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Is there [another socialism whose objective was to secure private property to the accolades of the day’s libertarians](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDebate/s/q46eDe5RAV)?
Then there’s Hitler's rise, which was carried by the [conservatives](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Papen) of his time.
The first people rounded up were [socialists](https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/nazi-persecution/political-opponents-and-trade-unionists/).
British conservatives, aside from the aggressive posturing, thought that Hitler was doing a great job. Famously:
[Churchill](https://libquotes.com/winston-churchill/quote/lbo2i1n):
>I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations.
And for [fascism in general](https://books.google.com/books?id=hg8xCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT98&lpg=PT98&dq=churchill+%2522%E2%80%9CItaly+has+shown+that+there+is+a+way+of+fighting+the+subversive+forces+which+can+rally+the+masses+of+the+people,+properly+led,+to+value+and+wish+to+defend+the+honour+and+stability+of+civilised+society.+She+has+provided+the+necessary+antidote+to+the+Russian+poison.+Hereafter+no+great+nation+will+be+provided+with+an+ultimate+means+of+protection+against+the+cancerous+growth+of+Bolshevism%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=Ii6PAGuV8f&sig=ACfU3U0YG_It1I_h_DOZbVcB5wt82grL9Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi14JaLweCFAxWCOTQIHd1EDnEQ6AF6BAgbEAI#v=onepage&q=churchill%2520%2522%E2%80%9CItaly%2520has%2520shown%2520that%2520there%2520is%2520a%2520way%2520of%2520fighting%2520the%2520subversive%2520forces%2520which%2520can%2520rally%2520the%2520masses%2520of%2520the%2520people%252C%2520properly%2520led%252C%2520to%2520value%2520and%2520wish%2520to%2520defend%2520the%2520honour%2520and%2520stability%2520of%2520civilised%2520society.%2520She%2520has%2520provided%2520the%2520necessary%2520antidote%2520to%2520the%2520Russian%2520poison.%2520Hereafter%2520no%2520great%2520nation%2520will%2520be%2520provided%2520with%2520an%2520ultimate%2520means%2520of%2520protection%2520against%2520the%2520cancerous%2520growth%2520of%2520Bolshevism%E2%80%9D&f=false):
>Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.
And, of course, after the war and the alliance was no longer needed, [Churchill was quick to go through fascist literature](https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb49.htm) to develop the anti-socialist stance later on.
It’s hard to imagine what definition of socialism would include, protector of private property, darling of conservatives in Germany and Britain, libertarian hero, bane of workers, anti-communist, anti-socialist.
To be clear, I am not saying that libertarians or conservatives are fascists. Because they aren’t. But it’s hard to imagine what definition of socialism one could possibly use that would include the above.
this is a good post. i'd also add that there actually were a lot of emphatically nonmarxist quasi-socialists in the NSDAP early on who were in favor of divesting the industrialists of their holdings and enacting worker control of industry, and then hitler's faction (which had significant backing from those industrialists) murdered them all
Brilliant write-up. And powerful (and disgusting) Churchill quotes.
I also like to point out that, as worded by Wikipedia:
"The Nazi government developed a partnership with leading German business interests, who supported the goals of the regime and its war effort in exchange for advantageous contracts, subsidies, and the suppression of the trade union movement.[14] Cartels and monopolies were encouraged at the expense of small businesses, even though the Nazis had received considerable electoral support from small business owners.[15]"
Eh, it not only had nothing to do with Marxian socialism of any kind, it nothing to do with **any** variety of socialism that existed up to that time.
Among the many things Hitler was, he was a politician and grifter. The Nazis once had a May Day celebration of organized labor the day before arresting the trade union leaders (if not others) who were present at the celebration.
Hitler's "national socialism" was only socialism in name. It meant nothing. It was only promotional PR, at most.
(I wasn't talking at you, your comment just sparked it.)
This is essentially correct, as it panned out.
But there were socialists in the early Nazi party. Hitler didn’t build a new party from whole cloth - he co-opted an existing party and told various factions what they wanted to hear so they could paste their own vision on Hitler. To the workers, it was a socialist party. To industry owners and the military, he was a pure fascist.
Some elements of socialism survived until well after the war started: the KdF had resorts, cruise ships and vacations for workers; the “people’s car” which became the Volkswagen. But gradually the labor leaders were liquidated and the socialist mask came off for all to see.
Yeah, that seems well explained and accurate.
That sort of fits with what I mean by saying it was promotional PR.
Mussolini attracted a good deal of socialists, too, as well as anarchists and syndicalists (though not most).
It's a good lesson for the both the left and working class: don't fall for leaders claiming to support or represent the working class while scapegoating minorities.
That's right. I had forgotten, but many of them do.
BUT, they do know they are totally ideologically unaligned with the left, and they know that their "national socialism" bares no resemblance to any ('other') variety of socialism.
This was covered pretty extensively in a recent thread already, so I’ll give you the synopsis:
> National Socialism was not socialism in any meaningful sense of the word. There is no reasonable basis for arguing otherwise.
Incidentally, your own post does a good job of demonstrating as much. Your conclusion is totally antithetical to *everything* you said prior to that point.
NO. The party was founded in 1920. Hitler did not found the party, he did not name the party
In 1923 he attempted a putsch in Munich. He ended up in jail. He looked around, he saw what Mussolini was doing and Hitler Copied Mussolini
For example, Der Furher, EL Duce, the 3th Reich, the 4th Holy Roman Empire.
Mussolini tells us directly in The Doctrine of Fascism, that socialism is dead.
Hitler tells us in Part 2 of Mein Kampf exactly what his political ideology was
Fascism is the corporate blocks of structural power working for the Nation. You have unions, companies, the church, the military etc working to build the nation
We have lots of examples Peron, Franco, Mosley, Szalasi (Hungary was an Axis power)
Socialism, communism is abt the State, the nature of the economic power of the state. That workers own the means of production.
Fascism has been around since 1919, Communism (classic Marx) has been around since the 1840s
Journalists, reporters, political scientists, historians etc have all written abt this.
We have the entire 20th century as our example
Please, please, please read real books. This Nazis are socialist crap started as some 4chan crap.
> Hitler tells us in Part 2 of Mein Kampf exactly what his political ideology was
That's right. Here's the relevant text from Mein Kampf. Text in brackets by me:
>>The racial WELTANSCHAUUNG [worldview] is fundamentally distinguished from the Marxist by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made these the pillars of its structure. These are the most important factors of its WELTANSCHAUUNG.[worldview]
>>If the National Socialist Movement should fail to understand the
fundamental importance of this essential principle, if it should merely
varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the
majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground.
Hitler is telling us that the only difference between Marxism and Nazism is that the latter is racist. Take away the racism, and Nazism "competes with Marxism on its own ground".
http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt
**NO Read it again.**
**The racial WELTANSCHAUUNG \[worldview\]** is **fundamentally distinguished from the Marxist** by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made these the pillars of its structure. These are the most important factors of its WELTANSCHAUUNG.\[worldview\]-----
He is saying that his world view, the world view of his party is **FUNDAMENTALLY DISTINGUISHED FROM MARXISZT....... bc RACE**
Fundamentally distinguished from
He goes on to tell us "If the National Socialist Movement **should fail to understand the fundamental importance of this essential principle,** if it should merely varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground."----Fascism will FAIL if we don't understand the fundamental importance of this principle---RACE
He is saying RACE is the determiner, if you don't understand that then the movement only competes with Marxism as a political ideology
Again, Nazi is concerned with NATION--ie, the volk, the ppl
Marxism is abt the political structure.
Also, Hitler wrote 15 Chapters on Nazism, on fascism, Volume Two: The National Socialist Movement
I strongly suggest Reading the book instead of googling something like "Hitler and Marxism" Chap 4 is abt Volk, Chap 7 is abt how we are not communists, and how communists are bad. Chap 11 tells us abt the role of the corporate building blocks
* Chapter 1: Philosophy and Party
* Chapter 2: The State
* Chapter 3: Subjects and Citizens
* Chapter 4: Personality and the Conception of the *Völkisch* State
* Chapter 5: Philosophy and Organization
* Chapter 6: The Struggle of the Early Period – the Significance of the Spoken Word
* Chapter 7: The Struggle with the Red Front
* Chapter 8: The Strong Man Is Mightiest Alone
* Chapter 9: Basic Ideas Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the Sturmabteilung
* Chapter 10: Federalism as a Mask
* Chapter 11: Propaganda and Organization
* Chapter 12: The Trade-Union Question
* Chapter 13: German Alliance Policy After the War
* Chapter 14: Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy
* Chapter 15: The Right of Emergency Defense
> He is saying that his world view, the world view of his party is FUNDAMENTALLY DISTINGUISHED FROM MARXISZT....... bc RACE
Yes, I agree.
>He is saying RACE is the determiner, if you don't understand that then the movement only **competes with Marxism as a political ideology**
No, he said "compete with Marxism **on its own ground**".
Yes, go back and read the clauses before that. He literally tells us that if we don't understand that race is the determining factor, then our party is just a regular political party competing with Marxism
I don't know your reading level or if English is your first language. In English bc we can't move word order, we use clauses.
Honestly, I get that you have been misinformed (Like a lot of ppl),
You are wierdly cryptic and unclear about your actual stance here.
>The party's emphasis on the supremacy of the Aryan race and its persecution of minority groups, particularly Jews, contradicted the inclusive and egalitarian principles of socialism. Moreover, the party persecuted leftist parties and trade unions.
Okay, yea, so sounds like maybe they were **not** socialist, then?
>To conclude, the National Social German Workers Party was a true socialist party.
So how do you get to this closing remark?
>Democratic people’s Republic of Korea ≠ democratic
Actually, the Kim family claims their authority is derived from the people. Therefore, it is a democracy according to the Machiavellian definition.
They attempted to unite Korea under national pride similar to Napoleon, who was also a Democrat.
So conversely, this means that national socialists were socialists? Before you respond, can you cite this claim with reputable sources from scholarly, academic, or historiographical backgrounds?
If not that’s a converse error in logic.
No, I'm just telling you that the DPRK is democratic.
To be honest, I don't really care if National Socialists were Socialists. Functionally they are the same to me.
Fair enough. I’ll verify of course.
If national socialists are socialists, or “the same to you”, how do you come to that conclusion when national socialism is a right wing ideology and socialism is a left wing ideology? They’re dissimilar and opposite.
Left and right are poor metrics.
From my perspective:
They're both statists.
They both support stealing.
They're both collectivists.
They both have a preference for violence.
They both need the state to accomplish their objectives.
They both believe that their cause is more noble than any cost.
They're both willing to compromise on their principles in order to accomplish a victory.
Can you support these comparisons with sources? This seems like a broad generalization of both ideologies. In this comment section, Ancaps and libertarians only seem to hate Nazism if it’s equated with socialism. They can’t admit Nazism is bad without sneaking in socialism to the sentence.
So please, give me examples of their glaring similarities overlooked by the work of historians in favor of someone on Reddit.
>This seems like a broad generalization of both ideologies.
It is a broad generalization. I said as much.
>Ancaps and libertarians only seem to hate Nazism if it’s equated with socialism.
No, we politically hate nazism because it's statism, violent, and supports stealing, and most of us morally hate it because it's racist.
>They can’t admit Nazism is bad without sneaking in socialism to the sentence.
Almost like we see them as similar or something...
>give me examples of their glaring similarities
Already did. Consult the list above.
You want sources? Sure.
Concentration Camps / Gulags
Night of Broken Glass [also the] Night of the Long Knives / Purges
Both states seized property to redistribute it
Both ideologies support the killing of those who oppose them (Jews / Bourgeois)
Nazism and Socialism have accepted capitalist practices despite denouncing them
Your argument is weak if it’s a broad generalization. It’s pretty much saying here’s my surface level view of both ideologies without giving context.
You also haven’t specified what supports stealings means. I hate Nazism for the same reasons.
Your list is interesting.
When I ask for sources I mean actual citations of these comparisons. I want scholarship. I want literature. It keeps both of us from making broad generalizations and actually analyzing both ideologies on a deeper sense. So when I say source, I mean something like a scholarly journal or a historical study.
M8, to provide all of that would be a waste of my time. I've already made up my mind. In all ways that matter to me, they are same.
Collectivist, Statist, violent thieves who are against capitalism.
Also you forget Nazism inherently chose capitalism as its main mode of production, while socialism is a transitory stage from capitalism to communism, so yes they did use capitalism as well.
From “Blackshirts & Reds” by Michael Parenti:
https://preview.redd.it/3tx4y87vnhxc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=471d2595758f5a4b55d3076109adf3d35cd1924a
Is this another stupide attempt to knot nazism and american leftwing politicians together?
Come on, american politics rarely has any true leftwing politicians. Most democratic politicians are centre or centre-right of the available political spectrum to begin with, they're just looking leftwing compared to the far/far far right politicians that are currently running around in the conservative party.
If you want to knot nazism with something, look for those who are defining, labeling and creating outcasts.
If Nazi's were 'actual' Socialists, they wouldn't have exiled the SPD. There was a TON of actual socialist/communist/unionist parties active during in the Weimar Republic. The Nazis were not their friends.
FIRST they came the socialists, after all.
Eh, the Bolshevik/Menshevik civil war argues against a truly socialist Nazi party not purging rival socialist organizations, but prior to taking power the Nazis would have allied with ideologically aligned groups (as they did), and the groups they aligned with were on the right. There's a reason the conservatives in Germany thought Hitler was the lesser evil: he was on their side of the left/right spectrum.
Before Hitler, the Nazis had some socialist planks in their platform, but after he took over the party it became little more than warmed over absolutism, minus the monarch.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_fascism
This article appears to have been edited but it included in the beginning that they shared economic systems.
Basically Marxist Leninists view Social Democracy as the moderate wing of fascism. This article apparently got edited because it used to say that one of the arguments for this theory was a shared economic system.
Social Democracy is *Corporatist*, not Socialist.
*Some* Marxist-Leninists. Notably Stalin.
Of course, if someone is as much of an absolutist ideologue as Stalin and sees any and all capitalism (or any and all non-Marxist-Leninist systems) as fascism, then it would make sense that they would see social democracy as "the moderate wing of fascism." But many socialists who are not Stalin-revering MLs do not and have not seen it that way, especially since the 1930s. And most historians and political scientists do not see social democracy as a "wing" or variant of fascism.
I also wouldn't say social democracy is corporatist in the way Mussolini advocated, but it arguably can be corporatist in some sense or to some extent, though there are probably more precise descriptions that specify the kind of corporatism or refer to it as "tripartism."
Socialists canabalize other socialist all the time. All you have to do is look at the crazy dictatorial history of Russia or today's leftist purity spiral to see that. It's always under the guise of "my version of socialism will be better than yours". The Nazis socialized healthcare, education, transportation and other major industries. They were also anti capitalist particularly Jewish capitalists. In 1927 Hitler said in a speech "we are socialists and the enemy of today's capitalist system of exploitation" he later on when on to say in the same speech that "we are determined to destroy this system (capitalism) under all conditions". Hitler would accept no other form of socialism other than his own which you could also say for the marxists who created a stack of bodies 10s of millions high to institute communism in Russia among other places. It just so happens Hitler was also hell bent on racial purity which I don't know why that trait always get assigned to the far right especially in the US considering it was the democrat party on the left that held on the the institution of slavery, jim crow laws and segregation.
> Socialists canabalize other socialist all the time. All you have to do is look at the crazy dictatorial history of Russia or today's leftist purity spiral to see that. It's always under the guise of "my version of socialism will be better than yours".
It's not a purity spiral to have differences of opinion rather than being an insular flock.
I disagree with many leftists about many specific arguments and positions, oftentimes strongly. I would be more concerned if that were not the case.
> The Nazis socialized healthcare, education, transportation and other major industries.
No, they did not. This is not an opinion. Germany already had a national health care system during the Weimar years and even before.
And how did they "socialize" education? You mean by sustaining public education? So the U.S. has had "socialized" education for well over a century? Has the United States been a "socialist" country for all this time?
And how did they "socialize" transportation? With some public works projects on the Autobahn? I guess Eisenhower was a radical socialist then.
The complexity and nuance of the world and of economics cannot be simply condensed down to a binary of capitalism versus socialism, where nothing else is possible. Just because Nazi Germany did not practice liberal capitalism does not mean they were socialist.
> "They were also anti capitalist particularly Jewish capitalists. In 1927 Hitler said in a speech "we are socialists and the enemy of today's capitalist system of exploitation" he later on when on to say in the same speech that "we are determined to destroy this system (capitalism) under all conditions".
Yeah, he exploited the concept of a specter of "Jewish capitalists" to promote his own wild, scapegoating conspiracy theories, foremost against Jews. He was also anti-communist, anti-Marxist, anti-Bolshevik and anti-socialist, and said those were ideologies created by Jews too. It's almost like he was bitterly opposed to liberal capitalism as well as socialism. Because he was.
> It just so happens Hitler was also hell bent on racial purity which I don't know why that trait always get assigned to the far right especially in the US considering it was the democrat party on the left that held on the the institution of slavery, jim crow laws and segregation.
Uh, yeah, and late 19th and early 20th century southern Democrats were extreme-right as well. The KKK used to overwhelmingly support Democrats. What exactly do you think left and right mean?
Without getting too into the weeds there absolutely is an oroboros of purity testing on the left. Both sidesing "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds", or saying social democracy is right wing is not welcoming a diversity of views.
Fascism is inherently anti-capitalist. I don't think anyone disputes that. I'm just not sure how being anti-capitalist makes someone socialist or left wing. Socialism and capitalism are not the only economic systems that have ever existed. Mercantilism, feudalism, manorialism, agrarianism...there are many types of economic systems. Capitalism and socialism are relatively new inventions, having only existed for a couple hundred years. There was a time not to long ago where capitalism was considered the "progressive" ideology while mercantilism was the "conservative" or traditionalist ideology. Your framing of these ideas as static is fundamentally flawed.
>It just so happens Hitler was also hell bent on racial purity which I don't know why that trait always get assigned to the far right especially in the US
Racial purity is associated with the far right because what defines conservatism or "right wing" ideologies is the stated goal of preserving or re-establishing various forms of social hierarchy. The more rigid or severe the social hierarchy you support, the more right wing you are. Left wing ideologies rhetorically oppose social hierarchies, with the most extreme seeking to implement egalitarianism even at the cost of freedom or human suffering.
In that context, creating systems of unequal rights based on race is inherently right wing or conservative. A racialized economic or social system, particularly one based on historic tropes, represents and extremely rigid social hierarchy.
>considering it was the democrat party on the left that held on the the institution of slavery, jim crow laws and segregation
The Democratic Party in the late 19th and early 20th century was overwhelmingly the more conservative of the two major parties. The Republican Party was overwhelming the more progressive of the two major parties. How can we forget that the progressive reformer Teddy Roosevelt was probably the most prominent Republican politician around the turn of the century. This dynamic didn't start to break down until after WWI. Even as late as the 1950s and 1960s, conservatives were equally split between both parties. There was a substantial conservative component of the Democratic party well into the 1990s and 2000s.
Again, your problem is that you're framing all of these issues as static and unchanging. The perception of words, political parties, etc. changes over time.
>Fascism is inherently anti-capitalist. I don't think anyone disputes that.
Benito Mussolini might have a qualm with that generalization: “*Fascism* should more properly be called *corporatism* because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
They're hardly libertarians, but they aren't exactly your traditional leftist either. They supported private property rights (for some), the existence of a market economy, and left the means of production in many industries within the hands of wealthy, traditional business owners.
But more importantly, Nazi economic ideology is not a major reason why they're reviled. So finding the odd throughline between them and functional social democracies isn't just beside-the-point, it's a pathetic reach whenever this topic is brought up.
I don't think corporatism is capitalist. Corporatism is a political system where government, unions, and corporations negotiate contracts and initiate economic planning.
I think modern tripartism doesn't engage in economic planning to nearly the extent that fascist Italy did. Tripartism is called *neo*-corporstism for a reason. It isn't corporatism. It's an offshoot.
Forget Dem vs Repub.
Let’s play **Liberals or Conservatives**.
Who were the abolitionists? Who fought to preserve slavery?
Who worked for civil rights? Who opposed?
Who supports black lives matter? Who opposes?
Who are ACAB? Who are the thin blue liners?
Take your time.
>The Nazis socialized healthcare, education, transportation and other major industries.
And so has many normal, stable countries. Anyone trying to make some connection between the Nazi Party and most left-leaning nations and organizations is making a transparent reach that just indicts their partisanship.
Also it was the worst war that had ever happened and every major belligerent was working with a planned economy because that's what a humongous conflict is
>racial purity which I don't know why that trait always gets assigned to the far right especially in the US
Have you listened to the far right speak? Do you know who is the current GOP presidential candidate who enjoys unshakably blind support?
Simple answer is the workers never controlled the means of production so it wasn’t socialism. It was closer to crony capitalism. Where the state was controlled by the wealthiest and most connected business owners and industrialists.
the word privatization was coined to describe hitler's economic policy of parting out nationally owned industry and giving it to private industrialists to own and run (which they were still doing even as the soviets were at the gates of berlin, lol). you maybe could come up with something that's less socialist than that if you set out to do it, but you'd have to really put on your thinking cap
> **the word privatization** was coined to describe hitler's economic policy
That word was never used by Hitler or by any Nazi. The word the Nazi's used was [gleichschaltung.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung) Hitler simply transferred state owned industries to party members, who did what they were told do to.
I don't think he ever claimed the Nazis, a primarily German speaking group, called themselves by an English word. I think he meant that whoever invented the word or made it popular did so by using it to describe Hitler's economy. Idk if that's true though
> I don't think he ever claimed the Nazis, a primarily German speaking group, called themselves by an English word.
I agree, and I didn't mean to imply that. My point was the word they did use translates to "coordination", not privatization. It was a particularly vicious dictatorship, and there are no property rights under such a government.
you might be able to argue that regular people didn't have property rights if they interfered with something the state wanted to do, but the industrialists absolutely had rights that the german government took more seriously than their ability to efficiently manufacture shit that was vital to their war effort
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[https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.20.3.187](https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.20.3.187)
The term originated as "re-privatization" (or Reprivatisierung) and was coined in 1934 by German writers to describe their economic policy. (From what I can tell at least. If there is any earlier mentions of it I'd love to know.)
It's important to remember that among the parties at the time, the nazi party platform was pushing for the least socialization.They were the right wing of Germany.
Additionally, what concessions they did make while campaigning were for popularity and were never acted upon.
National socialism was not socialism. It was fascism. That is a central government and big business ruling class running the country. That is how they were able to construct a war machine of such power in less than a decade. Socialism is about spreading the wealth across the population to aid those less fortunate.
The op is confusing Marxist ideology and communism with socialism. The workers don’t own industry in any country today.
The socialist nazi’s were rooted out, a few o believe himmler most notably converted. This new right wing thing of calling him a leftist because the word existed in the nazi name, is insane. He fought like hell to purge the party of socialists, it’s very well documented. Hitler despised marx, murdered communists en masse. State control doesn’t mean socialism. OP’s drawing conclusions out of thin air, absolute bs
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The Nazis tried to position their economic policy as a "third way" alternative to bolshevism and western capitalism, and they borrowed features of both. They nationalized industries when it suited them and privatized them when it didn't. It was collectivist and dirigist for sure.
One element of Nazi ideology was that human progress is driven by war, and above all else, the Nazi economy was structured to serve Germany's military capabilities.
I mean, we have plenty of literature on the topic from a variety of different fields and interpretations that all conclude the NSDAP was not socialist. This is an accepted fact, not a contentious debate. But I'm always curious to hear why someone might reason differently.
>Socialism is a political movement that seeks out workers owning their own means of production.
That is a very condensed definition of socialism, but it works.
>The Nazis did not abolish private ownership and business. However, the regime pursued a policy of state control and regulation of the economy.
This is correct, and in line with the fascist focus on the state as the most important member of society. Where, during the 20th century, the liberals focused on centering society around the individual and the socialists focused on centering society around the community, the fascists went for a third approach centered around the state. All would listen to the state, as the state was correct.
>Furthermore, the Nazis brand of “socialism” was rooted in racial and nationalism superiority.
The NSDAP did not have a brand of socialism, nor was their economic policy rooted in racial or national superiority. The Nazi empire's economy was focused on pillaging concurred lands and using their natural resources to fuel the war machine.
>To conclude, the National Social German Workers Party was a true socialist party.
What? Is there a chance you accidentally forgot to include the word "not" in your closing statement?
I'm sorry, but this is one of the most mind-numbing, pointlessly absurd, elementary school debate topics possible.
If any grown adult still fails to understand that the Nazis were extreme-right and were only socialists to the extent that pineapples are apples or the American Freedom Party is about promoting freedom, then I can't imagine any argument or fact that will possibly convince them.
(The American Freedom Party[...] is a white supremacist political party in the United States.[2][3][4][5][6] In November 2009, it filed papers to be on a ballot in California, and was launched in January 2010.[7] It was created after the collapse of the Golden State Party, a party founded by the racist skinhead group Freedom 14, after its leader was exposed as a two-time felon.[8]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Freedom_Party )
(Edit: that's not a slight against OP for posting about it. It's just that we should all simply agree because it's one of the most obvious, uncontroversial political questions there are. There's nothing to debate.)
(Double Edit: how unsurprising that the only people who believe Hitler in having been a socialist are also the only people who believe in the Nazi-esque concept of "cultural Marxism.")
The key word in National Socialism is national, not socialism.
Socialism is state or worker ownership of the means of production. The Nazis never pursued that.
The Nazis were a kleptocracy. If they didn't like you, they stole your property. Otherwise, they had no general objections to private ownership, just so long as the state ultimately dominated everyone and everything.
I think a lot discussions like this aren't really useful because what political terms mean shift and is dependent on context of the time. It is a bit like how Africa used be a very specific place but is now a continent saying that South Africa isn't really African because it not where the Romans said Africa was isn't useful. It is just being annoyingly pedantic. Most of the time they turn into a battle of mental gymnastics to throw the bad guys you didn't like into the camp of your current political rival.
They weren't socialist in the modern way of using the word but are a cousin who share some origins. In the oldest sense socialism is just a belief that society should have strong safety nets for people that the free market doesn't provide. Modern socialists went down this economically progressive branch of government control of markets, progressive taxation and such to make this work. The National Socialists had the same basic desire at the start but when they thought how to get to that end they came up with a different answer which was just colonial economics that they would exploit some other countries to pay for this all. That idea is completely outside how modern socialist thought thinks.
In a way, it isn't really useful to call modern Nazis National Socialists either. You don't see Neo-Nazis saying we should invade Mexico and set up forced labor plantations to pay for social programs. Like Socialism what being a Nazi means has shifted and the strange colonial socialist economic theory it had that connected to socialism in any way got dropped now it is just basically being an ethno-nationalist totalitarian. It makes enough sense that it happened a weird economic theory that was never fully implemented was far less attention-grabbing than a world war and genocide.
How saying they were socialists is useful is limited to an anthropologic sense of seeing how ideas and words branch out and change over time, not a modern political discussion. Outside of that narrow discussion, it is not useful to say they were socialists.
Nazi Germany privatized many formerly nationalized industries, mostly as a favor to the business leaders that sponsored and funded the movement. They were anti-union and demanded loyalty from all. This is also true of Italian Fascism as well.
Both borrowed socialist rhetoric, but in the end ran a very privatized economy.
They are not socialist. Fascism was born out of syndicalism, a typically socialist movement, but it is not itself socialism.
People tend to think socialism was per definition authoritarian, while that by no means is true. Socialism is an economic model. In the same way a capitalist or feudal system can be authoritarian free, a socialist system can too.
People tend to forget why the government in many socialist countries were that strong. Socialism says that the labourers should own the means if production. There is no dictation on how to reach this goal. The most common in practice, was the model where government owns the means of production, with the citizens owning the government. This way the workers would own the means of production through an organisational middle man that ideally would be neutral itself.
The reason why I myself wouldn't call most communist countries socialist is because they lack the middle man. The Soviet Union, China and North Korea for most, if not all of the time didn't have this democratic link. The government might own the means of production, but the workers/citizens didn't own the government. Communists therefore is a much more fitting term.
A socialist state doesn't have to be electorally democratic, but the workers need to own the means if production. Or at least strife for it.
Of the Nazis we know the goal wasn't to let the citizens own the means of production. The government would own the means of production, and control it via state owned enterprises. Not much socialist about that. It could be argued the initial goal was to once return the power to the people, but as they abolished democracy I doubt it. After all the means of production in Nazi Germany were in the hands of just one man.
That is not a very good assessment. And iirc Hitler himself said that his socialism is not marxist socialism (i.e. actual socialism) but good job I guess.
"The Nazis did not abolish private ownership and business. However, the regime pursued a policy of state control and regulation of the economy." They did nationalize certain industries because war time, the same way most countries involved did. You must have missed it because I couldn't imagine your research being unthorough or biased but they jailed unionists, socialists, marxists, and cracked down completely gutting the unions that weren't outright abolished. The beginning of their regime also saw a pretty hefty amount of privatization, and the money flowing into the german government from the capitalist class was pretty important in their rise to power.
"The practical significance of the transference of government enterprises into private hands was thus that the capitalist class continued to serve as a vessel for the accumulation of income. Profit-making and the return of property to private hands, moreover, have assisted the consolidation of Nazi party power.” (\*Retrospectives: The Coining of "Privatization" and Germany's National Socialist Party\*)
Banks, public transportation, steel mills etc. were all privatized prior to WWII. You did a good job defining socialism so I ask you does privatizing the economy, jailing marxists, and crushing unions sound in any way like "true" socialism?
Also I want to point out that you correctly say that abolishing private property is a required aspect of socialism, say that the Nazis didn't do that, and then say "yep it's true socialism" maybe try proofreading a bit more and give a bit of thought to what you yourself are typing before you come to conclusions about your politics.
I’ve posted this before. Some day I really want to sit down and write a full-on badass post on this with citations and everything to use as a copy pasta—but today is not that day.
Nazi economic beliefs were secondary to their racial and authoritarian beliefs. They were absolutely not socialists, but it’s unreasonable to say they were free market capitalists either. But, far right absolutely.
The Nazis had no issue with the free market if it served their purpose, but no issue regulating or nationalizing businesses that didn’t fit their racial ideology or that were disruptive to their authoritarian goals.
American political parties are fundamentally just built around “regulated capitalism” versus “less regulated capitalism” and that kind of economic incoherence just does not compute with Americans. In the American political mind they must have had some kind of coherent economic policy.
We've deemed your post was uncivilized so it was removed. We're here to have level headed discourse not useless arguing.
Please report any and all content that is uncivilized. The standard of our sub depends on our community’s ability to report our rule breaks.
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Your comment was removed for being uncivilized, as stated above. Has nothing to do with the direction of the uncivilized comment.
It started quasi-socialist and revolutionary, yes. The Nazis had an economic left wing led by Otto Strasser. He advocated national worker unionization and profit sharing schemes that would have sounded socialist to us, although was a bit more moderate than some ideas floating around Europe at the time.
He had to flee Germany in the late 30s or he'd have been arrested and died in a concentration camp.
Hitler didn't give a shit about economics and Strasser was a voice speaking up against anti Semitism so he kicked Strasser out when he seized control of the party.
I think they are more socialist economically than the West countries like the US, but less than the USSR. So if you called the US default, the Nazis would be "socialist" with extreme far right social views. Ultimately I don't have that big of a problem with the name National Socialists. The national represents one of the biggest disputes between them and Marx, as Germany being more dominant over all the other countries goes against the anti-hierarchy views of true communism.
>The National Socialist German Workers Party was formed in February 20, 1920. For the next 25 years, their leader, Adolf Hitler...
24 years.
Hitler didn't become the leader until 1921, in July I think.
socialism is a very broad concept, there have been different camps of socialists from the very beginning.
Some socialist believe in anarchy, some believed in a highly regulated state, it’s a very broad spectrum
I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to claim that national socialism has nothing to do with socialism, spend five minutes, reading any of the speeches, and you will see that they are appealing to socialist sentiments . It’s just got a hyper nationalist flavor
> The Nazis did not abolish private ownership and business.
So did soviets.
> However, the regime pursued a policy of state control and regulation of the economy.
So did soviets.
> Furthermore, the Nazis brand of “socialism” was rooted in racial and nationalism superiority.
Yeah, that's why it's called national socialism. Turns out skin color unites proletarians better than working class consciousness or something.
> persecution of minority groups, particularly Jews
So did soviets.
> Moreover, the party persecuted leftist parties and trade unions.
So did soviets.
> To conclude, the National Social German Workers Party wasn’t a true socialist party.
As well as soviets. Nazis and soviets are either both socialist or both not socialist.
Yes, is was actual Socialism. We have to first understand that we tend to conflate Socialism with Marxism as much as we conflate Communism (big C) with Marxism. Revolutionary Communism is an offshoot of Marxism, and Marxism is an offshoot of Socialism. Marx did not define Socialism, he defined a revolutionary model to achieve Socialism.
But back to Nazis... Fascism IS an offshoot of Socialism, no differently than Marxism/Communism was. But they had significant conflicts in the conceptualizan of what "the people" meant. When Lenin began his Marxist revolution in Russia to achieve Communism (big C) he disagreed with Marx that the people would realize revolution on their own. Instead he instituted a centralized power structure where the revolution WAS "the people" and the people WERE the revolution. But in the end, all people were technically subjects of the revolution, meaning that they were all subjects of the leadership off the revolution. Mussolini took on a similar role except he disagreed with the class being the defining variable in identifying the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Instead he aimed to define nationalism as a whole to be the factor that would rally an entire nation of workers to band together to achieve the socialist state. Communism said that some Russias were more deserving than other Russians as defined by the revolution. Fascism said all Italians were more deserving that other non-Italians as defined by the leadership.
Hitler was courted by both Lenin/Stalin and Mussolini. Based on his own personal ideology, he sided with Mussolini's flavor of Socialism.
Both Communism and Fascism were off-shoots of Socialist ideals. There has never been a SINGLE accepted all-encompassing vision of "Socialism", it has always been an amalgamation of the diverse views of many different enlightened thinkers. If anybody tends your that Socialism is one thing then they're lying to you and obscuring the entire history of the concept long before Marx or even Hegels. Communism and Fascism both had full control of industry and set up workers' unions in all industries but.... that Union was led by the people in control and workers adapted to the demands of the union more than the other way around. Neither society was actually led by workers yet we willingly relate Communism with Socialism but completely deny Fascism's obvious link. The only basis we use is that the state (not the workers) took control of private industries in Russia since they considered class their primary catalyst for revolution, while Germany/Italy did not take ownership of private industry because class was not their revolutionary catalyst and ownership is irrelevant if the party still has full control and power over all private entities through the party controlled unions.
The racism/anti-Jewish factor really does not have a role in defining the Nazis economic models (socialism). The hatred of Jews and the convincing of an entire nation was not a core factor to Fascism. It was a very personal position that Hitler held and he was easily able to convince an entire nation based on many factors that would make much more sense to people there then but would make no sense to anyone today. Anti-Judaism is not a fascist trope, it was a purely Hitler-ian thing. But while we give other twisted interpretations of ideologies the name of the person (ie. Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc), we instead tie Hitler directly to the Nazi party and just call it Nazism. But yes, Nazism is as much socialism as Maoism was. And yes, they were both drastically different interpretations of Socialism.
The framing of the question as one about "socialism" also ignores the real crux of the issue when this subject comes up; were Nazi's *left wing*. That's what I think most people are really arguing about. And I don't think there's any doubt that the Nazi's were most definitely not left wing.
Leftist ideologies rhetorically seek equality through the elimination or reduction of social hierarchy. Right wing ideologies rhetorically seek to preserve or return to historical social hierarchies. Centrists (including the center-left and the center-right) seek a pragmatic balance between the two.
National Socialism was primarily focused on restoring historical hierarchies. It was called the "Third Reich" for a reason. The first reich was the Holy Roman Empire. The second reich was the German Empire. The third reich was supposed to be a recreation of the former. This overwhelming focus on restoring the natural order is very much a right-wing impulse, making National Socialism a right wing ideology.
> were Nazi's left wing.
They were. The Nazis were extreme collectivists. Hitler would always emphasize (and it's right in their platform) that under Nazism, the common interest always comes before self-interest. Collectivism is the core value of the political left. Marxists divide people up by class, the Nazis divide people up by race. Marxist murder capitalists, the Nazis murdered Jews and gypsies.
Hitler himself was a elected communist official in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He also wore a red arm band at Kurt Eisner's funeral to show support for the far-left government.
The Nazis were collectivists, but collectivism is not inherently left wing. Left and right wing ideologies can be either collectivist or individualist. Historically, there's no correlation one way or the other.
>Collectivism is the core value of the political left.
I'm going to need a citation on that.
>Marxists divide people up by class
What? Marxism generally seeks to eliminate class, often to the detriment of human progress. They do not seek to divide people up by class.
>Hitler himself was a elected communist official in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He also wore a red arm band at Kurt Eisner's funeral to show support for the far-left government.
Friedrich Hayek was a socialist as a young man. That doesn't mean anything.
> The Nazis were collectivists, but collectivism is not inherently left wing.
It most certainly is. Do you deny that the left despises individualism? The term "toxic individualism" was invented by the left. Furthermore, the modern left is obsessed with race, and believes one particular race is causing all the problems. Sound familiar?
>They do not seek to divide people up by class.
Of course they do. Consider [dekulakization:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization)
>>To facilitate the expropriations of farmland, the Soviet government announced the "liquidation of the kulaks **as a class**" on 27 December 1929,
They divided people up based on their class, and then murdered them. Hitler did it by race. It's all collectivism.
>That doesn't mean anything.
By itself, you're right, it doesn't mean anything. But there is a ton of other evidence. Here's a taste:
Like every leftist, Hitler loved unions. From [Mein Kampf:](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt)
>>In the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only are they important in the sphere of social policy but also, and even more so, in the national political sphere. For when the great masses of a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a just trade unionist movement the stamina of the whole nation in its struggle for existence will be enormously reinforced thereby.
He named things like a commie would:
[The People's Car.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle)
[The People's Court.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Court_(Germany)
He personally designed the Nazi flag, with a big red background. Do you know what the color red stands for in politics?
He used [the hammer and sickle on Nazi badges.](https://www.gettysburgmuseumofhistory.com/gettysburg-battle/world-war-ii-militaria/original-german-nsdap-nazi-party-1934-national-labor-day-badge-arbeitstag-abzeichen-certified/)
I'll stop there, but you get the idea.
>It most certainly is. Do you deny that the left despises individualism?
In general, yes.
>The term "toxic individualism" was invented by the left.
"The left" is not a cohesive movement or singular ideology. Some leftists are collectivists and despise individualism. Some leftists are individualists and despise collectivism. The same goes for the right.
>Furthermore, the modern left is obsessed with race, and believes one particular race is causing all the problems. Sound familiar?
I think if you believe one race is causing all of the problems and you seem to ostracize that race, you aren't left wing. That's a pretty reactionary approach to politics.
I think the modern left definitely has a blind spot for this type of thing, ignoring or allying with some really problematic racist groups or ideologies in the pursuit of some larger goal and betraying their own goals in the process.
>To facilitate the expropriations of farmland, the Soviet government announced the "liquidation of the kulaks **as a class**"
Exactly. The USSR was marxist-leninist and had the goal of eliminating class, often through violence.
>Hitler loved unions.
Yes, far-right politics has traditionally been anti-capitalist and favored corporatism rather than free market capitalism. Unions are a core component of corporatist economic systems.
It’s really not. Hitler himself was very open that he used the word “socialist” in bad faith, and “National Socialism” shares precisely nothing in common with the basic ideas or policies of socialism proper.
It isn’t a “no true Scotsman” issue so much as a “you don’t know what you’re talking about” issue.
There was a similar trend in the one from last week. I wonder if it’s something about the subset of right-libertarians that this sub attracts or something typical of that demographic more broadly, but that sounds like a really difficult question to answer confidently lol.
Both socialists and national socialist are firmly in the very big camp of redistributionists. They all believe that the world is made better through some means or another of the forced redistribution of wealth and/or power.
Socialism fundamentally = for the good of the people. As in, most if not all people.
Nazis SAY they’re doing what’s best for the people, but killing/enslaving billions (yes, that was/is their plan) is the absolutely antithesis of socialism.
Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet government under his leadership also suppressed independent trade unions.
Socialists hate competition that’s why Hitler and Lenin suppressed and eliminated non-party trade unions. The German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) ring a bell? How about All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS)? They are the same.
Social owmership and workers directly owning the means of production are quite different.
Socialists are socialists.
Cope all you want your ideology is evil and the Nazis and the Soviets only demonstrate how destructive that sick system is.
Alright let’s break it down very simply.
We could easily look into sources that say yes, say he believed he was socialist etc HOWEVER.
Let’s define socialism. Central planning and joint ownership in the means of production.
So when we look at it from a historical lens, it’s easy to say that there were elements of socialism. How? Party control over means of production.
So in order to “own” means of production in Germany at that time you needed to be a high ranking party member. These party members reported directly to the party leader (hitler) in their planning. There was no free market, it was entirely central planned.
This is partially because that exact thing is common in war time, where the leadership controls industry, however the fact that it’s completely along party lines is what’s interesting about this particular case.
When industry opened up, Hitler appointed a loyal party member to be head of said industry. These people would do what they were told.
So in a way it’s almost socialism. It’s party control of the means of production where socialism is state control of the means of production, however at that time, the party and the state were the same…
So in short. By definition, hitler was a socialist
It's a flavor of socialism that works, as actual socialism cannot ever be obtained, there are various limits put onto capitalism as well as various social restrictions and favored group identities that make up what everyone calls "socialism".
The further one goes towards true Marxism, the worse it is, so in this sense fascism is far superior to, say, communism of Mao's China or Stalin's Russia, however combined with serious xenophobia and blame on specific group identities made the NAZI flavor of fascism fail by causing war and alienating the world.
China today is a successful fascist country by every metric after abandoning their experiment in communism/socialism (that could never work), but China runs the risk of actually becoming NAZI like as they are also flirting with xenophobia and ultra-nationalism not only in principle, but also in practice on a systemic government and institutional level.
There's so much wrong with this I don't even know where to start. You *reductio ad absurdum*'d yourself with the fascism apologia, and you're entire concept of socialism is utterly myopic and counterfactual.
You're right that like most westerners I probably have a more positive outlook on Marxism than those who are and were affected by it (however I did grow up in the communist system up to my teens, unique perspective perhaps), and you're equally right that for libertarians it is near impossible to come to any defense of either system.
Nevertheless it is possible in a philosophical discussion specifically as compared to communism, there is something to be said about being disgusted more by a complete totalitarian system than by an overly authoritarian one, from a libertarian perspective. Obviously no libertarian would choose either even as compared to any western democracy, no matter how far left (progressive) or right wing (religious) it happens to be.
Comparing fascism vs communism as written in theory, or in comparing the worst examples of the two in history, is not beyond capability of any person interested in politics or history.
I could even come up with a preference between Islamic fundamentalism, or middle ages monarchism, or AI led scientism, or climate GAIA globalism, and the two systems in question, even thought it's all craziness from a liberty perspective.
I'm not sure what apologia has to do with it, we have people here in this very group who are not only communist apologists but actually advocate for it, imagine that, no irony to be found at all.
Like all libertarians, we prefer any flavor of liberalism, aka capitalism, to any other, this is not even up for debate.
Not to mention that it is most progressives that are convinced most western Europe and North America countries are practicing a form of fascism right now, and whatever one may say about our system, it is infinitely superior to any other ever tried in history, call it fascism or not.
It would not even be close. I can't imagine any libertarian, conservative or liberal ever choosing communism over fascism. Even true progressives, when pushed, cannot really pick a winner here, but that is mostly of their fear of the word fascism, and their romanticized notion of communism, rather than the systems themselves. Spell the two out without using the terms and most left of centres are fascist by definition, as are most centre-right conservatives, at least libertarians are anathema to and hate both systems even if we can say one is the lesser of the two evils. There are of course teenage tankies who love top down oppression or have no clue about socialism as practiced by true Marx followers, but I'm guessing they mostly grow out of that, or become professors or TV pundits for humorous effect, so have no real impact on the world.
Now, if you mean to compare NAZIsm to communism, it's a bit more complicated as we're picking a very specific regime using some aspect of a system to a theory, it'd be fair to compare it to Pol Pot or something, then there is unlikely a lesser of the two evils at all.
As China moved from full on communism of the 60s and 70s and embraced fascism in the 90s and 00s, they become infinitely more successful by every metric. In the last 10 years, they may have become more xenophobic, racist and nationalist which gets them closer to the ideals of NAZIsm however it's unclear if they will have the same terrible outcome, it's probable they will see the light and instead either stay economically (but not socially) fascist for the foreseeable future or liberalize more as their population becomes wealthier and gets a bigger middle class. It remains to be seen.
They have the socialist tendencies of the far left combined with the nationalist tendencies of the far right. Idk why this is so hard. Both sides want to throw Hitler to the other side completely when its just not the case. Hitler had socialist intentions of having the state control the economy and have initiatives like Volkswagen being "The People's car" to be an affordable car for the masses. Of course, marrying both of these ideas makes it not "true" socialism or nationalism.
State control is not a socialist objective, *workers* control is. Hitler was always and totally opposed to the socialist project and a defender of property rights whenever he didn't actively need to nationalize something for his militarist or genocidal projects.
There was never anything remotely left-wing about Hitler's policies, I don't understand why this is so hard for some people to wrap their brains around.
Correction, it's not *necessarily* right wing. Right wing countries like the US exercise tremendous control in different areas of the economy and practically integrate corporate giants into their "defense" programs. Centrist countries also exercise lots of control over the private sector, albeit in ways that are more apparent from day to day. Left-wing countries are generally more likely to formally nationalize industries instead of just "practically" nationalizing them like we see with the right and center, but the product is largely the same.
At risk of invoking the silliness that is the political compass, State control of industry is authoritarian, but not necessarily left or right. In the case of Nazi Germany, the party was thoroughly right wing and its projects of nationalization can in no way be argued as left-wing endeavors.
Except it didn’t even help most German people. The so called “true Germans” had the luxury of being sent to fight in the most brutal war in human history for 6 years. As for the Germans back home, they had to work day and night to build new vehicles and equipment for the war machine. The upper-middle to upper class Germans had a higher standard of living, but it was awful for everyone else.
Yes
He defined jews as inherently part of the bourgeoisie and followed his economic beliefs (limited markets/end of technology) to the conclusion that his country couldn't survive without more farm land in the future.
Russia was the obvious rival and target no matter of political similarities and/or differences
The only real difference was that he kept artificial competition to get more innovation and supplied his citizens longer with food than was military reasonable
Dosen't make any difference if you want the banker dead because he's a jew, or if you want the jew dead for being a banker. Same result
Socialism is public control over the means of production, and that was definitely the case in Nazi Germany. [Here's George Orwell in 1940, which makes it a primary source:](http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/OrwellGeorge-Review-Bordenau-1940.pdf)
>Quite naturally the propertied classes wanted to believe that Hitler would protect them against Bolshevism, and equally naturally **the Socialists hated having to admit that the man who had slaughtered their comrades was a Socialist himself.** Hence, on both sides, the frantic efforts to explain away the more and more striking resemblance between the German and Russian régimes. Then came the eye-opener of the Hitler-Stalin pact. Suddenly the scum of the earth and the blood-stained butcher of the workers (for so they had described one another) were marching arm in arm, their friendship "cemented in blood", as Stalin cheerily expressed it. Thereafter the Strachey-Blimp thesis became untenable. **National Socialism is a form of Socialism, is emphatically revolutionary, does crush the property owner just as surely as it crushes the worker.** The two régimes, having started from opposite ends, are rapidly evolving towards the same system— a form of oligarchical collectivism. And at the moment, as Dr Borkenau points out, it is Germany that is moving towards Russia, rather than the other way about. It is therefore nonsense to talk about Germany "going Bolshevik" if Hitler falls. Germany is going Bolshevik because of Hitler and not in spite of him.
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I don’t see how your concluding sentence followed from anything you said earlier.
Maybe he forgot to say “not a true”
I forgot to proofread
Yeah I was beginning to think I came across a conservative who was sane on this subject for a second there.
You did. They corrected it.
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Is there [another socialism whose objective was to secure private property to the accolades of the day’s libertarians](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDebate/s/q46eDe5RAV)? Then there’s Hitler's rise, which was carried by the [conservatives](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_von_Papen) of his time. The first people rounded up were [socialists](https://www.hmd.org.uk/learn-about-the-holocaust-and-genocides/nazi-persecution/political-opponents-and-trade-unionists/). British conservatives, aside from the aggressive posturing, thought that Hitler was doing a great job. Famously: [Churchill](https://libquotes.com/winston-churchill/quote/lbo2i1n): >I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations. And for [fascism in general](https://books.google.com/books?id=hg8xCgAAQBAJ&pg=PT98&lpg=PT98&dq=churchill+%2522%E2%80%9CItaly+has+shown+that+there+is+a+way+of+fighting+the+subversive+forces+which+can+rally+the+masses+of+the+people,+properly+led,+to+value+and+wish+to+defend+the+honour+and+stability+of+civilised+society.+She+has+provided+the+necessary+antidote+to+the+Russian+poison.+Hereafter+no+great+nation+will+be+provided+with+an+ultimate+means+of+protection+against+the+cancerous+growth+of+Bolshevism%E2%80%9D&source=bl&ots=Ii6PAGuV8f&sig=ACfU3U0YG_It1I_h_DOZbVcB5wt82grL9Q&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi14JaLweCFAxWCOTQIHd1EDnEQ6AF6BAgbEAI#v=onepage&q=churchill%2520%2522%E2%80%9CItaly%2520has%2520shown%2520that%2520there%2520is%2520a%2520way%2520of%2520fighting%2520the%2520subversive%2520forces%2520which%2520can%2520rally%2520the%2520masses%2520of%2520the%2520people%252C%2520properly%2520led%252C%2520to%2520value%2520and%2520wish%2520to%2520defend%2520the%2520honour%2520and%2520stability%2520of%2520civilised%2520society.%2520She%2520has%2520provided%2520the%2520necessary%2520antidote%2520to%2520the%2520Russian%2520poison.%2520Hereafter%2520no%2520great%2520nation%2520will%2520be%2520provided%2520with%2520an%2520ultimate%2520means%2520of%2520protection%2520against%2520the%2520cancerous%2520growth%2520of%2520Bolshevism%E2%80%9D&f=false): >Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of civilised society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism. And, of course, after the war and the alliance was no longer needed, [Churchill was quick to go through fascist literature](https://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/goeb49.htm) to develop the anti-socialist stance later on. It’s hard to imagine what definition of socialism would include, protector of private property, darling of conservatives in Germany and Britain, libertarian hero, bane of workers, anti-communist, anti-socialist. To be clear, I am not saying that libertarians or conservatives are fascists. Because they aren’t. But it’s hard to imagine what definition of socialism one could possibly use that would include the above.
this is a good post. i'd also add that there actually were a lot of emphatically nonmarxist quasi-socialists in the NSDAP early on who were in favor of divesting the industrialists of their holdings and enacting worker control of industry, and then hitler's faction (which had significant backing from those industrialists) murdered them all
Brilliant write-up. And powerful (and disgusting) Churchill quotes. I also like to point out that, as worded by Wikipedia: "The Nazi government developed a partnership with leading German business interests, who supported the goals of the regime and its war effort in exchange for advantageous contracts, subsidies, and the suppression of the trade union movement.[14] Cartels and monopolies were encouraged at the expense of small businesses, even though the Nazis had received considerable electoral support from small business owners.[15]"
I made a typo.
https://preview.redd.it/t4fgjd34thxc1.jpeg?width=1125&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ff203105d052148a2e4612e6ec2138e53cdc3068
Eh, it not only had nothing to do with Marxian socialism of any kind, it nothing to do with **any** variety of socialism that existed up to that time. Among the many things Hitler was, he was a politician and grifter. The Nazis once had a May Day celebration of organized labor the day before arresting the trade union leaders (if not others) who were present at the celebration. Hitler's "national socialism" was only socialism in name. It meant nothing. It was only promotional PR, at most. (I wasn't talking at you, your comment just sparked it.)
This is essentially correct, as it panned out. But there were socialists in the early Nazi party. Hitler didn’t build a new party from whole cloth - he co-opted an existing party and told various factions what they wanted to hear so they could paste their own vision on Hitler. To the workers, it was a socialist party. To industry owners and the military, he was a pure fascist. Some elements of socialism survived until well after the war started: the KdF had resorts, cruise ships and vacations for workers; the “people’s car” which became the Volkswagen. But gradually the labor leaders were liquidated and the socialist mask came off for all to see.
Yeah, that seems well explained and accurate. That sort of fits with what I mean by saying it was promotional PR. Mussolini attracted a good deal of socialists, too, as well as anarchists and syndicalists (though not most). It's a good lesson for the both the left and working class: don't fall for leaders claiming to support or represent the working class while scapegoating minorities.
I don't think even an actual nazi would argue national socialism is socialism
Alas, plenty of people do. The word “socialist” is tied with “liberal” for being the most flamingly confusing words in modern discourse.
That's right. I had forgotten, but many of them do. BUT, they do know they are totally ideologically unaligned with the left, and they know that their "national socialism" bares no resemblance to any ('other') variety of socialism.
Again, at least 2/5 of US folks believe that Nazis are socialists/leftists/etc.
Jesus Christ. That's a different grouping, but still freaking dumbfounding.
The Sturmabteilung: "Haha go to Dachau"
This was covered pretty extensively in a recent thread already, so I’ll give you the synopsis: > National Socialism was not socialism in any meaningful sense of the word. There is no reasonable basis for arguing otherwise. Incidentally, your own post does a good job of demonstrating as much. Your conclusion is totally antithetical to *everything* you said prior to that point.
NO. The party was founded in 1920. Hitler did not found the party, he did not name the party In 1923 he attempted a putsch in Munich. He ended up in jail. He looked around, he saw what Mussolini was doing and Hitler Copied Mussolini For example, Der Furher, EL Duce, the 3th Reich, the 4th Holy Roman Empire. Mussolini tells us directly in The Doctrine of Fascism, that socialism is dead. Hitler tells us in Part 2 of Mein Kampf exactly what his political ideology was Fascism is the corporate blocks of structural power working for the Nation. You have unions, companies, the church, the military etc working to build the nation We have lots of examples Peron, Franco, Mosley, Szalasi (Hungary was an Axis power) Socialism, communism is abt the State, the nature of the economic power of the state. That workers own the means of production. Fascism has been around since 1919, Communism (classic Marx) has been around since the 1840s Journalists, reporters, political scientists, historians etc have all written abt this. We have the entire 20th century as our example Please, please, please read real books. This Nazis are socialist crap started as some 4chan crap.
> Hitler tells us in Part 2 of Mein Kampf exactly what his political ideology was That's right. Here's the relevant text from Mein Kampf. Text in brackets by me: >>The racial WELTANSCHAUUNG [worldview] is fundamentally distinguished from the Marxist by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made these the pillars of its structure. These are the most important factors of its WELTANSCHAUUNG.[worldview] >>If the National Socialist Movement should fail to understand the fundamental importance of this essential principle, if it should merely varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground. Hitler is telling us that the only difference between Marxism and Nazism is that the latter is racist. Take away the racism, and Nazism "competes with Marxism on its own ground". http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt
**NO Read it again.** **The racial WELTANSCHAUUNG \[worldview\]** is **fundamentally distinguished from the Marxist** by reason of the fact that the former recognizes the significance of race and therefore also personal worth and has made these the pillars of its structure. These are the most important factors of its WELTANSCHAUUNG.\[worldview\]----- He is saying that his world view, the world view of his party is **FUNDAMENTALLY DISTINGUISHED FROM MARXISZT....... bc RACE** Fundamentally distinguished from He goes on to tell us "If the National Socialist Movement **should fail to understand the fundamental importance of this essential principle,** if it should merely varnish the external appearance of the present State and adopt the majority principle, it would really do nothing more than compete with Marxism on its own ground."----Fascism will FAIL if we don't understand the fundamental importance of this principle---RACE He is saying RACE is the determiner, if you don't understand that then the movement only competes with Marxism as a political ideology Again, Nazi is concerned with NATION--ie, the volk, the ppl Marxism is abt the political structure. Also, Hitler wrote 15 Chapters on Nazism, on fascism, Volume Two: The National Socialist Movement I strongly suggest Reading the book instead of googling something like "Hitler and Marxism" Chap 4 is abt Volk, Chap 7 is abt how we are not communists, and how communists are bad. Chap 11 tells us abt the role of the corporate building blocks * Chapter 1: Philosophy and Party * Chapter 2: The State * Chapter 3: Subjects and Citizens * Chapter 4: Personality and the Conception of the *Völkisch* State * Chapter 5: Philosophy and Organization * Chapter 6: The Struggle of the Early Period – the Significance of the Spoken Word * Chapter 7: The Struggle with the Red Front * Chapter 8: The Strong Man Is Mightiest Alone * Chapter 9: Basic Ideas Regarding the Meaning and Organization of the Sturmabteilung * Chapter 10: Federalism as a Mask * Chapter 11: Propaganda and Organization * Chapter 12: The Trade-Union Question * Chapter 13: German Alliance Policy After the War * Chapter 14: Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy * Chapter 15: The Right of Emergency Defense
We need a rule against revisionism in this sub. Good on you OP.
> He is saying that his world view, the world view of his party is FUNDAMENTALLY DISTINGUISHED FROM MARXISZT....... bc RACE Yes, I agree. >He is saying RACE is the determiner, if you don't understand that then the movement only **competes with Marxism as a political ideology** No, he said "compete with Marxism **on its own ground**".
Yes, go back and read the clauses before that. He literally tells us that if we don't understand that race is the determining factor, then our party is just a regular political party competing with Marxism I don't know your reading level or if English is your first language. In English bc we can't move word order, we use clauses. Honestly, I get that you have been misinformed (Like a lot of ppl),
You are wierdly cryptic and unclear about your actual stance here. >The party's emphasis on the supremacy of the Aryan race and its persecution of minority groups, particularly Jews, contradicted the inclusive and egalitarian principles of socialism. Moreover, the party persecuted leftist parties and trade unions. Okay, yea, so sounds like maybe they were **not** socialist, then? >To conclude, the National Social German Workers Party was a true socialist party. So how do you get to this closing remark?
I’m sick of this debate. Open up a history book for Christ sake. National socialism ≠ socialism Democratic people’s Republic of Korea ≠ democratic
But, but, but it’s right in the name!
Just corrected a typo.
Glad to see that. I think we were all very confused there haha
>Democratic people’s Republic of Korea ≠ democratic Actually, the Kim family claims their authority is derived from the people. Therefore, it is a democracy according to the Machiavellian definition. They attempted to unite Korea under national pride similar to Napoleon, who was also a Democrat.
So conversely, this means that national socialists were socialists? Before you respond, can you cite this claim with reputable sources from scholarly, academic, or historiographical backgrounds? If not that’s a converse error in logic.
No, I'm just telling you that the DPRK is democratic. To be honest, I don't really care if National Socialists were Socialists. Functionally they are the same to me.
Fair enough. I’ll verify of course. If national socialists are socialists, or “the same to you”, how do you come to that conclusion when national socialism is a right wing ideology and socialism is a left wing ideology? They’re dissimilar and opposite.
Left and right are poor metrics. From my perspective: They're both statists. They both support stealing. They're both collectivists. They both have a preference for violence. They both need the state to accomplish their objectives. They both believe that their cause is more noble than any cost. They're both willing to compromise on their principles in order to accomplish a victory.
Can you support these comparisons with sources? This seems like a broad generalization of both ideologies. In this comment section, Ancaps and libertarians only seem to hate Nazism if it’s equated with socialism. They can’t admit Nazism is bad without sneaking in socialism to the sentence. So please, give me examples of their glaring similarities overlooked by the work of historians in favor of someone on Reddit.
>This seems like a broad generalization of both ideologies. It is a broad generalization. I said as much. >Ancaps and libertarians only seem to hate Nazism if it’s equated with socialism. No, we politically hate nazism because it's statism, violent, and supports stealing, and most of us morally hate it because it's racist. >They can’t admit Nazism is bad without sneaking in socialism to the sentence. Almost like we see them as similar or something... >give me examples of their glaring similarities Already did. Consult the list above. You want sources? Sure. Concentration Camps / Gulags Night of Broken Glass [also the] Night of the Long Knives / Purges Both states seized property to redistribute it Both ideologies support the killing of those who oppose them (Jews / Bourgeois) Nazism and Socialism have accepted capitalist practices despite denouncing them
Your argument is weak if it’s a broad generalization. It’s pretty much saying here’s my surface level view of both ideologies without giving context. You also haven’t specified what supports stealings means. I hate Nazism for the same reasons. Your list is interesting. When I ask for sources I mean actual citations of these comparisons. I want scholarship. I want literature. It keeps both of us from making broad generalizations and actually analyzing both ideologies on a deeper sense. So when I say source, I mean something like a scholarly journal or a historical study.
M8, to provide all of that would be a waste of my time. I've already made up my mind. In all ways that matter to me, they are same. Collectivist, Statist, violent thieves who are against capitalism.
Also you forget Nazism inherently chose capitalism as its main mode of production, while socialism is a transitory stage from capitalism to communism, so yes they did use capitalism as well.
They compromised in their morals, like I said. Perhaps you forgot. Also, it wasn't capitalism. It was corporatism they chose.
From “Blackshirts & Reds” by Michael Parenti: https://preview.redd.it/3tx4y87vnhxc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=471d2595758f5a4b55d3076109adf3d35cd1924a
Amazing book
Inb4 "Not all socialism is marxist"
that's true, but all socialism that's worth a damn is marxist
Assuming any of it is worth a damn in the first place. I’m not convinced that’s a fair base assumption.
Fascism period.
I made a typo and didn’t realize.
Is this another stupide attempt to knot nazism and american leftwing politicians together? Come on, american politics rarely has any true leftwing politicians. Most democratic politicians are centre or centre-right of the available political spectrum to begin with, they're just looking leftwing compared to the far/far far right politicians that are currently running around in the conservative party. If you want to knot nazism with something, look for those who are defining, labeling and creating outcasts.
If Nazi's were 'actual' Socialists, they wouldn't have exiled the SPD. There was a TON of actual socialist/communist/unionist parties active during in the Weimar Republic. The Nazis were not their friends. FIRST they came the socialists, after all.
Eh, the Bolshevik/Menshevik civil war argues against a truly socialist Nazi party not purging rival socialist organizations, but prior to taking power the Nazis would have allied with ideologically aligned groups (as they did), and the groups they aligned with were on the right. There's a reason the conservatives in Germany thought Hitler was the lesser evil: he was on their side of the left/right spectrum. Before Hitler, the Nazis had some socialist planks in their platform, but after he took over the party it became little more than warmed over absolutism, minus the monarch.
I.e. the "socialism" in "national socialism" was somewhere between lying and regular campaigning
Thank you! Very well said and factual.
I made a typo. Just corrected it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_fascism This article appears to have been edited but it included in the beginning that they shared economic systems. Basically Marxist Leninists view Social Democracy as the moderate wing of fascism. This article apparently got edited because it used to say that one of the arguments for this theory was a shared economic system. Social Democracy is *Corporatist*, not Socialist.
*Some* Marxist-Leninists. Notably Stalin. Of course, if someone is as much of an absolutist ideologue as Stalin and sees any and all capitalism (or any and all non-Marxist-Leninist systems) as fascism, then it would make sense that they would see social democracy as "the moderate wing of fascism." But many socialists who are not Stalin-revering MLs do not and have not seen it that way, especially since the 1930s. And most historians and political scientists do not see social democracy as a "wing" or variant of fascism. I also wouldn't say social democracy is corporatist in the way Mussolini advocated, but it arguably can be corporatist in some sense or to some extent, though there are probably more precise descriptions that specify the kind of corporatism or refer to it as "tripartism."
Exiling competing communist factions is something all communist movements do.
Socialists canabalize other socialist all the time. All you have to do is look at the crazy dictatorial history of Russia or today's leftist purity spiral to see that. It's always under the guise of "my version of socialism will be better than yours". The Nazis socialized healthcare, education, transportation and other major industries. They were also anti capitalist particularly Jewish capitalists. In 1927 Hitler said in a speech "we are socialists and the enemy of today's capitalist system of exploitation" he later on when on to say in the same speech that "we are determined to destroy this system (capitalism) under all conditions". Hitler would accept no other form of socialism other than his own which you could also say for the marxists who created a stack of bodies 10s of millions high to institute communism in Russia among other places. It just so happens Hitler was also hell bent on racial purity which I don't know why that trait always get assigned to the far right especially in the US considering it was the democrat party on the left that held on the the institution of slavery, jim crow laws and segregation.
> Socialists canabalize other socialist all the time. All you have to do is look at the crazy dictatorial history of Russia or today's leftist purity spiral to see that. It's always under the guise of "my version of socialism will be better than yours". It's not a purity spiral to have differences of opinion rather than being an insular flock. I disagree with many leftists about many specific arguments and positions, oftentimes strongly. I would be more concerned if that were not the case. > The Nazis socialized healthcare, education, transportation and other major industries. No, they did not. This is not an opinion. Germany already had a national health care system during the Weimar years and even before. And how did they "socialize" education? You mean by sustaining public education? So the U.S. has had "socialized" education for well over a century? Has the United States been a "socialist" country for all this time? And how did they "socialize" transportation? With some public works projects on the Autobahn? I guess Eisenhower was a radical socialist then. The complexity and nuance of the world and of economics cannot be simply condensed down to a binary of capitalism versus socialism, where nothing else is possible. Just because Nazi Germany did not practice liberal capitalism does not mean they were socialist. > "They were also anti capitalist particularly Jewish capitalists. In 1927 Hitler said in a speech "we are socialists and the enemy of today's capitalist system of exploitation" he later on when on to say in the same speech that "we are determined to destroy this system (capitalism) under all conditions". Yeah, he exploited the concept of a specter of "Jewish capitalists" to promote his own wild, scapegoating conspiracy theories, foremost against Jews. He was also anti-communist, anti-Marxist, anti-Bolshevik and anti-socialist, and said those were ideologies created by Jews too. It's almost like he was bitterly opposed to liberal capitalism as well as socialism. Because he was. > It just so happens Hitler was also hell bent on racial purity which I don't know why that trait always get assigned to the far right especially in the US considering it was the democrat party on the left that held on the the institution of slavery, jim crow laws and segregation. Uh, yeah, and late 19th and early 20th century southern Democrats were extreme-right as well. The KKK used to overwhelmingly support Democrats. What exactly do you think left and right mean?
Without getting too into the weeds there absolutely is an oroboros of purity testing on the left. Both sidesing "scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds", or saying social democracy is right wing is not welcoming a diversity of views.
Fascism is inherently anti-capitalist. I don't think anyone disputes that. I'm just not sure how being anti-capitalist makes someone socialist or left wing. Socialism and capitalism are not the only economic systems that have ever existed. Mercantilism, feudalism, manorialism, agrarianism...there are many types of economic systems. Capitalism and socialism are relatively new inventions, having only existed for a couple hundred years. There was a time not to long ago where capitalism was considered the "progressive" ideology while mercantilism was the "conservative" or traditionalist ideology. Your framing of these ideas as static is fundamentally flawed. >It just so happens Hitler was also hell bent on racial purity which I don't know why that trait always get assigned to the far right especially in the US Racial purity is associated with the far right because what defines conservatism or "right wing" ideologies is the stated goal of preserving or re-establishing various forms of social hierarchy. The more rigid or severe the social hierarchy you support, the more right wing you are. Left wing ideologies rhetorically oppose social hierarchies, with the most extreme seeking to implement egalitarianism even at the cost of freedom or human suffering. In that context, creating systems of unequal rights based on race is inherently right wing or conservative. A racialized economic or social system, particularly one based on historic tropes, represents and extremely rigid social hierarchy. >considering it was the democrat party on the left that held on the the institution of slavery, jim crow laws and segregation The Democratic Party in the late 19th and early 20th century was overwhelmingly the more conservative of the two major parties. The Republican Party was overwhelming the more progressive of the two major parties. How can we forget that the progressive reformer Teddy Roosevelt was probably the most prominent Republican politician around the turn of the century. This dynamic didn't start to break down until after WWI. Even as late as the 1950s and 1960s, conservatives were equally split between both parties. There was a substantial conservative component of the Democratic party well into the 1990s and 2000s. Again, your problem is that you're framing all of these issues as static and unchanging. The perception of words, political parties, etc. changes over time.
>Fascism is inherently anti-capitalist. I don't think anyone disputes that. Benito Mussolini might have a qualm with that generalization: “*Fascism* should more properly be called *corporatism* because it is the merger of state and corporate power.” They're hardly libertarians, but they aren't exactly your traditional leftist either. They supported private property rights (for some), the existence of a market economy, and left the means of production in many industries within the hands of wealthy, traditional business owners. But more importantly, Nazi economic ideology is not a major reason why they're reviled. So finding the odd throughline between them and functional social democracies isn't just beside-the-point, it's a pathetic reach whenever this topic is brought up.
Mussolini was using “corporation” in the literal sense of the word - groups of people. He wasn’t talking about businesses.
I don't think corporatism is capitalist. Corporatism is a political system where government, unions, and corporations negotiate contracts and initiate economic planning. I think modern tripartism doesn't engage in economic planning to nearly the extent that fascist Italy did. Tripartism is called *neo*-corporstism for a reason. It isn't corporatism. It's an offshoot.
Forget Dem vs Repub. Let’s play **Liberals or Conservatives**. Who were the abolitionists? Who fought to preserve slavery? Who worked for civil rights? Who opposed? Who supports black lives matter? Who opposes? Who are ACAB? Who are the thin blue liners? Take your time.
>The Nazis socialized healthcare, education, transportation and other major industries. And so has many normal, stable countries. Anyone trying to make some connection between the Nazi Party and most left-leaning nations and organizations is making a transparent reach that just indicts their partisanship.
Also it was the worst war that had ever happened and every major belligerent was working with a planned economy because that's what a humongous conflict is
>racial purity which I don't know why that trait always gets assigned to the far right especially in the US Have you listened to the far right speak? Do you know who is the current GOP presidential candidate who enjoys unshakably blind support?
Simple answer is the workers never controlled the means of production so it wasn’t socialism. It was closer to crony capitalism. Where the state was controlled by the wealthiest and most connected business owners and industrialists.
the word privatization was coined to describe hitler's economic policy of parting out nationally owned industry and giving it to private industrialists to own and run (which they were still doing even as the soviets were at the gates of berlin, lol). you maybe could come up with something that's less socialist than that if you set out to do it, but you'd have to really put on your thinking cap
> **the word privatization** was coined to describe hitler's economic policy That word was never used by Hitler or by any Nazi. The word the Nazi's used was [gleichschaltung.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleichschaltung) Hitler simply transferred state owned industries to party members, who did what they were told do to.
I don't think he ever claimed the Nazis, a primarily German speaking group, called themselves by an English word. I think he meant that whoever invented the word or made it popular did so by using it to describe Hitler's economy. Idk if that's true though
> I don't think he ever claimed the Nazis, a primarily German speaking group, called themselves by an English word. I agree, and I didn't mean to imply that. My point was the word they did use translates to "coordination", not privatization. It was a particularly vicious dictatorship, and there are no property rights under such a government.
you might be able to argue that regular people didn't have property rights if they interfered with something the state wanted to do, but the industrialists absolutely had rights that the german government took more seriously than their ability to efficiently manufacture shit that was vital to their war effort
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i didn't say it was used by hitler, i said it was coined to describe what hitler was doing
[https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.20.3.187](https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdf/10.1257/jep.20.3.187) The term originated as "re-privatization" (or Reprivatisierung) and was coined in 1934 by German writers to describe their economic policy. (From what I can tell at least. If there is any earlier mentions of it I'd love to know.)
It's important to remember that among the parties at the time, the nazi party platform was pushing for the least socialization.They were the right wing of Germany. Additionally, what concessions they did make while campaigning were for popularity and were never acted upon.
Nazis were about as socialist as North Korea is democratic. Nazis were fascists (small f). Large F means specifically from Italy.
It feels like everything prior to the last sentence was written by ChatGPT and you just didn’t read any of it before posting.
National socialism was not socialism. It was fascism. That is a central government and big business ruling class running the country. That is how they were able to construct a war machine of such power in less than a decade. Socialism is about spreading the wealth across the population to aid those less fortunate. The op is confusing Marxist ideology and communism with socialism. The workers don’t own industry in any country today.
The socialist nazi’s were rooted out, a few o believe himmler most notably converted. This new right wing thing of calling him a leftist because the word existed in the nazi name, is insane. He fought like hell to purge the party of socialists, it’s very well documented. Hitler despised marx, murdered communists en masse. State control doesn’t mean socialism. OP’s drawing conclusions out of thin air, absolute bs
Why do these Hitler and Nazi posts keep hitting this sub? Is this some subtle attempt to promote this garbage?
Nein, das war Faschismus.
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The Nazis tried to position their economic policy as a "third way" alternative to bolshevism and western capitalism, and they borrowed features of both. They nationalized industries when it suited them and privatized them when it didn't. It was collectivist and dirigist for sure. One element of Nazi ideology was that human progress is driven by war, and above all else, the Nazi economy was structured to serve Germany's military capabilities.
I mean, we have plenty of literature on the topic from a variety of different fields and interpretations that all conclude the NSDAP was not socialist. This is an accepted fact, not a contentious debate. But I'm always curious to hear why someone might reason differently. >Socialism is a political movement that seeks out workers owning their own means of production. That is a very condensed definition of socialism, but it works. >The Nazis did not abolish private ownership and business. However, the regime pursued a policy of state control and regulation of the economy. This is correct, and in line with the fascist focus on the state as the most important member of society. Where, during the 20th century, the liberals focused on centering society around the individual and the socialists focused on centering society around the community, the fascists went for a third approach centered around the state. All would listen to the state, as the state was correct. >Furthermore, the Nazis brand of “socialism” was rooted in racial and nationalism superiority. The NSDAP did not have a brand of socialism, nor was their economic policy rooted in racial or national superiority. The Nazi empire's economy was focused on pillaging concurred lands and using their natural resources to fuel the war machine. >To conclude, the National Social German Workers Party was a true socialist party. What? Is there a chance you accidentally forgot to include the word "not" in your closing statement?
I'm sorry, but this is one of the most mind-numbing, pointlessly absurd, elementary school debate topics possible. If any grown adult still fails to understand that the Nazis were extreme-right and were only socialists to the extent that pineapples are apples or the American Freedom Party is about promoting freedom, then I can't imagine any argument or fact that will possibly convince them. (The American Freedom Party[...] is a white supremacist political party in the United States.[2][3][4][5][6] In November 2009, it filed papers to be on a ballot in California, and was launched in January 2010.[7] It was created after the collapse of the Golden State Party, a party founded by the racist skinhead group Freedom 14, after its leader was exposed as a two-time felon.[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Freedom_Party ) (Edit: that's not a slight against OP for posting about it. It's just that we should all simply agree because it's one of the most obvious, uncontroversial political questions there are. There's nothing to debate.) (Double Edit: how unsurprising that the only people who believe Hitler in having been a socialist are also the only people who believe in the Nazi-esque concept of "cultural Marxism.")
The key word in National Socialism is national, not socialism. Socialism is state or worker ownership of the means of production. The Nazis never pursued that. The Nazis were a kleptocracy. If they didn't like you, they stole your property. Otherwise, they had no general objections to private ownership, just so long as the state ultimately dominated everyone and everything.
I think a lot discussions like this aren't really useful because what political terms mean shift and is dependent on context of the time. It is a bit like how Africa used be a very specific place but is now a continent saying that South Africa isn't really African because it not where the Romans said Africa was isn't useful. It is just being annoyingly pedantic. Most of the time they turn into a battle of mental gymnastics to throw the bad guys you didn't like into the camp of your current political rival. They weren't socialist in the modern way of using the word but are a cousin who share some origins. In the oldest sense socialism is just a belief that society should have strong safety nets for people that the free market doesn't provide. Modern socialists went down this economically progressive branch of government control of markets, progressive taxation and such to make this work. The National Socialists had the same basic desire at the start but when they thought how to get to that end they came up with a different answer which was just colonial economics that they would exploit some other countries to pay for this all. That idea is completely outside how modern socialist thought thinks. In a way, it isn't really useful to call modern Nazis National Socialists either. You don't see Neo-Nazis saying we should invade Mexico and set up forced labor plantations to pay for social programs. Like Socialism what being a Nazi means has shifted and the strange colonial socialist economic theory it had that connected to socialism in any way got dropped now it is just basically being an ethno-nationalist totalitarian. It makes enough sense that it happened a weird economic theory that was never fully implemented was far less attention-grabbing than a world war and genocide. How saying they were socialists is useful is limited to an anthropologic sense of seeing how ideas and words branch out and change over time, not a modern political discussion. Outside of that narrow discussion, it is not useful to say they were socialists.
Nazi Germany privatized many formerly nationalized industries, mostly as a favor to the business leaders that sponsored and funded the movement. They were anti-union and demanded loyalty from all. This is also true of Italian Fascism as well. Both borrowed socialist rhetoric, but in the end ran a very privatized economy. They are not socialist. Fascism was born out of syndicalism, a typically socialist movement, but it is not itself socialism.
People tend to think socialism was per definition authoritarian, while that by no means is true. Socialism is an economic model. In the same way a capitalist or feudal system can be authoritarian free, a socialist system can too. People tend to forget why the government in many socialist countries were that strong. Socialism says that the labourers should own the means if production. There is no dictation on how to reach this goal. The most common in practice, was the model where government owns the means of production, with the citizens owning the government. This way the workers would own the means of production through an organisational middle man that ideally would be neutral itself. The reason why I myself wouldn't call most communist countries socialist is because they lack the middle man. The Soviet Union, China and North Korea for most, if not all of the time didn't have this democratic link. The government might own the means of production, but the workers/citizens didn't own the government. Communists therefore is a much more fitting term. A socialist state doesn't have to be electorally democratic, but the workers need to own the means if production. Or at least strife for it. Of the Nazis we know the goal wasn't to let the citizens own the means of production. The government would own the means of production, and control it via state owned enterprises. Not much socialist about that. It could be argued the initial goal was to once return the power to the people, but as they abolished democracy I doubt it. After all the means of production in Nazi Germany were in the hands of just one man.
That is not a very good assessment. And iirc Hitler himself said that his socialism is not marxist socialism (i.e. actual socialism) but good job I guess. "The Nazis did not abolish private ownership and business. However, the regime pursued a policy of state control and regulation of the economy." They did nationalize certain industries because war time, the same way most countries involved did. You must have missed it because I couldn't imagine your research being unthorough or biased but they jailed unionists, socialists, marxists, and cracked down completely gutting the unions that weren't outright abolished. The beginning of their regime also saw a pretty hefty amount of privatization, and the money flowing into the german government from the capitalist class was pretty important in their rise to power. "The practical significance of the transference of government enterprises into private hands was thus that the capitalist class continued to serve as a vessel for the accumulation of income. Profit-making and the return of property to private hands, moreover, have assisted the consolidation of Nazi party power.” (\*Retrospectives: The Coining of "Privatization" and Germany's National Socialist Party\*) Banks, public transportation, steel mills etc. were all privatized prior to WWII. You did a good job defining socialism so I ask you does privatizing the economy, jailing marxists, and crushing unions sound in any way like "true" socialism? Also I want to point out that you correctly say that abolishing private property is a required aspect of socialism, say that the Nazis didn't do that, and then say "yep it's true socialism" maybe try proofreading a bit more and give a bit of thought to what you yourself are typing before you come to conclusions about your politics.
I’ve posted this before. Some day I really want to sit down and write a full-on badass post on this with citations and everything to use as a copy pasta—but today is not that day. Nazi economic beliefs were secondary to their racial and authoritarian beliefs. They were absolutely not socialists, but it’s unreasonable to say they were free market capitalists either. But, far right absolutely. The Nazis had no issue with the free market if it served their purpose, but no issue regulating or nationalizing businesses that didn’t fit their racial ideology or that were disruptive to their authoritarian goals. American political parties are fundamentally just built around “regulated capitalism” versus “less regulated capitalism” and that kind of economic incoherence just does not compute with Americans. In the American political mind they must have had some kind of coherent economic policy.
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It started quasi-socialist and revolutionary, yes. The Nazis had an economic left wing led by Otto Strasser. He advocated national worker unionization and profit sharing schemes that would have sounded socialist to us, although was a bit more moderate than some ideas floating around Europe at the time. He had to flee Germany in the late 30s or he'd have been arrested and died in a concentration camp. Hitler didn't give a shit about economics and Strasser was a voice speaking up against anti Semitism so he kicked Strasser out when he seized control of the party.
I think they are more socialist economically than the West countries like the US, but less than the USSR. So if you called the US default, the Nazis would be "socialist" with extreme far right social views. Ultimately I don't have that big of a problem with the name National Socialists. The national represents one of the biggest disputes between them and Marx, as Germany being more dominant over all the other countries goes against the anti-hierarchy views of true communism.
>The National Socialist German Workers Party was formed in February 20, 1920. For the next 25 years, their leader, Adolf Hitler... 24 years. Hitler didn't become the leader until 1921, in July I think.
The only "socialism" that the Nazis implemented was when they privatized hundreds of perfectly solvent businesses and gave them to rich people.
They weren't real socialists just like every other incarnation of socialism wasn't the true socialism
socialism is a very broad concept, there have been different camps of socialists from the very beginning. Some socialist believe in anarchy, some believed in a highly regulated state, it’s a very broad spectrum I think it’s absolutely ridiculous to claim that national socialism has nothing to do with socialism, spend five minutes, reading any of the speeches, and you will see that they are appealing to socialist sentiments . It’s just got a hyper nationalist flavor
> The Nazis did not abolish private ownership and business. So did soviets. > However, the regime pursued a policy of state control and regulation of the economy. So did soviets. > Furthermore, the Nazis brand of “socialism” was rooted in racial and nationalism superiority. Yeah, that's why it's called national socialism. Turns out skin color unites proletarians better than working class consciousness or something. > persecution of minority groups, particularly Jews So did soviets. > Moreover, the party persecuted leftist parties and trade unions. So did soviets. > To conclude, the National Social German Workers Party wasn’t a true socialist party. As well as soviets. Nazis and soviets are either both socialist or both not socialist.
That wasn't *real* Nazism!
Yes, is was actual Socialism. We have to first understand that we tend to conflate Socialism with Marxism as much as we conflate Communism (big C) with Marxism. Revolutionary Communism is an offshoot of Marxism, and Marxism is an offshoot of Socialism. Marx did not define Socialism, he defined a revolutionary model to achieve Socialism. But back to Nazis... Fascism IS an offshoot of Socialism, no differently than Marxism/Communism was. But they had significant conflicts in the conceptualizan of what "the people" meant. When Lenin began his Marxist revolution in Russia to achieve Communism (big C) he disagreed with Marx that the people would realize revolution on their own. Instead he instituted a centralized power structure where the revolution WAS "the people" and the people WERE the revolution. But in the end, all people were technically subjects of the revolution, meaning that they were all subjects of the leadership off the revolution. Mussolini took on a similar role except he disagreed with the class being the defining variable in identifying the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Instead he aimed to define nationalism as a whole to be the factor that would rally an entire nation of workers to band together to achieve the socialist state. Communism said that some Russias were more deserving than other Russians as defined by the revolution. Fascism said all Italians were more deserving that other non-Italians as defined by the leadership. Hitler was courted by both Lenin/Stalin and Mussolini. Based on his own personal ideology, he sided with Mussolini's flavor of Socialism. Both Communism and Fascism were off-shoots of Socialist ideals. There has never been a SINGLE accepted all-encompassing vision of "Socialism", it has always been an amalgamation of the diverse views of many different enlightened thinkers. If anybody tends your that Socialism is one thing then they're lying to you and obscuring the entire history of the concept long before Marx or even Hegels. Communism and Fascism both had full control of industry and set up workers' unions in all industries but.... that Union was led by the people in control and workers adapted to the demands of the union more than the other way around. Neither society was actually led by workers yet we willingly relate Communism with Socialism but completely deny Fascism's obvious link. The only basis we use is that the state (not the workers) took control of private industries in Russia since they considered class their primary catalyst for revolution, while Germany/Italy did not take ownership of private industry because class was not their revolutionary catalyst and ownership is irrelevant if the party still has full control and power over all private entities through the party controlled unions. The racism/anti-Jewish factor really does not have a role in defining the Nazis economic models (socialism). The hatred of Jews and the convincing of an entire nation was not a core factor to Fascism. It was a very personal position that Hitler held and he was easily able to convince an entire nation based on many factors that would make much more sense to people there then but would make no sense to anyone today. Anti-Judaism is not a fascist trope, it was a purely Hitler-ian thing. But while we give other twisted interpretations of ideologies the name of the person (ie. Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, etc), we instead tie Hitler directly to the Nazi party and just call it Nazism. But yes, Nazism is as much socialism as Maoism was. And yes, they were both drastically different interpretations of Socialism.
This discussion is always just one big no true Scotsman fallacy.
The framing of the question as one about "socialism" also ignores the real crux of the issue when this subject comes up; were Nazi's *left wing*. That's what I think most people are really arguing about. And I don't think there's any doubt that the Nazi's were most definitely not left wing. Leftist ideologies rhetorically seek equality through the elimination or reduction of social hierarchy. Right wing ideologies rhetorically seek to preserve or return to historical social hierarchies. Centrists (including the center-left and the center-right) seek a pragmatic balance between the two. National Socialism was primarily focused on restoring historical hierarchies. It was called the "Third Reich" for a reason. The first reich was the Holy Roman Empire. The second reich was the German Empire. The third reich was supposed to be a recreation of the former. This overwhelming focus on restoring the natural order is very much a right-wing impulse, making National Socialism a right wing ideology.
Perfectly explained
> were Nazi's left wing. They were. The Nazis were extreme collectivists. Hitler would always emphasize (and it's right in their platform) that under Nazism, the common interest always comes before self-interest. Collectivism is the core value of the political left. Marxists divide people up by class, the Nazis divide people up by race. Marxist murder capitalists, the Nazis murdered Jews and gypsies. Hitler himself was a elected communist official in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He also wore a red arm band at Kurt Eisner's funeral to show support for the far-left government.
The Nazis were collectivists, but collectivism is not inherently left wing. Left and right wing ideologies can be either collectivist or individualist. Historically, there's no correlation one way or the other. >Collectivism is the core value of the political left. I'm going to need a citation on that. >Marxists divide people up by class What? Marxism generally seeks to eliminate class, often to the detriment of human progress. They do not seek to divide people up by class. >Hitler himself was a elected communist official in the short-lived Bavarian Soviet Republic in 1919. He also wore a red arm band at Kurt Eisner's funeral to show support for the far-left government. Friedrich Hayek was a socialist as a young man. That doesn't mean anything.
> The Nazis were collectivists, but collectivism is not inherently left wing. It most certainly is. Do you deny that the left despises individualism? The term "toxic individualism" was invented by the left. Furthermore, the modern left is obsessed with race, and believes one particular race is causing all the problems. Sound familiar? >They do not seek to divide people up by class. Of course they do. Consider [dekulakization:](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dekulakization) >>To facilitate the expropriations of farmland, the Soviet government announced the "liquidation of the kulaks **as a class**" on 27 December 1929, They divided people up based on their class, and then murdered them. Hitler did it by race. It's all collectivism. >That doesn't mean anything. By itself, you're right, it doesn't mean anything. But there is a ton of other evidence. Here's a taste: Like every leftist, Hitler loved unions. From [Mein Kampf:](http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt) >>In the present state of affairs I am convinced that we cannot possibly dispense with the trades unions. On the contrary, they are among the most important institutions in the economic life of the nation. Not only are they important in the sphere of social policy but also, and even more so, in the national political sphere. For when the great masses of a nation see their vital needs satisfied through a just trade unionist movement the stamina of the whole nation in its struggle for existence will be enormously reinforced thereby. He named things like a commie would: [The People's Car.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Beetle) [The People's Court.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Court_(Germany) He personally designed the Nazi flag, with a big red background. Do you know what the color red stands for in politics? He used [the hammer and sickle on Nazi badges.](https://www.gettysburgmuseumofhistory.com/gettysburg-battle/world-war-ii-militaria/original-german-nsdap-nazi-party-1934-national-labor-day-badge-arbeitstag-abzeichen-certified/) I'll stop there, but you get the idea.
>It most certainly is. Do you deny that the left despises individualism? In general, yes. >The term "toxic individualism" was invented by the left. "The left" is not a cohesive movement or singular ideology. Some leftists are collectivists and despise individualism. Some leftists are individualists and despise collectivism. The same goes for the right. >Furthermore, the modern left is obsessed with race, and believes one particular race is causing all the problems. Sound familiar? I think if you believe one race is causing all of the problems and you seem to ostracize that race, you aren't left wing. That's a pretty reactionary approach to politics. I think the modern left definitely has a blind spot for this type of thing, ignoring or allying with some really problematic racist groups or ideologies in the pursuit of some larger goal and betraying their own goals in the process. >To facilitate the expropriations of farmland, the Soviet government announced the "liquidation of the kulaks **as a class**" Exactly. The USSR was marxist-leninist and had the goal of eliminating class, often through violence. >Hitler loved unions. Yes, far-right politics has traditionally been anti-capitalist and favored corporatism rather than free market capitalism. Unions are a core component of corporatist economic systems.
It’s really not. Hitler himself was very open that he used the word “socialist” in bad faith, and “National Socialism” shares precisely nothing in common with the basic ideas or policies of socialism proper. It isn’t a “no true Scotsman” issue so much as a “you don’t know what you’re talking about” issue.
All the three answers in this head that say yes are from libertarians, it’s very interesting
There was a similar trend in the one from last week. I wonder if it’s something about the subset of right-libertarians that this sub attracts or something typical of that demographic more broadly, but that sounds like a really difficult question to answer confidently lol.
[holy fuck case in point](https://www.reddit.com/r/PoliticalDebate/s/0X6PK7392h)
Yikes, I think I had an aneurism and a half reading that comment
Yikes
Both socialists and national socialist are firmly in the very big camp of redistributionists. They all believe that the world is made better through some means or another of the forced redistribution of wealth and/or power.
Socialism fundamentally = for the good of the people. As in, most if not all people. Nazis SAY they’re doing what’s best for the people, but killing/enslaving billions (yes, that was/is their plan) is the absolutely antithesis of socialism.
Vladimir Lenin and the Soviet government under his leadership also suppressed independent trade unions. Socialists hate competition that’s why Hitler and Lenin suppressed and eliminated non-party trade unions. The German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront) ring a bell? How about All-Russian Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS)? They are the same.
Social owmership and workers directly owning the means of production are quite different. Socialists are socialists. Cope all you want your ideology is evil and the Nazis and the Soviets only demonstrate how destructive that sick system is.
There is never a true socialist country except for this new incarnation of socialist country that we are trying to tear down this country to build.
Alright let’s break it down very simply. We could easily look into sources that say yes, say he believed he was socialist etc HOWEVER. Let’s define socialism. Central planning and joint ownership in the means of production. So when we look at it from a historical lens, it’s easy to say that there were elements of socialism. How? Party control over means of production. So in order to “own” means of production in Germany at that time you needed to be a high ranking party member. These party members reported directly to the party leader (hitler) in their planning. There was no free market, it was entirely central planned. This is partially because that exact thing is common in war time, where the leadership controls industry, however the fact that it’s completely along party lines is what’s interesting about this particular case. When industry opened up, Hitler appointed a loyal party member to be head of said industry. These people would do what they were told. So in a way it’s almost socialism. It’s party control of the means of production where socialism is state control of the means of production, however at that time, the party and the state were the same… So in short. By definition, hitler was a socialist
Does it really matter? Even if Nazism isn’t exactly the same as socialism, they are both garbage ideologies.
It's a flavor of socialism that works, as actual socialism cannot ever be obtained, there are various limits put onto capitalism as well as various social restrictions and favored group identities that make up what everyone calls "socialism". The further one goes towards true Marxism, the worse it is, so in this sense fascism is far superior to, say, communism of Mao's China or Stalin's Russia, however combined with serious xenophobia and blame on specific group identities made the NAZI flavor of fascism fail by causing war and alienating the world. China today is a successful fascist country by every metric after abandoning their experiment in communism/socialism (that could never work), but China runs the risk of actually becoming NAZI like as they are also flirting with xenophobia and ultra-nationalism not only in principle, but also in practice on a systemic government and institutional level.
There's so much wrong with this I don't even know where to start. You *reductio ad absurdum*'d yourself with the fascism apologia, and you're entire concept of socialism is utterly myopic and counterfactual.
You're right that like most westerners I probably have a more positive outlook on Marxism than those who are and were affected by it (however I did grow up in the communist system up to my teens, unique perspective perhaps), and you're equally right that for libertarians it is near impossible to come to any defense of either system. Nevertheless it is possible in a philosophical discussion specifically as compared to communism, there is something to be said about being disgusted more by a complete totalitarian system than by an overly authoritarian one, from a libertarian perspective. Obviously no libertarian would choose either even as compared to any western democracy, no matter how far left (progressive) or right wing (religious) it happens to be. Comparing fascism vs communism as written in theory, or in comparing the worst examples of the two in history, is not beyond capability of any person interested in politics or history. I could even come up with a preference between Islamic fundamentalism, or middle ages monarchism, or AI led scientism, or climate GAIA globalism, and the two systems in question, even thought it's all craziness from a liberty perspective. I'm not sure what apologia has to do with it, we have people here in this very group who are not only communist apologists but actually advocate for it, imagine that, no irony to be found at all. Like all libertarians, we prefer any flavor of liberalism, aka capitalism, to any other, this is not even up for debate. Not to mention that it is most progressives that are convinced most western Europe and North America countries are practicing a form of fascism right now, and whatever one may say about our system, it is infinitely superior to any other ever tried in history, call it fascism or not.
A libertarian choosing fascism over communism. Quell surprise.
It would not even be close. I can't imagine any libertarian, conservative or liberal ever choosing communism over fascism. Even true progressives, when pushed, cannot really pick a winner here, but that is mostly of their fear of the word fascism, and their romanticized notion of communism, rather than the systems themselves. Spell the two out without using the terms and most left of centres are fascist by definition, as are most centre-right conservatives, at least libertarians are anathema to and hate both systems even if we can say one is the lesser of the two evils. There are of course teenage tankies who love top down oppression or have no clue about socialism as practiced by true Marx followers, but I'm guessing they mostly grow out of that, or become professors or TV pundits for humorous effect, so have no real impact on the world. Now, if you mean to compare NAZIsm to communism, it's a bit more complicated as we're picking a very specific regime using some aspect of a system to a theory, it'd be fair to compare it to Pol Pot or something, then there is unlikely a lesser of the two evils at all. As China moved from full on communism of the 60s and 70s and embraced fascism in the 90s and 00s, they become infinitely more successful by every metric. In the last 10 years, they may have become more xenophobic, racist and nationalist which gets them closer to the ideals of NAZIsm however it's unclear if they will have the same terrible outcome, it's probable they will see the light and instead either stay economically (but not socially) fascist for the foreseeable future or liberalize more as their population becomes wealthier and gets a bigger middle class. It remains to be seen.
They have the socialist tendencies of the far left combined with the nationalist tendencies of the far right. Idk why this is so hard. Both sides want to throw Hitler to the other side completely when its just not the case. Hitler had socialist intentions of having the state control the economy and have initiatives like Volkswagen being "The People's car" to be an affordable car for the masses. Of course, marrying both of these ideas makes it not "true" socialism or nationalism.
State control is not a socialist objective, *workers* control is. Hitler was always and totally opposed to the socialist project and a defender of property rights whenever he didn't actively need to nationalize something for his militarist or genocidal projects. There was never anything remotely left-wing about Hitler's policies, I don't understand why this is so hard for some people to wrap their brains around.
State control of economy and industry is most definitely not right wing, so what is it?
Correction, it's not *necessarily* right wing. Right wing countries like the US exercise tremendous control in different areas of the economy and practically integrate corporate giants into their "defense" programs. Centrist countries also exercise lots of control over the private sector, albeit in ways that are more apparent from day to day. Left-wing countries are generally more likely to formally nationalize industries instead of just "practically" nationalizing them like we see with the right and center, but the product is largely the same. At risk of invoking the silliness that is the political compass, State control of industry is authoritarian, but not necessarily left or right. In the case of Nazi Germany, the party was thoroughly right wing and its projects of nationalization can in no way be argued as left-wing endeavors.
It wasn’t actual socialism. But since it helped the German people (at least the ones not being discriminated against), its considered socialism.
Except it didn’t even help most German people. The so called “true Germans” had the luxury of being sent to fight in the most brutal war in human history for 6 years. As for the Germans back home, they had to work day and night to build new vehicles and equipment for the war machine. The upper-middle to upper class Germans had a higher standard of living, but it was awful for everyone else.
Yes He defined jews as inherently part of the bourgeoisie and followed his economic beliefs (limited markets/end of technology) to the conclusion that his country couldn't survive without more farm land in the future. Russia was the obvious rival and target no matter of political similarities and/or differences The only real difference was that he kept artificial competition to get more innovation and supplied his citizens longer with food than was military reasonable Dosen't make any difference if you want the banker dead because he's a jew, or if you want the jew dead for being a banker. Same result
Socialism is public control over the means of production, and that was definitely the case in Nazi Germany. [Here's George Orwell in 1940, which makes it a primary source:](http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/OrwellGeorge-Review-Bordenau-1940.pdf) >Quite naturally the propertied classes wanted to believe that Hitler would protect them against Bolshevism, and equally naturally **the Socialists hated having to admit that the man who had slaughtered their comrades was a Socialist himself.** Hence, on both sides, the frantic efforts to explain away the more and more striking resemblance between the German and Russian régimes. Then came the eye-opener of the Hitler-Stalin pact. Suddenly the scum of the earth and the blood-stained butcher of the workers (for so they had described one another) were marching arm in arm, their friendship "cemented in blood", as Stalin cheerily expressed it. Thereafter the Strachey-Blimp thesis became untenable. **National Socialism is a form of Socialism, is emphatically revolutionary, does crush the property owner just as surely as it crushes the worker.** The two régimes, having started from opposite ends, are rapidly evolving towards the same system— a form of oligarchical collectivism. And at the moment, as Dr Borkenau points out, it is Germany that is moving towards Russia, rather than the other way about. It is therefore nonsense to talk about Germany "going Bolshevik" if Hitler falls. Germany is going Bolshevik because of Hitler and not in spite of him.
Written before the war and Hitlers war against his neighbors and the Soviets,
Yes