, rather than a coherent ideology that can be rationally engaged with. This is one reason why fascisms fit in so well in so many disparate political movements from the 1930s to the present - as long as one can turn any given ideology towards the primary goals of fascism - violent machismo, eliminationism of political opponents, racial or cultural supremacy, and leadership cult - there seems to be almost no limit to the kind of beliefs one could attach to it.
 
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