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edbaskerville 2 days ago

It wasn't called National Socialism for nothing.

crote 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Just like the Democratic People's Republic of Korea is well-known to be a bastion of democracy.

thrance 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

First thing Hitler did was arrest the socialists and communists, then make unions illegal.

wqaatwt 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

Not that I agree with the comment above but that means nothing at all on itself.

One of the first things the Socialist government did was violently put down a communist coup. The communists would have abolished democracy ASAP and purged the socialists if they ever took power.

Fact is that extremist movements will crack down on anyone that tries competing with them for power. Ideological affinity hardly matters.

2 days ago | parent | prev [-]
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2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]
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snozolli 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Please name, say, three elements of NAZI policies that were socialist. To my knowledge, the only thing that's even a tiny bit socialist was Hitler's plan for some sort of central bank, because of course he saw banking and loans as part of some Jewish conspiracy.

Hitler was an O.G. troll, taking over the Workers' Party and renaming it with the word Socialism purely to aggravate his political opponents. He hated socialists, communists, and anarchists.

int_19h 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strength_Through_Joy, just to give one example.

fooker 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> three elements of NAZI policies that were socialist

Government control over transportation, newspapers, and other industries that should ideally not choose profits over quality of service. Communalized non-profit grocery stores. Sounds familiar?

Strict measures to ban or nationalize war profiteering, high interest rates, capital heavy business models allowing rent seeking. Explicit profit sharing required by large companies.

Welfare state with free healthcare and expanded pension funds.

Sometimes 'bad' people have the same 'good' ideas you have. Now sure why this is so difficult to grasp.

snozolli 2 days ago | parent [-]

Government control over transportation

No idea what you mean. Public transportation? If that's socialist, then any functional, modern society is going to be socialist on your book. If you mean control over private transportation, then I guess America was socialist during WWII.

newspapers

There's nothing socialist about that.

Welfare state with free healthcare and expanded pension funds.

I really don't think that you can call a "welfare" program Socialist when it excludes Jews, non-Germans, and even anyone who was against the regime.

Sometimes 'bad' people have the same 'good' ideas you have.

You have absolutely no idea what ideas I have.

Now sure why this is so difficult to grasp.

Not sure why you choose to be rude.

Yeul 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

People get angry when you say this but you are right. Paid holidays, retirement, health insurance. There is a reason why Nazis were popular.

Ofcourse it was all built on economic quicksand.

danaris 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Right: Socialism only for those who were worthy. Those considered to be "true" parts of the German Nation.

Everyone else gets to be exploited, deported, or just plain murdered.

fooker 2 days ago | parent [-]

Yes, that's how socialism has worked almost everywhere it has been tried.

Everything goes fine when you have enough resources.

When you don't, you suddenly always need to create this division between 'real citizens' and 'others' to maintain (1) your hold on power through votes or force, and (2) expected standard of living.

This is why promising free stuff to everyone is a bad idea, not because people shouldn't have stuff, but because once you can not, things get ugly.

danaris 2 days ago | parent [-]

1) Nazism was always, from the very start, explicitly about doing this. It was not an attempt at "true" socialism that degenerated into this; it was 100% intended to divide people into the Master Race and the Inferior Savages.

2) From my understanding, the only times a country has ever claimed itself to be "fully socialist", or attempting to be so (rather than democratic socialism, like various northern European countries), the countries have actually been authoritarian dictatorships with a few superficial trappings of socialism-for-the-few.

3) The common counterargument I have seen to #2 is "but that's just a No True Scotsman fallacy!" It is not. No True Scotsman applies when there is some potential fuzziness to the definition of the term that the person committing it is exploiting to try to argue that the thing is not what is being claimed. The USSR, for instance, was no more Socialist than the DPRK is Democratic; it was so in name only, in an attempt to claim that it was a genuine step on the road toward Marxist communism, when in fact it was just an authoritarian state. The term "Socialism" does not stretch to cover "any state that declares itself to be Socialist, no matter what its actual policies are."

4) As a global—and especially Western—society, we have more abundance today than we have ever had before. We have vastly more capability to produce food, medicine, housing, and all the other necessities of life, as well as modern conveniences like internet, computers, and smartphones, and even luxuries, than we did during the periods in the 20th century when various countries were attempting to convert to communism or socialism (and being, almost universally, co-opted by dictators). Even if we grant your premise in full, that we have, as a collective, been unable to sustain socialism in the past due to a failure to actually provide for all people does not mean that such conditions are still in effect. It certainly does not mean that they will hold forever.

5) Really kinda suspect that you post this as a snide response to a post very specifically explaining what Nazism was. Though somewhat less surprising looking just a little bit into your comment history.

1832 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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