Comments by "Rusty Shackleford" (@POCKET-SAND) on "TIKhistory"
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@slaterslater5944 Yes, the state did control the means of production in Fascist Italy and NSDAP Germany. It's pretty obvious they did if you really look at it and think critically.
They both seized direct control of the businesses, with or without the consent of the owners. If they owners refused, they were arrested and imprisoned. The owners that did agree stayed on within the businesses, but in a figurehead position with little actual influence on the business, and were required to become party members if they weren't so already to tie them further to the state apparatus. The state was making all the key business decisions on behalf of the companies and was dictating how much the companies would be paid.
The only reason why people are still fooled into thinking this was "private" control was because the company names were not changed and the NSDAP and Fascist National Party made an effort to make it appear as if things has not changed that much as to not alarm the middle class. This doesn't mean they weren't controlling the means of production. In the case of ideologues like Marxists, they have a vested interest in denying that National Socialism and Fascism are Socialist, so they argue it isn't not based on the definition of Socialism, but the definition of their specific version of Socialism. Nobody is arguing the NSDAP was Marxist Socialist, which it wasn't, only that it was Socialist. And the definition of Socialism makes it clear that it is simply collective and/or state control of the means of production, which National Socialism and Fascism pushes for.
Here is the definition of labor union again from Merriam-Webster:
"an organization of workers formed for the purpose of advancing its members' interests in respect to wages, benefits, and working conditions"
It does not say that the union must actually advance the interests its members in order to qualify as a union. Nor does it give collective bargaining to be an inherent feature of unions, discrediting your assertion that it is. Do you think that all labor unions in the U.S. that don't help its members aren't really unions?
The NSDAP did to unions exactly what most other Socialist nations did to them, they nationalized them into state-run organizations and used them to turn workers into slaves of the state.
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@DanJuega Your describing the end goal of Marxism. Marx himself outlines an entire process to go through. One step of the process is the "dictatorship of the proletariat," which entails a totalitarian state and no human rights. It happens that no Communist state ever made it past that step, and none ever will, as Communism itself is a fantasy ideology that is impossible to achieve. Totalitarianism is the de facto end result of Marxism. Therefore, people should stop trying.
Again, you fail to see that Capitalism is explicitly when the state is NOT in control of the means of production. When the state is controlling aspects of it, that isn't Capitalism by any definition. Capitalism didn't exist forever, states always had their fingers in peoples' business long before WWI, or even the Industrial Revolution. Before that, Mercantilism was common, which was neither Capitalism nor Socialism.
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@DanJuega Communism entails no human rights because when you submit to the will of a collective, you have no individual rights and human rights are essentially individual rights. Whatever that state or collective wants, it gets at the expense of your freedom. When Marx calls for a dictatorship of the proletariat, he is still calling for the proletariat to control the economy in the same vein as he perceives the bourgeoise to be in control of the economy, which he does see as a type of dictatorship. In any case, governing through a series of collective and "workers' councils" always leads to totalitarianism because, as I explained before, you must submit to the will of a collective. Throughout all of recent human history, we have exactly 0 cases of this succeeding economically, which, to somebody not blinded by ideology, shows it to be a failure.
By definition, a dictatorship does not require everything to be under a single individual. Many cases of a single group holding absolute power have been called dictatorships. This is especially true when looking at cases where these regimes last long enough for there to be more than one head of state throughout its history. These heads of state typically all came from the same group that runs the country.
There is no "type" of Capitalist. State control is explicitly anti-Capitalist by the actual definition of Capitalism. To say the state controlling a means of production is "Capitalist" is akin to saying that starting your own business, reaping the profits of your own business, and dictating what the workers under you make on your own is permissible under Socialism (which it isn't).
Elements of Mercantilism persisted long after 1700s. Even today, most nations still have neo-Mercantilist economic policies, like tariffs.
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@DanJuega There pretty much are no rights under a Communist system, far more than just economic rights. Speech and religion, for example, are both not allowed. No Communist system ever allowed the people living under it to speak freely, as a way to crack down on criticism of Communism. I once saw a poster for a group called the "Party for Socialism and Liberation," a Communist political party. They said they support freedom of speech except for "hate speech" and speech that advocates for a return to Capitalism. This is essentially them saying they don't support freedom of speech. Religion too, is outright outlawed in most Communist states, removing peoples' right to freedom of religion. Despite Marx believing people should be allowed to have guns, Communist states don't. They strip the people of their natural right to self-preservation. I'm not talking about the Human Freedom Index or any other index, as all indexes are flawed. I'm talking about basic human rights.
The proletariat are not the majority though, they rarely were. They weren't even a plurality. Rather, most people were peasants, who Marx did not believe should have any right to govern themselves. In many cases of Communist civil wars, many peasants sided with the anti-Communist faction, most likely due to the inherent Conservatism found in being involved in a rural, agrarian lifestyle.
The U.S. does not overthrow every Left-wing government in its path (believe me, it could do so quite easily if it really wanted to). Most of the time, they fail on their own. The current hardships faced by many of the Left-wing Latin American countries is directly the result of their Socialistic economic policies.
Socialistic workers councils occasionally fought on the side of Fascism as well, as they really aren't that much different from Fascism.
The head of state of a dictatorship doesn't always have unlimited power though, the group that runs the state does have the ability to replace him if they so desire. Many of these nations are still called "dictatorships," as it's that group that holds control.
The U.S. is not a dictatorship though, as American presidents are democratically elected and have fairly limited authority in the U.S. European Prime Ministers and Chancellors actually exercise more power and influence over their nations than the American president does in his. In the case of an actual dictatorship, when the leader dies and is replaced by another guy from the same group (Communist Party for example) does it cease to be a dictatorship? Usually not.
Social Democracy has been watered down to the point where it isn't Socialism, at least not by some definitions. If it does not explicitly advocate for the state seizing control of the means of production than it is not Socialist, just as a guy running his own business unmolested by the state or a collective cannot be Socialist. Socialist is explicitly against individual control of the means of production.
Because tariffs are Mercantilist in nature. You didn't know that?
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