Is Nazism a form of Socialism?

[WFCY]

First of all, hi guys, I am Charles. Mad_Michael/Michael, I am sure you remember me. I took part on this forum a couple years ago, briefly, in fact, until some strange event where my login name was wiped out and I could not log back in again. Since then I have not gone through the re-registering process, but looked on from a distance. Partly because I thought I was done with internet forum whoring, partly because I was already occupied with some grassroot efforts- and one can only spare so much time for politics in life.

Anyway, I am taking a long break from organizing- too much power struggles on the left, and too few who did it because they genuinely wanted to win a revolution (ask me about that later). So, back to forum whoring I am! LOL.

I started out on another site at first, although I rarely bothered to post for lack of time and the fact that threads go away like used condomns (and often just as filthy), the time and thoughts put in are rarely worthwhile- But recently I encountered a rather acute and pertinent issue I thought it is worth sharing with the more polemic and erudite audience here at discussionworld.

Here is a brief summary written in question form to Chip Berlet, who is a researcher at publiceye, a think tank that studies the rise of radical right-wing in the US:


This question concerns both history, and political ideologies. You may be aware who the "Tea Party'er" are, and what they claim to be against: "big government", "Obama/ Socialism/ Statism" etc. The arguments from them are usually flimsy and the facts lacking. But I recently took notice of a particularly obnoxious claim: These Tea Party people claims that the Nazis are "left", and "socialist", and then the same Tea Party'ers go on to list a bunch of social programs instituted under the Third Reich, such as pensions, holidays, health care, and even environmentalism and animal rights, provided for by the Nazis. They then go on to the claim that since Obama attempted at those same "socialist" policies after his election, Obama is like Hitler, in that he is consolidating government power in order to obtain those policies. Tea Party'er then goes on to say that once government powers can institute social programs that benefits people, the same government power may perhaps do more sinister things to come (like the Holocaust, for example). In other words, these same Tea Part'ers are implying that they are fighting the upcoming Nazism embodied in Obama and the mainstream liberal left of the United States.

Well, we all know how disingenuous that is, Hitler was no fan of communists to the point of rounding them up and gassing them in the camps. The rise of NSDAP itself was on the piles of corpses of the Spartakus league, the entire German left, and upon the ashes of any genuine possible socialist revolution in Germany. Hitler was such a supporter of international socialism that his allies in Vichy France, fascist Hungary, or Mussolini for that matter, were all extreme right-wingers that promptly exterminated the progressive forces in their own territories, not to mention that Hitler paid his comrade Stalin a visit in 1941, just to show his love of communism by wrecking half of Soviet Union. These are obviously in the memory hole of the Tea Party. Likewise the fact that those "social programs" never extended to cover certain citizens of the post-Weimar regime, namely Jews, and anybody consdiered un-German.

Nevertheless, a point remains to be answered- what about those social programs instituted under the Third Reich? Are they not "socialist" in their nature? Do they bear certain characteristics that render them incomparable to the current social programs instituted under Obama? Do those social programs qualify the Third Reich as "left", "socialist", in any legitimate way? Or does it take some deliberate and decitful omission of historical context to give them that socialist flavor?

It is very ironic that while the Tea Party wants to portray the Nazis as "left" and similar to Obama, they inadvertantly presented the Nazis in a positive light, by a selective display of the virtues while completely neglecting the sins of an extreme right wing, reactionary regime.

I think this is an important issue. Please let me know what kind of arguments we could muster against such propaganda, any reading material and so on I would really appreciate it. Thanks for your time!


Needless to say, a through debate on the subject is in place with the said Tea Party'ers in that other site. I would like to get some feedbacks from you guys though!

Cheers

[WFCY]

:mad: btw I have a habit of editing my own post for more than 10min after it is first posted. Looks like I have to change that habit a bit here since the forum mechanism won't let me do it.

[Michael]

First of all, hi guys, I am Charles. Mad_Michael/Michael, I am sure you remember me. I took part on this forum a couple years ago, briefly, in fact, until some strange event where my login name was wiped out and I could not log back in again. Since then I have not gone through the re-registering process, but looked on from a distance. Partly because I thought I was done with internet forum whoring, partly because I was already occupied with some grassroot efforts- and one can only spare so much time for politics in life.

Anyway, I am taking a long break from organizing- too much power struggles on the left, and too few who did it because they genuinely wanted to win a revolution (ask me about that later). So, back to forum whoring I am! LOL.

I started out on another site at first, although I rarely bothered to post for lack of time and the fact that threads go away like used condomns (and often just as filthy), the time and thoughts put in are rarely worthwhile- But recently I encountered a rather acute and pertinent issue I thought it is worth sharing with the more polemic and erudite audience here at discussionworld.
Very glad to see you back again! :)

Btw, we had a big server crash a few months after opening up in 2008 and lost everything. We moved to a much more reliable server host since then. So all the original members from 2008 had their usernames wiped out. Our apologies - shit happens!

:mad: btw I have a habit of editing my own post for more than 10min after it is first posted. Looks like I have to change that habit a bit here since the forum mechanism won't let me do it.

I've extended the time limit for editing posts several times - it is 10 minutes now. I hesitate to raise it just because I'm aware of how in the past (at other forums) that feature can be abused - though, we don't have that kind of member here at all. The "preview post" feature works very well - I've had to train myself to use it religiously. :)

Now I'll reply to the content of your interesting post...

[WFCY]

Thank you for the warm welcome. TBH, I've always wanted to come back around- it's just that at the same time I wanted to keep some kind of time constraint on my forum consumption, because these things have an addictive charm to me... many years ago I used to spend 4+ hours debating with people, and maybe 1-2 hours reading up on the material, it was not healthy and I know I am volunerable to it. As you know I am already rather engaged with one site, and so two sites at a time would be like... unlimited lifetime supply of dope and beer- one at a time I might be able to handle, two will probabily kill me, LOL!

I actually have some arguments written up already, at least the structure, only to have the facts and biblography thown in to reinforce it. But I do want to see what you all think of it before I present my plan, I'd like to see your views unadulterated by my own opinions on the issue.

Normally I don't care much for right wing drivel, but this particular argument really got me- I said on the other forum, that it is common in political debates in the US to throw Nazi associations around lightly for the purpose of defaming one's opponent, this is the case for both the left, and the right. However, it is extremely rare for someone to hand-pick a list of social programs instituted under the Third Reich and cast them in a positive light, just so that they can associate the "liberals" and Obama to Nazis and Hitler. The "Tea Party" have truely broken the standards- and I find this particularly disturbing. Besides, as a professed Libertarian Socialist, I am very insulted that our arch-enemies, the fascists, are bunched together with our league.

[Michael]

I've wrestled with this issue in the past and it is very challenging.

In my considered opinion, the Nazis were the National Socialist party. They really did engage in lots of policies that the American right defines as 'socialist' and I don't think that there is any viable counter-argument to that point. From a domestic political perspective, I don't think one can deny that the Nazis ruled with a 'socialist' character to their general policies of government.

That being said, the Nazis also used 'traditional' fascist political techniques such as the 'partnerships' with private industry, but on the whole, I'd have to agree with the proposition that Nazi domestic politics was most often of the socialist-left in actual practice.

The problem is that [fanatical] nationalism does not 'fit' into traditional right-left categories. The 'socialist' type policies that the Nazis applied was often accompanied with traditional conservative values - with appeals to the traditional family, religion and service to the nation.

Bottom line is that I wish I could help you and hope someone can provide some idea or a line of argument that could counter this one. But I don't think one can because the Nazis really were rather 'socialist' in character, though not very leftwing at all - they were, rightwing socialists, as it were.

On international issues or 'foreign policy', the Nazis were entirely rightwing/facsist/imperialist/warmongers, no doubt of that.

I guess this point just shows the weakness of the traditional 'right-left' spectrum.

Like, how do you categorize genocidal hatred of Jews? Is that an extreme rightwing or an extreme leftwing thing? :ummm:

[Michael]

Thank you for the warm welcome. TBH, I've always wanted to come back around- it's just that at the same time I wanted to keep some kind of time constraint on my forum consumption, because these things have an addictive charm to me... many years ago I used to spend 4+ hours debating with people, and maybe 1-2 hours reading up on the material, it was not healthy and I know I am volunerable to it. As you know I am already rather engaged with one site, and so two sites at a time would be like... unlimited lifetime supply of dope and beer- one at a time I might be able to handle, two will probabily kill me, LOL!

Indeed, I'm well aware of how forum discussions can consume one's time. I prefer to discuss issues with sane people... which is why I hang out here! :D

I actually have some arguments written up already, at least the structure, only to have the facts and biblography thown in to reinforce it. But I do want to see what you all think of it before I present my plan, I'd like to see your views unadulterated by my own opinions on the issue.

Normally I don't care much for right wing drivel, but this particular argument really got me- I said on the other forum, that it is common in political debates in the US to throw Nazi associations around lightly for the purpose of defaming one's opponent, this is the case for both the left, and the right. However, it is extremely rare for someone to hand-pick a list of social programs instituted under the Third Reich and cast them in a positive light, just so that they can associated the "liberals" and Obama to Nazis and Hitler. I find it particularly disturbing. And as a professed Libertarian Socialist, I am very insulted that our arch-enemies, the fascists, are bunched together with our league.
I think the first point I'd raise here is that this "Nazis were socialists" argument didn't just pop up because of the Teaparty set. The American rightwing has been making that argument for years - they really do seem to believe it. I've encountered the argument several times in the past - that 'handpicked' list of government programs is probably the same one I saw years ago. I found myself unable to rebutt the argument that the Nazis were socialists. They really do fit the bill rather well (including the authoritarianism).

Now I know the Nazis were very different than the Soviet Reds, but from the perspective of the American right, there really is only a difference of degree.

And you shouldn't be surprised that libertarian socialists are lumped in with national socialists - since the American right doesn't really care about liberty - they only care about fighting socialism it seems! :shrug:

Seriously, why would an American conservative care about various 'distinctions' amongst socialists? They are all the same to the conservative types.

[WFCY]

In my considered opinion, the Nazis were the National Socialist party... From a domestic political perspective, I don't think one can deny that the Nazis ruled with a 'socialist' character to their general policies of government.

...but on the whole, I'd have to agree with the proposition that Nazi domestic politics was most often of the socialist-left in actual practice.

First of all, I think the name itself should not deceive or confuse anybody about the actual politics of the particular regime- North Korea is called Democratic People's Republic of Korea, yet nobody is confused about whether they are "Democratic", "Republic", or belong to the "People". So this one is easy to settle.

Secondly, and I intend to extend it in a full debate, but the NSDAP "socialism" was basically about the plunder of the Jews and in the occupied territories, they were so popular because everybody got a piece of the action/loot. This is completely different from Obama's US.

Some of this NSDAP "socialism" as our opponent pointed out, is indeed an the expansion of the welfare state in the 1930s, however - this version of "socialism" is based on a racially segregated notion of citizenship and inclusion- so certain ethnic groups (Jews predominantly) who were citizens, were disenfrachised and ineligible for the benefits from the very beginning. This marks the key feature of the NSDAP version of "socialism" dramatically different from the Western postwar social welfare regimes. The roots of such a state go back to an earlier Germany, however. Bismarck's Germany had been the first to institute social welfare, albeit originally not based on a racial idea of citizenship.

Buying off the population with goodies paid for by the state (financed by debt or plunder of foreign countries in the case of the Nazis) is indeed a tool in the toolbox of dictators. But I don't think that discredits the idea of Socialism (with a capital "S") as such. And as I have pointed out already before, the actual Socialists are long dead in Germany by the time Hitler was bribing the population, so there are some very crucial differences.

(my thanks to Mark Hatlie, a historian friend who I also conversed with on the matter. All credit goes to him).

[WFCY]

Seriously, why would an American conservative care about various 'distinctions' amongst socialists? They are all the same to the conservative types.

More like- They are all the same to the reality show watching, baconanaise gulping, dick stroking, stupid types.

Btw, I do not think for one moment that Soviet Union is Socialist. You might be familiar with this position already- people such as Emma Goldman, Bertrand Russell, or even Rosa Luxemburg for that matter, have during Lennin's time, harshly criticized the Bolsheviks as "counter-revolutionary". To explain why the word "Socialism" is so confused would take a very long thread of its own, but I will simply say for the record that I am not a sympathizer of Soviet Union's, or even Cuba's "Socialism". But perhaps you already knew this. :)

[Michael]

First of all, I think the name itself should not deceive or confuse anybody about the actual politics of the particular regime- North Korea is called Democratic People's Republic of Korea, yet nobody is confused about whether they are "Democratic", "Republic", or belong to the "People". So this one is easy to settle.

Secondly, and I intend to extend it in a full debate, but the NSDAP "socialism" was basically about the plunder of the Jews and in the occupied territories, they were so popular because everybody got a piece of the action/loot. This is completely different from Obama's US.

Some of this NSDAP "socialism" as our opponent pointed out, is indeed an the expansion of the welfare state in the 1930s, however - this version of "socialism" is based on a racially segregated notion of citizenship and inclusion- so certain ethnic groups (Jews predominantly) who were citizens, were disenfrachised and ineligible for the benefits from the very beginning. This marks the key feature of the NSDAP version of "socialism" dramatically different from the Western postwar social welfare regimes. The roots of such a state go back to an earlier Germany, however. Bismarck's Germany had been the first to institute social welfare, albeit originally not based on a racial idea of citizenship.

Buying off the population with goodies paid for by the state (financed by debt or plunder of foreign countries in the case of the Nazis) is indeed a tool in the toolbox of dictators. But I don't think that discredits the idea of Socialism (with a capital "S") as such. And as I have pointed out already before, the actual Socialists are long dead in Germany by the time Hitler was bribing the population, so there are some very crucial differences.

(my thanks to Mark Hatlie, a historian friend who I also conversed with on the matter. All credit goes to him).
Yes, I'm aware of the silliness of name arguments. The German Democratic Republic (for example) was anything but democratic.

I was only pointing out that the Nazis themselves sure didn't shy away from the term since it was in their party name. I find it rather accurate description of the Nazis as national socialists.

As for the "loot" argument, that is certainly true, but I don't think you can use it to explain Nazi government policies of the first half of the 1930s which was before the Nazis began any systemic looting - and that really didn't get into high gear until the war was on.

And I certainly agree that the Nazis were not the same as post-WW2 social democrats in Germany (or elsewhere), but I'd point out that the key difference is the authoritarian character of government, not the 'mixed' economic-social policies (which were in some cases rather similar between the two).

Btw, I just looked up the origin of Volkswagen...

Volkswagen was originally founded in 1937 by the German Labour Front (Deutsche Arbeitsfront).[1]

Here is the reference citation:
^ Manfred Grieger, Ulrike Gutzmann, Dirk Schlinkert, ed (2008). Volkswagen Chronicle. Historical Notes. 7. Volkswagen AG. ISBN 978-3-935112-11-6. http://www.volkswagenag.com/vwag/vwcorp/info_center/en/publications/2008/05/chronicle.-bin.acq/qual-BinaryStorageItem.Single.File/HN7e_www2.pdf. Retrieved 2009-12-21.

That trade union action sure looks like a 'state-directed' socialist type policy action.

[Americano]

Thank you for the warm welcome. TBH, I've always wanted to come back around- it's just that at the same time I wanted to keep some kind of time constraint on my forum consumption, because these things have an addictive charm to me... many years ago I used to spend 4+ hours debating with people, and maybe 1-2 hours reading up on the material, it was not healthy and I know I am volunerable to it. As you know I am already rather engaged with one site, and so two sites at a time would be like... unlimited lifetime supply of dope and beer- one at a time I might be able to handle, two will probabily kill me, LOL!

Welcome. Weed and beer actually go together quite well.

I actually have some arguments written up already, at least the structure, only to have the facts and biblography thown in to reinforce it. But I do want to see what you all think of it before I present my plan, I'd like to see your views unadulterated by my own opinions on the issue.

Normally I don't care much for right wing drivel, but this particular argument really got me- I said on the other forum, that it is common in political debates in the US to throw Nazi associations around lightly for the purpose of defaming one's opponent, this is the case for both the left, and the right. However, it is extremely rare for someone to hand-pick a list of social programs instituted under the Third Reich and cast them in a positive light, just so that they can associate the "liberals" and Obama to Nazis and Hitler. The "Tea Party" have truely broken the standards- and I find this particularly disturbing. Besides, as a professed Libertarian Socialist, I am very insulted that our arch-enemies, the fascists, are bunched together with our league.

[andrewl]

Love to see you post here WFCY! :)

[andrewl]

I read the few posts here and it really reminded me of the George Orwell thread. Essentially socialism is not ever really defined, but the problem turns out to be authoritarianism.

Andrew

[Michael]

I read the few posts here and it really reminded me of the George Orwell thread. Essentially socialism is not ever really defined, but the problem turns out to be authoritarianism.

Andrew

Yes, that's an excellent observation Andrew. Our earlier discussion of Orwell's politics showed how difficult it is to call Orwell a "socialist" even though he claimed to be one.

And yes, 'authoritarianism' seems to be key factor that distinguishes the various forms of socialism. I think that's the key difference between the 'pseudo-socialism' of the Nazi party and the 'pseudo-socialism' of the post-war German Social Democrats (notwithstanding baking Jews in ovens).

[Michael]

I do think it is an interesting issue to inquire whether or not 'genocidal hatred' (of any particular race/people) is a rightwing or leftwing thing since both the right and the left tend to become 'authoritarian' at their extreme points.

I'm thinking that one could make the argument that genocidal hatred transcends the right-left spectrum, I'm just not sure about this since I've never really considered this point thoroughly. :ummm:

Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that genocidal hatreds are more likely to co-relate with authoritarianism itself (which certainly does transcend the right-left distinction).

[WFCY]

"Socialism" emerged long before Marx and Engles, it goes as far back as 1811, during the English peasant revolt, textile artisans who destroyed mechanical looms known as the Luddites, in fact did not destroy them wholesale, but only the ones belonging to the big industrialists. They organized their own workshops using the same machinaries, so contraray to propaganda, it was not a movmenet against technological development, but rather, it was a movement against the kind of concerntration of capital promped by industrial revolution, and the sharp class division entialed by the concerntration. This marked the earliest socialist organizations.

Similar peasant revolts took place elsewhere in Europe as well, also marked with socialist flavors- Vormärz in southern Germany for example, followed by the failed revolution of 1848 all over France, Italy, Habsberg, Hungary, etc. Tocqueville described the period: "society was cut in two: those who had nothing united in common envy, and those who had anything united in common terror." This was the beginning of Socialism. Marx's manifesto merely described the Zeitgeist, of what is going on in his days, the spirt of the age. Marx did not invent Socialism.

As far as the "Authoritarian" nature that is referred to by our opponents, that didn't start until 100 years later with the Bolsheviks. Since then this had been used as a convenient weapon to discredit socialism as a whole. Like I said, it can be demonstrated that the Soviet Union was never socialist in essence, but merely paid lip services to socialism so that they could rule as if in the people's name and for people's own good. Leninn, Trotzky, and Stalin have all at various occations, bluntly admitted so- What Bakuninn mocks as "Beating the people with the people stick".

So I think it can be shown that it is neither historically accurate, nor theoretically valid, to assert that socialism must be authoritarian, or that socialism entails authoritarianism in any way what so ever.

[WFCY]

Love to see you post here WFCY! :)


Thanks for the warm welcome guys.

I remember you andrewl! :)

Love to see what you all think of this issue.

[Michael]

...
So I think it can be shown that it is neither historically accurate, nor theoretically valid, to assert that socialism must be authoritarian, or that socialism entails authoritarianism in any way what so ever.
Agreed.

I don't believe I (or Andrewl) posited that socialism was authoritarian at all.

The point I was raising is that authoritarianism is one of the key distinctions between various forms of socialism. Some variations of socialism are indeed predicated on some form of authoritarianism (USSR, China, Nazi Germany, etc) while other variations of socialism are not (European social democrats).

That being said, I don't consider the Nazi system to be 'pure' socialism at all. I think that the Nazi domestic policy was very much 'mixed' including elements of socialism and some elements of corporate capitalism, both of which involved a heavy state authority.

[WFCY]

Agreed.

I don't believe I (or Andrewl) posited that socialism was authoritarian at all.

The point I was raising is that authoritarianism is one of the key distinctions between various forms of socialism. Some variations of socialism are indeed predicated on some form of authoritarianism (USSR, China, Nazi Germany, etc) while other variations of socialism are not (European social democrats).

I don't really consider USSR or China variations of the socialist state.


That being said, I don't consider the Nazi system to be 'pure' socialism at all. I think that the Nazi domestic policy was very much 'mixed' including elements of socialism and some elements of corporate capitalism, both of which involved a heavy state authority.

aye, perhaps they pretended to embrace certain platforms of the socialist agenda, but I am prepared to argue that these are for purposes which are completely disjoint of the socialist' goal- which is a classless, egalitarian society, absent of a centralized state, where people self-orgnize through mutual aid and cooperation.

While Socialism itself is devoid of authoritarianism, it can be demonstrated at the same time, that for fascism, in theory, and in all of its manifestations including Nazism, authoritarianism is an intrinsic attribute and without coercion of violence, the ideology cannot be defined and would not be able to function.

[Michael]

I don't really consider USSR or China variations of the socialist state.
Then what do you consider them?

I've always called them both "authoritarian socialists".

aye, perhaps they pretended to embrace certain platforms of the socialist agenda, but I am prepared to argue that these are for purposes which are completely disjoint of the socialist' goal- which is a classless, egalitarian society, absent of a centralized state, where people self-orgnize through mutual aid and cooperation.

I think this adds up to a "no true Scotsman" argument.

While Socialism itself is devoid of authoritarianism, it can be demonstrated at the same time, that for fascism, in theory, and in all of its manifestations including Nazism, authoritarianism is an intrinsic attribute and without coercion of violence, the ideology cannot be defined and would not be able to function.
I strongly object to the idea that socialism itself is devoid of authoritarianism.

That is the precise grounds upon which I've always rejected socialism - the strong tendency to authoritarianism in socialism (or with socialists).

I'm not suggesting that authoritarianism is integral to all forms of socialism, but to say that authoritarianism is anti-thetical to socialism just doesn't hold up in reality.

As I noted, authoritarianism is a handy way to judge/compare the various forms of socialism. Some socialist systems are heavy on the authoritarianism and some socialist systems are very light on the authoritarianism. Just like capitalist systems or mixed economic systems.

Btw, a whole different way to look at this issue is to look at socialism/capitalism as either 'economic systems' or as 'political systems'. Capitalism as a 'political' system is very different than capitalism as an 'economic' system. Same goes for socialism.

[WFCY]

Maybe we are just confusing over a word. But as far as I know, there were no authoritarian form of Socialism until the Bolsheviks came along and calimed its patent on the word. And even with such pretence, Bolsheviks professed to differ from Mensheviks in that the Bolsheviks rely on a small party of professional revolutionaries, central committee, the principle hallmark of authoritarian rule, whilest Mensheviks wanted more grassroot participation. So from the very beginning they were very open about being authoritarian. This at its time was totally exceptional for Socialists worldwide.

If you look at all the socialist revolutions dating as far back as at least 100 years before the Bolsheviks, take for example, the Paris Commune- Socialism had always been understood as what's known today as one or another manifestations of Libertarian Socialism.

[Michael]

Maybe we are just confusing over a word. But as far as I know, there were no authoritarian form of Socialism until the Bolsheviks came along and calimed its patent on the word. And even with such pretence, Bolsheviks professed to differ from Mensheviks in that the Bolsheviks rely on a small party of professional revolutionaries, central committee, the principle hallmark of authoritarian rule, whilest Mensheviks wanted more grassroot participation. So from the very beginning they were very open about being authoritarian. This at its time was totally exceptional for Socialists worldwide.

If you look at all the socialist revolutions dating as far back as at least 100 years before the Bolsheviks, take for example, the Paris Commune- Socialism had always been understood as what's known today as one or another manifestations of Libertarian Socialism.
Yes, we certainly are confusing over a word. Much depends on the definitions that we are using. You appear to be pre-defining 'socialism' to be only that which you approve of. That can't work. Socialism is a larger concept than just the libertarian variety that you admire.

I generally agree that socialism itself was never historically an authoritarian movement and that authoritarianism arrives with the Marx era and then becomes dominant with Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

And yes, I agree that the Paris Commune (for example) was generally characterized by libertarian socialism, but not exclusively.

But I think you are supporting my argument here - that socialism comes in a variety of shapes and forms. Some forms of socialism are libertarian in principle, some are authoritarian, some are Marxist, some are democratic. And some are in fact Nazi-ish. There are 'socialist' commonalities between all of these groups. The key difference between them all is the level of authoritarianism (some have lots, some have little or none). But they all have socialist elements in various degrees.

I don't think it is possible to say that just one version is 'correct' and all others are just bullshit. That might be the way you see it, but I think you will have a hard time convincing everyone else that this is so.

As it happens, the one form of socialism that I find most acceptable is democratic socialism, though I still prefer liberalism most of all. :)

My problem with all forms of socialism is the failure to provide a superior mode of production that is not the same as the capitalist model with modifications. But that's another topic entirely! :D

Being the 'evolutionary' pseudo-Marxist that I am, I do see a 'leftwing' libertarian phase following after capitalism, with a new dominant mode of production, but I don't see the 'socialism' part of that coming at all. That seems utopian or 'hopeful' to me rather than rational deduction.

[WFCY]

If I understood you correctly, Michael- I am not a big fan of the kind of capitalist social democracy as currently in Canada or Europe, but we can save this debate for later perhaps. Your difference and mine, I suspect, would be in the same strain that went on between Rosa Luxemburg and Eduard Bernstein in 1900.

In a way you are right that I probabily would have a hard time convincing people what "Socialism" with a capital S originally meant, thanks to 50+ years of Cold War propaganda which overwrote 130 years of labor history. The only way people in the most powerful country in the world will ever learn about socialism again, or its concepts at least, while reinventing another term for it to give a popular appeal for widespread grassroot action- will probabily take another couple of decades of exploitation, suffering, and struggle... and if they fail to respond it time- there will be millions more dead in Indochina, Africa, Latin America, the ice cap melted and sea level 50cm above the level it is now, depletion of oil and lack of alternatives, plus another world war that leaves the planet 3/4 radioactivly devastated. I would not be talking about quote and quote "Socialism" in its next generation on an internet forum by then, I suspect. It would be what Chomsky describes, Hegemony or Survival. As you can see I am not willing to settle for "democratic socialism", etc. I am a bit more radical than that, and it's a matter of necessity for me. Like Chomsky and many have warned- We need to do it now, or we are in trouble.

[WFCY]

btw I do think that I have enough confindence to demonstrate to our opponent that historically, Socialism is not authoritarian, but the opposite of it up until when Bolsheviks stole its name and the Western propaganda against it began. Both of which are long stories, but it's important to clarify these, for the reasons stated in the previous post.

In a milder sense, what we are experiencing in the 21st century economy is not all that different from the 18th century one, as far as class division, or the proportions of wealth distribution. It just happens that there are more stuff to go around that the lower class can manage now better than before, thanks to increased productivity. I am not as concerned about wealth as power though. For what we do now have a far greater impact on the survival of the species than we could back during the Industrial Revoluton.

(would have included this post in the last one if it were not for the stupid 10min edit limit).

[Michael]

If I understood you correctly, Michael- I am not a big fan of the kind of capitalist social democracy as currently in Canada or Europe, but we can save this debate for later perhaps. Your difference and mine, I suspect, would be in the same strain that went on between Rosa Luxemburg and Eduard Bernstein in 1900.
As long as I'm cast in the Bernstein role, I'm okay with that analogy. :)

I really do believe that capitalism is necessary as a stage of development to make future libertarianism possible. I do believe that capitalism is creating a new mode of production right now (wage-free production!) that will eventually become dominant.

Though of course, that nasty problem with the environment is causing a bit of a bump in the road...

In a way you are right that I probabily would have a hard time convincing people what "Socialism" with a capital S originally meant, thanks to 50+ years of Cold War propaganda which overwrote 130 years of labor history. The only way people in the most powerful country in the world will ever learn about socialism again, or its concepts at least, while reinventing another term for it to give a popular appeal for widespread grassroot action- will probabily take another couple of decades of exploitation, suffering, and struggle... and if they fail to respond it time- there will be millions more dead in Indochina, Africa, Latin America, the ice cap melted and sea level 50cm above the level it is now, depletion of oil and lack of alternatives, plus another world war that leaves the planet 3/4 radioactivly devastated. I would not be talking about quote and quote "Socialism" in its next generation on an internet forum by then, I suspect. It would be what Chomsky describes, Hegemony or Survival. As you can see I am not willing to settle for "democratic socialism", etc. I am a bit more radical than that, and it's a matter of necessity for me. Like Chomsky and many have warned- We need to do it now, or we are in trouble.
Yes, I think that's a difficult argument to make. Doubly so since it will require you to make the argument that USSR, Eastern Block and China were not socialist at all and that's probably 'politically' impossible argument to make - certainly against American conservatives!

[Michael]

btw I do think that I have enough confindence to demonstrate to our opponent that historically, Socialism is not authoritarian, but the opposite of it up until when Bolsheviks stole its name and the Western propaganda against it began. Both of which are long stories, but it's important to clarify these, for the reasons stated in the previous post.
I think you will have a problem getting past the mid-19th century Communist Manifesto - which was a polemic designed to foster active revolution. Hard to spin the "abolishment" of private property as a non-authoritarian ideal. That's authoritarian by definition. I think you have to make your argument pre-1848 for it to stand up.

In a milder sense, what we are experiencing in the 21st century economy is not all that different from the 18th century one, as far as class division, or the proportions of wealth distribution. It just happens that there are more stuff to go around that the lower class can manage now better than before, thanks to increased productivity. I am not as concerned about wealth as power though. For what we do now have a far greater impact on the survival of the species than we could back during the Industrial Revoluton.
Will you at least acknowledge that capitalism is the reason that the lower classes can now manage much better than before? Or the the productivity you speak of was capitalist productivity?

And I agree that we have a huge environmental problem with capitalism. I don't know if this is insurmountable or not.

(would have included this post in the last one if it were not for the stupid 10min edit limit).
Yes, but we take pleasure in torturing our members with this silly rule! Besides, we like the higher post count this forces upon you! :D

Btw, the "Preview Post" button does indeed work. ;)

I sometimes can spend half an hour composing a post, hitting 'preview' over and over again. Though, I admit that most of my major argument posts are composed in my word processor and then copy'pasted here.

[WFCY]

I think you will have a problem getting past the mid-19th century Communist Manifesto - which was a polemic designed to foster active revolution. Hard to spin the "abolishment" of private property as a non-authoritarian ideal. That's authoritarian by definition. I think you have to make your argument pre-1848 for it to stand up. .

That's an interesting point. But still, it's only valid when people fail to distinguish Socialism and Communism. I am not one for chewing words, however, there are some important differences: Communism is but one strain of Socialism which endorsed the idea of historical materialism, that modes of production dictates our social organization, and that there is a certain Hegelian historical progression driven by it. Communism also insists that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a necessary means to accomplish "pure-communism", which is not authoritarian, but rather, "stateless" and "classless" according to Marx, something which more resembles the Socialist goal.

Socialism in general do not insist on those two points, and Marx's difference with other Socialist factions during his time culminated in the argument and the break with Bakunin during the Hague Congress in 1872.

So if I go with Proudhon and Kropotkin, it can't go wrong. LOL.


Will you at least acknowledge that capitalism is the reason that the lower classes can now manage much better than before? Or the the productivity you speak of was capitalist productivity?

And I agree that we have a huge environmental problem with capitalism. I don't know if this is insurmountable or not.

Well, yeah, capitalist markets have the general tendency to accelerate certain technological developments and productivity. I am not denying that. The question I think we need to ask ourselves, is what kind of technology and productivity in what? And do people have a chance to democratically participate in these developments?

In a nutshell, what do we value in a society? iPods and 50 different kinds of laundry powder to choose from, at what cost to the environment, the third world, and our own job security? Or is it something else we value? Do we get to make that choice? Is the market democratic? I mean, nobody has yet proved that productivity could not exist in another, more democratic alternative to capitalism.

[Michael]

That's an interesting point. But still, it's only valid when people fail to distinguish Socialism and Communism. I am not one for chewing words, however, there are some important differences: Communism is but one strain of Socialism which endorsed the idea of historical materialism, that modes of production dictates our social organization, and that there is a certain Hegelian historical progression driven by it. Communism also insists that the dictatorship of the proletariat is a necessary means to accomplish "pure-communism", which is not authoritarian, but rather, "stateless" and "classless" according to Marx, something which more resembles the Socialist goal.

Socialism in general do not insist on those two points, and Marx's difference with other Socialist factions during his time culminated in the argument and the break with Bakunin during the Hague Congress in 1872.
Yes, I'll accept/agree with all of that - indeed, I commend your understanding of the topic! :hatoff:

But I think your conditional opening statement says it all. For you and me, this all makes sense - but to many others, not so much. You can't possibly make the argument that communism is not socialism (or vice versa) to an American conservative - they just don't (or won't) accept the initial premise and they will have to ignore the argument because they won't be able to grasp it if they haven't actually read all these books.

Btw, I break with Marx on the principle of revolution. I'm an 'evolutionary' marxist only - I see historical materialism as critically important or significant, though I will have nothing to do with any, dialectic imperatives, let alone any Hegelian nonsense about Spirit becoming One with Itself! :lol:

The concept of a 'mode of production' seems to me to be the most important element of any ideology or socio-economic system. That's the ground floor. Social relationships naturally follow from the mode of production. That just seems to be a law of human nature (a product of our evolutionary past).

So if I go with Proudhon and Kropotkin, it can't go wrong. LOL.
Those two certainly do represent the best and most coherent thinking of any libertarian socialist thinkers that I'm aware of.

Btw, I notice that you have switched terms from the traditional 'anarchist' label here - I have no objection at all, I think it is a good/accurate label. :)

Well, yeah, capitalist markets have the general tendency to accelerate certain technological developments and productivity. I am not denying that. The question I think we need to ask ourselves, is what kind of technology and productivity in what? And do people have a chance to democratically participate in these developments?

In a nutshell, what do we value in a society? iPods and 50 different kinds of laundry powder to choose from, at what cost to the environment, the third world, and our own job security? Or is it something else we value? Do we get to make that choice? Is the market democratic? I mean, nobody has yet proved that productivity could not exist in another, more democratic alternative to capitalism.
Yes, I certainly will accept that democracy has the right to rule over (or regulate) capitalism in any way it so chooses.

That's the real problem here. The blasted public really does seem to support 'with their feet' the marketplace of rampant consumerism. I admit that capitalism (and our governments) invest big money playing propaganda games to keep the game going on over-drive, but they are only 'stoking the fires' not creating the original human desire to consume and compete.

The point I'm making here is that I do think that people do democratically participate in the market and make it the way it is. Walmart got mega-rich because tens of millions of Americans like to buy stuff cheaper and they voted with their cash.

That level of 'participation' may not be very informed, wise or participatory, but it is something. The people aren't exactly rioting in the streets due to deprivation around here. They are bitching about the resale value of their houses or the size of their credit card debts.

(Greece is another story of course) :D

[WFCY]

I don't think the market is democratic at all. There are a number of intrinsic attributes of the market that undermines its ability to fairly and transparently represent public desires/opinions. Many people have written books about them so I am only going to mention a few.

Apart from 1. market does not convey information beyond the product and its price so that people can make informed/rational/socially conscious choices, which you mentioned-

2. Bill Gates alone possesses more money than the GDP of 1/2 of the countries in the world. If we "vote with our cash", does that mean Mr. Gates can overwrite the will of more than half of the world's population, if he so wishes?

3. Desire for marketed products are instigated endogenously, as opposed to what neo-classical economists assert, that desires are exogenous. In other words what is supplied within the market not only gives us "what we want", it effects our choices about "what we want". This is a bit more complicated than it first appears. Suppose I visit a friend in a prison, I got 10 minutes to visit the prison commissary, I see basic necessities sold in the commissary, and pretty crappy versions of them. I don't want to whip out my wallet and buy any of it. I leave the prison, back to normal life. Suppose 3 months later I am arrested, goes to the same prison. After 5 years of incarceration, I get 10 minutes to visit the same prison commissary- ask yourself what changed? The products sold in the commissary are exactly the same, but my desire has changed, suddenly the crap became attractive, and I rationalize about their subtle differences in my consumer decisions- "what I want" turns out to be not what I really want (which would be to be set free from the prison), but rather, a compound of my limited circumstance with what is available to me in that commissary. I whip out my wallet and buy every crap I can buy in the commissary. If 5 years of capitivity are not enough to change a man's tastes, 10 years will.

Same goes for people living in poverty, in the ghettos, or people who lives in rich suburban white neighborhood. Their desires generally conform to this pattern, to what's availabe to them in their circumstance, in their own markets. "What we want" may have been dignified jobs, being able to be creative, or have cordial, caring interpersonal relations with one another, solidarity, etc. These are not available in the market- and, they are gradually taken away from us from our social lives- the harsher working conditions, the diminishing of commons, the deterioration of public schools, defunding of parks, public leisure, etc. Once they take away these genuine needs of people, there is a stronger desire for them- the market replaces the vacumn with fake subsitutes, so if you buy this facial cream, or lip stick, you are supposed to increase your chances at getting laid, or if you buy this suit, tie, or car, you are supposed to feel more confident at work, and so on. The advertisers knows this- leftists say advertisments deceives us. I think not. I think what's more tragic is that ad's are telling the truth, because our living conditions and opportunities are so constrained that it really is true that we must buy those junk in order to imporve our lives somewhat, in order to obtain those genuine human needs which are no longer provided for us in the public arena.

4. There is a lot of stuff written about how market creates class divisions- not just the capitalist class vs working class, but rather, a coordinator class that is in the middle of the two. This is not the Petite bourgeoisie, which is a small capitalist that works alongside his workers. The coordinator class is yet another distinction between anarchists and communists. It is deliberatly left out in Marx and Leninn's works because they are aware they themselves are precisely the enemy of Socialism in this form. Since there has been a lot written about it already, I'll let you look it up, Michael Albert's work is a good start.

5. Externalities. It's another commonly known concept. Neo-classical economists claim that externalities are small enough to be ignored, or can be checked with government regulatory measures. Contrary to that, I think there are externalities in every economic transaction- production, distribution, and consumption. If what we are concerned about is the impact of economic transactions on society, on people's well being, then market is not a good measurement of cost and benefit because it completely ignores the impact of a transaction on third parties not involved in the transaction. In capitalism, there is especially a tendency, or should I say, necessity, of the capitalists to maximize externalities onto the overall society as a means of maximizing profit. Evidently, this problem is becoming more and more prominent and I think it's only a matter of time before the public realizes that there is no keeping it under control with government regulations or public condamnations. The only way to change it is to replace market with a system that takes into account externalities.

[Michael]

My apologies for doing the slicing/dicing game in reply (as I know that it annoys you!). I do find it necessary in order to follow complex discussions. I only chop 'paragraph' size blocks if that is any solace! :)

I don't think the market is democratic at all. There are a number of intrinsic attributes of the market that undermines its ability to fairly and transparently represent public desires/opinions. Many people have written books about them so I am only going to mention a few.

I think you are making a bit of a strawman argument here. Your argument counters the [maximal] asserton that "market = democracy". But I didn't make that [maximal] assertion. I merely asserted that the market process does have some democratic elements within it. Your argument, by pointing out the existence of various anti-democratic elements within the market, doesn't prove that some elements are not democratic.

Apart from 1. market does not convey information beyond the product and its price so that people can make informed/rational/socially conscious choices, which you mentioned-
But the information is usually out there, if you are ready and able to do the research. Most people are not inclined to do so, but some are.

That some people can't be bothered to look into the issue, or are unable or unwilling, doesn't negate the fact that the information usually is out there in order to make fully informed decisions. Humans are intellectually lazy creatures - the market profits from this.

2. Bill Gates alone possesses more money than the GDP of 1/2 of the countries in the world. If we "vote with our cash", does that mean Mr. Gates can overwrite the will of more than half of the world's population, if he so wishes?
I think it is pretty obvious that he could do so if he were so inclined. Indeed, that argument demonstrates the theoretical power and liberty of the market itself, rather than the contrary.

3. Desire for marketed products are instigated endogenously, as opposed to what neo-classical economists assert, that desires are exogenous. In other words what is supplied within the market not only gives us "what we want", it effects our choices about "what we want". This is a bit more complicated than it first appears. Suppose I visit a friend in a prison, I got 10 minutes to visit the prison commissary, I see basic necessities sold in the commissary, and pretty crappy versions of them. I don't want to whip out my wallet and buy any of it. I leave the prison, back to normal life. Suppose 3 months later I am arrested, goes to the same prison. After 5 years of incarceration, I get 10 minutes to visit the same prison commissary- ask yourself what changed? The products sold in the commissary are exactly the same, but my desire has changed, suddenly the crap became attractive, and I rationalize about their subtle differences in my consumer decisions- "what I want" turns out to be not what I really want (which would be to be set free from the prison), but rather, a compound of my limited circumstance with what is available to me in that commissary. I whip out my wallet and buy every crap I can buy in the commissary. If 5 years of capitivity are not enough to change a man's tastes, 10 years will.

Yes, but I already acknowledged that governments and corporations routinely 'stoke the fires' of consumption with propaganda and that this is a very common state of affairs with 'free markets'. I agree completely that material wants and desires are highly flexible and can be easily manipulated or affected by countless cultural, physical and emotional factors.

Indeed, that just shows how flexible and democratic the market can be. Governments and corporations wouldn't be investing all that money in propaganda to infuence your 'democratic' market choices if there wasn't a big source of profit to be had (and political control to be enacted) in the process.

Same goes for people living in poverty, in the ghettos, or people who lives in rich suburban white neighborhood. Their desires generally conform to this pattern, to what's availabe to them in their circumstance, in their own markets. "What we want" may have been dignified jobs, being able to be creative, or have cordial, caring interpersonal relations with one another, solidarity, etc. These are not available in the market- and, they are gradually taken away from us from our social lives- the harsher working conditions, the diminishing of commons, the deterioration of public schools, defunding of parks, public leisure, etc. Once they take away these genuine needs of people, there is a stronger desire for them- the market replaces the vacumn with fake subsitutes, so if you buy this facial cream, or lip stick, you are supposed to increase your chances at getting laid, or if you buy this suit, tie, or car, you are supposed to feel more confident at work, and so on. The advertisers knows this- leftists say advertisments deceives us. I think not. I think what's more tragic is that ad's are telling the truth, because our living conditions and opportunities are so constrained that it really is true that we must buy those junk in order to imporve our lives somewhat, in order to obtain those genuine human needs which are no longer provided for us in the public arena.
With all due respect, my working conditions are a thousand times superior to anything any person could reasonably expect in the 19th century or at any time prior to the 20th century.

I work in an air-conditioned office, with a lovely big wooden desk and comfy chair, a computer, several telephone lines and privacy (and a window too!). On average, I really only actually 'work' about 30 hours a week, but I get paid as if I worked 40.

While my job conditions may not be 'average' for all workers, I respectfully submit that my job conditions are indeed fairly common amongst at least 50-60% of the population. And I get a damn decent-sized paycheck for my troubles (sufficient to purchase real estate, property, cars, vacations, etc).

Back in the 19th century, 80-90% of the population worked 12-14 hour days of back-breaking hard labor - and got paid peanuts in return.

That's hardly a picture of "harsher working conditions" that you mention is inevitable part of the process. Indeed, it looks like quite the contrary. Looks to me like the working conditions for the vast majority of the world's population have vastly increased over the last century.

In other words, I can't see how anyone can say that our average 'quality of life' hasn't been massively increased over the last century (certainly in the 1st world nations of the West).

I agree that this has come at a huge cost in 'destruction of the commons' and in radical changes in interpersonal relationships.

As for the 'defunding of parks' or 'public services' these things were not funded at all before capitalism came along. It is with the profits of capitalism that we fund public parks and public services. That we do less of this now is just another democratic choice (and more evidence that democratic choices in market-capitalism do exist).

4. There is a lot of stuff written about how market creates class divisions- not just the capitalist class vs working class, but rather, a coordinator class that is in the middle of the two. This is not the Petite bourgeoisie, which is a small capitalist that works alongside his workers. The coordinator class is yet another distinction between anarchists and communists. It is deliberatly left out in Marx and Leninn's works because they are aware they themselves are precisely the enemy of Socialism in this form. Since there has been a lot written about it already, I'll let you look it up, Michael Albert's work is a good start.
Yes, I'm familiar with the concept. That class is little different than the 'rentier' class that is always present in every society. These are the true parasites - they seek to profit from controling scarce resources - usually taking advantage of some legal or political authority to do so.

That being said, I don't think that 'libertarian socialism' would be immune to either the 'rentier' or the 'coordinator'. These types seem to originate with 'human nature' rather than the economic system. Though, I recognize your point that Lenin's form of authoritarian socialism requires these 'coordinator' types as integral to the system, and these types are also very common in the capitalist system, and one would, theoretically speaking, assume them to be less common with a libertarian socialist system.

5. Externalities. It's another commonly known concept. Neo-classical economists claim that externalities are small enough to be ignored, or can be checked with government regulatory measures. Contrary to that, I think there are externalities in every economic transaction- production, distribution, and consumption. If what we are concerned about is the impact of economic transactions on society, on people's well being, then market is not a good measurement of cost and benefit because it completely ignores the impact of a transaction on third parties not involved in the transaction. In capitalism, there is especially a tendency, or should I say, necessity, of the capitalists to maximize externalities onto the overall society as a means of maximizing profit. Evidently, this problem is becoming more and more prominent and I think it's only a matter of time before the public realizes that there is no keeping it under control with government regulations or public condamnations. The only way to change it is to replace market with a system that takes into account externalities.
Yes, this is a longstanding major flaw with classical economic theory (and as such, infects all of neoclassical economic theory as well). I tend to categorize it as the 'tragedy of the commons'. It is a key problem with the capitalist-market system.

The only point I'd raise here is I've not suggested that capitalism is ideal, perfect, freely democratic or flawless. I've always acknowledged that market-capitalism has a huge blind-side problem with externalities.

The existence of flaws in the perfection of market-capitalism as a system of production of the needs of society's existence doesn't negate the fact that the system is enormously effective - and it does contain some democratic elements. The market can't survive without a basic level of liberty of the participants. I admit that governments and corporations (and even labor unions) are always seeking to put limits on this liberty, but one has to acknowledge that liberty there in the first place.

[WFCY]

Gonna be brief cause I really need to get back to work. But I didn't want to keep you guys waiting.

I think we misunderstood each other in different levels, I will try to clarify.


I think you are making a bit of a strawman argument here. Your argument counters the [maximal] asserton that "market = democracy". But I didn't make that [maximal] assertion. I merely asserted that the market process does have some democratic elements within it. Your argument, by pointing out the existence of various anti-democratic elements within the market, doesn't prove that some elements are not democratic.

The important question I am interested in is: "Do we want meaningful democracy in our society?", not "does market have some elements of democracy?"

If a clique of rich guys like Bill Gates could band together and overwirte the civil societies of the rest of the world on critical issues such as war, global warming, etc, then whatever "democracy" there is in the capitalist system is just vacuous talk.


But the information is usually out there, if you are ready and able to do the research. Most people are not inclined to do so, but some are.

That some people can't be bothered to look into the issue, or are unable or unwilling, doesn't negate the fact that the information usually is out there in order to make fully informed decisions. Humans are intellectually lazy creatures - the market profits from this.

Dunno how it is in Canada, ever wonder about what legal or factual backing are behind those "organic" or "fair trade" labels in your supermarket?

A lot of it is marketing, you are told something is organic while it's produced the same as anything else, with a false label sold twice the price. If there are governmental agencies or NGOs which examines them and certify the label, that's external to the market. In fact, food products didn't have to specify their ingredients or neutritional facts if it were not for consumer action and government regulation. Market gives you only 2 info: price, and the physical attributes of the object in question- what you see is what you get. With legal or financial services, it gets a lot more confusing, and people get cheated over them all the time.

What about the sweatshop labor, the women in China trapped in their warehouse during fire? or 14 year olds who work 60 hours a week at 10 cents per hour? Or the existing or potential environmental damages involved in the production? Sure you can do the research. But again, that's not part of what market provides, your personal fact-finding mission is external to the system. And it's limited- companies don't have to and never disclose things they don't want you to see- Information are not "out there". Lobbies and PR are industries specifically dedicated to hiding them from everyone - I find it odd you make these naive assertions about "information usually is out there in order to make fully informed decisions", and then blame it on the population instead of the actual corporate culprits.

Anyway, lack of information is inherent in the market system. This need not be in an alternative economic system. Parecon is one example, or Fikret Adaman and Pat Devine have edited a book about it, and so on.



I think it is pretty obvious that he could do so if he were so inclined. Indeed, that argument demonstrates the theoretical power and liberty of the market itself, rather than the contrary.

The will of one overwrites the will of all- basically Feudalism- that for you "demonstrates the theoretical power and liberty of the market itself" - Well I can only say you have a very odd concept of "liberty".


Yes, but I already acknowledged that governments and corporations routinely 'stoke the fires' of consumption with propaganda and that this is a very common state of affairs with 'free markets'. I agree completely that material wants and desires are highly flexible and can be easily manipulated or affected by countless cultural, physical and emotional factors.

Indeed, that just shows how flexible and democratic the market can be. Governments and corporations wouldn't be investing all that money in propaganda to infuence your 'democratic' market choices if there wasn't a big source of profit to be had (and political control to be enacted) in the process.


With all due respect, my working conditions are a thousand times superior to anything any person could reasonably expect in the 19th century or at any time prior to the 20th century.

I work in an air-conditioned office, with a lovely big wooden desk and comfy chair, a computer, several telephone lines and privacy (and a window too!). On average, I really only actually 'work' about 30 hours a week, but I get paid as if I worked 40.

While my job conditions may not be 'average' for all workers, I respectfully submit that my job conditions are indeed fairly common amongst at least 50-60% of the population. And I get a damn decent-sized paycheck for my troubles (sufficient to purchase real estate, property, cars, vacations, etc).

Back in the 19th century, 80-90% of the population worked 12-14 hour days of back-breaking hard labor - and got paid peanuts in return.

That's hardly a picture of "harsher working conditions" that you mention is inevitable part of the process. Indeed, it looks like quite the contrary. Looks to me like the working conditions for the vast majority of the world's population have vastly increased over the last century.

In other words, I can't see how anyone can say that our average 'quality of life' hasn't been massively increased over the last century (certainly in the 1st world nations of the West).


Here is where we totally miss each other. I don't know what argument you are trying to make, but our current material riches is not an argument for or against the market, just like a person in the 19th century don't make a coherent argument for or against monarchy (or whatever) by comparing the material riches of his days over that of Bronze Age. There isn't much I could say here.


I agree that this has come at a huge cost in 'destruction of the commons' and in radical changes in interpersonal relationships.

As for the 'defunding of parks' or 'public services' these things were not funded at all before capitalism came along. It is with the profits of capitalism that we fund public parks and public services. That we do less of this now is just another democratic choice (and more evidence that democratic choices in market-capitalism do exist).


Yes, I'm familiar with the concept. That class is little different than the 'rentier' class that is always present in every society. These are the true parasites - they seek to profit from controling scarce resources - usually taking advantage of some legal or political authority to do so.

That being said, I don't think that 'libertarian socialism' would be immune to either the 'rentier' or the 'coordinator'. These types seem to originate with 'human nature' rather than the economic system. Though, I recognize your point that Lenin's form of authoritarian socialism requires these 'coordinator' types as integral to the system, and these types are also very common in the capitalist system, and one would, theoretically speaking, assume them to be less common with a libertarian socialist system.


Yes, this is a longstanding major flaw with classical economic theory (and as such, infects all of neoclassical economic theory as well). I tend to categorize it as the 'tragedy of the commons'. It is a key problem with the capitalist-market system.

The only point I'd raise here is I've not suggested that capitalism is ideal, perfect, freely democratic or flawless. I've always acknowledged that market-capitalism has a huge blind-side problem with externalities.

The existence of flaws in the perfection of market-capitalism as a system of production of the needs of society's existence doesn't negate the fact that the system is enormously effective - and it does contain some democratic elements. The market can't survive without a basic level of liberty of the participants. I admit that governments and corporations (and even labor unions) are always seeking to put limits on this liberty, but one has to acknowledge that liberty there in the first place.

You make a lot of assumptions about "human nature" which neither you nor I, I think, can substantiate at all. "Human nature" is a lot of things, and everyone could say that a infant who grows up to become a gas chamber attendent may as well grow up to become a saint. It's not a very useful enterprise to appeal to "human nature" when advocating for or against something.

What I was doing was a critique of the internal mechanisms of an economic system, independent of those assumptions. Now suppose there are such things as "human nature"- some good, some bad- and suppose what we care about is the well being of everyone, then our system should be designed to encourage the good natures from manifesting, and discourage the bad natures. In a market system, I think, it does the opposite- which I was trying to show. There is a ton of stuff I could write about it, but others already did. Perhaps we'll do this slowly.

[Michael]

The important question I am interested in is: "Do we want meaningful democracy in our society?", not "does market have some elements of democracy?"
I believe we got side-tracked because you said that the market has zero democracy at all and I disputed that point. I was critiquing that position because I believe the market economy does contain some democratic elements (as I've noted). We didn't build this monstrosity with guns pointed at our heads forcing us to do it - collectively speaking, 'we the people' are guilty of supporting this every step of the way - no matter how much the corporations and capitalists are guilty of playing manipulation games.

As for your question, that is indeed an interesting one, but I respectfully submit that has not been the topic of this thread. This thread has been about the definitions of Socialism and Nazism and potential commonalities. We have been arguing about 'what is socialism?' - which is highly relevant to the thread question. Our opinions of socialism are [technically] irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Nazism is a form of socialism or not.

That being said, with respect to your question, I think it might be better stated as, 'what is meaningful democracy?' In the form you phrased the question, it seems like a 'mom and apple pie' kind of thing - of course we all want meaningful democracy. How one defines 'meaningful' democracy in the first place is the entirety of that question. That would make a great thread topic! :)

If a clique of rich guys like Bill Gates could band together and overwirte the civil societies of the rest of the world on critical issues such as war, global warming, etc, then whatever "democracy" there is in the capitalist system is just vacuous talk.
If...if...if... one can construct a thousand "if" arguments.

Besides, there are always lots of cliques of rich guys (and wannabe rich guys) trying to band together and overwrite the civil societies of the rest of the world for various profitable purposes. They sometimes partially succeed and they sometimes fail. There are also cliques of regular people keeping watch on what's going on and trying to band together and overwrite the civil societies of the rest of the world for different purposes. They sometimes partially succeed and they sometimes fail. This is the ground of politics. There is no right or wrong here, only majorities and minorities.

Dunno how it is in Canada, ever wonder about what legal or factual backing are behind those "organic" or "fair trade" labels in your supermarket?

A lot of it is marketing, you are told something is organic while it's produced the same as anything else, with a false label sold twice the price. If there are governmental agencies or NGOs which examines them and certify the label, that's external to the market. In fact, food products didn't have to specify their ingredients or neutritional facts if it were not for consumer action and government regulation. Market gives you only 2 info: price, and the physical attributes of the object in question- what you see is what you get. With legal or financial services, it gets a lot more confusing, and people get cheated over them all the time.
Actually, I do know what the legal definition of "organic farming" is in Canada because I'm interested in the topic and looked it up. It just means no artificial chemical nitrogen fertilizers and no artificial chemical pesticides used.

Theoretically, one could use 'genetically modified' seeds and one could call it 'organic' and be legal as long as you avoided the artifical fertilizers and chemical pesticides. :eek:

As for the "Fair Trade" label I've only heard of that in context with Starbucks. I don't know anything about it.

Btw, Canada is in the midst of addressing the "made in Canada" label that appears on food packages. We just re-wrote the laws here and are continuing to modify the rules making them more transparent (and rigorous).

And this argument is really getting side-tracked here. :ummm:

What about the sweatshop labor, the women in China trapped in their warehouse during fire? or 14 year olds who work 60 hours a week at 10 cents per hour? Or the existing or potential environmental damages involved in the production? Sure you can do the research. But again, that's not part of what market provides, your personal fact-finding mission is external to the system. And it's limited- companies don't have to and never disclose things they don't want you to see- Information are not "out there". Lobbies and PR are industries specifically dedicated to hiding them from everyone - I find it odd you make these naive assertions about "information usually is out there in order to make fully informed decisions", and then blame it on the population instead of the actual corporate culprits.

Anyway, lack of information is inherent in the market system. This need not be in an alternative economic system. Parecon is one example, or Fikret Adaman and Pat Devine have edited a book about it, and so on.
Yes, lack of information has always been a notable flaw in our capitalism-based market system. It is right up there with the 'invisible externalities' problem as being a really 'serious' problem.

That being said, our capitalism-based market system has never had any shortage of 'problems' to deal with. That is the nature of society. Millions of people demand solutions to their 'problems'. The capitalism based market system has a proven track record of solving problems. It has done so better than any other system ever known to function - that's why we use it. It has flaws - lots of them - but that does not produce the logical deduction that the capitalism based market system must be (or can be) banished and replaced.

The will of one overwrites the will of all- basically Feudalism- that for you "demonstrates the theoretical power and liberty of the market itself" - Well I can only say you have a very odd concept of "liberty".
Bill Gates being free to spend his fortune as he sees fit, within the reasonable limits that the existing legal system permits, sure looks like decent liberty to me. It is not 'pure liberty' because Bill Gates is theoretically constrained by the legal system. I consider that a reasonable limit upon liberty.

Btw, no one will has ever been able to "overwrite the will of all", though many have certainly tried. That's the liberty of the marketplace. Sure it is possible, but that doesn't make it likely, necessary or inevitable. I do believe that lots of little Napoleons out there tends to reduce the likelihood of one big Napoleon taking over. This is a variation of Alexis De Tocqueville's argument in Democracy in America.

Here is where we totally miss each other. I don't know what argument you are trying to make, but our current material riches is not an argument for or against the market, just like a person in the 19th century don't make a coherent argument for or against monarchy (or whatever) by comparing the material riches of his days over that of Bronze Age. There isn't much I could say here.
We are missing each other here because you seem to have switched topics halfway through our discussion and I didn't.

You are now making a discussion about the superiority/inferiority of socialism/capitalism. I'm always willing to have that discussion, but I am still working on the original thread topic (Nazis and Socialism) and the related discussion about the 'proper' definition of socialism.

My reply above was specifically in response to a specfic assertion that you made about working conditions being reduced over time. I think that specific argument is highly questionable since for the vast majority of first world people, working conditions have massively increased in quality (and decreased in quantity) over the last 100 years. I can't see how that can be denied. :ummm:

You make a lot of assumptions about "human nature" which neither you nor I, I think, can substantiate at all. "Human nature" is a lot of things, and everyone could say that a infant who grows up to become a gas chamber attendent may as well grow up to become a saint. It's not a very useful enterprise to appeal to "human nature" when advocating for or against something.
Yes, I referenced 'human nature' in support of one point, though not in any emphatic definitional sense since I predicated it with the term "seems like". If you don't like that particular counter-argument that's okay. I can perhaps make the same point in a different way.

But it does seem like you are sweeping away several of my other counter-arguments in that same passage with that one fell swoop.

What I was doing was a critique of the internal mechanisms of an economic system, independent of those assumptions. Now suppose there are such things as "human nature"- some good, some bad- and suppose what we care about is the well being of everyone, then our system should be designed to encourage the good natures from manifesting, and discourage the bad natures. In a market system, I think, it does the opposite- which I was trying to show. There is a ton of stuff I could write about it, but others already did. Perhaps we'll do this slowly.

The problem is, I'm still stuck on the thread topic and have been trying to avoid going off on a discussion about the inferiority/superiority of socialism as that seems 'off-topic' to me in this thread discussion - but that has been where you've been going for the last few posts. :shrug:

[WFCY]

I think we got lost on a massive scale- about four posts ago (http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27415&postcount=28) when I started following up on the new market topic with you- I thought the subject was already changed. I didn't really feel that all I say has to be confined to Nazism and Socialism per se.

Now I might cut off some of your post in the quotes below because either time constraint or I find it hard to understand/relevant. No disrespect or anything. But I will address points when it's clear to me what you are saying.

I believe we got side-tracked because you said that the market has zero democracy at all and I disputed that point. I was critiquing that position because I believe the market economy does contain some democratic elements (as I've noted). We didn't build this monstrosity with guns pointed at our heads forcing us to do it - collectively speaking, 'we the people' are guilty of supporting this every step of the way - no matter how much the corporations and capitalists are guilty of playing manipulation games.

As for your question, that is indeed an interesting one, but I respectfully submit that has not been the topic of this thread. This thread has been about the definitions of Socialism and Nazism and potential commonalities. We have been arguing about 'what is socialism?' - which is highly relevant to the thread question. Our opinions of socialism are [technically] irrelevant to the issue of whether or not Nazism is a form of socialism or not.

I am not sure how talking about the market in general could relate to the thread topic- neither Nazism nor Socialism has the defining institution, or bases its economy on the "market" you first mentioned. So I will just say I was not trying to stick to the topic, but to follow up on one of your posts, namely when you claimed that "I do think that people do democratically participate in the market"- which I disagreed. My post (http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27415&postcount=28) was specifically written to address this disagreement.

If...if...if... one can construct a thousand "if" arguments.

It's not really "if" as it was phrased. Those things are happening, corporate dictatorship are rampant and blatant in third worlds, and more subtle here in the developed countries. Would take a long time to prove this point, Chomsky's written a book called "Profit Over People", and Naomi Klein "No Logo", David Harvey "History of Neoliberalism"- these are pretty comprehensive demonstrations of what is actually happening- I was not posturing. We don't have a meaningful democracy under market capitalist economies.

Actually, I do know what the legal definition of "organic farming" is in Canada because I'm interested in the topic and looked it up. It just means no artificial chemical nitrogen fertilizers and no artificial chemical pesticides used.

Theoretically, one could use 'genetically modified' seeds and one could call it 'organic' and be legal as long as you avoided the artifical fertilizers and chemical pesticides. :eek:

As for the "Fair Trade" label I've only heard of that in context with Starbucks. I don't know anything about it.

Btw, Canada is in the midst of addressing the "made in Canada" label that appears on food packages. We just re-wrote the laws here and are continuing to modify the rules making them more transparent (and rigorous).

And this argument is really getting side-tracked here. :ummm:


It's not so side-tracked. What I have been saying, is that all the important information regarding a product you buy, is not supplied by the market itself. The reason they are disclosed is because of some other authorities external to the market make them available. If it were up to the market to decide, then the only info you get is the advertisment: selective, positive rendering of the information about a product- the rest would be deliberately hidden as they may cast a product less desirable and therefore hinders its sale and profit. I would go so far as to even say that market, as an institution, will inevitably turn into a massive racket, governed by the law of the jungle, if left completely to its own devices.

So market does not provide information for people to make informed and rational decisions on their investment or purchases, and if your argument is such that people really vote with their money (which they don't), the market cannot be said to be democratic (or, meaningfully democratic, if you want to talk about degrees, which I think is neither useful nor necessary).

Yes, lack of information has always been a notable flaw in our capitalism-based market system. It is right up there with the 'invisible externalities' problem as being a really 'serious' problem.

That being said, our capitalism-based market system has never had any shortage of 'problems' to deal with. That is the nature of society. Millions of people demand solutions to their 'problems'. The capitalism based market system has a proven track record of solving problems. It has done so better than any other system ever known to function - that's why we use it. It has flaws - lots of them - but that does not produce the logical deduction that the capitalism based market system must be (or can be) banished and replaced.

I am not sure what "probelms" you are referring to that capitalism "has a proven track record of solving".

This disagreement can only be summed up in several volumes of books I am afraid, but I don't think market, or capitalism will lead us anywhere but doom. To sum up in short, I will simply quote Ray Anderson:

Drawing the metaphor of the early attempts to fly. The man going off of a very high cliff in his airplane, with the wings flapping, and the guys flapping the wings and the wind is in his face, and this poor fool thinks he's flying, but, in fact, he's in free fall, and he just doesn't know it yet because the ground is so far away, but, of course, the craft is doomed to crash. That's the way our civilization is, the very high cliff represents the virtually unlimited resources we seem to have when we began this journey. The craft isn't flying because it's not built according to the laws of aerodynamics and it's subject to the law of gravity. Our civilization is not flying because it's not built according to the laws of aerodynamics for civilizations that would fly. And, of course, the ground is still a long way away, but some people have seen that ground rushing up sooner than the rest of us have. The visionaries have seen it and have told us it's coming. There's not a single scientific, peer-reviewed paper published in the last 25 years that would contradict this scenario: every living system of earth is in decline, every life support system of earth is in decline, and these together constitute the biosphere, the biosphere that supports and nurtures all of life, and not just our life but perhaps 30 million other species that share this planet with us. The typical company of the 20th century: extractive, wasteful, abusive, linear in all of its processes, taking from the earth, making, wasting, sending its products back to the biosphere, waste to a landfill. I, myself, was amazed to learn just how much stuff the earth has to produce through our extraction process to produce a dollar of revenue for our company. When I learned, I was flabbergasted. We are leaving a terrible legacy of poison and diminishment of the environment for our grandchildren's grandchildren, generations not yet born. Some people have called that intergeneration tyranny, a form of taxation without representation, levied by us on generations yet to be. It's the wrong thing to do.


Bill Gates being free to spend his fortune as he sees fit, within the reasonable limits that the existing legal system permits, sure looks like decent liberty to me. It is not 'pure liberty' because Bill Gates is theoretically constrained by the legal system. I consider that a reasonable limit upon liberty.

Btw, no one will has ever been able to "overwrite the will of all", though many have certainly tried. That's the liberty of the marketplace. Sure it is possible, but that doesn't make it likely, necessary or inevitable. I do believe that lots of little Napoleons out there tends to reduce the likelihood of one big Napoleon taking over. This is a variation of Alexis De Tocqueville's argument in Democracy in America.

The book was written in the early 19th century, before corporations were made legal persons and the subsequent developments (such as neocolonialism, corporate globalization). This is a very important element which Tocqueville couldn't have predicted in his own time. However, by giving corporations the rights of human beings, what you inevitably end up with are things like the current campaign finance law for example- where companies can spend unlimited amounts of money to effect election results, and so on. Call them the ownership class, or corporate oligarchy, or business clique, doesn't matter, what you have effectively, is an example of "the will of the few overwrite the will of all".



My reply above was specifically in response to a specfic assertion that you made about working conditions being reduced over time. I think that specific argument is highly questionable since for the vast majority of first world people, working conditions have massively increased in quality (and decreased in quantity) over the last 100 years. I can't see how that can be denied. :ummm:

I still don't understand you. I will just say that I was giving some examples to the point I was mainly concerned about in that particular paragraph you were referring to- The point I was making is that our desires, or purchasing behaviors in the market, are endogenously motivated, rather than exogenous. So contrary to what economists always say: "the market gives people what they want- you want what you want because of your genetics, family upbrining, education, taste, cosmology, etc- all kinds of reasons external to the market". Contrary to that claim, our desire is effected by the market, what is available in our lives, what we can buy and what we cannot buy. That was my point. It has nothing to do with the standard of living now or 100 or 1000 years ago or in the future. If there was a market system 100 years ago- the same properties would have exhibited. And indeed, the European economies of 19th century was largely market based as well, so I am not sure even if the point you are making makes any sense- if we had capitalism then and we have capitalism now, then the differences between living standards now and then could not be attributed to capitalism, it has to be something else. So as I said, we missed each other on this one.


Yes, I referenced 'human nature' in support of one point, though not in any emphatic definitional sense since I predicated it with the term "seems like". If you don't like that particular counter-argument that's okay. I can perhaps make the same point in a different way.

But it does seem like you are sweeping away several of my other counter-arguments in that same passage with that one fell swoop.

I am sorry, I don't mean to do that on purpose, but I just can't understand them. Really :(

[Michael]

I think we got lost on a massive scale- about four posts ago (http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27415&postcount=28) when I started following up on the new market topic with you- I thought the subject was already changed. I didn't really feel that all I say has to be confined to Nazism and Socialism per se.

Now I might cut off some of your post in the quotes below because either time constraint or I find it hard to understand/relevant. No disrespect or anything. But I will address points when it's clear to me what you are saying.

Yes, it is clear that a topic switch occured. Its your thread, if you want it to migrate, that's your call. I'm just saying that my confusion comes from the fact that I wasn't happy about the topic switch because it seems to dodge the original topic. You may be convinced that the Nazis had nothing to do with socialism, but I'm not. :shrug:

I'm not trying to be difficult. I'm just trying to keep up!

I am not sure how talking about the market in general could relate to the thread topic- neither Nazism nor Socialism has the defining institution, or bases its economy on the "market" you first mentioned. So I will just say I was not trying to stick to the topic, but to follow up on one of your posts, namely when you claimed that "I do think that people do democratically participate in the market"- which I disagreed. My post (http://www.discussionworldforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=27415&postcount=28) was specifically written to address this disagreement.
As I said before, I think that the definition of socialism has a lot to do with answering the original thread question. Once we started to discuss the nature of socialism, you moved off into a critique of capitalism and Bob's your uncle, here we are! ;)

If you are going to assert the superiority of socialism, it needs to be done on socialism's own terms, not just by a critique of capitalism. Critique of capitalism is just too easy to do. It is a rather large target. :D

It's not really "if" as it was phrased. Those things are happening, corporate dictatorship are rampant and blatant in third worlds, and more subtle here in the developed countries. Would take a long time to prove this point, Chomsky's written a book called "Profit Over People", and Naomi Klein "No Logo", David Harvey "History of Neoliberalism"- these are pretty comprehensive demonstrations of what is actually happening- I was not posturing. We don't have a meaningful democracy under market capitalist economies.
You don't have to convince me that capitalism offers opportunies for rich greedy bastards to take advantage of others and/or that capitalism has 'evil' elements. I agree completely. I've never been a cheerleader for capitalism.
And I've certainly read lots of Chomsky and also Klein's "No Logo" and others besides.

My objection was against the 'archvillian' concept of one super-rich bastard taking over the world. I think that is very unlikely because of the diversity of power that comes from the market system. I'm not saying monopolies are impossible, only that they are usually artificial.

And as I've already noted, I don't dispute the absence of a meaningful democracy under our capitalism-based market economy. Indeed, I've long considered the 'representative' model of democratic legislatures to be 'fake' democracy in the first place, regardless of the market.

For me, the key issue here is the "meaningful" part. I don't believe that merely substituting "socialism" for "capitalism" would result in any increase in "meaningful democracy". My primary reason for this belief is my understanding that this would be essentially impossible to do.

So I agree that it would be nice to have a 'meaningful democracy'. I'm just pretty sure that your definition of this will be different than mine and that the definition will probably be different for each and every person. How do we work around that? I just don't have 'faith' that any kind of socialism, libertarian or otherwise, is going to solve this problem.

That being said, I fully support opposition to the advances of corporate capitalism, I just don't see any possibility of functional alternatives. :shrug:

It's not so side-tracked. What I have been saying, is that all the important information regarding a product you buy, is not supplied by the market itself. The reason they are disclosed is because of some other authorities external to the market make them available. If it were up to the market to decide, then the only info you get is the advertisment: selective, positive rendering of the information about a product- the rest would be deliberately hidden as they may cast a product less desirable and therefore hinders its sale and profit. I would go so far as to even say that market, as an institution, will inevitably turn into a massive racket, governed by the law of the jungle, if left completely to its own devices.
Yes, I can agree with all that and have never disputed the general character of capitalism.

I am a bit curious as to why you are pushing these kind of arguments at me as if I was some Ayn Rand worshipping rightwing cheerleader for the glories of capitalism? :ummm:

I've always been a proponent of liberalism and have always supported the fundamental need and necessity of regulating the private market (and capitalism in particular) for the sake of human decency alone.

So market does not provide information for people to make informed and rational decisions on their investment or purchases, and if your argument is such that people really vote with their money (which they don't), the market cannot be said to be democratic (or, meaningfully democratic, if you want to talk about degrees, which I think is neither useful nor necessary).
Not true at all.

You are entirely correct that people are often ignorant or uniformed when they cast their votes, be that with a ballot or their cash. And you are also correct that their isn't much that is meaningful or democratic here.

But the liberty to choose is there, and that choice is real regardless if it informed or not. Ignorant choices are still choices. And I'm not saying this is a good thing or a desirable state of affairs, I'm just saying that it exists.

And I didn't make the maximal argument here either. I said that people voting with their money is a democratic element of the market. I didn't assert that the capitalist-based market is democratic by definition (because it certainly isn't).

I am not sure what "probelms" you are referring to that capitalism "has a proven track record of solving".
Human aspirations of material plenty.

And yes, I'm aware that this leads to a whole bunch of new problems, but that's where capitalism's success has come from. And when I speak of "capitalism's success" I refer specifically to its success in becoming the dominant mode of production.

This disagreement can only be summed up in several volumes of books I am afraid, but I don't think market, or capitalism will lead us anywhere but doom. To sum up in short, I will simply quote Ray Anderson:





The book was written in the early 19th century, before corporations were made legal persons and the subsequent developments (such as neocolonialism, corporate globalization). This is a very important element which Tocqueville couldn't have predicted in his own time. However, by giving corporations the rights of human beings, what you inevitably end up with are things like the current campaign finance law for example- where companies can spend unlimited amounts of money to effect election results, and so on. Call them the ownership class, or corporate oligarchy, or business clique, doesn't matter, what you have effectively, is an example of "the will of the few overwrite the will of all".
First you spoke of "the will of one" (Bill Gates for example), now it is "the will of the few"?

You have taken my objection argument to the first argument and rejected it based on your second variation. That's not a fair or valid rebuttal.

And that quotation seem to be just an emotional/moral appeal. :ummm:

I'm pretty hard-nosed realist when it comes to discussing political ideology. I'm not going to be swayed by any emotion-based arguments. I like the dry logical arguments much better - those are far more likely to convince me of the quality of an argument. :)

I still don't understand you. I will just say that I was giving some examples to the point I was mainly concerned about in that particular paragraph you were referring to- The point I was making is that our desires, or purchasing behaviors in the market, are endogenously motivated, rather than exogenous. So contrary to what economists always say: "the market gives people what they want- you want what you want because of your genetics, family upbrining, education, taste, cosmology, etc- all kinds of reasons external to the market". Contrary to that claim, our desire is effected by the market, what is available in our lives, what we can buy and what we cannot buy. That was my point. It has nothing to do with the standard of living now or 100 or 1000 years ago or in the future. If there was a market system 100 years ago- the same properties would have exhibited. And indeed, the European economies of 19th century was largely market based as well, so I am not sure even if the point you are making makes any sense- if we had capitalism then and we have capitalism now, then the differences between living standards now and then could not be attributed to capitalism, it has to be something else. So as I said, we missed each other on this one.
No, I don't think we didn't miss each other entirely here, though our perspectives are probably quite different. ;)

You seem to feel that I missed the point because I pointed out one particular point that didn't support your argument and you took this to mean I rejected the whole argument - which I didn't.

I realize what general argument you are making, I just quibbled with one of the specific points you referenced in support. If you are going to aim this argument at someone else, I'd recommend you drop that one phrase because it opens up a potential hole in your argument. If there are holes in your argument, even if I agree with you, I'll still going to point out the flaw. That's just the way I am.

And your defense above doesn't really address my critique against your specific claim about "living standards".

I understand your general argument. I was just pointing out that making the specific claim that living standards are regressing is not a good claim to make as justification. It is an easily contestable statement. Good arguments don't make easily contestable statements.

I am sorry, I don't mean to do that on purpose, but I just can't understand them. Really :(
Perhaps because you are taking my specific counter arguments to some of your specific points as general arguments against the whole? Based on your counter-replies, this seems to be the case.

I'd suggest that we just drop this line of discussion because it seems to be a distraction. If we are going to have a 'socialism is superior to capitalism' discussion that's okay, but I'm just trying to shift ground to the other topic that you said you wanted to follow up on...

What is 'meaningful'? How can society be meaningful? I'm curious what you mean when you used the term meaningful? What could improve or increase meaningfulness in society? Do you really think that meaningfulness can be increased? I'm very curious about this angle.

[WFCY]

You may be convinced that the Nazis had nothing to do with socialism, but I'm not.

As I said before, I think that the definition of socialism has a lot to do with answering the original thread question. Once we started to discuss the nature of socialism, you moved off into a critique of capitalism and Bob's your uncle, here we are!

If you are going to assert the superiority of socialism, it needs to be done on socialism's own terms, not just by a critique of capitalism. Critique of capitalism is just too easy to do. It is a rather large target.

Socialism, or Libertarian Socialism for the matter, is a kind of meta-theory really. For me at least. The consequence of that would be, it's actually not very well defined and depending on the context in which socialist principles are applied, you have many different outcomes. There are some indespensible principles in Socialism, such as no ownership of the means of production, classlessness and equality. But beyond that, there are hundreds if not just dozens of schools of Socialism. It depends on who is involved and what historical and geographical context the Socialist struggle is confined to.

To maybe explain the origins and the specifics of modern Libertarian Socialism, I will copy and paste an excerpt of an article I wrote for Z magazine and a talk I gave 4 years ago, maybe it answers a bit of your original question (the numberings are footnotes, which are included in the end):

[quote]
Historical Background
The rise of modern Anarchism can be viewed as a reaction to the impact on society by the rise of capital (the domination of property rights over the means to production over the
Rights of people), as a result of industrialization which begun in the late 18th century. The Industrial Revolution not only witnessed the triumph of the middle class industrialists and businessmen over a landed class of nobility/ clergy, but also saw a steady decline of living and working conditions for the majority and escalating inequality between the economic classes. Machine tools revolutionized methods of production; Railroads, transportation. These had gargantuan impacts on demographics. The old, medieval craftsmanship could not compete with mass production- it was labour intensive, producing too little at far greater cost. Regional guilds were shut down, while artisans migrate into what is known as the modern city to work in factories. Factories were very expensive, only a few people could afford them. Same happened in agriculture. Crops required less farm-hands with the help of machine tools.

Agricultural societies evolved into industrial ones as the majority gave up their ploughs to labour in textile mills, coal mines, railroads, and manufacturing plants. Land was gradually consolidated by those who owned the tools. With the help of railroad, t

[WFCY]

My objection was against the 'archvillian' concept of one super-rich bastard taking over the world. I think that is very unlikely because of the diversity of power that comes from the market system. I'm not saying monopolies are impossible, only that they are usually artificial.

I don't think I was trying to present an "arch-villian" perspective, although the way in which the language I have presented it may have cause it to appear as it.

Ultimately, the villian is in our system, we may be able to get rid of WTO, IMF one day, we may be able to repeal GATT and NAFTA etc one day, though social struggles, we may even get rid of some major multinational corporations or restrain them from taking our livelihoods away while charging us for them. We might do all that. But if we keep the system, they will all come back again, it's only a matter of time. It does not even matter who is oppressing us, they are not doing it because they wanted it, or greedy, or something, not so much. They are in their positions of power and doing what they do because if they hadn't done so, someone else will. The system requires that there be oppressors and victims. I don't wanna make this sound like the movie Matrix, it's not. There are too many analysis out there about the institutional tendencies of Capitalism, and the evidence for them are all over the place. I will just say IF there is an arch-villian, then it's the Capitalist system, not the people who play the roles under it. Naomi Kleim may have put a very one-sided emphasis on corporations, but I think Chomsky is not confused about this.

And as I've already noted, I don't dispute the absence of a meaningful democracy under our capitalism-based market economy. Indeed, I've long considered the 'representative' model of democratic legislatures to be 'fake' democracy in the first place, regardless of the market.

For me, the key issue here is the "meaningful" part. I don't believe that merely substituting "socialism" for "capitalism" would result in any increase in "meaningful democracy". My primary reason for this belief is my understanding that this would be essentially impossible to do.

So I agree that it would be nice to have a 'meaningful democracy'. I'm just pretty sure that your definition of this will be different than mine and that the definition will probably be different for each and every person. How do we work around that? I just don't have 'faith' that any kind of socialism, libertarian or otherwise, is going to solve this problem.

That being said, I fully support opposition to the advances of corporate capitalism, I just don't see any possibility of functional alternatives.

I got the impression you are a firm believer in Social Democracy, in the Canadian/UK/Western-European sense. That is- market capitalism, progressive, liberal social policies, etc.

But now you seem more like a pessmist than social democrat :)


Not true at all.

You are entirely correct that people are often ignorant or uniformed when they cast their votes, be that with a ballot or their cash. And you are also correct that their isn't much that is meaningful or democratic here.

But the liberty to choose is there, and that choice is real regardless if it informed or not. Ignorant choices are still choices. And I'm not saying this is a good thing or a desirable state of affairs, I'm just saying that it exists.

And I didn't make the maximal argument here either. I said that people voting with their money is a democratic element of the market. I didn't assert that the capitalist-based market is democratic by definition (because it certainly isn't).

I am not sure why you first agreed with the arguments, and then disagreed with the conclusion reached from those arguments.

As far as maximal argument goes- democracy, you either have it- meaningful democracy- or you don't have meaningful democracy, you have a symbolic democracy, which is not democracy at all.


First you spoke of "the will of one" (Bill Gates for example), now it is "the will of the few"?

It's like arguing about whether Feudalism is more or less oppressive than Monarchy, in the context of talking about Democracy. What does it matter if we have one oppressor or a handful of oppressors giving us orders from above, and taking away the fruits of our labor, or even our freedoms? Socialism, and Democracy, means getting rid of them all, so the difference between one and few don't matter.


You have taken my objection argument to the first argument and rejected it based on your second variation. That's not a fair or valid rebuttal.

And that quotation seem to be just an emotional/moral appeal. :ummm:

I'm pretty hard-nosed realist when it comes to discussing political ideology. I'm not going to be swayed by any emotion-based arguments. I like the dry logical arguments much better - those are far more likely to convince me of the quality of an argument.

I don't understand the fair/valid rebuttal part.

As far as emotional/moral appeal goes- not at all. Bottom line, nobody knows the future, we can only predict insofar as the current events provide us with clues. Right now we have overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to a trajectory heading for disaster. Capitalism is going to wreck us all. We just havn't reached there yet, and it will be a little while before we do, that is why we think it's working. That's what Ray Anderson is saying.

If you want to go look for facts, what are the evidences that we are heading for disaster, I would start with US National Academy of Sciences on relation between carbon emission and global temperature, for example.

[WFCY]

Socialism, or Libertarian Socialism for the matter, is a kind of meta-theory really. For me at least. The consequence of that would be, it's actually not very well defined and depending on the context in which socialist principles are applied, you have many different outcomes. There are some indespensible principles in Socialism, such as no ownership of the means of production, classlessness and equality. But beyond that, there are hundreds if not just dozens of schools of Socialism. It depends on who is involved and what historical and geographical context the Socialist struggle is confined to.

To maybe explain the origins and the specifics of modern Libertarian Socialism, I will copy and paste an excerpt of an article I wrote for Z magazine and a talk I gave 4 years ago, maybe it answers a bit of your original question (the numberings are footnotes, which are included in the end):

Okay, this is pretty fuckin annoying- I had a complete post before, and then suddenly it got cut off just like that, when I reloaded. I didn't even do anything. Stupid forum software.

Guess I will have to do that again some other time.

[Michael]

I don't think I was trying to present an "arch-villian" perspective, although the way in which the language I have presented it may have cause it to appear as it.

Ultimately, the villian is in our system, we may be able to get rid of WTO, IMF one day, we may be able to repeal GATT and NAFTA etc one day, though social struggles, we may even get rid of some major multinational corporations or restrain them from taking our livelihoods away while charging us for them. We might do all that. But if we keep the system, they will all come back again, it's only a matter of time. It does not even matter who is oppressing us, they are not doing it because they wanted it, or greedy, or something, not so much. They are in their positions of power and doing what they do because if they hadn't done so, someone else will. The system requires that there be oppressors and victims. I don't wanna make this sound like the movie Matrix, it's not. There are too many analysis out there about the institutional tendencies of Capitalism, and the evidence for them are all over the place. I will just say IF there is an arch-villian, then it's the Capitalist system, not the people who play the roles under it. Naomi Kleim may have put a very one-sided emphasis on corporations, but I think Chomsky is not confused about this.
Yes, I agree with this. The nature of the system creates nasty incentives.

Greedy capitalists are not an 'evil abberation' they are merely playing out their part in the system.

I got the impression you are a firm believer in Social Democracy, in the Canadian/UK/Western-European sense. That is- market capitalism, progressive, liberal social policies, etc.

But now you seem more like a pessmist than social democrat :)
Yes, I'm rather too pessimistic to be a good social democrat, though my politics are generally compatible with those of social democrats.

I think I'm a liberal democrat. The distinction between the two is very small, but it seems to be the issue of liberty. I still hold on to the idea that human liberty is important and should only be constrained with good reason. I do find that social democrats are a bit too blase about constraining liberty - and a bit too optimistic about the operation of state authority.

I have always held that governments, religions and unions often pose as great a threat to human liberty as private corporations do.

I am not sure why you first agreed with the arguments, and then disagreed with the conclusion reached from those arguments.

As far as maximal argument goes- democracy, you either have it- meaningful democracy- or you don't have meaningful democracy, you have a symbolic democracy, which is not democracy at all.
Because of the 'maximal' argument.

I agree with the general assertion that our modern pseudo-democracy isn't very democratic. I do not agree that our modern psuedo-democracy system has ZERO democratic elements and is pure symbolic theater. It is a matter of degree. Our pseudo-democratic system does have some small/few democratic elements in it, not much, but some.

It's like arguing about whether Feudalism is more or less oppressive than Monarchy, in the context of talking about Democracy. What does it matter if we have one oppressor or a handful of oppressors giving us orders from above, and taking away the fruits of our labor, or even our freedoms? Socialism, and Democracy, means getting rid of them all, so the difference between one and few don't matter.
It matters since there is a difference between the nefarious actions of a conspiracy and the distributed actions of the action of the system.

The former is criminal, the latter is systemic. The outcomes may be similar in some cases, but they are different types of threats.

Similarly, I see distinction between those who seek to rule by manipulating the citizenry and those who seek to rule through authoritarian violence. Again, the outcomes may be similar in some cases, but they are very different in actuality.

I don't understand the fair/valid rebuttal part.
Your rebuttal was predicated upon 'shifting the goalpost'. You made the argument about "one" and my counter-argument addressed the "one" argument. For rebuttal, you shifted your "one" argument to a "many" argument and then claimed that my argument against the "one" argument is thus moot. That's correct, but an invalid rebuttal. Your rebuttal needed to defend the "one" argument and it didn't. You abandoned the "one" argument and restated it as a "many" argument, as if the "one" argument was never made at all.

I'm only making the point because I know you like formal debate rules. In formal debate, your rebuttal was an invalid one. In a normative discussion, changing your point (slightly) to a more defensible version upon being challenged is far more reasonable and acceptable.

As far as emotional/moral appeal goes- not at all. Bottom line, nobody knows the future, we can only predict insofar as the current events provide us with clues. Right now we have overwhelming amount of evidence pointing to a trajectory heading for disaster. Capitalism is going to wreck us all. We just havn't reached there yet, and it will be a little while before we do, that is why we think it's working. That's what Ray Anderson is saying.
But we've had "overwhelming amount of evidence" pointing us at a trajectory heading for disaster for about a 150 years now.

Indeed, the environmental crisis caused by capitalism in the mid-19th century in Britain was enormous. The Thames caught fire and Britain was being turned black with coal dust, while average human lifespans and human health measures were all nosediving - and at the same time some people were worried about the inevitable Malthusian nightmare of the population outgrowing the foodsupply.

But somehow our 'evil capitalist' system managed to pull out of that tailspin and reverse the statistics on human lifespans and human health measures some fifty years later - with worldwide agricultural production continuing to outgrow the population.

Indeed, our 'success' with addressing human lifespans and human health measures is now causing us a new economic problem with people living a long, long time. And our 'success' with expanding agricultural production is now causing some new problems as well.

My point here is that we've had 'cassandras' talking about the evil destruction of capitalism for a long time. Some of it does come to pass, but lots of the predictions made in the mid-19th century have turned out to be completely wrong. Human society does adapt and does change over time. And many awful predictions of immanent destruction of the planet don't actually come to be.

If you want to go look for facts, what are the evidences that we are heading for disaster, I would start with US National Academy of Sciences on relation between carbon emission and global temperature, for example.
I'm perfectly aware of global climate change data.

The point I'm making is that stating all of the flaws or problems with capitalism merely produces the conclusion that capitalism needs some reform or regulation. It does not produce the conclusion that the whole socio-economic system must be trashed and a revolution is necessary to replace the capitalist system with a totally different system that few people know about or understand.

Fact is, capitalism didn't become dominant through any authoritarian or activist revolutionary process. Capitalism didn't become dominant through state initiative, or any state subsidy or any state support. Indeed, capitalism rose to dominance despite being opposed by every major institution of society. Capitalism rose to dominance because as a mode of production it was more efficient and more effective than any other method of production.

Until a new mode of production comes along that proves itself to be more efficient and effective than capitalism, we are stuck with capitalism. And given the problems we are having due to the success of the capitalist system, we have a lot of work needed to reform and regulate capitalism so that it is less harmful.

If libertarian socialism (or anarchic syndicalism) can show itself to be superior in practice, I'm sure it will become the dominant mode of production. I just don't see that as very likely given that the system has been around for a long time and that superiority in practice just hasn't been demonstrated (it keeps losing out to capitalist opposition).

I will also note that if capitalism can crush a budding libertarian socialist experiment, that is a failure of libertarian socialism. Indeed, feudalism and monarchism (and religion) all tried like hell to destroy/crush/ban/eliminate/limit capitalism at every opportunity over the centuries. Capitalism won that competition every time - simply due to the superiority of the capitalist mode of production.

I'm not saying capitalism is here to stay, I'm just saying that the onus is on some other system to prove that it is better with actual results.

Its not about choosing an economic system. No one voted to create or choose capitalism.

[Michael]

Another way of looking at this issue is to say that fascism is a political system (that is rightwing authoritarianism) - it is contrasted by liberal democracy which is also a political system. Anarchism could also be described as a political system.

Socialism on the other hand is an economic system that is contrasted with capitalism.

Ergo, it is possible for fascism to be associated with either socialism or capitalism, just like it is possible for liberal democracy to be associated with socialism or capitalism. It is also possible for anarchism to be associated with either socialism or capitalism.

Admittedly economic and socio-political systems tend to blur together and reinforce each other, but I think there is merit to this distinction as it does explain the way all these variations are possible.

[WFCY]

As I have already said in that thread, and I quote because I believe it answers your remark rather fittingly:

a glass of chalk and a glass of milk share some "characteristics" too- yet nobody would drink a glass of chalk. What is the point of arguing if two things share some "characteristics"? Nearly everything share some "characteristics" with everything else. What is the significance in debating about that?

What is significant, is whether two things share defining characteristics that would make them the same, in contexts where they are commonly used and/or seriously discussed. So if we talk about Socialsm and Nazism (or Fascism), we are talking in historical, in political, philosophical, and in current world affair contexts. The question is- Does Socialism share its defining characteristics with Nazism/Fascism in that the two ideologies can be viewed as identical, or one being a derivation of another, in our modern-day political discussions, discussions about political ideologies and philosophies, and in serious, academic, discussions about the history of the world?

Hitler, you, and I, all believe 2+2 equals 4. Does that mean we are Nazis too? No. In logic, this is merely an attempt of guilt by association. Which is what my opponent is trying to do.

His replies to the above quote, which are rather disingenuous, is to make false analogies about siblings and human beings. You can see for yourself (http://www.uspoliticsonline.com/1711138-post39.html), and I already busted it in the thread.



Now, there are a few ways I would approach the issue from, to demonstrate that Nazism, or Fascism in general, share no significant similarities with Socialism.

For eg. their relations with actual Socialists of their time. Or the kind of allies they have. Or their relations with independent trade unions. Or their relations with banks, industrialists, and corporations in general. Do they favor worker self management, collective ownership of the means of production, which is the definition of Socialism? Or are they just paying lip services with their political campaign adverts, while plundering the Jews and weak foreign countries and sharing their loot to boost popularity?

The other thing is Hitler is definitely not, and never a Socialist. He has always spoken and written extremely negatively of Socialism and Communism, consistently throughout his whole life, he considered communism on par with Judaism. I mean, you can "try" to prove Nazis were Socialists, but it is beyond dispute that Hitler was anti-Socialist.


I mean, debating with tricks and games is one thing. Debating with actual knowledge and rationality is another. The latter takes integrity and the willingness to be convinced. I have been in hundreds of debates and I am fine with either. The latter ofc, is always harder, but the more interesting. My opponent here took the other route. And so I adapted. If my opponent would discuss things in a serious way, the above line of argument would have unfolded, I was prepared for it (you saw a deleted post in this thread that was part of it). But he went the other strategy. So I was only too willing to play along.

[MetallicaFan]

Sorry I haven't read any posts here yet. But is anyone that narrow enough to beleive Nazism is socialism, and do they have a reason?

[Michael]

Sorry I haven't read any posts here yet. But is anyone that narrow enough to beleive Nazism is socialism, and do they have a reason?

I am of the general opinion that The National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI party) was based on, and governed by, many socialist principles, policies and practices. In practice, the Nazis were also governed by rightwing/corporate fascism. Niether of these apparently conflicting ideologies were the basis for the Nazi obsession with racial purity and/or violent nationalism.

Btw, the early period of the party, prior to Hitler becoming leader, was almost entirely dominated by doctrinaire socialists.

Curious mixture the Nazis were.

[MetallicaFan]

I am of the general opinion that The National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI party) was based on, and governed by, many socialist principles, policies and practices. In practice, the Nazis were also governed by rightwing/corporate fascism. Niether of these apparently conflicting ideologies were the basis for the Nazi obsession with racial purity and/or violent nationalism.

Btw, the early period of the party, prior to Hitler becoming leader, was almost entirely dominated by doctrinaire socialists.

Curious mixture the Nazis were.
1. What do you mean by "based on, and governed by, many socialist principles, policies and practices"? Can you elaborate.

2. Who are those you talk of who were "doctrinaire socialists" that "dominated" the Nazi party?

[drgoodtrips]

I had an interesting thought the other day. If you're talking about the economic system employed by the Nazis, and whether that could be described as socialist or capitalist, I'm wondering if it couldn't be thought of as a hybrid of Mercantilism. I don't know about the balance of trade in early Nazi Germany, but it does seem to line up with the idea that the role of the economic system in the state serves the exclusive purpose of advancing the state.

[WFCY]

I don't have a lot of time to elaborate at the moment (on the go), but I believe I have said something about this either in this thread or USPO somewhere.

To see if Nazis were genuinely "Socialist", you have to first look at their relationship with trade unions and traditional Socialist and Socialist parties in Germany that time. As far as the latter two goes- the answer is very simple, they killed them wholesale, and for the survivers, they were rounded up and sent to camps. The relation of Nazis and trade unions/labor however, is more intricate- since you can't just kill everybody in the country. What NSDAP did was it basically took over all the trade unions and ran them themselves (the two main, official unions were NSBO and NSHABO, both under Robert Ley). But in reality, it's just a way to supress actual labor movement- dissent and self management, as non-official trade unions were banned under the Third Reich. Strikes were punishable by death at times.

There is a lot of talk from apologists about how Nazis had "Socialist" policies and welfares which benefited everybody. There is a book, unfortunately only in German (http://www.amazon.de/Hitlers-Volksstaat-G%C3%B6tz-Aly/dp/359615863X) that talks about this. A lot of that "social welfare" is really just about how the plunder of the Jews and the occupied territories was so popular because everybody got a piece of the action and profit. Maybe there were some elements of solidarity and community involved, however, these are entirely based on a racially segregated notion of citizenship and inclusion, something that marks it as different from western postwar social welfare regimes and "Socialism" as it was originated, u know, Owen and Marx etc. Germany's own welfare regime was not Hitler's idea either, but started long ago since Bismarck, and Bismarck's was not based on a racial idea of citizenship.

No matter how you look at it, Nazis weren't Socialists. And that's just for starters.

[MetallicaFan]

I had an interesting thought the other day. If you're talking about the economic system employed by the Nazis, and whether that could be described as socialist or capitalist, I'm wondering if it couldn't be thought of as a hybrid of Mercantilism. I don't know about the balance of trade in early Nazi Germany, but it does seem to line up with the idea that the role of the economic system in the state serves the exclusive purpose of advancing the state.
You are on the right track. Socialism is intended for democratic control of the economy - that is the workers control the economy through their representatives who make sure they are not exploited and the actual value of their labor is given back to them. Nazism, as can be seen by clear definition and practical layout, is not socialism. Economically the Nazis, had no democracy, and had no intention, at all, to change the capitalist system ins o far as the state still had supreme control. The Nazis developed a state-capitalist system, similar to Mussolini's Italy, where corporations and companies were empowered by the governemnt so long as they submitted to their authority. These totalitarian governments however were hugely pro-capitalist, allowing companies to expand develop and assisted them in doing so. They were not socialist, they were simply state controlled capitalists.

[Americano]

I had an interesting thought the other day. If you're talking about the economic system employed by the Nazis, and whether that could be described as socialist or capitalist, I'm wondering if it couldn't be thought of as a hybrid of Mercantilism. I don't know about the balance of trade in early Nazi Germany, but it does seem to line up with the idea that the role of the economic system in the state serves the exclusive purpose of advancing the state.

Agreed, but a major factor was Nazi Germany having its international credit opportunities, and trade, eliminated in the late '1930s. Credit being a form of capital, one could say Germany's only option was to use the massive for the times war machine it had assembled to capture resources, and slaves, to fuel internal capitalization.

[Michael]

First of all, I think it is impossible to authoratively characterize the NAZI party as following any single ideology - other than an aggressive and militant nationalism. That being said, the origin and the rise of the NAZI party (first as DAP then as NSDAP) clearly originates from a leftwing base.

On the origin of the DAP:

On 5 January 1919, Drexler created a new political party based on the political principles which he endorsed by combining combining his Committee of Independent Workmen with a similar group, The Political Worker's Circle, led by newspaper reporter Karl Harrer.[10][13] Drexler proposed that the party be named the German Socialist Worker's Party, but Harrer objected to using the term "socialist" in the name; the issue was settled by removing the term from the name, and it was agreed that the party be named the German Workers' Party (Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, DAP).[14] To ease concerns among potential middle-class nationalist supporters, Drexler made clear that unlike Marxists, the party supported middle-class citizens, and that the party's socialist policy was meant to give social welfare to German citizens deemed part of the Aryan race.[12] They became one of many völkisch movements that existed in Germany at the time. Like other völkisch groups, the DAP advocated the belief that through profit-sharing instead of socialisation Germany should become a unified "national community" (Volksgemeinschaft) rather than a society divided along class and party lines.[15] This ideology was explicitly anti-Semitic as it declared that the "national community" must be judenfrei ("free of Jews").[citation needed] As early as 1920, the party was raising money by selling a tobacco called Anti-Semit.[16]
Source: Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party)

Looking at the 1925 DAP and the infamous 25-point Program, which was the official philosophy of the DAP and the NSDAP:

In Munich, on 24 February 1920, Adolf Hitler publicly proclaimed the 25-point Program of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Workers’ Party), when the Nazis were still known as the DAP (German Workers Party).[4] They retained the National Socialist Program upon renaming themselves as the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) in April 1920, and it remained the Party’s official program — despite the Nazis’ discarding most of it upon assuming Germany’s government in 1933. The 25-point Program was a German adaptation — by Anton Drexler, Adolf Hitler, Gottfried Feder, and Dietrich Eckart — of Rudolf Jung’s Austro–Bohemian program; unlike the Austrians, the Germans did not claim to being either liberal or democratic, and opposed neither political reaction nor the aristocracy, yet advocated democratic institutions (i.e. the German central parliament) and voting rights solely for Germans — implying that a Nazi Government would retain popular suffrage.

The Austrian monarchist Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn proposed that the 25-point Program was pro-labour: “the program championed the right to employment, and called for the institution of profit sharing, confiscation of war profits, prosecution of userers and profiteers, nationalization of trusts, communalization of department stores, extension of the old-age pension system, creation of a national education program of all classes, prohibition of child labour, and an end to the dominance of investment capital.”[5] Whereas historian William Brustein proposes that said program points, and party founder Anton Drexler’s statements, indicate that the Nazi Party (NSDAP) originated as a working-class political party.[6]
Source: Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program)

My point here is not to assert that the NAZI's were doctrinaire socialists, because they weren't. But to deny the leftwing, laborist or working class basis of the party is absurd. The party clearly has its origins as a working class alternative to Soviet Communism. Merely being opposed to Communism does not define one as 'rightwing' or 'fascist' by definition - particularly given that the NAZI's hatred of communism appears to be driven entirely by racial animosity towards Jews whom they believed were in control of Soviet/Communist Russia rather than any actual ideological opposition of policy.

Now it is easy to point out that the NAZI's achieved political power with the assistance of Von Pappen and the aristocratic/conservative/militarist wing and this certainly makes the NAZI's look like rightwing extremists - and in comparison with the radical/revolutionary Communists, they were.

So how does one reconcile the mixture of a NAZI party that clearly has a working class origin with a NAZI party that ruled with the assistance of the aristocratic/conservative/militarist faction? I think the answer is Hitler himself. It appears to me that while the NAZI party clearly originates as a leftwing socialist worker's party, Hitler himself wasn't much of a socialist at all. There are indications that Hitler liked to use the socialist rhetoric of the old DAP and the 25 point plan, but that Hitler himself wasn't much of a supporter of the ideas, only their political utility:

Moreover, throughout the 1920s, other members of the NSDAP, seeking ideologic consistency, sought either to change or to replace the National Socialist Program. In 1924, the economist Gottfried Feder proposed a 39-point program retaining some original policies and introducing new policies.[7] Hitler suppressed every instance of programatic change, by refusing to broach the matters after 1925, because the National Socialist Program was “inviolable”, hence immutable.[8] Simultaneously, however, he did not publicly support it; in his political biography, Mein Kampf (1925, 1926), Hitler only mentions it as “the so-called program of the movement”.[9]
Source: Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program)

My interpretation is that Hitler used the DAP/NSDAP for his own political ambitions, railroading it to serve his visions of a dominant Third Reich. In domestic politics, Hitler ruled with a mixture of pro-leftwing socialist type welfare policies in combination with a regime of racial-based rules designed to isolate and humiliate jews. That is to say, the NSDAP was essentially a leftwing party that Hitler used to effect a rightwing or radically nationalist foreign policy.

*My apologies for citing Wiki as a source - it isn't authorative, but its the only readily available place to reference this info on the web. All of these citations are referenced with bibliographic links at the Wikipage.

[Michael]

To see if Nazis were genuinely "Socialist", you have to first look at their relationship with trade unions and traditional Socialist and Socialist parties in Germany that time. As far as the latter two goes- the answer is very simple, they killed them wholesale, and for the survivers, they were rounded up and sent to camps. The relation of Nazis and trade unions/labor however, is more intricate- since you can't just kill everybody in the country. What NSDAP did was it basically took over all the trade unions and ran them themselves (the two main, official unions were NSBO and NSHABO, both under Robert Ley). But in reality, it's just a way to supress actual labor movement- dissent and self management, as non-official trade unions were banned under the Third Reich. Strikes were punishable by death at times.
I believe that the principal ideological motivation of Hitler was Jew-hatred and there is ample evidence from that time period to show that the trade unions and traditional socialist parties in Germany were 'fronts' operated by the Soviet [Jewish] Communists in their efforts to foster a communist [Jewish] revolution in Weimar Germany.

I believe that provides sufficient justification for Hitler's animosity towards the German trade unions. It was racial politics, not ideology that drove him to oppose the trade unions.

As I posted above, the origin of the NSDAP is as a working class labor party. One can't just ignore that fact.

I don't care what other's have argued about the ideology of the NSDAP, I'm not suggesting that the NSDAP were doctrinaire socialists (because they weren't). But to deny the strong socialist roots of the NSDAP defies the historical record. There is no clear ideological character to the rule of the NAZI's. Some elements are socialist, some elements are fascist, some elements are nationalist. It is impossible to point to one of them and say that it was 'dominant' - or to suggest that any one of these three (ideological) elements does not form part of the whole package.

[MetallicaFan]

First of all, I think it is impossible to authoratively characterize the NAZI party as following any single ideology - other than an aggressive and militant nationalism. That being said, the origin and the rise of the NAZI party (first as DAP then as NSDAP) clearly originates from a leftwing base.

On the origin of the DAP:


Source: Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party)

Looking at the 1925 DAP and the infamous 25-point Program, which was the official philosophy of the DAP and the NSDAP:


Source: Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program)

My point here is not to assert that the NAZI's were doctrinaire socialists, because they weren't. But to deny the leftwing, laborist or working class basis of the party is absurd. The party clearly has its origins as a working class alternative to Soviet Communism. Merely being opposed to Communism does not define one as 'rightwing' or 'fascist' by definition - particularly given that the NAZI's hatred of communism appears to be driven entirely by racial animosity towards Jews whom they believed were in control of Soviet/Communist Russia rather than any actual ideological opposition of policy.

Now it is easy to point out that the NAZI's achieved political power with the assistance of Von Pappen and the aristocratic/conservative/militarist wing and this certainly makes the NAZI's look like rightwing extremists - and in comparison with the radical/revolutionary Communists, they were.

So how does one reconcile the mixture of a NAZI party that clearly has a working class origin with a NAZI party that ruled with the assistance of the aristocratic/conservative/militarist faction? I think the answer is Hitler himself. It appears to me that while the NAZI party clearly originates as a leftwing socialist worker's party, Hitler himself wasn't much of a socialist at all. There are indications that Hitler liked to use the socialist rhetoric of the old DAP and the 25 point plan, but that Hitler himself wasn't much of a supporter of the ideas, only their political utility:


Source: Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program)

My interpretation is that Hitler used the DAP/NSDAP for his own political ambitions, railroading it to serve his visions of a dominant Third Reich. In domestic politics, Hitler ruled with a mixture of pro-leftwing socialist type welfare policies in combination with a regime of racial-based rules designed to isolate and humiliate jews. That is to say, the NSDAP was essentially a leftwing party that Hitler used to effect a rightwing or radically nationalist foreign policy.

*My apologies for citing Wiki as a source - it isn't authorative, but its the only readily available place to reference this info on the web. All of these citations are referenced with bibliographic links at the Wikipage.
With this basis however, who have not shown how ideologically they are socialists or left-wing. Indeed in this regard you have just emphasized the fact they were right wing. By saying their are socialists or lefties simply because they hold strength in the labor or working classes of Germany would also be enough reasoning to say Disraeli (the founder of modern English conservatism) was also a socialist as he supported unions, worker's rights and their movements!

[Michael]

With this basis however, who have not shown how ideologically they are socialists or left-wing. Indeed in this regard you have just emphasized the fact they were right wing. By saying their are socialists or lefties simply because they hold strength in the labor or working classes of Germany would also be enough reasoning to say Disraeli (the founder of modern English conservatism) was also a socialist as he supported unions, worker's rights and their movements!

Did Disraeli start a political party called the British Workers Party? Or the British Labour Party?

There is a small difference between tepid political support for the legality of unions and the founding of political parties to support the working man and labor interests.

Btw, Hitler's comment about the 25 point plan as the official ideology of the party is a rather powerful and clear-cut statement that you have to completely ignore in order to make your argument.

Besides which, as I noted above, I don't think it is possible to assert that the Nazi party acted with one consistent ideology (because they didn't). There are elements of socialism, rabid nationalism, racism, fascism, corporatism, etc., all combined into a fetid soup we call "Nazi".

I object to the leftwing attempt to pretend that the Nazis were entirely made up of rightwing corporate fascists (they weren't) as much as I object to the rightwing attempt to pretend that the Nazis were totally leftwing socialists (they weren't). Both the right and the left have tried desperately hard to pin Hitler onto the other side. I consider both attempts to be lame, disingenious and rabidly partisan. I have no problem accepting Hitler and the Nazis for exactly what they were - a curious mixture of right and left driven by a nationalistic obsession with race.

I have no need to pretend that Hitler and the Nazis were identical to either the Republicans or the Democrats (which is where I suspect this game originates).

[WFCY]

25 points were immediately abandoned when the Nazis came to power. It was generally agreed by historians that they were merely propaganda devices used to attract support. I hope u r aware of that.

I mean, even Milosevic, Gaddafi, the Greek military junta in the 60s, etc, knew they need to say some nice things and give out candies from time to time to keep order and attract support. Cause there are always dumb ass people everywhere who give material support in exchange for empty words from their politicians. Political gestures are not evidence for committment to political ideologies.

[Michael]

25 points were immediately abandoned when the Nazis came to power. It was generally agreed by historians that they were merely propaganda devices used to attract support. I hope u r aware of that.

I mean, even Milosevic, Gaddafi, the Greek military junta in the 60s, etc, knew they need to say some nice things and give out candies from time to time to keep order and attract support. Cause there are always dumb ass people everywhere who give material support in exchange for empty words from their politicians. Political gestures are not evidence for committment to political ideologies.

I happen to think that party platforms are fairly important for defining a political movement - particularly to the supporters/voters who put them in office - regardless of how they may fall short in practice.

For example, GW Bush, according to party platform and party ideology was a conservative. But in practice, he was a big spending, big government guy.

According to your argument, it is correct to say that GW Bush and the Republican party are not rightwing conservatives at all because in office they are big spending big government types. I think that's absurd, but if your argument applies to the Nazis, it must apply to the Republicans too.

Indeed, just check out the Republican party platform some time - it is waaaaaaaaaaaay out there. Republicans always fall short of that. Does that mean the Republicans are not ideologically conservative?

[WFCY]

According to your argument, it is correct to say that GW Bush and the Republican party are not rightwing conservatives at all because in office they are big spending big government types. I think that's absurd, but if your argument applies to the Nazis, it must apply to the Republicans too.


Actually that has been my position consistently throughout the Bush eras and still now. GOP for me has always been the more statist, authoritarian, "big government", big spending of the two parties.

The whole Reaganite rhetoric is complete hypocrisy for pure propaganda and ideological warfare purposes. Intelligent people should be able to see through this and call it what it is.

I never judge politicians and political parties by what they say. I mean, even Hitler and Stalin say they are for human rights, freedom, and peace and all the wonderful things in the world. Well, duh, they'd be fools to come out in public and proclaim support for genocide, repression, and ruthless wars.

I judge them by what they do.

[MetallicaFan]

From a guy called Reiver on another website;

Fascism is a jampot of joviality because of its multiple definitions. To highlight its right wing nature, however, there are several elements we can refer to. I’d first refer to Keserich’s definition of fascism as “the reactionary and terroristic dictatorship of finance capital”. I'd then describe how fascism is incompatible with socialist political economy. Zanden (1960, American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol 19, pp 399-411) is a good source. First, the movement is characterised by anti-intellectualism (“obedience, discipline, faith and a religious belief in the cardinal tenets of the Fascist creed are put forth as the supreme values of a perfect Fascist. Individual thinking along independent lines is discouraged. What is wanted is not brains, daring ideas, or speculative faculties, but character pressed in the mold of Fascism”). That is closer to a worship of alienation. Second, we have the belief in the distribution of innate ability (i.e. the Theory of the Elites where those with a natural talent for ruling rule over the masses). A socialist, on the other hand, appreciates the destructiveness of class. Third, we have a reaction against democracy: “the mass of men is created to be governed and not to govern; is created to be led and not to lead, and is created, finally, to be slaves and not masters: slaves of their animal instincts, their physiological needs, their emotions, and their passions”. That aint participatory socialism! Fourth, we have “fascism is in its broadest meaning a revolt against the modern age, against democratisation, secularisation and internationalism”. That is conservatism! Fifth, we have corporatism where fascism is defined as “a system of political and economic decision-making based on the representation of organised interest groups in government” (Sarti). Ultimately fascism and economics, unlike socialism, do not go well together. The economics of fascism is actually “economics by mistake, not design”.