What is Socialism?

[rmgill]

4 hours ago, Ivanhoe said:

Judging by book titles, Marx was a closet Kapitalist.

 

Judging by his specific behavior with regards to other people's money he was as corrupt and personally degenerate as his followers. 

[rmgill]

10 hours ago, BansheeOne said:

To be sure, the Nazis confiscated lots of property value - not just from Jews, but also of left-wing parties and organizations including the trade unions when those were replaced by the German Labor Front, masonic lodges, and from anyone considered an enemy of the state and people. Not least pieces of "degenerate art" from museums and collections, which were apparently not considered too degenerate to be subsequently sold abroad.

So they had a better sense of the intrinsic value of things than did the Marxists who argue the labor theory of value? 

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, rmgill said:

To avoid being eaten? Why do so many businesses support lefty causes? 

No, you still dont get it.

The Nazi's were not a threat, were not even likely to get into power, until they got support from right wing politicians and financing from the Junker class and Businessmen, to stave off the threat from Communists and Socialists.  They made the threat. They would not have done that unless they well understood the bulwark they were erecting was right wing, ie Fascist.

I submit, are you really saying they financed Socialists to keep Socialists out of power.

Which is  an... interesting theory....

It wasnt just about keeping the Socialists out either. There were other fringe benefits.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/men-who-financed-adolf-hitlers-rise-power-mal-warwick

The 24 men who financed Hitler’s rise to power

But all the back and forth about the Anschluss with Austria isn’t really Vuillard’s main concern at all. The Order of the Day opens and closes with Vuillard’s observations about the twenty-four men who attended a secret meeting with Adolf Hitler on February 20, 1933. They were the cream of Germany industry and finance, men such as Gustav Krupp (1870-1950), Wilhelm von Opel (1871-1948), and Albert Vögler (1877-1945). They had come together at the request of the Führer‘s economic adviser, Hjalmar Schacht (1877-1970), to hear an appeal for campaign contributions from Hermann Göring and Adolf Hitler himself.

And they gave. Oh, yes, they gave, quite enough to pave the way for the little corporal to gain enough electoral support and soon proclaim himself dictator. This was “nothing more for the Krupps, Opels, and Siemenses than a perfectly ordinary business transaction, your basic fund-raising.” For these were the men who led the firms that had powered Germany into the forefront of the European economy: BASF, Bayer, Agfa, Opel, IG Farben, Siemens, Allianz, Telefunken. It was they, as much as Adolf Hitler, who eased Germany toward the Anschluss with Austria.

Their dividends: slaves from the camps

As Vuillard notes in conclusion, that investment in the Nazi Party paid huge dividends for those twenty-four men. “Bayer took on laborers from Mauthausen. BMW hired in Dachau, Papenburg, Sachsenhausen, Natzweiler-Struthof, and Buchenwald.” And so it was with all the others—Daimler, IG Farben, Shell, Telefunken, Agfa. They all drew slaves from the camps—and worked them to death on a starvation diet and punishing schedules. “Of the six hundred deportees who arrived at the Krupp factories in 1943,” Vuillard writes, “only twenty remained a year later.”

 

The similar thing nearly occurred in the US, where a group of American businessmen tried to get Brigadier General Smedley Butler onside to overthrow FDR.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_Plot

But not to worry, im sure it would have been a peaceful march, full of beautiful people with legitimate election grievences.

 

 

[seahawk]

I would really dispute the idea that they financed the NSDAP to get slave workers a decade later, when their trained and skilled workers were dying on the Eastern Front. A much bigger motivation was that only he NSDAP was strong enough to counter a KPD/SPD alliance, which still collected more votes (combined) than the NSDAP in the November 1932 elections.

[Rick]

"...The Nazi's were not a threat, were not even likely to get into power, until they got support from right wing politicians and financing from the Junker class and Businessmen, to stave off the threat from Communists and Socialists. "

From a U.S. perspective, I would say this statement is two sides of the same coin. In the U.S., any increased government control, regulation, and taxation trends Socialist.

It appears in Europe, Socialism and Communism gets better press than Nazis. To me, just the coin.

[seahawk]

You still do not get the welfare state idea.

[Rick]

44 minutes ago, seahawk said:

You still do not get the welfare state idea.

You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you say it does. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

1 hour ago, seahawk said:

I would really dispute the idea that they financed the NSDAP to get slave workers a decade later, when their trained and skilled workers were dying on the Eastern Front. A much bigger motivation was that only he NSDAP was strong enough to counter a KPD/SPD alliance, which still collected more votes (combined) than the NSDAP in the November 1932 elections.

But It wouldnt be accurate to suggest they did it to get fringe benefits. Its pretty clear Krupps didnt finance the Nazi's because they expected further disarmament, for example.

But yes, primarily it looks to me as if it was just to stop the political left. So the narrative that the Nazi's were clearly Socialists, makes no sense on any level whatsoever. But of course people will keep repeating it without understanding.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

18 minutes ago, Rick said:

You keep using that term. I do not think it means what you say it does. 

Which considering Germans invented it, is really quite a reach, if you will pardon me pointing it out.

 

[BansheeOne]

Looking at the ouster of Hugo Junkers which Stuart brought up, this is maybe the best case for expropriation of a non-Jewish business as he was forced to transfer his patents to the companies he ran and sign over 51 percent of his company shares to a front company for the Air Ministry at no compensation, and on top was banned from entering the premises, or even the city of Dessau. It wasn't done on any legal basis of confiscating the property of "enemies of the state and people"; Hermann Göring, who probably had a personal grudge for having had an application to work at the Swedish Junker plant rejected in 1925 and as Prussian state premier was also in charge of the Gestapo, threatened to try him for treason and had Junkers staffers and family members taken into "protective custody". 

Under such pressure, Junkers signed an "agreement" to the abovementioned effect. The scope stands out in the initial lawless time of 1933/34, where the SA was running wild and "expropriating" anything they liked, operated "wild" concentration camps for anyone they didn't like, etc., until the Night of the Long Knives put a stop to it because the terror was eroding popular support for the NSDAP. Junkers remained under police supervision and periodic house arrest until his death in early 1935. Afterwards his widow signed over the rest of his shares, but got paid about 30 million Reichsmark for them, probably signifiying the difference between the "revolutionary" and established period of Nazi rule.

A contemporary case would be the one of Henrich Focke who was pressured to resign as technical director of Focke-Wulf in 1933, but remained in the company and worked on rotorcraft. FW didn't see the potential in that, and in 1936 shareholders forced him out entirely; whereupon he founded Focke-Achgelis and went on to build some of the first successful helicopters. The difference was probably that FW was a single stock-traded corporation where winning over enough shareholders was sufficient to have the executive board fire Focke from subsequent positions; while Junkers actually had two companies after major restructuring following bankruptcy in 1932, the aircraft works being another stock-traded enterprise while the engine manufacturer was an LLC where it wasn't so easy to get rid of the main owner. Only in 1936, both were merged into a single stock-traded corporation.

[seahawk]

12 minutes ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Which considering Germans invented it, is really quite a reach, if you will pardon me pointing it out.

 

I would not say Germany did. The driving idea behind it is much older and can be found in Roman or old Chinese history. The state providing some form of social security to "buy" the obedience of the population. Cura Annonae in Rome, gave free grain / bread to the poor in the city of Rome. The idea was not socialism, but the fact that the local agricultural production could not produce enough to feed the huge population (1 Million) of Rome. So the government decided to sent grain from other provinces to Rome and provide it to the poor, so that the population would comply (bread and circuses) and would be available as labourers in Rome.

In the end it was exactly the same as what latter happened in the industrialisation. The need for workers lets the cities grow, this means that food prices go up, which means workers either get unruly, need to get paid more or will leave the city, which means they would be missing in the factories. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

27 minutes ago, BansheeOne said:

Looking at the ouster of Hugo Junkers which Stuart brought up, this is maybe the best case for expropriation of a non-Jewish business as he was forced to transfer his patents to the companies he ran and sign over 51 percent of his company shares to a front company for the Air Ministry at no compensation, and on top was banned from entering the premises, or even the city of Dessau. It wasn't done on any legal basis of confiscating the property of "enemies of the state and people"; Hermann Göring, who probably had a personal grudge for having had an application to work at the Swedish Junker plant rejected in 1925 and as Prussian state premier was also in charge of the Gestapo, threatened to try him for treason and had Junkers staffers and family members taken into "protective custody". 

Under such pressure, Junkers signed an "agreement" to the abovementioned effect. The scope stands out in the initial lawless time of 1933/34, where the SA was running wild and "expropriating" anything they liked, operated "wild" concentration camps for anyone they didn't like, etc., until the Night of the Long Knives put a stop to it because the terror was eroding popular support for the NSDAP. Junkers remained under police supervision and periodic house arrest until his death in early 1935. Afterwards his widow signed over the rest of his shares, but got paid about 30 million Reichsmark for them, probably signifiying the difference between the "revolutionary" and established period of Nazi rule.

A contemporary case would be the one of Henrich Focke who was pressured to resign as technical director of Focke-Wulf in 1933, but remained in the company and worked on rotorcraft. FW didn't see the potential in that, and in 1936 shareholders forced him out entirely; whereupon he founded Focke-Achgelis and went on to build some of the first successful helicopters. The difference was probably that FW was a single stock-traded corporation where winning over enough shareholders was sufficient to have the executive board fire Focke from subsequent positions; while Junkers actually had two companies after major restructuring following bankruptcy in 1932, the aircraft works being another stock-traded enterprise while the engine manufacturer was an LLC where it wasn't so easy to get rid of the main owner. Only in 1936, both were merged into a single stock-traded corporation.

Yes, thank you for that, Id completely forgotten that. It was only after his death they settled.

There is an seemingly competent job of discussing it in David Irvings biography of Erhard Milch. Though clearly both have their agenda, not least Milch who seemed to bear a fair bit of the responsbility of Junkers ouster, despite having a good relationship with him in his running of Lufthansa. Im sure it wasnt the last person he shafted.

 

[Stuart Galbraith]

14 minutes ago, seahawk said:

I would not say Germany did. The driving idea behind it is much older and can be found in Roman or old Chinese history. The state providing some form of social security to "buy" the obedience of the population. Cura Annonae in Rome, gave free grain / bread to the poor in the city of Rome. The idea was not socialism, but the fact that the local agricultural production could not produce enough to feed the huge population (1 Million) of Rome. So the government decided to sent grain from other provinces to Rome and provide it to the poor, so that the population would comply (bread and circuses) and would be available as labourers in Rome.

In the end it was exactly the same as what latter happened in the industrialisation. The need for workers lets the cities grow, this means that food prices go up, which means workers either get unruly, need to get paid more or will leave the city, which means they would be missing in the factories. 

Well you certainly were the first to adopt it in the form of the nation state. I think we are all pretty much agreed Bismark was the first to adopt it in recent times.

I seem to remember one Roman Emperor sponsored Free Games at the Colleseum, to keep the peoples minds off rioting. So one could argue the Romans essentially developed Daytime TV as well.

 

 

[seahawk]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Well you certainly were the first to adopt it in the form of the nation state. I think we are all pretty much agreed Bismark was the first to adopt it in recent times.

I seem to remember one Roman Emperor sponsored Free Games at the Colleseum, to keep the peoples minds off rioting. So one could argue the Romans essentially developed Daytime TV as well.

Maybe the first to implement it as government run services. The Elizabethan Poor Law also saw some government organized social services being provided. Before that the church often provided services, very often supported by or in cooperation with the state. Later the guilds did provide such services for their members as well.

It really did not need Socialists to understand that providing a form of social security is beneficial for the stability of society and state. 

[Stuart Galbraith]

22 minutes ago, seahawk said:

Maybe the first to implement it as government run services. The Elizabethan Poor Law also saw some government organized social services being provided. Before that the church often provided services, very often supported by or in cooperation with the state. Later the guilds did provide such services for their members as well.

It really did not need Socialists to understand that providing a form of social security is beneficial for the stability of society and state. 

No, it didn't. In the UK the first plans for a national health scheme were first projected by Liberals in the 1930s, and were lifted wholesale by the Labour Party. Even the Liberals stole it from private employer schemes.

[Murph]

Socialism also allows traitors to their countries justify in their minds their treason by looking to a "higher purpose".  Look at the US nuclear spies, the Cambridge Five, etc.  

[seahawk]

2 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

No, it didn't. In the UK the first plans for a national health scheme were first projected by Liberals in the 1930s, and were lifted wholesale by the Labour Party. Even the Liberals stole it from private employer schemes.

You can go further back in history. Look at the medieval knights. The Magma Carta provided clear rules on the well being of their family in case they were killed in service to the crown. This is basically the same idea. The King required trustworthy specialists to do his bidding. To do so  he made certain that they were taken protected in time of need. Later you needed more specialists than you could reasonable give land to, so other options had to be found.

Edited February 6, 2023 by seahawk

[rmgill]

9 hours ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

No, you still dont get it.

 

 

No you donn't get it. The alternative was what? Getting socialists who were going to do what the Red Octoberists did in Russia. A massive stripping of property rights for everyone and a potential famine ala the Holodomor for all of the productive farmers and any other kulaks. So, in keeping with the 'inevitable socialist 'policies to take care of the workers in various degrees, plus some other stronger power, they went with what they thought worked better. 
 

The point was not being eaten. Some folks settle for being eaten last. Or they move into the power structure of the new authoritarian regime. 
 

My response is always government power should have legal and finite limits and I don't care if its for the greater good or how ever you spin it. No one should have those powers. 

Edited February 6, 2023 by rmgill

[rmgill]

From a taxonomy perspective, fascism is an outgrowth of socialism by the very nature of the political arguments, development and terminology. That it came into conflict with socialists of the old form is no less differentiating than the fact that there were later evolutions of carnivorous marsupials where all of the other types were herbivores. 
 

Fascism remained collectivist in form, authoritarian in nature and instead of being for all workers, transformed to be for a specific set of workers. 
 

Socialism - internationalist, collectivist, authoritarian state with  limited personal property and individual rights. Slave labor is a likely factor. 

Fascism - nationalist, collectivist, authoritarian state with  greater personal property but limited individual rights. Slave labor is a likely factor.

The PRC is running a Ethnic Han centric, one China policy with sterilization and enslavement of ethnic minorities, and with a strange mix of state and privately run businesses. Are they True Socialists any more? Are they a fascist socialist hybrid? 
 

What of North Korea? Its a hereditary socialist paradise kingdom for the workers.

 

Taxonomically speaking, if a species evolves other features, does it stop being the thing it was? 

[Stuart Galbraith]

2 hours ago, Murph said:

Socialism also allows traitors to their countries justify in their minds their treason by looking to a "higher purpose".  Look at the US nuclear spies, the Cambridge Five, etc.  

Alright Ames and Robert Hansen didn't need Communism. They just needed a bank account.

[DB]

On 2/2/2023 at 7:22 PM, Tim the Tank Nut said:

the rub is that US politics warps the spectrum for discussion.  The fact is that the US has nearly the same socialism that Europe does but just badly implemented.

Aha! So the US is actually Communist. Don't worry, it will work the next time you try it...

Is there a common theme to the various instances of "socialism" described in Banshee's first post, aside from the name? Aside from the Anarchistic instance of Communism, don't they all attempt to force "equality" by authoritarian means (except for the elites, of course, they get gold plated toilet seats and such).

[Murph]

1 hour ago, Stuart Galbraith said:

Alright Ames and Robert Hansen didn't need Communism. They just needed a bank account.

True, because traitors are not 100% socialist, many are just greedy mo-fo's.  It is MICE after all.  

[Sardaukar]

1 hour ago, Murph said:

True, because traitors are not 100% socialist, many are just greedy mo-fo's.  It is MICE after all.  

Case studies of defectors show that personal crises have the most impact on someone’s decision to betray his or her nation or employer. What ultimately makes someone unhappy is personal, whether the unhappiness is due to emotions or circumstances.

The decision to betray often comes down to orders of magnitude. At what point does a disgruntled employee cross the line from being merely dissatisfied to turning traitor?

Ideology for has not been very high motive on most traitors, though it has been for some famous ones. 

[Rick]

Interesting on the view of Europeans and Americans on this subject.

[Murph]

Most do it for money, some do it because they hate Trump (Calling the CCP to tell them he would not allow Trump to do anything), some do it because they are true believers.  

Socialism= you will know it by its body count.