... socialism in a democracy invariably transfers wealth from the executive and owner class to the worker class. Which is proof that Hitler was no socialist, despite all the right-wing claims that he was.
Hitler liked to throw around socialist jargon in order to ingratiate himself to the German people, but his actual actions were to impoverish the workers and enrich the ownership class.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
The difference between National Socialists and Socialists
BadTux reminds us that the despite what the right says, Hitler wasn't a socialist.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
In the continuum of things, Hitler was closer to being a socialist than not. Under fascism, what the government doesn't own, it controls. Under socialism, the government owns it all, or practically all of it.
Under liberal capitalism, the government owns none of it save those things that are uniquely performed by the government. In a case where a decision had to be made to go one way or the other, a fascist would never choose to give up control and would instead nationalize a company.
By the way, using Hitler as an example clouds the matter. Hitler's goal of Greater Germany, stretching from the Urals to the Atlantic, makes the analysis murky. Check out Peron instead. Peron was a fascist who had no imperial ambitions.
From Wikipedia:
Fascism, pronounced /ˈfæʃɪzəm/, comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology developed in Italy. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in conflict against the weak.
Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascist governments forbid and suppress openness and opposition to the government and the fascist movement. Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept.
In the economic sphere, many fascist leaders have claimed to support a "Third Way" in economic policy, which they believed superior to both the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism and the severe control of state communism. This was to be achieved by establishing significant government control over business and labour (Mussolini called his nation's system "the corporate state"). No common and concise definition exists for fascism and historians and political scientists disagree on what should be in any concise definition.
This pretty much describes the Nazis. From this I suppose you could say they were neither truly left or right.
I would suggest that to an individual, the economic differences between facism and socialism are purely theoretical. Either you have economic freedom or you don't. It hardly matters whether the State owns WalMart or overtly controls WalMart. To you, it's the same.
Peron is still a good example for what's going on here in the US. I found some podcasts from a conference discussing the economics of fascism. From listening to those, I'd suggest that the wikipedia definition is way too simplified. Peron didn't bother with expansionism or racism, but he was most certainly an economic fascist.
I'd also suggest that our trajectory is independent of party. We took over the mortgage industry under Bush and we absorbed the auto industry under Obama. We have no business being involved in either. Both actions are undeniably fascist.
As an exercise, try looking for an exit strategy for GM, Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. You won't find one.
Finally, we're not seeing the same penalties in the US as they saw in Argentina under Peron for one reason alone. We can print money and the world still sucks it up. When Argentina printed money, everyone ran away. That won't go on forever.
Post a Comment