That’s fair. The title did seem a bit click-baity and the they both seemed to be pushing capitalism as the superior system from the parts that I did listen to.

I dream of a day that we regularly meet up for lunch, perhaps once a week, drink a beer, have some laughs, and when we say goodbye to each other, you’ll say “The Nazis weren’t socialists” 🤣

Let me just start with my working definitions so that we are on the same page.

Socialism - the state controlling the means of production/distribution Communism - a stateless, moneyless, and classless society; as described by Marx/Engels Capitalism - privately controlled means of production/distribution, personal property, free markets, etc; as described by Adam Smith Authoritarianism - strict obedience to an authority at the expense of individual freedoms and democratic processes

In most of my interactions on the topic, these definitions are well accepted. These ‘-isms’ are ideological goals and never truly achievable. A system of governance will simply lean more towards one system or the other. There are capitalist policies inside of communist China. There are socialist policies inside capitalist USA. The world is messy.

The communism definition is the one that generally produces the most confusion due to some nations claiming to be communist, but having radically different social and economic policies from each other. Thankfully, we have the 10 planks from the ‘Communist Manifesto’ that we can always reference if we need to get into the weeds. Which, I don’t think we really need to get into for this. Obviously there are lots of different versions of these ‘-isms’ as well (i.e. democratic socialism, laissez-faire capitalism, stakeholder capitalism), but let’s just ignore all those for now.

Just to touch on unionization. This concept is something that I would put in a somewhat separate category. In theory you can have moderate to strong unions in most of the mentioned ‘-isms’ so long as government policies align to allow such things; I’m thinking of the ‘Nordic model’ as a good example of market based economies with strong unions and good social welfare programs. This is all an aside though.

Ok, so with those definitions in mind, let’s visit this idea of ‘authoritarian capitalism’ that you mentioned. I’ve heard this term before and find it frustrating. Let’s break these terms down via an analogy. Imagine a soccer game:

• Capitalism is a game with a neutral referee. The referee (the state) enforces the rules (property rights, contracts), but doesn’t step foot on the field. The teams (businesses) compete, and the team that scores the most goals gets the most fans (consumers).
• Authoritarianism is a game where the referee is also the captain of one team. They can change the rules, red card the other team’s best players, and award themselves goals. This isn’t a fair game or a competition, it is a rigged system controlled by one power (the state).

Maybe this isn’t a perfect analogy, but you get my point. Smashing these two words next to each other becomes oxymoronic. An authoritarian system cannot also be a capitalist system. The premise of each concept is in direct conflict with each other. In Adam Smith’s “The wealth of nations” he discusses the folly of a similarly centralized planning authority extensively. He was mostly talking about monarchs, but for our purposes they are close enough. The less a centralized authority is involved in the economy, the more capitalist it is. If you want to make the argument that the Nazis (the state) were an authoritarian regime AND heavily involved in the means of production/distribution, then we’re talking about a form of socialism.

In Richard J. Evans’ “The Coming of the Third Reich” he made a somewhat similar claim as you had about the Nazis ‘privatizing’ the industries after they came to power. Perhaps he had been working under a different set of definitions or understanding, but this choice of word left me baffled the first time I read it (btw, I have the utmost respect for Evans, he’s great). By Evans’ own account, the Nazis took over the government and became the state. Then they used their state powers to take control of businesses and industries to better accommodate their needs and provide the welfare programs they promised…the state took over the means of production/distribution…that’s the opposite of ‘privatizing’, it’s socialism.

You had also mentioned ‘welfare chauvinism’ which would still fall under the state controlling the means of distribution under the definitions I started with. It’s a shitty form of state controlled distribution, but still the state deciding who gets what resources. Aaaaaaaandddd I’m pretty sure the rest of the points you made are similarly addressed given the definitions. If I missed anything important to you let me know.

Also, I’m not alone in these thoughts about the Nazis being socialist, today I also randomly stumbled on historian Dr. Rainer Zitelmann echoing this sentiment. As I said yesterday though, I think we mostly just disagree on definitions. Where did you get your definition for socialism anyway?

In case you were looking for a more academic person to explain the nazi/socialist connection, this randomly popped up in my youtube feed - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yjkQZ3MmGgY&t=2623s

I didn’t listen to the whole episode and I don’t endorse the show, but there are some serious modern academics saying things similar to what I was saying yesterday. All the best.

Wow, thanks for the awesome write up and keeping it super respectful and even complimentary! Yeah, we were using a few of the same words a bit differently. Once I shifted my thinking to your definitions, we might not have a whole lot of daylight between us.

I don’t have time for a full response at the moment, but I can see the argument you’re making for the Nazis practicing authoritarian capitalism and find it somewhat compelling. The amount that they spoke out against ‘the jewish money system’ of capitalism does give me pause though, perhaps it was more rhetoric than policy. I’ll have to dig into when I have a bit more time tomorrow night.

We might have some differences on what counts as left/right policies, but I think that’s mostly on me struggling to define what is left/right. We’re also probably in massive agreement on the travesty of the unions losing relevance in the US and the harm that it’s done.

Democracy is a funny word. At some point the world decided that the word democracy means good and we should slap that label on anything we want to be perceived as good. Plato is rolling in his grave. Thanks again for the feedback friend.

I did zoom! Everything got blurry. You might be right about the glasses though, my eyes are garbage.

Thanks for the definition of Ur-Fascism from Mr. Eco. I was not familiar with it. Super interesting. He’s on point touching on ‘action’ and ‘eternal struggle’, pulling directly from Marx. Rejection of ‘the age of reason’, pulling from Hagel and/or Marx (depending on who you talk to). The Nazis also borrowed those concepts heavily. Some of this is slightly different from what Gentile wrote about, but it does adhere much closer to it. Creating the national narrative, appeals to emotion, celebrating machismo, nationalism, being one with the state, social darwinism/eugenics, etc etc etc. Very neat.

One glaring difference is the racism part. Gentile made racism impossible within his Fascist ideology, so long as you adhered to the ‘proper thought’ you were in the club. For the Nazis, the racism/ethno-supremacy part was obviously at the core the beliefs they promoted.

I just stumbled on a quote from historian Ian Kershaw that is very relevant, “trying to define ‘fascism’ is like trying to nail jelly to the wall” 😆

Any who, I appreciate your reply and introducing me to Mr. Eco. I’m adding him to my ever growing list of authors to read more of.

I can’t read most of the small text in the ‘early warning signs’, but I think it mentions the Nazis, Mussolini, Spain, and Portugal and the rest is too blurry to make out. I’m guessing whoever made this ‘early warning signs’ was looking for similarities across all those regimes and lumping them all under the term ‘Fascism’? Which…feels weird to me, Mussolini was the only one to actually call themselves Fascist. The others had differing ideologies or were just straight up dictatorships (assuming the small text says Salazar and Franco, but I’m not 100% on that).

And the Keene definition you linked to mentions ‘White replacement theory’ for some reason? Does that mean only white people can be fascist? Maybe they were just using it as an example of a fascist idea?

I appreciate the reply, but I’m not sure either definition helps clear up how the term is used in modernity.

If you want to know what Gentile was talking about when he was promoting Fascism, there’s a decent translation over here (not a quick read) - https://ia601807.us.archive.org/26/items/giovanni-gentile-english-translation/Origins And Doctrine Of Fascism - Giovanni Gentile.pdf

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that definition of socialism before. I gave the American Heritage definition of socialism earlier in the thread, which was ‘the state controlling the means of production and distribution’. Does that mesh well with your understanding of socialism? Corporatism is the public ownership of a business. It’s in the name, corpo, body, the people, the state…the state controlling the means of production.

Not trying to be difficult by asking this, but how are you defining fascism? And how are you defining ‘far-right’?

I ask, because both these terms are kind of floaty, especially in modern parlance, and have changed over the years. The Nazi and Fascist (the fascism being promoted by Giovanni Gentile and adopted by Mussolini) ideologies were a bit at odds with each other, hence why so many Jews fled Germany and Eastern Europe and were safe in Fascist Italy and why Mr. Fascist himself, Mussolini, had a Jewish mistress for some 20+ years. It should be noted, Mussolini did start vocalizing some racist shit a few years after allying with the Nazis, but it was very much not in line with what he was saying through the rest of his political career and completely flew in the face of what Gentile was promoting. There was some amount cross over in the ideologies (namely the state controlling the means of production bit), but the Nazis were not Fascists and the Fascists were not Nazis. Just to reiterate, I’m talking about the historical definition of fascism that was being used by the fascists at the time, not whatever that word has morphed into over the years.

The left/right thing has always been an overly simplistic way to classify policies and political movements to me. The Nazis did align themselves with a powerful conservative party during their rise to power and disallowed the socialist and communist parties from participating in the government, but they also implemented a great deal of social welfare programs, unemployment programs, brought woman into positions of power within the government, allowed woman the right to vote as well, and had state funded vacations for citizens. I don’t know if you can classify all of that as right wing or not, maybe you can, I don’t know 🤷‍♀️

No, I do not believe the DPRK is democratic. Why do you ask?

Fuck yeah! I’m with you brother.

On the food shortages - If you are referring to WWI, I could see the argument. If you are referring to WWII, not so much. WWII certainly didn’t help the food situation, especially after invading Poland, but there were food issues in the country before the Nazis even took power (possibly also one of the contributing factors for why the Nazis were able to get power in the first place). One of the main topics in 1925’s Mein Kampf was about seizing the farmland to the east preciously b/c of the food shortages and then the 1929 great depression hit which escalated the issue.

On the goal of socialism - I don’t know man. With my rose colored glasses on, I agree with you; the intention is to create better efficiencies in production/distribution by centralizing the planning so that everyone can reap the benefits more equally. When I take those glasses off, I see the purpose as a power grab by those that position themselves near the power centers of the political organization seeking to implement those policies. This is not to say that it might not still be better than some capitalist free market laissez fairere dystopian hellscape.

We may need to agree to disagree on this one. I take the position that since 1913 w/ the addition of the 16th amendment the USA became socialist. Again though, I do understand why that can be viewed as an overly provocative stance. The distinction for some of these terminologies can get messy.

Out of curiosity, from your perspective, what additional policies would need to be enacted to make the USA socialist?

Oh hey Tiger666, good to see you again my friend. Congrats on ALMOST making an entire reply without trying to insult someone. I hope one day we can in a civil dialog 🤗

What is the correct way to define the Nazi ideology?

My friend…

Water, electricity, sewage, the postal service, the FAA, the FDA, the SEC, the Federal Reserve, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Unemployment Insurance, SNAP, Housing vouchers, Welfare, K-12 public education, public universities, federal loans, government subsidies, bailouts, the interstate highway system, bridges, dams, national parks, progressive taxation…

Like…which other industry would you like the government to get involved in before you entertain calling it socialist? I gather that the argument can be a provocative overstatement. However, I think you would agree that “the USA has successfully integrated many socialist inspired policies into its capitalist system” is an easily defensible position.

Yes, the goal of socialism IS all about consolidating power. That’s the point. The Nazis were also in charge of distribution as well, hence all their food shortages they were suffering, just like the USSR.

That’s not the gotcha you think it is. I was trying to be less provocative by saying ‘aspects’. I do think the USA is socialist.

Also, it’s not my definition of socialism. The American heritage dictionary - socialism: Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

Yes, aspects of the US government are socialist. This isn’t news. The most glaring example being the Central banks and Federal reserve.

Yeah, I did too. I believe you came away with a perverted understanding of it. When you studied the words and actions of the National Socialists, what gave you the impression that they weren’t socialists?

And how do you define socialism?

I don’t subscribe to any peer reviewed history journals and I could talk at length about the corruption endemic to the peer review process, but if you are interested in well regarded historians that also make the case that the Nazis both stated and enacted state control of the means of production:

Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951) is a great souce and Carl Joachim Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book Totalitarian Dictatorship and Autocracy (1956) is another.

If you’d rather just look at the inarguable timeline of events regarding the unions and come to your own conclusion: May 2, 1933 - Nazi forces (SA and SS) occupy the offices of all free trade unions across Germany. Union leaders are arrested, beaten, and sent to concentration camps. Their funds and properties are confiscated.

Mid-May 1933 - The remaining, now Nazi-controlled, union structure is merged into the German Labor Front (DAF).

By Law (1934): The DAF is made the only legal organization representing workers and employers.

If you want to say that a misrepresentation of socialism or there are other key events that I’m overlooking, I’m more than willing to listen.