How “socialist” was National Socialism? In The Road to Serfdom, Friedrich Hayek considers “The Socialist Roots of Nazism.” Bruce Caldwell has written extensively on the circumstances at the time Hayek was writing what today is his most renowned work. Hayek wanted to refute the view, which gained dominance in the Thirties, that German Nazism was in essence a kind of capitalist reaction against rising socialism. The “socialism” bit in “National socialism” was seldom considered relevant.
Hayek was wary that prominent British thinkers thought Nazism was simply “vile” and, thus, had little to do with a noble set of ideas such as socialism. Instead, he saw a radical reaction to the “old” liberal system and the rule of law. Hayek’s contention remains controversial. See for example this recent article by Robert J. Granieri, who argues that
although the Nazis did pursue a level of government intervention in the economy that would shock doctrinaire free marketeers, their ‘socialism’ was at best a secondary element in their appeal. Indeed, most supporters of Nazism embraced the party precisely because they saw it as an enemy of and an alternative to the political left.
Granieri argues that, on the contrary, “it was the parties that arose in reaction to the Nazi horrors that built such welfare states”. I think there is something there, though the dynamic is a little bit more complex. On the one hand, authoritarian regimes certainly contribute to the development of the basic structure of welfare/interventionist states as we know them. Consider the case I know best, Italy. Fascism developed the Italian social security system, aimed at a comprehensive restructuring of the relationships between factors of production in a “corporatist” fashion, and nationalized banks and businesses. The second feature of the regime did not survive its end (though one may argue that its legacy has long impacted the Italian economy). But some version of social security and nationalized banks and companies did. In recent years, works such as Wolfgang Schivelbusch’s Three New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt’s America, Mussolini’s Italy, and Hitler’s Germany, 1933-1939 explored this issue.
John Lukacs, a distinguished historian of Nazism who highlighted the fact that the most salient characteristic of Hitler and his regime was Nationalism (“it was a national mentality, and not class-consciousness, that attracted people to Hitler”), pointed out that “Hitler was not the inventor of National Socialism, but he recognized the compatibility – and indeed, the marriageability – of two great movements”. “It was not only that for him nationalism was the dominant partner in the marriage; he was convinced that modern populist nationalism can – and indeed must – be socialistic” (quotations from The Hitler of History).
A new book by Robert Gellately, Hitler’s True Believers, explores this point.
Hayek is mentioned as a writer who “saw National Socialism as part of a broader collectivist movement in many parts of Europe”. Gellately points out that The Road to Serfdom “looked only briefly and selectively at the intellectual roots of national socialism” and that “Hayek used the charge of ‘socialism’ as a kind of libertarian indictment against Nazism”. Yet Gellatelly’s book explores the matter thoroughly and points out that “Germany on the eve of Hitler’s appointment as chancellor in January 1933 continued to have a socialist-oriented political culture”. “Almost without exception, the Nazis emphasized all kinds of socialist attitudes, to be sure a socialism ‘cleansed’ of international Marxism and communism”. The book explores the ideological roots of Nazism, which of course are not confined to socialist sentiments but include them. Stressing the socialism bit in national socialism is ironically considered in the Anglo-Saxon world as an “ultra-right wing attitude”. It is kind of funny, because in Italy right-wingers used to argue that “fascism was not really that bad” by pointing out that it anticipated several features of welfare states. Ideologies are often a highly complex cocktail and Gellately’s book is an important contribution to better understand the ingredients of the awful, Nazi one.
READER COMMENTS
RPLong
Jun 22 2020 at 8:50am
Another good, and somewhat lesser-read, book on this subject is <i>Omnipotent Government</i>, but Ludwig von Mises. I think it does a particularly good job of explaining the various forms of socialism, nationalism, and collectivism swirling around Germany leading up to the ascension of the Nazi party.
KevinDC
Jun 22 2020 at 11:48am
One other book that might be worth adding to the reading list is Gotz Aly’s book Hitler’s Beneficiaries: Plunder, Racial War, and the Nazi Welfare State. Aly argues that one of the ways the Nazi government was able to gain the cooperation of the people was through providing generous social welfare programs, which was in turn supported by the wealth the Nazi’s plundered in their conquests.
It’s worth adding the caveat that socialism and the welfare state are, strictly speaking, separate issues, despite some willful confusion on this point from disingenuous people on the right and the left. Socialism is about government ownership of the means of production and having all economic activity centrally planned, controlled, and directed by the state. You can have a country with large social welfare programs but also have a very capitalist economy where the state is a minor player in economic activity – the Nordic countries being classic examples.
So why do I think it’s worth adding a book about the Nazi welfare state in a discussion about Nazi socialism? I think Aly’s book offers an interesting expansion to libertarian’s favorite quote from Trotsky – “Where the sole employer is the State, opposition means deaths by slow starvation.” Aly’s research suggests that the state doesn’t need to reach the threshold of being the “sole employer” of the people to control their assent. You merely need to ensure that a critical threshold of the population is dependent on state welfare programs, and from there you can trust that they’ll know better than to bite the hand that feeds them.
David F
Jun 22 2020 at 4:02pm
Just read the Nazi party program (the “25 point plan”). It’s on Wikipedia and can be found elsewhere. Point 24 offers a summary: “[The Party] combats the Jewish-materialistic spirit within and around us and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our nation can only succeed from within on the framework: ‘The good of the community before the good of the individual (“GEMEINNUTZ GEHT VOR EIGENNUTZ” [all caps in original])’.” So it is essentially collectivist in conception and character. Some points are more explicitly socialist while others are simply the expressions of the nationalism, xenophobia, imperialism and anti-Semitism we expect from the Nazis. Of course anti-Semetism is often associated with anti-capitalism; vide Jerry Muller as well as Hayek et al. But the socialist aspects of the Nazi program are all too frequently glossed over.
Reading Hayek on this was a real red-pill moment for me, to borrow a phrase. The socialist formulation “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” begs the question, who asses ability and who determines needs? Hitler had a practical answer. I look forward to reading Gellately’s book.
Lawrence
Jun 24 2020 at 9:55am
Thank you for remind us of this reliance on Platonic non-existent concepts by all collectivists. They value the non-existent concept of “community” over the real, substantial “individual” that actually bleeds and suffers — usually at the hands of these collectivists. The breakthrough understanding of the medieval nominalists (see Roscellinus of Compiegne) — namely that concepts do not have the same level of existence as real, material things — was one of the giant steps in philosophy over the legacy from the ancient world.
Lawrence
Jun 24 2020 at 9:56am
“reminding” not “remind”
Mm
Jun 29 2020 at 8:02am
Or was it a giant step backward?
Greg G
Jun 22 2020 at 4:51pm
The reason that libertarians are so often baffled by why the rest of the world views fascism or Nazism and socialism as political opposites is that their opposition to one another predates modern libertarianism and concerns other matters than the primary libertarian concerns. Both want much more state power than libertarians do but they want that power used for opposite purposes.
The socialist/fascist divide has its roots in the left/ right distinctions that grew out of the French Revolution. The left (later socialist) side’s ideological values were egalitarian and internationalist, secular, and revolutionary. The right (later fascist) side’s ideological concerns were hierarchical to a Nietzschean degree, nationalist, and conservative.
A more libertarian arrangement would result in much more change in the social hierarchy than the right would be comfortable with and much more inequality than left would be comfortable with. And it would require much more tolerance than either is comfortable with.
Like it or not, most people are far more interested in what purposes state power is used for than in reducing state power. Viewed through that much more common lens, socialism and Nazism were indeed opposites. As for the Nazi’s claims they were socialists, they shouldn’t be taken any more seriously than the communist’s claims they were establishing democracies. Neither valued truthfulness very much.
Mark Z
Jun 22 2020 at 5:25pm
You’d have to also explain then why Marxist (or Marxist-adjacent) historians are also so baffled, because they typically characterize Nazism and fascism in the same terms, as an outgrowth of capitalism. That’s why they see fascism as living on the same spectrum from socialism to laissez faire capitalism, and why they often see the ascendance of laissez faire capitalism as the harbinger of fascism (that’s how Timothy Mason, for example, described Margaret Thatcher). They may be wrong about this, but that’s at least one (maybe the main) reason why libertarians frame debates over fascism this way. This is how it’s already routinely framed by their staunchest critics.
Also, re the French revolution, I’m not sure that’s right. Both fascists and socialists owe much to the French revolution (which was as nationalist as it was egalitarian in its values). Mussolini and Hitler probably would’ve seen themselves more as the spiritual descendants of Napoleon rather than Metternich. Hitler and Mussolini often had ambivalent relationships with the monarchies and landed aristocracies of their respective countries, with whom they made uneasy alliances as a means to an end, but ethno-nationalism was their main concern, not class-based hierarchy.
Greg G
Jun 22 2020 at 6:05pm
Mark,
I am not an expert on Marxist history but for the sake of argument, and because I believe you are probably right about it, I will accept that everything you say about it is true. I am simply urging you to reject the Marxist framing of the issue entirely. They were wrong about that framing (and virtually everything else). If this is really the reason that libertarians frame the debate this way that just makes it all the more urgent they reject that faulty framing.
You are certainly right that the real world implementation of socialism was more nationalistic in its application than its ideology. Such are the inevitable corruptions of power. Communists did at least claim to be bringing benefits to the people they were conquering in a way the Nazis never pretended to.
I agree entirely that Hitler and Mussolini wanted ethno-nationalist, not class based hierarchies. The “uneasy alliances” were alliances none the less based on despising egalitarianism and internationalism. Common enemies create most alliances.
Lliam Munro
Jun 22 2020 at 6:57pm
No it doesn’t. Modern libertarianism is essentially classical liberalism which significantly predates both communism and fascism.
Hardly. If that were true then people wouldn’t be trying to invent the horseshoe model of left and right to explain why fascism and communism are so much alike.
Nope. The socialist/fascist divide grew out of fascist thinkers splitting off from mainstream socialism. Giovanni Gentile, the key philosopher of fascism, was heavily influenced by Marx and Mussolini was a member of the socialist party. Many German socialists and communists did join the National Socialists. The left/right split in the French revolution was between collectivist Jacobins and those who believed more in individualism.
Except the Nazis did in fact establish significant welfare states, nationalise key industries and rail against the evils of capitalism. That’s a lot more than communists ever did to establish democracy. I’m not sure how you think those two are comparible.
Greg G
Jun 22 2020 at 10:06pm
Lliam,
I wasn’t suggesting that Communism and Nazism came before the French Revolution. I was pointing out that the left/right classification of political tendencies that led to the modern convention of viewing Marxism as left wing and Nazism and Fascism as right wing had its origin there.
Whether or not you like the current prevailing language convention on the matter, it exists because a preference for egalitarianism, secularism, radical reform of the existing order, and internationalism have tended to cluster on what has been called the left with Marxism on the extreme left ever since then. A preference for hierarchy, nationalism, and a reverence for tradition have tended to cluster on what has been called the right. These preferences exist along a broad spectrum.
There certainly are some important similarities between the extreme left and extreme right. These include a utopian, historicist view of history that lacks respect for human rights and and sees no limits on the uses the state may be put to in service of those preferred values. Both extremes tend to appeal to the same authoritarian personality types. Hence the “horseshoe” metaphor.
Like all classification systems, this left/right one has it strengths and weaknesses. One of its strengths is that it just happens to be the prevailing language convention. There is a deep irony in libertarian objections to it. Language is, by far, the most libertarian of all human institutions. Everyone gets to decide for himself what the words he speaks and hears mean. The penalty for getting it wrong is simply that you may not be understood the way you want to be and may misunderstand others.
There simply is no higher authority to appeal to for word meanings than the prevailing language conventions. When you find yourself arguing that the prevailing language convention is wrong that is a sure sign you are losing the argument. That doesn’t mean you need to adopt a language convention you dislike. It does mean not trying to convince people that the convention is wrong. No need to die on that hill. Just argue for the principles you believe in one of the many other ways you could do that.
Lliam Munro
Jun 23 2020 at 2:30am
I had understood you to be making an historical point about the origins of Marxism, rather than a linguistic one. The key reason fascism is described as ‘right wing’ is its opposition to communism. It was also more palatable to German conservatives than was communism as it was nationalist rather than internationalist. So, you’re right insofar as you’re claiming that the habit of understanding things on a left-right spectrum led to people classifying fascism as right wing as it opposed communism which was left wing.
That seems a trivial point though. It aids understanding of the movement not one iota.
If your claim is slightly stronger – that fascism represents a collection of beliefs generally associated with the right – then that’s a more interesting and less trivial claim. But it’s wrong.
Fascism and Nazism have far more in common with the left at any point in the 20th century than they do with the right.
Here are a sampling of Nazi policies/views:
Nationalism
Belief that the individual is subordinate to the collective
That people had an obligation to the collective to be healthy and so, for example, should not smoke
That income should be heavily redistributed
That Germans, regardless of social class and whether they were workers with brawn or with brain, should be equal in status
That international capital was a great evil
That international trade weakened the state
Eugenics
Racism
You’ve claimed that the first of these is associated with the right. I’m don’t agree, but I’ll grant it. Every other item on this list, including the last two if you’re familiar with the history of the ‘progressive’ movement particularly in the first half of the 20th century, are associated with the left. The reason for that is, as I said earlier and as Hayek noted, that the intellectual roots of fascism and nazism are in the left.
Lliam Munro
Jun 23 2020 at 2:37am
Whether or not any of this matters is, of course, debatable. In my view, however, policy making in the west would be improved on the margins if the median voter understood that left-wing extremism was responsible for effectively all the mass suffering of the 20th century rather than only some of it.
Greg G
Jun 23 2020 at 4:02pm
Actually I was making both a historic and a linguistic point. The historical point is that the extremes of the left/right model tended to extremes of state power from the start. That is a good enough reason for libertarians to be dissatisfied with this model but not a good enough reason to misrepresent its history.
The right has always tended to see a glorious national past that needed to be recovered. The left has always tended to see an embarrassing past that needs to be revolutionized in favor of a glorious future. I can’t tell from your ideas on this what you think right wing extremism would look like or even if you believe it exists.
You are right, of course, that early 20th Century Progressives tended to embrace racism and eugenics. You neglect to mention though that this was what they shared with the right wingers of the day, not what separated the two.
Lliam Munro
Jun 23 2020 at 6:12pm
Ok. Then for the reasons I’ve already outlined, your historical point is wrong, and your linguistic point is unimportant.
Historically, the intellectual roots of fascism are unambiguously left wing.
robc
Jun 23 2020 at 7:55am
This is why the Nolan Chart or the Political Compass works better than the right-left single dimension model. It was fine for the French, who don’t veer off the authoritarian edge, but doesn’t work for the modern political spectrum.
I prefer the Nolan chart, but the political compass describes the horseshoe better.
Greg G
Jun 23 2020 at 12:00pm
Yes, the Nolan and Political Compass models do a much better job of making a place for libertarians. That is their main strength.
Their main weakness is that they imply that libertarians make up a much larger percentage of the political landscape than they really do. And that they have failed to achieve anything like the level of voluntary adoption as the left/right model.
We might well be better off if more people were libertarians but the fact remains most people are fine with increasing state power as long as it is used for purposes they favor. As always, when you give people the freedom to make more choices, you increase the risk they will make choices you don’t like.
robc
Jun 23 2020 at 12:47pm
<em>Their main weakness is that they imply that libertarians make up a much larger percentage of the political landscape than they really do.</em>
That makes no sense, no one thinks the domain being mapped is equally dense, just like no one thinks Wyoming has more people than Connecticut.
Jens
Jun 23 2020 at 5:33am
No political scientist who wants to be taken seriously is currently still using the horseshoe model in Germany without tons of relative clauses.
How many and how many didn’t ? Please give numbers or estimates.
The german national social insurance system was not introduced by the Nazis, but by Bismarck. In some cases even, after the depression of the Weimar period, the Nazis initially celebrated statistical successes by withdrawing insurance cover (e.g. in unemployment insurance). The main focus of the Nazis concerning the social security system was to frame the insurance community as a national/racial community.
By the way .. even the Greens are Nazis .. errr .. i mean even the Nazis were Greens. They passed the first nature and animal protection laws in Germany. Nature and animal protection must be very bad, if they were introduced to the Nazis.
Ok, the Nazis propagated nature and animal protection because it was popular and because it could be used to introduce anti-semitic, social-darwinistic and biologistic arguments into the political discourse. But who cares.
Regardless of that, it is of course correct that there are many totalitarian and authoritarian states that stick on the label “socialist”.
But when I look at the very heterogeneous left-wing tendencies in Europe and Germany right now, one of the favorite terms used there is actually the word “Herrschaftsfreiheit” / Akephalie. Live without being controlled. To me, that doesn’t sound like totalitarian desires. You just don’t want to be dominated, not only not by the state, but also not by capital. Whatever that means. (Thanks for the linguistic remarks to Greg G above)
Mm
Jun 29 2020 at 8:10am
Perhaps a better understanding of the divide between left-right and nazism-socialism is found in Thomas Sowell’s formulation of the divide. He calls it a constrained vs unconstrained view of man in his book A Conflict of Visions. By that mark both fascism and socialism are unconstrained views- they only differ in what the cause of our problems are and therefore how to fix them. It explains how Mussolini (As well as many others) could move so effortlessly from socialism to fascism.
JK Brown
Jun 22 2020 at 9:19pm
I found Mises’ ‘Liberalism’ (1927) enlightening about fascism and Nazism, pre-takeover by Hitler and his sociopaths. Battle lines were between the international socialism out of the Bolshevik Revolution on the left side of socialism and the national socialism of the fascists on the right side of socialism. If you weren’t socialist, then you were not in the spectrum.
Mises remarked that fascism had saved Europe, but warned it couldn’t be permitted to retain power. It didn’t have any good ideas. But instead, it was taken over by the sociopaths of Hitler and we know the rest of the story.
As for the origins, Mises saw it came from the professors, many of whom were welcomed into the US universities just over 70 years ago.
–von Mises, Ludwig (1947). Planned Chaos
As for the flavors of socialism:
Michael Sandifer
Jun 24 2020 at 11:34pm
The difference between fascism and socialism/communism is one of exclusion versus inclusion. Both see the world in terms of in-groups and out-groups.
Fascists want to limit membership in the in-groups on bases such as race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or national origin. These are people who really value the concept of “nation-state”. Out-groups are to be treated like second-class citizens, at best, and are enslaved or murdered in the extreme.
Socialists/communists want to include as many people in their movement as possible. It is about world-wide class consciousness, rather than nationalism, at least in terms of ideology. Chief goal is to try to equalize economic outcomes for individuals.
Both fascists and socialists/communists have turned to murdering out-groups in extreme circumstancs. Facists kill to exclude and socialists/comomunists kill those who don’t want to be included. Fascists are social darwinists, at least on the level of the in-group, and communists have sometimes rejected even biologial dawinian evolution.
In practice, fascists often support populist socialist policies, but only for the in-group. Communists want to force their socialist policies on everyone. In communist dictatorships, sometimes nationalism and other forms of bigotry creep in, reflecting the attitudes of totalitarian leaders, though it is not officially part of ideology.
Fascism has its roots in evil tendencies of biases that underlie various forms of bigotry. Communism has it’s roots in the idealiszation of better angels of our nature, depending upon unrealistic degrees of spontaneous harmony and altruism. Both ideologies are, unfortunately, taken to such extremes, that tens of millions die.
vikingvista
Jun 26 2020 at 12:37am
There are similarities and differences in everything, and various ideologies and even subsubideologies are concerned with different axes. But while surely aware of that, I think the point that Hayek (as an economist) was making, was that the solutions to the social *economic* problem made Nazi economics a socialist *economic* system. That meant that whatever economic problems socialism could be expected to produce, Nazism would as well, because the same critique (in particular the information problem) applied dominantly to both.
I understand socialists who are not into mass murder and warmongering being offended at being compared to Nazis. But the fundamental economic comparison, at least, that Hayek made was not a trivial one, and is today (after a half-century-long history of unmitigated failure of widespread central planning) even accepted by some avowed socialists. And economics is not a minor concern of socialist ideology. Most of the West’s more peaceful experiments in socialism have effectively died (although the populist rhetoric is hear to stay), leaving in their place vibrant capitalist systems, some of which rank higher in the economic freedom index than the US, albeit with large vestigial welfare states. This end of the global socialist experiment is in no small part due to the recognition of the socialist economic problems Hayek described.
But whereas the economic comparison–even subordination–of Nazism (and of course communism) to socialism plays a necessary role in understanding economics to the present day, the comparison of Nazism/fascism to capitalism, on an economic spectrum, is a nonstarter. Coming out of the golden age of classical liberalism–the mainstream academic economic understanding–liberalism was a victim of its own success and took the blame for the suffering of the great depression, and probably the first world war as well.
As such, economic liberalism was all but politically dead in the 1930’s. Fed by the optimism of early Soviet communism, it was the rise of the century of socialism, and the only political struggles were between different socialist factions–united, as you’d expect from socialist factions, only in their basic economics; and in particular, their utter contempt of capitalism/liberalism.
Greg G
Jun 26 2020 at 7:16am
Hello vikingvista. I agree with just about everything in your comment and I think you did a great job of showing how many of the commenters on this thread, including me, have been talking past each other.
Both socialism, in all its forms, and fascism, in all its forms, were more than eager to have the state seize control of the economy. They shared that feature and it is worth recalling that was the original point of the blog post here.
I think it is fair to say that the fascist countries retained much more private ownership during the war and envisioned relatively much more of a return to private ownership after he war. We should also remember that even the most capitalist countries in the war also quickly seized temporary control of all the relevant part of their economies during the conflict.
George Orwell was such a devastating critic of Stalinism that many right libertarians (not you I know) are unaware that he was a democratic socialist. Unlike most right libertarians who feel that economic liberty is more foundational than political liberty, Orwell thought political liberty was more foundational because it allowed for more error correction. I think it is fair to say that post war history has vindicated that view. Most of the western European democracies ultimately moved towards relatively more capitalism and relatively less socialism after they saw the result of their policy experiments in these matters.
vikingvista
Jun 26 2020 at 6:17pm
Greg,
Thanks for your comments. I’ve not heard the following before. Will you elaborate a bit?–
And do you believe there is an important economic distinction between whether or not central planners hold nominal ownership of the resources they control?
Greg G
Jun 26 2020 at 7:48pm
I’m going to answer your second question first viking.
The answer is yes, I do think there is an important economic difference here but obviously it can depend on exactly what kind of “control” you are talking about. The word “control” is doing a lot of work in your question….or maybe not enough.
That formality about private ownership mattered in the U.S. after the war, don’t you think? Control here reverted quickly back to private ownership post war in a way I don’t think it would have with a more formal appropriation and nationalization. That seems like a big, important difference in outcomes to me.
Now I do have to admit I am not an expert on German economic history. Correct me if I’m wrong but it’s my understanding that most big German industrialists retained ownership during the war as long as they were good Nazis (almost all were). They gave up a lot of control for a while but continued to benefit handsomely from this ownership in a way that doesn’t begin to compare with what their status would have been in a socialist country.
And I think they expected to recover even more control after a German victory in a larger and more prosperous nation. I think they mostly expected that and the Nazis did too. No one is going to prove a counterfactual though.
vikingvista
Jun 26 2020 at 11:24pm
It sound like, in your view, Nazi state control of the economy was a temporary wartime action, similar to what happened in the US. So you don’t think there was substantial state intervention in the German economy during the 5-6 year peacetime rule of the Nazis?
Greg G
Jun 27 2020 at 7:22am
There WAS substantial state intervention in the German economy during what you refer to as the 5-6 year “peacetime” rule of the Nazis. I am more inclined to view this period as as, not really a genuine peacetime economy, but an economy that was being rapidly forcefully mobilized for war.
In the U.S. (and all the other allied powers) there was plenty of government control of the economy DURING the war but not anything like a comparable intervention in the pre war period.
I don’t believe the Nazis expected to need to maintain that same level of economic control after they enjoyed the victory they believed they were destined to achieve. I do believe that they expected that those same Nazi German industrialists would have continued to be among the wealthiest and most powerful Germans BECAUSE OF their continuing ownership stakes in those businesses and would have continued to manage their businesses in harmony with Nazi Party goals. That is to say those private business owners would have continued (post war) to enjoy a level of personal benefit and managerial control that was radically different from the situation of the previous owners of the means of production in socialist nations where prior owners of industry had their ownership stakes appropriated and nationalized.
I can’t tell if you really disagree with this or just don’t see it as a big difference. Can you clarify on this point?
vikingvista
Jul 3 2020 at 6:11pm
“I don’t believe the Nazis expected to need to maintain that same level of economic control after they enjoyed the victory they believed they were destined to achieve. ”
This just doesn’t fit my understanding of Nazi ideology, which did not appear to much distinguish between wartime and peacetime economic policy. In this regard, I think Orwell’s view of continuous war, as much for domestic control as any territorial gains, was closer to the truth.
And you would have to believe that had Hitler succeeded in defeating the UK and USSR, he would’ve taken off the uniform and called home the Panzers, rather than being emboldened to expand even further. That doesn’t really seem to match Hitler’s MO, or his ideology.
So while I don’t disagree that the Nazi peacetime economy resembled a wartime economy, I do believe that the observed Nazi peacetime economy is what you could expect for any future Nazi peacetime economy. More to the point, socialist regimes commonly employ domestic mobilization strategies in peacetime that resemble how they mobilize in wartime–including their domestic propaganda.
“I do believe that they expected that those same Nazi German industrialists would have continued to be among the wealthiest and most powerful Germans BECAUSE OF their continuing ownership stakes in those businesses and would have continued to manage their businesses in harmony with Nazi Party goals.”
I just don’t get your point. We’ve already established that the economic issue with socialism (as with property rights) is state control, whether nominal or not. Would the socialist regime of the Nazi’s permit former industrialists admitted to their top ranks a disproportionate level of consumption? I suppose. But the Soviet Union also had disproportionately high consumption in their top ranks as well. In both cases, it is state-controlled enterprises, and state-protected wealthy figureheads. There just is not a meaningful difference, at least far as economics are concerned.
Greg G
Jul 5 2020 at 9:30am
viking,
The Nazi’s vision for the post war Thousand Year Reich was utopian (from Nazi point of view) and entirely delusional. So then, “what you could expect from a future Nazi peacetime economy” (“you” meaning you, me ,and Orwell) is very different from what THEY expected from their delusional Nazi point of view.
Arguing about that counterfactual isn’t really my point here and won’t be very productive. Neither is arguing about whether or not Nazism shared the feature of increasing government control of the economy with socialism. (It did.)
My point is that politics of all types is most foundationally most about who is gaining social status and who losing social status in the political system in question. Economics is just one way that social status is measured and it’s not even the most important way it is measured to most people. It is trivially easy to identify groups throughout the political spectrum who vote against their own economic interests due to other more emotional connections with various other status markers in the political conversation.
I agree with you that IF the existing conventions on political labeling were ONLY about the level of state control of the economy, THEN it would be correct to classify the Nazis as socialist. But the fact is most people are relatively indifferent to the level of state control of the economy (whether or not they should be which is a different question) but most people are highly sensitive to which groups gain in status as a result of government policy. The Nazis represented an increase in social status for the groups traditionally associated with right wing politics and a catastrophic decrease in status for those associated with left wing politics. That is why they are were correctly viewed as right wing opponents of Bolshevism by conventional political labeling both then and today.
The Nazis claimed to be socialist only because they did not want German voters worrying that they would take away their already among the most extensive in the world government sponsored social safety net, not because they were really in favor of a more egalitarian society. Their main concerns were not economic at all.
Shane L
Jun 27 2020 at 5:40am
As it happens, I’m reading Richard J. Evans’s excellent The Coming of the Third Reich at the moment. He touches on this from time to time. From what I understand, there were stronger socialist elements to the early Nazi movement.
For example, Gregor Strasser attempted to woo industrial workers with a more left-wing platform in 1925, a socialism that involved: “the state taking a 51 per cent stake in major industries and 49 per cent in all other businesses”, but which also included, oddly, “the return of the guilds and the payment of wages in kind rather than in money”.
Strasser and Joseph Goebbles wanted to expropriate the wealthy German princes. But when they confronted Hitler with this in 1926, he “damned such a campaign as an attack on private property”. In 1928, the National Socialist German Students’ League was taken over by Baldur von Schirach, who “purged the League of its social-revolutionary elements”. Hence, it seems that the left-leaning socialist elements of the Nazi movement were being gradually undermined over the course of the 1920s.
But I always think that the left or right economic orientation of the Nazis is not really the point. The reason we dread and despise Nazism is its pursuit of genocidal race war, not its position on public health or redistribution.
Greg G
Jun 27 2020 at 9:08am
Thanks for that information Shane. I just ordered that book. This is an era we could all benefit from being more informed about especially in the present moment when increasing polarization is again leading to more authoritarianism on all sides.
Shane L
Jun 27 2020 at 11:30am
It’s a fantastic book so far, Greg, hope you enjoy it!
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