Interesting question. Trotsky argued that the Nazis were essentially a middle-class phenomena, the forces of capital and labour being weakened to naught by the first world war; once the Nazis achieved power, they had to decide between them, that choice being made on the night of the long knives and the liquidation of the brownshirts.
Anyone can name themselves anything.
Would you say that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is indeed democratic?
I am going to guess not.
'Socialism' was rather popular in the early part of the 20th century and National Socialism was a right wing response to that, hence the marketing name.
It was very much corporatist/pro capitalist in its policies and suppressed anything remotely socialist within its borders.
It was also attempting a to create a centrally planned economy that would provide for all the populations needs and eliminate the concept of class. Which to me is socialism.
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” - Jean-Paul Sartre
I don't think you can be authoritarian and socialist. The structures of strict hierarchy necessary to be authoritarian necessarily oppose the egalitarian goals of socialism.
Many, many socialists condemn the Soviets, and even fought against them. Very few socialists believe that forcing the populace at gunpoint to be communist is a good plan.
Apart from the Socialist roots of the Nazi party (hence the name) and Fascism (Mussolini) , they have practiced a state planned economy which was far closer to Stalin's Soviet Union than to the United States
This doesn't mean the Nazis were not very much anti-communist, but subscribing Nazism to Capitalism is an extremely flat ideology-driven version of history
The libertarian / Randite strand of American hyper-capitalist ideology is ascendant and somewhat hegemonic in North American political education in schools and the like and it defines as "socialist" anything which involves "the government." To the point that we have people complaining in earnest that things Trump is doing that don't fit their Milton Friedman vibes are "socialist."
It deliberately strips the "social" part out of the ideological framing and replaces it with the state.
Which is also helped by the fact that "actual existing socialism" in the USSR etc did the same.
Also doesn't help that there has been effectively no organized socialist political presence in American politics (apart from the DSA pushing on the Democrats left wing, and Sanders I guess). This means that American politics reduces completely to a false "liberal" ("left" somehow) vs "conservative" dichotomy, both labels which don't describe anything about what they are anymore.
I've watched so many Americans get squirrely online when I've tried to draw a line on my own political viewpoint; no, I'm not liberal, I'm a socialist. This breaks their brains. Does not compute. Increasingly unfortunately here in Canada as well, partially as the NDP's unfortunate willingness to prop up Trudeau's Liberals when they were a minority.
I sometimes feel like we just need new, untainted, words.
National Socialists were capitalists.. You known that right? Not everything with socialsts in the name begets communism, they served Industry and Capital to the fullest and sought to crush any leftist cause.
Hitler explicitly adopted socialist & anti-capitalist rhetoric early on had heavy state control of industry and price controls in place.
Political extremist always pander to control the people who will listen to them, selling lies at worst or at best hope that depends on a lack of understanding of human behavior and economics to follow things to their natural conclusions. Nazis, Socialists, Marxists, and Communists are all authoritarian extremist who share the same values.
Interesting question. Trotsky argued that the Nazis were essentially a middle-class phenomena, the forces of capital and labour being weakened to naught by the first world war; once the Nazis achieved power, they had to decide between them, that choice being made on the night of the long knives and the liquidation of the brownshirts.
Anyone can name themselves anything. Would you say that the Democratic Republic of the Congo is indeed democratic? I am going to guess not.
'Socialism' was rather popular in the early part of the 20th century and National Socialism was a right wing response to that, hence the marketing name.
It was very much corporatist/pro capitalist in its policies and suppressed anything remotely socialist within its borders.
But I suspect you knew that.
It was also attempting a to create a centrally planned economy that would provide for all the populations needs and eliminate the concept of class. Which to me is socialism.
[flagged]
That is a lot of assumptions and personal attacks based on a question that you haven't answered.
The soviets also actively clamped down on unions, were they not socialists either?
Edit: I'll let someone else make the point for me:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/4kg34a/comme...
“Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.” - Jean-Paul Sartre
3 replies →
I don't think you can be authoritarian and socialist. The structures of strict hierarchy necessary to be authoritarian necessarily oppose the egalitarian goals of socialism.
Many, many socialists condemn the Soviets, and even fought against them. Very few socialists believe that forcing the populace at gunpoint to be communist is a good plan.
Apart from the Socialist roots of the Nazi party (hence the name) and Fascism (Mussolini) , they have practiced a state planned economy which was far closer to Stalin's Soviet Union than to the United States
This doesn't mean the Nazis were not very much anti-communist, but subscribing Nazism to Capitalism is an extremely flat ideology-driven version of history
The libertarian / Randite strand of American hyper-capitalist ideology is ascendant and somewhat hegemonic in North American political education in schools and the like and it defines as "socialist" anything which involves "the government." To the point that we have people complaining in earnest that things Trump is doing that don't fit their Milton Friedman vibes are "socialist."
It deliberately strips the "social" part out of the ideological framing and replaces it with the state.
Which is also helped by the fact that "actual existing socialism" in the USSR etc did the same.
Also doesn't help that there has been effectively no organized socialist political presence in American politics (apart from the DSA pushing on the Democrats left wing, and Sanders I guess). This means that American politics reduces completely to a false "liberal" ("left" somehow) vs "conservative" dichotomy, both labels which don't describe anything about what they are anymore.
I've watched so many Americans get squirrely online when I've tried to draw a line on my own political viewpoint; no, I'm not liberal, I'm a socialist. This breaks their brains. Does not compute. Increasingly unfortunately here in Canada as well, partially as the NDP's unfortunate willingness to prop up Trudeau's Liberals when they were a minority.
I sometimes feel like we just need new, untainted, words.
National Socialists were capitalists.. You known that right? Not everything with socialsts in the name begets communism, they served Industry and Capital to the fullest and sought to crush any leftist cause.
https://jacobin.com/2022/08/nazi-germany-national-socialism-...
Hitler explicitly adopted socialist & anti-capitalist rhetoric early on had heavy state control of industry and price controls in place.
Political extremist always pander to control the people who will listen to them, selling lies at worst or at best hope that depends on a lack of understanding of human behavior and economics to follow things to their natural conclusions. Nazis, Socialists, Marxists, and Communists are all authoritarian extremist who share the same values.
The same as Israelis.