How Socialist is National Socialism (Nazism)?

The dichotomy isn't capitalism/socialism though. There's many other forms of economic systems. Nazis were most heavily vested in corporate-market system if anything.

breadloaf, yeah, good way to put it. I can agree on that. So they would have a free market, but the (important) companies would be goverment controlled (but would be privatly owned), some even having a quota.

I'm actually really interested in the economic structure of nazism, seeing as how an upcoming Dungeons and Dragons campaign of mine involves gnomish nazis (I call them Gnazis)

Well, just imagine the current system as seen by a manic-depressive populist, with government and corporations working hand-in-hand to make weapons/profits on the back of the average citizen. It's where rightwing nightmares and leftwing nightmares intersect.

An essential element of Nazism was militarism. That's how they were able to maintain the illusion of high employment and productivity. So you'd better have a bunch of bloodthirsty conquering gnomes with bizarre fantasypunk war machines.

If you direct the bulk of your economic activity towards warfare, it's easier to control than an economy based on producing consumer goods. Remember "Guns or Butter"?

So a Gnazi state would have a core cabal of leaders and a lot of common gnomes either working in war production or serving in the military. Imagine them rounding up neighboring goblins or halflings and forcing them into labor camps creating alchemical weapons and flying machines.

Well, the gnazis actually have full on WW 2 tech. This isn't steampunk, it's pulp fiction!

But yeah, interesting idea.

A bit off topic though XD

While most of the discussion in this thread focuses on economic policy, there are other aspects worth considering. Take the underlying philosophies, for example.

Nazism - and, indeed, any form of far-right politics - has the idea of inequality as one of its core principles. The Nazis believed that Jews and Slavs were inherently inferior to 'ethnic Germans', that women should have radically different roles in society from men, that not everyone should have an equal say in how the country was run, and so on.

Socialism is diametrically opposed to this. The way I see it, Socialism ultimately rests on the idea that all people are born equal and that everyone deserves the same chances in life, regardless of race, sex or heritage. All the policies of redistribution usually associated with Socialism are means to this end.

edited 24th Aug '12 4:37:42 PM by MidnightRambler

I thought Germany was the first nation to have female fighter pilots.

Looks like it was the Soviet Union. Go figure. HOW DARE YOU LIE TO ME, BUBBLEGUM CRISIS ROLEPLAYING GAME SOURCE BOOKS?!

edited 24th Aug '12 4:32:44 PM by TheyCallMeTomu

Rambler has a good point. But I doubt there was any such a thing as a real ideology or philosophy behind Nazism.

As to your gnazis, you could just have one run around with a clipboard, inspecting everything labour-related (that would be Albert Speer - which is very friendly to make a punny name of, as Speer means spear), and everybody else just don't care or knows about economic matters. (You could even let him mention that he is hard pressed to deliver plans for the Worldcapital Gnazania tomorrow, or something like that).

Perhaps.

Anyway, enough with the Gnazis, it was only barely on topic to begin with :P

An extremely shoddy and inconsistent one. But my point was that these inequalities weren't an unintended side effect of the Third Empire's policies - they were something the Nazis were actively striving for because they considered it a good thing.

While we are on the topic of philiosopy of Nazism, we should mention the 25-points-program. It was declared 1920, when the party was renamed. It must be emphasized that it wasn't however really implemented. In that regard, it's just another time the Nazis exploited the appearance of having some kind of plan or program. (Another example would be the Vierjahresplan, which was really botched by having Herman "Mr Incompetent" Göring as chairman and which comes up to plundering the conquered countries).

So, what's in the 25-points? (I do not list all, a lot of them are subpoints) Founding of Greatgermany, revision of Versailles, colonies for Germany, the expulsion of anyone who isn't German, a right to work, a public share on companies, communalisation (I hope that's a word, or else it can be understood what's meant) of malls, communalisation of greater farms, a "fight against Volksschädlinge" - which means capitalists (in the Marx' kind of meaning), a new not "materialistic" "German" law, free education, higher pensions, better healthcare, formation of a militia-type military, censure of the press, a strong central goverment.

I think, there are many points which are intended to look socialistic. Or at least socialistic if you are German.

Well I'd also like to caution that many of their talking points were popular across all of the West. Things like inequality and eugenics were incredibly popular. North America had its fair share of sterilisation programs afterall. I think it's more that, these days, we associate Nazis with everything bad of the time period and absolve ourselves of our historical connection to 90% of their ideas.

I guess I'll play devil's advocate here and go through the article from the OP:

"Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian"

Some highlights from it.

The article argues the view that even though private property existed, the Nazi government is the one that actually had power and control over the property.

Article goes on to specify why this is specifically "socialist" rather than just interventionist:

The article then begins to talk about why a socialist government needs to be oppressive. A capitalist market sector is going to rise up in competition with the state-controlled planned economy.

"Furthermore, in any type of socialist state, Nazi or Communist, the government's economic plan is part of the supreme law of the land." The article notes that if a government is to actually enforce socialism and interventionism as part of the government structure, it needs to suppress the rise of a separate private sector (black market) by force.

Near the end, the article states that a fully socialist state is necessarily totalitarian, because if the state is the caretaker for its citizens, then their complaints will be directed towards the established government itself. Thus the the state needs to fight back:

It gives support to this view by noting that media production will also be state-owned.

This thesis, which links socialism to totalitarianism, also mentions that the "alleged socialist" European countries that aren't totalitarian are also not really socialist. "Their actual economic system is that of a hampered market economy, as Mises termed it. While more hampered than our own in important respects, their economic system is essentially similar to our own, in that the characteristic driving force of production and economic activity is not government decree but the initiative of private owners motivated by the prospect of private profit."