Posted on 08/28/2007 7:09:08 PM PDT by PinkChampagneonIce
This is my first vanity, and I am afraid. However, I am so confused that I am forced to post. I know there are people here who have a much better understanding of political history than I, and hope you can provide some clues. Growing up, Fascists/Nazis were always described to me as "right-wingers." It was only after I graduated from college that I discovered that Nazis were actually members of the National SOCIALIST Party, which would lead me to believe they were actually "far leftists." However, whenever Nazis and neo-Nazis are discussed, as in posts related to the recent Neo-Nazis in Germany, they are always described as "extreme right-wing." This is making me insane. Are/were Nazis leftist socialists, or right-wing fascists? What are the criteria for each?
David is exactly correct that this is how the term was defined during the 30s by leftists/socialists, the period of the “Popular Front” in France and other countries.
During this period the most common slogan on the Left was, “No enemy to the Left.” Which implies that anybody to your right is indeed an enemy. “Moderate” socialists were largely oblivious to the implications of this meme for themselves relative to those on their Left. Although some of the moderates, notably in Spain, found out the hard way.
Liberals/socialists today generally use the term in exactly the same way, despite the fact that it wasn’t particularly appropriate in the 30s and is even less so today.
How do you explain Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Hillary?
Dear Sherman Logan:
I am VERY interested in defining what sets socialism apart from other ideologies. Maybe that should have been the title to this thread, but I’m a little slow sometimes. I don’t think I’m up to that challenge, but could you point me in the right direction?
"Left" and "Right" refer most properly to the sides of the aisle at the National Constituent Assembly during the French Revolution. Since then they have been plastic terms that very broadly refer to the relationships between what has become termed "progressive" and "conservative" which in turn are terms entirely relative to whatever status quo is being changed or preserved, respectively, at the moment. In short, it means pretty much what the speaker and the context dictate, or in other words not a great deal when universals are requested, which is what you've done.
Did the Nazi ideological drive incorporate populist social elements? Absolutely. In that sense it could be described as "left-wing." Did it differentiate itself from the strict economic definition of socialism? Yes, it did. It also differentiated itself from the strict economic definition of fascism as well, at least as Mussolini described it shortly before Hitler came into power.
In the communist interpretation of socialism the State takes ownership of the means of production and dictates what Marx clumsily termed the relations of production. Under Nazi fascism the State allowed private ownership of the means of production as long as it controlled its usage; in Marxian terms also dictating the relations of production. These two economic systems were similar in that both of them enslaved the very workers they were ostensibly created to protect.
In terms of utopian aims the two systems were also just similar enough to be deadly enemies. Nazism proposed the accession of a specific Master Race. Communism proposed the accession of a specific economic class, the Proletariat, who were in strict Marxian terms present absolutely nowhere by the time their respective systems came into conflict. (Arguably, neither was the largely fictive Aryan race).
The translation of this form of "Left" and "Right" already is far departed from its inception during the French Revolution and the associated Enlightenment. We've come a full half century from then. It should be little surprise that those terms are even less accurately applicable today.
Some may argue the point, but to me the distinguishing feature is the obsession with equality between people before all other principles. While this principle was an effective and good thing when it involved tearing down social and political distinctions of the ancien regime, it became a very bad thing when it was applied to economics.
The only way to achieve and maintain an equal distribution of economic goods is to destroy the market. (Actually, in practice it doesn’t even work then.) Since the market is an outgrowth of human nature, the attempt to destroy it and keep it destroyed involves declaring eternal war on human nature, which inevitably leads to great atrocities.
There are a large number of socialist variants, of which Marxism with its Leninist and Stalinist sub-species is only one. But I firmly believe that all Socialist ideologies have this obsession with equality at their root.
BTW, this varies considerably from the equally various forms of fascism, which do not have this obsession, and indeed believe in its opposite, that humans are inherently and properly unequal, with the factor by which human inequality should be assigned varying with the fascist variant from nationality to ethnicity to “race” to religion.
You must be using a unique calendar.
A socialist is a socialist.
Thank you, Bill. You probably aren’t going to believe that my undergraduate degree from a major university was in Political Science, yet I never read about the aisles at the National Constituent Assembly! I can’t help but agree with so many of the posters here who seem to be saying that “left” and “right” have drifted far away from their original meanings, and that their use in political discourse is either confusing or intentionally ambiguous. Are we DOOMED to political discourse that uses terms no one understands or agrees on? Is this a good idea, as the world becomes more contentious and dangerous?
The reference was to the time period when Nazism was contrasted with Communism - late 1930’s and 40’s. Call it seventy years if you want to be more precise.
The classic example of this is that the MSM consistently referred to the hard-line Commies who attempted an unsuccessful coup against Gorbachev as "right-wing."
Right-wing Commies? Attempting a coup because the Leader was insufficiently Commie?
"Conservative" is another term that is meaningless unless you first define what is being conserved. Conservative Americans and conservative Iranians have perhaps less in common than any two groups on the planet.
I knew that. Just twitting you over the grammatical construction which implied you were referencing the French Revolution. :)
Which I believe is a little farther back in time.
Socialist.
Fascism is a form of socialism where government controls everything, but everything is privately owned. A good example is what we called Hillary care. Under Hillary care each doctor could own his private practice, but he was told how much he had to pay his employees, who he could see and how much he could charge, all under penalty of law. Yet, if his business failed, it wasn't the governments fault, since it was the doctors practice. This is how the fascist form of socialism works.
Under communism the state owns everything, under fascism the state owns nothing, it just controls everything.
Anarchism at one end and totalitarianism at the other isn't a much better model, IMHO - I say that because modern interpreters such as Hans-Hermann Hoppe have turned the entire continuum on its head. I'm gently suggesting that there is no continuum at all and that each political/economic system needs to be understood on its own. If I ever manage it I'll let you know. ;-)
:-p
Can I kill a thread or what?
Right, Left, and Center (excerpt)
12.04.02
Balint Vazsonyi
In the 1930’s, Josef Stalin urgently needed to create the appearance of a vast gulf between the Soviet brand of Socialism and Adolf Hitler’s, which the latter called National Socialism. So Stalin came up with “left” for his, and “right” for Hitler’s. Henceforth, “Left” would be the equivalent of “good.” “Right” - you guessed it - would stand for “bad.”
“Bingo,” said someone at New York’s New School for Social Research, “we have our political scenario. We don’t even have to bother to call the good people Left. We just call the bad people Right.”
http://www.balintvazsonyi.org/shns/shns120402.html
Very interesting, D Rider! What comes to mind is the difference between slaves and employees. Slaves are completely controlled, but the owner must provide food, clothing and shelter and has an incentive to do so. Employees are “free,” but must suffer the consequences of downturns in the economy, etc. and the employer has no incentive to make sure the individual employee survives. If I understand what you’re saying, fascism would be happy with the slave situation as long as the government get its cut. Socialism, on the other hand, would like to arrange things so that the employers have more incentive to care for the employees, so they will all work harder and the government will get it’s cut.....
The original meaning of socialism according to Marx was the end stage of history in which human inequality would disapear. As presently used it generally means “moderate communism.” Which I think is more accurately called “squeamish communism.”
Under true socialism (original sense of the word) there would be no employers or employees. All would work for the good of all without any need for governments or money.
In its present sense of the word socialism means essentially welfare state capitalism. I think under such conditions employers, who still exist, have even less reason to care about any individual worker, as the state will take care of everybody.
Thanks, Sherman Logan. During my college years, I fancied myself a Marxist of sorts. Now, reading your definition “the end stage of history in which human inequality would disappear” and “all would work for the good of all without any need for governments or money” I can see so clearly what an impossible underpining those theories are for establishing governments. It seems that underlying all the “isms” is a population that naively believes a seriously flawed model of human nature, and are then ruthlessly exploited by those who simply want whatever they can get. Am I getting closer?
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