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To: BillinDenver
BillinDenver, you wrote in your #174:
And [Hitler's] solution was to ban all unions except the Nazi party's union, outlaw strikes, jail labor leaders and anyone who attempted to organize, etc. Sounds like a businessman's wet dream in America.

But a businessman's wet dreams don't define an economic system. The actions of those who are overseeing the system determine what sort of system it is. A businessman can dream all he wants about getting the government to unfairly gang up with him against his employees and his competitors, but in a capitalist system those dreams will remain unfulfilled. Capitalism is about the separation of business and the state, not their collusion. The fact that Hitler was willing to hop in bed with the big industrialists is proof that he wasn't a capitalist.

In your #178 you wrote:

However, Stalin and Brezhnev did NOT allow the wealthy industrialists and landed gentry to keep their private wealth. On THIS score, Hitler is much closer to American free marketers than Communists or Socialists.

True, I guess. But doesn't this really just serve to prove how flaky and far-out the the Soviet communists were? Hitler had a silly mustache but at least he allowed business owners to keep their businesses. And there is still a profound difference between Hitler and the American free marketers. In the US, business owners have a right to the wealth they create; in Nazi Germany their wealth could be taken from them if the Fuhrer willed it, since, according to Ernst Huber,

The authority of the Fuhrer is not limited by checks and controls, by special autonomous bodies or individual rights, but it is free and independent, all-inclusive and unlimited.

Capitalism requires a limited government.

You wrote:

And American free marketers haven't been very kind to organized labor historically either. Up until striking was made legal in the 30's, strikes were frequently suppressed with private police or National Guard units.

Well, being a free marketer -- and being consistent about it -- means believing in a free labor market, too. Workers are free to strike and employers are free to fire them for striking, but forcing your workers to get back to work is about as anti free market as it gets. In a capitalist system you can no more force people to work for you than you can force people to buy your product. So it seems to be a bit of a strawman to call these guys free marketers in regards to their dealings with labor, which they clearly were not, and then to compare them with Hitler (plus, by the time WWII rolled around, the US had pretty much seen the end of violent strike-breaking).

186 posted on 06/24/2002 4:50:04 PM PDT by Yardstick
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To: Yardstick
bump

187 posted on 06/24/2002 5:22:36 PM PDT by My Identity
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