You don’t protect my freedom

[kbate]

You've had your ass handed to you on this subject more times than I can count, but your cognitive dissonance prevents you from doing anything but parroting the same line over and over.

Feel free to brush up:
http://forum.literotica.com/showthread.php?t=669405

Hitler, Mussolini, and all fascists were (and are) fervently right wing, unless you are talking about third position fascism... not that I even expect you to understand the basics, much less the nuances.

I still laugh when people attempt to equate the Nazis and Italian Fascists to the modern American Right wing. They're nothing alike. Nor are they anything akin to our current left wing.

It's complete bullshite, straight from Godwin in the hope to make your enemy "Hitler". Both parties today embrace portions of Nazism and Fascism and Socialism and more.

 

[IrezumiKiss]

Yes. We need to get back to the concept that some minorities bring with them more problems than benefits. Muslims in the United States have a lower crime rate than blacks. Every group does. Nevertheless, Muslims can engage in horrible acts of terrorism. It is easier to exclude them entirely, than it is to choose who to admit, and who to exclude.

The Immigration Act of 1924 and the persistence of Jim Crow laws eased Franklin Roosevelt's problems dealing with the Great Depression. Both meant that lower income whites could vote Democrat without voting for social and economic equality with non whites. Consequently during each of the four presidential elections Roosevelt won, he carried all eleven former Confederate states.

I see little reason to admit the immigration of Hispanics, and no reason to admit the immigration of Negroes and Arabs. They are characterized by low IQ's and high crime rates. How do those people benefit us?

I want more police brutality against young black men. They are out of
control. I want them to be slapped down hard.

 

[KingOrfeo]

All leftism is a form of totalitarianism. It requires an ever increasing force of government against the civil society

Totalitarianism certainly does not exist in Scandinavia. Scandinavian Social Democracy is the closest approximation to democratic socialism.

What say you, vette -- is Sweden a totalitarian state? Or, does what you say apply only in an "exceptional" American setting?

I repeat.

 

[richard_daily]

I still laugh when people attempt to equate the Nazis and Italian Fascists to the modern American Right wing. They're nothing alike. Nor are they anything akin to our current left wing.

It's complete bullshite, straight from Godwin in the hope to make your enemy "Hitler". Both parties today embrace portions of Nazism and Fascism and Socialism and more.

There are plenty of similarities between the US and German right wing then: Ford and Disney... both supporters of the nazi party.

There are also plenty of similarities to elements of the right wing now, and proto-fascism. The old "it can't happen here" adage may have you laughing, but as a gay woman, you should probably think twice about the policies of the party you support.

I find it strange that you think that the concepts of fascism that were ingrained in the corporatism of Nazi germany somehow just vanished after the war ended. The traditions that started in Germany, in many ways got imported to the US after the war, under the guise of anti-communism. I'd be glad to point out many similarities between today's American right wing and the Nazi party, if you'd like to have an honest discussion on the topic, without resorting to name-calling.

 

[KingOrfeo]

There are plenty of similarities between the US and German right wing then: Ford and Disney... both supporters of the nazi party.

Disney? I think not.

 

[Que Va]

Having had you on ignore, I didn't realize you had C&P this despicable article on Veteran's Day no less.

You are a contemptible excuse for a human being.

You do realize that anyone that wants to read the tripe posted daily at Salon can type "salon.com" into their browser?

What exactly do you see your role as? Paperboy to the masses?

Don't expect a tip.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Having had you on ignore, I didn't realize you had C&P this despicable article on memorial day no less.

You are a contemptible excuse for a human being.

It is an important, relevant, magnificent article; it was posted on Veterans Day, not Memorial Day; and my posting it and your response to it proves that I am better than you.

 

[Que Va]

It is an important, relevant, magnificent article; it was posted on Veterans Day, not Memorial Day; and my posting it and your response to it proves that I am better than you.

I have now fixed my egregious error, does that make me equal to you, better than you or still inferior?

so...about that article....

"Important, relevant and magnificent" is it?

Huh.

Tell me. does Salon publish any articles that are not..."important, relevant, and magnificent?"

 

[KingOrfeo]

Tell me. does Salon publish any articles that are not..."important, relevant, and magnificent?"

No doubt. It covers a lot of ground, after all; many articles are about TV, film, and sports.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Having had you on ignore, I didn't realize you had C&P this despicable article on Veteran's Day no less.

What about it is so despicable?

 

[KUJACK]

War

What about it is so despicable?

History shows that war is the constant and peace the aberration. The gun made the
Serf as powerful as the king, the woman as powerful as the man, the ability for us to have our freedom.

 

[BotanyBoy]

History shows that war is the constant and peace the aberration.

LOL only in corporate defense contractor M'uricuh.

The gun made the
Serf as powerful as the king, the woman as powerful as the man, the ability for us to have our freedom.

No....the gun didn't do any of that, the pen did.

Furthermore you failed to answer the question, what about the article is so despicable? Your love and reverence for war and violence not withstanding.

 

[richard_daily]

History shows that war is the constant and peace the aberration. The gun made the
Serf as powerful as the king, the woman as powerful as the man, the ability for us to have our freedom.

In that case, apparently, most civilized nations in the world are aberrations.

"war, it just happens, nobody's fault!"

 

[KUJACK]

LOL only in corporate defense contractor M'uricuh.



No....the gun didn't do any of that, the pen did.

Furthermore you failed to answer the question, what about the article is so despicable? Your love and reverence for war and violence not withstanding.

You are right that we have not had a war in the US since the civil war. But the military should be honored on Veterans day. Free speech allows dissent, buy the despicable part is that it was done on Veterans day

 

[richard_daily]

You are right that we have not had a war in the US since the civil war. But the military should be honored on Veterans day. Free speech allows dissent, buy the despicable part is that it was done on Veterans day

So, you're saying that dissent is despicable.

 

[KUJACK]

no

So, you're saying that dissent is despicable.

When and where it is done,yes. Have respect, it's how civilized people behave.

 

[KUJACK]

Useful idiots

I still laugh when people attempt to equate the Nazis and Italian Fascists to the modern American Right wing. They're nothing alike. Nor are they anything akin to our current left wing.

It's complete bullshite, straight from Godwin in the hope to make your enemy "Hitler". Both parties today embrace portions of Nazism and Fascism and Socialism and more.

The political origin of that notion is more shameful than the “moderates” would care publicly to admit. Mussolini came to power by claiming that that was the only choice confronting Italy. Hitler came to power by claiming that that was the only choice confronting Germany. It is a matter of record that in the German election of 1933, the Communist Party was ordered by its leaders to vote for the Nazis—with the explanation that they could later fight the Nazis for power, but first they had to help destroy their common enemy: capitalism and its parliamentary form of government.

It is obvious what the fraudulent issue of fascism versus communism accomplishes: it sets up, as opposites, two variants of the same political system; it eliminates the possibility of considering capitalism; it switches the choice of “Freedom or dictatorship?” into “Which kind of dictatorship?”—thus establishing dictatorship as an inevitable fact and offering only a choice of rulers. The choice—according to the proponents of that fraud—is: a dictatorship of the rich (fascism) or a dictatorship of the poor (communism).

That fraud collapsed in the 1940’s, in the aftermath of World War II. It is too obvious, too easily demonstrable that fascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—that both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state—that both are socialistic, in theory, in practice, and in the explicit statements of their leaders—that under both systems, the poor are enslaved and the rich are expropriated in favor of a ruling clique—that fascism is not the product of the political “right,” but of the “left”—that the basic issue is not “rich versus poor,” but man versus the state, or: individual rights versus totalitarian government—which means: capitalism versus socialism.



“‘Extremism,’ or the Art of Smearing,”
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 180






.
¶

The main characteristic of socialism (and of communism) is public ownership of the means of production, and, therefore, the abolition of private property. The right to property is the right of use and disposal. Under fascism, men retain the semblance or pretense of private property, but the government holds total power over its use and disposal . . . .

Under fascism, citizens retain the responsibilities of owning property, without freedom to act and without any of the advantages of ownership. Under socialism, government officials acquire all the advantages of ownership, without any of the responsibilities, since they do not hold title to the property, but merely the right to use it—at least until the next purge. In either case, the government officials hold the economic, political and legal power of life or death over the citizens . . . .

Under both systems, sacrifice is invoked as a magic, omnipotent solution in any crisis—and “the public good” is the altar on which victims are immolated. But there are stylistic differences of emphasis. The socialist-communist axis keeps promising to achieve abundance, material comfort and security for its victims, in some indeterminate future. The fascist-Nazi axis scorns material comfort and security, and keeps extolling some undefined sort of spiritual duty, service and conquest. The socialist-communist axis offers its victims an alleged social ideal. The fascist-Nazi axis offers nothing but loose talk about some unspecified form of racial or national “greatness.” The socialist-communist axis proclaims some grandiose economic plan, which keeps receding year by year. The fascist-Nazi axis merely extols leadership—leadership without purpose, program or direction—and power for power’s sake.



“The Fascist New Frontier,”
The Ayn Rand Column, 98






.
¶

Look at Europe . . . . Can’t you see past the guff and recognize the essence? One country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass—as God. No motive and no virtue permitted—except that of service to the proletariat. That’s one version [communism]. Here’s another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race—as God. No motive and no virtue permitted—except that of service to the race [fascism]. Am I raving or is this the cold reality of two continents already? Watch the pincer movement. If you’re sick of one version, we push you into the other. We get you coming and going. We’ve closed the doors. We’ve fixed the coin. Heads—collectivism, and tails—collectivism. Fight the doctrine which slaughters the individual with a doctrine which slaughters the individual. Give up your soul to a council—or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. My technique . . . . Offer poison as food and poison as antidote.



“The Soul of a Collectivist,”
For the New Intellectual, 76






.
¶

[Adolf Hitler on Nazism and socialism:] “Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good. There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism—not such trifles as the private possession of the means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them then own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers. All that, you see, is unessential. Our Socialism goes far deeper . . . .

“[T]he people about us are unaware of what is really happening to them. They gaze fascinated at one or two familiar superficialities, such as possessions and income and rank and other outworn conceptions. As long as these are kept intact, they are quite satisfied. But in the meantime they have entered a new relation; a powerful social force has caught them up. They themselves are changed. What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings.”



(Adolf Hitler to Hermann Rauschning, quoted by) Leonard Peikoff,
The Ominous Parallels, 231






.
¶

Through the agency of three new guilds (the Food Estate, the Estate of Trade and Industry, and the Labor Front), the government assumed control of every group of producers and consumers in the country. In accordance with the method of “German socialism,” the facade of a market economy was retained. All prices, wages, and interest rates, however, were “fixed by the central authority. They [were] prices, wages, and interest rates in appearance only; in reality they [were] merely determinations of quantity relations in the government’s orders . . . . This is socialism in the outward guise of capitalism.”

The nation’s businessmen retained the responsibility to produce and suffered the losses attendant on failure. The state determined the purpose and conditions of their production, and reaped the benefits; directly or indirectly, it expropriated all profits. “The time is past,” explained the Nazi Minister of Economics, “when the notion of economic self-seeking and unrestricted use of profits made can be allowed to dominate . . . . The economic system must serve the nation.”

“What a dummkopf I was!” cried steel baron Fritz Thyssen, an early Nazi supporter, who fled the country . . . .

As to Hitler’s pledges to the poorer groups: the Republic’s social insurance budgets were greatly increased, and a variety of welfare funds, programs, agencies, and policies were introduced or expanded, including special provisions for such items as unemployment relief, workmen’s compensation, health insurance, pensions, Winter Help campaigns for the destitute, the Reich Mothers’ Service for indigent mothers and children, and the National Socialist People’s Welfare organization.



Leonard Peikoff,
The Ominous Parallels, 230






.
¶

During the Hitler years—in order to finance the party’s programs, including the war expenditures—every social group in Germany was mercilessly exploited and drained. White-collar salaries and the earnings of small businessmen were deliberately held down by government controls, freezes, taxes. Big business was bled by taxes and “special contributions” of every kind, and strangled by the bureaucracy . . . . At the same time the income of the farmers was held down, and there was a desperate flight to the cities—where the middle class, especially the small tradesmen, were soon in desperate straits, and where the workers were forced to labor at low wages for increasingly longer hours (up to 60 or more per week).

But the Nazis defended their policies, and the country did not rebel; it accepted the Nazi argument. Selfish individuals may be unhappy, the Nazis said, but what we have established in Germany is the ideal system, socialism. In its Nazi usage this term is not restricted to a theory of economics; it is to be understood in a fundamental sense. “Socialism” for the Nazis denotes the principle of collectivism as such and its corollary, statism—in every field of human action, including but not limited to economics.

“To be a socialist,” says Goebbels, “is to submit the I to the thou; socialism is sacrificing the individual to the whole.”

By this definition, the Nazis practiced what they preached. They practiced it at home and then abroad. No one can claim that they did not sacrifice enough individuals.



Leonard Peikoff,
The Ominous Parallels, 19






.See also: Altruism; Capitalism; Collectivism; Communism; Dictatorship; Fascism/Nazism; Mystics of Spirit and of Muscle; Polylogism; Rightists vs. Leftists; Socialism; Soviet Russia; Statism.
Copyright © 1986 by Harry Binswanger. Introduction copyright © 1986 by Leonard Peikoff. All rights reserved. For information address New American Library.

Acknowledgments

Excerpts from The Ominous Parallels, by Leonard Peikoff. Copyright © 1982 by Leonard Peikoff. Reprinted with permission of Stein and Day Publishers. Excerpts from The Romantic Manifesto, by Ayn Rand. Copyright © 1971, by The Objectivist. Reprinted with permission of Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc. Excerpts from Atlas Shrugged, copyright © 1957 by Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead, copyright © 1943 by Ayn Rand, and For the New Intellectual, copyright © 1961 by Ayn Rand. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Ayn Rand. Excerpts from Philosophy: Who Needs It, by Ayn Rand. Copyright © 1982 by Leonard Peikoff, Executor, Estate of Ayn Rand. Reprinted by permission of the Estate of Ayn Rand. Excerpts from “The Philosophy of Objectivism” lecture series. Copyright © 1976 by Leonard Peikoff. Reprinted by permission. Excerpts from Alvin Toffler’s interview with Ayn Rand, which first appeared in Playboy magazine. Copyright © 1964. Reprinted by permission of Alvin Toffler. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Plume, a member of Penguin Group (USA), Inc.

 

[BotanyBoy]

You are right that we have not had a war in the US since the civil war. But the military should be honored on Veterans day. Free speech allows dissent, buy the despicable part is that it was done on Veterans day

Wars, their causes, circumstances and consequences are totally irrelevant to the conversation.

What is the topic of conversation is what a load of shit the military/police state worshipers who justify their fanaticism with "they protect our freedom" lie is ....

Because it is in fact a total fuckin' lie.

It's not dissent it's speaking the truth.....

Veterans should have their contracts fulfilled, that would be a good place to start.

So, you're saying that dissent is despicable.

I'm sure it's honorable when it's against Obamacare.

 

[RobDownSouth]

...Both parties today embrace portions of Nazism and Fascism... .

By all means, perfesser, share with the class exactly what portions of Nazism and Fascism that you believe the Democrats "embrace".

*pops popcorn*

 

[KUJACK]

Both want single governmenrt control

By all means, perfesser, share with the class exactly what portions of Nazism and Fascism that you believe the Democrats "embrace".

*pops popcorn*

Both are socialist theologies. Single governemt control. Different modalities to get there.

 

[BotanyBoy]

Both are socialist theologies. Single governemt control. Different modalities to get there.

 

[KUJACK]

My name

Inigo Montoya, you keeled my brodder, prepare to die.

 

[KingOrfeo]

But the military should be honored on Veterans day.

And the article in the OP says nothing to dishonor it; read for comprehension.

 

[KingOrfeo]

“‘Extremism,’ or the Art of Smearing,”
Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal, 180

Tip: You will never, ever make your position stronger or more credible by citing Ayn Rand in support of it.

As for the socialist aspects or not of fascism, that's a bit complicated:

Things get more complicated when outlining fascist economics. Since fascism is used as an epithet and it is popularly believed that if Fascists did it, then it is bad, a long intellectual battle has been waged over how to characterize the economics of Fascism.

Typically, the term "corporatism" is used to describe fascist economics. It describes a situation wherein all the large privately-owned economic institutions (corporations, industry cartels and the like) are brought into collusion with the government and become part of the apparatus of the State's economic planning. Additionally, private ownership and ability to do business become contingent on service to the State. Thus, while ownership of the means of production (the stuff used to produce other stuff) remains in private hands and continues to be operated with a for-profit objective, ultimate control is exercised by the State. Fascist governments also exercise further control over the economy via methods such as price fixing.

The fascist economic system is in keeping with the ideology's totalitarian nature, where no other institution can be allowed to rival the State in power and influence. This quality also leads to a hostility towards labour unions and other organised worker groups, with such institutions typically being repressed and dissolved. Mussolini's Italy did in fact see the creation of new trade unions following the dissolution of the old ones: these new unions were owned and operated by the State.

This system invites comparisons with many forms of state socialism, as both ideologies involve a centrally-planned economy with the State in control of the means of production. Although ownership remains private in the fascist system, many classical-liberal critiques of fascism have argued that "ownership without control" is a senseless, inherently illogical notion, and that fascism is economically indistinguishable from state socialism and therefore is a variant of state socialism. Still, even a cursory look at the two ideologies will demonstrate the radical differences in ethos, even if comparisons in actual outcome are legitimate.

Marxist critiques of fascism, conversely, argue that fascism is a form of capitalism, in the sense of Marx's initial definition of the term (see the "Marxism" subsection above). Despite being highly regimented and controlled by the State, fascist economies still have private ownership of industries by an upper-class who make profit from the labor of workers; as profit still exists, the economy is still exploitative and thus a form of capitalism. Fascism is on the whole strongly anti-Marxist and anti-socialist, and the two ideologies are usually rivals in attempts to take power during crises like economic depressions — Marxism thus considers fascism to be at best a power play coming out of the petit bourgeois, and at worst little more than a group of violent thugs controlled by the capitalist class brought in as enforcers to defend the old order (and whether or not it acknowledges this status is regarded as irrelevant, since in practice they still end up defending capitalism).

However, ultimately economics in fascism is usually a secondary concern; they claim the "Third Position" on the issue between capitalist and communist.

Political economy of Nazi Germany:

Early in his political career, Adolf Hitler regarded economic issues as relatively unimportant. In 1922, Hitler proclaimed that "world history teaches us that no person has become great through its economy but that a person can very well perish thereby", and later concluded that "the economy is something of secondary importance".[9] Hitler and the Nazis held a very strong idealist conception of history, which held that human events are guided by small numbers of exceptional individuals following a higher ideal. They believed that all economic concerns, being purely material, were unworthy of their consideration. Hitler went as far as to blame all previous German governments since Bismarck of having "subjugated the nation to materialism" by relying more on peaceful economic development than on expansion through war.[10]

For these reasons, the Nazis never had a clearly defined economic programme. The original "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the party, adopted in 1920, listed several economic demands (including "the abolition of all incomes unearned by work," "the ruthless confiscation of all war profits," "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations," "profit-sharing in large enterprises," "extensive development of insurance for old-age," and "land reform suitable to our national requirements"),[11] but the degree to which the Nazis supported this programme in later years has been questioned. Several attempts were made in the 1920s to change some of the program or replace it entirely. For instance, in 1924, Gottfried Feder proposed a new 39-point program that kept some of the old planks, replaced others and added many completely new ones.[12] Hitler refused to allow any discussion of the party programme after 1925, ostensibly on the grounds that no discussion was necessary because the programme was "inviolable" and did not need any changes. At the same time, however, Hitler never voiced public support for the programme and many historians argue that he was in fact privately opposed to it. Hitler did not mention any of the planks of the programme in his book, Mein Kampf, and only talked about it in passing as "the so-called programme of the movement".[13]

Hitler's views on economics

Hitler's views on economics, beyond his early belief that the economy was of secondary importance, are a matter of debate. On the one hand, he proclaimed in one of his speeches that "we are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system",[14] but he was clear to point out that his interpretation of socialism "has nothing to do with Marxian Socialism," saying that "Marxism is anti-property; true Socialism is not."[15] At a later time, Hitler said: "Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether... What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism."[13] In private, Hitler also said that "I absolutely insist on protecting private property... we must encourage private initiative".[16] On yet another occasion he qualified that statement by saying that the government should have the power to regulate the use of private property for the good of the nation.[17] Shortly after coming to power, Hitler told a confidant: "There is no license any more, no private sphere where the individual belongs to himself. That is socialism, not such trivial matters as the possibility of privately owning the means of production. Such things mean nothing if I subject people to a kind of discipline they can't escape...What need have we to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings".[18] He clearly believed that the lack of a precise economic programme was one of the Nazi Party's strengths, saying: "The basic feature of our economic theory is that we have no theory at all."[19] While not espousing a specific economic philosophy, Hitler employed anti-semitic themes to attack economic systems in other countries, associating ethnic Jews with both communism ("Jewish Bolsheviks") and capitalism, both of which he opposed.[20][21] Hitler also believed that individuals within a nation battled with each other for survival, and that such ruthless competition was good for the health of the nation, because it promoted "superior individuals" to higher positions in society.[22]

From "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius," by George Orwell (1941):

What this war has demonstrated is that private capitalism - that is, an economic system in which land, factories, mines and transport are owned privately and operated solely for profit - does not work. It cannot deliver the goods. This fact had been known to millions of people for years past, but nothing ever came of it, because there was no real urge from below to alter the system, and those at the top had trained themselves to be impenetrably stupid on just this point. Argument and propaganda got one nowhere. The lords of property simply sat on their bottoms and proclaimed that all was for the best. Hitler’s conquest of Europe, however, was a physical debunking of capitalism. War, for all its evil, is at any rate an unanswerable test of strength, like a try-your-grip machine. Great strength returns the penny, and there is no way of faking the result.

When the nautical screw was first invented, there was a controversy that lasted for years as to whether screw-steamers or paddle-steamers were better. The paddle-steamers, like all obsolete things, had their champions, who supported them by ingenious arguments. Finally, however, a distinguished admiral tied a screw-steamer and a paddle-steamer of equal horsepower stern to stern and set their engines running. That settled the question once and for all. And it was something similar that happened on the fields of Norway and of Flanders. Once and for all it was proved that a planned economy is stronger than a planless one. But it is necessary here to give some kind of definition to those much-abused words, Socialism and Fascism.

Socialism is usually defined as ‘common ownership of the means of production.’ Crudely: the State, representing the whole nation, owns everything, and everyone is a State employee. This does not mean that people are stripped of private possessions such as clothes and furniture, but it does mean that all productive goods, such as land, mines, ships and machinery, are the property of the State. The State is the sole large-scale producer. It is not certain that Socialism is in all ways superior to capitalism, but it is certain that, unlike capitalism, it can solve the problems of production and consumption. At normal times a capitalist economy can never consume all that it produces, so that there is always a wasted surplus (wheat burned in furnaces, herrings dumped back into the sea etc. etc.) and always unemployment. In time of war, on the other hand, it has difficulty in producing all that it needs, because nothing is produced unless someone sees his way to making a profit out of it.

In a Socialist economy these problems do not exist. The State simply calculates what goods will be needed and does its best to produce them. Production is only limited by the amount of labour and raw materials. Money, for internal purposes, ceases to be a mysterious all-powerful thing and becomes a sort of coupon or ration-ticket, issued in sufficient quantities to buy up such consumption goods as may be available at the moment.

However, it has become clear in the last few years that ‘common ownership of the means of production’ is not in itself a sufficient definition of Socialism. One must also add the following: approximate equality of incomes (it need be no more than approximate), political democracy, and abolition of all hereditary privilege, especially in education. These are simply the necessary safeguards against the reappearance of a class-system. Centralized ownership has very little meaning unless the mass of the people are living roughly upon an equal level, and have some kind of control over the government. ‘The State’ may come to mean no more than a self-elected political party, and oligarchy and privilege can return, based on power rather than on money.

But what then is Fascism?

Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes. Internally, Germany has a good deal in common with a Socialist state. Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and - this is the important point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathize with Fascism - generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything. It controls investment, raw materials, rates of interest, working hours, wages. The factory owner still owns his factory, but he is for practical purposes reduced to the status of a manager. Everyone is in effect a State employee, though the salaries vary very greatly. The mere efficiency of such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious. In seven years it has built up the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen.

But the idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite. The driving force behind the Nazi movement is the belief in human inequality, the superiority of Germans to all other races, the right of Germany to rule the world. Outside the German Reich it does not recognize any obligations. Eminent Nazi professors have ‘proved’ over and over again that only nordic man is fully human, have even mooted the idea that non-nordic peoples (such as ourselves) can interbreed with gorillas! Therefore, while a species of war-Socialism exists within the German state, its attitude towards conquered nations is frankly that of an exploiter. The function of the Czechs, Poles, French, etc. is simply to produce such goods as Germany may need, and get in return just as little as will keep them from open rebellion. If we are conquered, our job will probably be to manufacture weapons for Hitler’s forthcoming wars with Russia and America. The Nazis aim, in effect, at setting up a kind of caste system, with four main castes corresponding rather closely to those of the Hindu religion. At the top comes the Nazi party, second come the mass of the German people, third come the conquered European populations. Fourth and last are to come the coloured peoples, the ‘semi-apes’ as Hitler calls them, who are to be reduced quite openly to slavery.

However horrible this system may seem to us, it works. It works because it is a planned system geared to a definite purpose, world-conquest, and not allowing any private interest, either of capitalist or worker, to stand in its way. British capitalism does not work, because it is a competitive system in which private profit is and must be the main objective. It is a system in which all the forces are pulling in opposite directions and the interests of the individual are as often as not totally opposed to those of the State.

 

[KUJACK]

Tip: You will never, ever make your position stronger or more credible by citing Ayn Rand in support of it.

As for the socialist aspects or not of fascism, that's a bit complicated:



Political economy of Nazi Germany:



From "The Lion and the Unicorn: Socialism and the English Genius," by George Orwell (1941):

Well, fascism, socialism, communism, all are examples of single government contol. When everyone owns something, no one person owns it or nobody owns it, Thats who takes care of it, Nobody. Complacency ensues, and it falls apart.