Nazis Were Socialists?

Three commenters in the comments section have all chimed in to say that the Nazis were socialists. Two of the commenters are hard rightwing libertarian types. The other is some sort of a strange Yockeyist type. Not that it matters one way or the other, but what the Hell kind of socialists act like this? The Nazis, and all fascists everywhere, always attack the Left and the socialists, the Communists. The Nazis first arrested the Communists. What kind of socialists would have Communists #1 on their enemies’ lists? Next, the Nazis went after all the socialists (except national socialists I guess) and put them in concentration camps. What kind of socialist regime arrests all the socialists and puts them in concentration camps, after first arresting all the Communists? Third, the Nazis arrested the trade union leaders, then they went after their members. It was illegal to be a member of a union. What kind of socialists first arrest all the Communists, then arrest all the socialists, then arrest all the trade unionists. These guys just out and out declared war on the Left. In every country they conquered, they did they set up Nazi puppet governments that followed the same policies, always attacking the Communists, the socialists and the trade unionists. Mussolini and Franco were much the same, as was Salazar later on. Fascism has been described as a “a radical authoritarian popular movement against the Left.” Workers had few to no rights under Nazism. Workers who caused trouble for management or owners could be and were shipped off to concentration camps. At first, the Nazis did make plant owners install gymnasiums for workers, but they later backed down on this when the owners complained too much. The whole idea of fascism is that the class war under capitalism is over. There are rich, middle class and poor, and everyone is where they are supposed to be. Whatever the wealth distribution is, is normal and set in stone. Don’t mess with it. This is in total contradiction to the redistributionist agenda of the Left. The state did not run most enterprises under Nazism. The capitalists did. The capitalists were told what to make by the state. If they complied, they were assured of good profits. If they did not comply, they could be shut down or have their assets seized. Big business was one of the major supporters of the Nazi regime, because it was good for business. Big business rarely supports socialist governments. In the end, it really doesn’t matter what sort of economic system the Nazis had. Their evil nature was in their radical nationalism, their racism, their expansionism and their plan for world conquest. What the Hell does socialism have to do with racism, ultranationalism, expansionism or world conquest? Not much. As part of the Left, socialists are more internationalist than nationalist, generally tend to oppose racism rather than support it, and look dimly on imperialism, expansionism, foreign conquest, etc. Yes, the Nazis were very racist, went after the Jews, practiced Eugenics, killed the mentally ill or handicapped, etc. What does their economic system, capitalist or socialist, have to do with any of that? Nothing at all. Capitalism and socialism are modes of economic development. Racism, eugenics, murder of the less fit, world conquest, expansionism and ultranationalism are realms of society that are outside of the economic sphere. This whole “Nazis were socialists” thing is just a crazy way to bash the Left. Not that it matters one way or the other anyway.

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50 thoughts on “Nazis Were Socialists?”

  1. First off– Capitalism and Socialism are not both modes of economic development. Capitalism is a system of social cooperation where the means of production are privately owned. Socialism is a system of management run by the state. It is the negation of capitalist cooperation, not a positive economic system. It is violent and parasitic in nature because constant free exchange has to be stopped through violence or coercive action.
    You’re going by rhetorical and ideological branding to establish whether or not the Nazis were Socialists because they imprisoned Socialists. The point is that the State will imprison whomever doesn’t fall in line with the State. It doesn’t matter what red herring is used to claim otherwise: Racism. Eugenics. It doesn’t matter. The historical data shows that Nazi Germany was headed in a direction that would ultimately end up with supreme State control of all means of production.
    The state did not run most enterprises under Nazism. The capitalists did. The capitalists were told what to make by the state. If they complied, they were assured of good profits. If they did not comply, they could be shut down or have their assets seized.
    You literally proved my point . What you described is not Capitalism. Your sentences are non sequitor. The means of production are Capitalist only in name. Propoganda. Ultimately the substantive powers of ownership belonged to the State. Socialism.

    1. You. Are. A. Lunatic. Capitalism is “cooperation”? You are INSANE! Were you dropped on your head when yo’ mamma borned ya? Go back to 1st grade!

        1. >Without respect of the private ownership of property, it ceases to be Capitalism.
          I’m assuming that by “respect” here you mean “absolute respect.” I don’t think there has been a single country from the 20th or 21st century that meets this definition of capitalism.

        2. @David Your statement is by definition doesn’t allow f0r me to respond any other way. If by “country” you mean a State, clearly Capitalism cannot truly exist within the limitations of your statement.

      1. You are absolutely of the saddest of all individuals. Nazism did reflect some socialist ideals, you idiot. Review history before you actually open your mouth. As for Robert, your post is exactly correct.

  2. They were National Socialists.
    I am not sure about all that is said about the Nazis rule is true for one thing you were allowed to own weapons. You would have to ask Carolyn Yeager at VOR about that.
    They had state programs like health care, anti-smoking campaign, youth groups and major infrastructure projects.
    As for the Communists at that time they were at a state of civil war with Jews leading the Communist movement in Germany.
    Actually there is a good documentary called Hitler’s Search for the Holy Grail that shows the Nazis philosophy which seems to incorporate elements of Freemasonry but into a German centric narrative
    http://www.in.com/videos/watchvideo-hitlers-search-for-the-holy-grail-4773337.html

    1. What the HELL kind of socialist movement attacks:
      1. The Communists.
      2. The Socialists
      3. The labor movement.
      WTF man? That’s the weirdest socialist movement I ever heard of. His allies were Franco, who crushed the Left in Spain, and Mussolini, who crushed the Left in Italy. What the Hell kind of socialist movement is that? It doesn’t make sense.
      You know what the truth is? Hitler didn’t give two flying fucks about economics. Socialism, capitalism, none of it mattered one bit to him. All he cared about was his ultranationalism, racism, imperialism, expansionism, militarism and plan for conquest. Whatever economic system could best help him with these matters was OK with him. He didn’t care about the workers or the bosses or any of that. He didn’t side with one or the other. Economics was simply not important to Adolf Hitler.

      1. Yes, Economics was not important to Hitler. Just like Economics is not important to Socialism. Socialism is a system that works against free exchange. It is a system that imparts the will of those who run the State.
        Bolsheviks explicitly stated that it was the duty of the State to provide protection and welfare for the people. It did not. Nazi plan was not so explicit. It didn’t either. One is disguised to support Capitalism, the other openly states it is against it. The differences are few and far between.

        1. Mott, why not stop commenting? You obviously have no idea what this is all about and would like to protect the little bits of Welfare you obviously have. Quit with the stupid comments.

      2. They were fighting the Communist/socialist as they didn’t want to be ruled by the USSR and keep state sovereignty.
        But it was a national socialist party based on then recent research into issues of race and history which Britain started with Eugenics which was practiced in the US but turned into a political movement.
        In fact Hitler saw the British empire as a model for German and wanted Germany, Italy and the UK to wage war against France and conquer the USSR then later be at war with the US as outlined in his unpublished Second book.
        In fact what he outlined in the book is exactly what happened in the lead up to WW2.
        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_Second_Book:_The_Unpublished_Sequel_to_Mein_Kampf
        http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3603289/Revealed-the-amazing-story-behind-Hitlers-second-book.html

  3. “Plans for world conquest?” Oh, please Bob, do your homework. Hitler wanted the Brits to keep their Empire. Made honest political overtures to that effect, against the wishes of his own Junker factions and others. Some “world conquistador.”

  4. “You know what the truth is? Hitler didn’t give two flying fucks about economics. Socialism, capitalism, none of it mattered one bit to him. All he cared about was his ultranationalism, racism, imperialism, expansionism, militarism and plan for conquest.”
    I think this is almost right. How I would state it is that his prime concern was the welfare of the German volk and his ultranationalism, racism, imperialism etc. seemed to him to be more important as a means of achieving that end than economics; but economics weren’t of absolutely no importance to him. They were however, subordinate to ultranationalism and expansionism, which were subordinate to his summum bonum– the welfare of the German volk (of course, his expansion turned out not to be so good for Germans in the end).
    It seems from what I’ve read that he was always an ideological socialist, though in practice sometimes deviated from his socialist ideals. I don’t know the reasons for his anti trade union policies, but I suspect it was a particular practical exigency rather than an ideological shift against socialism. In Mein Kampf he speaks quite glowingly of trade unions, calling them “indispensable.” Likely the same is true of his other deviations from socialism; but don’t get carried away, Nazi Germany never went too far from socialism.

  5. Sweden, Norway, Finland socialist practitioners of eugenics.
    Ideal socialism entails a unified hierarchal system of application. Naturally, under unstable conditions, if there are aggressively competing quasi-socialist factions, they must be harmonized in a Spiritual-National organic unit. Bob can hardly point to a socialist government which didn’t attempt such.
    Spengler elaborates as per his country.
    “Prussianism and socialism are one and the same. Up to now we have not realized this, and even today it is not yet clear. The teachings of Marx, together with class egoism, are guilty of causing both the socialist labor force and the conservative element to misunderstand each other, and thus also to misunderstand socialism.
    But now it is unmistakable that they both have identical goals. Prussianism and socialism stand together in opposition to our “inner England,” against a set of attitudes that has crippled and spiritually debilitated our entire people. The danger is very great. Woe to those who hold back at this hour because of selfishness or ignorance! They will ruin others and themselves. Solidarity will mean the fulfillment of the Hohenzollern idea and at the same time the redemption of labor. There is salvation either for conservatives and workers together, or for neither.
    Labor must rid itself of its Marxist illusions. Marx is dead. As a form of existence socialism is just beginning; as a special movement within the German proletariat socialism is finished. For the worker there is either Prussian socialism or nothing.
    The conservatives must rid themselves of the egoism that once, during the reign of the Great Elector, cost Captain von Kalckstein his head. No matter what one may think of democracy, it is the political form of this century that will survive. For the state there can only be democratization or nothing. For the conservatives there can be only conscious socialization or annihilation. But we must be freed of the English and French forms of democracy. We have our own.
    The meaning of socialism is that life is dominated not by the contrast of rich and poor but by rank as determined by achievement and ability. That is our kind of freedom: freedom from the economic capriciousness of the individual.”

  6. Dear Robert
    Just as some anti-communists would rather cut off their right hand than to say anything positive about Mao or Stalin, so some leftists can’t find it in themselves to say a good word about the Führer. The truth of the matter is that Hitler was a socialist in the sense that he did not believe in the sanctity of private property or the infallibility of the market. His priority certainly was not to cut taxes for the rich. He was deeply distrustful of the business class, as every nationalist or socialist should be.
    Yes, Hitler threw a lot of communists in concentration camps, so did Stalin. Yes, in the Third Reich there was no independent labor movement, but neither was there in Stalin’s Soviet Union. Hitler didn’t like Marxist unions because he saw them as intrument of class struggle. Instead, he thought that the government should look after the interests of the workers, which in the Third Reich was the responsibility of the Deutsche Arbeitsfront. There were no strikes in the Third Reich, but have you ever heard of a strike in a communist country. Both the communists and the nazis argued, with considerable justification, that strikes would no longer be necessary since the government was no longer on the side of the capitalists.
    Yes, there was intense hatred between communists and nazis, but there was also intense hatred between communists and social-democrats.
    By 1935, Hitler had become immensely popular among all classes, including the working class. Why hate a man who restores full employment?
    In a speech titled Bolshevism in Theory and Practice in 1935, Goebbles stated something to the effect that it is not the socialism of the Bolsheviks that makes them contemptible but there Jewishness.
    The press in the Third Reich railed constantly against Jewish Bolshevism and cultural Bolshevism, but there was no systematic attack on socialism as such. If you read Hitler’s table talks, you will find many criticisms of the bourgeoisie but never of workers, many attacks on Jews but none on socialism as such.
    The ultimate difference between nazis and communists was that the nazis thought in terms of rivalry between nations and races while to the communists the important thing were division within, not between nations. To the nazis it was Germans against Frenchmen, to the comunists it was German plus French proletarians against German plus French capitalists.
    Cheers. James

  7. “This whole “Nazis were socialists” thing is just a crazy way to bash the Left.”
    I dunno; most of the time I encounter people pointing this out, it’s usually in response to someone on the left smearing those on the right by linking them with National Socialism.
    Now, it’s true that the Nazis positioned themselves rhetorically as the friend of the German worker, even naming their party accordingly. But like you point out, their economic system was not socialist, even if it had collectivist elements.
    Anyway, the left could be forgiven if they were merely pointing out that the right often speaks populist language in terms of rhetoric, while enacting economic policies that hurt the little guy. But, of course, they don’t, because they’re usually bashing the right on cultural matters with that smear, not economic matters – because after all, they’re little different from the right on economic matters themselves.
    A pox on everyone’s houses; they all suck. Cheers!

    1. Nazism is generally considered to be a rightwing movement. But most modern conservatives, at least in the US, are not much like Nazis at all. It’s a ridiculous comparison.
      I don’t like conservatives at all, especially the US variety, but they certainly aren’t anything like Nazis for God’s sake! It’s terrible to call them Nazis. It’s so wrong.

      1. Any self-repecting “real” Nazi would have puked at being compared to a Neo-Con free-marketeer OR a namby-pamby New Democrat “liberal”. GET A CLUE!

        1. What exactly is Lindseys political orientation?
          To me he is a Neocon apart from their strong support for Israel other than that his views are pretty much exactly the same.
          Maybe his mentor is George Soros?
          @mott69
          That’s because the Neocons are Trotskyite Communists repackaged as Conservatives during the late 60’s when the USSR broke relations with Israel after stiffing them during the 6 day war in 67 to keep trade agreements with Arab states.
          It was during the 70’s that western intelligence started supporting radical Muslim groups and organisations to destabilise Arab nationalist states which senior Jewish individuals, Neocons and others support every Muslim terrorist/separatist apart from Palestine especially against their Christian inhabitants/neighbours.
          And like there mentor Trotsky their agenda is global domination.

    2. Truly, your statement does not make any sense. Did you know Hitler also had Capitalists arrested by the state? Did you know that Hitler did not side with any major Capitalist ideologies but did side with leftist ideas? All major communist leaders have killed some of their own. Stalin did it as well.

  8. “Right wing” or conservatives are for smaller, limited government, and there is no way the Nazis were about anything like that. Only a huge central government with no significant limits to its power could have pulled off the holocaust and other horrors the Nazis did. Their name translates as Nationalist Socialist Workers Party, and that’s exactly what they were. They may have practiced a uniquely warped brand of socialism, blended with psychotic racism and nationalism, but they were socialists. Big goverment making the trains run on time and giving us the original Volkswagen, while killing off any opposition in the process.

    1. @johnnybgoode
      “Right wing” or conservatives are for smaller, limited government, and there is no way the Nazis were about anything like that.
      That is just rhetoric.
      Centralisation from the media and companies, increased military, etc has increased since the collapse of the USSR not just in the US but they want to control countries through the scam of “free trade”.
      If the US was for smaller government it would not be in trillions of dollars in debt.
      What they don’t like is any rival force or power block forming that challenges there rule that’s why they don’t like people like Putin, Lukachenko, Chavez, etc who try to restore sovereignty the best they can by kicking out the Oligarchs and ditching IMF/World Bank policy.
      God forbid that they might develop a genuine national politician and political movement in the US like Ron Paul with I think the tea party was created to counter which is supported by various right wing institutions and puts forth the same old Neocon front people like Sarah Palin.
      Only a huge central government with no significant limits to its power could have pulled off the holocaust and other horrors the Nazis did.
      Nonsense Britain killed millions in the colonies during and after WW2 not to mention the massive firebombing of German cities and the US, Britain and other countries have killed millions in wars since then.
      In Iraq they have flooded that country with so much Depleted Uranium babies are being born with deformities.

      1. I have to disagree with you comment that the right wing and conservative movement being about smaller government is “just rhetoric.” If you look at the U.S. constitution, you can see that it is very much about enumerating, specifying and limiting the powers of the federal government while reserving power to the much smaller governments of the states and to the people. The separation of powers in government to executive, legislative, and judicial branches that keep each other in check was specifically designed to prevent the kind of runaway government that exemplified Nazi Germany or the British Crown in the 1700’s. I fully agree with you that the U.S. government has not lived up to that ideal in many ways, but this government has hardly been in the hands of right-wingers or conservatives for the past half century.
        Also, some bloggers claim that the fact that Nazis fought against other left wingers proves that they were not socialists. This argument has no more validity than saying that different denominations of Christianity fighting each other proves that any one of them wasn’t Christian. Within any belief system, you may well find factions fighting over who will be top dog. The unbridled centralized power of the Nazi government to control the economy and corporations, while trampling on the rights of individuals and exterminating millions of people based upon race and religion is just an especially warped form of socialism. I maintain that one of the biggest lies of the twentieth century has been that Nazis were right wing. That kind of centralized government power is completely inconsistent with right wing ideology which strives to put strict limits on goverment. George Washington said it well: “Government is like fire – a dangerous servant and a fearful master.”

        1. Why is that lunacy? If you feel that the Nazis did not exemplify socialism as you understand it, they sure didn’t exemplify the right wing concept of a restricted government with limited powers and checks and balances either. I can accept an argument that they were a deranged, unique and highly atypical bunch of self-proclaimed socialists more easily than I can accept the argument that they were right wing.
          P.S. Name calling is not a valid refutation of an argument. Talk some facts if you’ve got any.

        2. With all due respect @johnnybgoode you are flat out incorrect in your historical references. The right conservatives have historically been those who support intervention, while free-market ideas have always been associated with the Left (anti-racism, feminism, anti-militarism etc).
          The point of all the discussions is getting blurred by a tactic Robert Lindsay may or may not be aware he is enacting: using terms that are blurry in order to defend the undefendable: interventionism. Really, the political spectrum just comes down to that: interventionist vs non-interventionist. Fascism as I’ve been trying to explain over and over again is just socialism-of-the-right. All roads lead to tyranny.
          By keeping us all bantering semantics he avoids the core arguments that whether left or right, interventionism of markets and people’s lives leads to inevitable state control of everything.

        3. >interventionism of markets and people’s lives leads to inevitable state control of everything.
          Ridiculous blanket statement, historically untrue.

        4. @johnnybgoode
          America of today which I was referencing is not the American of the Founding Fathers which today is lock step in part of the British system that they fought against.
          Look at Wall Street, our major companies like BP or the military industrial complex like The Carlyle Group, banks and major financial backers of US political figures like George Soros they have senior British connections and British citizenship.
          I don’t think concepts like conservative or liberal applies to the founding fathers as liberalism was more a prominent factor during the French revolution which I think was a counter revolutionary movement to that of the US.

        5. >David given that we have been talking about the Nazis, I think my statement is apt.
          That’s insane.
          So if we were talking about Chile under Pinochet, I would be allowed to make the statement “deregulation of markets and privatization inevitably leads Fascism and mass state repression”?

  9. @Robert Taylor, you are fully entitled to your opinions. However the constitution is not a historical reference but a document, and anyone can read for themselves what it says about limiting and enumerating the powers of government to prevent the kind of tyranny that existed under the British crown. Perhaps we differ in how we define conservative or right wing. To me, those terms are largely synonymous with constitutionalists who want limited government. Also, the quote from Washingon is historically accurate.
    I am not a white person, and I cannot call the Left anti-racist (except perhaps in their intent and rhetoric) based upon my experience. For example, the well- intended welfare programs instituted by the left have demanded the exclusion of fathers from families, which disporportionately affected minority families with socially disastrous results. The Left tends to define everyone by birthgroup, including me (race, women, etc.) and in that sense upholds the falacy of prejudice, that people do not deserve to be judged as individuals. With the Left encouraging people like me and women to think of ourselves as feckess victims who cannot fend for themselves without their wonderfulness, the Right has no monopoly on racism or sexism.

    1. Limited government doesn’t have the slightest damned fucking thing to do with socialism, taxation, regulation of business, government involvement in the economy, social welfare spending, national health care or any of that!
      This is where conservatives are liars!
      The founders, when they wrote that document, did not care anything about economics, capitalism, socialism, Communism or any of that. All that limited government crap means (nowhere does it say limited government) is that they wanted to put democratic limitations on the dictatorial powers of government so we don’t get another monarchy or dictatorship similar to a monarchy. The Constitution doesn’t say a damned fucking thing about “limited government.”
      All it wants is to limit the dictatorial and repressive powers of the government in favor of a more democratic form of governance. All this “limited government” crap is nothing but a lie.
      According to you nuts then, every single democracy on Earth must be a “limited government”, why? Because they’re not dictatorships, right? WTF man. You guys have been hallucinating shit into that document from day one. That document you love so much, guess what? It legalizes slavery! You like that, huh, Constitution fetishist?

    2. WTF. You’re not White? Hardly any non-Whites talk like this. This is White man talk, Tea Party talk. Why is non-White guy talking like this, channeling fucking Glen Beck?
      You’re Black? You’re Hispanic?
      You don’t know what you’re doing. Those reactionary Tea Party assholes you’re in bed with hate your fuckin guts if you’re Black or Hispanic. I don’t understand people like you, but every race has its traitors.
      If I am not mistaken, it was the Right who demanded that there be no man in the house if the woman was to get welfare. If there was a man in the house, then they figured he could work and support her, so the welfare would be cut off. It’s not like liberals to make a big deal over stuff like MARS – man assuming the role of spouse. Check on it for me, but I’m quite sure that the MARS checkups and demands that there be no man around were demands of the Right.

  10. @Lindsay: First of all, this blog has gotten way off target. The question is here whether or not the Nazi’s were socialists. All I have done is state a few personal views, and I have been called a lunatic and had it impled that I am a race traitor. I haven’t even stated my race, only that I am non-white – just who am I a traitor to? This is a whole bunch of personal stuff that has nothing to do with who the Nazi’s were.
    The fact that you say that this is tea party talk when I have never been to a tea party rally, and that what I say is “white man talk” demonstrates my point – that the Left often sees people in a given birthgroup like slices of baloney with no individuality whatsoever. If I’m not white, is there some prescribed way that I am obligated to think?
    Just for the record, I do not hate liberals or left wing people. I see them as people whose compassion and social concern are highly commendable, but who often oversimplify problems conceptually, frequently leading to interventions that cause more harm than good.
    I am not saying that America today flawlessly embodies the ideals of the founding fathers, or that limited government is the solution everywhere in the world. Each region and culture has to assess its own needs and find its own solutions. All I am saying is that the Nazis might have prevented from what they did if effective safeguards had existed against out of control government, and that those safeguards would be more characteristic, at least as an ideal, of the Right. Not that they always live up to it or never lie about things, but at least that’s their stated objective. It was the Nazis themselves who raised the question of whether or not they were socialists by naming themselves nationalist socialists.
    As for “tearing me apart,” don’t flatter yourself. Your getting “pissed off,” using all kinds of profanity, and stereotyping what I should believe as non-white saying a few things you happened to disagree with demonstrate a lot more negative things about you than they ever did about me. I can disagree with people while respecting their views and trying to understand how they came to feel the way they do. Try that sometime, you might actually learn something.

    1. Look man, let’s just end this conversation right now.
      You don’t understand politics at all. Safeguards against out of control government have been a liberal project since the days of the American revolution. True, conservatives here have gone along with it, but they are pretty much outliers among world conservatives, as conservatism worldwide is characterized by elite rule, repression and typically dictatorship. This is always necessary because generally people don’t freely vote for elite rule.
      The “limited government” in terms of limits on tyranny and dictatorship in favor of democracy has general been a liberal concept around the world. Look up liberalism on the Internet.
      Sure, the *US Right* has gone along with it, but their conception of limited government usually means “no socialism,” “no taxes,” “no interference with business.”
      I would also love to point out for you that your freedom loving US rightwingers always, always, always, always support rightwing dictatorships overseas. They have often supported rightwing coups that installed dictatorships and overthrow democratic regimes. US troops have even invaded countries to remove democratically elected governments and install rightwing dictatorships.
      No one defends the Constitution and the system of checks and balances more than the liberal ACLU. They are widely hated all up and down your “freedom loving” US conservative movement for doing so.
      US Rightwing judges have consistently eviscerated the Constitution while US rightwing administrations cheered, typically in the area of law and order and national security. The very notion that US conservatives oppose a repressive law and order or national security state is somewhat dubious given their record.
      I already know who you are. You’re a famous and rich Black physician. You’re a rightwing Black man. Why you parrot these White racist Tea Party assholes who are the enemies of you and your people is beyond me. And yeah, you are a race traitor.
      Now why don’t you just take off? You’re really starting to make me angry with your ignorance.

    2. They called themselves National Socialists as a fake move in order to co-opt the Left and the working class. They basically disguised themselves as socialists in order to take power. So they put the word socialist in as a trick to get the workers to vote for them. They even openly admitted such.
      The initial Nazi Party platform of 1922 was actually a good socialist document in many ways. There was a lot to support there. It was quickly buried and abandoned after big business, one of the main supporters of the Nazis, complained about the pro-worker nature of the platform. In 1932, on the Night of the Long Knives, the Nazis Left was all assassinated, apparently on the orders of big business. That was the end of the Left wing of Nazism.

    1. You’re a nationally famous physician, head of a major nonprofit health organization, and you’re not rich? I don’t get it. I thought all docs were rolling in the dough these days.
      You’re a typical Black conservative, just like Clarence Thomas or Star Parker, blaming liberalism for all the problems of the Black community. It’s so absurd.
      You don’t even understand the history of the Nazi party. The other conservative parties, according to you the saviors of democracy because they believe in “limited government and checks and balances” – surprise! Guess what? They all supported the Nazis!
      The only opposition to the Nazis came from the Left, from liberals, socialists and Communists. Those were the only folks calling for getting rid of the dictatorship and reinstating democracy.
      Your understanding of politics is very poor. The very fact that you think that opposition to state tyranny and dictatorship and support for popular rule, democracy and checks and balances is a *conservative* concept is downright embarrassing. You should be ashamed of yourself mouthing this Glen Beck White Man crap.

      1. Its shocking how much you see people in terms of stereotypes. All physicians are rolling in dough these days? Not if they devoted much of their time to caring for people who cannot pay and refused to take salaries for some of their work like I did. Where on this blog did I ever say that liberals were responsible for all of Black people’s problems? I did commend their compassion and say that sometimes their solutions were poorly conceived, but never did I say that they were the originators of all the problems. I would agree with Clarence Thomas on some issues and disagree with him on others. And no, I’m not the least bit ashamed of anything – just ask some of the people I have served how highly they think of me.

        1. Look man, go read here. Great big article all about Nazism. As far as your other ideas about the founding fathers’ suspicions of tyranny and support for popular democracy instead, see here, the article on liberalism. Constitutional safeguards against tyranny and dictatorship and checks and balances are part and parcel of liberal democracy, a project of liberalism since 1790 or so.
          Sadly, conservatives are not known for their love of democracy, but the US conservatives are better than almost all the rest.
          If there’s ever a major threat from the Left, I am quite convinced that the US conservatives will pull some highly undemocratic stuff. I expect a military coup followed by death squads and a rightwing dictatorship. I hope I’m wrong, but that’s the way conservatives tend to act on a worldwide scale.
          If you will drop this Nazism is Leftist and Nazi socialism led to mass murder and liberal democracy is a conservative project, you will make a hell of a lot more sense on this blog.
          If you’re unsure of whether those concepts make sense, take them to any decent Political Science professor. He will set you straight just like that.
          I *will* grant you this much though. From 1920-1932, Nazism was split into a Left Nazism and a Right Nazism if you will. The Strassers were best seen as some sort of Left Nazis. Hitler had them and their entire faction murdered on the Night of the Long Knives, and the rest of them scattered or went to prison. That was the end of the Left Nazis.

  11. So if we were talking about Chile under Pinochet, I would be allowed to make the statement “deregulation of markets and privatization inevitably leads Fascism and mass state repression”?
    Actually the God of Robert Taylor and this rightwing Black physician, Milton Friedman, more or less admitted as much. He said that no electorate would ever allow the mass deregulation of markets and privatization that they wanted to do in Chile, so it was necessary to put in a rightwing dictatorship in order to do it. So it looks like radical neoliberalism often does need some kind of dictatorship to put it in since no sane electorate will ever vote for it.

  12. I am no devotee of Milton Friedman, and am I politically independent rather than rightwing. I am affiliated and vote with no particular political party. I do a lot of research and writing about the disparate treatment of racial minorities in the criminal justice system that would be considered leftist and liberal politically. What stance I take on the political spectrum depends on entirely on the nature of issue at hand. You are shaky on your proclamations on my race as well. You sure take wobbly bits of information and run with it.

  13. I will definitely read your articles. Providing references that support your position is a lot more productive and persuasive than name calling and stereotyping.

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