Hitler & Socialism
Silent Bob explains how and why the Nazi party was not particularly socialist:
The idea that workers controlled the means of production in Nazi Germany is a bitter joke. It was actually a combination of aristocracy and capitalism.
Technically, private businessmen owned and controlled the means of production. The Nazi “Charter of Labor” gave employers complete power over their workers. It established the employer as the “leader of the enterprise,” and read: “The leader of the enterprise makes the decisions for the employees and laborers in all matters concerning the enterprise.” The employer, however, was subject to the frequent orders of the ruling Nazi elite. After the Nazis took power in 1933, they quickly established a highly controlled war economy under the direction of Dr. Hjalmar Schacht.
Prior to the Nazi seizure of power in 1933, worker protests had spread all across Germany in response to the Great Depression. During his drive to power, Hitler exploited this social unrest by promising workers to strengthen their labor unions and increase their standard of living. But these were empty promises; privately, he was reassuring wealthy German businessmen that he would crack down on labor once he achieved power.
The Nazis abolished trade unions, collective bargaining and the right to strike. An organization called the “Labor Front” replaced the old trade unions, but it was an instrument of the Nazi party and did not represent workers.
According to the law that created it, “Its task is to see that every individual should be able… to perform the maximum of work.” Workers would indeed greatly boost their productivity under Nazi rule but they also became exploited. Between 1932 and 1936, workers wages fell, from 20.4 to 19.5 cents an hour for skilled labor, and from 16.1 to 13 cents an hour for unskilled labor.
It’s true that the Nazis tried to develop an ideology of socialism — one based on Christianity, in fact. Part of their party platform was the idea that the public need should be put before private greed, and this principle was part of the statement of how they were a Christian political party:
“We demand freedom for all religious confessions in the state, insofar as they do not endanger its existence or conflict with the customs and moral sentiments of the Germanic race. The party as such represents the standpoint of a positive Christianity, without owing itself to a particular confession. It fights the spirit of Jewish materialism within us and without us, and is convinced that a lasting recovery of our Volk can only take place from within, on the basis of the principle: public need comes before private greed.”
In reality, though, Nazi policies did not reflect anything that looks like socialism. How can anyone describe a government that abolishes the right to strike or engage in collective bargaining as “socialist”? Mere opposition to “Jewish materialism” or “Jewish capitalism” doesn’t make one a socialist.
Nathan Newman explains a recent example of how unionization is suppressed in America: unions picketing a company aren’t allowed to ask other unions to support them and refuse to work as well:
Most progressives don’t fully understand that if a union asks other workers to help them during a strike, they have often broken the law. That act of speech-- asking for help -- is an illegal act.
You hear people prattle on about American Exceptionalism-- that US workers are individualists and company-oriented, which is why we don’t have broader labor unity or general strikes as you often see in European countries.
The answer is far more prosaic. In the US, the First Amendment has been declared null and void at the workplace door and any attempt to ask for labor unity is a crime. It’s really hard to have broad-based unity when you can’t ask for it without finding yourself in court.
American conservatives are concerned that this nation not come too close to the “socialism” of Nazi Germany, but it is the laws which work against collective bargaining and union activity which cause America to begin to resemble Nazi Germany, not any so-called socialist policies of this or that leftist group. Socialism might be an exceedingly bad way to organize an economy, but criticizing the Nazis is not the way to make this point.
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Comments
This isn’t the whole story. I’m not a expert on the subject or anything but you should read a bit more into the history of this if you are going to publish a article such as this. Quoting “Silent Bob” as a source for your article is rather silly.
Here is at one thing(I’m sure there is more) I think you inaccurately describe:
The phrase here “to power” is a bit vague. Hitler was elected, then used False Flag terror to gain a dictatorship. False Flag terror attacks having nothing to do with labor unions.
His rise “to power” used terrorism not political lies to labor unions.
Can you identify any actual errors?
Only if his claims and arguments are wrong. Are they?
Except that the “terrorism” was attributed to communists who were, in turn, politically active on behalf of labor unions. Political attacks on communists and socialists were necessarily attacks on their political base: labor. If you read a bit more history on this, you’ll know that.
In the most simple of terms, socialism is an economic system in which the government plays the most important role in deciding what to produce and for whom to produce it. While Hitler blamed socialists and Marxists (as well as Jewish capitalism) for Germany’s problems, once he was in control the government began taking a more active role in the economy. Businesses were told what to produce and for whom to produce it. This can be linked to America’s own war efforts but Hitler’s campaign for government involvement to control inflation and unemployment began before there were eminent threats of war. Hitler railed against socialism but DID implement a soft socialist economic system.
Also, restricting collective bargaining was an effort to maintain a mostly government-controlled economy, not to invoke capitalism.
Furthermore, capitalism has never been given a chance to stand as an economic system alone. There has never been a strictly capitalist economic system.
It’s all a bout research and information not watching overrated movies.
Nice try- good in depth research, your professor would be proud, but terrible perception and judgment (again, your professor would be proud). The most important point you touched on yourself, and I’ll quote you on it:
“During his drive to power, Hitler exploited this social unrest by promising workers to strengthen their labor unions and increase their standard of living.”
So, what have we here? We have Socialist promises. We have the corrupting influence of freebies (which the American Democratic Party currently engages in- aiming at whoever they perceive as the largest voter block- it used to be the poor; the Dems tossed them in the river and now it’s the “middle class”).
So, the German people voted for freebies (SOCIALIST FREEBIES), and DID they EVER paid the price. Leftists would have societies repeat that ad nauseum.
what I’m saying is, it does not matter what Hitler BECAME, he WON on a Socialist ticket, full of corrupting, freebie promises, that, unfortunately for the German people, turned out to be a means to power for Hitler (and you can see that “means to power” pattern in the American Democratic Party).
You’re saying that only socialists promise that workers’ standard of living will ever increase?
And what about the promises made to business leaders which caused them to provide their support and money?
Really? Please, list those freebies.
Because his victory had nothing to do with the promises made by conservatives and capitalists, right? I’m sure you can demonstrate this.
Nice try wbiro, but Hitler and his Nazis were anti-socialist. Mussolini said that facism should have been corporatism, as it is gov’t acting as on behalf of company owners. The Nazis did things like beating union workers to get them back to work. That’s the opposite of socialist.
But don’t let you ignorance of history get in the way of your bitterness over Obama’s victory. A brown person is going to be president… get over it.
Mos right wing conservatives think that the invention of the wheel was socialistic.
John Hanks.
The wheel must have been Socialistic. It was designed to make work easier.
Capitalists would have stuck with runners. Harder on the worker but cheaper.
Yeah because communist concentration camps were holiday resorts.