NationStates Jolt Archive

Even with the ample info out there on the web I still got into a discussion with my oldest about Hitler's political leaning. He is graduating from the University of Washington this coming up year and he seems to think he has everything figured out. I have my opinion but would like to hear what you all have to say about this subject. So what was Hitler a leftist or a right winger?

I don't think the classification-stereotypes "left" vs "right" are meaningful. My evidence will soon be displayed in the widely contradictory posts to follow. ;)

Hitler was an atheistic communist. I know this because unsolicted email told me so.

I don't think the classification-stereotypes "left" vs "right" are meaningful. My evidence will soon be displayed in the widely contradictory posts to follow. ;)

Getting the popcorn out as we speak.

Depends, were you of the German people or not?

Hitler was an atheistic communist. I know this because unsolicted email told me so.Wasn't that the same email that was talking about the Nobel Prize?

Wasn't that the same email that was talking about the Nobel Prize?

The baby-smuggler email? No, that was a different one.
This one, while still about Nobel Prizes, was demanding that they all go to the Discovery Institute.

Center left, obviously. He certainly didn't like free markets at any rate.

I suppose it all gets a bit obscured these days because the politics of the thirties was considerably different to today. The racial thing for example. It's commonly held that all racists/eugenics types are right wing these days, but back then that was far from the truth: quite the opposite in fact.

Likewise his opposition to communism. You could say the same for the Labour party in the UK, but that hardly made them right wing.

Center left, obviously. He certainly didn't like free markets at any rate.
Centre-left and highly authoritarian, again obviously.

All over the place, depending upon which aspect you're asking about. I'd say mostly right though.

I don't think the classification-stereotypes "left" vs "right" are meaningful. My evidence will soon be displayed in the widely contradictory posts to follow. ;)

Seconded. Real life politics are.. slightly more complex.

That being said, Hitler was obviously a Republican:p

Even with the ample info out there on the web I still got into a discussion with my oldest about Hitler's political leaning. He is graduating from the University of Washington this coming up year and he seems to think he has everything figured out. I have my opinion but would like to hear what you all have to say about this subject. So what was Hitler a leftist or a right winger?

Left-wing and right-wing are extremely broad and trying to pin everything onto one spectrum would be rather foolish.

In what context are we talking here? Socially, Hitler would have been what is considered extremely right-winged, in that he favoured extremely low social freedoms and outright genocide of disfavored minorities.

Politically, Hitler was extremely authoritarian, which is again generally placed upon the far-right. (Though this is obviously debatable.)

Economically is a tough nut to crack though. What he favored was basically state capitalism, which one could consider more left-winged than right-winged due to serious government control over the economy.

Overall, though, I have to question whether it ultimately matters where he fell on a political spectrum. He was a mass murder, a psychotic individual, and someone who was in serious need of psychological help and should have been under medical supervision, not rising to control a country. (Or at the very least he could have gotten some anger management lessons as a kid. Sheesh.)

Left. Right is generally static and left is progressive. In comparison to the government before Hitler, Hitler was extremely progressive.

That's only with those two choices, in all honesty there really is no left or right when every word you say is law... you are left AND right at that point.

Libertarian nutbag: ZOMG HITLER WAS COMMUNIST ANTI-FREE MARKET

facepalms

'left' and 'right' designations are bourgeois anyways.

Overall, though, I have to question whether it ultimately matters where he fell on a political spectrum. He was a mass murder, a psychotic individual, and someone who was in serious need of psychological help and should have been under medical supervision, not rising to control a country. (Or at the very least he could have gotten some anger management lessons as a kid. Sheesh.)
Oh, didn't you know? If you can pin Hitler on either the left or right, you can then automatically discredit them. Kinda like a reverse Godwin where calling someone a Nazi or at least second cousin to one makes you the winner.

Fascism claimed of course to be a 'third way' between capitalism and communism, but this is only rhetoric, in Italy and Spain also fascist regimes where able to get the support of large portions of the working class (specifically lumpenproletariat). It also arose in Europe as an extreme reaction against the growing power of working class Communist organizations who were threatening the power of the industrial bourgeois. The October Revolution scared the bourgeois from their liberal democratic 'softness' into authoritarian methods of repressing labor as opposed to the 'softly' approach of welfare capitalism in the West.

According to Marxism-Leninism, corporatism/fascism exists in capitalist society when independent trade unions representing the economic interests of the working class have been replaced by "corporations" of which both capitalist managements and employed workers are members.

In Nazi Germany the Labour Front was a classic "corporation". It included
"... the members of all the previous trade unions, the previous salaried workers' associations and the previous employers' associations".

( R.A. Brady: "The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism"; London; 1937; p. 125).
In the words of the Leader of the Labour Front, Robert Ley:
"The management of the Labour Front is in the hands of the National Socialist German Labour Party".

(R. Ley: Address to the Foreign Press, March 7th., 1935, in: R.A. Brady: ibid.; p. 124).
The result of Nazi corporatism was:
"Employers have practically complete control over workmen in regard to wages, hours and working conditions...Collective bargaining is completely abolished".

(R.A. Brady: ibid.; p. 41).

Left. Right is generally static and left is progressive. In comparison to the government before Hitler, Hitler was extremely progressive.

On this reasoning, would you describe Margaret Thatcher as a leftist?

obviously hitler is left-wing, alot of laws passed under the nazi regime are similiar to laws the left here in america think we should have, etc,etc.

Oh, didn't you know? If you can pin Hitler on either the left or right, you can then automatically discredit them. Kinda like a reverse Godwin where calling someone a Nazi or at least second cousin to one makes you the winner.

This lacks logic and sense.

http://members.cox.net/jayc1832/The%20Political%20Circle.jpg

Rotate to taste.

This lacks logic and sense.
When has character assignation ever had logic and sense?

obviously hitler is left-wing, alot of laws passed under the nazi regime are similiar to laws the left here in america think we should have, etc,etc.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/happy/516.gif
Uh-huh.

http://members.cox.net/jayc1832/The%20Political%20Circle.jpg

Rotate to taste.

Nice bourgeois propaganda. 'Political spectrum' are bourgeois creations, in reality there maybe many variations but politics can only serve ONE CLASS, the bourgeois or proletariat.

Rotate to taste.

The "circle" idea has never made much sense. It puts, say, Peter Kropotkin and Joseph Stalin together.

The quoted post below is, of course, wrong in many ways, yet there's one thing that really fried my potato salad.

obviously hitler is left-wing, alot of laws passed under the nazi regime are similiar to laws the left here in america think we should have, etc,etc.

DO NOT DO THIS! The authors of a thousand style guides weep!

snip

Do you have some kind of quotation database for these eventualities? ;)

obviously hitler is left-wing, alot of laws passed under the nazi regime are similiar to laws the left here in america think we should have, etc,etc.
Thank you very much for playing, please don't try again.

Do you have some kind of quotation database for these eventualities? ;)
He must have. I mean, when have we ever caught him writing anything new that wasn't stolen or parroted from somewhere else?

The "circle" idea has never made much sense. It puts, say, Peter Kropotkin and Joseph Stalin together.
Well, obviously the real deal, if we wanted one, would be multidimensional. But as far as this particular question is concerned, I think it fits.

I'd say a good one would be a "collectivist" vs "individualist" axis, combined with a "rationalist" vs "spiritualist" one. Then the only problem is a third one that can seperate your anarcho-capitalism from your odd mutualist variations.

He must have. I mean, when have we ever caught him writing anything new that wasn't stolen or parroted from somewhere else?

Woe be unto him who employs the ideas of another, and all that.

Marx actually spoke out 'German Socialism' long before it morphed into National Socialism (Nazism), and I'll quote:

C. German or “True” Socialism

The Socialist and Communist literature of France, a literature that originated under the pressure of a bourgeoisie in power, and that was the expressions of the struggle against this power, was introduced into Germany at a time when the bourgeoisie, in that country, had just begun its contest with feudal absolutism.

German philosophers, would-be philosophers, and beaux esprits (men of letters), eagerly seized on this literature, only forgetting, that when these writings immigrated from France into Germany, French social conditions had not immigrated along with them. In contact with German social conditions, this French literature lost all its immediate practical significance and assumed a purely literary aspect. Thus, to the German philosophers of the Eighteenth Century, the demands of the first French Revolution were nothing more than the demands of “Practical Reason” in general, and the utterance of the will of the revolutionary French bourgeoisie signified, in their eyes, the laws of pure Will, of Will as it was bound to be, of true human Will generally.

The work of the German literati consisted solely in bringing the new French ideas into harmony with their ancient philosophical conscience, or rather, in annexing the French ideas without deserting their own philosophic point of view.

This annexation took place in the same way in which a foreign language is appropriated, namely, by translation.

It is well known how the monks wrote silly lives of Catholic Saints over the manuscripts on which the classical works of ancient heathendom had been written. The German literati reversed this process with the profane French literature. They wrote their philosophical nonsense beneath the French original. For instance, beneath the French criticism of the economic functions of money, they wrote “Alienation of Humanity”, and beneath the French criticism of the bourgeois state they wrote “Dethronement of the Category of the General”, and so forth.

The introduction of these philosophical phrases at the back of the French historical criticisms, they dubbed “Philosophy of Action”, “True Socialism”, “German Science of Socialism”, “Philosophical Foundation of Socialism”, and so on.

The French Socialist and Communist literature was thus completely emasculated. And, since it ceased in the hands of the German to express the struggle of one class with the other, he felt conscious of having overcome “French one-sidedness” and of representing, not true requirements, but the requirements of Truth; not the interests of the proletariat, but the interests of Human Nature, of Man in general, who belongs to no class, has no reality, who exists only in the misty realm of philosophical fantasy.

This German socialism, which took its schoolboy task so seriously and solemnly, and extolled its poor stock-in-trade in such a mountebank fashion, meanwhile gradually lost its pedantic innocence.

The fight of the Germans, and especially of the Prussian bourgeoisie, against feudal aristocracy and absolute monarchy, in other words, the liberal movement, became more earnest.

By this, the long-wished for opportunity was offered to “True” Socialism of confronting the political movement with the Socialist demands, of hurling the traditional anathemas against liberalism, against representative government, against bourgeois competition, bourgeois freedom of the press, bourgeois legislation, bourgeois liberty and equality, and of preaching to the masses that they had nothing to gain, and everything to lose, by this bourgeois movement. German Socialism forgot, in the nick of time, that the French criticism, whose silly echo it was, presupposed the existence of modern bourgeois society, with its corresponding economic conditions of existence, and the political constitution adapted thereto, the very things those attainment was the object of the pending struggle in Germany.

To the absolute governments, with their following of parsons, professors, country squires, and officials, it served as a welcome scarecrow against the threatening bourgeoisie.

It was a sweet finish, after the bitter pills of flogging and bullets, with which these same governments, just at that time, dosed the German working-class risings.

While this “True” Socialism thus served the government as a weapon for fighting the German bourgeoisie, it, at the same time, directly represented a reactionary interest, the interest of German Philistines. In Germany, the petty-bourgeois class, a relic of the sixteenth century, and since then constantly cropping up again under the various forms, is the real social basis of the existing state of things.

To preserve this class is to preserve the existing state of things in Germany. The industrial and political supremacy of the bourgeoisie threatens it with certain destruction — on the one hand, from the concentration of capital; on the other, from the rise of a revolutionary proletariat. “True” Socialism appeared to kill these two birds with one stone. It spread like an epidemic.

The robe of speculative cobwebs, embroidered with flowers of rhetoric, steeped in the dew of sickly sentiment, this transcendental robe in which the German Socialists wrapped their sorry “eternal truths”, all skin and bone, served to wonderfully increase the sale of their goods amongst such a public.

And on its part German Socialism recognised, more and more, its own calling as the bombastic representative of the petty-bourgeois Philistine.

It proclaimed the German nation to be the model nation, and the German petty Philistine to be the typical man. To every villainous meanness of this model man, it gave a hidden, higher, Socialistic interpretation, the exact contrary of its real character. It went to the extreme length of directly opposing the “brutally destructive” tendency of Communism, and of proclaiming its supreme and impartial contempt of all class struggles. With very few exceptions, all the so-called Socialist and Communist publications that now (1847) circulate in Germany belong to the domain of this foul and enervating literature.

I'd say a good one would be a "collectivist" vs "individualist" axis,

I've never felt that either of those terms meant much of anything.

combined with a "rationalist" vs "spiritualist" one.

But that gets more into how people justify their political beliefs--not their content itself.

When has character assignation ever had logic and sense?

When talking about a author removing a character from their works.

Left-wing - right-wing? Is there a difference anyway?
For me it's all the same statist authoritarian bullsh¡t.
The only political spectrum that counts is the grade of individual freedom.
And Hitler was far, far on the authoritarian side.

When talking about a author removing a character from their works.
*starts looking around* Where the hell is that damn trout so I can slap you silly for that one. :p

*starts looking around* Where the hell is that damn trout so I can slap you silly for that one. :p

I made sushi out of it. :(

I've never felt that either of those terms meant much of anything.
It's again about how you view the world more than anything. Nazis see the race or ethnic group as their collective, fascists the nation, communists their class, theocrats "mankind" under god or the "ummah". When they talk about the fate of these things as opposed to people, you know they're collectivists, which in turn tells you about how they'll approach issues involving particular individual interests and pursuits.

But that gets more into how people justify their political beliefs--not their content itself.
True. But then, that's always what interests me about it much more than the actual content. There's lots of capitalists and socialists out there, what differs is the underlying belief system and vision - and that in turn could tell you more about what they'll actually do than reading a party program.

I dont think he's in the left right spectrum exactly...

He was in more of the Economic Left, imo, cause he had near direct control of Germany's industries...

But, with his extreme Authoritarianism, its pretty obvious he was in the Right Wing area of Civil Rights and Political Freedoms...

I made sushi out of it. :(
Trout sushi? Naw... I don't see it going to well.

Trout sushi? Naw... I don't see it going to well.

Hence the sad face.

I've never felt that either of those terms meant much of anything.

I think that collectivism is so alien to us culturally that there's pretty much no point in having the scale anyway.

I think that collectivism is so alien to us culturally that there's pretty much no point in having the scale anyway.

You'll notice that fascists use exactly that kinda rhetoric, socialism is an 'alien ideology' purported by 'alien races'.

Libertarian nutbag: ZOMG HITLER WAS COMMUNIST ANTI-FREE MARKET
What is your problem with Libertarianism? Why should it matter to you if I want to have the ability to live according to my free will? If your ideas were really sound you wouldn't need to force compliance with the threat of violence.

I say that Hitler was left of center. Fascism is all about the state and places the needs and even the wants of the many over the needs of the few or the one. Except when that one is the leader, then everyone has to swear allegiance to the leader.

Fascism also advocates economic planning where the state controls the economy. That is not something embraced by the right. I can see why Germany wanted this at the time Hitler came to power, they were hit hard by the depression and this seemed to offer them a way out. Planned economies can work for a while but they just don't seem to last.

You'll notice that fascists use exactly that kinda rhetoric, socialism is an 'alien ideology' purported by 'alien races'.

Take us to your means of production.
Socialism phone home.

What is your problem with Libertarianism? Why should it matter to you if I want to have the ability to live according to my free will? If your ideas were really sound you wouldn't need to force compliance with the threat of violence.

I say that Hitler was left of center. Fascism is all about the state and places the needs and even the wants of the many over the needs of the few or the one. Except when that one is the leader, then everyone has to swear allegiance to the leader.

Fascism also advocates economic planning where the state controls the economy. That is not something embraced by the right. I can see why Germany wanted this at the time Hitler came to power, they were hit hard by the depression and this seemed to offer them a way out. Planned economies can work for a while but they just don't seem to last.

Please put down your copy of "Atlas Shrugged" and consider the following:

1. We don't live in the vacuum of a political science class.
2. Intelligent people support government intervention in the economy.
3. Nobody likes a libertarian. Not even your imaginary girlfriend.

Does it matter? If you go far enough in either direction, you'll just wind up in the same cesspit.

Please put down your copy of "Atlas Shrugged" and consider the following:

1. We don't live in the vacuum of a political science class.
2. Intelligent people support government intervention in the economy.
3. Nobody likes a libertarian. Not even your imaginary girlfriend.

Why cant you be a Libertarian and support Government intervention in the Economy?...

I like Libertarian values for Civil Rights and Political Freedoms...but i wouldnt trust the Capitalist Pigs as far as i could throw them, lol...

Nazis see the race or ethnic group as their collective, fascists the nation, communists their class, theocrats "mankind" under god or the "ummah". When they talk about the fate of these things as opposed to people,

Why "opposed to"? Are these entities not composed of individual people?

you know they're collectivists, which in turn tells you about how they'll approach issues involving particular individual interests and pursuits.

There may be a difference in language here, but I'm not sure there's one in substance.

Everyone believes in restricting individual freedom sometimes, whether we speak of "the interests of the group" or "individual rights."

There's lots of capitalists and socialists out there, what differs is the underlying belief system and vision - and that in turn could tell you more about what they'll actually do than reading a party program.

People can do a lot of things with "underlying belief systems"... sure, there's variety among advocates of capitalism, but there's also variety among Christians. (Or Kantians.)

I'd still rather examine the direct political stances.

Races, nations, religions and the like are artificial constructs, the only real material division in humanity is class division, because that division is the only division between the propertied and the propertyless.

Why cant you be a Libertarian and support Government intervention in the Economy?...

Ehrm… because Libertarianism (capital L) is largely based on removing government intervention?

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/363021827_7c01720aa5.jpg?v=0

Ehrm…*because Libertarianism (capital L) is largely based on removing government intervention?

Woo!:salute:

Ehrm…*because Libertarianism (capital L) is largely based on removing government intervention?

True, but why cant you be selective about where you remove the intervention...

Stay out of my life, but, ensure that i have the economic capability to utilize my freedoms...

Why cant you be a Libertarian and support Government intervention in the Economy?...

I like Libertarian values for Civil Rights and Political Freedoms...but i wouldnt trust the Capitalist Pigs as far as i could throw them, lol...
That is the correct position to take friend, because the so called 'freedom' of the libertarians is merely bourgeois freedom, or as I like to call it the 'freedom to starve'.

In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.

By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.

But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend.

In reality libertarians are the collectivists, while only socialism can satisfy personal requirements.

Fascism is all about the state and places the needs and even the wants of the many over the needs of the few or the one. Except when that one is the leader, then everyone has to swear allegiance to the leader.

This is your notion of "left of center"?

Races, nations, religions and the like are artificial constructs, the only real material division in humanity is class division, because that division is the only division between the propertied and the propertyless.
Thank you, Communism 101.
True, but why cant you be selective about where you remove the intervention...

Stay out of my life, but, ensure that i have the economic capability to utilize my freedoms...
But that's not full out and out Libertarianism. What you're talking about is simply social libertarianism combined with some other economic view, possibly democratic socialism.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/168/363021827_7c01720aa5.jpg?v=0
LOL @ bourgeois political stratification.

[W]as Hitler a leftist or a right winger?

He was neither. What he was is an ultra-authoritarian racist.

Stay out of my life, but, ensure that i have the economic capability to utilize my freedoms...

You will not be greeted warmly into the camp of the Libertarians, my friend.

LOL @ bourgeois political stratification.
I'm not really seeing anything even Anti-Communist there...

And you seem to regard Bourgeois as an insult to anyone you don't like/ hates Communism despite the actual meaning....

Clarify?

You will not be greeted warmly into the camp of the Libertarians, my friend.
Aye. If you want the economic capability, you'll have to earn it yourself. That being said, enjoy the first amendment.:salute:

But that's not full out and out Libertarianism. What you're talking about is simply social libertarianism combined with some other economic view, possibly democratic socialism.

Exactly, thats why i dont like political labels...they dont make a hole that my pegll fit into, lol...

True economic freedom can only come from socialism, because under the decaying bourgeois system economic power is controlled by the tiny few at the expense of the toiling masses of society.

Conservatism, libertarianism, liberalism, leftism - they are all variations of the same bourgeois ideology.

True economic freedom can only come from socialism, because under the decaying bourgeois system economic power is controlled by the tiny few at the expense of the toiling masses of society.

Conservatism, libertarianism, liberalism, leftism - they are all variations of the same bourgeois ideology.
*Mega sigh*

Andaras, get rid of your computer. You paid the bourgeois for it, and are therefore supporting this horrible and cruel system. Get rid of your internet connection, you're supporting the Capitalists and allowing them to drain money from you. Etc,etc,

*Mega sigh*

Andaras, get rid of your computer. You paid the bourgeois for it, and are therefore supporting this horrible and cruel system. Get rid of your internet connection, you're supporting the Capitalists and allowing them to drain money from you. Etc,etc,
Wow, your like a clockwork machine, so predictable.

Confrontation by a political fact you don't want to face = PERSONAL ATTACK ZOMG YOU ARE SUPPORTING CAPITALISM BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Please, get a new routine.

Wow, your like a clockwork machine, so predictable.

Confrontation by a political fact you don't want to face = PERSONAL ATTACK ZOMG YOU ARE SUPPORTING CAPITALISM BAWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Please, get a new routine.

Oh god! The irony! It burns!!!

Anyway, now that I've been scarred for life by the burning IRONy (hehe), I can address what you're saying.

First off, I merely stated a fact. You are currently supporting the system you so vocally oppose.

Second, in your eyes, they are variations. Essentially they are. Variations on Capitalism. And you know what? I rather like (Some of) them.

I support Capitalism. I'm oppressing the proletariat. Okay? You happy now?:rolleyes:

There may be a difference in language here, but I'm not sure there's one in substance.
That depends. If there really is no substantial difference, and the "collectivist" makes his or her decisions based on a proper collection of the interests of the people that make up this collective, then a collectivist and an individualist are the same.

But if the collectivist takes a short-cut and proclaims to know interests of the collective that don't require an investigation into the interest of the individuals contained therein, and can on that basis condone widespread violations of those interests, then there is a difference.

I suppose it's a matter of definitions then.

I'd still rather examine the direct political stances.
Hmm, I guess I am influenced by what Schumpeter once wrote about "visions". He reckoned that there are some underlying ways of looking at the world, emotional responses, the ways we perceive information (and I know you're liking the sound of this...:p) that shape our political outlook without us being really aware of it, and that we should work on identifying when and how our vision is impacting how we see things. And given such a vision, I always tend to think that everyone has an ideal political and economic ideology that best corresponds to their vision without having any contradictions. You can't really find this by just looking at stances, even though they may be more relevant in real life.

Actually capitalism is probably the most 'collectivist' ideology that has ever existed.

There is no, nor should there be, irreconcilable contrast between the individual and the collective, between the interests of the individual person and the interests of the collective, There should be no such contrast, because socialism, does not deny, but combines individual interests with the interests of the collective. Socialism cannot abstract itself from individual interests. Socialist society alone can most fully satisfy these personal interests. More than that; socialist society alone can firmly safeguard the interests of the individual. In this sense there is no irreconcilable contrast between "individualism" and socialism. But can we deny the contrast between classes, between the propertied class, the capitalist class, and the toiling class, the proletarian class? On the one hand we have the propertied class which owns the banks, the factories, the mines, transport and the other means of production. These people see nothing but their own interests, their striving after profits. They do not submit to the will of the collective; they strive to subordinate every collective to their will.

Left. Right is generally static and left is progressive. In comparison to the government before Hitler, Hitler was extremely progressive.

That's only with those two choices, in all honesty there really is no left or right when every word you say is law... you are left AND right at that point.

Actually, based on your argument comparing Hitler's institution to the Weimar Republik, I would state that Hitler was 'rightist', he favoured the traditionalist authoritarianism/imperialism, closer to the 'second Reich' rather than the progressive nations of America, England and France.

But, in an attempt to be fair, how was the Third Reich more politically progressive than the Weimar Republik?

Actually, based on your argument comparing Hitler's institution to the Weimar Republik, I would state that Hitler was 'rightist', he favoured the traditionalist authoritarianism/imperialism, closer to the 'second Reich' rather than the progressive nations of America, England and France.

But, in an attempt to be fair, how was the Third Reich more politically progressive than the Weimar Republik?

More than that, the Nazi's actually rolled back alot of the rights and social progress gained after the German Revolution and the rise of the Weimar Republic. The Nazi's loathed the principles of economic equality put forward by the Communists and disdained equality between immigrant and citizen. Nazism extended the fight against equality into other areas: gender, sexual, minority or religious rights, for example.

Nazism/fascism always contained a strong amount of reactionary religious beliefs, harking back to times when religion was strict, potent, and pure. Nearly all Fascist societies are Christian, and are supported by Catholic and Protestant churches.

Fascism in general loathes all kinds of modernism, especially creativity in the arts, whether acting as a mirror for life (where it does not conform to the Fascist ideal), or expressing deviant or innovative points of view. Fascism invariably burns books and victimizes artists, and artists which do not promote the fascists ideals are seen as “decadent.” Fascism is hostile to broad learning and interest in other cultures, since such pursuits threaten the dominance of fascist myths. The peddling of conspiracy theories is usually substituted for the objective study of history.

Actually capitalism is probably the most 'collectivist' ideology that has ever existed.

There is no, nor should there be, irreconcilable contrast between the individual and the collective, between the interests of the individual person and the interests of the collective, There should be no such contrast, because socialism, does not deny, but combines individual interests with the interests of the collective. Socialism cannot abstract itself from individual interests. Socialist society alone can most fully satisfy these personal interests. More than that; socialist society alone can firmly safeguard the interests of the individual. In this sense there is no irreconcilable contrast between "individualism" and socialism. But can we deny the contrast between classes, between the propertied class, the capitalist class, and the toiling class, the proletarian class? On the one hand we have the propertied class which owns the banks, the factories, the mines, transport and the other means of production. These people see nothing but their own interests, their striving after profits. They do not submit to the will of the collective; they strive to subordinate every collective to their will.

I suppose sharing the means of production includes ripping off other's prose without properly citing them.

More than that, the Nazi's actually rolled back alot of the rights and social progress gained after the German Revolution and the rise of the Weimar Republic. The Nazi's loathed the principles of economic equality put forward by the Communists and disdained equality between immigrant and citizen. Nazism extended the fight against equality into other areas: gender, sexual, minority or religious rights, for example.

Nazism/fascism always contained a strong amount of reactionary religious beliefs, harking back to times when religion was strict, potent, and pure. Nearly all Fascist societies are Christian, and are supported by Catholic and Protestant churches.

Fascism in general loathes all kinds of modernism, especially creativity in the arts, whether acting as a mirror for life (where it does not conform to the Fascist ideal), or expressing deviant or innovative points of view. Fascism invariably burns books and victimizes artists, and artists which do not promote the fascists ideals are seen as “decadent.” Fascism is hostile to broad learning and interest in other cultures, since such pursuits threaten the dominance of fascist myths. The peddling of conspiracy theories is usually substituted for the objective study of history.

Using other's work, when properly cited and referenced, is a reasonable means to utilize the shared efforts of humanity.

Ripping it off without citing it is indicative of mere regurgitation, and a sad absence of original thought.

Just because an idea has been chewed, digested, shat, spread amongst the fields of the kulak, and grown up again, it shouldn't preclude you from rendering some fresh consideration.

I mean, Christ with a dead hooker in his trunk, your post is right out of not just the Marxist Encyclopedia, but a wikied link to it.

fascism is opposite to communism since it singles out who is 'superior', unlike communism, which in principle, makes everyone equal. therefore fascism is extreme right

fascism is opposite to communism since it singles out who is 'superior', unlike communism, which in principle, makes everyone equal. therefore fascism is extreme right

In practice, though, almost any political system will, from some angles, have elements of the fascist, as starkly salient personalities rise to a position of disproportionate power. Now, certainly, there is a tremendous difference from the fascist that rules with water cooled machine guns and the one masterful enough to pull only the reins of apathy, punctuated with the stick of fear.

Please put down your copy of "Atlas Shrugged"
It's on my second largest bookshelf next to other classics such as Uniform Building Code and My Tank is Fight.

1. We don't live in the vacuum of a political science class.
No, we live in the real world. In the real world communism failed.

2. Intelligent people support government intervention in the economy.
I don't think you're that intelligent if you really believe in and support communism.

3. Nobody likes a libertarian. Not even your imaginary girlfriend.
I like me.

Please put down your copy of "Atlas Shrugged" and consider the following:\d.

So, you are pointing the finger at somebody else for regurgitating ideology from a book?

When many of your posts are blatant uncited cut and pastes from books of emphatic bias?

In a thread wherein you put the finger at others for personal attacks?

Do you believe in Communism enough to not imbrue it with hypocrisy?

In principle, Communism makes everyone equal. In reality, Andaras, somewhere you might like to visit sometime, The USSR was almost as fascist as Hitler.

Even with the ample info out there on the web I still got into a discussion with my oldest about Hitler's political leaning. He is graduating from the University of Washington this coming up year and he seems to think he has everything figured out. I have my opinion but would like to hear what you all have to say about this subject. So what was Hitler a leftist or a right winger?

On the economy axis, he was a centrist (capitalism + statal intervention, subsidies for industries + some welfare).
On the authoritarian/libertarian axis (for want of a better term), he was extremely authoritarian.
This usually defines the concept of "extreme right-wing" in european politics.

He was an insanely hardcore nationalist, with genocidal racism and total disregard for any personal liberties. Despite his pseudo left-ish labour fronts, tarrifs and other statist style policies of his, I would still say he was certainly in the far right camp if the left/right distinction is going to have any meaning at all.

He was an insanely hardcore nationalist, with genocidal racism and total disregard for any personal liberties. Despite his pseudo left-ish labour fronts, tarrifs and other statist style policies of his, I would still say he was certainly in the far right camp if the left/right distinction is going to have any meaning at all.

Speaking as a committed White Nationalist, allow me to educate you about what Hitler, the immortal leader of our race really stood for.

Any policy, any ideology, any axiom, any technique, any crime, any weapon, and any path to power, regardless of political vector, direction, or model, is permissible to a racially aware white person, as long as it allows him to continue blaming other races for his own failings and inadequacies.

Personal liberties are a barrier to the necessary dynamic of bolstering one's own deeply fractured and fearful psyche. Genocidal racism and hardcore nationalism are a gateway, wherein one enters with grotesque self-hatred which is twisted and magnified into a raging projection of externalized loathing, and if a few million people have to be butchered and burned to help a pure Aryan man turn his petty psychosis into megalomania in what can only be described as the most monstrously maladaptive coping mechanism in human history, well...

Hitler was a great man, and he showed us the way.

Nazism/fascism always contained a strong amount of reactionary religious beliefs, harking back to times when religion was strict, potent, and pure. Nearly all Fascist societies are Christian, and are supported by Catholic and Protestant churches.


Just because the catholic church signed the concordat does not mean they actively supported them. For one thing, the Church was not fully aware how fascist the Nazis actually were during the signing, secondly, they did not sign it because they supported the Nazis, but they signed it out of fear for the Catholics safety in Germany. But the Pope himself harshly criticized the Nazis following the signing and the vast majority of protestants joined the confessional church, one of the biggest and most dangerous internal opposition groups the Nazis had. Hitler's own church was practically focused on worshipping him, and was really just another vessel in which Hitler could spread his propaganda and increase social unity.

Hitler was a great man, and he showed us the way.

I'm a Jew, I don't get to be part of the way forward. :(

I'm a Jew, I don't get to be part of the way forward. :(

Don't worry. Narnian Council explained in another thread that all you Jews will follow the anti-christ, who, I'm told, is a necessary step for true Jesusisity...or Jesusissitude...Jesusness...Je---

Fuck it, don't worry. At least you have a bank account with the World Bank with a balance of $666,666.00 USD. All Jews get one at birth.

You used to get 6.66% interest on it, but you know how money markets are these days.

Fuck it, don't worry. At least you have a bank account with the World Bank with a balance of $666,666.00 USD. All Jews get one at birth.

You used to get 6.66% interest on it, but you know how money markets are these days.

That's it, I'm sick of your disgusting anti-se... oh what's the use, you're right. I don't need nationalism when I've got money! One thing though, you seem to know a lot for a gentile, maybe a little too much. Give me one reason why I shouldn't contact the jew-jitsu ninjas to silence your ass.

That's it, I'm sick of your disgusting anti-se... oh what's the use, you're right. I don't need nationalism when I've got money! One thing though, you seem to know a lot for a gentile, maybe a little too much. Give me one reason why I shouldn't contact the jew-jitsu ninjas to silence your ass.

Its a long story. Basically, this guy I knew in accounting school mentioned he was an Ashkenazi, and I asked him what kind that was (thinking "what kind of nazi"), and he explained it was "my people from the rhineland area, in germany, and I thought he meant, you know...

So, anyway, long story short, I asked him to teach me, so he started teaching me a bunch of words that I thought were a mixture of gaelic and germanic, but it, oy vey, what a brokh that was....

Worst part is, he's still my accountant...

Its a long story. Basically, this guy I knew in accounting school mentioned he was an Ashkenazi, and I asked him what kind that was (thinking "what kind of nazi"), and he explained it was "my people from the rhineland area, in germany, and I thought he meant, you know...

So, anyway, long story short, I asked him to teach me, so he started teaching me a bunch of words that I thought were a mixture of gaelic and germanic, but it, oy vey, what a brokh that was....

Worst part is, he's still my accountant...

I may have to contact my brother who is serving you and possibly other gentiles *shudder*, he is to decide your fate - lets just hope my brother from another mother is happy in delivering you a great surplus for your gentile business, which is standard for a jewcountant.

This is the standard left-right political line:


Communist---Socialist---Liberal---Centrist---Conservative---Reactionary---Fascist.


Traditional political theory places Hitler, Mussolini et al. at the far right, the current US as Centrist-Conservative, most of the rest of the West as shading the area between Centrist and Socialist, and the old Communist states at the far left.


Personally, I prefer something more like this:

Communist--Fascist
Socialist------------Reactionary
Liberal-----------------Conservative
Centrist


A kind of wheel, indicating the fact that at the far ends, Right and Left are no longer distinguishable, and equally untenable.

I may have to contact my brother who is serving you and possibly other gentiles *shudder*, he is to decide your fate - lets just hope my brother from another mother is happy in delivering you a great surplus for your gentile business, which is standard for a jewcountant.

As a committed racially aware white man and adamant White Nationalist, it truly chaps my ass how indispensable you people think you are.

My jewcoutant, Neo Art my jewttorney, the Jewneticist that developed the technology that helped my wife conceive.

Chaps my fuckin' ass. Gotta see my proctolojew about that.

As a committed racially aware white man and adamant White Nationalist, it truly chaps my ass how indispensable you people think you are.

My jewcoutant, Neo Art my jewttorney, the Jewneticist that developed the technology that helped my wife conceive.

Chaps my fuckin' ass. Gotta see my proctolojew about that.

There are more of my brothers that you're exploiting? I assume you said yes when they used the holocaust as an excuse for a pay rise, right?

There are more of my brothers that you're exploiting? I assume you said yes when they used the holocaust as an excuse for a pay rise, right?

Exploiting? Holy shit, I knew you were an Andaras puppet!

Jew Marxist! Jew Marxist!

Neither. He took aspects of the fairly moderate right and left and manipulated them in a völkisch kind of way.

Exploiting? Holy shit, I knew you were an Andaras puppet!


Any time a brother uses his skills to serve an inferior gentile business, where he is surely not paid the true amount he deserves, then what else can you call it other than exploitation? If you admit to exploitation, then perhaps the jew-jitsu armies will take this into account and your punishment will not be so harsh.

He wasn't either, he just took ideas from both that he thought would increase his power.

I'm a Jew, I don't get to be part of the way forward. :(

yo! shalom aleichem! im a Jew as well! and of course we get 2 be part of the way forward... we ARE the way forward... lol... jk...

Even with the ample info out there on the web I still got into a discussion with my oldest about Hitler's political leaning. He is graduating from the University of Washington this coming up year and he seems to think he has everything figured out. I have my opinion but would like to hear what you all have to say about this subject. So what was Hitler a leftist or a right winger?

He was a right-winger pretending to be a left-winger. He called himself a socialist, but that was to attract votes. He was definitely an extreme nationalist, racist (he hated Jews because they smelled funny) and he had no regard for personal liberty and stuff.


Oh, and he smelled like poo. http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff287/johnnybmetal/Smileys/tongue_out.gif

fascism is opposite to communism since it singles out who is 'superior', unlike communism, which in principle, makes everyone equal. therefore fascism is extreme right
Fascism is simply state worship, I don't see how it singles out who is 'superior'.

Fascism is simply state worship, I don't see how it singles out who is 'superior'.

I must agree. Don't mistake the Nazi's racial theories for being part of Fascism - the Italian version, under Mussolini, had no such racist underpinnings.

Fascism is simply state worship, I don't see how it singles out who is 'superior'.

he believed in the superiority of aryans above all other races

He was a right-winger pretending to be a left-winger. He called himself a socialist, but that was to attract votes. He was definitely an extreme nationalist, racist (he hated Jews because they smelled funny) and he had no regard for personal liberty and stuff.


Oh, and he smelled like poo. http://i239.photobucket.com/albums/ff287/johnnybmetal/Smileys/tongue_out.gif

I assure you, i do NOT smell funny...

he believed in the superiority of aryans above all other races
Nazism is not an integral part of Fascism.

the Italian version, under Mussolini, had no such racist underpinnings.
Well... until it got overly mixed up in Nazism, at which point Mussolini started making quite frankly batshit insane statements like "we Italians are a nordic race", which is just Wrong And Confusing.

Nazism is not an integral part of Fascism.

yes, but they invented fascism... yay post 100 in this thread EDIT: actually, post 101

Well... until it got overly mixed up in Nazism, at which point Mussolini started making quite frankly batshit insane statements like "we Italians are a nordic race", which is just Wrong And Confusing.

Yeah, bad case of batshit insane hero-worship there...

yes, but they invented fascism
Not they didn't :confused:

Fascism came out of Italy, not Germany.

yes, but they invented fascism... yay post 100 in this thread EDIT: actually, post 101

Nope. Mussolini started his rise to power in 1919, when Hitler was nothing but a discharged corporal.

Not they didn't :confused:

Fascism came out of Italy, not Germany.

i do not believe so, but i dont know 100%, so benefit of the doubt, i stand corrected...

"left" and "right" aren't always meaningful. "left" means that they offer more social freedom than economic freedom, while "right" means they offer more economic freedom than social freedom. On the standard left/right line, an extreme anarhcist (total freedom on both) and an extreme authoritarian (no freedom on either) both qualify as the same spot ("centrist") despite having nothing in common.

Actually capitalism is probably the most 'collectivist' ideology that has ever existed.

There is no, nor should there be, irreconcilable contrast between the individual and the collective, between the interests of the individual person and the interests of the collective, There should be no such contrast, because socialism, does not deny, but combines individual interests with the interests of the collective. Socialism cannot abstract itself from individual interests. Socialist society alone can most fully satisfy these personal interests. More than that; socialist society alone can firmly safeguard the interests of the individual. In this sense there is no irreconcilable contrast between "individualism" and socialism. But can we deny the contrast between classes, between the propertied class, the capitalist class, and the toiling class, the proletarian class? On the one hand we have the propertied class which owns the banks, the factories, the mines, transport and the other means of production. These people see nothing but their own interests, their striving after profits. They do not submit to the will of the collective; they strive to subordinate every collective to their will.
I think this is a contradiction. Forgive my tired eyes if it isn't.

I think this is a contradiction. Forgive my tired eyes if it isn't.

Dude, his posts are cut and pastes, he doesn't compose any of this himself, he mostly regurgitates.

["left" and "right" aren't always meaningful. "left" means that they offer more social freedom than economic freedom, while "right" means they offer more economic freedom than social freedom.
Only if you're messily using 'left' and 'right' to try and entail hugely diverse political positions.

I see nothing wrong in differentiating between economic and social freedoms, so one can show not only a left-right economic divide, but an authoritarian-libertarian social divide. Thus, we can have authoritarians on both the left and right economic scale (authoritarian state socialists, such as Stalin, and authoritarian free marketerists, such as Pinochet) as well as libertarians on both the left and right (social libertarians, such as Peter Kropotkin, and individualist libertarians, such as Robert Nozick).

This means we can easily see the difference between, say, social anarchists and authoritarian communists, without worrying that both are 'left'

EDIT: And attack those such as Hitler or, more recently the BNP, as horrible authoritarians, without getting bogged down by the fact that the two listed above aren't on the 'far right', economically speaking.

I generally avoid using "left" and "right". Instead, I stick to liberal/conserv ative/libertarian/authoritarian/conservative.

However, left/right is much more popular.

The political spectrum is kinda horseshoe shaped.

The base, in the centre, your usual left and right things, then it curls around as the get more extreme until Left and Right wing end up being almost the same.

I'll try to find a diagram as this isn't a good explanation.

EDIT: I couldn't find the horseshoe shaped diagram, but this circular one should give a better idea.

http://www.conservative-resources.com/images/right_wing_vs_left_wing2.gif

Hitler was quite obviously on neither the extreme left or right, and anyone who says that he was clearly is pursuing their own extremist agenda. The economic system of Nazi Germany was a confused mix of state control and private enterprise. It is evidently not the "same" as either Soviet Russia or pure capitalism. Sometimes the Nazis intervened heavily, such as through the Four Year Plan, yet they enjoyed the wilful cooperation of many businesses, who voluntarily brought themselves into line with Nazi aims without the need for direct control. Furthermore, the wealthy often enjoyed considerable influence over Nazi policy.

Some rhetoric and oppressive police techniques were inspired by the Soviets, yet the main aim was to unite the German people behind an extreme form of nationalism and expansionism, which couldn't be further away from the communist "workers of the world unite" (although Stalin perverted this principle dramatically with the takeover of Eastern Europe). Because fascist nations do not fit the traditional left/right spectrum well, Nazism and fascism have been described by several authors as "radical centrism". Seymour Lipset wrote quite heavily on this topic. True, you can argue that Nazism was more to the "left" or "right", but it wasn't to the extreme of either side in economic terms. True, it was socially oppressive, but both governments of the left and right can be this.

Even with the ample info out there on the web I still got into a discussion with my oldest about Hitler's political leaning. He is graduating from the University of Washington this coming up year and he seems to think he has everything figured out. I have my opinion but would like to hear what you all have to say about this subject. So what was Hitler a leftist or a right winger?

Hitler was a socialist and a fascist. That means he was a leftist who believed in the power of the nation, moved by a man of action, to acheive socialist goals.

Leftists, and other historical revisionists, try to associate Hitler with the Right in order to absolve themselves from the crimes committed by Hitler. Since Hitlier was enemies with the Communists certain idiots believe that this is evidence of being at odds with socialism. It is not. It was merely a disagreement on who should control the movement and spread of socialism or mere party politics.

Eugenics, fascism, and government control of markets and culture are all products of the Progressive movement. If you dig deep enough into the history of Leftist and Progressive ideology you will understand why they wished to control educational institutions: they need to cover their crimes and revise history.

Hitler was quite obviously on neither the extreme left or right, and anyone who says that he was clearly is pursuing their own extremist agenda. The economic system of Nazi Germany was a confused mix of state control and private enterprise. It is evidently not the "same" as either Soviet Russia or pure capitalism. Sometimes the Nazis intervened heavily, such as through the Four Year Plan, yet they enjoyed the wilful cooperation of many businesses, who voluntarily brought themselves into line with Nazi aims without the need for direct control. Furthermore, the wealthy often enjoyed considerable influence over Nazi policy.

Some rhetoric and oppressive police techniques were inspired by the Soviets, yet the main aim was to unite the German people behind an extreme form of nationalism and expansionism, which couldn't be further away from the communist "workers of the world unite" (although Stalin perverted this principle dramatically with the takeover of Eastern Europe). Because fascist nations do not fit the traditional left/right spectrum well, Nazism and fascism have been described by several authors as "radical centrism". Seymour Lipset wrote quite heavily on this topic. True, you can argue that Nazism was more to the "left" or "right", but it wasn't to the extreme of either side in economic terms. True, it was socially oppressive, but both governments of the left and right can be this.

Actually, businesses that "worked" with the government were spared the complete socialization of their companies. Same with the wealthy, if they played Hitler's game, and were not Jewish, they were spared the seizure of their wealth. Sigificant socialization of markets and business occurred under Hilter.

But I do like this: Hitler was quite obviously on neither the extreme left or right, and anyone who says that he was clearly is pursuing their own extremist agenda.

Typical left-speak for saying "you are an extremist, or just insane, if you disagree with me". Nice way to stifle dissent without actually having to defend your position.

This means we can easily see the difference between, say, social anarchists and authoritarian communists, without worrying that both are 'left'

Here's a question, though: where do you place militant social leftists?

The authoritarian/libertarian spectrum is really a creature of individualist libertarianism: the "libertarian" side tends toward respect for the broad set of liberal individual rights (free expression, free association, and so forth), and the "authoritarian" side toward rejection of those rights. But this framework tells us nothing of why and how these rights are restricted.

Do we want to place feminist objections to pornography and Christian Right objections to pornography in the same place, even as they differ in justification and even in proposed policy solutions? To make the difficulty even clearer, do we want to say that repressive anti-clerical policies are politically equivalent to repressive theocratic ones?

For an immediate practical case, we could take the gay rights movement... several demands of which, like hate crime and non-discrimination laws, could perfectly reasonably be opposed by a strong "libertarian" on the social divide, but which certainly don't meet with approval from the social conservatives on the "authoritarian" side.

I belive hitler was on the right end, if any, because in communism, you want to annex the world and keep it together. In REAL communism, the holocaust would have been a no no. So, by process of elimination, Hitler is a righty.

I belive hitler was on the right end, if any, because in communism, you want to annex the world and keep it together. In REAL communism, the holocaust would have been a no no. So, by process of elimination, Hitler is a righty.

You believe it? How about actually thinking about it?

As for this real Communism, where has it been implemented? Marx, the father of Communism, was a rabid anti-Semite. Let's see Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot. What was the death toll of THEIR attempts at REAL Communism?

Typical left-speak for saying "you are an extremist, or just insane, if you disagree with me". Nice way to stifle dissent without actually having to defend your position.

Well, actually, it seems like you who is the one labelling people to avoid defending your position. So I'm using "left-speak" (we'll ignore this ridiculous suggestion that everyone on the left believes the same things for now) to avoid defending my position? Despite me specifically saying that the Nazis were *not* on the extreme right, but rather do not fit well on the conventional spectrum? Seems pretty neutral to me. I even referenced the respected, non-communist author who I got the idea of "radical centrism" from. Can you provide some sources for your argument? Nice use of meaningless dismissive phrases such as "left-speak" to mask a lack of a strong argument.


Actually, businesses that "worked" with the government were spared the complete socialization of their companies. Same with the wealthy, if they played Hitler's game, and were not Jewish, they were spared the seizure of their wealth. Sigificant socialization of markets and business occurred under Hilter.

And...I didn't say anything that disagrees with you here. Nazism was not extreme left because an extreme left government would have seized wealth and business to ensure it was under total control of the state. Many businesses were also far from reluctant to cooperate and thus required hardly any coercion at all. This makes the Nazis substantially less to the left than the Communists. I happen to agree that you can probably put the Nazis slightly more towards the left than right if you wish to try and squeeze them in this spectrum. But because of some of their other policies, such as their economic and social nationalism, which have often been associated with the right, this is not an easy issue to decide. All I am saying is that you'd have to be ignorant to put them on the *extreme* on the left, as they are not the purest manifestation of leftist ideology. In short, it would help if you read a post properly before submitting it to such a strong attack, or you only make yourself look like an idiot.

I belive hitler was on the right end, if any, because in communism, you want to annex the world and keep it together. In REAL communism, the holocaust would have been a no no. So, by process of elimination, Hitler is a righty.
That's maybe the worst process of elimination ever.

Since Hitlier was enemies with the Communists certain idiots believe that this is evidence of being at odds with socialism. It is not. It was merely a disagreement on who should control the movement and spread of socialism or mere party politics.

The trouble is, there were real and important ideological differences between Nazism and Communism, that the people who make the claim "Hitler was a leftist" just want to ignore.

Communist rhetoric and theory (not Stalinist practice so much) is centered around achieving the equality of classlessness. To the extent that Communism believes in state intervention in the economy, it is so as a means to this end: giving the producers control over their means of production. There is no veneration of the state (not even from left-authoritarians like Lenin), and no respect for the traditional categories used to mark superiority (nationality, race, gender).

Nazism, on the other hand, was both in theory and in practice anti-democratic and anti-egalitarian. While the Nazi regime practiced extensive state intervention in the economy, it was not for the communist (and broadly leftist) end of equality. The closest it came was a sort of economic populism, but even then there was no intention of overthrowing, or even weakening, the capitalist hierarchy, the capitalist class system, which is what Communists object to most fundamentally. This is the significance of the fact that ownership of the means of production remained in private hands: even as the regime enacted a variety of restrictions on free market interaction, the structure of class rule and profit remained the same. And I don't think I need elaborate about the differences when it comes to race and nationality.

Eugenics, fascism, and government control of markets and culture are all products of the Progressive movement.

Not exclusively, no, but in any case the Progressive movement was broadly reform-oriented ("progressive"), and not necessarily leftist. Plenty of people are skeptical of the free market without being inclined to socialism--Christian conservatives, for instance.

So I'm using "left-speak" (we'll ignore this ridiculous suggestion that everyone on the left believes the same things for now) to avoid defending my position?

So you would agree that socialists go about implementing socialist policy through different means?

Seems pretty neutral to me. I even referenced the respected, non-communist author who I got the idea of "radical centrism" from.

I am not neutral. Hitler was a socialist but he was also a German nationalist and all around bad apple. But he is still a product of socialist thought.

Can you provide some sources for your argument? Nice use of meaningless dismissive phrases such as "left-speak" to mask a lack of a strong argument.

You referenced but did not source. As for your "left-speak", that is exactly what it is. I will now reference, without sourcing, Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, an excellent work that is heavily sourced and research and, to this date, has no proven, blatant errors in its research. You may not like what this book says but it does tell the truth. In fact, he says repeatedly that fascism itself is not about genocide, Hitler added that and made fascism the evil word it is today. Back in the days of Mussolinin fascism was quite the rage amongst the Progressive Left.

Communist rhetoric and theory (not Stalinist practice so much) is centered around achieving the equality of classlessness. To the extent that Communism believes in state intervention in the economy, it is so as a means to this end: giving the producers control over their means of production. There is no veneration of the state (not even from left-authoritarians like Lenin), and no respect for the traditional categories used to mark superiority (nationality, race, gender).

Socialists and Communists love to believe this but, in reality, Socialism and Communism, when attempted, always seem to venerate either nation or race and always harbor, and many times act upon, expansionist ideologies. Pure Communism is a fantasy that has never existed. I thought this thread was about the real world. In the real world Hitler was a socialist and thus, on the left of the left/right political spectrum.

I am not neutral. Hitler was a socialist but he was also a German nationalist and all around bad apple. But he is still a product of socialist thought.
He was not a product of socialist thought in any particular way, and ordered the strongest socialists in his party, the Strasser Brothers, to be killed. That doesn't suggest any great love for socialism in my eyes.

I thought this thread was about the real world.

No, this thread is about political beliefs: left/right. A particular belief may or may not actually hold out in the real world, but people may still believe it.

The fact of the matter is that left-wing politics, both then and now, do not encompass what Hitler did. Whether or not radical left-wing politics are actually practical is another question entirely.

In the real world Hitler was a socialist

Only if you distort the meaning of the term severely.

But he is still a product of socialist thought.

What socialist thought?

Socialists and Communists love to believe this but, in reality, Socialism and Communism, when attempted, always seem to venerate either nation or race and always harbor, and many times act upon, expansionist ideologies.
No, that's just incorrect.

The UK from 1945-1979 was not particularly nationalist or racist, the same could easily be said of most of Western Europe from the 1960s onwards and most of Eastern Europe under communism.

The USSR was expansionist at times, and not at other times, the same is true of China. Most of the South-East Asian states which became communist did so because of the vast amounts of VC left in their countries after the Vietnam War. Some of these were really messed up, like Cambodia, and some of them have sort of given it up, such as Laos.
In the real world Hitler was a socialist and thus, on the left of the left/right political spectrum.
Not particularly. He reduced workers' pay and rights and gave extremely limited benefits to people out of work. I don't see how this is actually very socialist.

So you would agree that socialists go about implementing socialist policy through different means?

"Socialist" does not include the whole left. Hence my objection to your 'left-speak' as if all on the left agree. To repeat myself *again*, Hitler did use similar methods, but not out of socialist ideology (see below) nor was the entire economy in state hands, so the communists, having taking the principle of state ownership of wealth and production further than the Nazis, must be considered the extreme left, not the Nazis themselves.

I am not neutral. Hitler was a socialist but he was also a German nationalist and all around bad apple. But he is still a product of socialist thought.

Nope. His inspiration was a long tradition of German right-wing nationalism rooted in the pre-national period. These ideologies talked of radical expansionism, ethnic nationalism, and authoritarian rule geared towards ensuring the well-being of all those of German blood, presumably including their economic well-being. Sound familiar? The Nazis lauded the prominent figures of the Volkisch movement, yet Hitler hated Marxist and socialist ideology and wished for its elimination. On this basis, I think the former is probably a more likely inspiration for his rhetoric than socialism. Besides, he didn't put any of this thought into action. Trade Unions were banned and the real wages of industrial workers fell. Redistribution of wealth?

You referenced but did not source. As for your "left-speak", that is exactly what it is. I will now reference, without sourcing, Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg, an excellent work that is heavily sourced and research and, to this date, has no proven, blatant errors in its research. You may not like what this book says but it does tell the truth. In fact, he says repeatedly that fascism itself is not about genocide, Hitler added that and made fascism the evil word it is today. Back in the days of Mussolinin fascism was quite the rage amongst the Progressive Left.

Mussolini was a former socialist, and his abandonment of socialist ideas may not have been obvious to all at the time. Furthermore, there is a distinction to be made between Nazism and Fascism. Nazism had a very different historical origin to Italian fascism, inheriting many of the characteristics of Volkisch racial ideologies, while Italian fascism was to a great extent an ideology created out of thin air by Mussolini. With Mussolini the influence of the left is rather more obvious than with Hitler, I will admit. But Fascist Italy is a subject for another thread, this is about Nazi Germany. So that is rather off topic. I'll have to read that book you mention, because other interpretations of Nazi Germany that suggest it was extreme-left wing always seem rather childish and crude. Maybe he has a case, for it being on the left, yes, but extreme left? That seems an odd thing to argue.

Dude, his posts are cut and pastes, he doesn't compose any of this himself, he mostly regurgitates.

I realize this. I liked him better back when he came up with his own crap...

Hitler was a fucking communist. He allied with a Japanese person (ergh, they smell of fish) and an Italian guy! Italians may as well be black! Not like Lord Hitler, the 10 foot tall Nordic giant, with bulging muscles, wavy blond hair and piercing blue eyes. *Sigh*

Hitler was a fucking communist.
http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/fanart/Erwin__Jawohl_by_AquaticFishy.png

http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/fanart/Erwin__Jawohl_by_AquaticFishy.png

I see.

I assure you, i do NOT smell funny...

Are you refuting Hitler's claim that Jews smell funny or my claim that Hitler smells like poo? Because if it's the former, I don't really agree with him.

Are you refuting Hitler's claim that Jews smell funny or my claim that Hitler smells like poo? Because if it's the former, I don't really agree with him.

Hitler does not smell like poo.

He smells like 60 year old lighter fluid and a rusty spent shell casing.

Hitler smells of GLORY!!!!

Here's a question, though: where do you place militant social leftists?
On the left-libertarian 'segment'.

Militancy, or lack of, doesn't tell us much about one's political convictions, beyond one's beliefs about the use of force. Pick any position on the left/right-libertarian/authoritarian scale and that position can be held by a militant or a pacifist.

If you're saying that not all political beliefs can be summed up on such a scale, then I'd most certainly agree, but I don't see that as a problem. We're always going to have to further explain our positions.

The authoritarian/libertarian spectrum is really a creature of individualist libertarianism: the "libertarian" side tends toward respect for the broad set of liberal individual rights (free expression, free association, and so forth), and the "authoritarian" side toward rejection of those rights. But this framework tells us nothing of why and how these rights are restricted.

Do we want to place feminist objections to pornography and Christian Right objections to pornography in the same place, even as they differ in justification and even in proposed policy solutions?
No, but these scales aren't trying to gauge the above.

We're trying to classify one's beliefs about economics and social freedoms, not the causes of such beliefs. Single issues don't tell us much about a person's beliefs; with the pornography example, we may want to track an individual's libertarian (or not) attitudes towards porn, but to get a full understanding of their position, tracking their attitudes towards women's liberties, etc., has got to come into play also.

For an immediate practical case, we could take the gay rights movement... several demands of which, like hate crime and non-discrimination laws, could perfectly reasonably be opposed by a strong "libertarian" on the social divide, but which certainly don't meet with approval from the social conservatives on the "authoritarian" side.
The problem being...?

The two oppose the measures for different reasons, and the l/a-l/r scale acknowledges that.

On the left-libertarian 'segment'.

Why? They don't fit. It's just something we can get away with because we don't have very many truly extreme social leftists... but there's real tension in this areas nonetheless.

If you're saying that not all political beliefs can be summed up on such a scale, then I'd most certainly agree, but I don't see that as a problem. We're always going to have to further explain our positions.

It's not a matter of not having to "further explain", it's a matter of being able to plot them at all. The point of a political spectrum isn't to explain, it's to gauge, but when it comes to such political stances it fails to do anything of the sort.

We're trying to classify one's beliefs about economics and social freedoms, not the causes of such beliefs.

I'm not talking about "causes", I'm talking about approaches, policy frameworks. A feminist opposed to prostitution and pornography has a very different understanding of "social freedoms" from a Christian conservative opposed to prostitution and pornography. Similarly, advocates of hate speech legislation are (traditionally) working within a very different "social freedoms" framework from people interested in obscenity laws.

Single issues don't tell us much about a person's beliefs;

The "single issue" here is just an example. "Social leftism" of this sort has plenty of other manifestations--hate crimes and hate speech, anti-discrimination legislation and affirmative action (could be plausibly included with economic leftism, perhaps), and, on the extreme end, government attacks on traditional religion as seen in Revolutionary France and various Stalinist countries. (Speaking of which, how would you plot a Jacobin?)

The "linking" factor is a view that genuine freedom and equality cannot be achieved with a "hands-off" approach that leaves conservative power structures untouched.

with the pornography example, we may want to track an individual's libertarian (or not) attitudes towards porn, but to get a full understanding of their position, tracking their attitudes towards women's liberties, etc., has got to come into play also.

The problem is that there's no "also": what it means for women to be free is the precise issue of dispute. Should it be limited to a libertarian notion of "consent", or is there a more expansive sense, a notion of freedom that can encompass oppression that is "merely" cultural... and might be able to justify state intervention in areas libertarians find to be inviolable?

If simple advocacy of "freedom" and "equality" for women is the only thing that counts, we obscure all these differences.

The problem being...?

The two oppose the measures for different reasons, and the l/a-l/r scale acknowledges that.

And where's the place for those who support them?

he wanted the change of a the left
yet was as racist as the right
he was as passionate as the left
yet as controlling as the right
he appealed to people like the left
but accomplished it by awful means like the right
ALL IN ALL
he got things done, so he wasn't really a politician at all

he musta been a robot or something

Extreme right. Hitler's regime was virulently opposed to Marxism; indeed, the NSDAP's version of "socialism" was more along the lines of a heavily regulated free market with extensive cooperation between the state and market forces. Perhaps it was in fact the true definition of state capitalism.

When viewed from an effects perspective rather than an ideological one, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR really weren't that different. By the outbreak of war, both countries were heavily centralized and both had centrally planned directives for material production (indeed, Stalin's second Five Year Plan borrowed pretty heavily from Germany's Four Year Plan), and both made extensive use of resources such as slave labor and concentration camps to achieve those goals.

Hmmm. Hitler was extremely authoritarian, which could identify him with the extremes of either the left or the right. He favored high government regulation of business, which is currently considered a left-wing stance. Racism spans the entire political spectrum, so that doesn't offer any clues. He was extremely militaristic, which is generally associated with the right. Hitler was a centrist! Not a divider, but a uniter! He's everyone's favorite! Yay Hitler!

*modifies the 'Heil Hitler' salute by combining it with the single-digit salute*

Extreme right.
Eugh, not really.
Hitler's regime was virulently opposed to Marxism
So am I, it makes a mockery of everyone. Doesn't really make me extreme right, just makes me Not Stupid.
indeed, the NSDAP's version of "socialism" was more along the lines of a heavily regulated free market with extensive cooperation between the state and market forces. Perhaps it was in fact the true definition of state capitalism.
Well and also the complete erosion of workers' rights, but there we go.
When viewed from an effects perspective rather than an ideological one, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR really weren't that different. By the outbreak of war, both countries were heavily centralized and both had centrally planned directives for material production (indeed, Stalin's second Five Year Plan borrowed pretty heavily from Germany's Four Year Plan), and both made extensive use of resources such as slave labor and concentration camps to achieve those goals.
Which was in turn based on the first Five-Year Plan.

Eugh, not really.

Well, that's the closest thing I can think of...his policies simply lack any of the things you would see in a left-wing ideology. However, curiously the Nazis were less prudish and less moralizing than the Stalinists...figure that one out.

So am I, it makes a mockery of everyone. Doesn't really make me extreme right, just makes me Not Stupid.

Yeah, but I doubt you'd go so far as to want them rounded up and executed. Hitler went well beyond opposing Communism to outright exterminating its supporters and anyone associated with them. Extreme rightists wanted to destroy Bolshevism at all costs, not just contain it or keep their own groups under close scruitiny.

Well and also the complete erosion of workers' rights, but there we go.

Which was, again, not all that different from the USSR (or the modern PRC, for that matter). Both countries had state-controlled "unions" that basically did nothing but make sure the workers were kept under control regardless of conditions, wages, or working hours. One big difference, however, was that Hitler's reasons for doing so were based on ensuring that the Wehrmacht would have the supplies and equipment it needed without the risk of strikes or other major economic disruptions, such as what happened in Germany towards the end of WWI.

That being said, I think ultimately the difference was really in name only. Even down to the brutal anti-Semitism and bigotry against ethnic minorities, not to mention the millions of innocent people murdered and thousands killed in aggressive war, they were basically identical.

Which was in turn based on the first Five-Year Plan.

And it all comes full circle. I think both ideologies were so far out there that they simply can't be properly classified on the left-right scale, which is primarily based on democratic principles and the existence of civil rights to begin with. In countries where neither exist, it's sort of moot.

Hitler does not smell like poo.

He smells like 60 year old lighter fluid and a rusty spent shell casing.

How do you know that?

For extremist social authoritarian populists, the left/right thing doesn't really work. Yes, he did publicly cater to the masses, the "workers," but privately was pretty cozy with the big industrialists. At the same time, it wasn't a free market, either, more of a sort of government approved oligopoly.

Beyond economics though, he was pretty squarely a right wing extremist. Stalin, of course, was also socially very right wing and authoritarian, but professed to be leftist economically.

Why? They don't fit.
How don't they? Militancy isn't the sole domain of authoritarians or those on the economic right. Are you saying a left-libertarian couldn't believe in militant action?

I'm not talking about "causes", I'm talking about approaches, policy frameworks. A feminist opposed to prostitution and pornography has a very different understanding of "social freedoms" from a Christian conservative opposed to prostitution and pornography.
Say the Christian conservative is opposed to prostitution and pornography because they believe in a restriction of sexual practice to that as outlined in the Bible. They also have some issues with how women are exploited in both professions, but strongly believe a women's place is at home, serving her husband.

Say, also, that the feminist is opposed to prostitution and pornography because they believe that women are exploited in both professions. They would, however, believe that sexual practices with consenting adults should not be restricted in any way and that women should not be servile to men.

On a libertarian/authoritarian scale, the Christian conservative and feminist are both towards the authoritarian side when it comes to access to pornography and prostitution, as they would both restrict access. They both also share a similar libertarian stance on the treatment of female sex workers. They differ, however, on their stances on sexual practice, with the feminist far more libertarian than the Christian conservative.

We can roughly plot stances on individual issues for each person, or look at a multitude of stances on social and economic problems and plot them as a whole. It's not an exact science (although I have my politicalcompass' position in my sig, it's not wholly meaningful; I don't say I'm -7.88 to the left on the economic scale when I'm talking to people for example, I just say I'm to the left), but it's a good way of charting an individual's political leanings; especially in reference to other people.

Moreover, it's the best way I know of detailing something like the BNP (and, in reference to the OP, the NSDAP), the white nationalist party here in the UK. They're described in the media as 'far-right', but while they are incredibly authoritarian, their economic stance is to the left of all three of the UK's main parties.

The l/a-l/r scale helps, I feel, in deflecting a lot of the misconceptions, generalisations and downright falsehoods that surround the use of the term 'left' and 'right'. Especially in popular perception, those far away from the centre are perceived to be authoritarian, the capital-C Communist on the left and the Fascist on the right. Attempts by the libertarian wings on both the right and the left to distance themselves from those who share their economic but not social views are hard-pressed. Think how the term 'Communist' is bandied about, pejoratively, as an easy attack on libertarian communists; "you also like socialised medicine, you must like gulags". A similar thing is often done to those on the right; "you also like free markets, you must like Pinochet".

With the l/a-l/r scale, we can clearly show the differences between libertarians and authoritarians.

The "single issue" here is just an example. "Social leftism" of this sort has plenty of other manifestations--hate crimes and hate speech, anti-discrimination legislation and affirmative action (could be plausibly included with economic leftism, perhaps), and, on the extreme end, government attacks on traditional religion as seen in Revolutionary France and various Stalinist countries. (Speaking of which, how would you plot a Jacobin?)
Much 'social leftism' was (still is) very authoritarian on these issues and more, but I don't see what the problem is with that; the l/a-l/r scale can handle that.

I don't know enough about the Jacobins to say with any confidence where they lie, but (talking about those involved in the French Revolution) as a group to the economic left with a penchant for strong centralised government and a nationalistic streak, I'd say they'd be somewhere in the authoritarian-left segment.

How don't they? Militancy isn't the sole domain of authoritarians or those on the economic right. Are you saying a left-libertarian couldn't believe in militant action?

Nothing to do with militancy, which in case I'm using in a looser sense than "committed to violence." A libertarian could certainly believe in militant action in any sense.

The point is that there's nothing libertarian--not in the referenced sense, anyway--about support for, say, hate speech legislation.

On a libertarian/authoritarian scale, the Christian conservative and feminist are both towards the authoritarian side when it comes to access to pornography and prostitution, as they would both restrict access.

Right, you've accurately categorized the way the spectrum works.

But the question is, does the gauge here actually effectively capture the stance? Even the raw policy stances are going to differ significantly: for instance, the Christian conservative is likely to demand retention of the blanket ban on prostitution, while the feminist is likely to argue that punishing prostitutes for prostitution is blaming the exploited for being exploited, and that demand, not supply, should be criminalized. Similarly, feminist legislation on pornography has tended to approach the issue as a civil rights matter, not from the legal framework of "obscenity."

On the level of theory, the differences are even starker, and more relevant here: social conservatives look to the state to enforce gender roles and sexual restraint, because they have an objective (obedience to God) that supersedes concern for individual autonomy. Feminists opposed to pornography and prostitution, on the other hand, argue that their stances are perfectly in line with substantive autonomy--and they mean this not in the disingenuous way we sometimes hear from social conservatives, that "true" freedom is doing what's right by their moral codes, but on the grounds that economic compulsion and the cultural forces of male domination mean that it's not as simple as a standard of mere libertarian "consent" suggests.

That is to say, social conservatism we might be able to genuinely categorize as "authoritarian" because it places something above freedom, but the feminist stance we have been discussing is not so at all: it is simply grounded in a different notion of freedom than the libertarian one the spectrum assumes. Clearly, this stance cannot go on the "libertarian" side--but it does not fit the "authoritarian" side either. It eludes the terms of measurement, which is precisely my point.

We can roughly plot stances on individual issues for each person, or look at a multitude of stances on social and economic problems and plot them as a whole.

Right, but in the cases I've been discussing we end up with scores that indicate compromise: a balance between competing concerns for freedom and (say) traditional values. (Realistically, even for the most ardent "social leftists" they're probably still going to be toward the libertarian side, but that's not the point.) The trouble is that these stances don't amount to "compromise" at all, and certainly not with traditional values: if anything, they are more extreme than typical libertarian stances, not less so.

it's a good way of charting an individual's political leanings; especially in reference to other people.

Well, the Political Compass itself is actually interesting, because its "libertarian/authoritarian" spectrum almost invariably scores radical leftists as much more libertarian than even the most extreme-minded capitalist-libertarians. Maybe one day I'll take it with the stances of an anti-pornography and anti-prostitution radical feminist in mind, and see what happens.

I'm more troubled by the tendency to conceive of opposition to social conservatism as necessarily manifesting itself in a "social liberalism" that libertarians and leftists are supposed to share: absolutist free expression, laissez-faire approaches to sexuality, and so forth. The result is that non-conservative, non-"laissez faire" policy stances are taken by people as lunacy, or as manifestations of subconscious conservatism. The "two-spectrum" approach, at least as it's typically put forth, seems to be based upon this misconception to me.

In a way, I'd rather preserve the category of "leftism", with all its tensions: the broad ideological framework of people looking to abolish, or at the very least to weaken, class society (conceived broadly as encompassing inequities of race, gender, sexuality, etc. as well as simple economic class.) It better encompasses my stance on both social and economic issues, because, even as its vagueness fails to precisely describe my policy stances, it correctly encapsulates where I am coming from.

Moreover, it's the best way I know of detailing something like the BNP (and, in reference to the OP, the NSDAP), the white nationalist party here in the UK. They're described in the media as 'far-right', but while they are incredibly authoritarian, their economic stance is to the left of all three of the UK's main parties.

Oh, the one-dimensional spectrum certainly doesn't work, either. It collapses entirely when we consider the wide spectrum of differences among non-leftists.

With the l/a-l/r scale, we can clearly show the differences between libertarians and authoritarians.

But we fail entirely to show the difference between a libertarian like me and a libertarian like Robert Nozick (the ASU version)--and I'm not talking about economics here, but about very different notions of what even non-economic freedom must encompass. I've touched on this already above.

Much 'social leftism' was (still is) very authoritarian on these issues and more, but I don't see what the problem is with that; the l/a-l/r scale can handle that.

No, it can't. Do we really want to group together people who burn churches with those who establish them? People who want to ban public displays of homosexuality and people who want to ban public displays of homophobia?

Clearly, such stances are on opposite sides of the "social divide"--but not by the spectrum's measurement.

Started out as right wing, then went off the political spectrum in the general genocide direction.

Fascism also advocates economic planning where the state controls the economy. That is not something embraced by the right.

I have selected this post, among many others, who went "nazism/fascism is statalization of the economy".

Buddies... it is NOT! Examples:
Was IG Farben (Germany, chemicals) statalized? NO.
Was Siemens (Germany, electricity) statalized? NO.
Was FIAT (Italy, automotive) statalized? NO.
Was Pirelli (Italy, rubber) statalized? NO.
Was Caproni (Italy, aircrafts) statalized? NO.

Don't mix up statalization with statal pro-corporation intervention.

The state intervened in the economy... to save decaying private-owned industries using public funds (see the IRI in Italy). Basically, when an industry was about to go bankrupt, the state bought it and payed its debts.
The state also intervened by creating a some kind of welfare (like mandatory statal retirement funds). The state issued large orders to private industries - cars, ships, trains, weapons - and this kept the private corps very, very happy and very, very rich.

The point is that, during fascism and nazism, the most influential and most powerful companies used the regime. Mussolini knew perfectly well that, without the support of Agnelli (FIAT), Pirelli and of the land-owners, he would have never been able to transform Italy from a constitutional monarchy to a dictatorship.

The "Camera dei Deputati" (lower house) was replaced by the "Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni": literally "of the Fasces" (meaning the local fascist groups) "and of the Corporations" (in the medieval meaning of it: the "corporazioni" were sort of mandatory trade unions). That is: the representatives of the economical power were allowed directly inside the Parliament. In a statalized economy, it would be the other way around: the representatives of the political power allowed directly inside the head offices of companies.
The fascism ideology in economy was about an "alliance" between owners and workers - both of them working together, each in its traditional place, for national greatness.


As for "right"... well, as I said before fascism and nazism ARE BY DEFINITION extreme right in the european political spectrum.

That's actually part of the whole libertarian rhetoric appeal, they talk about 'corporate socialism' and 'regulation' and all this so they can try and divorced their support of capitalism with the reality of what capitalism is like in the real world.

The point is that there's nothing libertarian--not in the referenced sense, anyway--about support for, say, hate speech legislation.
No there isn't, but how is that a problem for the l/a-l/r scale?

Those who support hate speech legislation are less libertarian, on this issue alone and ignoring their motivation, than those who don't. However, those who don't support hate speech legislation may well not support it because they hold some rather authoritarian views on sexuality and sexual conduct, which would be shown in the scale. If these same people supported legislation against, say, blasphemy, this would 'balance out' their views on hate speech legislation to protect homosexuals. The l/a-l/r scale wouldn't class such a person as a libertarian simply because they have a liberal attitude towards one law due to rather authoritarian views.

But the question is, does the gauge here actually effectively capture the stance?
No, it merely captures whether, in general, they favour government intervention in the economic market and social lives.

And that's not a problem, as far as the gauge is concerned. I agree that to truly understand an individual's political stance, especially the motivations that led to that stance, you'd have to have a lengthy discussion with that person; no graph is going to chart how a staunch Presbyterian upbringing led to my distrust in hierarchies, but to show that, in general, I'm a left-libertarian, the l/a-l/r scale is a useful shorthand.

I'm more troubled by the tendency to conceive of opposition to social conservatism as necessarily manifesting itself in a "social liberalism" that libertarians and leftists are supposed to share: absolutist free expression, laissez-faire approaches to sexuality, and so forth. The result is that non-conservative, non-"laissez faire" policy stances are taken by people as lunacy, or as manifestations of subconscious conservatism.
Surely that is a fault of people's misconceptions, not of the l/a-l/r scale?

In a way, I'd rather preserve the category of "leftism", with all its tensions: the broad ideological framework of people looking to abolish, or at the very least to weaken, class society (conceived broadly as encompassing inequities of race, gender, sexuality, etc. as well as simple economic class.) It better encompasses my stance on both social and economic issues, because, even as its vagueness fails to precisely describe my policy stances, it correctly encapsulates where I am coming from.
As it does mine, but then what do we call those who believe in an abolishment of class-based society but are fine with persecution of minorities, hierarchical structures, etc.? Where does a Stalinist fit into all this?

But we fail entirely to show the difference between a libertarian like me and a libertarian like Robert Nozick (the ASU version)--and I'm not talking about economics here, but about very different notions of what even non-economic freedom must encompass. I've touched on this already above.
You'd be classed as a left-libertarian and Bob Nozick would be classed as a right-libertarian.

OK, that doesn't tell us anything about you and Nozick's differences over the conception of freedom, your interpretations of 'private property', etc., but (a) that's not what the scale is trying to do, and (b) we can kick off a discussion with a generalised understanding of your and Bob's political persuasions; we're not going to get bogged down in calling you a Stalinist or Nozick a Fascist, for example, while we can see you're both in favour of restrictions on government intervention in your lives.

Then we can argue about how Nozick has it all wrong... :p

No, it can't. Do we really want to group together people who burn churches with those who establish them? People who want to ban public displays of homosexuality and people who want to ban public displays of homophobia?
In a way, yes (though I don't see the grouping of church-burners and church-builders actually being a grouping).

I'm not suggesting that the l/a-l/r scale can explain everyone's exact political convictions and the motivations for those convictions, I don't think any scale can. But as a rough guide, as a handy shorthand for "generally, I believe in less governmental interference in both the market and our social lives", I think it works quite well.

On a 'I like cake/I don't like cake-I like cheese/I don't like cheese' graph, we can clearly see those who like cake but don't like cheese, vice versa and etcetera, but we don't see the motivations (moral, taste-wise, whatever) behind those preferences. Same for the l/a-l/r scale.

Once we establish that, we can get down to the nitty gritty of what we consider 'freedom' to be, our motivations, etc. It's certainly no cure-all for political definitions, but it's a good base to start from.

How do you know that?Scuttlebutt has it that every morsel dragged out of the famed bunker had a similar bouquet.

That's actually part of the whole libertarian rhetoric appeal, they talk about 'corporate socialism' and 'regulation' and all this so they can try and divorced their support of capitalism with the reality of what capitalism is like in the real world.
*takes notes*
*spraypaints them on Alaskan overpasses*

For his time, he was reactionary.

He sought a return to an older German culture, in fact, you can see posters/propaganda of the time showing him as a powerful Medieval knight, and many other representations from the Middle Ages.

And also, the evidence used to often support that he was "left" is false (that of him using a state-controlled economy). The free-market was actually a principle of "classic Liberalism", which I suppose at the time would have been towards the center (though leaning a little left). His support for more state involvement in economy would technically be an ultra-reactionary policy (remember government involvement through mercantilism).

As someone previously pointed out, private property was just as sacred and protected (if not more) than under the Weimar Republic. Hitler didn't nationalize any property, and the big German industrial capitalists were on his side the whole time. It's also important to remember that under Hitler workers had no control over working conditions, collective bargaining was abolished.

http://politicalcompass.org/images/axeswithnames.gif

Political-Compass puts him at top, center.... a little right.

Also, one could say... Hitler didn't necessarily have true political beliefs. He did whatever was at his own advantage...

Fascism claimed of course to be a 'third way' between capitalism and communism, but this is only rhetoric, in Italy and Spain also fascist regimes where able to get the support of large portions of the working class (specifically lumpenproletariat). It also arose in Europe as an extreme reaction against the growing power of working class Communist organizations who were threatening the power of the industrial bourgeois. The October Revolution scared the bourgeois from their liberal democratic 'softness' into authoritarian methods of repressing labor as opposed to the 'softly' approach of welfare capitalism in the West.

According to Marxism-Leninism, corporatism/fascism exists in capitalist society when independent trade unions representing the economic interests of the working class have been replaced by "corporations" of which both capitalist managements and employed workers are members.

In Nazi Germany the Labour Front was a classic "corporation". It included
"... the members of all the previous trade unions, the previous salaried workers' associations and the previous employers' associations".

( R.A. Brady: "The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism"; London; 1937; p. 125).
In the words of the Leader of the Labour Front, Robert Ley:
"The management of the Labour Front is in the hands of the National Socialist German Labour Party".

(R. Ley: Address to the Foreign Press, March 7th., 1935, in: R.A. Brady: ibid.; p. 124).
The result of Nazi corporatism was:
"Employers have practically complete control over workmen in regard to wages, hours and working conditions...Collective bargaining is completely abolished".

(R.A. Brady: ibid.; p. 41).

And your copy pasta contributes what to the discussion?

And your copy pasta contributes what to the discussion?

More than you will ever.

obviously hitler is left-wing, alot of laws passed under the nazi regime are similiar to laws the left here in america think we should have, etc,etc.

You can then provide many examples of this, yes?

You can then provide many examples of this, yes?...no.
*shakes head*

He was a Republican, I believe.

He was a Republican, I believe.

The republicans definitely took their cue there, methinks ....
http://www.zenpickle.com/images/Coulter.gif

The republicans definitely took their cue there, methinks ....
http://www.zenpickle.com/images/Coulter.gif

*woosh*

At my opinion, as someone who made it his business to learn the action of this dictator, he was neither left nor right. Though he pretended to be fascist he wasn't even that.
He was an unfulfilled man who stumbled upon a great nation which happened to be in a crisis and thought that some of that greatness might stick to him if he'll be the leader of that nation, which wasn't even his own to begin with.
His path of destruction through nations and states can not be classified as one of the shades we normally apply to governments since it wasn't a government at all but merely a front and a puppet to fuel a bleak and lost crusade which meant only to glorify his own name (which I have made the effort not to mention ;D).

Can we put a left or right tag on a crusading army?

Germany was under siege by its own army and the government did not bother with governing, it managed the nation factories - yes, but the citizens were left to fill the government insatiable hunger for power no matter how they were classified, and if a civilian gave the bigwigs too much trouble that classification could always be changed.
In that regard we can define a state of this status as a "psychotic slave nation" maybe, but i rather doubt we can find the right attribution be it to the right or the left.

But these are only my private and humble notions...

***Originally Posted by Andaras***
""Fascism claimed of course to be a 'third way' between capitalism and communism, but this is only rhetoric...""

to solidify that statement, thats from an on-line dictionary:

(* I wont mention the name cause i dont want to make legal trouble lol, if you realy want to know ask me on a PM)

fascism
Pronunciation: \ˈfa-ˌshi-zəm also ˈfa-ˌsi-\
Function: noun
Etymology: Italian fascismo, from fascio bundle, fasces, group, from Latin fascis bundle & fasces, fasces.
Date: 1921
1often capitalized : a political philosophy, movement, or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

Between you and me; thats not a governing system, thats rape.

At my opinion, as someone who made it his business to learn the action of this dictator, he was neither left nor right. Though he pretended to be fascist he wasn't even that.
He was an unfulfilled man who stumbled upon a great nation which happened to be in a crisis and thought that some of that greatness might stick to him if he'll be the leader of that nation, which wasn't even his own to begin with.
His path of destruction through nations and states can not be classified as one of the shades we normally apply to governments since it wasn't a government at all but merely a front and a puppet to fuel a bleak and lost crusade which meant only to glorify his own name (which I have made the effort not to mention ;D).

Can we put a left or right tag on a crusading army?

Germany was under siege by its own army and the government did not bother with governing, it managed the nation factories - yes, but the citizens were left to fill the government insatiable hunger for power no matter how they were classified, and if a civilian gave the bigwigs too much trouble that classification could always be changed.
In that regard we can define a state of this status as a "psychotic slave nation" maybe, but i rather doubt we can find the right attribution be it to the right or the left.

But these are only my private and humble notions...Hi there, Tuxu. Welcome to NS.

Hi there, Tuxu. Welcome to NS.

Thank youuuuuuuuuuuuuu

The left-right paradigm is an illusion. The only meaningful scale is totalitarianism/liberty, and Hitler was at the extreme totalitarian end of that scale.

He was a Fascist, which is extreme right-wing.

He was a Fascist, which is extreme right-wing.

'Nazi' is a shortened version of the name of the "National Socialist German Workers’ Party", which bore many features of both the extreme left and the extreme right. As I said before, there is no room for 'right' or 'left' at the totalitarian edge of the political spectrum.

Scuttlebutt has it that every morsel dragged out of the famed bunker had a similar bouquet.

Ah, it all makes sense now.

The left-right paradigm is an illusion. The only meaningful scale is totalitarianism/liberty, and Hitler was at the extreme totalitarian end of that scale.
I disagree, the only meaningful scale is class collaborationism/class struggle. National Socialism seeks to 'unite' all classes by securing the lead role of the national-bourgeois in society and of repressing the proletariat.

You are either on the side of the ruling class, or you are on the side of the working class, there is no alternative.

You are either on the side of the ruling class, or you are on the side of the working class, there is no alternative.
I'm afraid to ask this... but in Joe Stalin's Soviet Union, which was which?

I'm afraid to ask this... but in Joe Stalin's Soviet Union, which was which?

In the USSR (under Stalin) the working class was the ruling class, and exercised it's power through the the primary tool of class organization, the Communist Party.

In the USSR (under Stalin) the working class was the ruling class, and exercised it's power through the the primary tool of class organization, the Communist Party.
So in the USSR, you were either on the side of the ruling class, or an enemy to be dealt with.

So in the USSR, you were either on the side of the ruling class, or an enemy to be dealt with.

Correct.

Correct.
Makes me proud to be a lumpenproletariat.

:p

So in the USSR, you were either on the side of the ruling class, or an enemy to be dealt with.

And you so very beautifully show why I object to collectivism.

In all totalitarian regimes, there can be no dissent. In Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany, there was no room for disagreement with the establishment, and no place for art, music, or theater unless it had Party approval. That is totalitarianism, and not 'liberal' in any sense of the word, and neither is it conservative.

Center left, obviously. He certainly didn't like free markets at any rate.

I suppose it all gets a bit obscured these days because the politics of the thirties was considerably different to today. The racial thing for example. It's commonly held that all racists/eugenics types are right wing these days, but back then that was far from the truth: quite the opposite in fact.



Are you sure? I don't know about Europe but I'm pretty sure that in the US that Racism became a Conservative (and therefore Republican) view before the second world war.

Nice bourgeois propaganda. 'Political spectrum' are bourgeois creations, in reality there maybe many variations but politics can only serve ONE CLASS, the bourgeois or proletariat.

In animal farm George orwell states that no matter what type of politics you choose there will always be a higher class with all the stuff and a lower class with nothing.

In animal farm George orwell states that no matter what type of politics you choose there will always be a higher class with all the stuff and a lower class with nothing.

And Orwell was an anti-communist state informant and propagandist for the British government.

Next.

Are you sure? I don't know about Europe but I'm pretty sure that in the US that Racism became a Conservative (and therefore Republican) view before the second world war.

No, racism is an epithet applied to Republicans by Democrats and has no basis in reality. Racism is not a left-right phenomenon. Don't forget that the esteemed Robert Byrd (D) is a former Klansman, and the Southern democrat was the racist figure in politics for most of the post-Civil War time frame until at least WW2. Accusations of racism are generally a way to avoid explaining an issue by making an ad hominem attack against an opponent.

*dig at the Democrats* Even though i vehemently disagree with GWB, I must point out that he has appointed more minorities to cabinet positions than anyone before.

Hitler is the classic example of why the left-right spectrum really doesn't work, whatsoever. His policies included elements derived from all over the spectrum, and it's phenomenally difficult to place him merely here or there.

Hitler is the classic example of why the left-right spectrum really doesn't work, whatsoever. His policies included elements derived from all over the spectrum, and it's phenomenally difficult to place him merely here or there.

policies are way too context dependent to be of much use. what defines the political spectrum is more to do with fundamental goals and worldviews.

And you so very beautifully show why I object to collectivism.
Why so, unless you're positing that any form of collectivism must follow along the lines of Stalinist Russia?

Those of us who support some form of collectivism, but object to all this Party bullshit, would contest such a claim. Indeed, some of those most harshly treated by totalitarian regimes such as Stalin's were libertarian collectivists; anarchists, libertarian socialists and the like. Although much of the rhetoric pumped out against the 'enemies of the Revolution' was against supporters of capitalism, plenty vitriol and hatred was reserved for those who didn't want to see power passed from one elitist group of authoritarians to another; from the Tsar to the Party.

'Nazi' is a shortened version of the name of the "National Socialist German Workers’ Party", which bore many features of both the extreme left and the extreme right. As I said before, there is no room for 'right' or 'left' at the totalitarian edge of the political spectrum.

First of all, I hope you're not implying that because they gave the party a particular label that's the sort of politics they pursued.

In relation to your opinions on the political spectrum, I think you're referring to the fact that the spectrum bends over itself, so that Fascism and Communism essentially lie side-by-side.

I'm not trying to prove you wrong as such, it's just that not everyone will follow the same view that the spectrum won't apply to the extreme ends of left and right.