:
: : Doc: Not if you were the "Aryan" working class (thus, ‘national’ socialism - a socialism that exploited a race, rather than an economic group, in the name of the ‘people’)...: Are you actually suggesting that the Nazi state did NOT exploit the (German) working class?
: Give me an hour at the public library and I'll BURY you in citations...
Doc: They would most likely date after 1942. The Nazi movement was highly popular amongst the German people - so long as they were winning. Even after their defeat, the triumphant Allies (Bolshevik and Capitalist) were very nervous about a Nazi resurgence amongst the begrudging populance. Thus, the Marshall Plan ("Us") and the Stasi ("Them").
:
: : There may be problems with capitalist economies, but getting an eager workforce together is not one of them.
: I know. Starvation and homelessness really bring out the best in people! (Doc: Actually, no. This is why capitalism is so popular of course, and why, for example, the benefits of Chinese economic planning systems needed the imposition of armed troops to convince the Tibetians of their necessity. Or the Chinese, for that matter. People don’t seem to be homeless and starving in Singapore.)
: : The SR was done away with during [Lenin's] tenure...
: The SR were NOT socialists, they were Cadet supporters. (Doc: Ahh…)
: : Doc: One can hardly call a Mafia protection racket ‘capitalism’...
: I called it a TAX on capitalism. Without the capitalists, the Nazis would have lost their income!
Doc: In that case, socialism is a TAX on capitalism …
: : The only difference between the property-takings of the Bolsheviks and those of the Nazis...
: ...were the Bolsheviks took property from the RICH and gave it to the POOR (the poor being the Bolshevik leadership - thus, the ‘collective farm’) ---whereas the Nazis simply decreased Dept. 2 output in favor of accelerating Dept. 1 output (Dept. 1 being headed by loyal Nazi functionaries).
: (Since you've read Capital, you'll be more than familiar with those terms...)
Doc: I have read Orwell’s 1984 as well. Most informative.
: B.S.: As Isaac Deutscher observed:
: Other points:
: B.S.: In Marxist 'mythology,' the proletariat is VERY FIT.
: Doc: How can this be, if capitalists only allows the proletariat enough to survive on, and work?
: Dialectics, Doc. (Doc: Of course. Dialectics explain everything, do they not? Even non-sequitors …)
: (I'm due to get up a post on THAT subject, eh?) *Feel free.*
: Doc: Technology and mechanized production methods has made the sweatshop obsolescent...
: B.S.: The sweatshop is obsolescent?
: : Yes, as is obvious to anyone who lives on the East coast, where scores of empty ‘sweatshops’ dot the landscape. Such institutions have migrated to the poorer areas of the world, and will likely inevitably be replaced by more mechanized means of production in the future.
: That negates my point? What are you, an isolationist? Exploitation is STILL THERE even if YOUR backyard has been tidied up. (Doc: It has not been ‘tidied up’. It has been developed; thus "First World". Which is, of course, my point.)
: : If misery is the only lure for those who make sneakers, dress chickens, and sew clothing, WHO keeps them at their machines? The capitalist Gestapo?
: Capitalists don't need a Gestapo to bring labor crawling to them. Simply owning a monopoly on ALL means of production (and a police force to protect that!) will do the trick. Again, starvation and homelessness do capital's dirty work---inconspicuously.
Doc: True, but not in the way you describe. Starvation and homelessness do the ‘dirty work’ for the agricultural industry, housing market, and technology in the same way.
If I might have a meal and a house easier in a capitalist rather than a socialist system, it isn’t hard to see what my inevitable choice would be politically. In the case of pre-war Germany, the Nazis were seen as the ‘best’ choice. The production of Volkswagons is a concrete example of the Nazi’s attention to the needs and desires of the working classes of ethnic Germans, a group with which they had the greatest support from. This fact didn’t make them any less bastards, nor does it speak any better for the Bolsheviks.
:
: ... And what's up with that Faludi bit, Doc? If Al Capone said he was a capitalist and a patriot, would you believe HIM?
Doc: Someone has not perused Backlash. Perhaps I was expecting too much …
The Evil One
