Capitalist support for fascism....

Michael Hoover hoov at freenet.tlh.fl.us
Sat Feb 13 17:32:58 PST 1999



> Alex LoCascio wrote:
> > I I don't know how many times I've heard cretinous
> > history teachers say "Remember, Hitler was a member of the National
> > *Socialist* party..." I'm looking for something to refute the lazy,
> > facile claim that Hitler was a socialist, once and for all.
> > ___________________________________________________________________
> If my memory serves me, I think Hitler said it himself in Mein Kampf -
> something to the effect of "we [National Socialist Party or Nazi Party]
> stand for private enterprise."
> Marta Russell

so long as personal self-interest, private property, and capital accumulation did not undermine or interfere with national interests... destruction of unions facilitated alliance with big business, although David Schoenbaum (_Hitler's Social Revolution: Class & Status in Nazi Germany) argues that 'unreliable' industrialists were expropriated...Alan Bullock (_Hitler: A Study in Tyranny_) quotes Hitler:

'We must...not dismiss a businessman if he is a good businessman, even if he is not yet a National Socialist; and especially not if the National Socialist who is to take his place knows nothing about business. In business, ability must be the only authoritative standard...'

as for impression of Nazi 'economic miracle' - in addition to the destruction of organized labor, how about massive rearmament, luck in terms of an upturn after the 1920s depression, punitive & disciplinary state work programmes, wide-scale statistical juggling, massive propaganda...Michael Hoover



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