Comments by "Rusty Shackleford" (@POCKET-SAND) on "Hitler's Socialism | Destroying the Denialist Counter Arguments" video.
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No, they weren't Fascists. Fascism and National Socialism are distinct from one another. Fascism revolves around the nation and was actually open to ethnic minorities being part of "the nation" as long as they were fully assimilated, both culturally and ideologically. Mussolini had Jewish ministers in his government before Italy began adopting more anti-Semitic policies due to pressure from Germany in the late 30s. National Socialism revolves around race, specifically the "Aryan" race. It doesn't matter how supportive of the ideology a minority was or how assimilated into German culture they were, they would forever be seen as an outsider by National Socialism.
The National Socialists did not ally themselves with the Catholic Church. They regularly surpressed it. Hitler and most of the party elite were atheists in their private lives, except Himmler who was a pagan. Ironically, the NSDAP used a lot of imagery of the Medieval Teutonic Knights to represent Germany in the past, while the NSDAP outlawed the actual Teutonic Order and arrested much of its leadership. Hitler even appointed Martin Bormann to be in charge of matters regarding religion, and Bormann was probably the most militant atheist of them.
Private industry simply ceased to exist after the NSDAP came to power. Pretty much all the industry was under the control of the state. The NSDAP still kept in supposedly private figureheads within the companies to not alarm the middle class, and it continues to work to this day as many modern people mistakenly believe it was Capitalist. Socialism revolves around control of the means of production, and under the NSDAP, the state effectively had control of all industries. The figureheads of these businesses had very little agency to do what they wanted, as they would simply be outed and replaced if they ever refused to do what the state told them. That's what happened to Hugo Junkers the aircraft builder.
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I would argue it was. Socialism and slavery pretty much go hand-in-hand. Workers within Socialist countries have all this power on paper, but become little more than slaves when Socialism is actually put into practice. This is because they have much less agency with what they decide to do compared to workers in Capitalist countries and are compensated with much less, if anything at all. There's an old Soviet workers quote on this: "They pretend to pay us, so we pretend to work."
It would also be incorrect in characterizing Hitler's relationship with the industrialists as that, as he was not their first choice. the NSDAP only began paying lip service to the industrialists in the early 30s, about 10 years after the part was founded. And after the NSDAP gained power, Hitler went back on most of his promises to the industrialists, just as he did with everyone else he made promises to. And slave labor is not necessarily a good thing, as I believe the Germans themselves calculated that a slave laborer was about 20% as productive as a paid German laborer, meaning that the output was not good enough to actually turn a profit larger than what would've been made had they been using paid laborers operating at normal efficiency. This is historically why slavery fell out of favor in many places.
And Nationalism is not inherently a right-wing position. Look at Canada for example, it is the political left in Canada that is more nationalistic towards Canadian practices and policies. The political right of Canada is more pro-American. Same holds true with Communist nations as well, most of whom were arguably nationalistic in their sentiment.
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@razorwireclouds5708 Evidently you haven't since you promote a very inaccurate view of what each of them wanted.
Merriam-Webster defines Socialism as "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"
The National Socialists controlled the means of production, that alone makes their ideology a form of Socialism. So long as it is the state in control, the method of how it retains control is irrelevant. Business owners in Germany at the time had little, if any, power in their own businesses because the state was in control and made all the major decisions for the business.
Communism and Socialism are not two completely different things. Communism is a version of Socialism, like National Socialism is. Socialism is a fairly broad ideology or collection of ideologies. Not all variants of it are the same.
You're skipping a few steps in Marx's plan. Marx calls for a stateless, moneyless society, but he outlines a process to get there. One step is called the "dictatorship of the proletariat," which is essentially totalitarian rule meant to actually implement Communism (with force if necessary, since most people don't actually want to collectivize) and then simply wither away once the process is complete. The issue here is that no Communist state ever made it past this step, they all just end up as totalitarians dictatorships.
Nobody here is making the argument that National Socialism is Socialism based off of their name, they are making the argument that National Socialism is Socialism based off of their policies, which seized control of the means of production and placed it under the de facto administration of the state. Going back to Merriam-Webster, that's the definition of Socialism.
I see you haven't watched the video. TIK addressed the "but Hitler killed Socialists" argument. Hitler killing rival Socialist groups does not disqualify him from being a Socialist. The Bolsheviks killed Mensheviks during the Russian Revolution and Civil War, and the Mensheviks were Socialists. By this logic, one would conclude that Communism cannot be a form of Socialism because it often kills other Socialists. As for killing Socialists within the party during the Night of Long Knives, that doesn't really hold up either since many Conservatives and Capitalists were killed on that night as well and there were a lot more known Socialists in the party than those killed on that night.
You say Communism and Socialism are completely different things, yet you appear to be confusing components of the two. Socialism itself does not call for the removal of the state. Hitler being a "statist" does not disqualify him from being a Socialist, nor does being a nationalist disqualify him. Communist ideology does explicitly reject states and nations, but Socialism (which is broad) does not.
Being authoritarian also does not disqualify him from being a Socialist. If anything, you can't be a Socialist without also being an authoritarian.
Most forms of Socialism have an "in-group" that they base their collective ideology around. The Communists have the proletariat, the National Socialists have the race, and the Fascists have the nation. National Socialism is sort of like a racial Socialism where the "Aryan" race are the collective. This differs from Communism, which is obviously class-based, and Mussolini's Fascism, which is nationalist without a racial component.
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Definition of Socialism according to the dictionary:
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
Socialism is simply when the means of production are either in collective and/or state control. The NSDAP seized control of the means of production and administered under the state, so they were Socialists according to the dictionary definition of Socialism.
The argument that the National Socialists weren't Socialists because they were undemocratic doesn't hold up considering most Socialist societies that existed were not democratic (U.S.S.R., Cold War Eastern Europe, Red China, Cuba, Venezuela, . . .). And in those few cases where a Socialist society was democratic, the people voted Socialism out within 10 years of it being implemented (Sweden in the 80s).
Definition of Capitalism according to the dictionary:
Capitalism -an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market (Merriam-Webster)
Since Capitalism is explicitly when the state is not in control of economic activity or the means of production, so there is no such thing as "state capitalism," which is an oxymoron.
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk Capitalism is private/individual control of the means of production. Therefore, the state controlling these things cannot be Capitalism. "State Capitalism" is an oxymoron.
Capitalism can, and does, function without the state getting involved. A farmer does not need the state to sell his produce to the local market.
Ownership and control are two sides of the same coin. When the state controls the means of production (as was the case in NSDAP Germany), nominal ownership means nothing. And Socialism is not democratic. In virtually every example of Socialism actually being attempted in practice, it quickly fell into authoritarianism. Are you saying that in the case of monarchy, the monarch does not embody the state? Therefore, the monarch is not a private individual, but the state. No different from a dictator.
"Incorrect. The vast majority of the means of production in NS Germany was privately owned, for private profit."
Sorry, but you clearly don't know the economic history of Germany during the 30s and 40s. The state seized control of the means of production of almost every heavy industry in Germany within the first few years of NSDAP rule. The state gave ultimatums to business owners: do what we say, or else. Those that complied stayed on in mostly figurehead positions in those companies with little actual control over what the company did. Those that refused were arrested and outed from their own companies, like Hugo Junkers.
"Redneck American fantasy"
No, it's statistical truth. Before the Democratic party forced the government to stop taking statistics on this kind of thing, there were about 2-3 million instances of a self-defensive use of a firearm every year. In most of these cases, it was used to defend one's life and their property. So it's mostly us defending our own property, not the state. The police are usually called afterwards to clean up the mess pretty much. Contrary to what you may believe, the state does not have a monopoly on violence in America. The Castle Doctrine makes it perfectly legal for a citizen to use anything up to and including lethal force against someone who breaks into their home and presents a threat to their life. Of course, the political left has been trying to remove this law because it gets in the way of all their looting mobs.
For the union argument, please refer to my other comments, as you clearly go against your own definition of "nationalization" by insisting that unions are not part of commerce, but use a definition that considers nationalization to be the seizure of commerce. Upon questioned on this, you then say you never said unions were not part of commerce. So which is it? Please try to remain consistent. Inconsistent reasoning and floating definitions is the hallmark of extremist ideology.
"Not in the Socialist sense"
Yes in the Socialist sense, as corporations are owned collectively by anyone who wants to buy stock in it. I guess it differs from most forms of Socialism in the sense that it's voluntary while Socialism tends to be forced upon the masses at gunpoint.
Are corporations owned collectively or are they not?
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@slaterslater5944 Re-read my comment. Evidently, you did fail English class if you fail to understand that ", as" is setting up an example in the Dictionary com definition (If anything the "children's" dictionary Merriam-Webster is more advanced than them, but we'll roll with it).
If you would have bothered to read the entirety of the Investopedia article instead of the first sentence, you will find it explains that more than just "industries" are able to be nationalized. Specific assets, or general things of value, can be nationalized as well (which means pretty much anything, which is technically true as totalitarian governments essentially take whatever they want). Additionally, some third-world nations nationalize natural resources or rather, the ownership of national resources, regardless of whether or not businesses and industries have been set up around those resources yet, which makes your explanation null and void as the process of these nations doing this is still called "nationalization."
As for the CFI, that's an online training course provider in the field of corporate finance, so a government nationalizing some forest, or the ownership of some forest, somewhere would be of little concern to them as opposed to that same government nationalizing a corporation. That doesn't mean the government didn't nationalize the ownership of the forest before.
An issue with both Investopedia and the CFI is that both deal specifically in the field of finance, so the nationalization of businesses would be the only aspect of nationalization of interest to them. Why do you think they talk more about those particular aspects than the dictionary definitions, which do not state being a business or industry is a stipulation of nationalization.
The notion that unions cannot be nationalized is one that you are making up. In both National Socialist Germany and Soviet Russia, formerly private unions were placed under state control and "nationalization" was the term applied to the policies.
And like I said before, there is a case to be made that unions operate like an industry in its own right.
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@slaterslater5944 Maybe try re-reading the Collins dictionary again, it gives multiple explanations, some of which give an industry and company stipulation and others don't. One definition even lists land, but not industries or companies. Still others give the definition as the one I give you, the government making something public that was once private, with no stipulations attached.
Once again, you open your sources, picked a sentence that you liked, and post what you read looking for that "gotcha moment" without having read the rest of page. Do you think I don't have the ability to check? Here's another one of their definitions:
Nationalize - to transfer ownership or control of (land, resources, industries, etc.) to the national government
Notice how it's explanation of what can be nationalized is broad.
Last time I checked, unions are things. To some, it could be a thing of value. Being a thing of value under private control, it is eligible for nationalization. The National Socialists and Communists both nationalized the unions in their respective countries, and nobody denied that this wasn't nationalization, not even them.
And like I said before, there's an argument to be made that unions are an industry themselves from the profit that union bosses and organizers make from it. The fact that one can make a living as a full-time organizer is evidence of this.
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@slaterslater5944 "Seized by the state" and "nationalized" are the same thing Sally, providing that they were in private control before.
Again, you deny the reality that nationalization is not limited to businesses, industry, and land. Look at the definitions, some mention land but not businesses or industries. Others mention industries and businesses, but not land. The fact that states have nationalized natural resources is proof that definitions that don't include land are incorrect. Either that, or nationalization is not exclusive to those things and businesses and industries are simply given as examples, as is the case for the definition from Dictionary com. The most accurate and clear definitions, like the one from Merriam-Webster, don't limit it to certain things.
Even if it was exclusive to those things, unions are an industry. The union bosses and organizers make lots of money from it off of the backs of the workers they claim to represent. I looked up union organizer jobs and got tons of results, some paying in excess of $80,000 a year. People make full time jobs out of it and unions lobby the government. It's definitely an industry. I like how you think that saying I'm not clever is enough to reject my points here, almost like you can't actually argue that unions aren't like an industry.
Again, the notion that labor unions cannot be nationalized is one that you are making up. When the National Socialists and Communists seized control of all private unions in their countries, it was called nationalization and nobody objected to that description. You're simply trying to change the definition because it doesn't align with your argument.
Instead of screeching about words you don't like the meaning of, how about coming up with a better argument?
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@slaterslater5944 Yes, Sally police seizing drugs from a drug dealer could be a form of nationalization, albeit on a small scale and something like that isn't often described as nationalization, which is usually reserved for larger acquisitions.
And yes Sally, unions are like an industry. You still haven't addressed my points on how it is either similar to an industry or straight up an actual industry itself. The way they operate in our society is similar to how corporations operate, only they don't actual generate wealth, they take it off of the people they claim to represent and use said wealth to lobby the government and line the pockets of the union bosses and organizers. And again, people are making full-time jobs out of being union organizers, that alone is evidence that unions encompass some sort of industry.
I've been trying to explain to you that National Socialism is a form of Socialism. What they did to the private unions was the same thing that other Socialist nations did to private unions, they all nationalized them, placing them under state control. The National Socialists did this by folding them into the German Labour Front, which was a national labor union.
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@DaHuntsman1 No, Socialism is not "when the government does stuff." It is when the means of production and distribution of goods are in the hands of the state, which is what TIK said.
You are correct on what you said up until you got to the point on corporations in NSDAP Germany. The situation was anything but "hands off," as the NSDAP essentially controlled the industry. There only real difference between the Soviet and NSDAP economies was that the NSDAP had the guise of a free economy by letting companies appear to be operating on their own, while the state was the one making all of their key decisions behind closed doors.
And Communists don't necessary "destroy" corporations, they assume control of it, just as the NSDAP did. Only in their case, they officially fold it into a state-operated ministry and staff it with state employees. The NSDAP simply told the corporations, behind closed doors, to do what they say "or else." Those that refused were arrested and replaced with NSDAP members and those that obliged were allowed to live and stay on as mostly figureheads within the company with little actual decision-making authority, The only real exceptions to this were "business owners" who rubbed shoulders with the NSDAP to such a close extend that you can't really say they were private business owners anymore, but state officials, like Alfried Krupp.
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@DaHuntsman1 "Some level of direction." The state was explicitly telling the industries what to do under threat and carried out those threats without delay if the industries did not deliver. That isn't influence, it's straight-up control. You are consistently downplaying the role the state played in the economy.
No, the corporations did not "bankroll" The NSDAP early on, that's another myth perpetuated by Socialists in an attempt to distance themselves from National Socialism. In reality, the NSDAP, which existed since 1920, didn't begin to try to garner support from businessmen until 1931 or 32. Hitler started paying lip service to them in order to get their support. Once he actually obtained power, he fulfilled exactly 0 of the promises he made to them and essentially held their companies hostage instead, turning them into instruments of the state. Hitler backstabbed and betrayed the industrialists just as he had done to many others on his way to the top, yet modern Socialists like to selectively take Hitler on his word when they talk about his promises to the industrialists, when they don't take him on his word with pretty much everything else.
The suppression of the trade unions thing is also inaccurate. In actuality, the NSDAP didn't abolish trade unions, they nationalized them all into one state-controlled labor union, the German Labor Front (DAF). This was functionally the same as what most other Socialist nations did, they all abolished non-state unions in favor of state-ran ones. TIK talks about this topic extensively in a another video titled "But Hitler Crushed the Trae Unions!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXIoVEKIpMg
Contrary to what you might think, slave labor does not necessarily benefit a company, as the productivity of slaves is far below that of a paid worker. Historically, this is the reason why forms of slave labor fell out of favor in many places of the world, it became more efficient to incentivize people to work. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe the Germans themselves calculated that the average slave laborer was about 1/10 as productive as the average paid German worker, so not having to pay the slaves is not going to offset the loss in productivity. Besides, it was the NSDAP that enacted the policies of employing slave labor anyway.
What you're describing is really not that much of a fundamental difference in attitude. If the Communists already run the industry, they are already supporting their own aims. Under the NSDAP, the industries had no agency to support anything other than the state's aims. The interests of the people in the companies is totally irrelevant to what the company actually does, and in cases where the company does refuse state demands, the state simply arrests them and replaces them with party yes-men, ensuring that the aims of the state are still met. There's no practical difference between the two scenarios, only that the NSDAP wanted to keep the guise of a a free market. And they must've done a good job because they're still fooling Socialists to this day. Either that, or modern Socialists simply refuse to believe it.
The "NSDAP Privatization" myth is another theory that just won't die in spite of all the evidence against it. Privatization is when something that was government ran is handed over to private ownership. There are exactly 0 cases of the NSDAP actually doing that. All supposed cases of "privatization" to be found in Germany at this time involve the state retaining control of the actual operations of the business. They essentially conned people into "buying" companies with the caveat that despite "buying" the companies, they would have no control over it and must allow the state to make all the business decisions, just like every other industry. TIK talks about this is yet another video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKIYuOxxZWs
Remember, that a lot of historians in the immediate aftermath of WWII were leftists who had a vested interest in distancing National Socialism from Socialism as much as they can. I would recommend "The Vampire Economy" by Gunter Reimann, it actually takes a look into how exactly business was conducted in NSDAP Germany.
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@lucasartore161a From my point-of-view, the Left-Right spectrum is obsolete when discussing modern politics. It is 230 years old, having been developed during the French Revolution when the only two ideologies on the table were Monarchism and Republicanism. Since then, numerous other ideologies have emerged and there really is no defining characteristic that separates the "Right" from the "Left," you will find elements of just about everything in each side somewhere.
For example, in terms of political and economic policies, National Socialism objectively has more in common (not to say the same thing, just more in common) with Marxism (a Left-wing ideology) than it does with Right-Libertarianism or Paleoconservatism (both Right-wing ideologies).
As for privatization, if we are to accept the meaning of privatization to be when the state hands over something to private entities that up to that point had been under state control, then there was no privatization in NSDAP Germany. At no point did the state hand over control to private entities, the state always retained control. As with many other policies, they said they'd do one thing, but did something completely different behind the scenes. People already know the National Socialists lied a lot during their reign. However, when they said they'd privatize, then we take them on their word for some reason. Why is that?
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@slaterslater5944 You're either blind or don't understand the English language very well.
What do you think "etc." means?
I'll save you the trouble, it's short for "et cetera," which is Latin for "and the rest." It's used to indicate that the list of examples provided is not exhaustive. By placing it at the end of a short list of examples, it indicates that there can be many other things that can also apply. Therefore, nationalization is not exclusive to land, resources, and industry under that definition.
Yes, anything under private control can be nationalized, because anything under private control can theoretically be seized by the state. Read up on the dictatorships of the 20th century for more information, they seized nearly everything of note, like the unions for example . . . all Socialist countries, whether they be National Socialist, Communist, or any other form of Socialism, have seized control of private unions and placed them under the authority of the state, nationalizing them.
As we've discussed, the Germans did this by folding them into the German Labour Front, the national labor union.
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@slaterslater5944 Yes Sally, anything under private control can be nationalized because anything under private control can be seized by an authoritarian state. The Soviets and National Socialists have showed that states can seize pretty much any kind of organization they want. They not only seized control of land and businesses, but also unions, not-for-profits, and even charitable organizations. What do you think it is called when a state seizes control of a private entity that isn't a business or land, since you reject the definition of nationalization?
And I suggest re-reading the various definitions we went through, you're only picking the ones you like and ignore the rest. They make it clear that nationalization is not exclusive to businesses, industry, and land.
If a union isn't controlled by the state, then it's private, Sally. What do you think public and private mean? Corporations aren't controlled by the state and they are "private," despite not having a single individual owner. Something that is private can be made public through seizure by the state, this called nationalization, Sally.
And yes, I would argue unions are an industry in their own right. Their leaders make profit through union dues, they frequently donate and lobby for political causes like some corporations do, and union organizers can make a full-time career out of being a union organizer.
As we know, pretty much all forms of Socialism tried out on a national scale have seized control of private labor unions and made them public, this is nationalization. The Germans did this by folding them all into the German Labour Front, which was controlled by the state.
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You must understand that most post-war accounts of the war written by German generals are inaccurate. After the war, many of them were trying to do multiple things: they were trying to make themselves appear better and distance themselves from any possible war crimes they may have been involved in. Most importantly, they were writing about excuses for their failures during the war because many of them were bucking for advisory positions in NATO following the war since they were out of work. Guderian was no exception.
Just one specific example of this is how many of these German generals wrote about the superiority of the Soviet T-34 tank and on how they struggled to counter it when it entered the battlefield. The truth was the the T-34 was plagued by production issues, making it a pretty bad tank, probably the most overhyped tank of the war, and the Germans easily destroyed thousands of them within the first months of Operation Barbarossa utilizing so called inferior tanks like the Panzer III and IV. The Germans lost the war in the East largely because of logistical issues and the failure of the German generals to solve these issues and adapt their tactics. This is the reason why many of them wrote what they did after the war.
And if you bothered to watch TIK's video, he explained the economic situation of Germany quite clearly. The "Night of the Long Knives" was not a purge of Socialists considering many Conservatives and pro-Capitalists were killed on that night as well and there were a lot more Socialists in the party than the ones that were killed.
And the industry leaders and Germany did not just go along with everything and become party members, many of them were forced to. The National Socialists basically told all large company owners to do what they say, or else. Those that refused, like aircraft builder Hugo Junkers, were arrested and forcibly removed from the company and replaced by party officials. Those that complied were required to become party members if they weren't already and the state had to approve every major decision. Some of these business owners likened it to being held hostage. This is state control of the economy, and the party controlled the means of production. You're only giving a surface-level analysis of the situation, you're not looking at everything underneath.
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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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@raydavison4288 That's thing about Socialism, it's an extremely broad collection of ideologies. The dictionary doesn't even describe it as an ideology, but a collection of ideologies. At it's core, it is collective control of the means of production. Aside from that, it branched out into many different versions.
People often confuse Marxist Socialism for general Socialism, especially the Marxists themselves who consider it the only "true" form of Socialism, much like many other Socialists and their specific flavors of Socialism. Because of the influence of Marxism throughout the 20th century, many people today confuse aspects of Marxist Socialism for being aspects of all Socialism.
Marxism is internationalist, for example. National Socialism and Fascism were extremely nationalist, so an uninformed person may use that as an argument for why they weren't Socialist. However, Socialism doesn't bar nationalism, Marxist Socialism does. Basic Socialism is collective control, so as long as that is a key value of the ideology, anything else that doesn't interfere with that could be added to the ideology and it can remain Socialist.
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@oljo0527 Again, nothing in any of the definitions make mention of "workers" or anything similar to them. Rather, they all speak of "collectives," would could be interpreted in many ways, which is why Socialism is more accurately described as a collection of ideologies rather than a single one. They all differ in terms of what they define as that collective. Marxists organize along the lines of class (specifically the "proletariat") while National Socialists organize along the lines of race (specifically the "Aryan" race).
This issue here is that democracy and Socialism simply cannot mix, as the people themselves are all ready in control of the economy under a Capitalist system, with the freedom to purchase what they want and establish whatever kind of business or industry they want without fear of government interference.
In practice, only one of two things ever seen to happen: the state becomes an undemocratic dictatorship (which is usually the case), or the people vote out Socialism not long after it has been implemented. Even in a democracy, the state often exerts powers and implements policies that the majority of the population does not approve of. For example, in my country of the U.S., members of Congress have no term limits, meaning they can keep getting reelected until their deaths. Every poll on the matter shows the American people are in favor of adding term limits to Congress by very large margins, yet that is something that is unlikely to occur since Congress is the entity that makes new laws.
The position of workers' within their companies is not comparable to the position of citizens' within their state. When you're born into a country, you don't have a say in the matter and the only way to remove yourself from it entirely is to go somewhere else and renounce your citizenship. For people working jobs, they are not born into a company to work for, they apply for jobs and have complete control over what jobs they choose to accept. They also possess the ability to quit jobs they don't like and even go into business for themselves. Furthermore, your boss has no real authority over you once your working day is over and you've gone home.
Calling Marx a "scientist" is quite funny to be honest. He possessed no real education in most of the subjects he wrote about and most of his theories have been discredited by actual academics over the course of time. You're saying that Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen did not own the concept, but at the same time, you are acting like Marx did invent and own the concept when he simply didn't. There were Socialist movements and groups present before Marx arrived on the scene. In fact, he was an obscure figure until after his death, but obviously there was Socialist activity going on during his lifetime. It is also inaccurate to claim Utopian Socialists seized to exist after Marx's work became famous. Marxism did gain ground to become the most popular variant of Socialism, but the other variants never disappeared entirely. As we know, some of them evolved into Fascism and National Socialism. As for Utopian Socialists, small groups of that view did continue to exist.
Marx was not a prodigy, he was a lazy failure who mooched off of others for most of his adult life and had two of his children die of malnutrition because he refused to control his spending habits.
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@andyknowles772 First of all, it's not "my" definition, it's Merriam-Webster's.
If you have an issue with the definition, then you're taking issue with the dictionary definition. What do you think Socialism is?
Monarchism is the practice of having a monarch . . . that's not inherently an economic system. I believe you were trying to refer to Feudalism, which is a sort of early economic system. Feudalism is basically where nobles owned land and collected tribute from those living on the land. In return, the noble raised a private army to protect the people living on the land. In times of war, the monarch would sometimes call all the nobles to arms, who would take their private armies to war. Remember that by the time Capitalism became established and Socialism was first being thought of, Feudalism was almost dead as an economic system. You must also remember that is was relatively de-centralized. The monarch was essentially the state, but what were the nobles? Technically speaking, the nobles owned the "means of production" (farmland, since there was almost no industry at the time). I wouldn't consider the nobles to be "the state" since they were a distinct entity from the monarch. What little industry there was at the time was controlled by guilds ran by skilled craftsman.
Later during the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, the monarchs greatly increased their power at the expense of the nobility, but this also saw the emergence of Mercantilism as the dominant economic system.
In either case, you're trying to apply relatively modern concepts to a pre-Industrial method of societal organization that was essentially dead already by the time the Industrial Revolution occurred.
And I believe Buster Crabbe named over a dozen specific socialistic policies implemented by National Socialist Germany. I find it curious that you have not replied to him yet.
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@andyknowles772 I already said that the economic system in place during the Enlightenment, which was the time of the absolute monarch, was Mercantilism. "Absolute" monarchs of the time had a lot more power than monarchs in previous centuries, but nothing compared to the power wielded by 20th century dictators. It mostly referred to their consolidation of their country's political power, but not really economic. Kings like Louis XIV were not micromanaging the French economy, he was collecting revenue through Mercantilism, which was basically hoarding valuable stuff as an economic system, not much investing and growth like you would later see with Capitalism. Essentially, it would be inaccurate to say the monarch was in direct control of the farmlands and what little industry existed at the time.
Also, many stress the "collective" nature of Socialism. All forms of Socialism, whether it be Marxism or National Socialism, claim to be operating on the behalf of the people, specifically whatever their in-group is. They stress a collectivist mentality through state-mandated celebrations and traditions. Monarchs didn't do that, they claimed right to rule directly through God, which gave a heavily religious nature to the monarch that is absent in Socialism. There was also nothing "collectivist" about the monarch or his system, he simply ruled.
And like I said before (it evidently flew right over your head), you're trying to apply modern concepts and theories to a pre-Industrial society. Informed historians don't really do that because they know that it was a whole different world before the Industrial Revolution, and it is sort of pointless trying to tie modern theories of economics to societies that did not have modern economies. Almost like using 21st century morality to judge the actions of people in Classical times. It's stupid because the people of that time did not follow modern morality, so historians look at these events through the context of the time, understanding what the morality at the time was.
Given that Socialism is collective control of the means of production and the National Socialists seized control of the means of production under the state . . . that pretty much makes them Socialist.
So you believe the dictionary is wrong? What is Socialism then since you claim to know more than the dictionary.
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@bustercrabbe8447 I disagree, Socialism must be collectivist, even if only nominally (almost all of it is nominally come to think of it since it never actually benefits the masses). Monarchs are not a collective or claim to be, they are individuals. As I explained to the guy who doesn't know what Socialism is, Socialism is a broadly collectivist ideology.
If one person ruled with an iron fist, including control of the economy, and was not doing it in the name of some collectivist ideology, that system wouldn't be Capitalist or Socialist. This doesn't apply to 17th century monarchs anyway since they did not control the means of production in their nations, they simply taxed and tariffed the crap out of everything, maximized exports while minimizing imports, and hoarded precious metals like gold and silver . . . all tenants of Mercantilism.
And as I also said to the guy who doesn't know what Socialism is, you cannot apply modern economic theories to pre-Industrial economies, like he is trying to do. Mercantilism is its own thing that is neither Capitalist or Socialist.
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@andyknowles772 You're contradicting yourself and you do not even realize it. Before, you said absolute monarchy, specifically saying you were not talking about Feudalism, which is older. Now you are saying they are the same thing? That is nonsense and you are showing your ignorance of both history and basic consistency.
Absolute monarchies did not come about until around the 17th century, by which time Feudalism was almost dead in Western Europe. Under Feudalism, it was the nobles who owned land and collected tribute from the peasants, as I told you. The monarch would ask the nobles for help in times of war. These older Medieval monarchs under Feudalism had less power over their nations than Enlightenment-age "absolute" monarchs had over their country.
In the time of "absolute" monarchs, the economic system in place was Mercantilism, not Feudalism. The monarch did not own or control the means of production, they simply taxed and tariffed stuff.
Do you genuinely believe Mercantilism is Socialism?
Even then, as I've tried to explain to you before. Only economically illiterate nitwits would try to apply modern economic theory to pre-Industrial, non-modern economic systems that have been dead for centuries.
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@andyknowles772 No, for a long time, you have refused to give any definition, though you did criticize the dictionary definition that I gave you.
The definition you have just given is the dictionary definition, indicating that you have finally accepted it. Since you've finally accepted the dictionary definition, you must accept National Socialism to be Socialism.
"it remained almost exclusively in public hands"
Yes, correct again!!! The means of production were in public hands, not private. That makes it Socialism, I'm glad you're starting to see reason. (I saw that comment before the edit, guess it was a Freudian slip.)
The NSDAP promoted a collectivist worldview, same as the Communists and other Socialist groups. Only their collective was racial while that of the Communists was class-based. It would be just as accurate to call National Socialists Socialists than it would be to call Communists Socialists.
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@beardedchimp In a sense, yes. If there is a free market that the state does not interfere in, then it is a form of Capitalism.
Capitalism and Socialism can be described as a scale and the matter is where the line is between "Capitalism" and "Socialism" and if there is a different name for anything in-between is a matter of debate. Generally, the more regulation you implement, the less Capitalist the country becomes. It may interest you to know that the Scandinavian countries, which many foolishly believe to be "Democratic Socialist" (an oxymoron) actually have less regulation and lower business taxes than the U.S.
And let me ask you how is "social ownership" achieved? Through the state. 100% of attempts at Socialism on a national scale involve the state for the very simple reason that most people would not submit to any kind of collective arrangement if allowed the choice to participate or not. Their requires the existence of a strong central entity to force Socialism into existence, making the old saying "Socialism only happens at gunpoint" true, since it necessitates authoritarianism, unlike Capitalism.
Interestingly, the only exception to this seems to be buying stock in corporations, which is 100% voluntary. It is perhaps that reason why most other Socialists hates them, because they hate it when people have a choice.
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@beardedchimp I'm talking reality, not ideology. Every flavor of Socialism has its own theories on how "social ownership" is achieved, yet when you look at those ideologues try to do it in practice, you notice a interesting trend of them quickly resorting to forcing it on people and establishing said central entity that eventually becomes the state if the "revolution" is successful. The reason for this is simple, as I have explained before: most people will not give up their stuff to some collective if given the choice. Because of this, Socialism must be mandatory, because most people wouldn't go for it if it were voluntary.
And if Mussolini's government had complete control of companies and their actions, how is that not nationalization? What was the technical difference between businesses in Facist Italy and businesses in Soviet Russia? The name . . . that's it. The Soviets erased the name and declared it to be part of some government ministry now basically to do the will of the state and only the state. Mussolini allowed the businesses to keep their names, but they still only performed the will of the state and only the state. So there's no practical difference between those two scenarios. Fascism and Communism are different variants of Socialism on paper, but in practice their economies look pretty similar from an organizational standpoint.
I just told you, the Scandinavian countries have even less regulation and business taxes than the U.S. and they thrive. Hong Kong also used to have less regulation and taxes than the U.S. (before CCP takeover, that is) and they also thrived at that time.
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@DeathRayGraphics "And yet, you cannot deny that these are all features of capitalism."
No because none of them are exclusive to Capitalism, often occurring in even Socialist nations.
"Well, we did have LITERAL slavery in the the capitalist United States for quite some time, so I wouldn't go there. >:)"
Yes, the WHOLE WORLD had slavery for several millennia before the Western Capitalist countries started to crusade against it in the 19th century. Even today, it still exists in some areas of the third world.
The curious thing about Socialism is that it pretty much revived slavery in the 20th century, when most of the developed world agreed it was a bad thing.
"If you were being paid to do something that generated less money for the company than you were being paid, I would say your company had quite a bad business model. But no one is ever explicitly hired to do a job that is unnecessary, although many capitalists pay themselves far more than what their contribution is worth."
A job that is necessary doesn't mean it is inherently very valuable. If you were hired to do a task so simple, nearly anyone could do it with little to no training, the value of that job is not high. At the other end of the spectrum, a job that requires a specific skillset or qualifications not common among population will hold much more value.
I find it quite ironic that Socialists ramble about "Capitalist greed," yet they as individuals are among the most greedy people you will ever meet, constantly obsessing over people more talented and skilled than them making more money than they do.
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@DeathRayGraphics "I never claimed that other systems are without flaw. But those features I mentioned are integral to capitalism."
Do you also believe breadlines and gulags are integral to Communism, going by your line of reasoning?
"The whole world did not have chattel slavery. Regardless, you are the one who invoked "slavery" re: socialism. That was a bad move."
Yes, nearly every human society practiced chattel slavery in the past. It wasn't until the 19th century that the Capitalist West killed the practice in their own nations and then crusaded against it in the rest of the world, making it illegal in many of their colonies that prior to that had practiced chattel slavery.
Not at all considering Socialism revived slavery in the Western word when civilized society was against it. Then again, what else do you expect from a fundamentally uncivilized ideology.
"Then why is anyone doing it? It must be essential to some degree if you can't help paying someone for it."
They are being paid, just very little, in relation to the low cost of the task they perform. And why should you be paid the same as a lawyer to do a job someone else is willing to do for far less?
You fail to understand the most basic concepts of supply and demand.
Again, you're giving me examples of tasks that require no advanced skillset. Anyone has the ability to clear trash. Not anyone has the ability to design aircraft.
"The man who designs the screw will not have a job without 20 people to turn the screws."
Without the man who designs the screws, there will be no screws for the 20 unskilled laborers to use, putting a halt to their entire profession (as well as innovation as a whole if we are unable to use screws)
"That is not "greed". That would be "envy". Weren't you the one hammering me about how to use a dictionary?"
A desire to take from those who have more than you is still greed because you still lust after material possessions you do not already own. Just look at the large number of self-described Socialist activists, celebrities, and politicians who became rich and lived a similar lifestyle to rich they claim to oppose.
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@DeathRayGraphics "I was just saying that to give you something to agree with."
And I was using your own previous would-be "ah-ha" moment against you. You compared the Communism's relation to breadlines and gulags to Capitalism's relation to profit and monopolization (I don't think making a profit is on the same moral level as borderline famine and concentration camps by the way), so I ask if you're still sticking to that comparison.
"No, actually, that isn't true"
Yes, nearly every human society practiced some form of chattel slavery at some point in their histories. Slavery was common all over the world and it wasn't seen as a moral wrong by most of the public until the 19th century. The first dedicated abolitionist societies only began to appear in the 18th century. The U.S. was far from the last to abolish slavery in the Western Hemisphere, much of Latin America still practiced it after the Civil War ended in 1865. Brazil didn't abolish it until 1888. In fact, the overwhelming majority of African slaves sent to the Americas went to Brazil and the Caribbean in the first place, relatively few came to what is now the U.S.
"And it doesn't matter what others did"
Slavery is slavery. If you accept it to be a moral wrong (which every sane person does), then you deem it an evil practice regardless of who does it. This is the epitome of hypocrisy, making excuses for barbaric practices when they're committed by groups that you find politically inconvenient to criticize (because again, you're entire argument revolves around your political beliefs).
You show a complete ignorance of the history you're trying to represent. The Enlightenment started in the mid 17th century, but it wouldn't be until the late 18th / early 19th century that Enlightenment ideas would actually be put into practice on a significant scale. Compare this to Socialism, it originated in the 1790s, but Socialist states only began to appear in the 20th century. Ideas are not instantaneously transferred into policy. And at the end of the day, the West abolished slavery in their domains. Socialism revived it.
"I think you are playing extremely loose with the word 'slavery'"
If you consider working against you will with little to no compensation, then there certainly was slavery under Socialism, as everyone became slaves to the state. Soviet collectivization efforts effectively turned the peasantry back into serfs.
"In the first place, people are always paid as little as an employer can get away with"
And most people do as little work as they can get away with (emphasis on the most). And companies with unionized workforces typically do worse than companies without. In fact, unions are a major reason why the part of the U.S. I live in is a worse state than it was 60 years ago.
Besides, with regard to the value of items, more is put into it than just labor. If you're building something, you obviously need tools, materials, and often machinery to actually construct the product, all of which is paid for by the employer. Even if a company did sell something at a breakeven price, the workers' pay would not be equivalent to the total (breakeven) value of the product since they are far from the only expense incurred in the process of making the product.
Please learn basic economics.
"But no society can survive without people to clear trash and unclog toilets"
But anyone can be hired to do these, which are unskilled jobs, and their pay will reflect that. You want to get paid more? Then get off your ass and either develop a useful skill or get an education in something that's in-demand.
Again, why should an employer pay you more for a job anybody could do and many would do for less?
Pilots and flight attendants are two different jobs with 2 different skillsets, just so you know. There's a much higher bar for pilots than there is for flight attendants, and they are compensated accordingly.
"And without the mother to nurse the baby who grows up to design the screws we'd have neither screws nor screw turners. We could go around and around like this"
No, it pretty much ended with my last reply. I can't believe you didn't realize that your 20 laborers would instantly be out of work without the guy who designs screws. This is just a sad attempt at continuing the cycle when I pretty much shot it down.
Again, the value of your labor is heavily dependent on your skills and experience. If you are unskilled, anyone could do your job, you are not special and are easily replaceable. When you develop a useful skill that is in-demand, you are not so easily replaceable, increasing the value of your labor and giving you more leverage in negotiating your pay. It simply does not matter what the end result of the labor is if the labor itself is unskilled with many people willing to do it for less than you are willing to.
And I would happily bag my own groceries so the unskilled people working the registers won't break my eggs. Some places do let you do that, and I find it to be quicker.
"Taking what does not belong to you is exactly what capitalism does as regards labor"
Under Capitalism, workers are hired. They agree to work for money and unlike Socialist countries, they actually have choices in the matter. They do not have to work for a certain employer if they don't want to, they can quit a job they currently have if they want to, and they can go into business for themselves if they want to.
By that same logic, if you sell me your couch and I pay you for it, am I stealing something that does not belong to me? If we make the transaction and you find out the next week that the couch was worth double what you agreed to take for it, do you have grounds to take the couch back?
"I still don't think you have quite wrapped your head around the idea that if you are paid $15.00 an hour for providing $25.00 or $50.00 dollars of value, a chunk of your labor has been stolen."
Except your labor probably isn't making that much value. Many minimum wage jobs aren't even worth that. And as I said before, your labor is far from the only input being put into the production of commodities. Where are material costs? Where are the shipping costs? Where is the cost of the machinery, tools, and equipment? Where is the rent or property taxes on the facilities used for production? Are sales taxes being accounted for? . . . I'm talking to somebody with absolutely 0 business sense who lives in a Communistic fantasyland.
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@slaterslater5944 If the state could just take your business from you without cause any time it wanted Sally, that's not "private ownership." As I've told you, they stole Junkers' aircraft company from him in 1934, arresting him and forcibly removing him from his company. Did Junkers still own his company? Other businesses owners that did comply were obliged to do everything the state told them and weren't allowed to do anything without the consent of the state, which also dictated how much their company would be paid, as well as implanting NSDAP officials within the company leadership to watch everything. Does ownership mean anything here?
If the state is essentially micromanaging your business, making all the decisions for it, and you are unable to do or say a single thing about it without getting arrested, then the state is controlling your business. In turn, the state controlling all the businesses of key industries in Germany means the state is controlling the means of production.
In 1933, the year they gained power, they abolished Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution, which guaranteed the right to property. I wonder why they did that? So early in their reign too.
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk
1. Yes, you can. Seizing control of it and placing it under the control of the state is nationalization. You could nationalize a labor union just as easily as your could a business.
2. He nationalized the unions, same as the Soviet Union.
3. The DAF, much like every other union, claimed to bargain on behalf of its members. In reality, the interests of the union itself and the interests of the members did not always align, but that is typical of most labor unions, especially larger ones. The DAF functioned much the same as the nationalized unions of the Soviet Union and Red China did, serving the interests of the state. And the Soviet Union and other Socialist nations did not allow for strikes either.
Yes I have, don't know if you could say the same considering how ignorant you are of business operations.
Basically everything you say could easily be debunked by looking at the policies of other Socialist nations and comparing them to NSDAP Germany. When done, you find an uncanny amount of correlation.
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk
1. To argue labor unions are removed from commerce is quite comical, given the amount of influence over economic activity they possess. Besides, you are playing semantic games. I could easily give you another definition: "to invest control or ownership of in the national government" from Merriam-Webster. Note how this definition doesn't confine the term to only relate to businesses, because the government can seize more than just businesses.
2. He nationalized the unions, same as the Soviet Union. Do you believe the Soviets (and every other Socialist country) also "abolished" unions?
3. Again, when you compare the DAF to labor unions in other Socialist and Communist countries (as well as large unions in Capitalist countries), you see quite a bit of overlap. None really benefit the workers that much, which is fairly typical of unions. Please give me an example of something that nationalized Soviet unions did that the DAF didn't.
Your failure to understand that labor is merely a small part of the costs associated with producing products shows your ignorance. And again, I shall pull this quote from you in another comment:
"So we agree that you have to pay your workers less than the value they generate for you"
How can one make such a claim when they don't know what proportion of costs associated with producing a product is attributable to labor?
That was your motte and bailey: you said to me "[a]ll I have said is that the cost of all the factors that go into that production must be less than the price you sell it for, or there is no profit" which completely contradicts your previous comment above relating specifically to the value of labor. You retreated to an easier to defend position, originally claiming labor must be paid less than their value but then changing your argument to total costs as a whole simply being less than the final selling price.
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk And you ignore the elephant in the room once again . . .
How was the DAF different from labor unions in other Socialist countries (Soviet Union, Red China, etc.)?
In all cases, the unions were nationalized, and served the state as opposed to the actual interests of the workers (lost most large unions). And they all interestingly banned the practice of striking. Why?
Again, if you deny the DAF's status as a union, you must also deny legal unions in other Socialist countries as actual unions, as they all functioned the same way as the DAF. Now then, what does that tell you about Socialism?
And I must say it is quite odd that you like to take words of NSDAP officials as truth whenever what they say aligns with your argument. Robert Ley was lying, the facts from the time show that after the NSDAP gained power, they removed Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution (stripping people of the right to private property) and used that to seize control of businesses. The "employers" had little agency over their own businesses during the NSDAP-era. It was the state making most of the key decisions.
Could you actually address these inconsistencies instead of running away from them?
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk This was the definition of unionization that you provided:
"Nationalisation - the transfer of a major branch of industry or commerce from private to state ownership or control."
This definition is flawed, but it still doesn't support your argument. Your own definition clearly defines the seizure of a branch of commerce as "nationalization." Labor unions, which deal is the exchange of labor, form a significant branch of commerce. Therefore, unions could be nationalized according to your own chosen definition . . .
And now you claim you never suggested they were uninvolved in commerce . . . Well, which is it?
The DAF was composed of formerly non-state controlled labor unions folded into a state-ran organization, the DAF. This is undeniable fact. And, as I have explained, other Socialist countries have done much the same.
Once again, every single criticism you have applies to the DAF could just as easily be applied to the state-ran labor unions of other Socialist nations, because they all functioned the same.
And what does it tell you about Socialism when the best example you can give is a unstable territory established in a warzone that didn't even exist for a year?
I already gave you several, the NSDAP:
- Abolished the right to private property by removing Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution
- Nationalized all labor unions into the state-ran German Labor Front (DAF)
- Seized control of key industries by strong-arming business owners into doing the will of the state, arresting anyone who refused (see Hugo Junkers for an example)
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk As with most left-of-center people, I see that you have great difficulty in maintaining a consistent argument. You are constantly changing your stances whenever I call out your hypocrisy. You give this definition for nationalization:
"Nationalisation - the transfer of a major BRANCH OF INDUSTRY OR COMMERCE from private to state ownership or control."
I point out the oddity of you not considering unions to be part of commerce and you reply with:
"Where did I suggest they were uninvolved from commerce?"
I explain that unions deal in the exchange of labor, same as the market deals in the exchange of commodities, making unions part of commerce. To which you say:
"Unions are not a 'branch of commerce'"
You have pulled a 180 degree switch 3 times over the course of this conversation. So I must ask, ARE UNIONS PART OF COMMERCE OR ARE THEY NOT? A simple yes or no question, so please give me a yes or a no.
And once again, unions in NSDAP Germany (or any other Socialist country) were not abolished, they were folded into state-ran organizations. They were explicitly directed to (forced to, rather) move into the DAF, clearly establishing the DAF as some type of replacement, not something entirely new. Your reliance on that one easily debunkable statement that "Hitler abolished the unions" really shows your overall argument holds very little weight.
The right to private property was abolished when the NSDAP removed Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution. And they stole all the property off of Germany's Jewish residents no differently to how the Bolsheviks stole everything off of the "Kulaks" and Cossacks in the 1920s and 30s.
Do you consider the state controlling the means of production to be Capitalist? I would suggest reading "The Vampire Economy" by Günter Reimann. It's a detailed account of how businesses operated in NSDAP Germany. The basic jist of it was the state told businesses what to do and they businessmen either did or, or were arrested and replaced with people who would. What exactly about this says "private hands" to you? The amount of mental gymnastics that you have to go through to deny the state oversight of the German economy during this time is just absurd.
"Enormous profits"
Most businesses made a lot less money during the NSDAP years than before. And most of that money was taken away in the form of taxes, as Germany had a very high tax bracket for companies during that time.
You utterly failed to debunk any of the examples I've given you. Please try again.
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk Your reply here only confirms my suspicions.
Labor is not the only factor that goes into the production of goods. There are also materials and overhead costs, all of which is provided by the business owners. Overhead costs often include the use of machinery, tools, and equipment used by labor to perform the necessary tasks, all of which, again, is paid for by the business owners. Beyond production, there are costs associated with the shipping of goods and materials and the administration of the company.
To claim a product that costs say, $50 per unit is 100% attributable to somebody whose job is to push a button along a conveyor belt is just just absurd. Most of the time, the lion's share of the cost of production is attributable to things that the business owners already pay for: materials, machinery, tools, and so on . . . People on the left have no clue what operating a business actually looks like, they have a painfully inaccurate propagandized view which portrays business owners as Saturday morning cartoon villains.
Of course, Karl Marx had absolutely no business experience either, so it's the blind leading the blind.
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk Do you deny that this quote is yours:
"So we agree that you have to pay your workers less than the value they generate for you"
Because this quote is making a claim that labor is not properly compensated for the value they generate. And this quote exposes several layers of ignorance, not only of business management, but basic economics.
It reeks of the labor theory of value, something that economists debunked over 100 years ago in favor of the market theory of value. It's the market that determines the going rate for certain tasks, the final value of the product at the end of the line has nothing to do with it. Here is an example:
You have 2 of the aforementioned assembly line button-pushers that I mentioned. They perform the exact same tasks: pushing buttons to work machinery on a conveyor belt. The only difference is one works in a factory that produces cheap knickknacks that sell for a couple dollars each. The other works on an assembly line for cars selling for $20,000 each. The car factory is much more lucrative than the knickknack factory, making say, 10 times the income. Does this mean that the second button-pusher, doing essentially the same tasks as the first, is entitled to a wage 10 times higher than the first?
This is why the labor theory of value fell apart over 100 years ago, along with most of the other pseudo-scientific nonsense that Marx wrote down that still poisons the brains of the economically illiterate to this day.
In reality, the value of labor is determined by the market, not the products. It's the tasks themselves that are valued, not what those tasks produce. Do nothing more than pushing buttons will not warrant high pay no matter what you're producing, because pushing buttons is something almost anyone can do. Why should somebody hire you to do it for a lot when there is somebody else willing to do it for less?
As for you mining question, I'd say it depends on the size of the mining company. And may I ask how that question holds any relevance to the conversation?
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@BurtReynolds-qp1jk I do agree, not every group is universally seen as a "collective." Socialists don't consider marriages to be "collectives" or family-run farms to be "collectives" even though a family is several or more people.
However, corporations do fit into that category because they are open to pretty much anyone who wants to buy stock in the company. And yes, in my country at least, "publicly owned" and "public" companies refer the same thing. Because as I have explained, not everything "public" needs to be affiliated with the state. Non-state public entities can and do exist.
Lets look at the definition of "public" from Merriam-Webster:
1
a
: exposed to general view : OPEN
b
: WELL-KNOWN, PROMINENT
c
: PERCEPTIBLE, MATERIAL
2
a
: of, relating to, or affecting all the people or the whole area of a nation or state
public law
b
: of or relating to a government
c
: of, relating to, or being in the service of the community or nation
3
a
: of or relating to people in general : UNIVERSAL
b
: of, by, for, or directed to the public (see PUBLIC entry 2 sense 2) : POPULAR
in the public eye
a campaign to raise public awareness of the issue
He's certainly aware that public opinion has soured on him this year …
—Bryan Rolli
4
: of or relating to business or community interests as opposed to private affairs : SOCIAL
5
: devoted to the general or national welfare : HUMANITARIAN
6
a
: accessible to or shared by all members of the community
b
: capitalized in shares that can be freely traded on the open market —often used with go
7
: supported by public funds and private contributions rather than by income from commercials
public radio
public television
Noun:
1
: a place accessible or visible to the public —usually used in the phrase in public
2
: the people as a whole : POPULACE
3
: a group of people having common interests or characteristics
specifically : the group at which a particular activity or enterprise aims
Notice how some of these definitions speak of the state, but most do not. Something does not need to be affiliated with the state to be considered "public."
Therefore, collectives and "public" entitles don't seem to be defined as simply containing more than 1 person, but by their openness to society as a whole. A family-run farm has multiple people, but it is not inherently open for anyone else to join, so is therefore not "collective" and not "public." A public company, however, is because it is open for anyone to participate in.
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@wishcraft4u2 Can't really address your argument since it denies the basic definition of Socialism, which I have provided for you.
You do not define what Socialism is, I've asked many Socialists from various different flavors of Socialism and they all give different answers specific to their preferred flavor. Socialism itself is too broad to be classed as a single ideology, it is a collection of ideologies that all have one thing in common: collective and/or state control of the means of production, everything else is simply variant-specific and Socialists always try to argue that their variant-specific tenants mean some thing "IsN'T ReeL SoCIALiszM," and then proceed to get into arguments with other Socialists, much to my amusement.
Anarchists are difficult group to classify, mostly because they are probably the most delusional political ideologues. They all have different ideas on what the world would look like if the state was abolished, and they're all pretty wrong. They all have utopian views ranging from Anarcho-Communism to Anarcho-Capitalism, but the reality is we'd probably end up with some type of warlord system like that seen in China in the 1920s. I asked self-described "anarchists" about their opinions on various matters, and I've found many of them to be the most authoritarian people I've met. They seem to want to abolish the state in order to build their own society where everyone who doesn't conform to their worldview gets harshly punished.
The state controlled the means of production in the U.S.S.R., so it was Socialist by the dictionary definition of Socialism. Follow the definitions, don't make up your own and demand everyone else use them.
Lol, "educated Marxist" is an oxymoron.
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@wishcraft4u2 There was no movement, I gave you the textbook definition of Socialism, and I'm hanging onto it.
You also evidently show a complete ignorance of history, as monarchies of the late renaissance / early-modern era ran under Mercantilism. The monarch did not own or control the means of production under Mercantilism, they just taxed and tariffed the crap out of everything in order to hoard as much wealth as possible. That's a short and simple, explanation but it is enough to show that Mercantilism was neither Socialism nor Capitalism. The further back you go, the more stupid your analogy appears, as ancient nations simply lacked the technology and transportation necessary for a centralized individual or group of individuals to hold ownership or control over economic activity in country. Kings did not own or control the various workshops that produced goods in the Medieval period.
Some companies are collective, a corporation, for example, is publicly-owned because it has stock that is publicly available on the market. However, private companies like sole proprietorships and partnerships are not collectively owned, but owned and controlled by single individuals or an unchanging handful of individuals.
Both Communism in the U.S.S.R. and National Socialism in Germany claimed to be operating for the benefit of the workers, and both nations essentially enslaved their workers. When the state seizes control of the means of production, as it did in both cases, the workers usually never benefit from such an arrangement.
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@wishcraft4u2 There is no consensus among self-proclaimed Socialists on pretty much anything, except collective control of the means of production. Historically, Socialists have fought one another just as if not more bitterly than they fought non-Socialists. As the definition states, Socialism is not a single ideology, but a collection of ideologies all formed around support for collective and/or state control of the means of production. Aside from that, anything goes as long as it doesn't change the stance on the means of production. Your assertion that they have a consensus just further reveals your historical ignorance. Socialist, Communist, and Marxist political parties split from one another all the time. Socialist political mobs would often attack other Socialist political mobs from a rival "brand" of Socialism. They are not united and never were.
Anarchists haven't really achieved anything of note in the political sphere aside from a handful of assassinations. And it is very dubious that "all Socialists" agreed that anarchists were also Socialists for the reasons I outlined above. Also, anarchism is not a single ideology, it has "flavors" like Socialism. Some of those flavors intersect with Socialism, some don't. Anarchists are stupid for the reasons I outlined in a separate comment: they have no concept of what living without a state will actually look like on a large scale. They hand onto utopian concepts of pure freedom and (according to some brands) economic equality. However, the truth is that the absence of the state will probably result in something akin to the warlord system seen in China in the 1920s. It was not a pleasant place to be.
The issue here is that Socialists themselves proclaim "collective" control, yet whenever they actual achieve power, they don't let the people "control" anything. This is usually done through the state, as what other entity could claim to represent the whole of the people? On those few occasions where they did allow the people to vote on things, the people would overwhelmingly vote out the Socialist policies within 10 years of their implementation. Sweden was largely under the control of Socialist parties in the 1980s and they implemented many Socialistic changes to how the economy operated. These changes ruined the economy, and the people voted out pretty much all the Socialists.
That's the issue here, Socialism in practice is almost always authoritarian. The few cases it wasn't, it was quickly voted out, so it fails either way.
A hard pill to swallow for many Socialists is the fact that a Capitalist economy is already democratized on a scale greater than that which they can hope to achieve. We have the freedom to choose what we want to buy, where we want to work, and even have the ability to start our own businesses if we want to. Under Socialist economies, you do not have those luxuries. You have little choice in what you are able to purchase, limited job prospects, and no ability to seriously influence any sort of economic activity (unless you were a party higher-up of course).
"Collectives" and the "state" often go hand-in-hand because a free state, in theory at least, is meant to represent the whole of the people. Socialist states are never free though, another factor that makes their ideology self-defeating. A monarch is not a collective, but monarchs didn't control the means of production in their countries anyway, so they wouldn't have been Socialistic even if they were a "collective." As I explained to you, some companies certainly are collectively-organized (like corporations), but others are not, being privately owned and controlled.
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@slaterslater5944 I've noticed that you're uncapable of reading any definition that doesn't align with your argument, why "us" that? :D
Perhaps we should be looking at collective as a noun rather than an adjective, as a partnership, farm, or any other business is a noun isn't it? I know they don't teach you proper English but try to follow along.
Collective - a collective body or a cooperative unit or organization (Merriam-Webster)
Thank you for admitting you believe a marriage is a collective because there are at least two people involved, that you believe all private business partnerships are collectives, and that you believe all family-owned farms are collectives :D
Now answer me this: if all of those things are collectives, why do collectivists, including many Socialist variants, despise all of those things and call for their removal? They're all already collectivized after all, at least according to you.
"Bar" is the more common term in Ireland than "pub," which is an term used by a backwards and uncivilized people known as the English.
Does that fruit give you dividends?
Does the fruit give you partial ownership in something?
Can you eat stock?
I love how you decide to ignore most of what I say in every exchange, really shows whose winning here. Also really shows how moronic you must think you are if you believe you are being beaten by a "dumb hick."
How's Andy :D
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@parsazaher3186 You commented saying you plan on forming a "debunking" of the video, but didn't provide any critiques, you merely said you plan on making them. If you don't plan on commenting critiques, the there was no reason to do that other than elicit a reaction from others. When questioned by others, you refused to elaborate, which, to me, indicates you likely don't have an argument, or at least not a good one prepared.
There is no childish game here, you were questioned on your initial comment, you refused to expand on it, and he began mocking you for it. From my point of view, you put yourself out there. There are many in this comments section who appear to be discussing things civilly. Not presenting a single critique of anything said in a 5 hour video suggests to me that you are either unwilling or unable to actually engage in a debate, despite implying TIK to be afraid of the same thing in your initial comment.
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@parsazaher3186 Take a step back and look into the mirror for a second. Your initial comment said you're going to debunk TIK's video. Then when asked, you refuse to elaborate. You refused to enter into a conversation with someone because he mocked you for not offering any critiques when your initial comment clearly stated you intent to make them. You seem blind to the issue here. From my point of view, nobody here did anything that would warrant shutting down the conversation before you actually said you will not disclose any critiques.
Because of this, I doubt you have any critiques to give. TIK's logic throughout the video was solid, he covered all bases and clearly established definitions.
I frankly don't care if you feel "surrounded" by people who don't agree with you. I commented on a dumpster fire of a video by a channel called Philosophy Tube where this guy tried to justify domestic terrorism by an "anti-Fascist" organization. I received several replies, and debunked all the statements that each one of them made. After that, they started to ignore me. Philosophy Tube's subscribers tend to be far-left, much like the channel itself, so I was heavily outnumbered, but there wasn't a "power structure," just more economically illiterate leftists to talk to.
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@slaterslater5944 No, you have a potato :)
I love how you fixate on things that have little relevance to the overall conversation. Anyone with two braincells knows that public companies are publicly-owned. However, that doesn't really matter because corporations in NSDAP Germany never controlled the means of production or flow of goods to begin with, the state did.
Krupp, for example, was seized by the state not long after the NSDAP came to power. The state made all business decisions relating to Krupp, handled all distribution of materials going into Krupp and finished goods coming out of it, controlled the usage of labor through the DAF, the national state-run labor union, and, you guessed it, set all prices and controlled the flow of money. And on top of all of this, Alfried Krupp was a government official who held several positions within the NSDAP throughout the 30s and WWII.
Yeap, everything about that definitely screams private ownership and free market activity . . . Might want to educate yourself, Sally. I know Socialists are uneducated, but you take it to a whole new level.
P.S. Looks like Andy Knowles has been around upvoting again :)
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@slaterslater5944 Again with the deflection, Sally :)
We all know public companies are publicly owned. Private companies don't have publicly available stock.
Not that any of this matters when discussing NSDAP Germany since the corporations never controlled the means of production anyway for the reasons I outlined above. Don't worry, post it again for you since you obviously forgot to address it :D
"Krupp, for example, was seized by the state not long after the NSDAP came to power. The state made all business decisions relating to Krupp, handled all distribution of materials going into Krupp and finished goods coming out of it, controlled the usage of labor through the DAF, the national state-run labor union, and, you guessed it, set all prices and controlled the flow of money. And on top of all of this, Alfried Krupp was a government official who held several positions within the NSDAP throughout the 30s and WWII.
Yeap, everything about that definitely screams private ownership and free market activity . . . Might want to educate yourself, Sally. I know Socialists are uneducated, but you take it to a whole new level."
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@slaterslater5944 Keep running, Sally.
"Krupp, for example, was seized by the state not long after the NSDAP came to power. The state made all business decisions relating to Krupp, handled all distribution of materials going into Krupp and finished goods coming out of it, controlled the usage of labor through the DAF, the national state-run labor union, and, you guessed it, set all prices and controlled the flow of money. And on top of all of this, Alfried Krupp was a government official who held several positions within the NSDAP throughout the 30s and WWII.
Yeap, everything about that definitely screams private ownership and free market activity . . . Might want to educate yourself, Sally. I know Socialists are uneducated, but you take it to a whole new level."
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@slaterslater5944 You just did, lol
"Krupp, for example, was seized by the state not long after the NSDAP came to power. The state made all business decisions relating to Krupp, handled all distribution of materials going into Krupp and finished goods coming out of it, controlled the usage of labor through the DAF, the national state-run labor union, and, you guessed it, set all prices and controlled the flow of money. And on top of all of this, Alfried Krupp was a government official who held several positions within the NSDAP throughout the 30s and WWII.
Yeap, everything about that definitely screams private ownership and free market activity . . . Might want to educate yourself, Sally. I know Socialists are uneducated, but you take it to a whole new level."
Man, Socialists are dumb. They distort reality to such a large extend just to make their precious ideology appear sane.
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@slaterslater5944 No you didn't, lol. you keep ignoring it because it you know it's straight up moronic to argue that it was private.
"Krupp, for example, was seized by the state not long after the NSDAP came to power. The state made all business decisions relating to Krupp, handled all distribution of materials going into Krupp and finished goods coming out of it, controlled the usage of labor through the DAF, the national state-run labor union, and, you guessed it, set all prices and controlled the flow of money. And on top of all of this, Alfried Krupp was a government official who held several positions within the NSDAP throughout the 30s and WWII.
Yeap, everything about that definitely screams private ownership and free market activity . . . Might want to educate yourself, Sally. I know Socialists are uneducated, but you take it to a whole new level."
Last time I checked, companies aren't private is the state is making all their decisions for them. That's state control.
And again with that Socialist fixation on profit as the defining characteristic of Capitalism. You think all not-for-profits are Socialist? :) If the state set all prices and controlled the flow of money going into and coming out of the company, that includes the profit, Sally :D And Alfried Krupp was a government official.
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@slaterslater5944 No you didn't, lol. It flew right over your head as most things I tell you do.
How exactly could it have been in Krupp's private hands if:
"Krupp, for example, was seized by the state not long after the NSDAP came to power. The state MADE ALL BUSINESS DECISIONS relating to Krupp, handled all distribution of materials going into Krupp and finished goods coming out of it, controlled the usage of labor through the DAF, the national state-run labor union, and, you guessed it, set all prices and controlled the flow of money. And on top of all of this, Alfried Krupp was a government official who held several positions within the NSDAP throughout the 30s and WWII.
Yeap, everything about that definitely screams private ownership and free market activity . . . Might want to educate yourself, Sally. I know Socialists are uneducated, but you take it to a whole new level."
The state controlled the profits, Sally :D Quite hard to argue it didn't when the NSDAP literally controlled the flow of all money going in and coming out of the business.
By all means, keep running Sally. It never gets old.
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@slaterslater5944 Yes I am because he didn't, the state did :D
"Krupp, for example, was seized by the state not long after the NSDAP came to power. The state MADE ALL BUSINESS DECISIONS relating to Krupp, handled all distribution of materials going into Krupp and finished goods coming out of it, controlled the usage of labor through the DAF, the national state-run labor union, and, you guessed it, set all prices and controlled the flow of money. And on top of all of this, Alfried Krupp was a government official who held SEVERAL POSTIONS WITHIN THE NSDAP throughout the 30s and WWII.
Yeap, everything about that definitely screams private ownership and free market activity . . . Might want to educate yourself, Sally. I know Socialists are uneducated, but you take it to a whole new level."
You act like Alfried Krupp was a private business owner separate from the state when in reality, he was a government official just as strongly linked to the NSDAP hierarchy as Martin Bormann and Albert Speer were.
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@slaterslater5944 You try to spin to talk about the post-war. Here's what happened while the NSDAP was actually in power though:
"Krupp, for example, was seized by the state not long after the NSDAP came to power. The state MADE ALL BUSINESS DECISIONS relating to Krupp, handled all distribution of materials going into Krupp and finished goods coming out of it, controlled the usage of labor through the DAF, the national state-run labor union, and, you guessed it, set all prices and controlled the flow of money. And on top of all of this, Alfried Krupp was a government official who held several positions within the NSDAP throughout the 30s and WWII.
Yeap, everything about that definitely screams private ownership and free market activity . . . Might want to educate yourself, Sally. I know Socialists are uneducated, but you take it to a whole new level."
After the war, the Allies also legally established that many German scientists did absolutely nothing wrong. Do you agree with that conclusion? You don't see how they made their decisions based off of what was most convenient, not what was actually true.
And Alfried was lying through his teeth. He was an early supporter of the NSDAP, being a member long before Hitler came to power. He was a state official and unrepentant Nazi to his death. The fact that you take him on his word during his trial just shows how stupid you really are. So you also believe the claims of the various generals put on trial that absolutely no war crimes were committed under them?
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@slaterslater5944 No, you said it yourself that quote was uttered in 1947 . . . which was after he was put on trial. How exactly is him proclaiming innocence any different from the numerous generals, political officers, and other war criminals on trial any different?
Here's a quote from General Alfred Jodl, who was sentenced to death at Nuremberg:
"The indictment knocked me on the head. First of all, I had no idea at all about 90 per cent of the accusations in it. The crimes are horrible beyond belief, if they are true. Secondly, I don't see how they can fail to recognize a soldier's obligation to obey orders. That's the code I've live by all my life."
Now Sally, answer me this. Would you being willing to extend that same amount of trust in the words of Jodl as you have for Krupp? Do you believe that Jodl, who was the German Chief of the Operations Staff for almost the entire war, had no idea of the extend the Wehrmacht was committing war crimes?
Or how about this quote from Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel, also sentenced to death at Nuremberg:
"I believe German soldiers are good and decent, and if they did anything wrong it was because of military necessity."
You believe him too? :D
Alfried Krupp was a government official just as imbedded into the NSDAP hierarchy as Albert Speer was. "His" company was owned and operated by the state, which he was permitted to act as head of due to his party connections. The situation was no different than Albert Speer being Minister of Armaments and War Production or Martin Bormann being Party Minister. They were all government officials.
The fact that he lied after the war to save his own skin means nothing, as they all did that.
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@slaterslater5944 In case you don't know Sally, when the government takes control of something, there is usually very little, if any, profit to be taken, due to government inefficiency. In the case of the NSDAP seizing control of the means of production, that fits pretty well considering industries seized by them saw massive decreases in profit not long after the state started controlling the business. Now let's look at the definition of Socialism again:
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
Now what do you think administration means, Sally? And like I said before, the NSDAP arrested and jailed all business owners who refused to comply to the initial agreement, as well as all business owners did did initially comply, but later refused to do something the state told them to do. The reason they could do this was because "ownership" was nominal at best in National Socialist Germany. This is not surprising considering they abolished Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution, which granted the right to hold property. There was no right to property in National Socialist Germany.
Your explanation also doesn't discredit the truth that the means of production are an inherent part of an economy, so control of an economy automatically means you control the means of production.
It's funny because you're explanation actually kinda admits you are wrong about what you've been arguing up to this point. You admit that private is when things are owned/controlled by private entitles, which is the same thing I've been telling you. However, it was the NSDAP controlling business in 1930s and 40s Germany, to the point where they were making decisions on behalf of the company and arresting anyone in the company who stepped out of line. Considering the NSDAP was the state, this is state control of the means of production.
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@slaterslater5944 If a company has publicly available stock, then it is publicly owned, Sally. Like I said before Sally, I am an accountant, this is what I do for a living. Trying to argue that these companies are "private" because shareholders are individuals is like trying to argue the government is private because the lawmakers and government employees are individuals. When ownership is publicly available, everyone and anyone can become a partial owner, which makes it a public company.
Here's Investopedia's explanation that you seem to be running away from:
"A public company is a company that has sold all or a portion of itself to the public via an initial public offering"
Look at private vs. public property for example, you can't go onto private property unless you own it or else you'll get charged with trespassing. You are allowed on public property though, because it is publicly available for use for the wider populace, must like how public companies have stock (shares of ownership) that is publicly available for the wider populace.
Think, Sally, think. Private companies do not have publicly available stock.
Once again, I find you trying to distort the meaning of words because the truth doesn't align with your political beliefs.
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@slaterslater5944 Sally, if a company's ownership is publicly available on the stock market, then it is publicly owned. It is relevant to accountancy considering tax procedures differ from company to company depending on the classification of the company. Ask your accountant, they'll tell you the same thing, that public companies are not owned privately, they are owned privately. It's called a public company because ownership is public, in case you haven't noticed. Likewise, private companies are called private because they are owned privately.
You're trying to deny the meaning of the words "public" and "private" because the true meanings don't align with your argument.
You entire argument seems to consist of the claim that since people who own stock in a public company are individuals, the company is privately owned. That's very weak reasoning because ownership in the company is publicly available, as people buy and sell stocks all the time. If something is publicly available, like a public park for example, everyone is free to use it and it is not owned privately. Private property, on the other hand, is not available to the public and is owned privately.
Like I asked before, do you deem the state the be controlled privately because lawmakers and government employees are individuals?
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@slaterslater5944 A public company is a publicly-owned company, Sally. If ownership is publicly available on a stock market (meaning available for anyone to purchase), that means that the company is publicly-owned, since its ownership consists of the public.
We've been over this many times and I've called you out on your attempted distortions of the meaning of private and public, yet you persist with your illogical conclusions because the truth doesn't align with your political beliefs. A privately-owned company does not publicly sell stock, a publicly-owned company does.
And when a company performs a buyback, it is not on an open market, Sally. Common sense dictates that they can only buy it back from people who have it, so there is an inherent restriction on who they engage with. In contrast, when the company sells its stock in the first place, they're selling it publicly to anyone.
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@slaterslater5944 That's not what an open market is Sally, it's too constricted to be. An open market is broader than that. When a company sells its stocks, its selling the to an open market because they are available to everyone. When the company does a buyback, it is not purchasing them back from an open market since not everybody has the stock.
Yes, a private company does have private shareholders. Those investors have access to something that isn't publicly available, so it's privately owned.
If you invest in publicly-available stock, you are not a private investor and the company is not privately-owned, it's a publicly-held company whose ownership is publicly available for anyone to buy, so it is NOT privately owned.
Why is it so difficult for you to understand this difference, Sally?
And up until recently, you were trying to argue public companies were private because shareholders are individuals. Again I ask what happened to that argument? You fail to understand the basic meaning of public and private. If something is available to everyone and anyone, it is public. A group of private investors holding shares of a private company (shares that are not publicly available) is not public.
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@slaterslater5944 You claim I'm playing semantic games, then you go on to compare stock to a carrot . . . Carrots are a type of product mean for human consumption while a stock is a thing that grants you partial ownership in a company. If said stock is publicly available on a stock market for everyone and anyone to buy, then that company is publicly-held, which means the exact same thing as being publicly owned.
Do you believe carrots grant you shares of ownership?
You get dividends from the grocery store after you buy a carrot from them?
Sally, with all due respect, from talking to you, I've learned that you know next to nothing in the fields of history, economics, and accounting. You possess large amounts of ignorance on how the economy of Germany was actual run under the NSDAP, you deliberately twist the definition of private and public to suit your political beliefs, and you believe that everything is privately-owned because people are individuals.
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@andyanon5451 Capitalism and Fascism are mutually exclusive, as you cannot have private control of the means of production (Capitalism) and state control of the means of production (Fascism) at the same time. Fascism is much more aligned with Socialism on an ideological level, which isn't a surprise considering Fascism was a variant of Socialism, much like how Marxism is.
If the state is controlling the "free market," then it isn't a free market.
Fascism grows not from capital, remember the Fascists and National Socialists themselves hate Capitalism. In both Italy and Germany, they condemned Capitalism in their rhetoric and passed laws hurting Capitalism. Germany and Italy weren't even Capitalist before the National Socialists and Fascists took over. Italy was a monarchy with a limited free market and Germany was an empire and then briefly an unstable Republic ran by Social Democrats.
Nothing about the definition of Socialism says anything about nationalism or racism, one can be those things and still be a Socialist. Karl Marx was an anti-Semite, yet he is still considered a Socialist.
Hitler most certainly was a Socialist, as he seized control of the means of production and distribution of goods and placed it all under state control, like every other Socialist nation did.
In Italy, Germany, and Spain, ALL opposition groups were persecuted, not just Left-wing ones. The NSDAP cracked down hard on Germany scouting organizations, religious organizations (including the Teutonic Order, which the NSDAP featured heavily in their propaganda), and rival political groups, both left and right. Only a ignorant fool would believe the NSDAP only targeted the left when presented with the evidence.
As far as "suppressing Socialism" goes, the Bolsheviks in Russia hunted down and killed Mensheviks and Revolutionary Socialists by the thousands, both of which were rival Socialist organizations. The Bolsheviks were Socialist weren't they? Ideologies attack other ideologies that cater to the same niche they do, that's how this type of politics works.
If you're living under National Socialism or Fascism, you don't "need Socialism," as you already have it!
Again, the Nordic countries are not Socialist, they are Capitalist nations. In fact, they tax their businesses even less than the U.S. does and have less regulation as well.
Socialism doesn't grant rights, it takes them away.
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@andyanon5451 "Fascism comes from Capitalism and liberal markets"
Not one credible economist supports that conclusion. You are spouting Marxist propaganda that has no basis in reality. Fascism is an explicitly anti-Capitalist ideology.
"nordic countries use socialist policies"
Nordic countries are not Socialist, the means of production are privately owned there, so they are Capitalist nations. They tax their companies less and regulate their markets less than the U.S. does. It's the people they tax more, not the corporations.
"socialism creates and is the basis of workers rights"
Socialism takes away workers' rights because it turns them into slaves of the state. Under a Socialist system, the worker no longer holds control over his own labor, the collective and/or state does. Workers suffer by the millions under Socialist dictatorships, through forced labor, famine, and outright execution.
"fascism took over with the support of ford and other industrialists and capitalists"
Western industrialists also heavily invested in the Soviet Union. Did the industrialists create Communism them, by your flawed line of reasoning?
"most indistrialists, capitalists and classic liberals were the real racists"
Socialists are the real racists. Excluding the National Socialists, many other variants of Socialism are plagued with racists. Karl Marx himself was anti-Semitic, as was Stalin and most other top Soviet leaders. The Communists killed nearly 10 million Ukrainians in a genocide known as the Holodomor. Even today, Socialist parties are filled with anti-Semites, like the British Labor Party.
"thats why they supported the nazis"
They didn't support the National Socialists, the National Socialists stole all of their stuff.
"fascism and private business can and do work together"
They don't work together, as Fascism seizes control of the private business and controls them through the state. There is no free market and there is no Capitalism under Fascism.
Fascism and National Socialism are also not the same thing, stop using them interchangeably.
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@andyanon5451 "oh wrong again, fascism came from Capitalism and liberal markets try reading a history book"
You evidently haven't read anything aside from propaganda because the economists don't agree with your conclusion. Not one credible one is arguing Fascism is linked to Capitalism, only Marxists do (and Marxists are economically illiterate)
"nordic countries use socialist policies"
Read my reply again. They aren't Socialists. They tax their companies less than the U.S. does. They regulate their markets less than the U.S. does. It's the PEOPLE they tax more, not the companies.
"no, capitalism turns people into slaves"
Under Capitalism, you have the ability to quit your job. So by definition, you cannot be a slave if you can simply quit. Socialism, on the other hand, takes away one's control over his own labor, and he becomes a slave of the state, having little to no say in what he does or how long he works.
Many Capitalists hate Socialism not because it's not profitable, but because it violates human rights by turning people into slaves.
"they dont need to create anythingh, they can hijack it to exploit it, as capital does"
You're not responding to the statement. Both the Soviet Union and NSDAP Germany tricked Western investors into giving them money, and both stole the investments. This doesn't make one Socialist and the other no because they essentially did the same thing.
The Industrialists also could not have created National Socialism since you admit you believe they don't create anything. So you're contradicting yourself.
"no, liberal capitaliusts were the real racists and they did so to divide an conquer, try reading a history book"
Read what I said you cretin. Socialist parties are plagues with anti-Semites. Marx himself was an anti-Semite. The Soviets killed 10 million Ukrainians in a genocide an d persecuted other minorities as well. The Chinese Communists are currently enacting a genocide against Uyghurs. Capitalism has no relation to National Socialism or Fascism, no credible economist or historian supports that assumption.
"they did support the nazis, plenty of industialists supported them ans were high ranking mambers, read a book"
The NSDAP arrested and jailed many industrialists who refused to do what they said. The executed some of them too. Those that were allowed to stay within their companies were figureheads with no actual power. The Industrialists did not support the NSDAP, at least not after the first year.
Again, you're taking NSDAP propaganda at face value. Please educate yourself.
"no, it siezes some, the ones that cooperate are allowed to do as they do, and they did"
No, it takes all of it. The ones that "cooperate" are being held a gunpoint. If the state is the primary decision-maker (as it was in Germany) than that industry is being controlled by the state.
"your right, socilaism isnt fascism, capital and liberal apologist are, like i said, when they feel they are losing ground to progressives they set fascism loose, and they start hijaking other movements and planting fascism within them, its true then, its true now, any history book, even dictionary definitions, can show u this, stop with the far right shit, read some books an stop simping for far right guys on youtube"
Both Fascism and National Socialism are variants of Socialism. Neither has any relation to Capitalism. In fact, Capitalism is the polar opposite to all of these ideologies since Capitalism explicitly calls for private control of the means of production while all others call for collective or state control.
Classical liberals rarely lose ground to progressives because so-called "progressives" are some of the most inept and uneducated people in the Western world. Your responses to me indicate you have not had a proper education and are highly susceptible to propaganda.
You constant appeal to "read a book" without naming any books indicates that you've probably never read a book on the subject. TIK cities dozens of books, I suggest you check them out.
And since you speak of dictionary definitions, here is a good definition right here:
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
and
Capitalism - an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market (Merriam-Webster)
You cannot have state control and Capitalism at the same time.
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@richardfield6801 I just read Chapter 1, Section 1 of Das Kapital. Marx does appear to acknowledge idle workers don’t create more value because they take more time, but he still seems incorrect in his description of the value of labor. I will be looking into Marx’s explanation given in the first pages of Das Kapital.
If I am not mistaken, labor is the physical act of doing something, but “labor power” is the ability to perform labor, which is what laborers are selling to their employers when they agree to take a job, which the employer treats as a type of capital. Correct me if I am wrong.
“The total labour power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labour power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units” (pg. 29).
Marx appears to be equating the total value of all commodities produced with the total value of all “labor power.” Now I see a few issues with this, as Marx (in this section at least) is completely ignoring the other factors that go into producing commodities. The cost of labor is merely one expense that must be covered when producing goods. If a worker is getting paid to operate a machine, for example, the wages to be paid to the worker are not the only expense in that interaction because it costs money to operate machinery as well. The entirety of the productivity of that machine is not necessarily coming from that worker’s labor. In addition, materials must be provided in order to actually produce the commodities. The cost of materials alone is already multi-faceted, as not only would you need to pay for the materials itself, but also to transport the materials to the place in which they will be turned into commodities. By equating total “labor power” with the total value of all commodities produced in a society, Marx is assigning values to “labor power” that have nothing to do with the actual labor of the workers but rather additional things involved in the process of production.
More curious still is that Marx appears to debunk his own explanation of “labor power” in the very same paragraph.
“The introduction of power-looms into England probably reduced by one-half the labour required to weave a given quantity of yarn into cloth. The handloom weavers, as a matter of fact, continued to require the same time as before; but for all that, the product of one hour of their labour represented after the change only half an hour’s social labour, and consequently fell to one-half its former value” (pg. 29).
Here, Marx is acknowledging the productivity of a factor of production separate from human labor. He recognizes that power-looms in England greatly reduced the amount of labor required to produce a given quantity of cloth compared to what was required before. Human labor is now composing a much smaller proportion of the capital put into the production of cloth, so how is total “labor power” still equivalent to the total value of all commodities produced? It is true that the power-looms likely reduced the market prices of cloth, but it is unlikely this would translate to a perfect correlation between the value of commodities and the value of “labor power,” but that alone doesn’t acknowledge the reduction in the importance of human labor in the production process.
“Commodities, therefore, in which equal quantities of labour are embodied, or which can be produced in the same time, have the same value. The value of one commodity is to the value of any other, as the labour time necessary for the production of the one is to that necessary for the production of the other” (pg. 29).
This isn’t necessarily true, as the same level of labor performed in the production of two different commodities does not inherently have the same value. Again, Marx is ignoring a score of both internal (equipment and materials) and external (demand on the market, for example) factors that make up the value of something. He appears to be using labor as a general indicator of value that applies to the commodities it works to produce. He has it in reverse, as the market value of the commodity is what measures the value of the labor put into it.
(Comment too long, continued on another comment)
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@richardfield6801 “The value of a commodity would therefore remain constant, if the labour time required for its production also remained constant. But the latter changes with every variation in the productiveness of labour. This productiveness is determined by various circumstances, amongst others, by the average amount of skill of the workmen, the state of science, and the degree of its practical application, the social organisation of production, the extent and capabilities of the means of production, and by physical conditions. For example, the same amount of labour in favourable seasons is embodied in 8 bushels of corn, and in unfavourable, only in four. The same labour extracts from rich mines more metal than from poor mines. Diamonds are of very rare occurrence on the earth’s surface, and hence their discovery costs, on an average, a great deal of labour time. Consequently much labour is represented in a small compass. Jacob doubts whether gold has ever been paid for at its full value. This applies still more to diamonds. According to Eschwege, the total produce of the Brazilian diamond mines for the eighty years, ending in 1823, had not realised the price of one-and-a-half years’ average produce of the sugar and coffee plantations of the same country, although the diamonds cost much more labour, and therefore represented more value. With richer mines, the same quantity of labour would embody itself in more diamonds, and their value would fall. If we could succeed at a small expenditure of labour, in converting carbon into diamonds, their value might fall below that of bricks. In general, the greater the productiveness of labour, the less is the labour time required for the production of an article, the less is the amount of labour crystallised in that article, and the less is its value; and vice versâ, the less the productiveness of labour, the greater is the labour time required for the production of an article, and the greater is its value. The value of a commodity, therefore, varies directly as the quantity, and inversely as the productiveness, of the labour incorporated in it” (pg. 29-30).
Again, Marx is acknowledging factors separate from human labor. He recognizes that the same amount of labor applied to corn production will result in different yields depending on the weather and that the same labor applied to mines will result in different yields depending on the richness of the mine. Marx is somewhat correct in asserting that diamonds would be worth less if they could be produced directly from carbon with minimal labor, but that’s not necessarily why diamonds and other precious gems and metals are valuable. The reason these items are valuable is because they are rare items that there is only so much of in the world. Scarcity is what gives them their great value, not so much labor used to extract them. For example, if future astronauts were to discover a planet with more gold than we have iron and the technology existed to easily transport materials between Earth and this planet, gold would quickly become less valuable than iron, providing the planet didn't also possess enough iron to offset this exchange. And despite previously acknowledging that the labor of idle workers is not more valuable for taking longer, he is claiming here that the less productive the labor, the greater the labor time required, the greater the value of the commodity. Do you have an explanation for this, because to me, it looks like a contradiction on his part and a confirmation of what TIK said about his view on the subject.
In the 1820s, growing, processing, and preparing sugar and coffee for sale on the market was a much longer and more expensive process than digging minerals out of the ground with picks and shovels. This likely accounted for a reason for why the total value of sugar and coffee produced exceeded that of the value of diamonds mined by such a large margin.
“Lastly nothing can have value, without being an object of utility. If the thing is useless, so is the labour contained in it; the labour does not count as labour, and therefore creates no value” (pg. 30).
This too is not necessarily true. Firstly, Marx is thinking of value in purely economic terms. An individual may hold sentimental value for a specific item, even if it holds no monetary value. Secondly and more importantly, it is also not true to simply “not count” labor performed on things that are not economically valuable. Labor is the physical act of performing something. If you sacrifice your time to the physical act of performing something, you have contributed your labor regardless of the value of what is produced from it. The labor itself may be of little to no value, but that does not mean it is no longer classified as labor. Additionally, this ignores future values of what is produced. For example, an inventor exerting his labor into developing entirely new items and technologies may yield anything from a failed project worth nothing to a new technology of extreme monetary value. Even if something was initially seen as worthless, it may become more marketable in the future, which would appear to retroactively increase the value of the labor the inventor put into the product.
From reading the beginning of Das Kapital, I see what appear to be several contradictions in just the beginning. Again, he may clarify later in the book, but it is a weak start if I’m being honest. His explanation of “labor power” seems to over-inflate the actual value of labor performed on commodities.
It is clear that labor of any kind has little inherent value. Throughout history, many skilled professions have become obsolete due to advances in technology that render the services of skilled craftsmen obsolete. For example, cooperage (barrel-making) used to be a very common profession in Western society because of the need for wooden barrels. Advances in technology and materials, however, gradually decreased the need for coopers. From this, it can be seen that the value of all labor is inherently tied to the market value of the product or service that it works to provide. The amount of technical skill and knowledge is evidently unimportant if they are to conduct a dead craft. The same holds true with “labor value,” as the skills and knowledge that a skilled laborer amassed to perform their craft becomes unmarketable if that craft becomes obsolete. So “labor power” too is tied to the market value of what it works to produce, possessing little inherent value by itself. Besides, this has little relation to the main argument put forth, that Hitler and the NSDAP were ideologically Socialists.
You are absolutely correct, not all Socialism is Marxist Socialism and not all Marxist Socialism is all Socialism. To determine whether or not the NSDAP could be considered Socialist, we must look at the basic definition of Socialism:
Socialism (Merriam-Webster) - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
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@mikemcmike6427 There is no consensus. And many historians that do deem National Socialism to be far right don't really do so for economic reasons, as most of them have little knowledge of economics, a completely different field from history.
The whole reason why idiots today believe that National Socialists were "far-right Capitalists" was because a lot of Marxist historians tried to paint it that way, and their pseudohistory is still cited to this day. Look at the historiography of what people considered National Socialist ideology, nobody called it far-right or Capitalist until after the war ended, and many of the first people to do so were Marxists. Marxists, aside from being terrible academics period for being blinded by their ideology, have a vested interest in doing what they did, to distance National Socialism as far away from Socialism as they can since they were Socialists. They also hated Capitalists, so they tried to tie National Socialism to Capitalism even though the National Socialists hated Capitalism.
And tell me, where is this "consensus," can you provide any names instead of just claiming there is a consensus?
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@mikemcmike6427 First of all, the NSADAP crushed all Socialist and Communist parties and movements in Germany. You deem this to disqualify the NSDAP from being Socialistic. Very interesting.
The Bolsheviks in Russia destroyed all non-Bolshevik aligned Socialist and Communist parties and movements. One of the most prominent groups hunted down and destroyed by the Bolsheviks were the Mensheviks, who were Socialists. By your own logic, does this disqualify the Bolsheviks from being Socialists as well?
Saying the NSDAP hated Jewish Capitalism and Jewish Marxism implies that they accepted other types of Capitalism and Marxism. That is inaccurate, the National Socialists viewed Capitalism itself and Marxism itself as inherently Jewish.
I would like to point out that a PHD in history does not make one an expert on economics, they are two completely different fields. Many historians who write about the NSDAP economy use incorrect definitions of Socialism and Capitalism, which distorts the truth of the nature of National Socialists economics. It is doubtful they are doing this intentionally. For example, I was listening to a podcast ran by an old professor of mine who was interviewing a political scientist on this very subject. The political scientist told him the NSDAP could not have been Socialist because Socialism was international and the NSDAP was nationalist. The political scientist was incorrect, Socialism is not inherently internationalist. Rather, Socialism in its most basic form is simply collective control of the means of production, with no other tenants. The "expert" on political science seemed to believe Marxist Socialism was the only variant of Socialism, as only Marxist Socialism is internationalist.
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@mikemcmike6427 There's weren't that many Conservative, Capitalist, or even Monarchist groups left in Russia after the Civil War, many of the most prominent figures of these ideologies went into exile during or after the Russian Civil War before the Bolsheviks could get to them.
And yes, the National Socialists in Germany did go after and crush Conservative and Capitalist groups. All churches in Germany were striped of a lot of their autonomy, with some congregations being outright arrested and thrown into concentration camps. This was in line with a long-term plan of the National Socialists with replacing the Christian religion with a cult of the state. In the meantime, they set up a nonsensical Germanic Christian church where Jesus was portrayed as an Aryan. The NSDAP often used imagery of the Teutonic Knights in its propaganda, as a representation of Germany in the Medieval period. Interesting, they outlawed the actual Teutonic Order in 1938 and arrested many of its members. Are the Teutonic Order and churches Socialist organizations? When the Hitler Youth was established, all other youth groups were abolished. Many youth organizations were Christian or Conservative in nature. Even before that, the National Socialists banned all political parties in Germany aside from the NSDAP. All political parties means all political parties, parties on the right were crushed and disbanded just as parties on the left were. Who told you Hitler didn't go after Conservative groups, or is that just something you assume because you have been tricked into thinking Hitler was a Conservative?
The National Socialists and Fascists viewed themselves as a "Third Position." That's not necessarily what they were, as all they ended up doing was developing new variants of Socialism.
No, the economists don't agree either. I look into the field, there is no consensus on the topic. You make up lies and hide behind the opinions of so called experts without even having read the opinions yourself. You don't even mention what they agree on, just "THEY ALL AGREE, CONSENSUS IS FACT"
You are the definition of a pseudo intellectual and I'm convinced your supposed degree in poli sci is bogus. Or maybe not since poli sci is a useless field from what I've gathered actually listening to pollical scientists.
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@slaterslater5944 Did you fail English class in high school?
There's a comma after "nation," separating it from "as industries and land." This, along with the start of the second part being the word "as" sets up industries and land to be examples of things that could be nationalized rather than a requirement of nationalization. The state could nationalize more than industries and land, as evidenced by the fact that other definitions, like the one from Merriam-Webster, don't provide this stipulation.
If only industries and land could be nationalized, it would have been written as "to bring industries and land under the control of a nation."
The state under National Socialism seized control of all labor unions in Germany and folded them into the German Labour Front, or nationalized them, if you will. The Soviets and other Socialists also nationalized the labor unions in their countries. Unions have been nationalized by countries such as these for a while now, the notion that "unions cannot be nationalized" is one that you are making up.
Besides, considering how much money unions collect, how much donating and lobbying they do in the political arena, the profit to be made by union bosses and organizers, and how ingrained they are in some societies, there is a case to be made that unions are an industry in their own right.
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@slaterslater5944 Again, you need to take the time to READ, Sally.
any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership AND ADMINISTRATION of the means of production and distribution of goods"
What does administration mean, Sally?
And how exactly were the businesses privately owned if the NSDAP could easily arrest and imprison the so-called owners at will. The figurehead owners that did opt to accept NSDAP takeover had little influence over their own companies, with the state making all key decisions and dictating how much the companies would be paid.
The NSDAP abolished Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution in 1933, which acknowledged the right to hold property in Germany. Under the NSDAP, there was not right to hold property.
Krupp, like every other major company, was under the de facto administration of the state. Gustav Krupp opted to accept NSDAP takeover, for which he was required to do their every will or else he too would get arrested. His son Alfried was effectively part of the state, having joined the SS in 1931 before the party even gained complete power in 1933.
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@ayeshazhukov In no way does that Cambridge definition apply to any form of Socialism in practice, or most forms even in theory. Depending on the version of Socialism, you'll find that very few of them believe in genuine equally. As with most ideologies, there's an "in-group" and "out-groups." The Bolsheviks didn't consider nobility, bourgeoise, and the peasantry to be equal. They operated under Marxism, a version of Socialism structured around the industrial working class or "proletariat." All others were treated harshly and even killed by the millions in the case of the peasantry, who had their crops forcibly seized in order to feed the proletariat in the cities. It's pretty clear that there was no equality between proletariat and peasants in the Soviet Union, economic or otherwise. With Maoism, it was switched with the peasantry becoming the "in-group." Likewise, National Socialism organizes itself around race, specifically the "Aryan" race. Anyone not considered an "Aryan" by the ideology was excluded from the collective, but those who were considered "Aryan" were a part of the collective and seen by the ideology in the same way Bolsheviks viewed the proletariat and Maoists viewed the peasantry. What deceives people is that National Socialism has a lot of social views on top of its economic system, to the point where those social stances overshadow the economics (which makes sense). If you were to strip away those social views and exclusively look at how the National Socialists ran the German economy throughout their rein, you'll find that their system wasn't a whole lot different from the Soviet system, aside from a few key differences.
And may I remind you that one of Marxism's tenants is "world revolution," which also seeks to invade the rest of the world and enslave large parts of it. Stalin excluded this stipulation from his take on the ideology in order to consolidate his own power, but others like Trotsky still espoused it.
Furthermore, that definition completely excludes the stance on who controls the means of production, which was always the core focus of Socialism. Vague notions of "sharing money" is not Socialism, otherwise we'd consider private charitable organizations to be Socialistic. Socialism is primarily an economic idea, whether or not people in a society share money is not necessarily related to the economic system in place to generate that money in the first place. Not all definitions are equal, and in my option, Merriam-Webster's gets to the main features of Socialism better than Cambridge's.
There was no "privatization" (if we're using the modern definition) in Germany under the NSDAP. Hitler and the National Socialists did not hand state-controlled industries over to private entities. They never lost control of anything. What annoys me is people often talk about how much of a liar Hitler was and how deceitful he was, and for good reason. However, when it comes to Hitler and the rich or Hitler and the German industrialists, many of those same people all of a sudden take Hitler's word as truth. Hitler paid lip service to German industrialists and the wealthy starting around 1931 and up till he gained power in 1933, but everybody ignores the fact that he conned and backstabbed them as he did with everyone else. After he gained power, his party enacted new laws that stripped away people's right to own property (by revoking Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution), which gave the government the authority to seize private businesses, which Hitler started doing very early in his rein. At no point did the National Socialists relinquish control of a company to private entities. They may have said they did, but at the end of the day, they were still the ones running it.
Hitler did care who controlled the means of production. He issued ultimatums to business owners of every sizable company and industry: do what he says when he says it without question, or else. Any who opposed, like aircraft builder Hugo Junkers, was arrested and removed from their own company, being replaced by NSDAP officials (who are part of the state). Any who agreed still had party officials placed within their businesses to watch over them. Additionally, everything they do must be done through the state, as the state controlled the labor throughout the German Labor Front, the state controlled the flow of resources, the state controlled the pay that a company would receive, and most significantly, the state was in control of significant business decisions, as nearly everything required its approval. These business owners were essentially turned into powerless figureheads in their own companies. At that point, it's no longer private control, it's a government ministry in all but name.
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@ayeshazhukov I criticize Cambridge's definition because it is vague, incomplete, and removed from the economic nature of Socialism. The idea of Socialism, as with other economic theories, revolves around who controls the means of production. The single factor found in all Socialist ideologies and movements (which can be very different from one another) is a belief in collective and/or state control of the means of production and distribution of goods, as opposed to individual and/or private control of these things.
And keep in mind, following WWII, there was a concentrated effort by Marxists and others on the political left to distance National Socialism and Fascism from them as much as possible. They weren't stupid, they knew that their ideologies shared a common origin with Fascism and National Socialism, having both spurred from 19th century Socialist philosophies. They knew that much of the Fascist and National Socialist leadership in Italy and Germany respectively were former Socialists (other variants of Socialists that is).
"As you point out yourself, there are many versions of socialism, but a state that maintains a regime of racial/economic division, slavery, mass murder and military conquest, can’t really be called socialist."
Yes it can because most Socialist states have done one or more of those things. In virtually all of them, there was great economic division, with the "party elites" being very rich and everyone else being very poor. They also virtually enslaved many of their people. During collectivization, the Soviets effectively turned Russia and Ukraine's peasants back into serfs. Mass murder too, is too common of an occurrence, as 10s of millions of Soviet citizens died at the hands of their government (including a genocide on Ukrainians in the early 1930s) and many 10s of millions more Chinese died at the hands of theirs. As for military conquest, it depends on the variant. Some, like Marxism, explicitly call for world conquest in the name of revolution.
"If it were, then the USA would be a socialist state."
The means of production in the U.S. are in private hands for the most part, which disqualifies it from being Socialist, though one can argue it (and many other Capitalist nations) are gradually picking up Socialistic elements.
"As for Stalin, the Nazis elite regarded him more as a Tsar than a true socialist."
Yes, the National Socialists didn't see Communists as "real Socialists" in much the same way that Communists didn't see National Socialists as "real Socialists."
"Hitler didn’t invade the USSR to bring socialism to the East, he did it to build a slave empire modelled on the British Empire (which, by the way, also wasn’t a socialist endeavour)"
He did so to obtain more living space for the "Aryan" race. That doesn't disqualify National Socialism from being Socialism, nor does it really share much in common with the British Empire, which was among the first to outlaw slavery and was not build upon the idea of replacing native ethnic groups with British people. Hitler invaded the East for "Aryans," with many radical Socialists call for world revolution (a.k.a. conquest) for the "proletariat." Where exactly did I make the claim that Hitler wanted to take the whole world?
Germany was getting plenty of iron ore from trade with Sweden, which traded with Germany until the later part of the war. Considering Hitler's main objective was living space in the East, it's doubtful he would've willingly warred with the West if he could've avoided it.
No, the reason Hitler invaded the USSR was to obtain more "living space." Invading the Soviet Union was always the plan, it was just they had hoped England would be defeated before the invasion would begin. Some of his generals even tried to talk him into postponing the invasion, fully aware that invasion was always the plan, in accordance with National Socialist ideology. During the string of German victories in the early part of the war, Stalin even asked for the Soviet Union to join the Axis alliance (he wanted a piece of the action and saw becoming an Axis power as a good opportunity to establish a Soviet presence in the Middle East), which Germany and Italy declined. Now if invading the USSR was entirely to do with importing stuff from the Soviets, why would they turn down such an alliance which would've likely granted them more access to Soviet resources? The overall National Socialist plan was pre-made to a degree.
Firstly, may I ask where the quote comes from? What you're saying does not change who controlled the various industries in Germany. Something the National Socialists sometimes did was raise funds through the sale of state-owned enterprises, but after the sales were made, the day-to-day operations of the business were still run by the state as they had been before. This is one example of the phenomenon which I was trying to explain to you. Hitler didn't ally himself with Germany's industrialists, he conned them. Upon taking obtaining power in 1933, the National Socialists embarked on a plan to place more of the economy under their control, not less. They didn't care about who owned it on paper, only that they were the ones controlling it.
The loss of Article 153 did have a profound effect on the way things operated. As I said before, nominal ownership by a private entity means very little if it was the state making all the decisions to direct the business. In those cases where business owners refused to cooperate, the loss of Article 153 gave the state the ability to simply seize those businesses from there owners. I mentioned aircraft builder Hugo Junkers before, he had refused to do business with the NSDAP, and they arrested him and took his business as a result. It was control that the NSDAP wanted. His refusal didn't change that want. No Article 153 effectively meant that there was technically no longer a legal right to own property in Germany, which allowed the state to simply do as it pleased without having to go through any legal procedures.
Hitler did contradict himself, as Socialists often do.
"he Nazis who took over used their positions to financially enrich themselves"
The same applies to many officials from other variants of Socialism in their respective countries, as Socialist economies usually result in severe corruption. In both National Socialist Germany and other Socialist nations, you would often see people affiliated with the state being appointed to positions such as that and enriching themselves from it. There's a reason why party officials in Socialist countries are much wealthier than the general population. You seem to be taking an ideal view of what Socialism is meant to be, and applying that ideal to examine Germany in the 1930s and 40s thoroughly, but you ignore the fact that many of the same issues also existed in other Socialist countries, countries that you may agree to be Socialist.
Again, may I ask where the quote is from. Going by the definition of Socialism being collective and/or state control of the means of production and distribution of goods, then Germany under the NSDAP was clearly Socialist, as the state controlled (both openly and under the table) all of the major industries of the country. You seem to be operating under the assumption that conquest disqualifies something from being Socialist. In a sense, Socialism revolves around some form of conquest. Many radical variants like Marxism and all the sub-ideologies that spurred from it also want world conquest, as I have explained. But in even seemingly moderate variants, there is a still a desire to take from the individual in the name of the state. Had Hitler actually won the war, we have no reason to believe he would've simply handed everything over to private entities. In it's economic views, National Socialism was heavily critical of Capitalism (Hitler thought it was all controlled by Jews). In fact, the National Socialists (as well as Italian Fascists) viewed themselves as a "Third Way." In their political compass, they were the center with Communism on the left and Capitalism on the right. Hitler and the rest of the NSDAP were anti-Capitalist not only in their rhetoric, but in their policy too. From this, I doubt they would willingly implement more elements of Capitalism had they actually conquered the living space they wanted and were no longer at war.
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@ayeshazhukov “The control of the means of production is to take it out of the hands of the few and give it to the nation as a means of benefiting and improving society as a whole”
This issue here is that Socialism in practice never really does that. Nor is there much of a genuine attempt at doing so on the part of those in charge, even in the beginning. A common trend is that corruption seems to lurk in fairly quickly and society as a whole does not benefit from the state controlling the means of production and distribution of goods. Furthermore, most Socialist nations never willingly gave up state control of these industries once it became apparent that the people were no better off (and often worse off) than they were before Socialism, which kills the notion that their main goal was to improve the lives of ordinary people. If one were to argue that it’s only Socialism if it improves society as a whole, you begin to get into the “Socialism has never been tried” crowd that make excuses for how these various dictatorships weren’t really Socialist and “it just needs another try,” using much the same rhetoric that those that created said dictatorships were using in the lead-up to them. Doing this ignores the economic realities of Socialism, preferring to only look at theory. Again, you’re holding National Socialist Germany to a high standard of what you consider Socialism to be, but ignore the fact that the same issue existed in virtually every other Socialist state.
“That wouldn’t be too difficult a task as Nazi Germany wasn’t a socialist state”
Well it only is if you look at their economic policies, which people typically don’t, focusing on the social. As I said before, the study of NSDAP social policies eclipses that of their economic policies. We spend most time talking about the laws made against Jews and other minorities, the Holocaust, and, of course, the war itself, as well should since all of these things are important. In schools, the economic policies of the National Socialists, as well as their outspoken anti-Capitalism, was never touched upon as much. And there was an effort on those of the political left to distance National Socialism from themselves. If you were to look at the historiography of how people viewed National Socialism and Fascism in the 1930s and the first part of WWII, you’ll see that their position on the political spectrum was something of an enigma to most people. Unlike most vocal Socialist organizations (which were dominated by either Marxist-Leninists or Trotskyists at the time), they were nationalistic, but didn’t quite fit in with the contemporary right due to economic and religous stances, as well as different opinions on the role of the traditional aristocracy. It was mostly at the tail end of the war and after it that you see “Far Right” or even “the furthest Right” being applied to these ideologies, which is strange considering politically, they don’t have much in common with other ideologies generally considered to be pretty far to the right aside form nationalism. (Just so you know, in my opinion the traditional Left-Right political spectrum is pretty much obsolete when discussing 20th and 21st century politics; it was devised during the French Revolution where the only people considered were Republicans “the Left” and Monarchists “the Right.” People who hold views considered “left-wing” during the French Revolution would be considered “center-right” if not further to the right than that today. I don’t agree with the political compass either. I think that there is such a great variety of political ideologies across all political issues that I don’t believe one can accurately “map” them in a way that allows people to instantly understand them and their complexities.)
This is evidenced further by looking into the academic stance over the matter since the end of WWII. You’ll find that many of them pushing for the “Far Right” label were associated with the political left, and their conclusions (usually not based around economic policy, but social) were championed by the Soviet Union, eager to not only distance the ideology from their own, but to distance their country from the actions of National Socialists, as I’m sure you are well aware that Germany and the Soviet Union cooperated to jointly invade Poland in September of 1939, starting WWII. Modern academics are gradually beginning to move towards a Socialistic view of the NSDAP, or at the very least, away from the “they were right-wing Capitalists” view promoted by left-wing academics for the last several decades. I would also like to point out that, as you probably know, Socialism is primarily an economic collection of ideologies. Most historians and political scientists are not also experts on economic theory. I was listening to a podcast run by a former history professor of mine where he was interviewing a political scientist on this very question. The political scientist told him that since the NSDAP was nationalist, it could not have been Socialist, which my former professor, who specialized in Colonial American history, agreed. Both of these men have fallen for their tricks. One of the things the political left did to dilute the meaning of Socialism was to claim Marxist aspects of Socialism as aspects of “all Socialism.” From this, they tried to discredit all forms of Socialism that weren’t internationalistic as “not real Socialism,” likely with National Socialism and Fascism in their crosshairs. Of course, f you go back further to 19th century Socialism, you’ll see movements and ideologies differed greatly from being nationalistic, internationalistic, or not having stance on the matter. Another significant issue you see with this line of thinking is that even in nations governed by an ideology that is nominally internationalist, you sometimes see forms of nationalism spring up. During WWII after the German invasion, Stalin and the party higher-ups revived Russian nationalism and mixed it with Soviet ideology in order to rally the people to resist the Germans. This type of “Soviet nationalism” remained in the country until it broke up in 1991, and some older Russian people still espouse it with nostalgia. Socialism itself can be either nationalist or internationalist, neither would disqualify something from being Socialist, so long as it still calls for some form of collective and/or state control of the means of production and distribution of goods.
“You could also argue that Socialism has a common origin with capitalism, or feudalism, as it came about through a reaction to these economic/social systems.”
When we talk of an ideology spurring from another ideology or having its origins in something else, it’s more of things being added onto it rather than an explicit rejection of an older ideology. It’s an evolution of something, not the creation of something else. We’re talking about ideologies branching out into variants, not new ideologies being forged to replace older ones. Capitalism (which always existed in some way on a very small scale) began to be promoted as a national economic system to reject the Mercantilism of the Early Modern Period that dominated the economic strategies of most European nations at the time. Likewise, Socialism, the first modern versions of which appeared after the French Revolution began, grew to reject both Mercantilism and Capitalism, as well as several other social and economic practices of the time. It did not begin as a “variant” of Capitalism or Feudalism in the same way that Capitalism did not start as a “variant” of Mercantilism. In the case of Socialism, it branched out into many variants over the course of the 19th century, the most prominent of which was Marxism. Marxism itself would later branch out into Marxist-Leninism, Trotskyism, Stalinism, etc. in the 20th century. Think of it almost like a family tree, we can see how things branch out. Fascism and National Socialism have their ideological origins in some of the non-Marxist 19th century variants of Socialism, which, using the family tree analogy, would make them first or second cousins to ideologies like Marxist-Leninism.
“Then if they are going against the key tenets of Socialism then they can’t be socialist, can they?”
Then we get into the territory of the “Socialism has never been tried” crowd, who consistently make excuses for Socialist movements that create totalitarian states in defense of the ideology as a whole, only to go on to promote said ideology and use the same rhetoric that those in the past who created the totalitarian states did. The question is at what point does something’s appearance in practice (a.k.a. the failures) start to outshine its appearance in theory? Socialists today either ignore its results in practice or outright deny those results as being examples of Socialism. Considering Socialism almost always ends up like that in practice, this leads to a cycle where Socialism is implemented, leads to a totalitarian state, is rejected as “real Socialism” by ideologues, and is tried again for the cycle to continue. Eventually, if results begin to dominate theory, one would expect Socialism to become less attractive of an ideology, being regarded as an unrealistic system not worth attempting anymore due to its history of creating dictatorships.
Besides, Socialism (broad Socialism, not specific variants) really has no other key tenets aside from collective and/or state control of the means of production and distribution of goods. Everything outside of that is variant-specific. Many variants have an unrealistic utopian view of what the world would be like under their system, a view that never materializes. It is this view that is denied rather than the plans of who controls the economy.
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@ayeshazhukov “Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia built empires on a regime of racial/economic division, slavery, mass murder, and military conquest, but so did the British Empire, and so has the USA”
And you’re missing the point that ideology plays a role in all of this, as well as the relevant time periods. The British Empire and the modern U.S. (if you include American colonial history dating back from 1607 to be included in U.S. political history) followed different ideologies throughout their existence, and their actions were not necessarily dominated by said ideologies. In contrast, National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union were explicitly founded upon specific ideologies that played a central role in all of their decisions. If you exclude Colonial American history from U.S. political history, deeming the U.S. to be a new entity spawning from the American Revolution and deeming American Colonial history and politics to be an extension of British Imperial history and politics rather than American, then the U.S. was founded upon certain ideas of political philosophy and a specific ideology, but you must also acknowledge that many of those immoral practices you mention pre-dated the new American state and were the source of much debate and disagreement among the the country’s founders, and the society as a whole, even in those early years. In both cases, the British and Americans eventually shrugged off slavery and mass murder, and continued to exist afterwards as the same political entities following the same systems they followed before. The same cannot be said for National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union. As for economic division, that has always existed to some degree and likely always will, as there has never been pure “economic equality” in any society, Socialist or otherwise with many economists deeming equality such as that an impossibility.
The time period is also incredibly relevant to the topic. You must understand that pretty much every human society that ever existed practiced some form of slavery at some point in their histories. And for most of human history, few people saw any issues with the practice. It wasn’t until the 18th century when the first dedicated abolitionist organizations began to emerge, and they only existed in Western Europe and its colonies for the time being. So in the case of the British and Americans, we’re talking about them engaging in practices that were widely accepted and practiced almost everywhere else in the world too at that time. This doesn’t dilute the terrible nature of these things, it only points out that morally, these practices weren’t seen as “bad” by most of the societies and cultures of the day and both nations gradually abolished those practices as they began to be seen as immoral and evil. In the case of National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union, most of the developed world by the early 20th century had already grown to condemn slavery and mass murder as immoral and evil, yet both nations revived those practices in the name of their ideology when those practices were widely seen as immoral and evil by many of the societies and cultures of the day. Additionally, there was little sign of their ways changing. Germany was defeated, following its practices to the end, and the Soviet Union continued to target and execute political opposition well after WWII ended and to the end of its existence, it did thankfully stop committing genocides on its minorities after WWII though.
Finally, you singled out National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union as the result of “empires not Socialism” but ignore that many of those same practices existed in smaller Socialist nations as well, hardly “empires.” If we look to the present, we see Socialist states today still committed human rights violations in the name of their ideologies, some of which are quite small to be considered “empires.”
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@ayeshazhukov “Because they weren’t. Hitler and Stalin were tyrants, not socialists.”
I will admit that you seemed very reasonable at the start, but I might be beginning to see your political biases emerge here. The way you phrased it, “tyrants, not socialists” implies that you believe the two to be mutually exclusive. Socialism, as I’ve explained, is an economic system characterized by some type of collective or state control of the means of production and distribution of goods, and somebody who advocates for that would be a Socialist. Someone in power who forcefully implements such a system into existence through force, intimidation, and violence if necessary, would be considered a tyrant regardless of what their motivations are, good or bad, reasonable or not. This does not mean they are not Socialist just because they did immoral things to advance their Socialist ideology. In practice, almost every Socialist system was willed into existence in this way, with things being stolen from private citizens and placed under the control of the state.
You seem to be operating under the belief that “Socialism is [blank], therefore it cannot be [blank],” with something like “beneficial” or “good” being inserted in the first blank and something like “tyrannical” or “bad” being inserted into the second. To tie an entire ideology to “being good for society” is problematic and borderline dishonest. Without a doubt, Socialist officials high up in their governments believed, and continue to believe, what they were doing was “good for society” regardless of whether or not the people were benefiting from the system. The same holds true with both NSDAP and Soviet officials. To tie Socialism with being “good for society” not only leads to questions regarding what is considered good or beneficial, but also opens the door for all failed instances of the ideology to simply be dismissed as “not an example of the ideology,” which of course exempts the ideology from criticism if you deny the results of it as having resulted from it, keeping the argument purely in the theoretical realm and not the physical. I’m sure that you can see that many Socialists have adopted this line of thinking and refuse to believe that the many atrocities done in the 20th century were the results of Socialist governments implementing Socialist policies.
“More living space for an Aryan empire built on slavery and the confiscation of natural resources. None of which is socialist. As for the British Empire, Hitler admired it because for about 200 years it controlled and exploited 24% of Earth’s total land area and promoted the idea of racial hierarchy.”
As I explained before, confiscation and slavery do not exclude something from being Socialist. In fact, by its very nature, Socialism must confiscate things from others in order to place them under a collective or state authority. Slavery do, does not disqualify it, as I said much earlier that most variants of Socialism contain an “in-group” and “out-groups” with members of the “out-groups” often being treated like subhumans by the Socialist state. I understand that you believe that Socialism physically cannot conduct these practices, but nearly all Socialist nations have in some way and the ideology itself does not explicitly ban or even condemn these things.
The British Empire held 24% of the land in the world as its governing political entity. It would be inaccurate to say 24% of the world’s land was “exploited” by the empire since most of that land was left virtually untouched by colonial authorities. The truth is, not only with the British Empire but all European colonial empires of the 18th and 19th centuries, that most colonies weren’t actually that profitable. There were exceptions of course, like India with its lucrative spice trade, but most did not generate much revenue for the European colonial governments, and many cost more to maintain then they brought in through revenue. Some European statesmen were well aware of this, notably von Bismarck of Germany who was a heavy critic of pursuing African colonies, which he regarded as a waste of time and money. The British also did not promote a racial hierarchy, but did quite the opposite. Europeans in the 19th century definitely had a sense of moral superiority to other areas of the world, and many were racist, but the question of racial hierarchies in their colonies is more complex than “the European racist colonizers established racial hierarchies.” In many places they gained control of, there were racial hierarchies already in place among the native ethnic groups. The most notable example of this I can think of is India’s caste system, which was horribly cruel to ethnic groups considered low in the caste. The British did abolish the more cruel elements of the caste, as well as other Indian practices they considered barbaric (like widows being forced to jump onto the funeral pyres of their dead husbands), but they allowed other elements of it to remain, which explains why some aspects of the caste system exist in India to this day.
Now the motives and intended methods between the two nations were quite different. The National Socialists in Germany wanted to conquer eastern lands with the explicit purpose of expanding the “Aryan” race and gradually replacing the native ethnic groups living there. The native populations would be enslaved, but even that was considered a temporary arrangement, with the long-term goal being to remove them entirely. Aside from a few settler colonies (some American colonies in the 17th and 18th centuries, though most of them were not technically founded by the English, later British government itself, but state-approved companies acting on the interest of various religious and economic groups seeking their own land) and some prison colonies (Australia), the British did not really intend on sending large numbers of settlers into its colonies to live there permanently and replace the native populations, especially with the “second empire” following the loss of the American colonies. Nor did the British enslave the local populations, but actually abolished slavery and made it illegal in many places where it was widely practiced before the British came.
I am curious as to what aspects of the British Empire Hitler “admired,” if any aside from simply having such a large empire, as there are significant administrative differences between the empire and the way he intended to govern the eastern “living space.” One such example is that much of the British Empire could not have come about without the cooperation and support of the local elite, something that National Socialism clearly had no intention of fostering.
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@ayeshazhukov “When you say in your last post, in reference to the Nazis, that ‘one of Marxism’s tenants is ‘world revolution’ which also seeks to invade the rest of the world and enslave large parts of it.’ There’s a clear implication here that you’re suggesting Hitler (who you think is a socialist) sought world domination through military means.”
The discussion was on the role of conquest in Socialism. The way you described it made me think that you don’t think Socialism is capable of promoting and enacting wars of conquest, with National Socialist Germany given as an example. My aim was to show that other Socialist states have done similar things, most notably those operating under Marxism, which explicitly calls for worldwide revolution, something that would automatically entail wars of conquest since not everywhere in the world will likely want to join such a revolution, prompting Socialists to invade and conquer said countries in accordance with the ideology. If I misspoke in a way to change my intention, I apologize.
“Well, of course it came from Sweden, but the route was down through Norway. Go look at a map.”
They had been trading with Sweden prior to the war and during the first part of the war before Norway and Denmark were under their control. In fact, Norway itself, which was neutral at the start of the war, was selling ore to the Germans before they were invaded. It is clear that there were other routes the Germans utilized to bring the ore to Germany and even ways to obtain the ore from Norway itself, apparently willing to trade with the Germans in a state of war.
“Invading the Soviet Union on such a vast scale was not always the plan. It was forced on them for the reasons outlined in my previous post. There was also the idea that having beated in six weeks a five-million-strong army in the West, then taking down the USSR would not be beyond their powers.”
Hitler clearly intended to invade the east in order to occupy more living space for the “Aryan” race, he laid out his plan in Mein Kampf. It is doubtful that Poland would cut it, let alone only the half of Poland Germany actually took during the invasion, so some type of invasion of the Soviet Union was inevitable, if they wanted to be in accordance with National Socialist ideology. As I have explained to you before, they had simply hoped that the British would be out of the picture by then, leaving them free to invade the east without fighting a two-front war. In fact, Hitler and his higher-ups probably would have avoided war with the west entirely if such an option was available to them.
“Consequently, If Hitler hadn’t greatly expanded its size and operational parameters, then the war probably would have ended with a Soviet victory in 1941”
During the first year of the war in the east, the Red Army was in poor condition, most of their equipment and vehicles were obsolete by modern standards and their method of organizing the army was influenced by ideology not experience. Even some of their more modern equipment proved to not be very reliable in field conditions. It wasn’t until 1942 that they began to turn some of these things around and start to gain ground on the Germans. The idea that the Soviets would’ve been able to not only beat back a German invasion, but launch a counter invasion resulting in German surrender in under just 1 year in any scenario if Hitler didn’t expand Eastern Front operations is highly doubtful with the state the Red Army was in throughout the entirety of 1941. They did not yet possess the means to successfully invade Germany, let alone the logistical base to support such an invasion. And none of this debunks the explanation I gave to you on how under National Socialism, an invasion of the Soviet Union was inevitable.
“Because Molotov demanded the following in return:”
If the Germans were truly desperate for imports from the Soviet Union, would they not have accepted the deal, as most of those points don’t directly interfere with Germany’s ability to wage war against England, its only remaining opponent at the time. And again, I remind you that an invasion of the Soviet Union by Germany was inevitable so long as it operated under National Socialism, the question was whether the invasion would be sooner or later.
“An academic article in PDF form I discovered online when I searched under “Nazi Privatisation”. I would suggest you search for it yourself and read it.”
No titles, no names, no authors, no journals, and no institutions. I must say, that is very helpful.
“Yes, it does. For example, the Nazis had no control over the insurance industry. Only concerns that directly impacted rearmament and infrastructure interested Hitler.”
Yes, Hitler brought control of the means of production and distribution of goods under the purview of the state. I don’t know much about insurance companies in National Socialist Germany, but even if that were the case it doesn’t inherently destroy the vision of what Socialism is. Something like insurance doesn’t necessarily fit within that frame since it is not technically considered a means of production, producing commodities for society, only to provide compensation if existing things are damaged or destroyed. I do agree that Hitler probably did not have much to gain from seizing insurance companies as he did by seizing all of Germany’s industry.
“I told you that about three posts back.”
“Not true, for reasons already stated.”
“Again, not true. Also, I’ve previously answered this point also.”
“Once more, I refer you to my previous posts.”
I’ve lumped these replies together because the previous replies they allude to have not worked to address anything I have said to you, nor the replies I’ve given after your initial responses. In no cases did the NSDAP actually hand over control of industries they already held to private interests. They always retained control of the basic operations of the business and determined the course that business would go, they simply conned would-be investors into purchasing nominal ownership.
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@ayeshazhukov “Oh, right, so you agree now that Article 153 was not Hitler's document abolishing private property? Some progress then! Article 153 was suspended so that property could be stripped from those Hitler viewed as enemies of the Nazis. It was not an attempt to turn privately run businesses into state-owned enterprises.”
That’s what it was most commonly being used for. The Germans did outright seize all businesses and industries that were run by people not considered “Aryan” by the state, but removing Article 153 was still used for so-called “Ayran-ran” businesses that refused to accept the state’s initial ultimatum.
And losing Article 153 did effectively mean there was no longer a right to private property, as it gave the state the power to take what it pleased without question. Somebody’s house and land could’ve just as easily been seized, as sometimes did happen with individuals the state didn’t like. Just because the state wasn’t zeroing in on you at the moment didn’t necessarily mean it could not later down the line. There was no longer a legal right to private property anymore.
“Yes, but only in the service of Hitler two main concerns, rearming Germany and improving infrastructure.”
It was used to implement de facto state control of all industries that can be considered a “means of production” as well as give the state a central role in deciding where everything produced is sent. I would like to point out that immediately following the end of the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks placed a high emphasis on modernizing the military and much of their attention went to heavy industry and arms production, arguably more so than other industries. Again, I would like to ask that had Hitler actually won the war and the NSDAP entered a period of peace, do you believe they would’ve handed control of everything back over to the private sector?
“I know this. I made direct reference to it in the previous post. He refused to build military aircraft. Why are you repeating this, as it doesn't support your argument?”
I brought him up because his circumstances do fit in with my point considering the state seized his business from him when he refused to adhere to the ultimatum, that’s a pretty difficult thing to argue against. Any owners like Junkers who refused to kneel to state demands likewise had their companies stolen from them. In the case of business owners who did adhere to state demands, the state still took a very active role in running their businesses by making decisions on its behalf and controlling the flow of resources and labor, leaving the owners in a mostly powerless figurehead position with only nominal control over their own businesses. This isn’t Capitalism, this is the state controlling the means of production. This is arguably much more in-line with Socialism than Capitalism, which explicitly rejects state involvement in the economy.
“Not at all it was the rescinding of Article 153 that did that. Something you stated yourself twice in your above paragraphs. LOL!”
Pardon me, I misspoke. One would assume you would understand that and proceed accordingly. I guess not.
It’s very naïve to think that such political maneuvering to quell opposition was exclusive to National Socialism. Once again, you see much of the same thing in other Socialist nations, not known for their good human rights records. And in most cases of it being implemented, they make it illegal to voice opposition to their chosen variant of Socialism, quelling opposition from even rival Socialist variants. This was some years ago while I was still in college and I saw one day that some group was advertising themselves on campus with flyers. They were called the Party for Socialism and Liberation and these flyers outlined their stances on a few issues. One of those things was a declaration that they supported free speech except in cases of hate speech and speech that promotes a return to Capitalism. Now anything smart enough to be in college should be fully aware that this meant they didn’t really support freedom of speech, only speech approved by their ideology, with all other speech being labeled as either “hate speech” or speech “promoting a return to Capitalism.” It’s no wonder that Socialism often goes hand-in-hand with authoritarianism. The Bolsheviks targeted and killed Mensheviks during the Russian Revolution, despite the fact that Mensheviks also subscribed to Socialism, just a different variant that the Bolsheviks followed. Again, you’re operating under the assumption that Socialists aren’t capable of conducting these types of activities when they often do.
“People often contradict themselves, whatever their creed. It’s not just socialists who do it. LOL. One example is Adolf Hitler. He often contradicted himself, and he wasn’t a socialist.”
Yes, people as a whole often do. In the political sphere, we’ve seen Socialists like Hitler do it all the time, even if it apparently goes against their ideology. One example I will give is of how so many Socialists want the U.S. to end the embargo on Cuba, including self-proclaimed Marxist-Leninists. Marxism considers trade between large powerful nations and smaller ones to be inherently exploitative, with the larger state able to force a better deal for itself at the expense of the smaller state. So all these Marxist-Leninists advocating the end of the embargo are essentially asking the U.S. to exploit Socialist Cuba from the view of their ideology. I would argue we tend to see more of it among Socialists than non-Socialists.
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@ayeshazhukov “Except they didn’t, as I have demonstrated a number of times.”
You didn’t. The state held de facto control of all industries involved in the production of goods, as well as control over their distribution and the flow of resources.
“If you can find me a passage in Das Kapital that reads “Socialism will be achieved through ruthless military action against neighbouring states and the enslavement of their people for the enrichment of a fascist empire” then I’ll concede the point. LOL.”
So you’re telling me that you believe a world revolution will be peaceful? Marxists do want world revolution. It’s pretty naïve to believe such an endeavor doesn’t automatically involve conquest. Excluding National Socialism, we’ve already seen Socialist states attempt to do that. In the early 20s, the Soviet Union invaded the west. They conquered Ukraine and incorporated it into the Soviet Union against the wishes of the Ukrainian people. They invaded Poland at the same time, but suffered a massive defeat at the hands of the Polish Army, driving them well past their own border and giving Poland control of what is now Western Belarus until WWII. These invasions were ideologically motivated. And we don’t need to look to theory to discuss Socialism’s position on slavery, we can see from practice that Socialist nations have already enslaved their own people.
“As opposed to taking from the individual in the name of business bosses and shareholders? Because that’s what capitalism does.”
No, what Capitalism does is call for private control of the means of production and distribution of goods. We don’t see the kind of theft under Capitalism that we see under Socialism, as most interactions done in a free market are done voluntarily. Legally, somebody cannot take anything you own unless they have some kind of stake in it or you have a debt to them that you will not or cannot pay. This is not to say that things are always fair, but they are certainly more fair than an entire state taking what it pleases without compensation and stripping you of your human rights. Taking what from the individual in the name of bosses and shareholders may I ask? If you have no relation to the business they head, they simply have no power over you. If you work for them, they have little power over you once you leave work for the day and you possess the ability to quit any time you want. Under Socialism, which is most often done through the state, you cannot escape without straight up fleeing the country, which many have done over the course of the 20th and 21st centuries.
“There were socialist elements within the NSDAP from the old days because it was originally a socialist party, but once Hitler got into power, none of those ideals held true. Indeed, That’s why the industrialists loved him because they and their shareholders gained huge profits from Hitler’s mass privatisation of state-owned assets and his titanic rearmament programme, which was paid for with public money which went into the pockets of private businesses like Krupp, Heinkel, and Messerschmitt.”
The party always had Socialist elements and did implement Socialistic practices once it obtained power. Hitler only began to pay lip service to German industrialists and elites around 1931 because he wanted their help for him to gain power (he already had the support of large portions of the German working class). Upon actually gaining power, he fulfilled virtually none of the promises he had made to the industrialists and immediately began the process of incorporating their companies into the state, as was the plan. Most businesses and industries actually saw lower profits (if you could call them that since the state was now the primary decision-maker in their activities) during the National Socialist years and before. Again, the state never relinquished control of anything it held, it always retained control of the day-to-day operations of everything. Companies that refused to comply were outright seized and companies that did choose to comply were subject to so much state oversight and approval that one cannot seriously argue the state wasn’t controlling the business. In the case of the Krupps, for example, they gradually lost control of their business as the 30s dragged on and Germany got closer to war. It got to the point where Gustav Krupp was little more than a figurehead in his own business. His son, Alfried, did excerpt more control over the company, but Alfried was an outspoken supporter of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party who held several government positions throughout the 30s and WWII, which leads one to question whether he was a private individual running a business or a state official.
“To get to the core of Hitler’s Reich you have to ask yourself three questions. Who owns the means of production, who profits from it, and in whose interests does production take place?”
Well the state had clear control of the means of production in Germany, as we have established. It was primarily the state that profited from such an arrangement, as one of their powers was the ability to dictate how much money businesses could make. Finally, it was in the state’s interest in what production took place, as the ordinary German people, and most businessmen, had little need or desire for tanks, bombs, warplanes, heavy guns, and ammunition.
“By 1939, the Nazi state was facing a financial meltdown, because all the money was going into private hands.”
Germany was facing a financial crisis due to the large amount of spending that had been done in the pursuit of its Socialist policies. TIK explains this in other videos. Hitler’s solution to solving this problem, one that is faced by all Socialist nations, was to syphene out resources, money, and valuables from conquered countries back into Germany.
“He declared himself tax-exempt!”
Yes, the leaders of Socialist nations enjoyed many luxuries not granted to the common people. Once again, we reach a point where you levy a criticism against National Socialist Germany which you present as a reason for why it could not have been a Socialist country, but that reason also applies to other Socialist nations as well, whose leaders had many perks and privileges.
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@ayeshazhukov “It does do that. The UK National Health Service for a start does it. And any state-owned utility like schools, for example, is socialist in principle.”
Yes, one of the worst healthcare systems in Europe, it doesn’t help to prove your point much. As for schools, we again get into the question if it is a means of production, which you could argue either way depending on your view of what can count as a product. If you consider knowledge to be a product or commodity, then public schools would be Socialistic along that line of reasoning.
“No I am not. The Nazis were not socialists. Stop putting words into my mouth.”
You’re essentially doing that to yourself. The question of what National Socialism is is irrelevant to this particular criticism. I’m pointing out that almost all of your reasons given for why you don’t think they were Socialists could also be applied quite easily to other Socialist nations like the Soviet Union, Cubs, Red China, etc. For example, you talked about individuals in power under National Socialism using the system to enrich themselves, something that also exists in every Socialist country. You also mentioned conquest and social divisions, to which both are also regularly seen in Socialist nations. These particular reasons cannot be used to debunk a claim that the National Socialists weren’t Socialists considering they all happened in Socialist countries as well. In order to address such a claim, we must apply the definition of Socialism to these nations to see if they fit it. Under Merriam-Webster’s definition, which I use, it fits.
“All counties have policies focusing on the social.”
But not every country seeks to place control of all of the means of production in the nation into the hands of the state, only Socialist nations do. Considering Germany under the NSDAP did just that, I conclude that National Socialism was a variant of Socialism.
“In your schools, clearly. But the same isn’t true of the UK.”
Evidently there is if you are English and were taught the National Socialists allowed for private enterprise. In most of the world, the economic policies of National Socialist Germany are not touched upon much.
“No, this is not true. And you are simply repeating yourself again.”
Yes, there was. And you’ve been repeating yourself quite a bit since your initial reply, I just wanted to be polite. Again, I tell you to look into the historiography of the topic, there was a fairly big push immediately after WWII to label National Socialism as “Far Right” and even “Capitalist” in some circles, usually left-wing academics. In the Soviet Union, such nonsense as claiming that National Socialism and Fascism were evolutions of Capitalism were devised and spread, and some uninformed leftists still believe that in the present.
“Er… no. It was quite clear what they were, even back then.”
There was debate over what it was in the 30s, it wasn’t cut and dry, nor was it widely accepted as being one thing or another. Ideologically, it was very left-wing economically, but was also heavily nationalist at a time where most Socialist parties and movements were dominated by derivatives of Marxism, which was internationalist. Many people at the time did not know what to think of that. It was only after the war that the push to distance it from Socialism led to most people not associating it with Socialism.
“What constitutes “far right” shifts over time and certain policies Hitler had introduced have been covertly adopted by even the centre right. For example mass privatisation to funnel public money into private accounts. State control of the markets to benefit capitalist corporations. Suspension of corporate regulations. There’s a big list.”
The fact that it is able to shift is one big reason why I deem the Left-Right spectrum to be obsolete, it does not give you an accurate picture of what an ideology is just with the “Left” or “Right” label. And virtually no economic policy Hitler implemented was later adopted by right-of-center parties, which tended to favor Capitalism over Socialism, so they usually didn’t have the state seize private industries like Hitler had done. It’s the political Left that prefers to do that. And as I’ve explained before, in no case of National Socialist “privatization” did the state actually relinquish control of something to a private entity. Rather, sone private entity got conned into buying nominal ownership of something while the state continued to hold the real power in the relationship.
“You’re wrong. The divide is between people who have wealth, privilege, and power, and then the rest of us.”
There are powerful and privileged people on both sides of the spectrum. As I explained to you before, Socialist nations have a very hierarchical social structure, arguably more so than most Capitalist nations, with the party elites being much richer than the common people they claim to be acting in the best interests of.
Once again, you have levied a criticism against something that applies just as easily to the other side. The Left-Right spectrum is mostly meaningless in the 21st century.
“And I’m sure you are aware that US corporations heavily financed both the Soviets and the Nazis right up until 1945. Does that make them also socialist? LOL”
Yes they did, American Capitalist investors were looking for a return on an investment (Not until 1945 though, that’s post-war political propaganda. In actuality, the state had seized control of the investments by the time the war started, as it had done with every other means of production in the country.) Capitalists will invest in anything they believe they can get a return on, look at how much they do business with Red China today. Considering how many human rights abuses Socialist nations tend to commit, whether or not investors from Capitalist nations should help to enable that by doing business with them is more of a moral question than an ideological one. As for National Socialist Germany and the Soviet Union, taking other peoples’ money doesn’t disqualify them from being Socialists. In fact, taking other peoples’ money is exactly what Socialism does. Once again, we’ve seen similar things happen with other Socialist countries. In the present, many so-called Socialists are actually calling for it. Remember how I mentioned they want an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba? Doing that would open up Cuba to American capital, would it not?
“No, they are not.”
Yes they are, the conclusion that Hitler was Capitalistic is not nearly as dominant now as it was in the post-war years. More and more academics are seriously considering the Socialist argument. TIK puts a lot of research into his work and his assertion that the National Socialists were Socialists is valid. You acknowledge his work on more technical matters but reject his ideological reports, while he appears to approach both the same way.
And I may point out that the idea that National Socialism is “Far Right” and Capitalist was pushed out almost exclusively through the Soviet Union, Communist organizations, and individuals associated with those things. The reasoning they gave was lacking, usually comparing it to Marxism, not Socialism and nobody is making the claim that National Socialism was a variant of Marxism.
“from the American right because they simply cannot fact the fact that he was one of their own”
The American Right has virtually nothing in common with National Socialism since it rejects Socialism and supports individual rights. In contrast, National Socialism calls for a Socialist economic system and the restriction of individual rights.
Only a left-wing nutcase ignorant of politics and economics would seriously believe National Socialism has a lot in common with a movement with mostly Libertarian economic beliefs and strong support for limited government (something that cannot coexist with Socialism).
“you appear to be missing the point that there has never been a purely socialist state”
And my entire criticism of the “Socialism has never been tried” crowd flew completely over your head. When you have movement after movement done in the name of a political ideology and each one fails, taking untold numbers of human lives down with it, with ideologues screaming “NO! That time didn’t count!” at what point do you realize that Socialism is a failed utopian ideology? Everything in life needs accountability and when you claim there has never been a physical application of an ideology when in reality, dozens if not hundreds of movements have sought power in its name, you’re not holding that ideology accountable for the atrocities done as a result of the policies derived from it.
“Nationalism is diametrically opposite to the communist ideal”
It is not, however, diametrically opposite to Socialism. Communism is not Socialism, merely one variation of it. You, like so many others, seem to be falling for the same trick that seeks to lead everyone into thinking that “all Socialism” is just the Marxian-derived versions of it. Socialism itself pre-dates Marx’s birth by decades and can be nationalist or internationalist, or have no strong stance on the topic. Nationalistic Socialist movements have existed outside of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and Italian National Fascist Party. Not too long ago, TIK made a video about the Czech National Socialist Party, which predates both the NSDAP and PNF by over 20 years.
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@ayeshazhukov “Nope. They were always nationalist. Stalin didn’t even try to engage in the export of socialist revolution. He had Trotsky murdered.”
From the time they seized control up until Operation Barbarossa, nationalism was not allowed. The state cracked down hard on cultural activities. They barred people from practicing religion, abolished all non-Revolutionary holidays, banned the praise of pre-Revolutionary historical figures, and even pushed for people to dress more modern to do away with the traditional dress that many in the former Russian Empire still wore into the 20th century. As a whole, Russian culture was suppressed throughout the 20s and 30s, with minorities like the Ukrainians and the Caucasus peoples having it even tougher, sometimes not even being allowed to use their native language. All movements even remotely seen as nationalist were brutally suppressed. After the Germans invaded in 1941 and the Soviet higher-ups needed ways to rally the people, only then were many of the previous policies reversed. Immediately, it became OK to go to church again, OK to talk about national heroes like Alexander Nevsky and Peter the Great again (whose stories and likenesses were now often employed for propaganda purposes), and OK to wear traditional dress again (also employed for propagandistic purposes). They egged on a new type of Soviet nationalism that remained in some form or another for the remainder of the Soviet Union’s existence and even after among older Russians.
Even before Stalin gained power, the Soviet Union had already tried to export the revolution, but the Polish Army crushed their invasion attempt in 1920, virtually destroying the Red Army. Another invasion attempt not long after the first was bound to fail. Stalin did have Trotsky murdered, and Lenin also had all the Mensheviks murdered, as they were rival Socialists. None of this disqualifies Bolshevism from being a form of Socialism.
“Your thinking is both broad and narrow. It expands and contracts to make the facts fit your argument. LOL.”
Socialism is primarily an economic ideology, not a social one. Theoretically, a Socialist state can be free to have whatever kinds of social policies it wants and remain Socialist so long as the economy is still being run by Socialism, which is collective and/or state control of the means of production and distribution of goods. You know which definition I use, so think back to it and ask if nationalism goes against it. The question of nationalism is neither broad nor narrow, it is simply whether or not it conflicts with Socialism, which it doesn’t according to Merriam-Webster’s definition.
“Marxist socialism is an evaluation based on the tenets of capitalism. The two are inextricably linked. Without capitalism, there wouldn’t be socialism. Unrestricted capitalism generated socialism.”
Marxist Socialism itself is not related to Capitalism however, Marx adopted his own take on Socialism to explicitly reject Capitalism. He did not begin as a Capitalist and adjust the ideology accordingly, he began with existing Socialist ideas and concepts. Marxism directly evolved from older Socialist ideologies, not Capitalism. Again, I had explained this in my initial comment. Marxism is not a “variant” of Capitalism. It was (still is I guess) a variant of Socialism developed with the purpose of rejecting Capitalism. Going back to the family tree analogy, its “father” would be Socialism, not Capitalism.
‘Most sensible countries embrace both capitalist and socialist ideologies. You wouldn’t call Germany in 2022 a socialist country, but they’re about to nationalise gas giant Uniper in an effort to secure energy supplies in the face of the war in Ukraine.”
And this reply has nothing to do with ideology nor does it debunk my explanation of how variants of ideologies branch out, resulting in National Socialism being related to Marxist-Leninism. It seems to be an unrelated statement made to steer the conversation somewhere else.
“They also supported capitalism. Again, pointing to something which is state-owned and saying ‘That proves they were socialist’ is just crazy talk.”
They didn’t. In both cases, they seized control of the means of production and placed it under the state, in accordance with their ideology. Considering Capitalism is explicitly defined as when the state does not control the means of production or interfere in the economy, they implemented the exact opposite of what Capitalist economic theory calls for.
“I have no idea who you think you're arguing with, but it isn’t me.”
Try reading it again. It applies to you perfectly since you appear to be making excuses on behalf of Socialism by denying that these tyrannical countries were Socialist. Modern day Socialists use this line of reasoning all the time when they call for it to be tried again.
“Sweden and Denmark are considered socialist and they’re not totalitarian states. You are confusing communism with socialism and dictatorships with both.”
The Scandinavian countries are not considered Socialist because their governments do not control their means of production or distribution of goods. They are free market Capitalist economies with very high individual taxes and VATs and large social safety nets. I suspect that you haven’t read my addressal of that in the previous reply yet, so I expect to be hearing about it again soon.
“You don’t listen, do you? You’re wrapped up in your own ideological quagmire.”
As are you considering you don’t react to most of my points and ignore Merriam-Webster’s definition in favor of Cambridge’s, which is vague, incomplete, and removed from the economic nature of Socialism.
“But this is also true of you. You put forward a very narrow definition of socialism, stripped of all its meaning, and when something contradicts that, you reject is.”
No, I put forward a dictionary definition of it and apply that definition to the situation. You put forward a very selective and politically biased definition of it that you apply differently to different Socialist states. For example, you criticize National Socialist Germany for corruption, conquest, and divisions despite the fact that all of that and more also existed in virtually every other Socialist nation. You apply your definition of Socialism selectively in order to align with you belief that National Socialism cannot be Socialism, ignorant of the fact that it aligns with the other Socialist nations quite well when that definition is applied fairly to all nations.
“But the results turned out the same, because whatever ideologies they at times employed, the underlining theme was the control of natural resources and the power to carry this out.”
And you’ve completely ignored most of my comment by rejecting the influence of ideology as well as the period in history in which it took place. From pretty much the start of human civilization to about WWI, people conquered one another and there wasn’t much debate over it. A nation doing something in centuries past when most other nations were engaged in the same thing is a bit of a different situation to one nation doing it closer to the present at a time when most of the developed world condemned such practices.
Besides, you’ve defeated your own argument. By claiming “whatever ideologies they at times employed” without regard to the results indicate you don’t believe the ideologies followed by the British and Americans in the 19th century (namely Liberalism and Capitalism) had much, or at least not everything, to do with the immoral acts you mention. Again, the same cannot be said for National Socialism and Marxism.
“there was no blueprint mapped out as to how to create of communist state”
But, as you said, they were following Marxist ideology and basing their new system around that. Same with the National Socialists. This is fundamentally different from the British, who gradually evolved politically over millennia from monarchy to liberalism and from the Americans, who used a variety of sources to plan theirs. Again, you are attempting to make excuses for authoritarian states explicitly founded upon Socialist ideologies.
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@ayeshazhukov “Why would you want to do that? Again, they are one of the same.”
I said “if.” I clarified it both ways because some do consider the U.S. to be an entirely new entity after the Revolution since they were ruled by the British before it, with British-appointed governors and virtually no unity among the individual colonies.
“Er… no. It was only last year that America fled Afghanistan, following the longest war in the history of the USA, leaving behind tens of thousands of dead. As for slavery, to give one example, privatised US prisoner have inmates working for free.”
I wouldn’t consider a war to be mass murder since there are two sides killing each other, as mass murder tends to be one-sided and done outside of wars (or within them but in distinct situations, like the victims being unarmed). As for the prison thing, it is a punishment done as a result of a crime committed. In Socialist nations, you’re just enslaved, innocent or guilty.
Let’s look on the other side, we see a literal genocide going on in China against its western populations, mass murder committed on the reugular in North Korea, and human rights abuses and shortages of essential goods going on in Cuba and Vezezuela. In less related news, we see Russia, a nation that heavily celebrates its Communist heritage, invading Ukraine and getting beaten pretty badly.
“Except the enslaved. LOL.”
And many of the enslaved came from societies that also practiced it. It was seen as a normal thing by most of the world until the 18th and 19th centuries.
“The violation of human rights are taking place in many countries all over the world, and has nothing to do with a specific ideology”
It has nothing to do with “empire” either as you asserted previously. Small states see the same kinds of actions. Iraq War atrocities certainly are regrettable, but the death toll was relatively low and many of its perpetrators were charged. I’m mostly speaking of the ongoing atrocities that continue to kill thousands.
“But you destroy your argument by making continual reference to Nazi Germany which was not a socialist state. Something which I have demonstrated to you over and over again.”
You’ve never demonstrated to me that National Socialism isn’t Socialism. In fact, the more you try, the less convinced I am since you don’t apply your definition equally or fully explain yourself. Under Merriam-Webster’s definition, The NSDAP was clearly a Socialist organization. Besides, I’ve mentioned cases of Socialist states aside from NSDAP Germany warring with their neighbors, such as the Soviet Union and Red China, both of whom warred against one or more of their neighbors in a war of conquest. In East Asia, both North Korea and North Vietnam invaded their southern counterparts with the intention of absorbing them into their own country, which is conquest.
“That is a distortion. Worldwide revolution doesn’t equate to military invasion by a foreign power.”
It isn’t to anyone with common sense. The likelihood of the entire world erupting in revolution is essentially none. Therefore, for the world to fall under the revolutionary ideology, there must be invasions by foreign powers. I’ve already mentioned several such examples of Marxist states invading their neighbors to spread the revolution.
“Irrelevant”
Not at all. And you’re ignoring my pointing out that the Germans were buying ore off of the Noreweigians themselves before they invaded Scandinavia.
“I’ve already answered this. Hitler wanted Germany returned to its 1918 borders lost to it under the The Treaty of Versailles, this also included the land and resources conceded by the Soviets to Germany under the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk.”
This doesn’t debunk the fact that Hitler wanted Eastern living space so the “Aryan” race can grow. Nor does it debunk the fact that invasion of the Soviet Union was inevitable since most of that land ceded in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was lost following Germany’s defeat in WWI and in the hands of the Soviets by 1940.
“You're an idiot. LOL.”
And you’ve really said nothing that debunks any of my claims, while ducking most of my criticisms of your claims. In fact, the longer this conversation drags on, the more emotional, biased, and unreasonable your responses have become. At first, you seemed reasonable, but now not so much. I make no attempt to hide the fact that I have biases, everyone has them to some degree. However, I try to look at things objectively and keep my analysis void of emotion (especially void of insults when I’ve run out of proper arguments). Instead of getting more aggressive once your talking points fail, take some time to think of an intelligent reply.
“You know nothing about this.”
I know quite a bit about the subject actually. Anyone who does know that the Red Army was in terrible condition in 1941 so the notion that it was capable of beating back the invasion and launching a counteroffensive all the way into Germany before the year 1941 was over is just plain absurd, especially considering their casualties dwarfed that of the Germans. They did not yet have the logistics that would entail going all the way the Germany, they could not have won the war in 1941 in any scenario whether they beat back the initial invasion or not.
“This is you trying to distort the argument. I said that an invasion of the SU on such a scale was not Hitler’s original intention. His plan was to restore Germany’s 1918 borders, which would also involve the land handed over to Germany by the Soviets during WW1.”
Re-read a previous reply, the Soviets were in control of most of that Brest-Litovsk land by 1940. And Hitler’s plans were to eventually stretch all the way to the Ural mountains.
“This was not part of the economic deal, which was already in place, but instead conditional on the Soviets joining the Axis Alliance, you fucking halfwit. You clearly don’t even remember what you wrote in your last post. LOL.”
Insults usually result from those who have been outsmarted. I understand that you don’t like to lose, but there is no need to be a poor sport about it. You fail to recognize the reality that had the Soviets joined the Axis alliance, relations between them and Germany would’ve been closer, likely allowing Germany easier access to Soviet resources.
“Saying “and again, I remind you” doesn’t give what you say any weight at all, because clearly you are arguing from a position of complete ignorance. LOL.”
It carries almost as little weight as giving quotes with no citations and “I addressed this already.”
You clearly aren’t bothering to read my replies in their entirety.
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@ayeshazhukov “Just pull your finger out and do what I did. Google ‘Nazi Privatisation.’”
Once again, very helpful. You do realize the burden of proof is on who makes a claim, right?
“Hitler didn’t nationalise German industry. There were very few nationalisations during the time he was in power.”
He nationalized virtually all of the industries (that is, industries that produce things through factories). The state seized control of the means of production and distribution of goods, in accordance with National Socialist ideology.
“On the contrary, you have chosen to ignore the points I have raised, and instead, like some rote taught imbecile, choose to repeat your same discredited argument over and over again. But, as they say 'There's no cure for dumb.'”
I try not to ignore the points of others. I did refer back to your previous posts and they all failed to address my criticisms.
You seem to be getting more mad as this drags on. Perhaps you should take a break. Throwing around insults only makes you come off worse.
To think, they always told us Europeans were more intelligent . . . they must’ve been referring to Continental Europeans.
“Simply not true. Here’s again an example I gave a couple of posts back”
And as I’ve explained to you, the state was in control of means of production. The NSDAP conning people into buying nominal ownership of a company did not change that. It was the state running the day-to-day operations of the businesses in Germany. When the state is directing what a business does, it is not privately controlled, it has become a government ministry in all but name.
“In short, your entire argument consists of a bigoted disregard for the facts.”
So you consider it to be bigotry to be pointing out the economic realities of National Socialist Germany because the truth doesn’t align with your political beliefs?
Most of “my entire argument” you never bothered to address.
“Any supposition that you can here to debate with a rational open mind has been completely discredited by your inability to even accept plain historical fact. Why don’t you actually do some research instead of posting these long rambling, self-contradictory and ultimately time-wasting posts?”
“Rational open minds” don’t typically resort to insults when their points have been refuted, children do. Furthermore, you speak of “plain historical fact,” but your entire premise is based on a personal idea of what Socialism is (one that you apply selectively based around your preconceived stance on whether the item in question is Socialist or not), not one found in a dictionary. The explanation you showed from Cambridge is flawed and mostly meaningless, as I have shown. Reading your various replies never gave me the sense that research was put into it, only political opinion, with that opinion getting louder and more irrational the longer the reply dragged on.
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@ayeshazhukov “I will confine this post to answering points I find interesting and will ignore issues I have adequately addressed in my previous posts, but which you have chosen to ignore.”
I’ve replied to everything you have said to me, otherwise it wouldn’t have taken me seven comments just to get that first reply in. On the contrary, it is you who is opting to ignore the majority of my response to you. At least with this post, you acknowledge that you will be conceding the rest of the discussion.
“In 2014, the . . .”
I’d be curious as to what the metrics of their studies are, as many of these organizations only look at things such as accessibility, not the actual quality of the healthcare. Considering it’s fairly uncommon to see Canadians and Europeans traveling to America for cancer treatment, I’d say it isn’t that simple.
“The problem is that your reductive definition of socialism fails to acknowledge that every country in the world employs socialist policies to some degree”
I’ve said to you since the very beginning that the definition I use comes from Merriam-Webster. It defines it as “any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.” This definition clearly outlines the core aspect of Socialism, which is state control of the means of production. The means of production, most often considered to be the industry and institutions that produce goods, are to be administered under the state. Your assertion that there are shades of gray does not deny the fact that a state in which all the means of production are state-controlled is a Socialist state. Considering the NSDAP in Germany seized control of the means of production and distribution of goods, Germany was a Socialist state during their reign by Merriam-Webster’s definition. Now let’s take a look at yours:
Cambridge says it is “the set of beliefs that states that all people are equal and should share equally in a country's money, or the political systems based on these beliefs.” Now excluding the fact that Cambridge has more accurate definitions available that you have chosen to ignore, this definition is vague and mostly meaningless. It’s detached from the historical reality that nearly every form of Socialism doesn’t believe in that kind of equality and from the economic reality that an economic ideology is not simply “sharing money.” If Cambridge’s definition was widely accepted, we would be saying that private charitable organizations are Socialist and that people who regularly donate to charitable causes are Socialists, which is not true. Furthermore, you haven’t even been following this definition faithfully throughout our discussion, you add your own beliefs onto it, creating your own definition of Socialism rather than one based on a consensus.
If the state is controlling the means of production and distribution of goods in a country, then it is Socialist. In every failed state we talked about, National Socialist Germany included, the state controlled the means of production and distribution of goods.
“I never used that claim to debunk the idea that the Nazis were socialist. I instead pointed to the means they used to funnel money out of the public purse into private hands”
Privatization is generally considered to be when something that was state-operated is handed over to private entities. What Germany did under the NSDAP was basically the exact opposite of that. Almost immediately, the NSDAP started seizing private businesses and placed them in the control of the state. It was the state that had the ability to make decisions on behalf of the business, control the use of labor through state-run labor organizations, control the flow of resources, and even dictate how much money companies were allowed to make. The money evidently was not going into private hands, considering most private businesses say a decrease in profits during this time, not an increase.
The fact that I’ve had to tell you this three times now only convinces me further that you haven’t been bothering to read most of the comments (which are mine, do a google search on my sentences if you aren’t convinced).
“It isn’t so obsolete. What’s happened is that the so-called centre ground has moved so far to the right, that someone like Eisenhower would now be considered a left-wing radical.”
No, what’s happened is we’re still using a spectrum devised in the 1790s in a place where the only two ideologies acknowledged were Republicanism and Monarchism, before Socialism and all of its variants even became a widely known thing. It’s mostly meaningless, as oftentimes ideologies that are right next to each other on the spectrum have little in common. National Socialism has a lot more in common with Marxist-Leninism than it does with Classical Liberalism, yet fools like to place it closer to Classical Liberalism than Marxist-Leninism.
People such as yourself would probably scream “Nazi” when faced with a 21st century individual holding all of Eisenhower’s 1950s political, economic, and social views, so yes I suppose he would be seen as a left-wing radical under those circumstances.
“Except the implementation of mass privatisaton . . .”
Read the above reply, there was no “privatization” in Germany in the 1930s under the modern definition of the term.
“Also huge amounts were spent on the military, and the use of the said military to smash up other countries to capture their resources.”
Yes, as Socialist nations often do. Have you forgotten already the various examples I’ve given you of Socialist nations aside from National Socialist Germany waging wars of conquest? That was one of the things you’re refusing to address, so I assume you have forgotten.
“A private entity that then received all the profits of that denationalised industry.”
What profits? The state dictated their allowed pay, much like how a government allocates money to one of its ministries. And as I said before, most businesses saw a loss in “profits” during the NSDAP years.
“Not true”
Yes true, once the war started, all investments were lost. American companies that invested, such as Ford, no longer had any control over their German subsidiaries nor were they given compensation for their losses. As with every other means of production in Germany, the state was running the day-to-day operations of the business, there was little, if anything, American companies could do to influence their German subsidiaries. Considering the U.S. and Germany would soon be at war with each other, it would be quite odd as an NSDAP official to allow an American company to control some of your factories, would it? And you mention Hans Helms to back you up, a Marxist who like many others had a vested interest in portraying National Socialism to be Capitalitic.
“whereas his ideological reports are beholden to right-wing stooges, intent on rewriting history”
This right here tells me you have no grasp on how the study of history actually works, specifically what historiography is. It may surprise you to hear that different interpretations of past events pop up all the time in academic circles. History is essentially “rewritten” quite regularly. Remember how schoolchildren used to be taught that everyone in the world in 1492 except Columbus thought the Earth was flat? Has history been rewritten because we no longer support that assumption? Technically yes, it has been rewritten to reflect a more accurate picture of the historical situation. Likewise, academics are beginning to move away from the dogmatic Marxist nonsense pumped into the field of history in the post-war years regarding the nature of National Socialism, in favor of a more accurate picture of what National Socialism actually looked like economically.
“leading historians states Hitler was not a socialist, TIK rejects it out of hand”
Because a historian is not necessarily an economist. TIK has spoken about this before in other videos, talking about how he sees historians describing Socialism to a tee, but concluding it to be “Capitalism” based off of their ignorance of what Socialism and Capitalism actually mean economically, which is quite important considering both are economic theories. I have given you a personal anecdote in a previous comment regarding a former history professor of mine who had a weak understanding of what Socialism and Capitalism were, which led him to conclude the NSDAP could not have been Socialist in his mind.
“I have read through the rest of your comments”
Doubt
“ I feel there is nothing to be gained in continuing”
Very well, I accept your surrender.
“I genuinely believe you are an idiot”
A man is entitled to his opinion, but I do consider that to be quite funny considering your apparent ignorance of the history being discussed here and your refusal to address most of my criticisms of your argument, large sections of which were based on assumptions that are just plain incorrect when looking at the evidence. I’m still chuckling over your claim that the Soviet Union was nationalist since day 1 of its existence.
As for my opinion of you. No, I don't believe you are an idiot. I know it.
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@ayeshazhukov “I will confine this post to answering points I find interesting and will ignore issues I have adequately addressed in my previous posts, but which you have chosen to ignore.”
We’ve been over this. You choose to ignore points you cannot refute, you already said this to me in your last reply. It’s pretty obvious you are selectively choosing which topics you feel you have the strongest argument over, as there does not appear to be any other common features of what you do decide to acknowledge. The main discussion is on whether or not National Socialism is a form of Socialism, and admittedly the conversation splintered in many different directions. Some things you choose to continue the conversation on do relate to the original topic, but many others don’t. If that is the case, it’s honestly a bit sad because even with the things you do decide to cover, your points are quite weak.
“No, I’m not conceding anything”
You just did. Refusal to counter somebody else’s rebuttal is conceding the argument.
“Why do you think I’d be interested in talking to you about these matters any further?”
Because your persistence up to this point makes it quite obvious you have nothing better to do.
“Here’s the Oxford English Dictionary definition . . .”
Yes, could you repeat the part about the “state or collective ownership and regulation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange.” That’s in-line with what Merriam-Webster stated. And don’t hide behind that “common benefit of all members of society,” nonsense, as that is evidently the intent of all Socialist states, yet never the actual results. A National Socialist would likely believe that their ideology is for the benefit of everyone in their society, everyone within their in-group that is, which is in-line with other Socialist variants. You’ve essentially defeated your own argument.
“I haven’t chosen to ignore them”
They were present on the same page. Either you chose to ignore them, or were just too lazy to read anything except the top definition.
This is further evidenced by the fact that with Oxford, you do bother to list multiple definitions, likely because the top one already aligns with Merriam-Webster’s quite closely, making it of little use to your argument, leading you to look below for other definitions that align with your preconceived biases on the subject.
“You are conducting this discussion as if you have an audience”
I do, that audience is you. How could that particular quote of mine be interpreted to be directed at anyone but you? I’ve levied a direct criticism against you, for your eyes. I’m pointing out that you’re not following any agreed upon definition of Socialism in your analysis of the subject. You’re using a definition based on your own beliefs, which allows you to selectively apply it and arbitrarily deem things to be Socilist or not Socialist based on your opinions, not theory or results. This weak attempt at deflecting the conversation only shows me that you cannot deny this.
“I have read all of your comments”
I genuinely doubt you have, as you ignore things I’ve said while repeating many of your own points (just as most of your criticisms of National Socialism could also be applied to other variants of Socialism, many of your criticisms of me also apply to you). You don’t acknowledge the points I make, only repeat your own points.
“Oh, right, so you know me do you”
Well from our brief talk, I can tell you are a very politically biased individual, believe yourself to be more intelligent than others, react aggressively whenever someone criticizes your opinions, do not react at all to things you cannot refute, and deem anyone who continues an argument with you for longer than 2 comment exchanges to be an “idiot,” and your childish demeanor indicates people often don’t challenge you for this long. Had you been paying attention to the conversation, you would have found that I was not talking exclusly about Communism. And it doesn’t take me hours to comment, it’s quite easy to do.
“Here is a good example of your ignoring the facts I detailed in my last post.”
Oh, I read it. It’s just simply wrong.
“But they did”
They didn’t. And pointing out that Capitalists will invest in anything they believe they can turn a profit one doesn’t equate to Capitalists always turning a profit on something they invest in, particularly if the state in question seizes that investment from them without compensation, as was the case in Germany.
“The rewriting of history should be based on facts”
It often is. New ways of thinking lead to new interpretations. In this case, modern academics are moving away from the old, “Hitler was a Capitalist” narrative pushed forward by post-war left-wing academics without much evidence. Upon looking at the way the German economy actually operated during that time, it's clear to most people in the field today that it was anything but Capitalist, having a system aligning much more closely to Socialism. And the people opposing these new interpretations the most bitterly are the old left-wing hardliners who cling onto the propagandistic original interpretation.
“the more he was ridiculed over it, the more he doubled down”
Sound familiar?
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@ayeshazhukov “Theory is based on facts”
It isn’t, otherwise Socialism would be a dead ideology by now since the facts stand against it. A theory certainly can be based off of facts, but it could just as easily be based off of little more than opinions, beliefs, and values. In many cases, the facts clearly indicate that a particular theory may not work, yet we still see advocates of such theories and more instances of it being applied despite past failures. This is true of everything, not just Socialism. I agree with TIK because he makes good arguments, he applies a definition of Socialism to the situation and sticks to it while he analyzes how the German economy ran under the NSDAP.
“Yes, clearly you’re much brighter than your history professor. LOL.”
My professor specialized in Colonial American history, which he certainly knew more than me about. He was not an economist and did not specialize in the history of the World Wars era. The point of me giving the story is to show that intelligent people do not specialize in all fields. My professor did not fully understand what Socialism and Capitalism were, because those things are hardly relevant to his particular area of study, which is not to say that he was unintelligent. We see more extreme examples of this happening. The most significant case I can think of is people listening to the political and economic views of Noam Chomsky and taking them as truth even though Chomsky is a linguist (a talented one from what I hear) with no credentials in the fields of history and economics.
“Again, you see this as a contest, not an exchange of ideas”
You’ve been treating this as some kind of fight, behaving more childish when you began to run out of proper rebuttals. You resorted to insults fairly early on. It’s clear that you have no intention of exchanging ideas, only to win arguments (or at least feel as if you did) and convert others into your preferred politics as a bonus.
“All good opinions should be based on evidence”
Quite ironic considering most of your opinions presented here lack that and fail to change when presented with evidence.
“There you go again”
And there you go again with your attempts to steer the conversation away from the point of discussion by claiming I am somehow talking to a broader audience and not just you, completely ignoring the criticisms of your argument in favor of armchair psychological analysis of others.
“Chuckle away. In the meantime . . .”
You only present me with more reason to believe you don’t read my comments in their entirety. Had you actually read my statement on the matter, you will find that I outlined how the Soviet state systematically suppressed all cultural beliefs and practices associated with nationalism in favor of promoting an internationalist worldview based in Marxist ideology rather than pride in being Russian, Ukrainian, Belarussian, . . . It was only after the German invasion that the Soviet authorities began to promote a modified version of nationalism when the propaganda presses needed fuel. Even then, it was a version of nationalism combined with Marxist ideology. The notion that the Soviet state promoted nationalism during the 20s and 30s is just laughable.
“Hitler was only at war with Britain”
Following the defeat of France, he was in terms of political entities for the time being. Are you attempting to include the hundreds of thousands of soldiers in exile in Britain from already defeated countries?
“Hitler always intended to stage a full-scale land invasion of the USSR”
Considering he wanted eastern living space for the “Aryan” race and that the Soviets controlled pretty much all of the land to the east of him aside from the western part of Poland, invasion was inevitable. Unless you think the Soviets were willing to give him a lot of land.
Your assertion that the Germans would have surrendered in 1941 is hilarious. At that time, the Soviets lacked the logistical capacity to push all the way into Germany.
“You don’t ‘know’”
Oh I know and the longer you speak, the more evidence you generously give me to support that conclusion.
“One last thought, I've developed this theory that you desire my attention. You need me to respond to you.”
I honestly wish you wouldn’t. Arguing with idiots on the internet gets boring fairly quickly.
This last part of your comment is quite funny to me. It comes off as you trying to get in the last word and then end it off with a “I DARE YOU TO NOT REPLY.” This fits in quite well with the pattern of childish behavior you’ve displayed so far. This has become more of a test to see how far you are willing to take things, not me. And the longer it takes, the more frustrated you become.
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@ayeshazhukov “I will confine this post to answering points . . .”
Getting repetitive, aren’t we?
“So why are you here?”
Because it’s fun to watch you squirm. And by the looks of it, I’ve already wasted hours of your time.
“Okay, so now you are disputing the Oxford English dictionary definition”
No, I was reading the Oxford English dictionary definition, which is something you probably should’ve done before trying to use it to strengthen your argument, considering it aligned very closely to Merriam-Webster’s definition.
“You’re an idiot”
Why do you feel the need to project your own inadequacies onto others?
“What a crazy statement! . . .”
Ask a Socialist from any variant and they will likely say the same thing that the National Socialist would.
And once again, you’ve levied a criticism against National Socialism that applies to other variants of Socialism as well. They all claim to be “for everyone in society,” yet all persecute political opposition and who they consider to be undesirable quite heavily.
“You don’t act as if it is.”
Nothing I’ve said could be construed as applying to anyone other than you. What I see is a sad attempt to change the course of the conversation, which I will not allow, so here is my criticism once again:
There is no consistency with what you deem to be Socialist and not Socialist. Every individual criticism you’ve made against National Socialism could also be applied to other variants of Socialism. So far, you’ve only provided two definitions: Cambridge and Oxford. Yet your explanation of Socialism doesn’t follow either definition. Cambridge’s definition is too vague to apply to anything strongly and Oxford’s definition is quite similar to Merriam-Webster’s, which you seem to oppose. You’ve thrown things into the mix that have little relation to any definitions presented so far, such as conquest and nationalism. This is because your view of Socialism is based entirely on your political opinions of it, not on any agreed-upon definition. Your failure to address this criticism in favor of attempting to steer the argument in a different direction shows me you have no defense for this.
“Yesterday, someone called ‘Slater Slater’ turned up on here to basically laugh at you.”
Yes, that would be Sally. She’s obsessed with me. A while back, I pointed out some inconsistencies with her reasoning which got her butthurt, as she’s been stalking my comments ever since. She usually only jumps in when I’m engaged in a discussion with someone else (like now) as to not talk with me alone, expecting help from the other people I’m talking to.
And the alt account thing has nothing to do with you, don’t flatter yourself into thinking everything is about you. During one of these talks with Sally, she replied to a comment of mine using an account called “Andy Knowles,” to which I replied “Wrong account, Sally” and that same day, the comment was deleted and replaced with a similar comment from her main account. I had already seen this “Andy Knowles” account before in arguments, so she was essentially caught red-handed using alts to support herself. I’ve been finishing off every reply to her with “How many alt accounts . . .” ever since.
“There is a phenomenon . . .”
Yes, I’m seeing it right now. You accuse me of repetition when you yourself repeat. You accuse me of bias when it’s quite evident that you hold strong political biases on the subject. I point out you’re accusing me of a bunch of things you’re doing, and you spin it around to accuse me of that as well. Very childish indeed.
“No, just comparatively more intelligent than you.”
Evidently not considering I, unlike you, actually read and reply to all aspects of your comments. You, on the other hand, decide to conveniently ignore large sections of mine. Likely because you have no strong counterarguments.
“I react aggressively to . . .
people who outsmart me in an argument.” There, was that so hard to admit? You resorting to name calling as early as the second round of responses. It’s quite clear that you’re not used to having your views challenged.
“It was after . . .”
2 rounds of exchanges, then the childish insults began flying.
“Under the Nazis, private German companies together with their sharholders kept their profits, and that’s how people like Osker Schindler, for example, became very wealthy.”
The state was essentially running their businesses following the state takeover of the means of production. I can see you seem to get more of your historical perceptions from movies than actual history. Osker Schindler was an agent for the Abwehr (a fairly high ranking one at that). He, along with other agents, collected intelligence for the National Socialist government that would help them during the annexation of the Sudetenland and the later invasion of Poland. He was not a private businessman, but a government agent. It was those government ties that permitted him to head a business venture.
“Through 1947 and 1948, United States prosecuted dozens of executives of three of wartime Germany's largest companies for war crimes and crimes against humanity.”
And the only ones who they were able to get the charges to stick to were those with government connections. Alfried Krupp, for example, was an outspoken supporter of National Socialism who held multiple government positions in the 30s and WWII. Furthermore, many (but not all) executives were handpicked by the party itself, as I had explained to you in a previous comment.
“During the war . . .”
The National Socialists had seized all foreign investments by the start of the war. American companies saw no money from their German subsidiaries during the war years.
“The above is primarily written for the benefit of Slater Slater, as obviously you are going to ignore it. LOL”
You wish. I don’t ignore massive sections of argument to take small sections out of context like you have an affinity for doing.
“This is a paraphrase . . .”
Another example of you accusing me of doing something that I pointed out of your conduct. You’re getting very predictable. The revelation that you may lack the ability to read properly from your misuse of the Oxford dictionary casts doubt onto the question of whether or not you completed any form of secondary education.
“You came to me”
I pointed out the dictionary definition of Socialism, which you denied because the dictionary (even Oxford) doesn’t align with your view on Socialism. Despite having this pointed out, you persist in the argument because you refuse to not have the last word.
“It is indeed, even more so by the fact the above statement was made by you and not by me. LOL”
If I recall, your reply was “They were always nationalist” to me pointing out the Soviet Union was nationalist following the German invasion, which implies you believe it was nationalist since the October Revolution despite the fact that the state cracked down hard on all cultural beliefs and practices relating to nationality during the 20s and 30s.
Your lack of knowledge on the relevant history is baffling.
“In reality, Hitler was in conflict with a whole host of countries like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, etc.”
Which were all possessions of Britain . . .
Further baffling is your lack of knowledge on the history of your own apparent country.
“Here you go again, making strawman arguments”
You had previously stated that war would’ve ended in German surrender in 1941 had Hitler not expanded Eastern Front operations, which is a moronic claim under any circumstances since the Soviets lacked the logistics in 1941 to launch a counter invasion all the way to Germany. Even if they stopped the invasion in 1941, the idea that they could’ve forced a German surrender before 1941 was over is just absurd.
“Thank you for the backhanded compliment.”
You’re Welcome.
“Ah, and now you have revealed yourself.”
Instance number 3 of you pulling a “no u” of a criticism that I levied against you in the same reply. I should keep a scoreboard.
“Nonetheless, to does leave me with quite a dilemma.”
Pick option 3
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@ayeshazhukov “During the trials at Nuremberg . . .”
Likely because they weren’t free marketeers, but government cronies. And even those opposed to the goings on (in their minds at least) could do little to stop it considering the state ran the day-to-day operations of the means of production. For them, it was either quietly go along with it, or end up like Junkers. And like I said before, many of them were put into those executive positions by the state in the first place, particularly those with the strongest National Socialist sympathies.
“I clearly said in my last post . . .”
And I read it, it’s just a completely false claim contrary to all evidence. The subsidiaries were lost, the National Socialist state seized them along with the rest of the means of production.
“The mass forger of quotes accuses me of deception. LOL”
Feel free to google search any quote I made (aside from the dictionary definitions naturally), you’ll find they are my own. You, on the other hand, parrot the same thing over and over again and when you do claim to bring an outside quote, you refuse to disclose where it came from.
“I didn’t deny it. I pointed out it was reductive, and therefore misleading.”
To which you presented Cambridge’s definition, which is arguably the most simplistic and misleading definition mentioned thus far. Another example of your characteristic double-standards.
Merriam-Webster’s definition, which again is collective and/or state control of the means of production and distribution of goods, is accurate because it illustrates the core elements of Socialism. A call for collective and/or state control of said things is the single common factor among all Socialist variants, from the earliest ones in the late 18th century to the present. This collective control was the key ingredient from day one.
Interestingly, Oxford’s top definition aligns with Merriam-Webster’s quite well, something you failed to notice before bringing it in claiming it supports your argument.
“Please explain to me what you think my views on socialism are?”
From all that you’d said so far, your view on it seems to be that it cannot be Socialism if it fails. You’ve failed to give a single criticism of National Socialism that cannot also be applied to other variants. You bring up criticisms that are completely unrelated to any of the definitions of Socialism brought up so far, namely nationalism and conquest. No definition presented explicitly states that those factors exclude an ideology from being Socialistic, yet you act like they do.
“Having the last word is your issue. I never even considered it until you mentioned it.”
Evidently you have since you refuse to stop replying and even ended a post essentially daring me to stop replying to you because you must have the last word.
“[Tirade on the Soviets being nationalist from day one]”
The definition is correct, your application of it isn’t.
The Soviet state consistently promoted internationalism at the expense of nationalism. All of the ethnic groups living there (including the Russian majority) had key aspects of the national identity stripped away from them by the state. Their religion, holidays, non-Revolutionary civic traditions, even their folk dress were all suppressed. In their place was a set of new “Revolutionary” practices revolving around Marxist ideology, which opposes nationalism. At no point did the Soviets appeal to national identity prior to 1941, only ideology (an ideology which most Soviet citizens hated, which explains why the Germans got millions of collaborators during the initial stages of Operation Barbarossa).
You seem to be thinking that destroying all traces of nationality or replacing it all with ideology counts as a form of “nationalism,” which it simply doesn’t. This Soviet “nationalism” was the promotion of Marxist ideology. It called for the abolition of nations, not the promotion of them. You also seem to like to forget that the Soviets did make attempts to export the revolution abroad, even under Stalin. Barely 2 years into their reign, they invaded the west. The only reason Ukraine was ever part of the Soviet Union was because the Bolsheviks invaded and conquered it, forcing Ukraine to become Communist against the wishes of the Ukrainian people. The same would’ve likely applied to Poland if the Red Army wasn’t annihilated by the Poles in 1920 during their failed invasion of Poland. Their plan for Poland was to have it become Communist, which destroys your notion that the Bolsheviks were nationalists prior to 1941. You also seem to forget that the Comintern existed, which supported “revolutionary” causes across the whole world and essentially ran many Marxist political parties in other countries, all in the name of “worldwide revolution” and internationalism. The Soviets gave heavy aid to the “Republican” side of the Spanish Civil War and the Comintern recruited volunteers to fight for the cause all over the world, almost all of them coming from Marxist organizations. This was clearly done in the hope that Spain would become Communist following a “Republican” victory and guaranteed leftist government. All of this occurred before 1941 in case you need a reminder.
Ideology is not a substitute for culture, as an ideology cannot define a nationality or ethnic group.
You appear to have a strong liking for twisting definitions to align with your political beliefs. If your idea of what nationalism is was the actual definition, then nationalism would pretty much be almost unavoidable since you deem the most internationalist of ideologies to be “nationalist.”
“Not sure if you wrote the above because . . .”
If I recall, the British Empire still existed during the 1940s and that all of the places you mentioned were within that empire. Britain itself declared war, and they all followed, as possessions (albeit possessions with limited autonomy) tend to do. Funnily enough, of all the dates you give, only 1931 pre-dates the start of WWII, the others don’t in case you didn’t realize. And the Statute of Westminster granted Canada more self-governing privileges, not “independence.” If it was for “independence,” it would be quite odd that the British Parliament still held the authority to amend Canada’s constitution. Canada didn’t become fully self-governing until 1982 . . . the ignorance of your own country’s imperial history is baffling.
Interestingly, all of the countries you mentioned currently recognized some old English guy named Charles Mountbatten as their “sovereign” and “head of state” upon the death of the Queen of England, thousands of miles away. It seems strange that independent nations recognize this foreigner thousands of miles away as their “King” while claiming to be fully independent of England. And if anything, they all have more autonomy now than they did in the 40s when they followed England into the war like good little colonies.
“I agree it’s a moronic and absurd claim”
Then why did you make it, if I may ask? You clearly said that the WAR would have ended in Soviet victory in 1941, which implies a German surrender. A defeat of Operation Barbarossa does not end the war, only the surrender of Germany would.
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@NRWTx This issue with historians is that most of them are not trained in economics. Capitalism did not emerge in the 19th century, it existed for centuries before that, only on a relatively small scale. It was the late 18th and early 19th century when it began to grow and become more prominent. Before that, economics was dominated by Mercantilism, which involves a lot of government regulation. The alternative is Capitalism, where the state does not interfere in the economy. Thus, Capitalism is a free market.do not confuse Mercantilism with Capitalism, they are two different systems.
And Socialism has nothing to do with workers, only collectives. It was Marx who thought workers should own the means of production, but Socialism as an ideology existed for decades before Marx. The "collective" could be defined differently, as it often differs between various flavors of Socialism. If it's collective control of the means of production and distribution of goods, then it is Socialism, plain and simple. It has nothing to do with class or "alliances."
You are making many of the same mistakes TIK explicitly addresses in the video. Hitler conned some Capitalists into supporting him, but not all or even most. And for most who did, Hitler was not their first choice. Upon actually gaining power, how Hitler treated the industrialists was far different to how they were treated before. And may I remind you that the Soviet Union's industry was basically build with funding from Western Capitalists. Why exactly would Capitalists invest in a system that supposedly calls for their destruction? It's very telling that for every argument that can be made for NSDAP Germany not being Socialist, you can find very similar if not outright the same situations playing out in the Soviet Union. The Soviets received tons of investments, which they accepted. It was also fashionable for upper class Westerners to either be Fascists or Communists in the 1920s and 30s, which seems to contradict their supposed interests.
"Big business" with links to the state is not Capitalist. As I explained, if the state is interfering in the economy, you do not have Capitalism. We use economic definitions when discussing economics. And we read and listen to economists when discussing economics, not people who know little about economics. Someone who received a doctorate in something completely unrelated to economics is likely to know about as much about the subject as someone who did not attend college at all. Expertise in one field usually does not transfer to many others.
These are questions TIK would not need to address because they are completely irrelevant to topic at hand. He uses the modern, economic definitions of both Capitalism and Socialism. Not definitions coming from other fields.
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@NRWTx It could be called several things depending on how exactly it is organized. But Capitalism is defined economically as the state not involving itself in economic matters, creating a free market. Big businesses having heavy ties to the state is not Capitalism, especially when the state pursues policies that interfere in economic activities. In the U.S., most lobbying done by big business is pushing for more regulation and state involvement, not less. These businesses crunch their numbers and conclude that new regulation will kill off smaller businesses that can't shrug it off like they can, improving their bottom line in the long run despite the costs of adhering to the regulation. For example, many big businesses pay their employees $15 an hour minimum and advocate that as a new minimum wage because they know it will kill off many small businesses that can't afford to pay that much.
And Capitalism existed well before the 13th century too, on a small scale. In a sense, it always existed since people learned to trade with one another and see value in different materials and goods.
Your portrayal of the War of 1812 is quite incorrect. My background is in history, particularly U.S. history. The U.S. was not "f*****" by the British. The war ended in a military stalemate.
No, Socialism is not inherently worker-based. I suggest you re-read my previous comment on the matter. Socialism is simple about collectives. Worker movements that weren't collectivist in nature and still believed in private control of the means of production and distribution of goods are not Socialist. Marx was a walking contradiction. He evidently failed to realize that most of his ideas simple could not exist without the existence of a state. TIK points this out in the video. And nobody is claiming Hitler and Mussolini were Marxists, they were members of rival Socialist factions hostile to Marxism, though Mussolini was a former Marxist and there is some evidence that Hitler may have been as well. Did you watch the video? TIK makes that pretty clear.
Again, you're ignoring the similarities. Big business doesn't "hate" Communism nor does it "support" Fascism. I already explained to you, Hitler did not receive support from the majority of industrialists and for those that did support him, he was not their first choice. And you're downplaying the amount of investment into the Soviet Union by Western businesses. Soviet industry was essentially build with Western money. In truth, business itself is fairly apolitical unless something presents itself as an immediate threat, which Communism, Fascism, and National Socialism all did upon actually gaining power. Hitler did not benefit the industrialists upon gaining power. Quite the contrary, he actually broke all promises he had made to them and effectively seized control of their businesses, leaving them as little more than figureheads and little control over business decisions. The modern Left never takes Hitler at his word, as they shouldn't, except when it's politically convenient for them to do so, such as his promises to the industrialists, which he broke upon gaining power, same as with most other promises he had made, yet the modern Left likes to believe he did not break those promises.
Oh there was a Fascist revolution in Italy, as well as a National Socialist revolution in Germany. Both were bloodless, as not all revolutions are bloody. Mussolini's March on Rome was essentially a revolution, and Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch attended to copy Mussolini's actions. He failed, so he sought to obtain power through more political means. In contrast, Fascists and National Socialists (they are two distinct ideologies), always challenged the natural order of things. In both cases, they changed society to a great extent upon gaining power. Mussolini less so that Hitler because he was Prime Minister and still subject to the authority of the King, though he still gradually increased his own power during his 20 years in that position. In the case of National Socialism, you cannot argue things "went on as usual" since the NSDAP essentially abolished the democratic process and made all other parties illegal, same as most other Socialist nations. Economically, they seized control of many of Germany's major businesses right off the bat, arresting and imprisoning those who refuse to adhere to the demands of the state. And as I explained to you before, in the 1920s and 30s, it was quite fashionable for elites to subscribe, at least nominally, to extremist ideologies like Fascism or Communism. Members of the Chamber of Commerce saying that should not come as a surprise, given their position in society.
On the contrary, by talking about this, you are inviting debate. If you're asking me to not to reply, that suggests to me that you don't want your preconceived views on the topic changed.
Most of what you're saying is moot since you're not using the economic definitions of Capitalism and Socialism. As I said before, when you're not using the correct definitions, there is simple nothing to address.
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@NRWTx I'm sorry but you are ignoring my main points.
When having discussions on certain fields, we use the definitions outlined in those specific fields. You simply cannot have a discussion on economics when you refuse to use the definitions of Capitalism and Socialism that the field uses.
When big business has ties to the state, that isn't Capitalism, as Capitalism is when the state does not interfere in economic activity. Your example would depend entirely on the conduct of the individual in question. If a businessman elected to a high position cuts all his business ties, turning over control to others, then he has in effect separated himself from his business, at least for the remainder of his term. And his political actions regarding anything that would have any effect on his business would be watched quite closely in most free countries.
Sorry but you are fundamentally incorrect about Socialism. Socialism, by its very nature, is a collectivist ideology. You cannot have collectivism without some type of central entity to run it, so Socialism simply cannot exist without the existence of a state. The mental gymnastics played by prominent Socialist thinkers does not change this fact. Reality is rarely the same as theory, and Socialism in practice is pretty much exclusively a big-state ideology.
As I explained to you, Socialism in the original sense is about collectives. Hitler and Mussolini were both collectivists, though what they defined as their collective differed from what Marxists defined as their collective. If you read National Socialist philosophy and replace all instances of the words "Aryan" and "German" with words like "worker" and "proletariat" and words like "Jew" with "bourgeoise," you get a striking resemblance to Marxism and vice-versa when you read Marxist philosophy. That's because the biggest difference among the various variants of Socialism is what they define the collective as. Hitler was basically a racial Socialist, as the "Aryan" race was his collective.
Your example would not be an example of Libertarianism because it does not follow the definition of what Libertarianism actually is. But at the same time, you're not following what the definition of Socialism actually is, as Socialism revolves around collectives. Socialism is simply collective control of the means of production and distribution of goods. In practice, something like that cannot exist without a central entity to oversee it.
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@NRWTx The wealth of countries is more complex than just whatever economic model it follows, though the economic model is a very significant factor. But countries with freer markets tend to be more wealthy than countries with more restrictive markets. As for "talking about something that does not exist," that's what philosophers and theorists essentially do all of the time. Marx and every other Socialist thinker thought of things that did not exist, at least not at that time. And no, most nations in the world today that most people commonly believe are "Capitalist" are not actually Capitalist, at least not fully.
I already told you it can be called several different things depending on the circumstances. In some of those cases, it could even be described as variants of Socialism.
What relevance do multinationals have to the conversation? Business and the state are not inherently interlinked. Doing business in multiple countries does not necessarily mean said business is tied to one or more of those governments. If it is, the read my answer above.
It would depend entirely on his economic opinions and conduct in office. I have little interest in European politics.
Again, what relevance do multinationals have to the conversation of what Capitalism and Socialism are? I already explained that the question on what multinationals are depends entirely on their relation to states, not the fact that they do business in multiple countries.
They technically are, but keep in mind most laws of that type are put in place in an attempt to correct errors of the past caused by state intervention. Historically, most monopolies began monopolies due to the state granting them control over an entire sector.
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@mikemcmike6427 The more you speak, the more evidence you generously present to me in my conclusion that they never attended college.
Poor grammar, poor spelling, incoherent arguments, lack of citations, temper tantrums, insults, delusions, lies, . . .
I also find it funny you seem to assume people more intelligent than you are "poor," and resort to calling them as such as an insult. That's definitely something a college-educated person would do . . .
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@mikemcmike6427 "no they really don’t. I’ve never had to “write da definition” of a term in a single paper"
More evidence that you either never attended college, or received an very poor education.
"Who said anyone is making up terms?"
I explained to you what Socialism is through definitions. You disagreed and basically gave me your opinion of what Socialism is, which doesn't hold up when actually looking at how Socialism operates. Your terms aren't coming from anywhere other than your own political biases.
You're not meant to instantly become an expert in something through a dictionary definition, you're simply to know what it generally is, which you fail at with your flawed explanations. Socialism, for example, is when the means of production and distribution of goods are controlled collectively and/or by the state. That is the core component of all variants of Socialism, going back to the earliest incarnations of it during the French Revolution. Everything beyond that is variant-specific, the intricacies of which nobody would be expected to know based off of the definition of a single word. Also left out is the history of the ideology, what influenced it, and what it influenced. But none of this is exactly necessary to have basic understanding of what the term "Socialism" means.
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@mikemcmike6427 Read my other comment. A dictionary definition is not meant to make you an expert on something, only to give you, you guessed it, the definition of the word so you have a basic understand of what it means.
In the case of the Hundred Years' War, let's look at a sentence found in the first paragraph of the Britannica article on it, describing it as an "intermittent struggle between England and France in the 14th–15th century over a series of disputes, including the question of the legitimate succession to the French crown" (Britannica). This would act as a presentable definition, as it is objectively true in describing the basic facts on what the event was, so that the reader will immediate know what the Hundred Years' War was, which is the purpose of definition.
Please note that though this definition is not "complex," "long," or "exhaustive," it is still true in how it describes the Hundred Years' War, in much the same way that the definition of Socialism I presented to you is objectively true in describing the core elements of Socialist ideologies.
The "definition" of the Hundred Years' War you presented was an intentionally poor one formulated for the purpose of setting up a strawman for you to knock down to make yourself feel better. A very weak attempt at a strawman I may add.
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@mikemcmike6427 I've addressed everything you've said in great detail, you're just choosing to ignore it because you have no strong counter. It's doubtful you've attended university with the level of ignorance I'm seeing from you.
"It doesn’t cover fascism at all: lookup the characteristics of fascism"
I recall us discussing National Socialism, a distinct ideology from Fascism. Someone properly educated in political theory would know this. We shall compare the two however:
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
Fascism - a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition (Merriam-Webster)
Notice how from these definitions, Fascism can be considered Socialism, but Socialism cannot immediately be considered Fascism. That's because Fascism is a variant of Socialism, "all Socialism" is not Fascism, but "all Fascism" is Socialist. Fascism explicitly calls for economic regimentation, which would entail the state seizing control of the means of production, which is Socialism.
"Hence why fascism has another entry in the dictionary different from socialism you clown!"
Marxism also appears as another entry in the dictionary. Do you believe this means Marxism cannot be a variant of Socialism? Has it not occurred to you that each variant may have their own definition? The more you speak, the more unintelligent you sound.
Marxism - a theory and practice of socialism including the labor theory of value, dialectical materialism, the class struggle, and dictatorship of the proletariat until the establishment of a classless society (Merriam-Webster)
"The government DIDNT administer all goods and services."
It may interest you to know that the National Socialists did operate collective farms, just not worked by "Aryans," but captured peoples in conquered territories. Even among the German farmers, they still meddled in their affairs to a far higher degree than farmers in Capitalist nations experienced.
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@mikemcmike6427 "lol nazi germany wasn’t fascist now hahahahahahaha."
So you're telling me that you believe that the National Socialists in Germany operated under the same ideology as the Fascists in Italy? And you claim to have an education in political science.
"Tik fans are truly the biggest pathetic simps on YouTube. 'I deny facts cause daddy told says so!'"
The only one here rejecting facts is you, as you deny the consensus on what these terms mean.
"No fascism can’t be considered socialsim. They mean very distinct things. Just like socialism and Marxism."
Read what I said again, you evidently didn't read it very thoroughly the first time. Both Marxism and Fascism are VARIANTS of Socialism. Socialism itself is so broad, it's not even considered a single ideology, but "collection of ideologies."
Educate yourself, kid. Either attend university and learn this, or recognize your own ignorance.
"It’s like saying 'notice how a dog can be a cat because they have some similarities?'"
You seem to have a strong interest in setting up strawmen for yourself to knock down. Strawmen that have little, if any, relation to what's actually being discussed. Learn the basic meanings of the terms you are trying to use. All of your arguments fail at step 1 because of this.
"Again the Roman’s had slaves. Therefore it’s 'da socialism' too!!"
Slavery as a practice existed in some degree since before recorded history. It's an institution that pre-dates all modern political concepts by millennia. An ideology's use of it doesn't mean everything that uses it is of that same ideology. Socialism takes away a worker's right to control and own his own labor, placing that control and ownership in the hands of a collective or governmental entity, essentially turning that worker into a slave.
How stupid are you, exactly?
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@Free-leftistaction Socialism is defined as when the means of production and distribution of goods are under collective and/or state control, neither of which was true under a Mercantilist system, as the rulers did not exert directly control over or posses ownership of industries involved in the production of commodities or their distribution. Rather, as I said before, they taxed and tariffed everything. A charter was certainly established by the state, but the state itself did not run, control, or even technically own the company. There was, however, heavy cooperation between states and these appointed monopolies, a relationship some today try to recreate.
Mercantilism is not Capitalism. Capitalism is for what we would call free trade and low taxes / regulation, which is not true for Mercantilism. Mercantilism originated toward the end of the Medieval period and beginning of the Early Modern Era, predating the Industrial Revolution by centuries, so it is a pre-Industrial system. Socialism, the earliest variants of which date back to the later stages of the French Revolution, emerged after the start of the Industrial Revolution. And as I said before, trying to apply modern theory to pre-Industrial systems is simply dumb.
Please educate yourself.
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@Free-leftistaction A tariff is distinct from a tax in what it applies to, so using both terms is applicable because not every tax is also a "tariff."
They chartered the company, but the actual running of the company was done through private individuals. The state itself was not in control of the companies, the charter was simply an agreement to allow a monopoly to be established over a given industry or trade. This is a concept not found in either Capitalism or Socialism, being distinctly Mercantilist. Around the 19th century, when the days these these chartered companies were coming to an end, many of them were nationalized. Now how do you go about "nationalizing" something that was already under the control of the state?
No, the states did not own corporations back then, just as they don't own the corporations now. Not everything that is "public" is under the state, and not everything under the state could technically be called "public" either.
The way Mercantilism operates doesn't align with the definition of Socialism or Capitalism, so anyone who possesses the ability to think can clearly conclude that Mercantilism is neither Socialist or Capitalist, but it's thing.
And the writings of Adam Smith came about at the start of the Industrial Revolution, not before it.
Considering Socialism originated during the French Revolution before Liberalism had any significant foothold in Continental Europe, I find the claim that it originated from Liberalism to be quite dubious.
Yes, you do need to be educated on the subject. You show a clear lack of understanding of the history you are trying to argue. Your arguments are being driven by your political beliefs, not historical evidence.
And we all can see you know how to use caps lock, you don't need to keep typing like a child to show it.
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@Free-leftistaction I operate under the definition of Capitalism, which I remind you is:
"an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market"
The absence of a free market is not automatically Socialist, but it does disqualify the system from being Capitalist, as is the case with Mercantilism.
The U.S. was arguably semi-Mercantilist during several stages of its history, but it was never Socialist, as the state did not nationalize the means of production during WWII. Unlike Germany, the American companies retained control of their own operation during the war.
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@oljo0527 Democracy only works in society if said society has built up the proper institutions and cultivated the proper culture to allow for it. Great Britain only became a technical democracy after a century of gradual adoption of Enlightenment ideas and classical liberal economic policies. The U.S. largely inherited this political culture from the British, allowing them to transfer into democracy with relative ease. Even with all this, it still took both countries quite some time before they had universal male suffrage, and even longer for universal suffrage.
We've seen that democracy doesn't work as intended when it is thrusted upon nations that have little to no prior exposure to it and its concepts. Following WWI, for example, Eastern Europe was full of brand new democratic nations, but Eastern Europe had little exposure to democracy prior to that, so by the time WWII started, all Eastern European nations except Czechoslovakia were being run by un-democratic authoritarian dictatorships.
Don't misread this as an anti-democracy comment. I am merely pointing out that in order for a stable democracy to be established, a nation must develop the proper political culture, which includes ensuring all voters have a basic education and human rights are recognized and respected.
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@PedroCastro-vn8qg "how the profit of the restaurant will be used is up to the owner and not the workers"
Through this very statement, you are downplaying the role of the market. Could an owners do anything he wanted? Sure, but he probably wouldn't remain in business much longer. You don't seem to realize how much of a hold the market has on how prices are determined. The market determines what the restauranteur sells his food for. The market determines how much he pays his employees. He doesn't have much say in the matter, the market pushing him into falling within a certain price range so that he will not away people by being overpriced or sell food but make no profit from it. Likewise, his employees won't work for too little, and he probably wouldn't be able to afford to pay them too much. A owners, a responsible one I should add, doesn't simply "do with his profits as he wishes." Much if not most of it goes back into the business to pay for material and labor. The owner himself is usually the last one to get paid.
"It still is a very a usefull definition to explain power dynamics bettween people in society."
Again, you're ignoring what I'm trying to explain. If we go by the word worker, that alone doesn't mean much because almost everybody (unless retired) is a worker of some kind. Therefore, the word itself tells us nothing about power dynamics. In the aforementioned example, the restauranteur and his employees all being workers tells us nothing about who owns the place. More information is needed.
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@sumdumbbeats9879 When the Bolsheviks systematically starved nearly 10 million Ukrainians to death in the Holodomor because they were Ukrainians, that's a genocide. When they arrested thousands of Cossacks and sent them to gulags for being Cossacks, that's a genocide. When they revived the Russian Empire's Russification policies from the 19th century, that's a cultural geocide against all non-Russians in the Soviet Union. What the Red Chinese are currently doing to the Uyghurs in Xinjiang is a genocide.
Communists are not heroes, they are bloodthirsty tyrants who murdered more people than the National Socialists did, temporarily allying themselves with the National Socialists (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) while doing so.
The famines in the Soviet Union occurred through the 20s and 30s, genius. About 10-20 years before WWII even began. The famines in Red China occurred in the 50s, 10 years after WWII ended. Again, the Western Capitalist nations didn't "aid" Germany, but the Soviet Union most certainly did by agreeing to invade Poland with Germany in 1939 and nearly becoming an Axis power itself in 1940.
Capitalism also didn't kill a "billion people." Only a dogmatic Marxist would be stupid enough to believe that. Throughout the 20th century, Capitalist raised untold millions out of poverty, in spite of Socialistic attempts to drive people into poverty.
And the U.S. was under no obligation to help the U.S.S.R., which spied on its "allies" heavily throughout the war, stealing many secrets. Despite this, the U.S. helped the Soviets anyway, giving the Soviets tons of supplies and materials through Lend-Lease that the Soviets certainly would've lost without. Many Soviet soldiers were being fed by American rations. A Soviet counter-offensive into Germany would not have been possible if they didn't have the hundreds of thousands of American-made trucks needed for logistics, generously provided to them through Lend-Lease. After the war, the U.S. wanted to extend the Marshall Plan of rebuilding Europe into Eastern Europe, it was the Soviets who refused! And as a result, many parts of Eastern Europe were in ruins into the 1980s.
Only a brainlet would blame Soviet problems on the Americans. The Soviets caused many of their own problems.
It also seems somewhat hypocritical to complain about the American "Red Scare" of the 1950s when the Soviets basically had a nonstop "White Scare" going on from the 1920s up until Gorbachev came to power in the 1980s.
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@sumdumbbeats9879 About 90% of all Native Americans that died during the Colonial era died of Old World diseases that they had no immunity to (at a time when Europeans had no knowledge of germ theory). This doesn't excuse the conflict going on between Natives and Colonials, but it points out that the death toll directly attributable to actions taken by Colonials is likely far less than you think it is. Besides, The overwhelming majority of the deaths occurred before the U.S. declared independence and before Capitalism became the primary economic system.
The slave trade existed for thousands of years before Capitalism became common (and continues to exist in the present day in some non-Capitalist countries). In fact, Western Capitalist nations were among the first to outlaw the practice of slavery, even going on anti-slavery crusades to stop it in other parts of the world during the 19th century. Socialism revived this practice to a degree by turning workers into slaves of the state.
Famines rarely occur in Capitalist nations, which see an overabundance of food. They are all too common in Socialist nations though, and are usually the direct result of Socialistic policies.
Communism is arguably more imperialistic than Capitalism, as Communism seeks to invade the rest of the world and forcibly subjugate it under Communist ideology. The Soviets tried invading the rest of the Europe in the early 20s, but were absolutely crushed by the Polish Army, one of several times Poland saved the rest of Europe from invasion throughout history.
There is no "poor planning and lack of infrastructure" in Xinjiang, the Chinese Communists are rounding up Uyghurs, sending them to concentration camps, punishing them for practicing their religion and speaking their own languages, and indoctrinating their children into Communist ideology. That's a genocide. There's even evidence of mass executions.
People that go to prison in the U.S. are sent there for committing a crime like murder or drug possession. People that got sent to gulags in the Soviet Union were innocents sent there for basically any reason the state wanted. The rate at which a population commits crime does not correlate with the amount of rights and freedoms that population enjoys.
And National Socialist death camps don't hold a candle to the amount of death caused by Communist man-made famines. They could both be considered in the same category though since the National Socialists were Socialists like the Soviets were.
Why else would the National Socialists and Communists agree to jointly invade Poland together (Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact)? Again, the Soviet Union was engaged in talks to possibly become an Axis power in 1940.
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@OP-01 The gold never belonged to the Bolsheviks, it belonged to the Tsar's government. As we know, the Tsarists went into exile after the Revolution. The gold rightfully belonged to them, not the Soviets. And the Soviets were receiving investments from the West in order to industrialize, thanks to a scummy journalist known as Walter Duranty.
The Holodomor was a genocide committed against the Ukrainian people by the Soviet regime. The famine that killed anywhere from 5-10 million Ukrainians was the result of Soviet inefficiency and incompetence (the weather was good during that time, so a poor harvest was no excuse). The Soviets deliberately targeted Ukrainian populated areas, stealing ALL of their food so they would starve. The Kuban used to actually have a Ukrainian majority before the Holodomor, but it, along with Eastern Ukraine, was almost depopulated of its Ukrainian populations. The Soviets, colonizers that they were, then repopulated the Kuban and Eastern Ukraine with ethnic Russians. It is for this reason that we see conflict in Eastern Ukraine to this day, as many of the people living in Eastern Ukraine as the descendants of the ethnic Russian Soviet colonists, not ethnic Ukrainians, though quite a few have taken on Ukrainian identity and oppose Russia's current actions.
Holodomor was not the result of bad weather, the weather of the early 30s was actually very good and there were no droughts either. Communism was the cause of the famine. And the famines under Communism killed many times more people than all previous famines during Imperial times, which were the results of bad weather.
Stalin was no moderate, he collectivized the country by force, killing or imprisoning all peasants who refused. A moderate does not murder innocents. He also did not solve the problems of the Soviet Union, the only reason they did not see famines after WWII was because they imported food from the U.S., tons of it, throughout the Cold War despite the tension between the two countries. Because the U.S. did not want innocent civilians to starve to death again because of Soviet incompetence.
It may interest you to know that there has never been a famine in a Capitalist country, period.
The Soviet Union had virtually no commodity goods throughout its entire existence. People were not free to buy what they wanted. Their options were limited. Some years ago, a teacher of mine recounted a story of a friend of his who played college basketball went to the Soviet Union as part of a game. The people in the streets of Moscow were begging to buy his jeans off of them (despite the fact that this was a nearly 7-foot tall basketball player, his jeans would be far too long for any of them). They did not care, they wanted something different and the state provided them with only one kind of pants, of poor quality.
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@OP-01 It is you who are clueless from only reading Communist propaganda instead of the truth. Stalin murdered a sizable portion of his country before WWII even began. He was offered aid by the U.S. to help Eastern Europe recovery, but he refused it. Instead, he had the Red Army steal everything of value from East Germany and Eastern Europe and send it back to the Soviet Union. The Soviets did not rebuild Eastern Europe, they stole from it to make the blight of the Eastern Europeans even worse. Some areas of the region were not repaired until the late 1980s, no thanks to the Soviets. In the present day, Eastern European nations despise Russia and their people do not look back on the Communist years with any kind of reverence, they see it as a time of forced occupation. They did not want to be Communist to begin with, but the Soviets occupied them and established Communist puppet governments, killing anyone who opposed them (including many returning veterans from Western armies, like Polish pilots who flew with the RAF).
The Soviet Union was not an innovator, it was a thief. It also shared very little of what it produced, unless you're talking about them giving terrorist organizations a lot of weaponry. The whole reason they began to work on space travel is because they, like the U.S., took many German rocket scientists at the end of WWII. Only unlike the U.S., these scientists were essentially kidnapped and forced to work for them.
You have a complete lack of historical understanding of what life was like in the Soviet Union. You probably weren't even born yet when it collapsed.
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@OP-01 Referring to the Holodomor as "National Socialist fiction" would probably get you beaten to a pulp in Ukraine. I suggest you not visit that country. It was a genocide against the Ukrainian people committed by Stalin, resulting in the deaths of 5-10 million Ukrainians. Collectivism caused starvation on a level far greater than that ever seen in Russian during Imperial times. The weather was good throughout the early 30s and there were no droughts, the famine was entirely man-made.
Collectivism caused famines, it did not solve them. None of the liberal Western economies experienced famines, period let alone one on the scale of the Soviet Union. The U.S. produced a lot more crops than the Soviets did throughout the entirety of the history of the Soviet Union, which is why the Soviets later imported food from the U.S.
It is funny you should say that because Stalin did continue to export wheat while Ukrainians were starving to death, was all part of the plan for him. This also destroys your claim that wheat was stolen to stop the workers in the industry from starving. If the Soviets exported the wheat, then the workers obviously didn't need it.
Stalin killed the Ukrainians because they did not want to be part of the Soviet Union. During the Russian Civil War, Ukraine was briefly an independent country, and resisted Bolshevik invasion stubbornly. Ukrainian Nationalist movements existed and Stalin saw the famine as an opportunity to kill as many Ukrainians as he could, which is why the famine disproportionately targeted Ukrainians, he stole all of their food.
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@OP-01 Virtually nothing was in private hands at the time. Once the NSDAP gained power, they seized control of all of Germany's major industries. They forced the business owners to do their bidding and arrested and removed all who refused. It's funny you try to use Krupp as an example, since the National Socialists abolished Krupp's board of directors and the Krupps' were taking orders directly from the party.
"State Capitalism" is an oxymoronic term invented by Marxists to dismiss Fascist and National Socialist states as being Capitalist (they weren't) and to make excuses for states where Communism failed. Capitalism is the private control of the means of production. If the state controls it, it cannot be Capitalism. Therefore, "State Capitalism" is an oxymoron.
Hitler tricked to industrialists into supporting him. Notice how all of these deals happened from 1932 to 1933, but never before and never after? That's because before, the party had the working class supporting it. After, Hitler did not fulfill his promises to the industrialists. Instead, he had the state seize control of their businesses from them.
When the state controls the economy, that is Socialism, so the National Socialists were Socialists.
Why do you deny facts that go against your ideology?
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@zakmarsden5997 I am sorry, but you are incorrect. If the state is forcing business owners to do the will of the state, arresting and imprisoning all business owners who refuse to comply, then the state is controlling the business and industries, meaning the state has control of the means of production. I suggest you read sources on the subject that weren't written by Marxist propagandists.
It's funny you try to use Krupp as an example to support your argument since Hitler actual did seize control of Krupp. Gustav Krupp was one of the business leaders that decided to comply with the party, but the party still got rid of Krupp's board of directors and Gustav was taking orders directly from the party. He would've also been arrested and imprisoned had he refused to listen. The state seized control of Krupp as well.
As for the American companies operating in Germany, many of the American companies lost touch with their German divisions once the war started. After that, the Germans seized control of those companies like they did everything else.
National Socialist Germany was Socialist, not Capitalist. The state controlled the means of production, so it was Socialist. Capitalism is when the means of production are in private hands, and Germany's business owners no longer had control over their own companies once the National Socialists gained power.
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@zakmarsden5997 If the business owners needed to listen to all of the party's demands or else they would get arrested and removed from their company, than they were not in control. That's not a difficult concept to understand.
Hitler was the one who militarized the economy, the economy was not already militarized. After WWI, the Germans were forced to disarm, they hadn't produced war materials on large number for nearly 15 years by the time Hitler gained power. The idea that they were just ready to make warplanes and tanks under Hitler is just plain false. It was Hitler who seized control of the industries and began the process of gearing them for war.
Hitler never smashed trade unions, he nationalized them into the German Labour Front, a state-run union. This was a very common practice for Socialist nations actually, to nationalize private labor unions. Hitler did not blame the loss of WWI on striking workers, he blamed it on Jews, you're starting to deny common knowledge at this point.
The SS had its origins in the SA, so if you believe the SA was Socialist, then the SS must have been Socialist as well since they used to be the same thing. Hitler also killed many Conservatives and Capitalists during the Night of Long Knives, and there were a lot more Socialists in the party than those killed that night.
Socialism as an ideology is inherently imperialist because it requires the theft of things that don't belong to you and forceful implementation of the ideology. Communism is even more imperialistic, as it calls for direct invasion of the whole world to implement Communism. Hitler was both a Socialist and an Imperialist, as the two go hand-in-hand.
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@yragplaysgames6883 Fascist economics called for state control of the economy. Corporatism under the Fascist model still entailed the state running everything and individual profit was not really that significant. Under some definitions, Corporatism itself is sometimes considered a variant of Socialism.
You are mistaken to believe that Fascism is inherently racist or supports eugenics, you are mistaking it with National Socialism. In Italy under Mussolini before Germany began to have an influence over Italian domestic policy, ethnic minorities in Italy were relatively well-treated compared to those Germany. This is because Italian Fascism defined the collective as one defined by nationality, not race like the Germans. For example, in Mussolini's eyes, an Italian Jew who spoke Italian, practices Italian culture, and (most importantly) supported the National Fascist Party, was an Italian. Before Germany began influencing Italy's policies regarding Jews, it was actually quite common for Italian Jews to be members of the National Fascist Party and Mussolini himself had appointed some of them as government ministers.
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@kasunex1772 No, they don't hold up because they simply aren't true. What I'm doing is looking at the claims you make and test to see if they are true or not. For example, you said the "Left" is anti-hierarchy while the "Right" is pro-hierarchy. I took a look at several ideologies on both sides of the spectrum, and found pro and anti-hierarchy stances on both sides depending on the ideology, proving your claim to be false. Nothing about this is "working backwards," it's a basic evidence-based conclusion to a claim you made. Because there is no defining characteristic the separates all "Left" ideologies from all "Right" ideologies, I see no point to worshipping the Left-Right spectrum.
Do you expect me to just take your word for everything you say without checking to see if you're right first?
No, money as a concept is not inherently hierarchical because money does not inherently equate to authority or power. Somebody's ability to purchase more stuff than me doesn't grant them authority or power over me.
"Hierarchy can come in all sorts of forms"
So by your logic, I could argue the existence of a "fitness hierarchy" and pass laws forcing fit people to sit around and fat people to exercise more in order to abolish said "fitness hierarchy." If one takes such a broad view of the word "hierarchy," than such a ridiculous plan would be just as valid as your so-called "resource hierarchy."
"Another great example is your insistence that reality is what matters even when that's clearly not the case."
Yes, because reality is what we live in, not theory. If something looks good in theory but fails miserably in practice every time it has been tried without exception (like Socialism), then it fails at reality and isn't worth trying anymore since it simply doesn't work in practice.
"Bismarck was a strong right winger"
Name a distinguishing attribute of Bismarck that classified him as a "Right-winger" that cannot also be seen in some "Left-wingers."
"You have your mind made up and you clearly do not care about anything but reinforcing what you already believe"
Try looking into a mirror. You said yourself that theory is more important than reality. You reject all evidence that contradicts your claims and continue to make said claims after I have debunked them. You twist the meaning of words and concepts because if you used the proper definitions, your arguments could not work. It's clear I'm talking to a Socialist ideologue who isn't living in reality.
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@kasunex1772 The "Right v. Left" fails at framing ideologies because there are no inherent characteristics exclusive to only one side. Every type of idea or policy you can think of has a presence on both sides and often times, an ideology one one side has more in common policy-wise with an ideology on the other side than it does with one on its side.
And I did answer your question. Have you lost the ability to read?
"Soviet collectivization efforts (as well as Chinese collectivization efforts a few decades later) greatly reduced the material well-being of peasants, as well as killing millions of them in man-made famines. The people who benefited the most from these policies were those who made them, the party elite. People that lived in urban areas were generally treated better than rural peasants. The peasants had their crops stolen at gunpoint in order to feed the 'proletariat' in the cities while the peasantry starved."
Collectivization worsened poverty and increased inequality. You asked what "Left-wing" policy worsened equality, and there it is. I don't care about "intent," and your attempts to retroactively change your own question are just funny to me.
But I shall humor you again: Not long after the Russian Revolution ended, so called "kulaks" were persecuted. We've been taught that these kulaks were richer peasants, but that was not always the case. Often times, a supposed "kulak" was no richer than his neighbors, but held "anti-revolutionary" beliefs. People often turned in their neighbors as "kulaks" even when said neighbors were no better off than they were. The authorities knew most of the "kulaks" were far from rich, yet they persisted in arresting them, sending them to gulags, and stealing their stuff.
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@kasunex1772 I appreciate your ability to simply ignore the fact that I've debunked every point you've made so far. You cling to an obsolete metric that's almost useless when discussing modern politics.
I thoroughly explained to you why all of your supposed "differences" between the left and the right don't apply, giving you examples of "right-wing" ideologies espousing stances you inaccurately claim to be exclusively "left-wing" and vice-versa.
Your ability to conveniently ignore evidence that goes against your political agenda is baffling.
The kulak policy was pursued to crush opposition, as I explained to you before, the authorities KNEW most "kulaks" weren't richer than their neighbors, yet they persisted in the policy of sending them to gulags and stealing their stuff, knowingly creating more inequality. There is no "perception" if the policy-makers knew this the entire time, so once again your point falls flat on its face.
Once again, reality is more important than ideology. Even from an ideological point-of-view, you do realize there are ideologies generally considered to be "Right-wing" that also call for economic equality in theory (never happened in reality though, their policies failed miserably just like the "Left-wing" ones did).
I'm living in reality, you're living in fantasyland.
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@alistair_maldacena "So we can just define "community" however we want and call it socialism?"
For the most part, yes. That's how almost every variant of Socialism operates, they selectively exclude people they don't like. Marxism, for example, has the "proletariat" as its "collective," all other social classes were persecuted heavily, including classes that were objectively worse off than the proletariat, such as the peasantry, who died by the millions under Marxism.
"The nazis had no interest in collectivization or even nationalization of industry"
That's evidently false considering the National Socialists almost immediately began seizing control of private businesses in Germany after they gained power. Modern day ideologues are fooled into believing it was "Capitalism" because the NSDAP did everything under the table, unlike the Bolsheviks. The NSDAP basically said to business owners "do as we say, or less." Those that complied were allowed to stay on in their businesses, but as mostly powerless figureheads with the state acting as the primary decision-maker for the business. Those that didn't comply were arrested and removed from their businesses forcefully, which were then seized by the state.
"same thing as a left wing egalitarian ideology which allocates the means of production to the working class?"
The NSDAP were egalitarian in their own eyes because they deemed all "Aryans" to be equal and everyone else below them, similarly to how Marxists deemed all "proletariat" to be equal and everyone else below them.
And Socialism has nothing to do with the working class. Socialism is simply about "collective or governmental" control. It's Marxism you're thinking of, which is the first variant to include ideas on social class. Socialism itself is several decades older than Marxism, and it never had much to say about class before Marxism came along.
"and were in fact heavily funded by capitalists"
They stole investment money from industrialists from Western Capitalist nations. If you believe that counts as them "being funded by Capitalists," then surely you must concede that the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union were also funded by Capitalists, as they too received (and stole) a lot of investment money given to them by industrialists from Western Capitalist nations. In this sense, the National Socialists and the Communists did basically the same thing.
"They explicitly sought to annihilate communists. They could not have been more right wing"
I suppose this means the Bolsheviks were also "Right-wing" as they sought to annihilate all non-Bolshevik affiliated Socialist and Communist organizations in Russia. They cracked down heavily on the Mensheviks and Revolutionary Socialists, both of which were Socialist groups.
"endorsement of them as a matter of philosophy"
Those same Left-win regimes did support hierarchies not only in practice, but in the philosophy of their ideology as well. In the case of Marxism, the "proletariat" were placed at the top of the social hierarchy, in accordance with the ideology. Other social classes were systematically annihilated (in the case the nobility and bourgeoise, who were butchered, not "converted) or enslaved (in the case of the peasantry, who were essentially turned back into serfs when the state forced them to live on collective farms).
"End of story"
Not quite. As we've discussed, the National Socialists were very much like many other Socialist variants. A good experiment for you to see this is to take a look at the worldview of Marxism. Replace the "class" of Marxism with "race" and treat the "proletariat" instead as "Aryans." You will find that this basically gives you the blueprints for National Socialism. It all revolves around how you define your collective, all this "worker" rhetoric was never an element of Socialism, only the Marxist variant of it.
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@alistair_maldacena "Marxists were not trying to oppress the peasantry. Millions of people died? Yea, millions of Marxists have died too. Millions of people die in wars and revolutions"
Those millions of peasants didn't die in war and revolution though, they suffered a slow and painful death through starvation after the Communist authorities stole their food to feed the proletariat in the cities. The peasantry is a social class distinctive from the proletariat, regardless of what Marx thought, as there does not need to be any sort of "unity" or "organization" in order to be considering a social class. In fact, it is somewhat hypocritical of him of consider the proletariat a class based off of his explanation of why the peasantry wasn't a class. Among the proletariat, there was little unity and not much organization, especially in his day. It is fairly uncommon in general for people to hold their social class as the most important element of their identities. In my opinion, Marx's refusal to consider the peasants to be a class somewhat mirrors Hitler's refusal to consider certain "races" as real people.
I also find it hypocritical that Marx acknowledged that peasants were nearly self-sufficient, yet he his ideology collectivized them, essentially turning them back into serfs on collective farms.
"That's not the same as a band of Marxists genociding the peasantry like the nazis did to Jews, which is a completely ridiculous notion."
A genocide against the "peasantry as a whole" would've killed most of the population of the time. Marxists certainly did implement genocides against particular ethnic groups. They deliberately stole food from Ukrainians (a people that never wanted to join the Soviet Union, having been forcefully added through a Bolshevik invasion) in the early 30s during the Holodomor, causing as many as 10 million to starve to death. The effects of this are still seen to this day, as the Bolsheviks repopulated large areas of Eastern Ukraine and Kuban in South Russia (which had a Ukrainian majority before the Holodomor) with Russians. Many people living in Eastern Ukraine are the descendants the Russians resettled there in the 30s.
The Bolsheviks also systematically persecuted the Cossacks by sending them to gulags. They reintroduced 19th century Russification policies, which one could argue to be a cultural genocide against all of the Soviet Union's minorities.
"The nazis immediately privatized huge swaths of their economy"
You didn't read what I said to you on the matter. The National Socialists SAID they were privatizing, but they were doing something different behind the scenes. At no point did the NSDAP relinquish control over anything to private entities, the state always remained the primary decision-maker in every major industry. What they essentially did was steal money given to them in exchange for nominal "ownership" in a company, the "owner" of which had no actual power over the company. This isn't "privatization," this is the state retaining control of the means of production. TIK addressed this in his video. To believe the NSDAP privatized their economy is to believe their own propaganda at face value.
"Yes, there is infighting, even between closely aligned movements"
Exactly, completely destroying your notion that the National Socialists could not have been Socialists because they persecuted rival variants of Socialism on that point alone.
"Again, the reality of this conflict does not mean that the philosophy of the left is fundamentally hierarchical."
It's not the conflict that makes many ideologies of the Left fundamentally hierarchical, it's the ideologies themselves. Nearly all of them define their collectives as excluding people they don't like. You yourself gave a primary example of hierarchy in a an interpretation of a quote from Marx you gave. If the peasantry lacks the ability to represent themselves for some reason, and MUST be represented by the proletariat, that creates a hierarchy with proletariat above the peasantry, who have no power to speak on their own behalf. Knowing this, it's no wonder peasants died by the millions under policies of Marxist regimes.
"Like I said, I'm really not interested in continuing to explain why the sky is not green, why the earth is not flat"
Considering National Socialism to be Socialism isn't equivalent to thinking the sky is green. There is ample evidence to come to that conclusion. From an economic point-of-view, the NSDAP employed a Socialistic system by having the state seize control of the mans of production and distribution of goods.
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@alistair_maldacena The famines all occurred during years of good weather and not during any wars. Soviet collectivization was the only cause of them and the millions of deaths that came from them. There were no other factors. You comment shows how little you know about history. Lenin oversaw famines in the early 20s that killed millions. Because of them, he STOPPED collectivization efforts and allowed for limited Capitalism in the form of the New Economic Policy (NEP). Upon his death, Stalin abolished the NEP and reintroduced collectivization, killing many millions more. If anything, Stalin was a more faithful practitioner of Communism than Lenin and Trotsky were in some ways, Lenin allowed for limited Capitalism in the form of the NEP, Stalin did not and stuck to collectivization. He was the bigger "Leftist" in that scenario. And millions of them did die in a genocide, the Holodomor of the early 30s deliberately confiscated food from Ukrainians, who starved at a much higher rate than other ethnicities. The Kuban region of Russia even had a Ukrainian majority for most of the late 19th and early 20th centuries up to that point. The Holodomor changed that instantly, with few Ukrainians remaining in Kuban. Collectivization is not Stalinism, it is Communism. To blame all of tragedies of Communism on one individual would be akin to a National Socialist apologist claiming National Socialism is a great ideology, but nothing Hitler did had anything to do with National Socialism. Everything Stalin did was ROOTED in Marxist ideology.
"They do not engage in collective politics generally"
And neither do most "proletariat." It's completely arbitrary thing done to deny the right of peasants and farmers to speak on their own behalf. Rural peasants and urban "proletariat" are two distinct social classes, and neither one was politically conscious and organized on a significant scale, not now and certainly not in Marx's day.
"The Cossacks were nazis"
No they weren't you cretin, they were an ethnicity that pre-dated National Socialism by centuries. In fact, the beginning of their persecution at the hands of the Communists pre-dated the formation of the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), so how exactly could they be adherents to an ideology that does not yet exist? Educate yourself.
"They were privatizing"
Leftists have a habit of selectively taking some things the National Socialists said at face value. They SAID they were privatizing. What they were actually doing was seizing companies and placing them under de facto state administration at the expense of the owners.
"And as stated before, Marx was correct on the peasantry"
Marx was fundamentally wrong on the peasantry because his reason for why they "are not a class" could just as easily be applied to the proletariat. Marx was a hypocritical liar, like most of his current followers. Many "Leftist" ideologies are fundamentally hierarchical, both in theory and in practice. By denying the right of the peasants to speak on their own behalf, Marx called for a hierarchy of proletariat above peasants.
"Yes it is"
Socialism is simply collective and/or state control of the means of production and distribution of goods. The National Socialist economic policies fit within that definition perfectly. You have a warped view on what Socialism is distorted by Marxism, a dogmatic and pseudoscientific ideology that has largely been debunked by academics over the last century. Marxism is quite literally the Flat Earth Theory of Economics.
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@PantheraKitty And neither did National Socialist Germany :) The state ran everything. The way the National Socialists in Germany ran their economy was pretty much the same as the way the Soviets ran theirs, aside from a few key differences. In both cases, the state controlled the means of production and distribution of goods, so you have Socialism. I think you're a closeted leftist in denial of the truth.
Lol, "Wikipedia." That explains a lot. I suggest you actually read something credible before continuing the conversation. As I said, Marx hated the Jewish religion and culture. It's hard to argue Marx was ever a Jew since he was not raised Jewish, as his father converted to Christianity before he was even born. Jews were heavily persecuted in the U.S.S.R. as Jewish culture and religion was highly looked down upon, a fact that doesn't align with your beliefs, so you choose to ignore it. Let's also not forget about the Red pogroms that the Bolsheviks carried out during the Revolution, everyone only likes to talk about the White pogroms.
If anything, Stalin was a more devout follower of Communism than both Lenin and Trotsky. After Marxism's shitty economic policies triggered a famine in the early 1920s, Lenin rolled back collectivization efforts and created the New Economic Policy (NEP) which allowed for limited Capitalism. When Stalin took over, he did away with the NEP and revamped collectivization efforts in spite of the mass starvation it caused. Stalin was "more Communist" than Lenin.
You seem to have a strange fascination with Jews. The real Jews are living in Israel right now, and may they have many centuries of peace.
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@PantheraKitty Yes, I'm sure about that. The National Socialists seized control of everything, but unlike the Soviets they kept the old names and didn't formally incorporate anything into the state in order to keep up the guise of a free market as to not alarm the moderates in Germany. That tactic continues to fool leftist idiots into believing Germany was Capitalist to this day. Krupp and Porsche did not work "hand-in-hand" with the state. Actually watch the video, they were essentially being held hostage and forced to do everything the state wanted without question, or else they'd get arrested and jailed. I love how you're leaving Hugo Junkers out of the conversation, as he provides an example of what National Socialists did to industrialists that refused their demands.
Marx despised the Jewish religion and culture, therefore he was an anti-Semite, which shows in many of his writings. His writings were used as the basis of the ideology of the Soviet Union, and the Soviet Union was quite anti-Semitic in its policies. Jews were oppressed just as every other religion was, but Jewish culture was hated in particular because the Bolsheviks saw Jewish culture as being inherently Capitalistic. You refuse to believe the truth because you seem to have ideologically motivations for believing the Soviet Union was not anti-Semitic, which contradicts all known historical fact on the matter.
You are referring to Israel, the home of the Jews. Most Palestinians living there are the descendants of Arabs who moved there in the 1920s and 30s when the British were discussing whether or not to give the land to the Jews. Remember, the Palestinians have been offered their own country by the Jews on no less than 5 occasions, rejected every single one of them even though they got more land than the Jews in a few of the offers. They're not interested in their own country, they want to kill all the Israelis.
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@PantheraKitty When you have 0 agency to do what you want and the state handles all business decisions, there is no "relative," it's simply state control of the means of production. Please learn what Socialism actually means. The company is not private just because the state says it is.
The Soviet Union was an atheist invention, created by atheists. Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin . . . all atheists. Jews were heavily oppressed under it. There was nothing "Jewish" about it. It should come as no surprise that when the Soviet Union finally let open its doors to emigration in the 70s and 80s, most of the people flooding out of the country the first chance they got were Jews. Russia today is a very anti-Semitic country, which is quite odd for a place you claim tolerated Judaism for most of the 20th century. Peoples' attitudes didn't change immediately after the Soviet Union fell, they didn't change at all because the Soviet Union was anti-Semitic to begin with.
Nothing you say has any basis in fact, you're just an anti-Semitic closeted leftist who doesn't understand history. I should not be surprised, as anti-Semitism and ignorance of history is widespread among the political left.
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@drg111yt I wouldn't say they eagerly collaborated with the National Socialists, and again, all of this happened years before the war even began. The way they did things was they issued these companies ultimatums: do what we say or else. Owners that refused, like Junkers, were arrested and replaced with party yes-men. I'm looking at Encyclopaedia Britannica article on Junkers now, and it is incredibly poorly written. It says Junkers stepped down from the company in 1933. He never stepped down, he was placed under house arrest by the NSDAP in 1934 and lost his company then. The article also cites 0 sources for the information presented and I cannot find any credible source that says Junkers was a Socialist, only left-wing publications claiming he was one.
With business owners that did agree to comply, they were turned into little more than figureheads in their own companies, being watched closely by the party. National Socialist ideology is explicitly anti-Capitalist, they even abolished Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution that protected the right to property in 1933, not even one year after they gained power. This is a level of government coercion that goes far beyond anything Britain and America did during WWII, and the National Socialists started this as early as 1933.
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@drg111yt Left-wingers often do try to paint things they deem as beneficial as "Socialist." You gave a good example with Jesus. Likewise, they make up excuses or straight up lies to distance themselves from things that were Socialistic and bad, like National Socialism. The question of why some claim Junkers was a Socialist is relevant to this very discussion. He was probably the most prominent businessman who was forcibly removed by the NSDAP. The reason for this was that he refused to submit to their will and do everything they told him to, so he was arrested and removed. The Left has a vested interest in denying that National Socialism was Socialism, so they claim Junkers was a Socialist in order to paint that as the reason why the NSDAP seized his business and not that they were seizing all the key businesses, and the owners had a choice to either go along with it, or get arrested and removed like Junkers. I can't find a non left-wing source that claims Junkers was a Socialist and even if he was, he was given the same choice all the other business owners were given, so he likely would've stayed on in his business (in a mostly powerless figurehead position, like all the other owners that complied) had he accepted the ultimatum instead of refusing it.
Hitler and the National Socialist viewed Capitalism itself as Jewish, not just "international Capitalism." They also viewed Marxism as Jewish and themselves as the political center between Marxism on the left and Capitalism on the right. Italian Fascism had a similar view of itself. This is called the "Fascist Third Way," though keep in mind National Socialism is a distinct ideology from Fascism.
Some certainly did comply eagerly, at first. Many, however, would come to regret this decision as the NSDAP effectively controlled their businesses right under them. The removal of Article 153 gave the NSDAP the ability to seize property as they wished without due process of any kind, effectively removing the right to own property in Germany. Considering they never really followed the constitution, which was technically still active, it is odd that they decided to remove Article 153 as well as several other articles, especially considering they didn't follow the parts that weren't removed later on.
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@drg111yt Socialism is collective control of the means of production, but the "from each according to his ability to each according to his need" is not an inherent part of the ideology. Socialism originated in the 1790s during the French Revolution, but branched off into many, many different variants of "flavors." Marxism is different from National Socialism, but both were variants of Socialism. For example, Socialism itself has nothing to do with class, it was Marxist Socialism that added the class component to their specific version of the ideology.
Hitler seized a lot more than the arms industries. The state also wasn't completely disarmed. The Weimar government had been secretly testing equipment and tactics in the Soviet Union as part of a deal with the Soviets. Interestingly, this deal with the Soviets continued for a few years more under the NSDAP regime. Hitler was preparing for world conquest, but state seizure of the means of production was an element of National Socialist ideology. Had Hitler actually conquer all of Eastern Europe and win the war, he would not have handed the means of production back into the hands of private individuals, the state would still retain control.
I must say, Goring being a Capitalist is news to me. Do you have any sources to back up that assertion? The National Socialists opposed Capitalism itself, which is private control of the means of production. They seized control of all of Germany's key industries with or without the consent of the owners and whether or not those owners were considered to be "Aryans" by the NSDAP. Remember, Junkers was an ethnic German, that didn't protect him though.
As yes, "Schindler's List," the film based on a novel based on the life of Oskar Schindler. As much as the film portrays Schindler to be intertwined with the National Socialist state, it's still an understatement. Business owners like Schindler that accepted state control of their businesses were required to become party members if they weren't already, effectively turning them into government ministers themselves, if they were on the good side of the party. Schindler worked as a spy for the Abwehr in the 30s before the war even began. It should also be noted that Schindler's business in the war did not pre-date the NSDAP state control. Rather, he established it under them, through them. His service as a spy for them helped him to achieve this, as he was seen as a trusted official. This is wholly different from a pre-1933 German industrialist who had his already existing business seized by the NSDAP.
As for the "money rolling in," the state decided what businesses would be paid and most industries made less money following NSDAP seizure, since the state didn't care about the bottom line.
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@drg111yt Egalitarianism is not an inherent feature of Socialism. Socialism is defined by Merriam-Webster as "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods." Collectivism and Egalitarianism are not the same thing. A collective does not have the be equal and to be equal does not require being a collective. Some variants of Socialism did adopt an egalitarian doctrine, most of whom didn't actually follow it but that is besides the point. It is collective control of the means of production that is the core element of all Socialist ideologies, anything else is variant-specific.
The National Socialists seized control of virtually all key industries, not ones that defied them. Like I explained before, even those that did comply willingly were still effectively controlled by the state, as the NSDAP was actually making decisions on behalf of the business. This isn't "private control" by anyone's definition.
Goring was a man with a lot of power and little accountability. Virtually anyone in that position engaged in the consumption of luxury goods and practices. We even talked about this before, most Socialist dictators also indulged in things like this, from Stalin to Castro to Mao to Tito. Goring, like Hitler, believed that Capitalism was Jewish, so it is doubtful that he would've viewed himself as a Capitalist. And no, none of those activates seem Capitalist to me, as Capitalism is simply private ownership of the means of production. None of Goring's listed hobbies appear to have anything to do with private control of the means of production, just the indulgence of luxury. Something like this may seem to be Capitalistic because Capitalist nations are usually the only ones wealthy enough for people to afford these types of luxuries.
They began losing their profits in the 1930s before the war began, largely because of the state control of their companies. And like I said before, I think to describe Schindler as a Capitalist and individual separated from the state would be a wholly inaccurate description of the situation. He was a spy for the Abwehr in the 30s and set up his company under the NSDAP regime, not before it came to power. Because of this, he wasn't a pre-war Industrialist. Schindler was very intertwined with the state. His enjoyment of the "spoils" was likely due to his position as pseudo-official within the party in his area, as he was a card-carrying member of the NSDAP even before he started his business, under the direction of the state, mind you.
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@drg111yt Yes, National Socialist Germany and Fascist Italy. National Socialism and Fascism are two Socialistic ideologies that don't contain egalitarianism, but even then, both of them did have long-term plans to abolish class, it was just seen as something that will eventually happen in the far-off future and not something to be worried about in the present.
Again, dictionary definition of Socialism:
"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"
Do you see anything egalitarian in there?
Commissars were political officers, not military ones. The Soviets only really followed them for the first part of the war. When it was revealed that most of them were incredibly incompetent, they become less important to military formations later in the war. The National Socialists were not individual thinkers, their military organization was similar to that which the German Army followed before the NSDAP gained power.
Seizing control of the companies was part of National Socialist ideology, Hitler would've retained control of the companies under the state after the war if he won it as well. And by controlling the means of production, he had already implemented Socialism since Socialism is simply collective control of the means of production. TIK talks about most of the companies you mentioned and proved you wrong on your assumption that they were operating privately. The state effectively controlled these companies, they just didn't change the name and claim it was no a government ministry as to not alarm the middle class in Germany. The guise of private ownership was kept while behind closed doors, the NSDAP was controlling all the key industries.
Socialist leaders are incredibly wealthy, and there is no secret of it in their nations. They live lives of luxury and indulgence at the expense of their own people. Germany was not a Capitalist nation, it was Socialist. You fail to understand that Goring was second only to Hitler in Germany. Socialist nations aren't Capitalist, yet Socialist leaders are able to live lives like that. Goring doing it is more akin to Socialist leaders doing it since Goring is part of the state, second highest ranking official in Germany. Was the U.S.S.R. Capitalist since Stalin lived in luxury? In actual Capitalist nations, people not affiliated with the state in any sense are able to become wealthy enough independently to do such things.
I would recommend watching the entirety of TIK's video before proceeding, he addresses and debunks pretty much all of the points you try to make.
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@drg111yt 4. The Romans were a pre-Industrial society. I don't see how any of their economic practices could've been relevant in the 20th century. The NSDAP did seize control of the means of production. This was an element of their ideology, which makes it Socialist.
5. The NSDAP did go after Right-wing groups that opposed him. Der Stahlhelm was not one of these groups, it was a German Fascist organization modeled heavily on Mussolini's Blackshirts. Ideologically, they already had quite a bit in common with the NSDAP, so some of their elements integrated into the NSDAP peacefully. The same was not true with other groups.
6. Yes, the NSDAP crushed many right-wing groups. All parties except the NSDAP were made illegal, both left and right. Many youth and scouting organization in Germany were either Conservative or Christian in nature, and they were all outlawed when the Hitler Youth was established. The state propaganda often used romanticized imagery of the Teutonic Knights to represent Germany in the medieval era, but the actual Teutonic Order was outlawed in 1938, with much of its leadership being arrested. Churches as a whole were targeted, as one of the NSDAP's long-term plans was to replace Christianity with a cult of the state. In the meantime however, they established a bastardized version of Christianity mixed with their own ideology that tried to erase the Hebrew origins of the Old Testament and portray Jesus as an Aryan, they called this "Positive Christianity." Certainly, these groups were not left-wing? As for the Night of Long Knives, Conservatives and Capitalists were killed on that night as well, and there were a lot more Socialists within the party than those killed. TIK addressed this, I thought you said you watched the video?
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@drg111yt OK, so using that line of reasoning, everything and anything that was once used in the past is still relevant today. You believe whale oil is still relevant since we used to use it to light lamps in the 19th century before kerosene? The ancient world was not like the modern world, the Romans practiced slavery on a larger scale than almost any other society in history and of course, did not have modern industry since the Industrial Revolution was over 1,500 years away. Economic policies in such a society have little relation to the present day.
Hitler did not side with Conservatives and Capitalists, many of them were killed on the Night of Long Knives too. TIK explained this, you said you watched the video.
And yes, to be Socialist and totalitarian often go hand-in-hand, as Socialism requires the forceful seizure of property, which is inherently totalitarian.
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@drg111yt The highest estimate I've ever seen for the death toll of the Night of Long Knives was 1,000, which is likely a high overestimate.
Still, what happened to the other 2,999,000 SA members after the night was over? Also, the SS largely replaced the SA after that, but the SS had its origins as a part of the SA. If you deem the SA to be Socialistic, the SS would have been just as Socialistic.
And as I've said before, Conservatives and Capitalists were killed on the Night of Long Knives too, a fact you seen to be ignoring.
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@drg111yt My aim here is to address everything you claim. I don't see any "non sequiturs."
Hitler believed Rohm was planning to stage a coup against him, that was the reason he was killed. I don't know if he actually was planning such a coup.
And I tell you again Hitler did not side with Conservatives, he arrested and killed many of them. One of the first things done was to make all parties except the NSDAP illegal. All political parties were put down, not just Socialistic ones. Religious, Conservative, and Capitalist organizations were outlawed, with much of their leadership arrested. The Teutonic Order, for example, was outlawed in 1938 with much of its leadership arrested. Many youth organizations were religious or Conservative in nature and they, likewise, were cracked down upon once the Hitler Youth was established. Conservatives and Capitalists were both killed on the Night of Long Knives, something often ignored because it doesn't align with the narrative.
Hitler was not a proponent of Capitalism at all, which is simply private control of the means of production. Hitler deemed Capitalism to be Jewish.
I don't know if you're aware of it, but you're using the same dishonest portrayal of events as Marxists often use to argue the NSDAP was Capitalist.
Hitler was a Socialist by the dictionary definition of Socialism, which is
"any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods"
Socialism itself is simply collective control of the means of production, that alone makes the NSDAP Socialist since it advocated for state control. It wasn't a wartime only thing either, they started nationalizing the year they gained power in 1933 and there is no evidence they would've given it up if they won the war.
Nationalism, Racism, and Totalitarianism don't disqualify anything from being Socialist. Socialism can be nationalistic, and it probably is Totalitarian more often than not since Socialism itself is an inherently authoritarian ideology.
You say you watched TIK's video, but you try to make talking points that he debunked.
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@slaterslater5944 When the state controls the decisions of the company, dictates how much the company will be paid, controls all resources in the economy and determines what those resources are to be used for, controls the labor of the company through state-run labor organizations, implants party officials within the leadership of the company to keep watch over it, and possesses the ability to arrest and remove all company executives who oppose any of this, then that company is under the control of the state, which means it is no longer "private." Right after the National Socialists gained power in 1933, they abolished the right to own property found in Article 153 of the Weimar Constitution and forcibility seized control of many of Germany's key industries. Business owners were given two choices: do what we say when we say it, or else. Those that complied stayed on in their companies as little more than figureheads and those that refused (like aircraft builder Hugo Junkers) were arrested and removed from their companies, to be replaced by party officials.
You're the one who lacks a basic understanding of what public and private means, Sally. We've been over this several times.
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@wishcraft4u2 I'm just a guy who knows how to use a dictionary. You seem to need a reminder:
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
Do you see anything about workers in there?
Being or not being a "worker" (the meaning of which changes depending on who you ask) does not have any relation on whether you can become part of a collective or not. Being a "worker" essentially meant being an urban industrial laborer in the Soviet Union, the "proletariat" if you will. Peasants were not typically included in that definition, and the Soviet state essentially enslaved millions of peasants by forcing them to work on collective farms to feed the urban workers. Millions of them died as a result of man-made famines. In Red China, it was almost the opposite (aside from millions of peasants dying in famines, that happened too), as peasants were held to be the "workers" rather than urban laborers. You seem to take everything certain Socialists say at face value and ignore everything other Socialists say that don't align with your views on what Socialism is. That's probably why you seem to have this notion that all Socialists are united, despite the historical evidence indicating that the opposite was (and still is) true. Yes, both National Socialists in Germany and Fascists in Italy were Socialist, but they did not organize their collective views along the lines of class (which is the basis for Marxist Socialism, something so many idiots today mistake for all Socialism), but rather along the lines of race (specifically the Aryan race) for National Socialism and nationality for Fascism. Socialism as a whole pre-dates the birth of Marx by decades and most pre-Marxist forms of Socialism make no mention of social classes like "proletariats," "peasants," and "bourgeoise." Are you familiar with Hegelian Socialism, or perhaps the various Christian and Utopian Socialist movements found in the U.S. in the 19th century? Many such variants that don't include "worker" rhetoric (its mostly meaningless in practice when actually looking at how workers in Socialist countries lived), they all got overshadowed by Marxism and Marxist-derived versions of Socialism, they did not completely go away, however.
The influence of labor unions on the gradual improvement of the working conditions of workers has been overhyped by many. In reality, many benefits can be attributed to the influence of 19th century Christian and temperance organizations. And please, what lunatic told you the IWW was anarchist and how? I can't wait to hear this.
In a free market, you vote with what you decide to buy and not buy. If a certain line of products is very unpopular among the people, the people will not buy it and the company selling it will not make money. The company will then see this and discontinue that line of products, knowing that the people are not interested. Likewise, if something is very popular among the people, companies will know that's what the people want and will produce more of it. This doesn't happen in Socialist economies, your choices are severely limited and you (as well as the people as a whole) have little say in what gets produced. Socialist nations usually focus on their militaries and heavy industries, things the average person isn't too interested in. Consumer goods, the things most people are interested in, are lacking in Socialist nations.
In the area of work itself, you have the ability to choose where you want to work, the ability to quit if you want to, and the ability to start your own business and become your own boss. People in Capitalist nations even have the option to form "worker co-ops" and they won't be stopped from doing so. Do you think people in Socialist nations have this same level of freedom? Being a worker in a Socialist society is anything but democratic.
Pre-modern despots didn't hold as much control over economic activity in their nations as you would like to believe. For most of them, it was simply more beneficial to them personally to tax and tariff the crap out of anything than to forcibly seize control of everything that is capable of producing items and place all of it under their administration. If we're talking pre-modern, then they didn't have the technological base to seize that kind of power anyway. There's a reason why concepts such as totalitarianism are relatively recent developments: we now have advanced enough technology where a centralized entity could seize control of the means of production in a society.
As I already explained to you, it's very unlikely Socialism could ever be implemented without the use of the state or any governing entity with the power to force people to comply. Every single instance of it being tried ended in one ways: it resulted in a totalitarian state or it was voted out by the people not even 10 years in. People as a whole are individualistic, most will not be willing to simply hand everything over. The right often uses the phrase "Socialism can only occur a gunpoint," because historically, most of the time it did.
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@slaterslater5944 Sally, I've debunked pretty much everything you've claimed.
You claim the "means of production were overwhelmingly in private hands" which is impossible since the state was controlling the means of production, as I have explained to you several, if not dozens, of times.
Capitalism is a free market, Sally. Without a free market, there is not Capitalism. Perhaps you need another go at it (I'll make it a bit easier this time):
Capitalism - an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by COMPETITION IN A FREE MARKET (Merriam-Webster)
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@wishcraft4u2 Again, there is no consensus among Socialists, they fight each other just as bitterly as they fight non-Socialists. Even in the relative peace of the present day, they seem to be physical unable to form a unified political party or even movement, they fracture into dozens of their own variant-specific parties. Stop repeating the lie that there was a consensus among them in the face of all historical evidence pointing to the fact they wasn't. Socialism is defined as collective and/or state control of the means of production, "workers" are not a necessary component in it, a collective could be made up of any type of group, or everyone period.
Anarchism is defined as "a political theory holding all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups." I find it skeptical when I see anarchists promoting anarchism, yet acting like authoritarians by demanding you conform to their worldview of anarchism. The issue is that, like Socialism, anarchism has fractured into dozens of specific variants that don't really get along with each other.
Pre-modern societies simply didn't have the technology or transportation necessary for a central authority to own or control all of the means of production in their country. Is that difficult to understand? Even among the most iron-fisted of kings, they still didn't didn't own or directly control every workshop and farm in their country, it was not practical. I've been asking Sally to name me one pre-modern monarch who had totalitarian levels of ownership and control over the means of production in the whole country and she has yet to name me one.
This is all flying right over your head. If Socialism is implemented, one of two things happen: the state becomes totalitarian or the people vote the Socialism out within a decade, if that. These two results encompass 100% of the results stemming from Socialism, and of the two the totalitarian result is the far more common since most Socialists don't allow for the people to remove Socialism once it ruins the economy.
How convenient it must be to be a Socialist, you claim collective control, champion Socialist movements that seize power, and once their economy collapses and the state becomes totalitarian, it's all of a sudden "not real Socialism." Surely you must see why all the other ideologies make fun of Socialists so much.
Since you bring up Lenin and Stalin, let me ask you this. The Soviet authorities wanted collective farms, right? The peasants didn't. If they left it up to choice, barely anyone would collectivize willingly. Instead, they forced it. This is a good example of both sides of Socialism, the authoritarian side and the "free" side. The authoritarian side forces it in place, which goes against the will of the people, and the "free" side simply doesn't occur since the people don't really want to collectivize. So tell me, how do you actually practically collectivize without force? Do you give give up and acknowledge Socialism is a failed ideology? If so, congratulations.
Under Socialism, an economy run by an authoritarian command structure is what you will get, as was the case in almost every instance of Socialism being implemented. And as I explained to you, a free market economy is already democratized to a greater extant than Socialist economies are, anyone with a basic understanding of economics can see that, most Socialists are economically illiterate though, so I guess that's why they can't see it. There is no "democracy" in Socialist economics, just restrictions and shortages. You conveniently ignore the explanation I gave to you. It's in a free market where you are essentially constantly voting on what should be being produced by your decisions on what and what not to buy.
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@slaterslater5944 "Industry reminded overwhelmingly in private ownership"
Source: "muh ideology"
Also, what does "industry reminded" mean, if we're going to play the grammar nazi game now?
Sally, in what would are the means of production privately controlled if the state was making all major decisions on behalf of the business and had the ability to simply arrest all the business "owners" and executives if they do or say anything that doesn't align with the state's plan for the business? You've given me nothing, Sally. You just mindlessly repeat "overwhelmingly private" without providing an explanation to back it up. You lack a basic understanding of what public and private mean.
I already explained profit to you, since I'm lazy I'm just going to post the same explanation again since you obviously didn't read it:
"Again, Sally: are government ministries private since the state pays the people in them?
Besides, it's doubtful that you could even call the money being made "profit" anyway since the businesses themselves were being controlled by the state, which entailed the state controlling the flow of resources. The businesses had no agency as to what they could do, as I've explained to you multiple times. A profit is essentially a return on an investment, how are these companies making an investment if they are only able to do what the state tells them?
Furthermore, the question of profit is wholly irrelevant to the argument on whether or not a company is private or state-controlled. If the company is controlled by the state, then it isn't private no matter how much money it is making. Likewise, a business that isn't making much money isn't "state-controlled" based just on that if the state isn't directing it. Do you even know what a Nonprofit is?"
Do you think all Nonprofits are state controlled since they don't make profits?
And "competition in a free market" entails there being a free market, Sally. If there is no free market, than there is no Capitalism.
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@wishcraft4u2 Excuse me, but you appear to be moving the goalposts. You initially argued "worker control" was a necessary aspect of Socialism itself, which I easily debunked, pointing out multiple 19th century Socialist philosophies and movements that weren't "worker-based." Now, all of a sudden, it's "public control of at least the economy" you are arguing for. That's basically the same as what I'm been telling you all along, Socialism is collective and/or state control of the means of production. "Public control" could be interpreted as fitting into that.
People don't instantly move their goalposts in a rational debate when somebody debunks one of their claims.
Not all anarchists clearly do not. As I have explained to you, anarchism has fractured into numerous different variants, all theoretically based around the idea that "all forms of governmental authority to be unnecessary and undesirable and advocating a society based on voluntary cooperation and free association of individuals and groups." This is not related to the question of who is to own the means of production. Different variants of anarchism have different stances on the matter. You do realize Anarcho-Capitalists don't believe in public control of the means of production, right?
Again, you're acting like all these different ideologies have a consensus when they clearly don't.
Your "challenge" was very easy to complete. Again, are you familiar with Hegelian Socialism or the various Christian and Utopian Socialist movements throughout the 19th century?
You've also failed to answer my question on how collectivization could be achieved without the use of a central entity forcing it considering most people will not want to collectivize if given the choice. How about you answer that challenge?
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@wishcraft4u2 Public control does not imply worker control considering not everybody in the public is a "worker" (again, the definition of which changes depending on which variant of Socialism you ask). Public is, or is at least supposed to, apply to the general population or something that represents, or is at least supposed to represent, the general population. Not everyone in the public is a "worker" by any definition of the word.
Anarchism as a whole is a fringe ideology, but even if you were to only look at anarchism, I wouldn't call Anarcho-Capitalists a fringe within anarchism as a whole. On the contrary, it appears to be one of the more popular (or rather, relatively popular when only looking at anarchism, as no version is technically "popular") variants of anarchism.
Again, there is no consensus on anything except collective and/or state control among Socialists, the historical evidence points to this. Mindlessly repeating it isn't going to change history to make it true, no matter how much propaganda Socialists like to pump out to try to change history. And "National Socialism" isn't inherently a contradiction since Socialism has no stated stance on nationality, so a version of Socialism could also support Nationalism and still be Socialist, so long as it still calls for collective and/or state control of the means of production. Something like "Democratic Socialism" is an oxymoron, however, since Socialism is inherently undemocratic in practice.
No, I'm saying Anarcho-Capitalists are not Socialists, destroying your notion that all anarchists are also Socialists, proving that Anarchism and Socialism are not the same ideology, they are different ideologies that have some overlap. You seem to like to make claims that have little basis in reality.
The various Christian and Utopian Socialists movements of the 19th century wanted to live on what were essentially communes (some of these groups actually set them up) with collective control of the means of production (basically the farms and workshops on the "commune"). They had no official conception of what a "worker" was, to them everyone living on the commune, regardless of what their profession was, had a stake in the matter. This makes them Socialists since they wanted collective control. They are not like National Socialism, as they were often Christians while the National Socialist hierarchy in Germany was mostly atheist (except for Himmler who was a neo-Pagan) and had long-term plans to gradually eradicate religion in Germany. These movements were about as different to National Socialism as they were to Marxism, that doesn't mean none of them were Socialist ideologies though, they all were since each of them called for collective and/or state control of the means of production.
Socialism is simply very difficult to tie to a free market. In a free market, you simply have the freedom to make your own economic decisions and establish your own businesses. Ironically, Western Capitalist nations don't try to stop people from setting up "worker co-ops," as in the free economy they have the ability to do that. Socialism, on the other hand, would not allow for an individual to establish their own business and reap what they sow for the same reason why they didn't allow for individual farmers owning, administering, and benefiting from their own land. Another flaw of Socialism is that when you make things collective, there is less individual motivation to do better since there is little to benefit them. That is why the productivity of collectivized economic entities is a fraction of the productivity of non-collectivized, private entities.
Most radical leftists didn't historically redistribute land though, they basically enslaved the peasants on communes, usually exposing them to worse working conditions that they had been accustomed to before. Millions of peasants starved to death throughout the 20s and 30s in the Soviet Union and many millions more died in Red China in the 50s. All due to leftist ideology. Furthermore, leftists are the only ones who have done that sort of thing. During the American Revolution (described as a "Conservative Revolution" by some historians), the estates of Loyalists and Royal officials were often confiscated by the new state government and the land divided into parcels and sold off. Nobody starved to death during this exchange, which was voluntarily for everyone involved except the Loyalists and Royal officials (most of whom weren't even living on the estates or had already fled to Canada).
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@wishcraft4u2 Except it does not in how everyone else defines it. Not everyone in society is a "worker" by any definition of the word, so public control will automatically include a lot of people who aren't "workers." And again, Socialism is not worker-based. Some variants claim to be, but Socialism as a whole is not, as I have already explained to you.
Again, different variants of Socialism define things differently. There is no consensus among them about anything. You also seem to have a habit of taking everything at face value that some Socialists say, but not others, doing the same thing for anarchism as well. I've given to examples of Socialism that aren't worker-based, as well as National Socialism and Fascism which were already being discussed.
What right does someone have to vote in a company like that as if it were a country? A company is set up by an individual or group of individuals who contribute their own capital and labor into forming the company. They also hold as the risk and are the ones expected to pay the debts should the company fail. The company is basically their property. Someone who comes in to work for the company does not have nearly as great of a stake in it. For that person, it is simply a job, which is it. They have the ability to quite any time they want and they will not be expected to pay off any of the business's debts should it fail, they will only be out of a job. The company also has no authority over the worker once the worker leaves for the day. This isn't like a state which applies to you no matter where you are. Removing the ability for people to set up their own businesses and benefit from them is something that doesn't work economically. There's a good reason why Socialist economies stagnate not long after they are implemented. You remove the ability for people to benefit from their own work, they will simply be less inclined to put as much effort into their work.
Perhaps you need a reminder of the dictionary definition of Socialism:
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
The government is the state, and a government is theoretically meant to represent the whole of the population in a country, whether those people want to be part of the state or not.
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@slaterslater5944 You're the one creating the deflections Sally, not me. You're making a nonsensical claim that profit has something to do with who controls the business (it doesn't). I debunked it (quite easily I might add) and you're making an attempt at a deflection. Third times' the charm:
"Again, Sally: are government ministries private since the state pays the people in them?
Besides, it's doubtful that you could even call the money being made "profit" anyway since the businesses themselves were being controlled by the state, which entailed the state controlling the flow of resources. The businesses had no agency as to what they could do, as I've explained to you multiple times. A profit is essentially a return on an investment, how are these companies making an investment if they are only able to do what the state tells them?
Furthermore, the question of profit is wholly irrelevant to the argument on whether or not a company is private or state-controlled. If the company is controlled by the state, then it isn't private no matter how much money it is making. Likewise, a business that isn't making much money isn't 'state-controlled' based just on that if the state isn't directing it. Do you even know what a Nonprofit is?
By your logic, all nonprofits are state-controlled because they don't make profits and all government ministries are private since the people in them are getting paid by the government.
And how many alt accounts do you use to upvote yourself by the way?"
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@wishcraft4u2 "okay and workers are not a subset of everyone?"
Workers are a subset of anyone just as any type of field, profession, or person is a "subset of everyone." A version of Socialism that broadly defines all people are part of the collective isn't worker-specific just because workers are part of that population. You're arguing all Socialism is worker-based, which isn't true as I have explained.
"The obvious point is that socialism is just the wisdom that real democracy should extend into economic affairs"
Not even close:
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
Look at almost every instance of Socialism in practice, there was no "democracy" in the economy, nobody outside the party higher-ups had any say in what the economy did, unlike Capitalist systems.
Furthermore, every society rejects pure democracy because pure democracy could became tyrannical just like a dictator is. If you built yourself a nice shed and everyone in your community democratically votes to lock you up and seize your shed, that is technically democratic. This would basically be the same as business owners having companies (which are their property) stolen from them by people who do not own it. Allowing nonsense like this to occur would quickly mean nobody is too keen to set up their own companies anymore, which will stop economic growth. You don't ever wonder why Socialist nations don't see the kind of innovation and growth that Capitalist nations do?
The old, pre-Marx Socialist movements were not worker-specific, as I have explained. Even with them, the tools were not "owned" by the workers who used them, just as workers in future Socialist states like the U.S.S.R. and 1930s Germany didn't.
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@wishcraft4u2 " Socialism indeed isn't worker specific in that sense, and I never claimed it is. All forms of socialism explicitly, specifically aim for workers' control over means of production and may also aim for other forms of public control"
You are contradicting (I assume unknowingly) yourself in the very first sentence. This entire time, you have been arguing that Socialism is worker-specific, you then claim that wasn't what you were arguing and in the same breath talk about Socialism being workers controlling the means of production. As I've explained to you, Socialism itself has nothing to do with workers, or types of professions and social classes in general. It is simply "collective," and the different variants define what they deem to be their "collective," with Marx's proletariat version being the most prominent, which is where get the idea of it all being worker-based from, because that's what Marxists believe.
"This distinguishes them from, for instance, liberalist ideologies, that insist that workers' democratic control over means of production is somehow a detriment to democracy in general"
I've already explained to you why pretty much all modern societies reject pure democracy. When you have pure democracy, you essentially have no individual rights. People who put in their own money, labor, and effort into building a business can quickly have it stolen from them by people democratically voting to take it away from them without compensation. This is the reason why Socialist countries see pretty much no innovation when compared to Capitalist countries. People living under Socialism have no reason to innovate or do more than the bare minimum since whatever they create will simply get stolen from them. It's more a detriment to freedom and human rights than it is to democracy (which you never get under Socialism anyway, workers in Socialist nations never did get control of their equipment and industry). Western Liberalism is defined by trying to balance democracy with individual rights, not trying to take 100% of one over the other.
"The rest of your comment is relapsing into the 'democracy is bad because democratic republic of north korea' fallacy, and your 'merriam webster holy writ' fallacy, which I addressed about 10 times now"
It you will have bothered to read, you will see that I said pure democracy, not democracy. North Korea is not a democracy by any definition (except Socialism's). The argument has nothing to do with North Korea, but National Socialist Germany. The state controlled the means of production under the NSDAP, so Germany at that time was Socialist, simple. North Korea, on the other hand, isn't a "democratic republic" because the people could not freely vote to elect representatives in a government legislature, as it is widely known all elections in North Korea are rigged. North Korea isn't democratic, but 1930s Germany was Socialist.
Also, you've cited nothing while I've at least gave an outside source supporting my definitions. You're just talking purely through your own opinion based around your distorted view of history.
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@wishcraft4u2 No, that's how you favorite flavor of Socialism works. Socialism as a whole is a broad collection of ideologies that does not inherently have anything to do with class. Not all variants are based around workers.
The difference there is the Federal government is something all citizens automatically have a stake in. You don't have that same kind of stake at you job, you can quit anytime you want and your boss no longer has any authority over you. You can't "quit" the Federal government unless you flee the country and renounce your citizenship. Besides, the Federal government, in theory, belongs to everyone. A company doesn't (or at least doesn't inherently), as it can be somebody's private property, which you have no right to, just as your neighbors can't walk onto your house and steal your couch because they "voted to do it."
"this is how all Socialists define Socialism"
No, they didn't. They never agreed on anything aside from collective and/or state control of the means of production. You're conveniently ignoring many versions of Socialism that don't organize along the lines of workers, which you deem "not real Socialism." The biggest irony is many of those Socialists would deem you "not a real Socialist." Socialists rarely agree on anything, they spend more time fighting one another than they do non-Socialists. Always did, always will. To claim they're united goes against all historical evidence that points to the contrary.
National Socialism entails state control of the means of production (done in the name of the "Aryan" race), much like how the U.S.S.R. saw state control of the means of production (done in the name of the "workers").
Utopian and Christian Socialists weren't organized around workers, as I've explained to you several times now.
"Also, in pure democracy (which no one asked for) people do still have individual rights"
No you don't because others could quite literary strip you of everything (including your life) for any reason with a simple vote. If there are barriers in place preventing them from doing so without proper cause (like individual rights . . .), then it isn't a pure democracy. Pure democracy is mob rule s a political system.
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@wishcraft4u2 "the bottom line is you fail to give a counter-example"
I've given you several, you've rejected all of them with little more than a "nOO, ThAT DoN't CouNt." 19th century Utopian and Christian Socialists didn't think in terms of "worker control," National Socialists and Fascists don't think in terms of "worker control," and the earliest Socialists during the time of the French Revolution weren't thinking of things in terms of "worker control."
You're rejecting the definition of Socialism in favor of your made-up one with no historical evidence to support because the real definition includes National Socialism.
"There is no socialism that doesn't propagate universally inclusive public control over society, including workers control over work."
And as I have explained to you, that doesn't mean it is "worker based." Workers are a subset of the population, not the entirety of it. And the public as a whole is meant to control of the means of production under those variants, not just workers, so you're just plain wrong.
Also, you're incorrect in asserting that "all Socialism" wants "universally inclusive" (whatever that means) public control. Very few versions of Socialism want that. Most forms have an "in-group" and "out-groups." Look at the U.S.S.R., they enslaved the peasants and forced them to stay and work on collective farms, essentially turning them back into serfs. These people had no rights in that society, because the Marxist-Leninist version of Socialism that the Bolsheviks followed was for the "proletariat," not the peasantry. Peasants were treated harshly, just as nobles and bourgeoise were.
"Aberrations like the USSR etc were undeniably acting directly counter to their own pretended socialist principles"
The U.S.S.R. spurred from Marxism, a version of Socialism. It was actually Marx that brought class (specifically the proletariat) into Socialism. Everything the U.S.S.R. did for the first half of its existence (with the exception of the New Economic Policy, which allowed limited Capitalism) was done in the name of Socialism. To deny that the U.S.S.R. was Socialist only shows you're being blinded by your political opinion. Don't be one of the "tHAt WUZn'T REEEL socIaLizm" crowd every time a Socialist state fails (which is every time one has been tried).
"You can keep trying to semantically stretch the term socialism out of joint all you want"
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
I'm using the dictionary definition of Socialism and nothing I've said has deviated from that definition. You, on the other hand, have nothing to back up your argument because you're using a fake definition.
"You either give a well documented counter-example or you are full of it."
I've given you several, which you conveniently reject for dubious reasons. Besides, nothing you've said is "well-documented." Rather, you engage in pseudohistory.
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@wishcraft4u2 You do realize there's nothing within Capitalist economies stopping people from creating co-ops? We just don't see many of them because they're not that effective. The issue is if a company isn't set up as a co-op, it's probably being owned by somebody.
"I'm saying that all socialist ideologies combine them, for good reasons"
"all socialists believed in it"
No, they don't and they didn't. For the nth time, I've given you the definition of Socialism.
Socialism - any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods (Merriam-Webster)
Socialism doesn't inherently have anything to do with workers. You reject the true definition because it rightfully includes National Socialism and Fascism as Socialistic ideologies. Because of this, other Socialists are trying to twist the meaning of Socialism to exclude these things.
The public already has control of the economy. In a free economy, people buy what they want. When people have the freedom to buy what they want, the economy reacts by producing more of what people want and less of what they don't want. Why do you think Capitalist nations see an overabundance of consumer goods while Socialist nations see severe shortages of them? There is no "economic democracy" in Socialist nations, it's a group of party higher-ups determining what is and isn't made.
Like I said, nothing is stopping anyone from making co-ops in the U.S., why do you think they aren't very common? An entire of co-ops probably wouldn't be a good thing because it robs the individual of his right to do business on his own. If somebody builds a company up themselves, somebody they hired for $9/hr just to push a button has no right over the business itself.
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@wishcraft4u2 No, I use the agreed upon definition of the world "Socialism" found in the dictionary. You, as a a Socialist (if you are one), do not have the ability to change the meaning of an already defined word just because the real meaning contains versions of Socialism you find bad. Furthermore, I could just as easily find another Socialist who follows a different variant of Socialism than you do, and get a completely different definition of Socialism from them than the one you follow. This is why Socialism is a broad collection of ideologies rather than a single ideology, every variant believes something different, which is why they all fight each other more often than they fight non-Socialists, destroying the notion of "Socialist unity" that you cling onto.
It does matter if one's ideology doesn't work because said ideology would cause economic hardship onto millions of innocent people should that ideology ever seize power.
No, it's more akin to a Roman Catholic trying to change the definition of Catholicism to exclude other types of Catholics, like Greek Catholics, because that Roman Catholic doesn't deem Greek Catholics to be "real Catholics." Most people would rightfully say shove off and continue using the real definition of a word instead of the propagandistic made up one meant to cater to one specific variant of something. Likewise, you as a Socialist (if you are one), are trying to change the definition of Socialism because the real definition includes ideologies that you don't deem "real Socialism" likely for ideological reasons.
Early Socialist ideology had nothing to do with "workers" as I've explained to you several times before. They believed in collective control, which if they deemed everyone to be part of that collective, then everyone had a stake in the means of production, not just workers. Therefore, these variants are not "worker-based" as you claim they are.
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@wishcraft4u2 No, what I said was workers' co-ops inherently have nothing to do with Socialism because Socialism is not inherently a worker-based collection of ideologies. Are you capable of addressing my arguments as they are instead of setting up strawmen for yourself to take down?
Anytime you say "according to Socialists . . ." and it doesn't have something to do with collective and/or state control of the means of production, then it probably isn't true since there is no Socialist consensus on anything else.
Yet you deny National Socialism as being Socialism, denying the definition that the NSDAP set up for itself. Likewise, all non-worker based forms of Socialism would be excluded from your definition, regardless of how they define themselves.
There's a word for that in the English language it's called hypocrisy. Do you also believe North Korea is democratic because it defines itself as such?
"yeah, just collective, so that's true. And as long as a dictator privately owns the state, it's not collective, so yeah"
This issue with that is that Socialism always (like 100%) ends in dictatorship if the people don't have to option to vote it out. From this, a logical person may come to two conclusions. The first is that Socialism always ends in dictatorship, making it not a very attractive ideology to sane people. The second, assuming he believes Socialism must be "democratic" and "non-state collectivist," will conclude that "real" Socialism has never been tried, but the fact that all attempts have led to dictatorship mean it is an unattainable utopian ideology that isn't worth trying anymore.
Also, a dictator doesn't "privately" own the state, he essentially is the state. The state is not private and can never be by virtue of being a state.
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@wishcraft4u2 Not all of them do, as I have explained to you. It seems like everything that is said regarding the nature of Socialist ideology that doesn't align with you beliefs just flies right over your head. I've already told you that not all variants of Socialism promote that, and no form of Socialism ever physically implemented it, even the ones that say they are for it. In no Socialist nation that ever existed, did the workers have that kind of ownership over their tools and equipment. More often than not, Socialism just turns them into slaves of the state. It's quite frankly a naïve, childish ideology not worth pursing in the 21st century after we have a string of failures to prove it doesn't work.
It is widely agreed upon that Socialism is collective and/or state control of the means of production, as that is the only commonality among all variants of Socialism.
"they all consider this central to their ideologies"
No, they don't. They have little in common with one another aside from a belief in collective and/or state control of the means of production. It gets even more nonsensical when you throw Anarchism, a different set ideologies entirely, into the mix.
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Indy is talking mostly theory, not practice. He mentions that the party officials enriched themselves at the expense of the state, and I think there is a case to be made that every Socialist country did that to some degree. He is correct in explaining that the German economy was on the road to recovery before Hitler obtained power. Keep in mind Indy is talking about promises Hitler made to industrialists in 1932 and 33, not what he actually did after the National Socialists took near complete control of the government. After they gained power, they issued ultimatums to the businessmen: do as we say when we say it, or else. Indy's description of Nazi-corporate collaboration is fairly misleading, as it leads one to assume the corporations were willing participants in the arrangement . . . they weren't, at least they weren't after actually experiencing it.
The National Socialists would essentially force business owners and company executives to do the will of the state. Those that refused, like aircraft builder Hugo Junkers, were arrested and forcibly removed from their companies. Their companies were then handed over to party officials to run. Even among the owners that agreed to cooperate, they were required to become party members if they weren't already and were always being watched by party officials posted at the companies, essentially turning them into little more the figureheads in their own companies. In reality, the state made all the major decisions of all the key industries.
As for unions, he is explaining what they did (nationalized all unions into a a single, national union) but he ignores the fact that other Socialist nations did the same thing. The Soviets also put an end to independent unions.
They also didn't "privatize," as the term "privatization" was coined during that time as a description of what they were doing, but either the meaning of the word changed or it was used incorrectly. The National Socialists never really sold previously publicly-owned businesses to private entities, they always held control of these companies, retaining the same process of control that I explained above.
TIK also explains this in the video.
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