Poll: Nazis were Socialists or Capitalists?

[The Emperor of Mankind]

I put other as the Nazis had anti-socialist and anti-capitalist economics.

 

[Stanyon]

In some of Adolf Hitlers many speeches he stressed the importance of working together as a united people for the common good (socialism) and the tie that kept it all together was submission to the state (nationalism).
I am not posting this as a troll, it is relevant to the discussion and historically important- please be objective:

 

[Lyndon]

Is he a man you look up to????

 

[LuisDantas]

As I understand it, Nazism was not sane enough to actually be socialist or even capitalist.

Capitalism, driven by base instincts as it is, still requires a certain measure of logical coherence. One could IMO argue, probably fairly, that Nazism is one of the most likely results of the degeneration of a capitalistic system.

However, I feel that the ideology of Nazism and particularly its maladies arise not so nearly much from economic theories as they do from the nationalistic traits that, after all, it brandishes upfront even in its name.

 

[Tomyris]

Nazism was neither socialism nor capitalism, nor was it fascism. It was the Wehrstaat, actually implemented. The only explanation for Nazism in functional terms is the Wehrstaat, you cannot understand Nazism without reading the original works which formed the idea of the Wehrstaat, and any attempt to pigeonhole the Nazis to any other definition is inherently wrong.

As a quick addendum, the only other Nazi country on the planet is North Korea; as far as I know, Songun is the only attempt by a country other than Nazi Germany to implement the Wehrstaat. Like in Nazi Germany, the socialist trappings are just a propaganda function for motivating participation in the Wehrstaat.

Addendum 2: Of course the Kwantung Army implemented it in Manchukuo, but it was never really systematically implemented in Japan proper, so I wasn't inclined to count that, but now cover it for completeness since it's bound to come up.

 

[Brinne]

People seem to conflate "socialism" with government control. Socialism is, by definition, workers owning the means of production. Nazi Germany did not exercise this nor did it claim to in any sense. The Nazis were starkly against capitalism and socialism, subscribing to a Third Way ideology. The reason they employed a socialist mask was because revolutionary ideologies were running wild across Europe and were incredibly popular and also easy to sell to a downtrodden people.

Secondly, the Nazi's employed an economic model that was similar to corporatism in Italy (though it could be classified as a Dirigisme approach). They opposed the Socialist ideas of a revolutionary worker class and instead pushed for "class cooperation" -- which ultimately meant the suppression of union groups and anyone who decided to go on strike.

Lastly, Economic is probably the least important thing in Fascist ideology. Fascism isn't a materialistic ideology and doesn't pretend to be, it's vague and largely removed from the nitty gritty of economics and industry. The main focus is the revival of a romanticized people/past through and a strong state, economics some second and the approach to it is largely pragmatic and not ideological.

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

National Socialism has no real economic theory. There were some more Socialist leaning NatSocs but they were killed off or otherwise pushed from the Party. In practice, they relied on plunder and slave labor as they grew their Reich. They had massive public works programs readying them for war. NatSocs tend to not bother much with economic theory even today. They're all obsessed with their racial fantasies (they now like Slavs for whatever reason, showing that they don't understand their own ideology).

National Socialism is not a form of Fascism, which does have its own economic theory in Corporatism.

Economy of Nazi Germany - Wikipedia

 

[Saint Frankenstein]

Lastly, Economic is probably the least important thing in Fascist ideology

I would say that opppsition to bourgeois capitalism and Marxism is of great importance to Fascist thought. It goes hand in hand with National rejuvenation.

 

[fantome profane]

I've become convinced that the answer actually says quite a lot about a person's politics and how their ideology works.

But should it? Even if we conclude that the Nazi's were socialists, does that mean that socialism is evil? Were the Nazis evil because they were socialists? No, the Nazi's were evil because they were racist xenophobic homophobic murderous ********. The economic system they chose is not relevant to that.

This argument has as much relevance to the relative merits of socialism or capitalism as it has to the merits of moustaches.