CB answers: > If I understand you to be sarcastic, I wont argue. OK Hitler didn't deviate from the finance capitalists' plan for him. He carried out the exact plan of the finance capitalist, the most reactionary, chauvinist, racist, militarist sector of finance capital in open terrorits rule is fascism. So, I agree with you that the real world historic criminals were the finance capitalists and Hitler was their agent. <
I wasn't being sarcastic. I don't think Hitler was following anybody's "plan" except maybe his own. (Even his own plans changed with the balance of political power in Germany, the changing tides of the war, etc.) Finance capital -- along with industrial capital, conservative land-lords, etc. -- backed Hitler as a "lesser evil" to the commies. They didn't know what they were getting (nor did anyone else). It should be stressed also that Hitler had some popular support, in the white-collar middle class and the lumpen proletariat, to name two groups. I think conspiracy theories (like "Hitler followed finance capital's plans") are pretty worthless.
CB writes: >>The general crisis ... is the crisis all around crisis of capitalism in the era when socialism begins to replace it. Of course the collapse of European socialism makes one say this is absolutely wrong now. However given that processes proceed in ebbs and flows, ("zig-zags"not straightlines) the end of the Soviet Union does not utterly defeat the concept of general crisis. The crisis has been partially and temporarily abated. 7 years or whatever it has been is not a long time in historical terms.<<
right, but it would be a big mistake to invoke this kind of "general crisis" as part of an understanding of current events. It's a big mistake to be so abstract. We have to deal with the fact that socialism is on the ropes (as it was before the USSR collapsed, but that's another story).
Jim
Jim Devine jdevine at popmail.lmu.edu & http://clawww.lmu.edu/Departments/ECON/jdevine.html "Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime." -- Aristotle