I wanted to respond to a commenter here by linking to an earlier post, but found that I had actually only mentioned this at Half Sigma’s. Anyway, the quote comes from Mark Blyth’s contribution to this seminar on Sheri Berman’s book “The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Making of Europe’s Twentieth Century”, on page 15:
Indeed, some very interesting paradoxes emerge in this way of thinking [about fascists and social democrats both being mass-based "people's parties"]. For example, whereas the Nazis taxed capital heavier than workers for the sake of redistribution, the Swedish SAP taxed the workers more heavily than the capitalists. Similarly, while corporatist policy making is seen as quintessentially ‘social democratic’ the true innovators here were the fascist parties. Labor may not have had ‘free collective bargaining’ under such arrangements, but neither did employers have the whip hand. The fact that 95 percent of Germans benefited from Nazi policies shows not just its base of support, but fascism’s essential similarity to the social democratic project of improving the lives of ‘the people’ as a whole.
July 21, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Everything appealing to the masses- including capitalism- has more similarities than differences.
July 21, 2011 at 7:47 pm
Actual social democrats would no doubt take serious umbrage with the idea that fascism was ever about the people, even if it was about 95% of them. Of course in reality every kind of policy meant to improve the lives of ordinary folks will not only miss some, but positively push others into a worse position through some unforeseen consequence. But the difference was that fascists make explicit negative effects for some group, whereas with social democrats it’s more often implied (this article iSteve sort of illustrates what I’m talking about).
The most salient characteristics of ‘the other’ depends on one’s ideology. Nothing is more paramount for the modern left vis-a-vis the Nazis than their unabashed racism; their political-economic similarity to the workings of the modern welfare state means little to nothing.
July 21, 2011 at 11:36 pm
I think militarism/nationalism is important. The Nazis really seem somewhat outliers among European fascists in their focus on racial issues. I also think over the decades racial issues have played a larger part in our present-view of the period. As Charles Lindbergh noted before Pearl Harbor, many of the allied powers could hardly boast of their own racial track record. I forget who Chip Smith cites, but he noted that in the immediate post-war period there was more focus on Dachau, the camp for political prisoners, and comparatively little attention to Auschwitz, for racial extermination.
July 23, 2011 at 7:11 am
How bad is militarism? In our present situation in the US, it seems like a pop bias that results in a lot of financial waste. But it has also been portrayed at times as one of those things that move the animal spirits. Is militarism something to be optimized or something to be minimized -I’m interested in good faith analysis.
July 23, 2011 at 7:39 am
If it should be minimized, wouldn’t that make the optimal minimal?
July 23, 2011 at 10:17 am
I didn’t overlook that, I thought that implication was fucking obvious.
July 23, 2011 at 11:30 am
Which is why I was surprised it was presented as a dichotomy.
July 23, 2011 at 1:17 pm
I thought it was a natural and not epistemologically distorted framing.
There seems to me to be a lack of clarity if militarization is a pure drain on a population’s productivity, or if there is an optimal nonzero distribution. I think you’re pushing in the “100 footnotes to every comment” direction which isn’t my preferred way to generate good faith discussion (although I suppose it’s usually better than no response at all).
July 24, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Ok, let’s leave it at that.
July 30, 2011 at 11:06 am
For lack of a better recent post to put this in:
” Most likely, political leadership just demands a level of cognitive dissonance and self-justification that normal people can’t muster.”
Great quote from author of “When affirmative action was white” via a recent yglesias post.
One of my major shifts in perspective over the last couple decades after leading people and managing resources in my own small way is- I have a lot more respect for people and organizations with dirty hands yet pass cost benefit analysis for their contributions than for people and organizations that have a lower hypocricy or self-enrichment score yet have put less in to our fragile enterprise of survival and enlightentment.
July 30, 2011 at 1:56 pm
The post H.A is referring to is here.
September 7, 2011 at 6:35 pm
[...] In the comments to my previous post, TGGP wrote: Communism involves state ownership of the means of production, Nazis had no problem with redistributive taxation. [...]