For fellow Socialists/Social Democrats in the world

[Leftbehind]

Sure, but with the overall state of things being profoundly more hopeless than then. 

[Filuwaúrdjan]

And yes, it's bad to have the party look inwards at a time like this, but it's the only way for it to reconnect with the values that once defined it.

This is a strangely familiar argument. Anyways, what are these values and when did they define Labour? The Right, however defined, has almost always been in charge to one extent or other; hey, Miliband is the first leader not to be clearly part of it since Kinnock.

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Progress is more of an organised faction of the career-minded than anything with an especially clear ideological mission statement (other than being on the right-wing of the Party, but then comes with the 'career-minded' remark) even if that was probably the original intent. Which, of course, is why it's controversial.

[morgieb]

True left-wing governments don't exist nowadays. The concept of socialism is outdated, and it is generally decided that free market forces rule all.

[k-onmmunist]

True left-wing governments don't exist nowadays. The concept of socialism is outdated, and it is generally decided that free market forces rule all.

Well this recession's certainly proved that

[opebo]

True left-wing governments don't exist nowadays. The concept of socialism is outdated, and it is generally decided that free market forces rule all.

Yes, this is precisely the error one decries, morgieb.  Shall we ever labour under this deception?

[Peter the Lefty]

Wait wait wait, you think it's is preferable to have Tony Abbott in power on the off chance that the ALP ends up being lead by someone from the left left faction, therefore ensuring that even Tony Abbott could conceivably be re-elected?

"Lesser-evil" politics is rarely a good thing, but when the debate involves Tony “…Jesus didn’t say yes to everyone. I mean Jesus knew that there was a place for everything and it is not necessarily everyone’s place to come to Australia.” Abbott.

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Oh, and three more quotes:

"Mr Speaker, we have a bizarre double standard; a bizarre double standard in this country where some-one who kills a pregnant woman’s baby is guilty of murder, but a woman who aborts an unborn baby is simply exercising choice."

” I think there does need to be give and take on both sides, and this idea that sex is kind of a woman’s right to absolutely withhold, just as the idea that sex is a man’s right to demand I think they are both they both need to be moderated, so to speak”

"I think it would be impossible to have a good general education without at least some serious familiarity with the Bible and with the teachings of Christianity."

Didn't realize Plibersek was that left-wing.  Can you point to some of her positions that are really radical?  And I wouldn't rather have Tony Abbot in charge than Julia Gillard, but it's not like a Coalition victory isn't almost inevitable at this point.  I just mean for the ALP to revitalize itself and get back to being an actual social democratic party again, it'll need at least a term in opposition.  And about those quotes...umm....I live in the US, so I'm sorta vaccinated against fear of that stuff (I'm from the state that used to have Rick Santorum as a Senator, fyi).  I mean, I'm a left-winger through and through both economically and socially, but I'm just sort of used to hearing Republicans say things like that.  So the things that Tony Abbot says that would make most people cringe makes me just roll my eyes and groan. 

[BritishDixie]

I like this. Please shift to the far-left leading to perpetual power for the right, mwuhahaha.

[politicus]

I like this. Please shift to the far-left leading to perpetual power for the right, mwuhahaha.

In that case the world should be divided into countries for right wingers and countries for left wingers. Total right wing domination would lead to violence and instability. Be carefull what you wish for, you might get it.

[BritishDixie]

I like this. Please shift to the far-left leading to perpetual power for the right, mwuhahaha.

In that case the world should be divided into countries for right wingers and countries for left wingers. Total right wing domination would lead to violence and instability. Be carefull what you wish for, you might get it.

Where is your evidence for this assertion. Also could you not say the same thing about countries with total left-wing domination, e.g the Soviet Union, Communist China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Vietnam etc

[Antonio the Sixth]

[BritishDixie]

You deny any truth in my post above? Anyway I would have shot that Lion

[MaxQue]

Those countries aren't left-wing.
For the left, the society is more important than the individuals. Clearly, those dictators care more about them than the society. They try to hide themselves in left-wing clothes, but we aren't dumb and see through them.

[LastVoter]

I like this. Please shift to the far-left leading to perpetual power for the right, mwuhahaha.

In that case the world should be divided into countries for right wingers and countries for left wingers. Total right wing domination would lead to violence and instability. Be carefull what you wish for, you might get it.

Where is your evidence for this assertion. Also could you not say the same thing about countries with total left-wing domination, e.g the Soviet Union, Communist China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Vietnam etc

e.g Germany circa 1940

[BritishDixie]

Those countries aren't left-wing.
For the left, the society is more important than the individuals. Clearly, those dictators care more about them than the society. They try to hide themselves in left-wing clothes, but we aren't dumb and see through them.

Forgive me for making this observation, but aren't playing up class warfare, five year plans, collectivisation, the planned economy, wholesale nationalisation, the suppression of all religious belief and stamping upon free enterprise all rather left wing?

I like this. Please shift to the far-left leading to perpetual power for the right, mwuhahaha.

In that case the world should be divided into countries for right wingers and countries for left wingers. Total right wing domination would lead to violence and instability. Be carefull what you wish for, you might get it.

Where is your evidence for this assertion. Also could you not say the same thing about countries with total left-wing domination, e.g the Soviet Union, Communist China, Zimbabwe, North Korea, Vietnam etc

e.g Germany circa 1940

True. However, Nazi Germany is an interesting case. Notice that the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers Party. I can't really imagine a right-wing party with a name like that. It effectively shared many of same beliefs on economic management as the socialists, only it defined the "great struggle" as being between races rather than classes. In essence it's the same as modern "far-right" parties like the BNP, and Front Nationale, which are in reality left-wing nationalist parties. These parties oppose globalization e.g. Free Trade, international corporations etc, as they see it as a threat to the nation. Therefore you could easily argue that these "far-right" parties, and the Nazi's, are actually either left-wing parties, or that they don't fit into either category.

[MaxQue]

Forgive me for making this observation, but aren't playing up class warfare, five year plans, collectivisation, the planned economy, wholesale nationalisation, the suppression of all religious belief and stamping upon free enterprise all rather left wing?

Those were the idea of the left (and far-left for some of them) a few decades ago. I doubt than any modern left-wing party hold them.

Class warfare is pretty much dead since most people are middle class. They are not poor nor wealthy, they are in the middle, so, not interested in a war between poors and richs. And the left-wing party have a more significant young wealthy electorate, so, that wouldn't be good. I come from an higher-than-average middle class family, so, no, I wouldn't approve class warfare. The side fighting a war is the right. They want to empower even more the big corporations, because of the laws of the market. This is a bad idea, because the market isn't competitive on many things, which are monopolies, oligarchies and cartels. In those cases, the laws of market don't apply and more the monopoly is efficient, more the products are low-quality and expensive.
And the private sector isn't really more efficient. At my job, we have to deal with some businesses with bureaucracy heavier than the government, so, please not continue to state that fable.

Five-year plans and the planned economy. I don't think I ever heard someone proposing them in the Western World since decades. I don't think than the government needs to manage the industry production. Through, it needs to check if the country produces enough of the vital ressources needed (enough food, enough energy) in order to be self-sufficent if a problem arises.

I'm not a fan of forced collectivisation of work, and nobody proposes it (except some areas in Israel) but, it's a from of cooperative and if people want to take part in it, I don't see why to oppose it if everyone agrees.

Nationalisation. Well, some things should be nationalised, other should be privatised. The important services to the population should be nationalised, as should natural ressources do. The natural ressources belongs to the country, so, to the people, so, the profits should go to them, not to private entities, especially if they aren't renewable. However, things like phone should be private (but with controls, we wouldn't want our communications system owned by an enemy country in case of a war!).

Imposition of a religion or the imposition of the absence of a religion is a mark of dictatorship, not so much of an ideology. Those countries banned religion as the Church was a (potential) opposition force they feared. It's destroying opposition, not ideology.

Free entreprise. The program of my left-wing party contained tax cuts for small businesses while cancelling the future tax cut for the big ones. In most of the western world, through the various loopoles, tax rebates, credits, etc..., the big businesses are paying less taxes than small ones in %age. The left just want to even the field between the big and the small businesses, which causes more competition, which drive quality higher and/or prices lower, which is a good thing.

But I understand than the big businesses are funding the political parties more, so, it's them who get the tax cuts, not people nor small businesses...

[Hash]

True. However, Nazi Germany is an interesting case. Notice that the Nazi Party was the National Socialist German Workers Party. I can't really imagine a right-wing party with a name like that. It effectively shared many of same beliefs on economic management as the socialists, only it defined the "great struggle" as being between races rather than classes. In essence it's the same as modern "far-right" parties like the BNP, and Front Nationale, which are in reality left-wing nationalist parties. These parties oppose globalization e.g. Free Trade, international corporations etc, as they see it as a threat to the nation. Therefore you could easily argue that these "far-right" parties, and the Nazi's, are actually either left-wing parties, or that they don't fit into either category.

You beat yourself again. Congratulations on the dumbest post of the year or something.

Jesus Christ.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Urgh, not this sh!t again. I can't be bothered to write anything new, so I'll just use a search function to find some old posts on the subject:

Given what happend to actual Socialists under the Nazi regime (here's a random example), I do find the interwebs-tendency to scream that Hitler-Was-A-Socialist to be in astonishingly bad taste.

Oh for God's sake. No.

This issue seems to be raised on the forum a couple of times every year and I'm now tired of bothering to refute it in any detail, so I'll just note a couple of points:

1. No credible historian of the twentieth century believes that the Nazi regime in general or Hitler in particular were 'left-wing' in any respect. This includes some rather right-wing economic historians who specialise in aspects of Nazi economic policy, so this is not an example of a notoriously lefty profession closing ranks.

2. Nazi economic policy was geared entirely towards rearmament (which was achieved via an extraordinarily complicated form of fraud) and not towards any remotely left-wing (however defined) objective. Contrary to what is frequently asserted, the standard of living for the working class in Germany actually declined during the pre-war Nazi period as wages were kept under tight control by means of... well... authoritarian rule.

3. German industrialists (most of them) did remarkably well out of the Nazi regime and this was intentional (more so, in some ways, than in contemporary economies). The examples of Krupp and IG Farben are well known, but they were merely extreme examples of a more general pattern. The close relationship between capital and the regime was good for both of them; as profits soared, so did corporate contributions to the Nazi Party (why, yes. This was a rather corrupt regime).

4. A Trade Union controlled by the government is not a Trade Union.

Fundamentally, you can only argue that 'Hitler was economically left wing' if you define 'economically left wing' as 'prepared to intervene in the economy in order to make it grow'. Which is absurd.

Nazi underlying ideology = virulent nationalism/militarism, an especially nasty take on popular racial theories, anti-semitism (part of the former but enough of an issue, obviously, to deserve a mention on its own) and anti-socialism, combined with weird fetishes regarding leaders, action, and so on. Everything else was window dressing or a cynical attempt to win support (both electorally and in terms of powerful individuals and interest groups). If you think Hitler or any other leading Nazi gave a sh!t about whatever drivel the party adopted as its platform in its early years, then you should probably avoid further comment on the issue. Because there is just a little bit of a consensus over this.

Arguing that state intervention in the economy = Socialism isn't very clever. It means that you have to (for example) count all mainstream political parties and institutions in Europe between about 1945 (1940 or so in the case of Britain) and about 1973 or so as Socialist. Even more absurdly, it means that you have to count all European states before the rise of laissez faire as Socialist. And I think that would be a step into lunacy too far even for you.

Now, the sad thing about the internets is that these arguments are so common that you can just...

And it's worth noting how pro-business the Nazi regime was in reality. Somewhere, deep within my pile of box files, I've a little chart comparing donations to the NSDAP from IG Farben (a company critical to the implementation of the Final Solution, as it happens) with IG Farben's profits. I will eventually find it and post it here - makes for interesting reading.

Because the Nazis = Socialist canard isn't worth wasting much time dismissing. No one (no one honest anyway) with a basic knowledge of early 20th century German history takes it seriously.

(for the record, IG Farben was a German chemical giant, the largest company in Europe (some of the time), a major financial donor to the Nazi regime (and as the companies profits went up, so did donations), a major user of slave labour and the manufacturer of Zyklon B. It was broken up (more or less) by the Allies at the end of the War. Krupp is another well-known example of a big company doing well out of the Nazis).

I mean, there's more but I can't be bothered to dig it up right now.

But I repeat my comment about bad taste.

Conclusion: fyck off and read a few books on the subject.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Al, you really didn't need to bother considering the kind of person who said that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Pet hates, you know.

[BritishDixie]

Al, you really didn't need to bother considering the kind of person who said that.

That kind of person being who? Although Comrade Sibboleth has convinced me that Hitler's policies weren't particularly left-wing. However I dispute that Hitler carried out a "right wing" economic policy. One of Hitlers Ministers of Economics, Hjalmar Schacht, left the Government due to Hitler's support for policies such as increased spending, protectionism, and government intervention in the economy. These are all noticeable left-wing economic principles (I doubt Hitler imposed tariffs to help business).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Blood.

[BritishDixie]

Blood.

Mine?