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"Income and distribution were subject to social control by mandates and laws which put business in the hands of a political order..." For "social control" you need democracy. AndyL 14:17, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)
But Andy, that definition would exclude the Soviet Union equally with Nazi Germany. I think we need to stay away from definitions that would exclude states which are conventionally considered to be in some sense "socialist." john 15:13, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)
OK, what do you think is socialist then? There is something called Falsifiability. Are their any examples IRL, or is a pipe-dream only thang? Sam Spade 00:39, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Personally, Sam, I think socialist regimes ought to be defined as those which come out of a fairly specific historical socialist tradition, which is pretty easily definable and which pretty clearly exclude the Nazis. john 01:11, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Socialism is not synonimous with "statism" or "big government". Certainly, "big government" may be seen as an element of socialism, but it's only one among many. And there are scores of clearly non-socialist systems that involve "big government". Nazism adopted a superficial resemblance to socialism, but that's where the similarity stops. Consider the fact that socialism exalts equality, while nazism exalts inequality. Mihnea Tudoreanu
Equality within race essentially means that "some people are more equal than others", which is no equality at all. And even among the "aryan race", Hitler wasn't exactly "equal" to everyone else... Mihnea Tudoreanu
I concede that the USSR and its satellites come out of the historic socialist tradition even if they corrputed it.
"Are their any examples IRL, or is a pipe-dream only thang?" False dichotomy. I don't think any of the states now existing are truly socialist though Cuba probably comes closest (though it falls far short). I would concur with the Trotskyist analysis that the USSR under Stalin was a degenerated workers state. AndyL 02:35, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
In my understanding socialism, in the broder sense refered to a political institution/ideology where society is more important than the individual - where people see themselves (or are encouraged to) as part of a greater whole to which they are resposnible and on which they are dependant. This is opposed to (rugged) individualism where the emphasis is on individual liberty responsibility and achievement. People have dedicated their lives to promoting, twisting and bashing socialism so definition now varies. However, in the context i have outlined both Nazism (volksgemeinschaft, KDF, hitlerjugend etc) and Soviet style communism fit the definition.
I think this is a particularly accurate description of Nazism. It was originally very left wing economically despite its authoritarianism (Stalin was likewise Authoritarian AND left, it isn't necessarilly a controdictory combo) and continued to be in its propaganda (altho I will agree not so very much so in practice) even after the night of the long knives. Strasser WAS left wing, and was 2nd in command, even filling in for Hitler for a time. I think we can easily wrap this article up if we acknowledge that:
I think if we can do that, we can allow the reader to make up their own mind about what Nazism was, and they will probably discover its a rather mixed bag, dependant on largely arbitrary definitions of esoteric terms
Sam Spade 06:17, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Except that while capitalism was abolished in the USSR it was not in Nazi Germany.
Sam, I suggest you follow your own rules regarding civility. I've seen many instances of you descending into petty insults around wiki. It's a shame that your view of civility somhow allows you to be insulting and dismissive but does not allow anyone to calmly refutate your analysis, point out errors or contradictions in your logic or pose questions you cannot answer. Somehow, by pointing out that you had completely misread John's posting earlier on I was being "uncivil" :)
Again, you have yet to explian how Nazi Germany meets the definition you cited of a state in which there was social control of the economy. And if you read the definition of degenerated workers state you'll see that it describes a state in which capitalism has been eradicated, clearly that was not the case in Nazi Germany. The commanding heights of the economy were not expropriated, private enterprise and private profit flourished. As far as Strasser is concerned the brothers were purged before the Nazis came to power as I recall and as you well know the Nazi party operated under the "Fuhrer principle", all that mattered was what Hitler thought and he was not a socialist. What his underlings may have thought prior to the Nazi seizure of power is of little consequence as can be seen by their fate. AndyL 07:28, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
How did the Nazis make "individuals accountable to the people themselves". What evidence is there of this? Were the Krupps made accountable? Or any of the other industrial families of Germany? The workers had no power in Nazi Germany, your argument that the workers somehow controlled or directed the means of production has no evidence behind it and is not supported by any historians I know of. AndyL 07:49, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Privatism as early law dictionaries used it didn't exactly mean what it means now when Socialism was an early movement. It meant cutting off from the masses, 'privative' meaning 'removing' through being kept for particular classes, outside of the question of allowing individual ownership as the condition by which material accessibility is ultimately given, i.e. all individuals being 'private' persons wouldn't have been used in that sense as it would have sounded silly to them. the Socialism's that did use 'anti-private' terminology originally very likely had 'private' defined differently than how Communism later came to mean it. Further confusing the two government types. They were founded basically as fitting terms for their ideas, Socialism being a 'social' minded movement of respect to necessary different services provided by each aspect of society, and Communism seeking to 'Commune' the people together in common. But they are fairly different from one another. Nagelfar 06:57, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sam, I'd appreciate it if you followed your own "harmonious editing rules" and stopped reverting without discussing it here first, particularly as you are removing factual information. AndyL 07:32, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sam, you keep trying to remove the following:
The above statement is factual. Mussolini did crush the Commuinist and anarchist movements, those movements had led strikes and factory occupations prior to 1922 and the fascist success in defeating the Commuinist threat did make fascism appealing to others who wanted to defeat Bolshevism.
Tha Nazis were one of numerous fascistic groups contending for power in Germany in the 1920s and they were trying to lead an ant-Communist movement. I'll change anti-socialist to anti-Communist but the statements are factual. Stop removing them. AndyL 07:37, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Not really since fascism was highly statist. AndyL 07:49, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps it was just coincidental :) AndyL 08:41, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sam, given that you've revereted more than once and that you haven't discussed the options on talk before you've edited the article I put to you that you are not following the rules of the club which I believe you yourself founded. You're not setting a good example AndyL 07:49, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
If anybody is interested the passage I wanted removed was this
along w unclarified mentions of left/right. They have been removed, and I am very glad to see the article shaping up. Sam Spade 07:55, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"I reverted once, and won't revert to the same edit again." No, you removed that pasage twice, at 5:59 and 6:36 am. AndyL
I've tried to add a bit more pertinent information and remove some of the subtle POV. I think the entry is a bit better now, but there's still lots of work needed - especially on the massive central bit about class conflict and support for Capitalism. But I'm not sure this article should exist at all. 99% of people wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that the Nazis were Socialist, and the current article is unlikely to convince the other 1%. Couldn't it be condensed into a section duplicated on the existing Socialism and Nazism pages, briefly explaining that the Nazis were not Socialists? We have a very long article written to refute a view propagated by a handful of right-wing post-modernists. We may as well have a page to refute the charge that Communism and Capitalism are one in the same. -- 62.6.127.107
AndyL -- Re: your changes. Socialism should be capped in this context. Same for Liberal and Conservative. In a political context, all of these words should be capped. Otherwise, a "conservative estimate" becomes only the Conservative party's spending predicitons, a "liberal helping" becomes assistance from a Liberal MP and so on. -- 62.6.127.107
Perhaps someone with a style dictionary can confirm or deny this but in my copy editing class we were taught that you cap parties, not ideologies unless they are named after a person (with one exception I'll mention in a moment). You cap liberal if you are talking about a member of the Liberal Party but if you are describing a left leaning member of the US Democratic Party that person is a liberal Democrat. A Leninist is capped because the ideology is named aftter a person, same with a Marxist but a socialist is not capped unless he or she is being referred to in the context of belnging to the Socialist Party. We cap Nazi because that refers to the Nazi Party (even if Nazi is a nickname). The general exception is with communist. If one is referring to the pro-Soviet movement then you refer to a Communist but if someone isn't a Moscow-line ideologue than he or she is a communist. AndyL 16:59, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Let me give you an example of why it's necessary to cap parties and keep ideologies in lower case.
In Canada we have a lot of conservative Liberals and a few liberal Conservatives. At Canada's inception we had the Liberal Conservative Party which tended to be conservative and the Liberal Party which tended to be liberal. However, there are periods in our history where the Liberals have been more conservative than the Conservatives. In Australia, of course the Liberals are conservative. Labor though has moved towards a liberal position on the economy while the Liberals tend to be conservative. In Canada, we had Progressive Conservatives but that party doesn't exist anymore. However, even when it did exist most progressives tended to vote Liberal or NDP rather than Progressive Conservative . We have the social democratic New Democratic Party, though that party has a number of members who are more liberal than social democratic.
The liberal Democrats in the US have a lot in common with the Liberal Democrats in Britain. In the 80s, Labour was social democratic but to the left of the Social Democrats.
In Britain, there are a number of members of the Conservative Party who are liberals, such as Portillo but most Conservatives tend to be conservative. In the US we have a conservative Republican Party and a liberal Democratic Party. There use to be a Liberal Party in New York state but that doesn't exist any more. AndyL 17:19, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Socialists strongly deny the claim that there exists a relationship between Nazism and socialism
^This immediately takes the position that the Nazis weren't Socialist in their Nationalism by claiming broadly that Socialists refute association to Nazism. 100% POV. Maybe it should say "many Economic Socialists" or "many social mutualists" Nagelfar 05:04, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Oh, dear god. How about "Mainstream socialists"? john 05:40, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
At one extreme, socialism may be regarded as the antithesis of Nazism; at the other, Nazism and socialism have been interpreted as being forms of totalitarianism (usually when socialism is associated with authoritarian Communist regimes such as the Soviet Union) .
I don't see, even if Socialism was meant to be public ownership like Communism, how it is the antithesis specifically to Nazism, nor do I think Nazism's form of Socialism lay in it's statism or totalitarianism but rather in it's guided welfare practice. The ultimate question is whether Nazis care & reinforcement for the German type made it Socialist if Socialism itself wasn't defined as legal public ownership but redistribution of existing ownership as that contrasts Communism. Nagelfar 06:18, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The Socialist parties in Germany most firmly opposed Hitler throughout his rise to power, and remained the most opposed to him in exile or underground during his period in power. They were also seen at the time to be at the opposite pole of the political spectrum from him. john 06:30, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Wow, I don't even know where to start.
This is becoming less and less an encyclopedia article and more an undergraduate essay. I'm becoming more inclined to think this article doesn't belong in wikipedia and is a candidate for VfD. AndyL 06:33, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I haven't even dared to actually look at it in toto in quite a while. Maybe we should merge content into Nazism and redirect? john 06:34, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"These 'Socialists' who opposed Nazism were self proclaimed Communist & Bolshevist parties. There were no other 'Socialist' parties in Germany at the time just the Communist & National Socialist. Highly nationalist-capitalist parties opposed the Nazi party, such as the "Deutschnationale Volkspartei" (DNVP) & "Deutschvolks Freiheitspartei" (DVFP) Nagelfar 07:17, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC) "
The Social Democrats opposed Nazism. The SPD remained Marxist until the 1950s. There were also several smaller socialist parties that opposed Nazism. No socialist parties supported the Nazis while several capitalist parties did. AndyL 07:25, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Andy, copy edit your latest changes. john 07:30, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm seriously beginning to think that this article ought to be deleted. It just seems silly to have a page dedicated to comparing two things, when most people reading Wikipedia would probably be happy to read the article on Nazism, read the article on Socialism, and then make up their own minds about how they related. It's not as if we're discussing any mainstream historical interpretations here; it's just an oppertunity for the Hitler=Marx=Sweden=Socialist=Bad kooks, who have a sort of inverse-Marxist tendency to see every event in history as a vindication of Laissez-faire capitalism, to give undue prominence to their views. Cadr
"the Hitler=Marx=Sweden=Socialist=Bad kooks, who have a sort of inverse-Marxist tendency to see every event in history as a vindication of Laissez-faire"
^Well, being that I am not a minarchist/libertarian or a Socialist=bad person, but simply an individual with a profound interest in the open progression of meta-politics rather than stereotyped linear black & white "good versus evil" politics of any type, then I do not see how this is agenda oriented whatsoever (except from a paranoid POV maybe). Nagelfar 08:17, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Anyhow, I do believe this page needs to exist and is no way an open invitation to have a comparative page between any two articles if only because "Nazism" (National Socialism) has the other topic's name right within it; "Socialism" Nagelfar 05:34, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Which is why merging useful content into Nazism and redirecting is the way to go. john 06:33, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've attempted a merger of the content. So far no objections from the people at Nazism. AndyL 00:54, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Hmm...I think it needs paring down. Having an article called Consequences of German Nazism just seems embarrassing to me, btw. john 08:04, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Whoa! Where'd the page go?
Most of it is in
Nazism some of it is at
totalitarianism
AndyL
08:30, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
1) The most important German individual to consider is Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, who was a sort of spiritual godfather of Nazism. He was definitely, in one sense, Right wing and founded the JungenKonservative movement. However, his aim was to create a form of right-wing Socialism more congenial to the Germanic (Prussian) temperament than Liberal(ish) Socialism. or as Collingwood called it in his autobiography (in an otherwise abysmal chapter) 'a caricature of all of Socialism's worst features'. How successful he was in doing so is a matter for debate, but it can't be denied this was his aim. The enemy of his ideology was Liberalism, by which he meant Classical Liberalism, and the English/American commercial spirit in general so today he would certainbly not be any more beyond the pale of the Left than Islamic Fundamentalists are. (see George Galloway)
2) There were obviously at least two wings of the Nazi party, one of which was merely industrialists and plutocrats aiming to fool the proles into electing a proxy leader to enforce their tyranny. However, there was also an ideologically commmitted wing which believed as passionatley in destroying Captialism and creating a command economy as they believed in anti-semitism. The de facto leader of this wing was Strasser who had been effectively ostracised by the time the Nazis came to power so this, along with the night of the Long Knives, would suggest the former group had won out. However, if this had been the case the Holocaust would not have happened because the industrial interests, while perhaps not enamoured of the Jews, were interested in making money not throwing it away on death camps. Just because the Capitalists (I use the word to denote occupation not ideology) thought they were fooling the Socialists does not mean they actually did so, probably something of the reverse was true. In my view Goebbels was the representative of the committed Natioanal Socialist wing and Goering of the big businees wing so it is likely the two sides were battling for Hitler's ear up until the end.
3) In the inter war period substantial links were built up between the German Nationalist reactionary Right and the Bolsheviks, linked to some extent by extremist Strasserites known as National Bolsheviks. 'Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime' by Richard Pipes is a good place to start to investigate this. He also purports to demonstrate that Mussolini coonsciously modelled his method of rule (if not the outcomes he wished to achieve) on the Bolsheviks.
4) Charles Murraus said Fascism is 'Socialism emancipated from Democracy' I have yet to hear a better definition. As to Socialism glorifying equality and Fascism the reverse, enforiced inequality has always been the conseqeunce of Socialism (whether in Communist countries or more Democratic sorts) so Fascism is really gloves-off Socialism 81.110.202.65 12:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Since the issue of the relationship between Nazism and socialism is so often discussed these days, and confused, this article is necessary but it needs a total re-write.-- R-41 ( talk) 00:36, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
I would like to highlight the argument previously presented - an encyclopedia can provide two articles and readers can determine similarities and differences based on the sources provided. Without many reliable sources about the correlation or lack thereof, without input from linguists specifically, I don't think there is any justification for this article to exist. EdOByrne ( talk) 08:47, 29 October 2013 (UTC)
This redirect was nominated at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion on 31 January 2024. The result of the discussion was retarget. |
Nazism and socialism received a peer review by Wikipedia editors, which is now archived. It may contain ideas you can use to improve this article. |
The subject of this article is controversial and content may be in dispute. When updating the article, be bold, but not reckless. Feel free to try to improve the article, but don't take it personally if your changes are reversed; instead, come here to the talk page to discuss them. Content must be written from a neutral point of view. Include citations when adding content and consider tagging or removing unsourced information. |
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"Income and distribution were subject to social control by mandates and laws which put business in the hands of a political order..." For "social control" you need democracy. AndyL 14:17, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)
But Andy, that definition would exclude the Soviet Union equally with Nazi Germany. I think we need to stay away from definitions that would exclude states which are conventionally considered to be in some sense "socialist." john 15:13, 26 Apr 2004 (UTC)
OK, what do you think is socialist then? There is something called Falsifiability. Are their any examples IRL, or is a pipe-dream only thang? Sam Spade 00:39, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Personally, Sam, I think socialist regimes ought to be defined as those which come out of a fairly specific historical socialist tradition, which is pretty easily definable and which pretty clearly exclude the Nazis. john 01:11, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Socialism is not synonimous with "statism" or "big government". Certainly, "big government" may be seen as an element of socialism, but it's only one among many. And there are scores of clearly non-socialist systems that involve "big government". Nazism adopted a superficial resemblance to socialism, but that's where the similarity stops. Consider the fact that socialism exalts equality, while nazism exalts inequality. Mihnea Tudoreanu
Equality within race essentially means that "some people are more equal than others", which is no equality at all. And even among the "aryan race", Hitler wasn't exactly "equal" to everyone else... Mihnea Tudoreanu
I concede that the USSR and its satellites come out of the historic socialist tradition even if they corrputed it.
"Are their any examples IRL, or is a pipe-dream only thang?" False dichotomy. I don't think any of the states now existing are truly socialist though Cuba probably comes closest (though it falls far short). I would concur with the Trotskyist analysis that the USSR under Stalin was a degenerated workers state. AndyL 02:35, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
In my understanding socialism, in the broder sense refered to a political institution/ideology where society is more important than the individual - where people see themselves (or are encouraged to) as part of a greater whole to which they are resposnible and on which they are dependant. This is opposed to (rugged) individualism where the emphasis is on individual liberty responsibility and achievement. People have dedicated their lives to promoting, twisting and bashing socialism so definition now varies. However, in the context i have outlined both Nazism (volksgemeinschaft, KDF, hitlerjugend etc) and Soviet style communism fit the definition.
I think this is a particularly accurate description of Nazism. It was originally very left wing economically despite its authoritarianism (Stalin was likewise Authoritarian AND left, it isn't necessarilly a controdictory combo) and continued to be in its propaganda (altho I will agree not so very much so in practice) even after the night of the long knives. Strasser WAS left wing, and was 2nd in command, even filling in for Hitler for a time. I think we can easily wrap this article up if we acknowledge that:
I think if we can do that, we can allow the reader to make up their own mind about what Nazism was, and they will probably discover its a rather mixed bag, dependant on largely arbitrary definitions of esoteric terms
Sam Spade 06:17, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Except that while capitalism was abolished in the USSR it was not in Nazi Germany.
Sam, I suggest you follow your own rules regarding civility. I've seen many instances of you descending into petty insults around wiki. It's a shame that your view of civility somhow allows you to be insulting and dismissive but does not allow anyone to calmly refutate your analysis, point out errors or contradictions in your logic or pose questions you cannot answer. Somehow, by pointing out that you had completely misread John's posting earlier on I was being "uncivil" :)
Again, you have yet to explian how Nazi Germany meets the definition you cited of a state in which there was social control of the economy. And if you read the definition of degenerated workers state you'll see that it describes a state in which capitalism has been eradicated, clearly that was not the case in Nazi Germany. The commanding heights of the economy were not expropriated, private enterprise and private profit flourished. As far as Strasser is concerned the brothers were purged before the Nazis came to power as I recall and as you well know the Nazi party operated under the "Fuhrer principle", all that mattered was what Hitler thought and he was not a socialist. What his underlings may have thought prior to the Nazi seizure of power is of little consequence as can be seen by their fate. AndyL 07:28, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
How did the Nazis make "individuals accountable to the people themselves". What evidence is there of this? Were the Krupps made accountable? Or any of the other industrial families of Germany? The workers had no power in Nazi Germany, your argument that the workers somehow controlled or directed the means of production has no evidence behind it and is not supported by any historians I know of. AndyL 07:49, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Privatism as early law dictionaries used it didn't exactly mean what it means now when Socialism was an early movement. It meant cutting off from the masses, 'privative' meaning 'removing' through being kept for particular classes, outside of the question of allowing individual ownership as the condition by which material accessibility is ultimately given, i.e. all individuals being 'private' persons wouldn't have been used in that sense as it would have sounded silly to them. the Socialism's that did use 'anti-private' terminology originally very likely had 'private' defined differently than how Communism later came to mean it. Further confusing the two government types. They were founded basically as fitting terms for their ideas, Socialism being a 'social' minded movement of respect to necessary different services provided by each aspect of society, and Communism seeking to 'Commune' the people together in common. But they are fairly different from one another. Nagelfar 06:57, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sam, I'd appreciate it if you followed your own "harmonious editing rules" and stopped reverting without discussing it here first, particularly as you are removing factual information. AndyL 07:32, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sam, you keep trying to remove the following:
The above statement is factual. Mussolini did crush the Commuinist and anarchist movements, those movements had led strikes and factory occupations prior to 1922 and the fascist success in defeating the Commuinist threat did make fascism appealing to others who wanted to defeat Bolshevism.
Tha Nazis were one of numerous fascistic groups contending for power in Germany in the 1920s and they were trying to lead an ant-Communist movement. I'll change anti-socialist to anti-Communist but the statements are factual. Stop removing them. AndyL 07:37, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Not really since fascism was highly statist. AndyL 07:49, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Yes, perhaps it was just coincidental :) AndyL 08:41, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Sam, given that you've revereted more than once and that you haven't discussed the options on talk before you've edited the article I put to you that you are not following the rules of the club which I believe you yourself founded. You're not setting a good example AndyL 07:49, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
If anybody is interested the passage I wanted removed was this
along w unclarified mentions of left/right. They have been removed, and I am very glad to see the article shaping up. Sam Spade 07:55, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"I reverted once, and won't revert to the same edit again." No, you removed that pasage twice, at 5:59 and 6:36 am. AndyL
I've tried to add a bit more pertinent information and remove some of the subtle POV. I think the entry is a bit better now, but there's still lots of work needed - especially on the massive central bit about class conflict and support for Capitalism. But I'm not sure this article should exist at all. 99% of people wouldn't make the mistake of thinking that the Nazis were Socialist, and the current article is unlikely to convince the other 1%. Couldn't it be condensed into a section duplicated on the existing Socialism and Nazism pages, briefly explaining that the Nazis were not Socialists? We have a very long article written to refute a view propagated by a handful of right-wing post-modernists. We may as well have a page to refute the charge that Communism and Capitalism are one in the same. -- 62.6.127.107
AndyL -- Re: your changes. Socialism should be capped in this context. Same for Liberal and Conservative. In a political context, all of these words should be capped. Otherwise, a "conservative estimate" becomes only the Conservative party's spending predicitons, a "liberal helping" becomes assistance from a Liberal MP and so on. -- 62.6.127.107
Perhaps someone with a style dictionary can confirm or deny this but in my copy editing class we were taught that you cap parties, not ideologies unless they are named after a person (with one exception I'll mention in a moment). You cap liberal if you are talking about a member of the Liberal Party but if you are describing a left leaning member of the US Democratic Party that person is a liberal Democrat. A Leninist is capped because the ideology is named aftter a person, same with a Marxist but a socialist is not capped unless he or she is being referred to in the context of belnging to the Socialist Party. We cap Nazi because that refers to the Nazi Party (even if Nazi is a nickname). The general exception is with communist. If one is referring to the pro-Soviet movement then you refer to a Communist but if someone isn't a Moscow-line ideologue than he or she is a communist. AndyL 16:59, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Let me give you an example of why it's necessary to cap parties and keep ideologies in lower case.
In Canada we have a lot of conservative Liberals and a few liberal Conservatives. At Canada's inception we had the Liberal Conservative Party which tended to be conservative and the Liberal Party which tended to be liberal. However, there are periods in our history where the Liberals have been more conservative than the Conservatives. In Australia, of course the Liberals are conservative. Labor though has moved towards a liberal position on the economy while the Liberals tend to be conservative. In Canada, we had Progressive Conservatives but that party doesn't exist anymore. However, even when it did exist most progressives tended to vote Liberal or NDP rather than Progressive Conservative . We have the social democratic New Democratic Party, though that party has a number of members who are more liberal than social democratic.
The liberal Democrats in the US have a lot in common with the Liberal Democrats in Britain. In the 80s, Labour was social democratic but to the left of the Social Democrats.
In Britain, there are a number of members of the Conservative Party who are liberals, such as Portillo but most Conservatives tend to be conservative. In the US we have a conservative Republican Party and a liberal Democratic Party. There use to be a Liberal Party in New York state but that doesn't exist any more. AndyL 17:19, 27 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Socialists strongly deny the claim that there exists a relationship between Nazism and socialism
^This immediately takes the position that the Nazis weren't Socialist in their Nationalism by claiming broadly that Socialists refute association to Nazism. 100% POV. Maybe it should say "many Economic Socialists" or "many social mutualists" Nagelfar 05:04, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Oh, dear god. How about "Mainstream socialists"? john 05:40, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
At one extreme, socialism may be regarded as the antithesis of Nazism; at the other, Nazism and socialism have been interpreted as being forms of totalitarianism (usually when socialism is associated with authoritarian Communist regimes such as the Soviet Union) .
I don't see, even if Socialism was meant to be public ownership like Communism, how it is the antithesis specifically to Nazism, nor do I think Nazism's form of Socialism lay in it's statism or totalitarianism but rather in it's guided welfare practice. The ultimate question is whether Nazis care & reinforcement for the German type made it Socialist if Socialism itself wasn't defined as legal public ownership but redistribution of existing ownership as that contrasts Communism. Nagelfar 06:18, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
The Socialist parties in Germany most firmly opposed Hitler throughout his rise to power, and remained the most opposed to him in exile or underground during his period in power. They were also seen at the time to be at the opposite pole of the political spectrum from him. john 06:30, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Wow, I don't even know where to start.
This is becoming less and less an encyclopedia article and more an undergraduate essay. I'm becoming more inclined to think this article doesn't belong in wikipedia and is a candidate for VfD. AndyL 06:33, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I haven't even dared to actually look at it in toto in quite a while. Maybe we should merge content into Nazism and redirect? john 06:34, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
"These 'Socialists' who opposed Nazism were self proclaimed Communist & Bolshevist parties. There were no other 'Socialist' parties in Germany at the time just the Communist & National Socialist. Highly nationalist-capitalist parties opposed the Nazi party, such as the "Deutschnationale Volkspartei" (DNVP) & "Deutschvolks Freiheitspartei" (DVFP) Nagelfar 07:17, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC) "
The Social Democrats opposed Nazism. The SPD remained Marxist until the 1950s. There were also several smaller socialist parties that opposed Nazism. No socialist parties supported the Nazis while several capitalist parties did. AndyL 07:25, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Andy, copy edit your latest changes. john 07:30, 28 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I'm seriously beginning to think that this article ought to be deleted. It just seems silly to have a page dedicated to comparing two things, when most people reading Wikipedia would probably be happy to read the article on Nazism, read the article on Socialism, and then make up their own minds about how they related. It's not as if we're discussing any mainstream historical interpretations here; it's just an oppertunity for the Hitler=Marx=Sweden=Socialist=Bad kooks, who have a sort of inverse-Marxist tendency to see every event in history as a vindication of Laissez-faire capitalism, to give undue prominence to their views. Cadr
"the Hitler=Marx=Sweden=Socialist=Bad kooks, who have a sort of inverse-Marxist tendency to see every event in history as a vindication of Laissez-faire"
^Well, being that I am not a minarchist/libertarian or a Socialist=bad person, but simply an individual with a profound interest in the open progression of meta-politics rather than stereotyped linear black & white "good versus evil" politics of any type, then I do not see how this is agenda oriented whatsoever (except from a paranoid POV maybe). Nagelfar 08:17, 29 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Anyhow, I do believe this page needs to exist and is no way an open invitation to have a comparative page between any two articles if only because "Nazism" (National Socialism) has the other topic's name right within it; "Socialism" Nagelfar 05:34, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Which is why merging useful content into Nazism and redirecting is the way to go. john 06:33, 30 Apr 2004 (UTC)
I've attempted a merger of the content. So far no objections from the people at Nazism. AndyL 00:54, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Hmm...I think it needs paring down. Having an article called Consequences of German Nazism just seems embarrassing to me, btw. john 08:04, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
Whoa! Where'd the page go?
Most of it is in
Nazism some of it is at
totalitarianism
AndyL
08:30, 1 May 2004 (UTC)
1) The most important German individual to consider is Arthur Moeller van den Bruck, who was a sort of spiritual godfather of Nazism. He was definitely, in one sense, Right wing and founded the JungenKonservative movement. However, his aim was to create a form of right-wing Socialism more congenial to the Germanic (Prussian) temperament than Liberal(ish) Socialism. or as Collingwood called it in his autobiography (in an otherwise abysmal chapter) 'a caricature of all of Socialism's worst features'. How successful he was in doing so is a matter for debate, but it can't be denied this was his aim. The enemy of his ideology was Liberalism, by which he meant Classical Liberalism, and the English/American commercial spirit in general so today he would certainbly not be any more beyond the pale of the Left than Islamic Fundamentalists are. (see George Galloway)
2) There were obviously at least two wings of the Nazi party, one of which was merely industrialists and plutocrats aiming to fool the proles into electing a proxy leader to enforce their tyranny. However, there was also an ideologically commmitted wing which believed as passionatley in destroying Captialism and creating a command economy as they believed in anti-semitism. The de facto leader of this wing was Strasser who had been effectively ostracised by the time the Nazis came to power so this, along with the night of the Long Knives, would suggest the former group had won out. However, if this had been the case the Holocaust would not have happened because the industrial interests, while perhaps not enamoured of the Jews, were interested in making money not throwing it away on death camps. Just because the Capitalists (I use the word to denote occupation not ideology) thought they were fooling the Socialists does not mean they actually did so, probably something of the reverse was true. In my view Goebbels was the representative of the committed Natioanal Socialist wing and Goering of the big businees wing so it is likely the two sides were battling for Hitler's ear up until the end.
3) In the inter war period substantial links were built up between the German Nationalist reactionary Right and the Bolsheviks, linked to some extent by extremist Strasserites known as National Bolsheviks. 'Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime' by Richard Pipes is a good place to start to investigate this. He also purports to demonstrate that Mussolini coonsciously modelled his method of rule (if not the outcomes he wished to achieve) on the Bolsheviks.
4) Charles Murraus said Fascism is 'Socialism emancipated from Democracy' I have yet to hear a better definition. As to Socialism glorifying equality and Fascism the reverse, enforiced inequality has always been the conseqeunce of Socialism (whether in Communist countries or more Democratic sorts) so Fascism is really gloves-off Socialism 81.110.202.65 12:09, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
Since the issue of the relationship between Nazism and socialism is so often discussed these days, and confused, this article is necessary but it needs a total re-write.-- R-41 ( talk) 00:36, 27 May 2012 (UTC)
I would like to highlight the argument previously presented - an encyclopedia can provide two articles and readers can determine similarities and differences based on the sources provided. Without many reliable sources about the correlation or lack thereof, without input from linguists specifically, I don't think there is any justification for this article to exist. EdOByrne ( talk) 08:47, 29 October 2013 (UTC)