Posted on 06/22/2002 10:38:56 AM PDT by freeforall
The importance of knowing the direction of our drift is in defining the tactics to oppose it. As a firm anti-WOD person, I would usually not be found allied with the gun lobby and the anti-abortion lobby, but both are my allies now, as both oppose the socialist drift to which we are succumbing.
Thanks for the kind words and the wisdom to see that the two different paradigms are causing the confusion in this debate. I think it is hard for people on the right to grasp that Nazi's were from the right because of the horrible acts of the Germans. But none of us are without sin. The Christians have their inquisitions, the Jews persecuted the Christians, the left killed its' millions, the right its' six million. Let us all agree that if there are to be more deaths, they shall be in the name of freedom once and for all, and truly for all. The next state will have one order of business: protecting the individual from the state and from violence and theft from other citizens, period. Under that government, if we hear that the Bill of Rights is a living document, that judge is going to be a dead judge, the only capital crime.
Just what the hell is it about people who think they have to find something deeper . Folks who think that it's divine to hug a crystal ?
You seem to know the type . What is it that makes people think that they are so worthless that they flock to people like Ryan , Hitler , Jim Jones , The Pharohs , King Henry , The Duke of Anjou , Voltaire .
I'm always amazed with the fact that folks continue to demean themselves . Indeed ! Many look forward to doing so . It is a terrible loss of human potential , not to mention the loss to society .
Marketing is the same as getting on the internet . Anyone can do it . Its to bad folks who have a certain type of core use it to achieve there self serving ends .
The "point" of thread is not whether Germany between 1933 and 1945 was a perfectly socialist nation. The point is whether or not that "socialism=Nazi" and whether Hitler was a socialist. The latter point is problamatic since Hitler was a power-mad liar and I believe, like Clinton, was a economic pragmatist rather than an ideologue. Of course, I believe that about most socialists in general.
The former point is pretty indisputable: Here are the 25 points of the Nazi Party, which is basically group's founding document.
THE 25 POINTS OF HITLER'S NAZI PARTY1. We demand the union of all Germans in a Great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.
2. We demand that the German people have rights equal to those of other nations; and that the Peace Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain shall be abrogated.
3. We demand land and territory (colonies) for the maintenance of our people and the settlement of our surplus population.
4. Only those who are our fellow countrymen can become citizens. Only those who have German blood, regardless of creed, can be our countrymen. Hence no Jew can be a countryman.
5. Those who are not citizens must live in Germany as foreigners and must be subject to the law of aliens.
6. The right to choose the government and determine the laws of the State shall belong only to citizens. We therefore demand that no public office, of whatever nature, whether in the central government, the province, or the municipality, shall be held by anyone who is not a citizen. We wage war against the corrupt parliamentary administration whereby men are appointed to posts by favor of the party without regard to character and fitness.
7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.
8. Any further immigration of non-Germans must be prevented. We demand that all non-Germans who have entered Germany since August 2, 1914, shall be compelled to leave the Reich immediately.
9. All citizens must possess equal rights and duties.
10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all. Therefore we demand:
11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
16. We demand the creation and maintenance of a sound middle-class, the immediate communalization of large stores which will be rented cheaply to small tradespeople, and the strongest consideration must be given to ensure that small traders shall deliver the supplies needed by the State, the provinces and municipalities.
17. We demand an agrarian reform in accordance with our national requirements, and the enactment of a law to expropriate the owners without compensation of any land needed for the common purpose. The abolition of ground rents, and the prohibition of all speculation in land.
18. We demand that ruthless war be waged against those who work to the injury of the common welfare. Traitors, usurers, profiteers, etc., are to be punished with death, regardless of creed or race.
19. We demand that Roman law, which serves a materialist ordering of the world, be replaced by German common law.
20. In order to make it possible for every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education, and thus the opportunity to reach into positions of leadership, the State must assume the responsibility of organizing thoroughly the entire cultural system of the people. The curricula of all educational establishments shall be adapted to practical life. The conception of the State Idea (science of citizenship) must be taught in the schools from the very beginning. We demand that specially talented children of poor parents, whatever their station or occupation, be educated at the expense of the State.
21. The State has the duty to help raise the standard of national health by providing maternity welfare centers, by prohibiting juvenile labor, by increasing physical fitness through the introduction of compulsory games and gymnastics, and by the greatest possible encouragement of associations concerned with the physical education of the young.
22. We demand the abolition of the regular army and the creation of a national (folk) army.
23. We demand that there be a legal campaign against those who propagate deliberate political lies and disseminate them through the press. In order to make possible the creation of a German press, we demand: (a) All editors and their assistants on newspapers published in the German language shall be German citizens. (b) Non-German newspapers shall only be published with the express permission of the State. They must not be published in the German language. (c) All financial interests in or in any way affecting German newspapers shall be forbidden to non-Germans by law, and we demand that the punishment for transgressing this law be the immediate suppression of the newspaper and the expulsion of the non-Germans from the Reich. Newspapers transgressing against the common welfare shall be suppressed. We demand legal action against those tendencies in art and literature that have a disruptive influence upon the life of our folk, and that any organizations that offend against the foregoing demands shall be dissolved.
24. We demand freedom for all religious faiths in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or offend the moral and ethical sense of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the point of view of a positive Christianity without binding itself to any one particular confession. It fights against the Jewish materialist spirit within and without, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our folk can only come about from within on the pinciple: COMMON GOOD BEFORE INDIVIDUAL GOOD
25. In order to carry out this program we demand: the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organizations. The formation of professional committees and of committees representing the several estates of the realm, to ensure that the laws promulgated by the central authority shall be carried out by the federal states.
The leaders of the party undertake to promote the execution of the foregoing points at all costs, if necessary at the sacrifice of their own lives.
Note especially points 12, 13, 16 and 17. The Nazis were INARGUABLY, INDISPUTABLY socialists.
But IMO the "important" difference between Fascism/Communism is in the imagery used to sell them, which by analogy I call marketing.
Marketing techniques are like other tools, it's all about the use to which they're put.
I learned a little bit more thanks to you folks !
I would add two points. First, the main German socialist party, the SDP, essentially abandoned the goal of state ownership of the means of production in the late 19th Century. Basically what happened is that Bismarck and the conservatives agreed to establish a cradle to grave welfare state if the socialists would drop nationalization. So, the NAZI platform is not markedly different than mainstream German socialism on this issue.
The second point is to look at who elected the NAZI's. The electoral maps of the last two German elections before the NAZI dictatorship was elected showed conservative support roughly static, winning primarily traditionally conservative constituencies in the south and west. The dramatic change was the majority of socialist constituencies which flipped from SDP to NAZI. Socialist voters put the NAZI's in power.
Ever.
There are a couple of ways of considering the issue. Stryker isn't necessarily wrong. He's using the dictionary definition of socialism and noting Nazi Germany refrained from much nationalization.
On the other hand it is very fair, accurate and practical to call the Nazis and, by default, Hitler socialists.
They called themselves socialists, after all, and advocated nationalization in their platform for parts of the German economy. By word and deed, they showed they considered the private ownership of property to be a conditional circumstance and subject to the whims of the state -- what this thread might end up being is a debate on the meaning of the word "ownership."
It is practical to insist upon the Nazis being considered socialists because the enemies of freedom have vocally considered socialism to an advancement for humanity, while often accusing the defenders of individual liberty of being Nazis.
It very effective to point out -- accurately -- that they are the ones with whom Hitler identified with, and with whom he was allied with, and whose economic positions he advocated.
Hitler hated American political and economic freedom.
Hitler followed the same game plan. He openly acknowledged that the Nazi party was ``socialist'' and that its enemies were the ``bourgeoisie'' and the ``plutocrats'' (the rich). Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler eliminated trade unions, and replaced them with his own state-run labor organizations. Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler hunted down and exterminated rival leftist factions (such as the Communists). Like Lenin and Stalin, Hitler waged unrelenting war against small business.
Hitler regarded capitalism as an evil scheme of the Jews and said so in speech after speech. Karl Marx believed likewise. In his essay, ``On the Jewish Question,'' Marx theorized that eliminating Judaism would strike a crippling blow to capitalist exploitation. Hitler put Marx's theory to work in the death camps.
The Nazis are widely known as nationalists, but that label is often used to obscure the fact that they were also socialists. Some question whether Hitler himself actually believed in socialism, but that is no more relevant than whether Stalin was a true believer. The fact is that neither could have come to power without at least posing as a socialist.
A Little Secret About the Nazis
Joseph Goebbels own words: "Those Damn Nazis", long German propaganda piece defining intent and meaning of the Nazi's....National, Socialists....left-wing, "third way.".
If a Communist shouts "Down with nationalism!", he means the hypocritical bourgeois patriotism that sees the economy only as a system of slavery. If we make clear to the man of the left that nationalism and capitalism, that is the affirmation of the Fatherland and the misuse of its resources, have nothing to do with each other, indeed that they go together like fire and water, then even as a socialist he will come to affirm the nation, which he will want to conquer.
That is our real task as National Socialists. We were the first to recognize the connections, and the first to begin the struggle. Because we are socialists we have felt the deepest blessings of the nation, and because we are nationalists we want to promote socialist justice in a new Germany.
A young Fatherland will rise when the socialist front is firm.
Socialism will become reality when the Fatherland is free.
See also:
Socialist Origins of Neo-Nazi-ism
You Mean Hitler Wasn't a Priest?
All Socialism is National.
Perhaps the genus should not be Socialism.Perhaps Collectivism should be the genus and that Socialism,Communism,Facism and Nazism are the species.The other contrast would be Individualism as the genus with Libertarianism,Classic Liberalism etc as the species.
I think you've nailed it here. The genus/species device is great. It captures with a bit more elegance the point I was trying to make in my #167 -- which is that there are two variables to consider, but that they are not of equal importance and their rank must be considered.
The first variable is whether or not the government is going to force some kind of social/economic idealogy down the throats of its citizens.
The second variable is which ideology that's going to be.
And the first is clearly ranked higher since the importance of the second is predicated upon the condition of the first. The first variable is primary; the second is a modifier.
So with regards to socialists and fascists, they could be quantified like this (forgive my ham-fisted latinizations here):
either...
collectivus socialistus and collectivus fascistus
or perhaps...
socialistus progressivus and socialistus nationalistus
With regard to the original article, it appears Piekoff would lean towards the second grouping, with "socialist" as the genus designation.
LOL, zoology and politics...
If you want to say Germany under the Nazis had de facto rather than de jure socialism, that's fine, but the Nazis were socialists. You've read my reasoning. The Social Democratic Labor Party has ruled Sweden for most of the last century. They never nationalized the means of production. The SDLP is considered a socialist party.
You're insisting on a very narrow definition of "nationalized," anyway. Hitler's Germany was a police state. There was no habeas corpus. There was no appeal to an arrest by the Gestapo. You don't think this atmosphere of terror influenced business decision making? Saying the Nazis didn't "nationalize" the means of production is sort of like saying the mob didn't control the Dune's Casino because an attorney's name was on the deed.
I've read the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, by the way.
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