Talk:Socialism/Socialism and Nazism

message: The German Nazi Party described itself as "National Socialist," and some other fascist parties have also used the word socialist in their names. Socialists of all varieties reject the view that fascism and Nazism have anything in common with socialism, although this is sometimes disputed by non-socialist writers, who see fascism and socialism as having similar ideological origins.
What idelogical origins are they alledged to share? I'm not asking you to prove that socialism and National Socialism are similar, just that people have accused them of beeing similar (and I mean in a serious argument rather than the purile way some right wingers argue that National Socialism is a variety of socialism purely based on its name). Saul Taylor 08:29, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: it's Lirath who insisted on dragging the subject of Nazism into this article so I suggest you ask him. Adam 09:39, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Socialism and Nazism: Jan 2004

message: ""England is a capitalist democracy. Germany is a socialist people's state. There are lords and City men in England who are in fact the richest men on earth. The broad masses, however, see little of this wealth. We see in England an army of millions of impoverished, socially enslaved and oppressed people. Child labour is still a matter of course there. They have only heard about social welfare programs. Parliament occasionally discusses social legislation. Nowhere else is there such terrible and horrifying inequality as in the English slums. The Lords and City people can remain the richest people one earth only because they constantly maintain their wealth by exploiting their colonies and preserving unbelievable poverty in their own country." on nationalist socialism
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As it stands, I disagree with the state of the article because of what I view to be a lack of impartiality in it because of the line; "Socialists of all varieties reject the view that fascism and Nazism have anything in common with socialism, although this is sometimes disputed by non-socialist writers.", that it says "socialists of all varieties reject..." is a biased POV that discounts a National Socialist view which considers itself socialist, that it is only "disputed by non-socialist writers" only discounts the view that there are socialists who identify with Nazism, no matter how unpopular such a fact may be. All of this should, however, be taken up in the Nazism entry, although the arguments there should furthermore be in-line with a definition of what Socialism is in the first place here, that should be the only subject taken up in this entry. the exception being a side note of no more than a line Nagelfar
I agree, but unless we merely list Nazism as a form of socialism; we can't avoid having a full paragraph on it...one that is a little more NPOV than Carr's version. Lirath Q. Pynnor
Assuming that quote is genuine (and the world is full of fake Hitler quotes), it is well-known that Hitler used "capitalist" as a synonym or euphemism for "Jew" (as does LaRouche, by the way). He had nothing in common with socialism, which is an ideology based on class - his politics were always based on race. His real views on capitalism were shown when he took millions of marks from the Ruhr industrialists for his campaigns, and when he came to power he didn't touch the capitalists unless they were Jews. 
Nagelfar's argument seems to amount to saying that we are not allowed to say anything about the Nazis that a Nazi wouldn't agree with. I spit on this version of "NPOV". Adam 13:52, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: True, but this was usually to imply that they followed it's anti-capitalist leanings and reinforce that matter, by 'consistently' I didn't mean 'exclusively,' but they knew how to qualify their meaning as something politically new. Nagelfar 19:18, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Socialist Goebbels Quote

message: One of the great successes of the Soviet regime was to promulgate and, eventually, to impose on the world its own ideological understanding of how political systems should be classified. Lenin reduced them essentially to two polar opposites, socialism and capitalism, a dichotomy preserved by Stalin until the 1930's. According to this scheme, capitalism, also known as imperialism, included in its purview liberal, social-democratic, and fascist regimes, as well as National Socialism. A different scheme emerged in the 30's to accommodate the new Soviet policy of building "popular fronts." Now the spectrum ranged from socialism--that is to say, the Soviet Union--through the bourgeois democracies (liberal and/or social- democratic), to, finally, fascism. Grouped together under the last category were Nazism, Mussolini-type fascism, the authoritarian regimes of Spain, Portugal, Austria, Hungary, Poland, and so forth, and extreme right-wing factions in liberal societies.
Whatever the specific typology, Nazism in these schemes was erased as a category unto itself, and attached definitively either to capitalism or to right-wing fascism. It became the absolute incarnation of the Right, while Soviet socialism represented the absolute incarnation of the Left. In this way Nazism and Communism took their respective places in the great magnetic field of 20th-century politics.
To appreciate the sleight of hand involved, one need only recall that to an earlier generation of historians, it had been perfectly clear that both Italian fascism and German Nazism had socialist roots. Thus, Elie Halevy's classic History of European Socialism (1937) devotes a chapter each to the socialism of fascist Italy and the socialism of Nazi Germany. (The latter, indeed, had explicitly declared itself to be anti- capitalist.) Then there is the no less compelling scheme proposed as early as 1951 by Hannah Arendt, who spotlighted the essentially consanguineous nature of Nazism and Communism that I remarked upon at the outset, and divided these two representatives of modern totalitarianism from liberal and authoritarian regimes alike.
-- Forgotten Communism. Commentary Magazine, Jan, 1998, by Alain Besancon 
===Were the Nazis Socialist?===
The Nazi Party claimed to be socialist; in 1927, Hitler said, "We are socialists."; however: "By majority consent of both socialists and non-socialists, National Socialism (Nazism) and kindred movements are not considered to be socialist." (Massimo Salvadori, introduction to Modern Socialism, Harper, 1968.) The chauvinism of the Nazi racial theories is generally seen as anti-social. The opposing view is that socialism qualified with the term 'national' indicates an introverted, or exclusivist system of socializing society, and therefore is still properly considered a form of socialism. Class consciousness herein is seen as opposing a caste conscious ideal. This view of National Socialism as a legitimate form of socialism structuring a class egalitarian nation draws a governmental distinction to who is to be considered 'national' and then recognized to be a social element at the discrimination of the state. -- from wikipedia article on Nazism
:That's outstanding, good paragraph. MarcusAurelius
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This really is quite absurd nearly 65% of the article on socialism is about Nazis. This whole Nazis are socialists thing is a long running right-wing smear campaign in an attempt to discredit socialism, and is no more than propaganda, it appears in no other encyclopedia article about socialism and does not belong here. G-Man 23:42, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree not even 4% of the socialist article should be on National Socialism, but that it's a "right wing smear campaign" is an entirely POV opinion. The Nazis themselves didn't consider themselves 'right' or 'left,' only the surviving ideologies, which both did consider themselves left & right, respectively, had any such initative to define them (especially when the Nazis could no longer define themselves, and they were a mutual scapegoat, and infact the only such mutual scapegoat in political existence) Nagelfar 06:41, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Soviet POV

message: The Nazi Party claimed to be socialist; in 1927, Hitler said, "We are socialists."; however: "By majority consent of both socialists and non-socialists, National Socialism (Nazism) and kindred movements are not considered to be socialist." (Massimo Salvadori, introduction to Modern Socialism, Harper, 1968.) The chauvinism of the Nazi racial theories is generally seen as anti-social. The opposing view is that socialism qualified with the term 'national' indicates an introverted, or exclusivist system of socializing society, and therefore is still properly considered a form of socialism. Class consciousness herein is seen as opposing a caste conscious ideal. This view of National Socialism as a legitimate form of socialism structuring a class egalitarian nation draws a governmental distinction to who is to be considered 'national' and then recognized to be a social element at the discrimination of the state. -- from wikipedia article on Nazism
:That's outstanding, good paragraph. MarcusAurelius
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This really is quite absurd nearly 65% of the article on socialism is about Nazis. This whole Nazis are socialists thing is a long running right-wing smear campaign in an attempt to discredit socialism, and is no more than propaganda, it appears in no other encyclopedia article about socialism and does not belong here. G-Man 23:42, 7 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree not even 4% of the socialist article should be on National Socialism, but that it's a "right wing smear campaign" is an entirely POV opinion. The Nazis themselves didn't consider themselves 'right' or 'left,' only the surviving ideologies, which both did consider themselves left & right, respectively, had any such initative to define them (especially when the Nazis could no longer define themselves, and they were a mutual scapegoat, and infact the only such mutual scapegoat in political existence) Nagelfar 06:41, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Were the Nazis Socialist?

message: Since the 19th century, socialist ideas have developed and separated into many streams.
Different groups may disagree over whether some competing forms may legitimately be considered socialism at all -- part of the problem of defining "socialism" in the first place.
Rather than choose one definition, we list below movements that have often identified as socialist; but keep in mind that the entries could be disputed.
More information should be on the ideologies' individual pages.
* African socialism
* Anarchism
* Arab socialism
* Communism
* Democratic socialism
* Evolutionary socialism
* Fabianism
* Libertarian socialism
* Marxism
* National Socialism
* Social democracy
* Syndicalism
Marxism and communism may be further divided into:
* Castroism
* Council Communism
* Left Communism
* Leninism
* Maoism
* Stalinism
* Trotskyism
</blockquote>
I'm sure that you can improve on the wording (that's the wiki way).
But the important point for NPOV is that everybody agrees (I hope!) that the Nazis did sometimes identify as socialist and that more information on that can be found by following the National Socialism link.
The text above doesn't claim more than this -- and since anything more than this is disputed, Wikipedia shouldn't make a decision that claims more.
-- Toby Bartels 01:59, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: capitalizing is a good idea. Nagelfar 06:41, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)

text: Sure, whatever's the proper spelling. (I fixed it above.). -- Toby Bartels 23:33, 11 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Types of socialism 

message: The quarrel between Lir and Adam has been moved to conflicts between users, as it has IMHO opinion no relevance to the task of improving this article. Who's to blame? is not the question, but What shall we do next? --Uncle Ed 21:52, 8 Jan 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: An entertaining quarrel