The funny thing is that many conservatives think National Socialism was "socialism", when in fact it was just their very own hard right conservatism. Tea Party and Republican candidates are where the Hitlers of the future will probably arise from.
> Down with immigration! Up with capital! Be a real American!
Welcome to the past.
Edit: I see the fascists have discovered my comment. Down vote away. It doesn't change history.
Mao's leadership led to the death of 45 million:
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/news/m...
Stalin killed an estimated 20 million:
http://www.ibtimes.com/how-many-people-did-joseph-stalin-kil...
Pol Pot killed 1.4 million+:
Ah yes the great "leftist" Mao, so "left" wing, he purged everyone who disagreed with him (McCarthy?). Ah yes Stalin, "left" wing extraordinaire with his extermination and enslavement of Russian minorities (The Conservative American South?). Pol Pot, such a "left" wing hippy he was a jack booted military thug (Brownshirts?).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left-wing_politics
vs.
> Right-wing politics are political positions or activities that view some forms of social hierarchy or social inequality as either inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically justifying this position on the basis of natural law or tradition.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_politics
Which one seems to be more favorable to enacting your statement:
> exterminates and enslaves minorities
The equality faction or the hierarchy faction?
Here is an analogy:
You can claim yourself to be a pacifist (left wing) all you want. But if your actions are aggressive and cause war (right wing), then you aren't a pacifist, even if you claim to be one.
Yes, and these are the positions Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot took. They killed people using the justification that the people they killed were standing in the way of these ideals.
The next demagogue to rack of a massive body could could come from either the left or the right.
Also, if pacifism is left-wing, then the Obama administration is certainly not left-wing or anything close to it, since he has repeatedly authorized military action. I suppose you could finesse this point by saying that neither major party in the US is left-wing by your criterion. But trying to apply this more generally, for example to claim that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc., were not "really" left-wing, looks a lot like a "no true Scotsman" argument.
In fact, by the pacifism criterion, I'm not aware of any government or political movement that has ever been left-wing; the closest thing to it would be some religious orders, like the Amish, who really do try to be pacifists. (Some people would put the Quakers in this category, but the Quakers have always flavored their surface pacifism with a strong pragmatic streak; they sold gunpowder to Washington's army during the American Revolution, for example.) But this makes "left-wing" a basically useless term, not to mention that you would have to explain to an awful lot of people that they have been using it wrong for a long time, since most people apply the term to Stalin, as I noted above, as well as Mao, Pol Pot, etc.
Finally, if left-wing means supportive of social equality for everyone, then once again, there are hardly any true left-wingers and never have been. Take trade unions, for example: yes, they're very supportive of social equality for their members, but are they equally supportive of social equality for management? Not to mention social equality for people who are not members but would like to learn one of the trades that are unionized? In my experience, unions do a very poor job with things like apprenticeship programs, because training new members means less job security for existing members.
Similarly, central planning in economics, which is supposed to promote more economic equality, ends up giving special privileges to the planners and those who are closely connected with them (like large financial institutions); witness the huge bailouts of investment banks after the crash of 2008, while ordinary people got foreclosed on. The closest thing to true left-wingers by this criterion are left-libertarians or anarchists (which, to be fair, the Wikipedia article does mention).
I'm pretty sure that Stalin has been post-categorized into the "Left-Wing" camp as he stood for "Socialism".
That one label is about the only thing about Stalin that could be classified as "Left-Wing". There has been an enormous amount of jostling amongst all "Left-Wing" political parties (globally) since then in order to differentiate themselves from Stalin.
"Socialism" is now very different from Stalin's view of it, just as "Liberalism" has now been watered down to mean anyone who isn't on the extreme right.
Arguing left vs right is not the way to view this problem. Seeing through the emotive labels and debates, and analyzing the actual behaviour will show you that personal power is the driving motivator, not any political ideology.
According to Plato "The measure of a man is what he does with power". Most of our world leaders at the moment aren't measuring up.
I agree that terminology in this area is very, very messed up. That's largely because the terminology has been used as a tool to gain and hold power, rather than as a tool of clear communication--Stalin being an obvious example.
Didn't released documents after 1989 show that most of the West European communist parties took orders directly from Moscow/Stalin?
IIRC, it was a big shock that the reason the Italian communist party was so reasonable after WW II was because it was orders from Moscow. (Stalin wanted to split Europe in two.)
I remember that the Swedish communist party used to be staunch Stalinists until Moscow told them he was wrong. Is that where the different view of Socialism came from? :-)
(The Swedish communists (SKP/VPK/V) claim to have stopped taking orders in the 1960s and have been critics of Soviet since 1989.)
I'd also refrain from conflating the "communist" parties from Europe with "Socialism", despite the obvious, ideological connections. Times had changed, labels were still being re-used.
Similarly, if we do the obvious thing and conflate "left wing" and "socialist", and believe that socialism has an ideological character beyond simply hating the existing organization of society, then extermination, slavery, thuggery, coercion, and violence are inherently anti-socialist.
This view is also the conclusion Orwell was operating under---the utopian ideal of capital-S Socialism which he approved of was used as operating cover to assist in the seizing of power by technocratic middle classes.
This view was pretty much explicitly stated in the Goldstein treatises in 1984, which described "English Socialism" as actually a form of "oligarchical collectivism," and claimed that "The Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does so in the name of Socialism."
Similarly, there's this bit from the supposedly ex-Trotskyist James Burnham (who Orwell rightly abuses for being a power-worshiping scumbag):
"Some apologists try to excuse Marxism by saying that it has ‘never had a chance’. This is far from the truth. Marxism and the Marxist parties have had dozens of chances. In Russia, a Marxist party took power. Within a short time it abandoned Socialism; if not in words, at any rate in the effect of its actions. In most European nations there were during the last months of the first world war and the years immediately thereafter, social crises which left a wide-open door for the Marxist parties: without exception they proved unable to take and hold power. In a large number of countries — Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Austria, England, Australia, New Zealand, Spain, France — the reformist Marxist parties have administered the governments, and have uniformly failed to introduce Socialism or make any genuine step towards Socialism... These parties have, in practice, at every historical test — and there have been many — either failed Socialism or abandoned it. This is the fact which neither the bitterest foe nor the most ardent friend of Socialism can erase. This fact does not, as some think, prove anything about the moral quality of the Socialist ideal. But it does constitute unblinkable evidence that, whatever its moral quality, Socialism is not going to come."
To be fair, it's easy to believe claims about Stalin not being a socialist are simply ego-bruised leftists invoking the No True Scotsman fallacy. I don't think this necessarily applies simply because socialism is inherently an ideology. If someone claims to be a pacifist while marauding through a public place with an assault rifle, massacring people as they go, we have no problem resolving this dissonance: the murderer's claims of pacifism are simply lies.
Of course, pacifism was never taken all that seriously to begin with, so it's safe for us to simply say "you're lying about being a pacifist." We feel a bit more constrained telling someone they're lying about their status as a Christian or a socialist.
So you mean "left wing" is anything that leads to peace and "right wing" is anything that results in war. You may want to look up "tautology" or "circular reasoning".
By that standard a successful nuclear strike is left wing, and a failed one is right wing.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points....
Read it, then tell me if you still don't understand why these people might get classified as left-wing. They implemented quite a few of these points too, by the way. You can say whatever you want about Nazi's but they are by far the most successful leftist party in history, and quite a few "left-wing" rights today were first implemented by Nazi Germany. Big example : pensions. Scholarships (of the for-the-needy kind, not for-the-really-smart kind). There's many examples.
That said, it is beyond obvious that they are not comparable to today's left wing.
As hard as it is to understand today, the left-wing was very much anti-immigrant in the 1930's. But it's just one of many historical facts that have changed. What I still find hard to believe, is that it's the democrats were the pro-slavery anti-black side of the aisle.
Some choice cuts :
(the first parts are anti-versailles, and some anti-immigration)
7. We demand that the State shall above all undertake to ensure that every citizen shall have the possibility of living decently and earning a livelihood. If it should not be possible to feed the whole population, then aliens (non-citizens) must be expelled from the Reich.
10. The first duty of every citizen must be to work mentally or physically. No individual shall do any work that offends against the interest of the community to the benefit of all.
11. That all unearned income, and all income that does not arise from work, be abolished.
12. Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit arising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
13. We demand the nationalization of all trusts.
14. We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
15. We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
War profits continued (indeed, Nazis who tried to actually push for getting rid of the profit motive were quickly removed from their posts and marginalized).
"Unearned" income continued. The Nazis even maintained the gold standard for international trade long after the other major economies had devalued their own currency, and much of the mobilization of their wartime economy came via inventive capitalist measures from the Reichsbank, Reich Economic Ministry, military-economic departments of the Oberkommandowehrmacht, and more.
Likewise the trusts were not only not nationalized (at least, at any great scale), but businesses and industry were forced to join specified cartels based on their market sector. It was through these cartels that the Reich enforced economic policy.
Most of the "left wing" economic policies that were enacted were emulated using good old standard "right wing" methods. Markets remained; instead of centrally planning economic output directly, the Reich simply regulated the market such as to achieve mostly the desired effect. Instead of banning refrigerators outright, the Reich simply failed to import enough iron ore to make civilian goods once the priority list for Wehrmacht and export needs had been filled.
Chemical plants that were absolutely essential for the Reich's strategic needs were contracted to companies like IG Farben with profit guarantees and profit sharing agreements, methods that would be perfectly accept to almost any right-wing economist.
There were state industries too (Junkers, a strategic industry expansion program, a steel/coal production cartel, etc.) so it's not as if Nazi Germany didn't have traditionally left-wing attributes to it. But nor was it lacking in traditionally right-wing attributes or methods.
All of these methods were means to an end, as opposed to being taken from either a left-wing or right-wing palette of options because they were left- or right-wing.
Most trusts were nationalized, just nazi style : their management was replaced or forced to obey party rule, mostly by threats. Yes that doesn't technically qualify as nationalization, but for all practical intents it boils down to the same thing. It is most definitely not a laissez-faire policy.
> Most of the "left wing" economic policies that were enacted were emulated using good old standard "right wing" methods
We're talking about the introduction of pensions, scholarships, unemployments payment increases, job guarantees, ...
> Chemical plants that were absolutely essential for the Reich's strategic needs were contracted to companies like IG Farben with profit guarantees and profit sharing agreements, methods that would be perfectly accept to almost any right-wing economist.
You left out the part where the party threatened to imprison (or worse) management if they did any orders that weren't for the government. Frankly, if a party with a thorough reputation for excessive use of violence that is in control of the government threatens prison if you don't sign a contract ... would you consider that free enterprise or laissez-faire ?
I agree that the methods used were not full-blown communist. The state was in absolute control, that was the goal, the means and what happened on the ground. Calling this right-wing policy is lunacy.
The way I see left, right, far left, and far right is this :
left: communist-lite policies. Try to achieve the same aims as communists, trying to avoid the worst inefficiencies of that by having market-based policies, with judicious application of direct government intervention and regulation. Example: Obamacare.
right: laissez-faire policies. Try to achieve (mostly) the same aims as communists, doing as little as possible to achieve those aims. If something needs to be done at all, don't let the government do it itself.
far left: outright communist policy. Put the government in direct control of everything, and have a direct reporting chain into the government for everything that happens. Government intervention is the only thing allowed to exist.
far right: don't try to achieve anything at all using the state. Anarchism.
On this scale, Nazis fall under "far left". They never had the time to really get to full-blown communism but they made great progress in that direction.
Populism alone is not left-wing.
Your definition of left/right doesn't include aspects of the far right such as anti-labor measures (while calling themselves a "worker's party", the Nazis actually destroyed worker rights, which made them appealing to the industrial elite), and extreme racism. The Nazis also used the power of the state in a distinctly right-wing way: as a way to safeguard business and the property rights of the wealthy.
It keeps baffling me how offensive people find the idea that the far left was leaning towards racism and the far right was the more tolerant side of aisle during this period. Things change. Is this really so hard to imagine ? Everyone knows that the Vatican, for example, is very much for equality between races and has actually stood by this stance when politically inconvenient, just like they stand behind their (somewhat lunatic) anti-birth-control stand today. Given that, and the similar attitude of other religions, is it really so hard to believe that when public opinion turns racist (as I'm hoping people are still capable of realizing that it did), populist parties will turn with it, including leftist parties. Conservatives, as the name implies will be more constant, and will resist this change on both sides. Right now they're anti-immigration, because they're more so than the "big" left party, but not by much. That can change in a heartbeat, and if history is any guide, it will.
You know those old movies where you see rich women react to black people as if they were smelly insects ? Those movies are quite realistic and, like today, rich women are rather unlikely to be conservatives. Those people were part of the left. There was a time, not that long ago, when that was the norm, the social and popular thing to do. I bet most black adults can enlighten you to these facts if you're confused.
Everytime some range of immigrants starts lowering pay for a large group of workers, racism becomes popular, for obvious reasons. 1930 in Europe was like 2009, on the Mexican border, for people without a degree, only worse to the point where they actually feared starving to death on a regular basis (especially in Germany, where there were a few regions where there actually was starvation). Is it really so hard to comprehend that under those circumstances, sentiment will turn racist ? Doubly so given that the majority of taxes was going to foreignors ?
I'm willing to concede many points, for example:
- That some branches of the left can be "conservative" at times, if we define conservative to mean "staying with the satus quo". For example, if the status quo is a leftist society. Also, individual people may be conservative as a general attitude towards life, regardless of political ideologies.
- That some groups historically called leftists were so in name only, or had right-wing traits at the same time.
- That the more extremist left and right wing at times are cosmetically very similar, especially when their discourse is at its most strident.
But the Nazis were far-right, paying only lip service to worker's rights. Most Western entrepreneurs were also anti worker's rights, which is why they initially saw Nazis in a very good light. They were definitely not "more tolerant" than the left.
I do not consider the Vatican or the Church as right-wing organizations, by the way. More like conservatists, which I have already agreed is a more broad classification. There exist sub-groups within the Church which belong to the extreme right, of course.
Strange. I must have missed that when it came to
1) First and foremost, Che Guevara. Allow me to quote him
"The blacks, those magnificent examples of the African race who have maintained their racial purity thanks to their lack of an affinity with bathing, have seen their territory invaded by a new kind of slave: the Portuguese. And the two ancient races have now begun a hard life together, fraught with bickering and squabbles. Discrimination and poverty unite them in the daily fight for survival but their different ways of approaching life separate them completely: The black is indolent and a dreamer; spending his meager wage on frivolity or drink; the European has a tradition of work and saving, which has pursued him as far as this corner of America and drives him to advance himself, even independently of his own individual aspirations."
Clearly being a racist murderous bastard does not preclude any leftist credentials. I would argue that if you checked the newspapers in the 1930's and 1950's-60's-70's you will find that similar reverence existed in the left for Hitler (up till July 1941, guess what happened at that moment), and Stalin, even when it was known that Soviets did the extermination camp thing.
Other examples that come to mind
2) the Soviets (against Jews, homosexuals, tatars, ...)
3) The open racism of Egypts various socialist government parties (religious, sexist and ethnic). Most glaringly, the left's support for the arab spring even when it got taken over by the muslim brotherhood, who is not merely racist, but genocidally so.
More generally, you'll see a lot of examples of this in the middle east.
4) The open racism in China, before (and even during) the latest pro-pseudo-capitalism era. And yes, this was while China was doing the Nepal thing.
Again, not just China, but a lot of Asian countries enjoyed this leftist support.
So forgive me for stating the obvious here : the left has a specific agenda, and is certainly willing to accept open racism in people it reveres, racist policies and even racist genocides to some extent, as long as they advance the cause.
I am more of a European-style leftist (meaning I find the democrats nowhere near the centre of the political spectrum), but I have very few illusions on this. I have been a party member at one time (student days ...) and after a while I was forced to conclude that while, yes, it was far-fetched that these people would ever be given the chance for genocide, but
1) there was a (granted, small) group always talking about it. Mostly about Jews and/or Israel
2) after a while I started to believe them.
3) these people were not just tolerated, but actually had high status. Some were part of the "core" of the party.
4) obviously, most people in the party were very much opposed to actually implementing this. Unlike this loud group however, they were not willing to sacrifice anything for that.
I won't discuss China, the Soviet Union, Che Guevara (where is that quote from, btw?) or anything of the sort here. It simply is not possible or suitable to debate this in a forum like hackernews. Call it a cop out if you want :)
However, I'll say I disagree with your fundamental assertion, that the Left is willing to tolerate open racism when it suits their needs. Racism stands directly against what the Left stands for. Of course corrupted leftist movements, often leftist in name only, are free to forget leftist ideals, just as religious organizations sometimes forget their founding principles.
But let me place emphasis on this: if a leftist movement turns racist, this is a serious contradiction that must be pointed out. If a rightwing movement is racist, there is no contradiction and its intended audience will applaud it; racism and discrimination are cornerstones of rightwing thought. It is a mistake for a leftist movement to tolerate a racist ally when it would temporarily help heir cause, but this is never a mistake for a rightwing movement because racism is often part of its core ideology.
By this definition, which I think is mainstream, it's impossible to consider the Nazis a far left movement. I believe there is an ideological intent to conflate the two extremes, left and right, which says less about them than about the people doing the conflating...
That wasn't the point I was trying to make.
And after re-reading, I'm pretty sure that wasn't the point I actually made. In fact I tried to make it pretty clear with the last sentence.
But perhaps it would be simpler to note that the Nazis were not simply a left wing group without confusing substantiation.
My point was that by figuring out whether the Nazis were left or right wing nothing is learned. There are left wing and right wing democracies and there are left and right wing dictatorships. Left wing governments have killed a lot of people and so have right wing governments.
Both the extreme left and the extreme right are very much opposed to unions. Ergo making a difference between them on that basis seems impossible.
It worked on the other side of the fence as well : Nazi Germany restricted or outlawed trade and business organisation just as it did it unions. They went after the Church too. They restriced universities. They replaced or otherwise forced the management of large businesses to do their bidding too. Hell, they went after a number of soccer clubs.
And the Soviets did the same. Slightly different order, with the emphasis placed slightly differently, but the same result.
In general I'd say that extreme left and extreme right are both totalitarian ideologies and will not allow any form of authority or power to reside in any organisation other than their own. Left or right merely determines the order and the emphasis.
Failing said state, it would require a very sizeable majority of the whole mass of people to simply switch over all at once, and again, somehow defend that new order from warlords and parasites.
But the propaganda that Stalinism is actually what socialism stands for was in the interest of both sides of the cold war, and we live with this "repeat-until-its-true" legacy today.
Modern American conservatism, especially lately, is almost exclusively the boring and literal type of conservatism--the type that talks about traditional values and the merits of the status quo and says "no" to all these new liberal initiatives, ranging from gay marriage to Obamacare. It doesn't have the desire to overthrow the existing order of things, nor the ideological fervor to know what to do if it did.
Sure, there are branches of Conservative thoughts that intersect with National Socialism, but the very same thing can be said about social liberalism.
In reality, however, neither side -- left or right -- in America is that close to the ideas of National Socialism.
To suggest otherwise is either genuine ignorance or a weak attempt to score political points.
...
> False equivalence is a logical fallacy which describes a situation where there is a logical and apparent equivalence, but when in fact there is none. It would be the antonym of the mathematical concept of material equivalence.
...
> A common way for this fallacy to be perpetuated is one shared trait between two subjects is assumed to show equivalence, especially in order of magnitude
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence
The party that attracts militias is probably not the same as the one that attracts pacifists.
I was about to upvote you when I read this. Please don't be so anally frustrated in the future.