2aguy
Diamond Member
- Jul 19, 2014
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No...they weren't......which you would know if you read Hayek or Mises....
Nazism is Socialism -- F A Hayek, et al
One of the main reasons why the socialist character of National Socialism has been quite generally unrecognized, is, no doubt, its alliance with the nationalist groups which represent the great industries and the great landowners. But this merely proves that these groups too -as they have since learnt to their bitter disappointment -have, at least partly, been mistaken as to the nature of the movement. But only partly because -and this is the most characteristic feature of modern Germany – many capitalists are themselves strongly influenced by socialistic ideas, and have not sufficient belief in capitalism to defend it with a clear conscience. But, in spite of this, the German entrepreneur class have manifested almost incredible short-sightedness in allying themselves with a move movement of whose strong anti-capitalistic tendencies there should never have been any doubt.
A careful observer must always have been aware that the opposition of the Nazis to the established socialist parties, which gained them the sympathy of the entrepreneur, was only to a very small extend directed against their economic policy.
What the Nazis mainly objected to was their internationalism and all the aspects of their cultural programme which were still influenced by liberal ideas. But the accusations against the social-democrats and the communists which were most effective in their propaganda were not so much directed against their programme as against their supposed practice -their corruption and nepotism, and even their alleged alliance with “the golden International of Jewish Capitalism.”
It would, indeed, hardly have been possible for the Nationalists to advance fundamental objections to the economic policy of the other socialist parties when their own published programme differed from these only in that its socialism was much cruder and less rational. The famous 25 points drawn up by Herr Feder,[2] one of Hitler’s early allies, repeatedly endorsed by Hitler and recognized by the by-laws of the National-Socialist party as the immutable basis of all its actions, which together with an extensive commentary is circulating throughout Germany in many hundreds of thousands of copies, is full of ideas resembling those of the early socialists. But the dominant feature is a fierce hatred of anything capitalistic -individualistic profit seeking, large scale enterprise, banks, joint-stock companies, department stores, “international finance and loan capital,” the system of “interest slavery” in general; the abolition of these is described as the “[indecipherable] of the programme, around which everything else turns.” It was to this programme that the masses of the German people, who were already completely under the influence of collectivist ideas, responded so enthusiastically.
That this violent anti-capitalistic attack is genuine – and not a mere piece of propaganda – becomes as clear from the personal history of the intellectual leaders of the movement as from the general milieu from which it springs. It is not even denied that man of the young men who today play a prominent part in it have previously been communists or socialists.
And to any observer of the literary tendencies which made the Germans intelligentsia ready to join the ranks of the new party, it must be clear that the common characteristic of all the politically influential writers – in many cases free from definite party affiliations – was their anti-liberal and anti-capitalist trend. Groups like that formed around the review “Die Tat” have made the phrase “the end of capitalism” an accepted dogma to most young Germans.[3]
And more...
The Myth of "Nazi Capitalism" | Chris Calton
German socialism, as Mises defines it, differs from what he called “socialism of the Russian pattern” in that “it, seemingly and nominally, maintains private ownership of the means of production, entrepreneurship, and market exchange.” However, this is only a superficial system of private ownership because through a complete system of economic intervention and control, the entrepreneurial function of the property owners is completely controlled by the State. By this, Mises means that shop owners do not speculate about future events for the purpose of allocating resources in the pursuit of profits. Just like in the Soviet Union, this entrepreneurial speculation and resource allocation is done by a single entity, the State, and economic calculation is thus impossible.
“In Nazi Germany,” Mises tells us, the property owners “were called shop managers or Betriebsführer. The government tells these seeming entrepreneurs what and how to produce, at what prices and from whom to buy, at what prices and to whom to sell. The government decrees at what wages labourers should work, and to whom and under what terms the capitalists should entrust their funds. Market exchange is but a sham. As all prices, wages and interest rates are fixed by the authority, they are prices, wages and interest rates in appearance only; in fact they are merely quantitative terms in the authoritarian orders determining each citizen’s income, consumption and standard of living. The authority, not the consumers, directs production. The central board of production management is supreme; all citizens are nothing else but civil servants. This is socialism with the outward appearance of capitalism. Some labels of the capitalistic market economy are retained, but they signify here something entirely different from what they mean in the market economy.”
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Nazis Were Not Marxists, but They Were Socialists | Jörg Guido Hülsmann
