Was Hitler economically left wing? (user search)
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  Was Hitler economically left wing? (search mode)
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Author Topic: Was Hitler economically left wing?  (Read 10695 times)
republicanism
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« on: August 18, 2011, 05:33:56 AM »


I've a question too:
Who was more libertarian: Charlemagne or Attila?

Seriously, if a historian ever reads this thread he will cry out in pain. You can not discuss history like that.
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republicanism
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« Reply #1 on: August 19, 2011, 01:47:48 AM »

You have to take a look at Bismarck in his time.  He was by no means a conservative, economically after the Empire was formed.

Bismarck was a 19th century conservative straight out of the textbook. He opposed parliamentarianism, he criminalized unions and the worker's movement, and he was a staunch monarchist.

The difference between him and some more stubborn conservatives in his time is, that he was smart.
For example he implemented universal male sufferage - but just to keep the liberal bourgeoisie down with the help of conservative poor peasantry.

And what is "economically conservative" even supposed to mean in the 19th century?

Defending the privileges of landlords and gentry? Bismarck did so.
High tariffs? Bismarck implemented such.

His cooperation with the moderate liberals in the 1870s was just a temporary solution forced by the fact that Old Conservatives were unwilling to deal with him, because they still opposed the formation of the Empire.
As soon as conservatives accepted the status quo and became a party supportive of the Empire, he sided with his true political camp again.
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republicanism
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« Reply #2 on: August 20, 2011, 04:52:57 AM »

Yet he modeled the German constitution on the US Constitution.

There are hardly any similarity between the German constitution of 1871 and the US Constitution. Only thing they have in common is, that both constituted a federal state, but besides that, nothing.

Encouraging, successfully, German manufacturing.

That's a very special definition of economic conservatism.



Take the high tariffs on rye and wheat for example.
There was no economic importance for them (in fact they had a very bad influence on the working class, as basic foods became more expensive), except for keeping a completely out-dated social class, the Prussian Junker, who relied on large-scale agriculture that became more and more inefficient and technically backwards, alive. Bismarck was one of them, and he tried (successfully) to conserve them as a political force against liberalism, socialism, democracy, progress in general.
He also ensured with the reform of the county law of 1872 that the Gutsbezirke, local administrative divisions in which the local landlord was the judicial, police and often church authority and that bare any local government, continued in existence. If I remember correctly, about 1/4 of the Prussian population still lived in a Gutsbezirk around 1900.

Why weren't the Old Conservatives supportive?  Because Bismarck was well to the left of them.

Basically because they were ultra-royalists, and Bismarck broke the old dynastic legitimacy of Hannover and some other noble houses by annexing them and making them Prussian provinces. Also because German nationalism was, before 1871, a political goal of the liberals and democrats, not of the conservatives.

If in your mind this makes Bismarck "more left" than the ultra-royalist Prussian conservatives, fine, I'll give you that point.
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republicanism
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« Reply #3 on: August 22, 2011, 03:36:28 AM »

Tariffs were common, including in the US, so that is not an issue.  I am to familiar with the 1872 law, though wasn't similar the role of landed gentry and nobility in Britain at the time.

Right, but it were conservative forces in Britain and the US that supported this politics of tariffs and noble privilege, too. Just as Bismarck was a conservative, what is my point.

That might have been a factor in Hanover, but Hanover was never known as a conservative bastion.

It was, but that's not important to this question.

In the same period, Bismarck was anti-colonial. 

In parts for conservative reasons, of course.
Colonies meant a stronger and more influential navy, probably at the expense of the army. While the army was in the hands of the Prussian nobility, in the navy lots of commons / bourgeois (not sure about the right English term for "not-blue-blooded") made their career.
Bismarck didn't like the whole idea of colonialism because it meant more openness for oversea influence, an orientation towards the west. Emotionally, he was much closer to Russia, Habsburg, the "Old Europe".

I'm not saying Bismarck was an enlightened 19th Century liberal, but he wasn't, either for German or the world, the ultra rightest political leader either.

Oh, I wouldn't say either that he was the "ultra rightest political leader". He was a German 19th century conservative, no more and no less.
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