The origin of the wrong idea that the nazis were lefties
       |           

Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.
Did you miss your activation email?
March 28, 2024, 06:50:51 AM
News: Election Simulator 2.0 Released. Senate/Gubernatorial maps, proportional electoral votes, and more - Read more

  Talk Elections
  General Politics
  Political Debate (Moderator: Torie)
  The origin of the wrong idea that the nazis were lefties
« previous next »
Pages: 1 [2] 3
Author Topic: The origin of the wrong idea that the nazis were lefties  (Read 5170 times)
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #25 on: August 28, 2017, 12:01:11 PM »

Leftist economic garbage nonetheless

No. No, no; this is untrue. Nazi economic policy was categorically not left-wing. It was a very strange thing - the entire purpose was to facilitate the fastest rearmament possible, while also not alienating their conservative junior coalition partners or creating an international crisis before it was time for one - and at its core was fraud, curiously enough. Hjalmar Schacht, a banker and a former liberal who had drifted a mile to the right during the early 1920s, came up with a complex scam (there's a very readable summary here; not perfect but it gives a good general overview) that enabled them to do just that. Also critical to it was extensive co-operation with certain giant private industrial interests (I will mention again the names IG Farben and Krupp) who got from the Nazi regime pretty much everything they had ever wanted out of a government including, critically, the total annihilation of the labour movement. While the regime was naturally keen to see economic growth (what government isn't?), its policies were not redistributive and working class living standards are generally accepted to having fallen during the 1933-39 period, with the crushing of the trade unions being a major factor. And so on and so forth; the general pattern is quite clear.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

What has this got to do with the price of rice?
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #26 on: August 28, 2017, 12:07:15 PM »

Per Joseph Bederansky and quoted: "Large segments of the Nazi Party staunchly supported its official socialist, revolutionary, and anti-capitalist positions and expected both a social and an economic revolution when the party gained power in 1933. Many of the million members of the Sturmabteilung (SA) were committed to the party's official socialist program."

Even were one to accept this reading (I would not and neither would most historians; there's no doubt that the radical wing of the SA did expect some sort of social transformation but it was not one that had any connection whatsoever with the established socialist tradition in Germany) it does not actually help your case one bit, as implicit is the fact that this did not happen and was never going to. The Nazi platform was a tottering tower of bullsh!t designed purely to hoover up votes from across the political and social divides; it did not matter one bit to any of the figures who mattered in the regime.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

Ah yes, as in France under the rule of that well known socialist Louis XIV.
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #27 on: August 28, 2017, 12:09:44 PM »

Um... Himmler was a follower of Röhm, and Goebbels was an advocate of Strasserism. Alfred Rosenberg, the Heydrich brothers, and many others were considered to have ties to the Strasser brothers.

This and its implicit argument I can't even begin to engage with though. Were you sniffing glue before you wrote it?
Logged
Lord Wreath
Rookie
**
Posts: 45


Political Matrix
E: 8.92, S: -4.51

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #28 on: August 28, 2017, 03:54:00 PM »
« Edited: August 28, 2017, 03:55:31 PM by Lord Wreath »

How you can maintain National Socialism as an ideology of the right (or at least, the economic right) baffles me to no end. Dude, Hitler nationalised private industry and oversaw a precipitous expansion of central government. If that's not left-wing then I don't know what is.

Sure, you can point to this policy or that policy in support of one side or the other; Hitler and his party were a mass of contradictions, to be true. However, on the whole, their economic policy was pretty left-wing IMO.
Logged
🦀🎂🦀🎂
CrabCake
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,189
Kiribati


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #29 on: August 28, 2017, 04:56:22 PM »

You're biased because the current concept of "economic rightism" as codified by Thatcher and Reagan did not really exist in the time. Hitler operated in the context of the Great Depression and World war 2, two situations which created an extraordinary amount of governmental power. But what Sibb is saying is that "government having a lot of power" or "lots of money being spent" is not a very useful indicator of left wing politics, otherwise you end up with patent absurdities (e.g. It would place the Democratic-Republicans to the right of Jefferson; it would class most powerful monarchs as socialist).

Left-wing economics especially then means redistribution of capital and power to the working classes. The Nazis had no interest in that.
Logged
SWE
SomebodyWhoExists
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 13,233
United States


P P P
Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #30 on: August 28, 2017, 06:09:29 PM »

If that's not left-wing then I don't know what is.
I don't think you need to tell us that you don't now what left-wing means.
Logged
Lord Wreath
Rookie
**
Posts: 45


Political Matrix
E: 8.92, S: -4.51

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #31 on: August 28, 2017, 09:54:09 PM »

You're biased because the current concept of "economic rightism" as codified by Thatcher and Reagan did not really exist in the time. Hitler operated in the context of the Great Depression and World war 2, two situations which created an extraordinary amount of governmental power. But what Sibb is saying is that "government having a lot of power" or "lots of money being spent" is not a very useful indicator of left wing politics, otherwise you end up with patent absurdities (e.g. It would place the Democratic-Republicans to the right of Jefferson; it would class most powerful monarchs as socialist).

Left-wing economics especially then means redistribution of capital and power to the working classes. The Nazis had no interest in that.
So you're saying the spectrum is relative to the politics of the context? Sorry, but that's a bit too fluid and reductionist for my liking. I respectfully disagree; the Nazis are easy to categorise on a modern political scale and just because some of their actions contradict the notion of a left-wing party, doesn't disprove the idea that they were left-wing.
If that's not left-wing then I don't know what is.
I don't think you need to tell us that you don't now what left-wing means.
Cute.
Logged
🦀🎂🦀🎂
CrabCake
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 19,189
Kiribati


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #32 on: August 29, 2017, 05:36:50 AM »

.It doesn't matter if it's too abstract "for your liking" because the political spectrum is an abstract concept that requires the context of time to be considered useful. Certainly looking at things through the America-derived concept of "small/big government" is not useful in the remotest as all governments became tremendously powerful under the context of total war.

Fundamentally, you have to look at the motivations of policies rather than get worked up on the details of what the policy is. The left wing motivation at the time would have been, to an extent,unabashedly Marxist: the redistribution of capital and power to the workers. The Nazis motivations, however, entirely nationalistic and derived from a very right-wing nationalist tradition, which is why the conservative establishment of Germany was entirely complicit with their regime.
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #33 on: August 29, 2017, 08:09:03 AM »

How you can maintain National Socialism as an ideology of the right (or at least, the economic right) baffles me to no end.

The fact that pretty much everyone at the time considered it to be so might give an inkling, perhaps? Why were the DNVP (i.e. the old school Prussian national-conservatives) and the right-wing of the Zentrum so utterly relaxed at going into government in the Nazis? The same people who had gone to extreme lengths only months earlier to remove the SPD-led Prussian state government because 'yuck, dirty reds'?

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

Just like noted socialist Louis XIV!

Have to say that I'm amused at the idea that the Nazis oversee a 'precipitous expansion of central government' - you have to be pretty ignorant of German history to believe that. Not that the expansion of the state is an inherently left-wing thing, of course.

Again, all of this is in such monstrously poor taste. The entire German labour movement and socialist tradition was outlawed and brutally persecuted by the Nazi state. Arguing that their (literal and not metaphorical) murderers, jailers and torturers were on the same side as them in order to score cheap political points is grotesque.
Logged
buritobr
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 3,604


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #34 on: August 29, 2017, 07:19:35 PM »

Mises was economic adviser of Austrian dictator Dollfluss.

It is not impossible to be jew and fascist at the same time. It is impossible to be jew and nazi at the same time.

The Italian Fascist Party had jews before Mussolini became Hitler's friend.
Logged
Lord Wreath
Rookie
**
Posts: 45


Political Matrix
E: 8.92, S: -4.51

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #35 on: August 30, 2017, 04:25:56 AM »

.It doesn't matter if it's too abstract "for your liking" because the political spectrum is an abstract concept that requires the context of time to be considered useful.
You're confusing examining the issues of the day through a contextual prism with placing the ideology they espoused on a modern political spectrum.
 
Certainly looking at things through the America-derived concept of "small/big government" is not useful in the remotest as all governments became tremendously powerful under the context of total war.
This is simply a justification for larger, more socialistic government than an actual defence of your idea. Just because a government has impetus to grow larger, often at the expense of previously-espoused ideas, does not mean that they cannot be placed on the political spectrum.

Fundamentally, you have to look at the motivations of policies rather than get worked up on the details of what the policy is. The left wing motivation at the time would have been, to an extent,unabashedly Marxist: the redistribution of capital and power to the workers. The Nazis motivations, however, entirely nationalistic and derived from a very right-wing nationalist tradition, which is why the conservative establishment of Germany was entirely complicit with their regime.
You want to ignore important details because reasons? I don't give a hoot in hell about their motivation. The Nazis were also motivated by a belief that they were doing good by exterminating the Jews. The Commandant of Aushwitz, Hoess, thought that what he was doing was entirely normal and righteous and said so in Nuremberg. Yet that doesn't change the fact that it was immoral. TL;DR motivation means nothing; actions matter.

How you can maintain National Socialism as an ideology of the right (or at least, the economic right) baffles me to no end.

The fact that pretty much everyone at the time considered it to be so might give an inkling, perhaps? Why were the DNVP (i.e. the old school Prussian national-conservatives) and the right-wing of the Zentrum so utterly relaxed at going into government in the Nazis? The same people who had gone to extreme lengths only months earlier to remove the SPD-led Prussian state government because 'yuck, dirty reds'?
This is an argument from ad populum. Just because everyone at the time thought a particular way, doesn't mean that that's what they objectively were or believed. The DNVP and its leaders were marginalised to the point of irrelevance in the new regime. The fact that they were willing to work together illustrates that, yes, they shared some goals, but were opposite in others. You're attempting to operate on the assumption that Human beings are perfectly consistent creatures; we're not.

Dude, Hitler nationalised private industry and oversaw a precipitous expansion of central government. If that's not left-wing then I don't know what is.
Of course Louis XIV was not a socialist in the traditional sense of the word in the same way a government is technically not a monopoly either. However, when retroactively applying the term, it's pretty obvious he believed in an authoritarian state with a large government which are INDICATORS of socialism. The political spectrum is a sliding scale, you can be socialist is some areas and be capitalist in others; socialism has more characteristics than simply the public ownership of the means of production.

So a government may nationalise important industry, prevent the private sector from functioning effectively and foster unions and simply because they don't own the means of production, they aren't socialist?

Have to say that I'm amused at the idea that the Nazis oversee a 'precipitous expansion of central government' - you have to be pretty ignorant of German history to believe that. Not that the expansion of the state is an inherently left-wing thing, of course.
Here's what Hitler said in Mein Kampf (page 287):
'Today our left-wing politicians in particular are constantly insisting that their craven-hearted and obsequious foreign policy necessarily results from the disarmament of Germany, whereas the truth is that this is the policy of traitors ... But the politicians of the Right deserve exactly the same reproach. It was through their miserable cowardice that those ruffians of Jews who came into power in 1918 were able to rob the nation of its arms'

So what does that make Hitler? A centrist? By your logic because he attacked a both sides, he couldn't possibly be a partisan creature. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Hitler was a socialist, far from it. But, I am saying that he showed socialistic tendencies by nationalising industry, giving out unemployment benefits and undertaking massive public works schemes like the Autobahn. These alone don't make a government socialist. They do push it further along the left of the economic spectrum.

Again, all of this is in such monstrously poor taste. The entire German labour movement and socialist tradition was outlawed and brutally persecuted by the Nazi state. Arguing that their (literal and not metaphorical) murderers, jailers and torturers were on the same side as them in order to score cheap political points is grotesque.
Don't start with me mate, we're literally discussing Nazis here. If you're going to get offended by what should be a very simple suggestion then close your browser.
Logged
parochial boy
parochial_boy
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,114


Political Matrix
E: -8.38, S: -6.78

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #36 on: August 30, 2017, 04:45:18 AM »
« Edited: August 30, 2017, 04:52:52 AM by parochial boy »

Dude, what you are doing is redefining the left-right spectrum in order for it to fit your narrative; rather than applying the spectrum as it is conventionally understood.

Now, of course, the "left-right" spectrum is not an iron-cast law of nature, it is something that is defined by the way that we collectively interpret and understand it. So in that respect, it is fundamentally not possible to separate our understanding of the political spectrum from "context"; as without "context" their is no spectrum.

Also, I don't see how you can discount motivation as a factor - a large part of the point of being left wing is about redistribution and equality, and the Nazi economic model largely wasn't redistributive (and needless to say, their instincts were not egalitarian for a second).

Unless, that is, you want to argue that Winston Churchill was a left-winger as a result of the command war economy. In fact, forget that, under your understanding that being economically right wing requires a commitment to a liberal economy, virtually no-one from the entire of history could be called "right wing", up to and including Adam Smith.
Logged
○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└
jfern
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 53,611


Political Matrix
E: -7.38, S: -8.36

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #37 on: August 30, 2017, 04:49:54 AM »

In 1928, the Nazi party got 2.6%, the left parties (SPD+Communists) got 40.4%, and other parties got 57.0%. In July 1932, which had the best performance of the Nazi party in any free election, the Nazi party got 37.3%, the left parties got 35.9% and the other parties got 26.8%. So almost all of the growth of the Nazi party was from non left parties.
Logged
AtorBoltox
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 2,976


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #38 on: August 30, 2017, 05:19:08 AM »

So now apparently literally any government that has overseen a public works program is socialist according to some of the arguments in this thread
Logged
Edu
Ufokart
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,864
Argentina


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #39 on: August 30, 2017, 06:04:13 AM »

I think we have found the dumbest libertarioconserva user in this forum!
Logged
IceAgeComing
Jr. Member
***
Posts: 1,562
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #40 on: August 30, 2017, 07:52:52 AM »

tbh implying that Louis XIV was a socialist is possibly the funniest thing i've read in a very long time.
Logged
All Along The Watchtower
Progressive Realist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 15,417
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #41 on: August 30, 2017, 08:32:45 AM »

This thread has excellent material for my upcoming book Libertarianism Is A Mental Disorder.
Logged
bore
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 4,274
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #42 on: August 30, 2017, 12:02:24 PM »

tbh implying that Louis XIV was a socialist is possibly the funniest thing i've read in a very long time.

Only Wulfric can provide the clarity that we so desperately need here.
Logged
Filuwaúrdjan
Realpolitik
Atlas Institution
*****
Posts: 67,609
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #43 on: August 30, 2017, 01:07:11 PM »

This is an argument from ad populum. Just because everyone at the time thought a particular way, doesn't mean that that's what they objectively were or believed.

No, it's an argument based on a logical interpretation of historical facts made by someone (me) with a long term 'serious' interest in German history. If you think the fact that everyone in Germany in the 1930s understood that the Nazis stood on the extreme Right of the political spectrum is irrelevant and that you know better, then I think perhaps History is not for you.

'Left' and 'Right', incidentally, are purely descriptive terms and do not have an 'objective' existence. In the context of Germany in the 1920s and 30s 'Left' meant essentially meant Socialist, while 'Right' meant nationalist and antisocialist. No great mystery, then, in trying to work out the position on the political spectrum of a party that openly believed that the Socialist movement were traitors to the Nation.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

All of the Nazis conservative allies were eventually marginalised. All this proves is that the Nazis were not conservatives (did anyone here argue otherwise?). The critical thing here is that the DNVP and the conservatives in the Zentrum assumed that the Nazis had the same goals as them because they clearly had the same short-term priorities. Whereas their attitude towards the SPD was one of bitter hostility. Again, I draw attention to the fact that mere months before going into government with the Nazis, Papen conspired to illegally remove the SPD-led government in the state of Prussia because that was how deeply and viscerally hostile to the Left he and his allies were.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

I'm doing no such thing. Try again.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

...

...

Embarrassing.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

Yeah, you might want to stop right now. You're making an absolute fool out of yourself and it's kind of awful to witness.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

The suspicion occurs that you don't actually know what any of those terms mean.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

Is this supposed to be a relevant example? Because the Nazis certainly did not prevent sector from functioning effectively or foster trade unionism (they in fact did the exact opposite of both things, as I have already demonstrated in this thread), so I don't see how it can be.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

I note that you are not addressing the point that I made. I would like you to do so.

As for Mein Kampf; it is the ugly and incoherent ramblings of an insane man and contains very little worth analysing. Though it also contains absolutely nothing that could make anyone with any knowledge of German history conclude that its author was anything other than a member of the extreme Right.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

That is not my logic at all.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

The point at which one decides that building roads is an inherently left wing policy is the point at which one loses all contact with the real world.

Quote
You must be logged in to read this quote.

Ah, now this is a rare experience! People aren't normally patronising to me; they tend to know better. We are indeed, as you so rightly point out, discussing Nazis. I happen to believe, and I'm sorry if this is a little bit snowflakey for your liking, that when one discusses the Nazi state one ought to adopt a respectful position regarding the people that that state murdered, tortured and imprisoned. Arguing that a group of people who the Nazis defined themselves against, who they viscerally hated, and who they viciously persecuted from the very instant that they gained political power, were essentially the same as the Nazis in order to make a cheap political point is, I submit, not very respectful. It is in extremely poor taste and you should feel bad about it.
Logged
All Along The Watchtower
Progressive Realist
Atlas Icon
*****
Posts: 15,417
United States


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #44 on: August 30, 2017, 02:52:07 PM »

Funny how loudly right-wingers shout that the Nazis weren't right-wing when they in fact were right-wing. *scratches chin*
Logged
Cory
YaBB God
*****
Posts: 3,709


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #45 on: August 30, 2017, 04:54:08 PM »

Filuwaúrdjan wins this thread, just hands down.
Logged
Edu
Ufokart
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 7,864
Argentina


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #46 on: August 30, 2017, 08:48:33 PM »

Those damn roman socialists and their Via Appia!
Logged
Statilius the Epicurean
Thersites
Junior Chimp
*****
Posts: 5,596
United Kingdom


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #47 on: August 30, 2017, 09:19:58 PM »

Funny how loudly right-wingers shout that the Nazis weren't right-wing when they in fact were right-wing. *scratches chin*

And funny how those who self-identify as Nazi in the present day all consider themselves right-wing. The Nazi salutes at the Charlottesville protest, were those done by lefties?
Logged
AtorBoltox
Sr. Member
****
Posts: 2,976


Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #48 on: August 30, 2017, 11:10:49 PM »

It's curious that the largest, most powerful business in Germany went into alliance with a bunch of socialists as well
Logged
Lord Wreath
Rookie
**
Posts: 45


Political Matrix
E: 8.92, S: -4.51

Show only this user's posts in this thread
« Reply #49 on: August 31, 2017, 01:06:42 AM »

The arrogance is in this thread is ing astounding. Instead of legitimate debate, just a bunch of junk comments. I probably should have known better considering the A-grade accuracy of most of the predictions on here for HRC last year.

I'd like to continue, but if it's just going to be a flood of junk then ing forget it.

Bye!
Logged
Pages: 1 [2] 3  
« previous next »
Jump to:  


Login with username, password and session length

Terms of Service - DMCA Agent and Policy - Privacy Policy and Cookies

Powered by SMF 1.1.21 | SMF © 2015, Simple Machines

Page created in 0.067 seconds with 12 queries.