[quote Allan from Fallbrook]Arraya: I think much of the misunderstanding stems from a certain willfulness to not understand (i.e. the worry that admitting that the Nazis were Rightists is problematic), but a larger issue is that Hitler was entirely inconsistent in his ideology.[/quote]
The Nazi ‘state’ started out as socialist. They seized and made state owned the facilities of production (and several other forms of assets). From Wiki on Nazism
They declared support for a nationalist form of socialism that was to provide for the Aryan race and the German nation: economic security, social welfare programs for workers, a just wage, honour for workers’ importance to the nation, and protection from capitalist exploitation.
— looks a bit leftist (as well as racist) to me.
They justified it in part, by demonizing Jews (unclean, unfit for a Germanic state.. etc). I suspect that to some extent, the Jews were targeted because they owned a lot of assets that the state wanted to seize. Inflation in Germany at that time was very high. I have a 5 million Mark stamp (yes a postage stamp) from that period. That would be like a $5,000,000 dollar stamp to us. Their currency was worthless.
This is why I brought up the question: what happens when you go ‘left’ on the political spectrum.. and keep going left. It is similar to what happens when you start to the ‘right’ of the political spectrum and keep going. Extremes are not good.
(Overly simplified)
Left and moving further left: (progressive socialization)
State takes possession of large facilities
Increasing state ownership of production and property.
State owns the person and decides what can be done with person.(experimentation on people)
Right and moving further right: (progressive corporatization/privatization)
Lessening of government and gov. oversight.
Increasing involvement of corporations at a cost to individual rights.
Corporate mergers, few or one large corporation.
Corporation becomes the government and now makes the rules.
Corporation aka gov owns the person and decides what can be done with person.
In terms of Fascism, the difference above, is how it is achieved. Some interesting comments in Wiki WRT Fascism:
Though normally described as being on the far right, there is a scholarly consensus that fascism was also influenced by the left, but with a focus on solutions from the right.
Fascism perceives conservatism as partly valuable for its support of order in society but disagrees with its typical opposition to change and modernization.
Fascism presents itself as a solution to the perceived benefits and disadvantages of conservatism by advocating state-controlled modernization that promotes orderly change while resisting the dangers to order in society of pluralism and independent initiative.
Italian Fascism and most other fascist movements promote a corporatist economy whereby, in theory, representatives of capital and labour interest groups work together within sectoral corporations to create both harmonious labour relations and maximization of production that would serve the national interest.(How about that for gov intervention in companies — General Motors II??)
