Nazism = Capitalism? (was Re: Leftist Ravings?)

boddhisatva kbevans at panix.com
Tue Oct 27 02:08:56 PST 1998


C. Heartfield,

Who voted for Hitler and supported the initial Nazi movement and who supported the full-blown Hitler regime are quite obviously two different questions. There is no reason to suppose that working class people are *more* sophisticated in the question of who their real enemy is than any other class of people. Clearly history proves otherwise. Obviously a majority and probably a vast majority of Germans supported the Nazi state. Whether they did this because they were being German patriots during wartime, German ideologues, working-class dupes or evil-minded capitalists is, to some extent, moot. Germans now clearly see the sin of Nazism as a sin - and a vast, thoroughly capitalist majority at that.

The question of whether Nazism was purely an expression of capitalism is simply a foregone conclusion. It wasn't. At least to some undeniable extent, a socialist "ideology" was mixed in, however twisted. Furthermore, the Nazi war machine had in common with other war machines the characteristic of the state over-reaching strict property rights to forward its aims - only more so. Clearly a capitalist had no means to refuse a Nazi order. The bourgeoisie as capitalists were subject to the bourgeoisie as state warriors. The real capitalist bourgeoisie went to war with Hitler, after all. That was no accident. Hitler was a violent statist and capitalism had progressed beyond the stage where it could function under such a regime.

peace



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list