Hitler Was a Capitalist

[FarLeftFist]

Despite the name of the National Socialists, which Hitler used to confuse the people, the Nazi party actually served the interests of industrial capitalists. A lot of mislead fools, insist that Hitler was a socialist, but I have read more than 150 books on the struggle between the Nazis and the German Communist Party; I can safely tell you that Hitler was a brutal capitalist.

Hitler was designated to serve as a catalyst to ramp up capitalist production. All of the German industrial tycoons of the time supported him, including many in the U.S. like Henry Ford.

Now tell me, why would Henry Ford give $20 million to a ‘socialist’. That’s the equivalent of Rupert Murdoch today donating $1 billion to a communist party.

All of Germany’s rich industrialists stood firmly behind Hitler and his attempts to revive stagnating capitalism through a war economy. Socialists are anti-war because socialists do not believe in borders. Socialists know that wars profit the rich and murder the poor. Let us not forget that the Bolsheviks pulled the Russian army out of world war I, an unprecedented event in modern history.

More at link: http://theactivists.wordpress.com/2011/10/14/hitler-was-a-capitalist/

[FarLeftFist]

1. Oh, and lets not forget their friend Prescott Bush.

GW's grand-daddy.

[soapboxtalk]

2. Hitler was never a socialist

He paraded as a socialist to pull the workers away from the communists.

[FarLeftFist]

3. Exactly, it was a misnomer, which was common for political parties such as:

Examples include the German Democratic Republic (which was neither) and Vladimir Zhirinovsky's "Liberal Democrat" party (which was also neither).

[Gabi Hayes]

6. that's all they do today, in terms of naming their organizations: always

giving them names like "The Competetive Enterprise Institute," or any of the myriad astroturf groups, like these>>>

ActivistCash.com
Center for Consumer Freedom
Consumer Rights League
Employment Policies Institute

Ever heard of Rick Berman?

here:

http://www.responsiblelending.org/media-center/center-for-straight-answers/astroturf-group-alert.html



The Center for Economic and Entrepreneurial Literacy and its website econ4u.org are part of Rick Berman's PR firm. This group "promotes" financial educational programs and provides other personal finance "advice" from a pro-industry perspective, often times endorsing predatory loan products such as payday loans and pushing pro-business research. To learn more about the explicit links between the payday lending industry and this group, please read this article by Daniel Schulman, associate editor of the nonprofit news service Mother Jones.

For more visit:
http://www.bermanexposed.org

[MADem]

4. He was also a vegetarian. And he liked dogs.

He was a lot of things, but most importantly, a murdering monster.

[Throd]

38. And he never ate a dog.

[ErikJ]

5. Most of the Nazis believed they were socialists

Hitler had to have a long talk with the very impatient Goebels to tell him what was really going on.

[ngant17]

16. They were "National Socialists"

as opposed to 'international' socialists and 'international' communists. The latter Marxist-oriented groups were on the fast track to the concentration camps or outright murder and assassination.

State monopoly capitalists, perhaps. The Italian version was "Fascism".

[ErikJ]

20. In the 1920's lots of the Nazis believed they were socialists

But Hitler had them fooled. He was taking big money from some industrialists and had no intentions of socialism like the rest. The "foot soldiers" were itching to take over the dept stores and "socialize" them and everything else. But Hitler didnt believe in revolution. Just gradual take-over of the country and military.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. He was a fascist... not a capitalist

yes, there are significant differences.

[TheKentuckian]

33. Fascism is the end game of Capitalism, whether it is capital's conscience goal or not.

I guess it could end in something like feudalism as well but in a global economy run by essentially stateless corporations, fascism is more likely and probably more desirable to those running the game.

[nadinbrzezinski]

35. No, that is not true

Don't care how many times people post this.

For the record, the us currently is not a capitalist state... But it's more of a brand anymore and it's difficult to work against branding the country is a consumer based economy with aspects of fascism sprinkled in.

People really need to learn what these things are. In fact I WISH we were capitalists.

[TheKentuckian]

37. I wish we were capitalist too compared to the mess we are in but only for time

because in the real world capitalism turns to this or something like feudalism.

It is a dragon that is ever hungry, it consumes and hoards. Eventually, the reigns and bit are broken, the socialist construct it depends on to clean up its enormous downsides is stripped for a lil growth, regulatory bodies are assimilated or defunded, and those on top pull up the ladders and upward mobility is essentially destroyed and a ruling class becomes baked into the cake.

What we live in is probably the most likely outcome of our economic system, it does little good to get stuck on theory when reality is biting us in the ass.

This is not some random mutation, this is the natural evolution. Resources end up in few hands and government becomes an insurance and enforcement system to make sure it stays that way and that the lucky few (or eventually one) always have more and more and the masses have less and less because the pie cannot grow fast enough to offset the needs of the many while fulfilling the lusts of the few.

This is the real world outcome of application of a fantasy.

[Quartermass]

8. Hitler had

black hair and a mustache.

This is one of the most overused arguments on the internet. Hitler was so since you're you must be like Hitler!

Hitler is truly immortal and the most loved person on the internet.

The internet is not for porn, it's for Hitler.

You know I once knew this girl who hated Hitler so much she tried to avoid doing anything that Hitler did like it was the plague. If Hitler loved oranges, sh would never eat them. She was a beautiful blonde, so one day I told her that Hitler valued blonde hair as a sign of Aryan superiority. That evening she dyed her hair.

Sigh. Maybe in a hundred years from now this won't happen, but somehow, I doubt it.

[Gabi Hayes]

10. zoom zoom zoom. thanks for stopping by on your way back to the Oort Cloud!

[HCE SuiGeneris]

22. Bwahahahaha!!!

OMFG. A DUZY if if ever I've seen one!

Thanks for the laugh Gabi. :P

[FarLeftFist]

12. The 2 of you seem like a perfect psychotic love match.

[grantcart]

9. Hitler had

gonads.


All people with gonads should be considered with suspicion.


OK this is kind of fun.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

11. I've had far too many arguments with reactionaries.

They know, they're just being disengenuous.

Actual socialists were the victims of the fascist NSDAP.

The right knows this but they're not interested in facts.

[Fantastic Anarchist]

13. Fascism is capitalism with its contradictions exposed ...

... and requiring the state to mend its wounds.

[banned from Kos]

14. Ford was an anti-Semite and Hitler was a FASCIST.

Jeez - take a poli-sci course.

[msongs]

15. communists are NOT socialists. otherwise hitler used the industrialists for his own aims by giving

them wht they wanted in return.

[Nye Bevan]

17. Hitler had a mustache.

I've seen many pictures of him, and in all of them he had a mustache.

So what do the Tom Selleck defenders have to say about that?

[izquierdista]

18. One good thing about him

He does a lot of funny rants after he sends most of the people out of the room. Did anyone tell him about Paterno getting fired?

[PETRUS]

19. Does capitalism naturally gravitate to fascism?

[AntiFascist]

23. Unbridled capitalism does, as we have seen....

it eventually becomes an inverse form of socialism, where the wealthy benefit off of the state, while the lower classes have to pay for the mistakes of the ruling class. True capitalism should come with plenty of checks and balances.

Hitler kept the masses in fear of the Communists and divided against each other. These days, the MSM keeps us under control and pitted against one another. The danger of th 99% movement to the PTB is that we become united against those who have kept us in the dark for so long.

[PETRUS]

25. Follow up question.

Can you envision a system with checks and balances robust enough to withstand capitalists' attempts to thwart or undo them? Would it even be appropriate to call such a system "capitalism?"

[AntiFascist]

27. I really think it is a disservice to call what we have now true capitalism....

even though it was unregulated capitalism that has brought us to this place. A former Supreme Court justice John Paul Stevens has called this as an era of (economic) fascism, brought to us by the Bush Administration, but it really was set into motion under Reagan. Look at all the big businesses that prosper due to government handouts. Look at all the rest, including no less than Apple, which prosper due to slave labor in China and elsewhere. Those economies, in those other nations, enjoy unregulated labor practices. This is not the same type of capitalism, balanced out by labor law and labor unions, that allowed the United States to prosper in the 20th Century.

Too many people in the middle and upper classes have investments tied up with companies that depend upon this new new age of economic fascism. Even on DU you will see plenty of people worried about their 401Ks, and who probably are worried about where the 99% movement could lead.

If nothing is done about our current system, I can envision a tipping point where people get extremely angry and cause a vast amount of destruction. I've seen this happen in LA, and I know that the PTB must be anticipating this as well, which is why we have the "coordinated" police actions that we are seeing.

[PETRUS]

28. True.

I'm wondering if there could be (in your opinion) a stable form of capitalism. (And if so, what it would look like - although that's a much tougher question.) My opinion is "probably not."

[AntiFascist]

36. Certainly we can have a stable form of capitalism...

the real problem is, how are people supposed to make money? As labor costs become less and less, in the long term we may have robots and automation doing most of the work. Are we all supposed to become computer engineers and operators? Are we all supposed to become investors who own all of the automation capital? (This is likely the Republican dream).

The other factor that is aiding the drive toward fascism is the limit to global resources. The world simply can't support the current standard of living for everyone that Americans currently enjoy, where it comes to energy, water, food, lumber products, etc. As the rest of the world rises up out of poverty, the opposite seems to be happening to those in the middle classes who enjoy a relatively rich lifestyle.

I don't see the world tolerating the slide toward a technocracy ruled by fascism. Something has to give.

[tuckessee]

21. You've read 150 books? Great. Now read the 25 pt. plank of the NSDAP.n/t

[no_hypocrisy]

24. One of Hitler's first acts as Fuhrer was to ban trade unionists.

He was decidedly a capitalist.

[Major Nikon]

26. Allying with industrialists doesn't make him a capitalist

The 'industrial capitalists' you mention most certainly didn't believe in a free market so it's hard to imagine them being true capitalists in the first place. They believed in control of the means of production by a ruling class.

Even if you could somehow make the case that Hitler was a "capitalist", it's really no more relevant than those who claim Hitler was a socialist. Even if you could provide a proof for your argument, the very best you have is guilt by association.

Hitler was a fascist, which was considered a 'third-way', meaning it wasn't really socialism or capitalism. Hitler believed in private ownership of the means of production, but that continued ownership was contingent on service to the state.

[Cid_B]

30. That one...

[former9thward]

29. You seem to imply the Bolsheviks pulled out of WW I because they were anti-war.

They pulled out because they were losing. They had no problem attacking Finland and Poland in 1939 in their alliance with the Nazis.

[roamer65]

31. He was a crony capitalist (aka fascist)

He stole most of that ideology from Mussolini, then added the anti-semitic and racist garbage to get it to "sell" in an economically depressed post-WW1 Germany.

[slackmaster]

32. He loved dogs, too.

[Mimosa]

34. No, Hitler was a Fascist. n/t

[MFrohike]

39. No

This is the worst kind of bumper sticker thinking. It's no different from the book, funded by H.L. Hunt, titled "Hitler was a Liberal." It's a combination of sloppy reasoning and simply bad thinking.

The wealthy industrialists of Germany supported Hitler AFTER the Night of the Long Knives. You see, prior to 1933, the Nazi party was very much expected to live up to its name of National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). The first revolution was Hitler's claiming of the chancellorship. The second revolution was to be the socialist revolution. It was never clearly defined, but it was expected. Ernst Rohm, the leader of the SA (Brownshirts), was the leading socialist of the party. He spent that first year in power pushing Hitler to do two things: first, replace the Reichswehr with a true "people's" army (the SA) and, second, to complete the economic revolution. This would never happen, not because Hitler had a love of capitalism, but because he struck a deal with the conservatives to combine the offices of chancellor and president upon the death of Hindenburg. The price was the removal of the SA as a source of power within the party. Thus, on June 30, 1934, Rohm and many other SA leaders were murdered by the SS and the Gestapo in order to seal the deal. The deal was for political power, not for economic gain.

Hitler was far more interested in liquidating the conservative classes, the Junkers and the industrialists, than he was in being friendly with them. It was far more expedient to use their expertise during the war years, when they could be replaced after the first struggle (Europe). His complete marginalization of, and contempt for, the Junkers, who were the traditional nobility of Prussia and Germany, should be a clue as to his intent. If he sought peace with the conservatives, his policies would have been radically different. His goal was a radical transformation of German society which would produce the National Socialist man. It had nothing to do with economics and everything to do with power.

If you've read 150 books about Hitler and the German communists, you've either read the work of idiots or you've drawn the wrong lessons. You could put Hitler in the role of usurper in an of monarchy and his actions still fit. Picture him as a bastard son with some dubious link to the throne. Then picture the industrialists and the Junkers as barons. He makes deals with the barons when he's weak, then runs over them when he's strong. That's a pretty common story of kings. There's nothing that implicates an economic system in that story.

[MilesColtrane]

40. He also liked dogs!

Seriously though, Hitler's fascist agenda resulted in an economic system that couldn't be called capitalism.

The Nazis advocated the "Third Position".