Association Fallacy


The “Nazis were socialists” bunk started circulating again. First, this is a probably just a natural response for the right to take, based on the left’s insistence on calling everything we don’t like “fascist”. Honestly, this bit of anti-socialist propaganda is probably a sign of real momentum toward actual economic and social progress for all peoples. The opposition has nothing left but to play the dumb Nazi comparison. Association fallacy is often the weapon of the desperate and lazy mind.

Yes, the full name of the Nazi party translates to “The National Socialist German Workers Party,” but that still doesn’t mean they were actual socialists. You can call yourself whatever you want, but that doesn’t make it true. I know this is a hard idea for a lot of people to process. I work in a college town. All over town there are number of businesses with “campus” in their name. Everything from apartments to cleaners to pizza. Not a one of them has anything to do with the university. Yet, here at work, at the university, I still receive calls complaining about those businesses.

  • In the 20s and 30s, calling yourself “socialist” was the hip thing to do.
  • Marx defined history as the class struggle, Hitler defined history as a race war.
  • Nazi regime was solidly anti-Bolshevik and had a policy of crushing labor unions.
  • Industrialists made a lot of money under the regime.
  • Hitler was a corporatist.
  • Any coalition between labor and capital was only to prevent class war.
  • Any socialization of economy took place purely to generate profits to prepare for war.
  • Their economic policy moved on a pendulum, left to right, whatever was necessary to secure power and prepare for war.
  • Marx was ancestrally Jewish, so Hitler probably wasn't a fan.

And whatever socialist policies the regime that were socialist, still doesn't make them an actual socialist government. The US has plenty of socialist policies in place and we're not a socialist country by any means. 

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