XYZ is a socialist / communist, revisited

billc

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My posting of the article was also for the sake of Crushing. The article is pretty accessible because of the click on index and it goes into his point about the veneer of private enterprise. But, the article dismantles that argument when it gets into what was actually controlled by the nazis, as far as the economy was concerned.
 

granfire

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My posting of the article was also for the sake of Crushing. The article is pretty accessible because of the click on index and it goes into his point about the veneer of private enterprise. But, the article dismantles that argument when it gets into what was actually controlled by the nazis, as far as the economy was concerned.


Considering that to lead a glee club you had to be party member, the question on whether or not they controlled the economy is moot.
 

billc

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From Friedrich A. Von Hayek, a Nobel award winning economist (back when it probably really meant something) and his thoughts on nazism being actual socialism.

http://www.brookesnews.com/091910hayeknazis.html

From the letter:

The persecution of the Marxists, and of democrats in general, tends to obscure the fundamental fact that National "Socialism" is a genuine socialist movement, whose leading ideas are the final fruit of the anti-liberal tendencies which have been steadily gaining ground in Germany since the later part of the Bismarckian era, and which led the majority of the German intelligentsia first to "socialism of the chair" and later to Marxism in its social-democratic or communist form.

The famous 25 points drawn up by Herr Feder, one of Hitler's early allies, repeatedly endorsed by Hitler and recognized by the by-laws of the National-Socialist party as the immutable basis of all its actions, which together with an extensive commentary is circulating throughout Germany in many hundreds of thousands of copies, is full of ideas resembling those of the early socialists.

...But the dominant feature is a fierce hatred of anything capitalistic-individualistic profit seeking, large scale enterprise, banks, joint-stock companies, department stores, "international finance and loan capital," the system of "interest slavery" in general; the abolition of these is described as the "basis of the programme, around which everything else turns." It was to this programme that the masses of the German people, who were already completely under the influence of collectivist ideas, responded so enthusiastically.

That this violent anti-capitalistic attack is genuine, and not a mere piece of propaganda, becomes as clear from the personal history of the intellectual leaders of the movement as from the general milieu from which it springs. It is not even denied that many of the young men who today play a prominent part in it have previously been communists or socialists.
 
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Bruno@MT

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Believe it or not Bill, but this thread is not targeted specifically at you. I just used my socialist example to make the point that anything can be argued either way.

The major point about my thread is not about agreeing or disagreeing. My online friends include a white militia guy, a treehugger, a conspiracy nut, a guy from idaho who calls himself so right wing that he puts on 2 right cowboy boots in the morning, a mormom, a catholic, gays, lesbians, christian fundamentalists, special forces guys from various nations, etc. Within such a group, it is no surprise that there is very little we agree upon.

Agreeing or not is not the point. The point is that it is possible to disagree without insulting each other, without building strawman arguments and without just spouting mindless propaganda.
 
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