@Herr:
So your argument is, is that when you flip a coin because one side is heads, the other side has to be tails?
I see your point, but I have to disagree. The Nazis were far from being capitalist (Hitler raged against capitalism as much as he raged against Communism). The government would pay for cars and vacations as an incentive for the people to work more. Volkswagen “the people’s car” is the best example of that. A heavy handed government is a sign of the left, whether it be good or bad. Who wouldn’t want a paid for car and vacation? I won’t go into detail about the evils communism and national socialism, I am sure everyone here knows them.
I probably should have explained my idea a little better. My point was not that the nazis were ardent capitalists - in fact, I agree with you that the weren’t. My point was simply that because communism was considered “left”, people started to think of their opponents as “right”, regardless of their social-economic politics. But doing so, is probably just lazy thinking.
Suppose, as a thought experiment, that there would have been no prominent communist movement in Germany during the interbellum years, and that instead, the opposition to nazism by the old Prussian aristocracy and other conservative forces would have been much stronger. In that case, those opponents would have been though of as “right”, and it’s entirely possible that people would have considered the nazis “left”.
In the end, the whole left-right distinction is just not enough to define all possibilities in politics.
Other than Goering who was a WW1 war hero, the Nazis were a bunch of rabble. Failed artists hobos and chicken farmers hardly constitute Prussian aristocracy. But going with your thought experiment… you prove my point. The Nazis were the left, but I disagree that a Prussian king was the right. Heavy handed government whether it be a king, president, czar, or whatever title you want to give it is a sign of the leftist politics.
King Solomon even though he was blessed by God with wisdom (and was kind) was on the left side of politics, he ruled unilaterally.
In that case, we seem to be in disagreement about what primarily defines “right” and “left” in politics. In my opinion, it’s primarily about socio-economics: the choice a society can make to either allow unrestricted capitalism, or impose checks and balances aimed at a more egalitarian situation. Of course, the more checks and balances you have, the more government you’ll need. So “big government” tends to be a symptom of left-wing policy, but I don’t see it as a defining factor.
As to the rulers of earlier centuries…. they were simply the people who held the power. The existence of an aristocracy is in itself neither right-wing nor left-wing, but throughout history, the ruling class has more often associated itself with the rich and powerful than with the working poor and their interests. So I tend to place them on the right side of the political arena.
Heavy handed government whether it be a king, president, czar, or whatever title you want to give it is a sign of the leftist politics.
Monarchies are by definition right-wing. It doesn’t matter if they are heavy-handed or laissez-faire.
CWO Marc makes the most accurate analogy: left/right is roughly equivalent to egalitarian/stratified.
The closest humanity has come to a far-left society in practice have been hunter-gatherers.
One might argue that left-wing policies are created in response to unrestricted capitalism. The Great Depression was not really limited to the US. Germany was facing very difficult economic times and my understanding is that part of the reason Hitler was able to gin up hatred at the Jewish folks was they were involved or perceived to be involved with much of the banking foreclosures German citizens were experiencing.
My understanding is the National Socialists were in many ways “industry friendly.”
In any sense that they might have been nationalizing industry like we might take as “communist” it was so the “right” (pun intended) private citizen might make a lot of money. I have to join the chorus that “right” and “left” aren’t particularly useful when talking about all of this.
The national socialists considered themselves right-wing.� While their agenda was populist, radical, revolutionary, it’s also anti-left and explicitly opposed to the (left-wing) socialists and communists.� Fascists adopted marching and sloganeering tactics from the left but their message was aimed at persuading right-wingers, monarchists, religious believers, etc, who weren’t interested in communism or socialism.
When you look at the electoral history of the period, as they rose the Nazis took the most votes from the Nationalists and National Liberals (eg, conservative, protestant, capitalist funded) as well as the Center (Catholic).� People who formerly supported these right-leaning parties converted to national socialism.
The Nazis eventually formed a coalition with Nationalist and Center politicians.� As far as I’m aware, the Nazis didn’t form working relationships with “left” parties like the SPD, KPD etc.
They were “right-wing” within their own context–perhaps many aspects of the 30s would be considered “left-wing” by the MSM today.
The 30s were a period of bureaucratic collectivism worldwide–all Western governments of the period shared some common features, from right-wing to left-wing to any-wing.� Nazi Germany was particularly barbaric but Stalin set the stage for it.
‘Left/right’ designations more accurately refer to cultural attitudes than economic philosophy.� Attitudes towards religion, morality, tradition, authority etc.� The Nazis did not present themselves as “secular” the way a leftist party would.
I am going to go back to my comparison of both being gangs. The Crips and Bloods may hate each other, but they are pretty much the same. Hatred of Communism may have led to a lot of Germans to follow the Nazis, but I still maintain that there was little difference (if any) between Communism and National Socialism. A lot of the arguments I am reading are more about semantics of “How people viewed it”. The real question is “what was it really?”
I am sure that every Death’s Head SS officer viewed himself as some kind of saint while he committed unspeakable atrocities. Just because that was his point of view, that doesn’t make it so, much less give justification for what he did.
There is some justification for that generalization, given that the communists and nazis borrowed alot from each other and both sides (being basically militarist and authoritarian) tended to put the orders/authority of leaders above principle. Both sides considered themselves at war and at war principle is sacrificed to strategy. However, this tends to go on alot in history–for example while the United States and the Soviet Union were in competition with each other they borrowed alot from each other (as authentic competitors are wont to do…).
Anyway, there were real ideological differences between the communists and national socialists on the issues of family, race, constitutional right, nation, Versailles, Jews, economic organization, labor organization, and many others. While it doesn’t help us to take left/right designations overly literally, it also doesn’t really help us to gloss over these real, and not merely apparant, differences.
Other than Goering who was a WW1 war hero, the Nazis were a bunch of rabble. Failed artists hobos and chicken farmers hardly constitute Prussian aristocracy. But going with your thought experiment… you prove my point. The Nazis were the left, but I disagree that a Prussian king was the right. Heavy handed government whether it be a king, president, czar, or whatever title you want to give it is a sign of the leftist politics.
King Solomon even though he was blessed by God with wisdom (and was kind) was on the left side of politics, he ruled unilaterally.
The thing is, the press organs of the time were already “left” or “right”. Rightist media (such as the empire of Hugenberg, who was more or less the Murdoch of his generation) supported and allied itself with Hitler. Left-wing media castigated and hated Hitler. Eg you can understand the ‘left’ and ‘right’ camps of this period when you understand the division of German society into 2 camps–those who supported the new Weimar government (or those, like Communists, who wanted a socialist revolution) and those who opposed it (or those, like Nazis, who wanted to overthrow liberalism utterly). Weimar Germany (like 1930s Spain) was a deeply polarized society.
The kind of authoritarian/anti-authoritarian or big government/small government dichotomies favored among American libertarians had little relevance to German politics in the 30s. The closest thing to a classical liberal party in 1930s Germany would be the Democrat party that supported the Weimar constitution and allied itself to the Social Democrats. Mises himself had a right-wing orientation and was sympathetic to the fascists but he also had no place in the politics of the time, given that he opposed the cultural and economic interventionism practiced by his right-wing Catholic allies. In general, classical liberals were just as unwelcome in Nazi circles as in Communist circles.
Heavy handed government whether it be a king, president, czar, or whatever title you want to give it is a sign of the leftist politics.
Monarchies are by definition right-wing. It doesn’t matter if they are heavy-handed or laissez-faire.
CWO Marc makes the most accurate analogy: left/right is roughly equivalent to egalitarian/stratified.
The closest humanity has come to a far-left society in practice have been hunter-gatherers.
I don’t agree with that at all, and I would argue the closest humanity has gotten to the true far left is the Amish (in an idealistic sense).
I maintain that heavy handed government is what defines the left. Hands off economics is what defines the right. Whatever the policy may be, it should be viewed in that way. I am not advocating for either extreme, I am just pointing out that that is what they are. A monarchy is to the left, the government has control. It is not a socio-economic question. North Korea has what is basically a king, although they are communists, and I don’t think anyone would confuse Kim Jong for Rand Paul.
To play devil’s advocate, you could say this country is far right in that lobbyist have such a huge influence on how our government works. That is the private sector having a lot of control over the government. Or to look at it another way, our government has taken to bailing out companies that are “too big to fail” which is direct meddling of the government in the private sector which would be far left.
My point being is that left and right is measured by the amount of control a society is willing to allow its government to have. If that is the case Nazi Germany and the USSR were both far left.
John Gill: “Most efficient state…Earth ever knew”
Spock: “Quite true, Captain. A tiny country…beaten…bankrupt…defeated…rose in a few years to stand one step away from global domination!”
—Star Trek TOS “Patterns of Force”
I really don’t think I could argue the point.
I’m not sure that the left and the right can be defined simply in terms of whether they are in favour of big government or opposed to it. It could be argued that there are actually four possibilities: big-government societies of the left, small-government societies of the left, big-government societies of the right and small-government societies of the right.
Societies of the left are theoretically equalitarian: according to their doctrine, the ideal state of affairs is one in which everyone is on the same level, with nobody in a position of privilege over anyone else. Societies of the right are theoretically elitist: according to their doctrine, the ideal state of affairs is one in which everyone occupies a place within a vertically stratified society that corresponds to their personal degree of merit (or lack thereof) or luck (or lack thereof). Big-government societies tend to be what exist in the real world, particularly in large nation-states. Small-government societies tend to exist mostly on paper, in the writings of political and economic theorists; where they exist in the real world, it tends to be only in social entities that are much smaller than nation-states.
A small-government and genuinely equalitarian society of the left would be a “commune” in the true sense of the word (as opposed to what the USSR was, namely a big-government society of the left). A small-government society of the right would correctly be described as a libertarian one, not necessarily as a conservative one. Libertarians and conservatives (using those terms for purposes of convenience; there may be better ones available) may both be fine with the concept of a vertically-stratified society, but they differ on the role that government should play in society. In the libertarian view, government should not interfere with individuals; ideally, in fact, there should be little or no government at all. Conservatives, by contrast, are open to the existence of bigger governments that the libertarian view permits; in this respect, conservative views overlap to some extent with those of the centre and the left. Where these views differ is on the subject of what government should be used for – an example being the tendency of the left to be seen as pro-labour (and of actively working in support of that agenda when it’s in power) and of the right to be seen as pro-business (and of actively working in support of that agenda when it’s in power). A libertarian would probably argue that government shouldn’t be pro-anything – certainly not pro-labour, but not even pro-business.
John Gill: “Most efficient state…Earth ever knew”
Spock: “Quite true, Captain. A tiny country…beaten…bankrupt…defeated…rose in a few years to stand one step away from global domination!”
     —Star Trek TOS “Patterns of Force”
I really don’t think I could argue the point.Â
Nazi Germany was in fact a very badly organized state – a mass of uncordinated, competing interests and petty political and economic satrapies of Byzantine complexity. And this was quite deliberate, since Hitler’s preferred style of ruling was to play all of his subordinates against each other and to make sure none of them had too much individual power. The only centralized element of the regime was Hitler himself, and this too proved to be counterproductive since his behaviour was erratic and his military talents marginal at best. If Nazi Germany had actually been well managed, it would have been a lot more dangerous than was the case historically.
My ultimate question is what constitutes Nazis being extreme right wing, and the Soviets being extreme left wing? I guess it is a political question after all, but I want to keep it to the WW2 era.
One significant difference was that the Nazis were extreme nationalists while the Communists were internationalists.
Nationalism largely supplanted monarchism as the defining metric of the “right” during that era.
Left and right is a bad way to compare/contrast political systems either in theory or practice anyways because there is much more nuance to politics than a single axis.
@CWO:
John Gill: “Most efficient state…Earth ever knew”
Spock: “Quite true, Captain.� A tiny country…beaten…bankrupt…defeated…rose in a few years to stand one step away from global domination!”
� � � � � —Star Trek TOS “Patterns of Force”
I really don’t think I could argue the point.�
Nazi Germany was in fact a very badly organized state – a mass of uncordinated, competing interests and petty political and economic satrapies of Byzantine complexity. And this was quite deliberate, since Hitler’s preferred style of ruling was to play all of his subordinates against each other and to make sure none of them had too much individual power. The only centralized element of the regime was Hitler himself, and this too proved to be counterproductive since his behaviour was erratic and his military talents marginal at best. If Nazi Germany had actually been well managed, it would have been a lot more dangerous than was the case historically.
Oh…im not saying the Nazi state was organized…but it was very efficient at what it did, even though it was brutal, perverted and had to be destroyed at a terrible cost.
Oh…im not saying the Nazi state was organized…but it was very efficient at what it did, even though it was brutal, perverted and had to be destroyed at a terrible cost.
I’d give it very mixed marks when it comes to efficiency, depending on which aspects of “what it did” are examined. Here are two examples, from many that could be picked.
The military campaign waged by Germany in the Low Countries and France was generally speaking very efficient: well planned, well conducted, and achieving impressive results at at comparatively low cost. The whole campaign only took about six weeks, only cost the Germans about 160,000 casualties, and left Germany in direct (or proxy) control of France and the Low Countries. As a comparison, Britain suffered 60,000 casualties in a single day at the Battle of the Somme in WWII, and by the end of the five-month battle they had only advanced about six miles.
By contrast, Germany’s overall military industrial effort was grossly inefficient. It lacked central coordination; it built far too many models of operational military hardware (instead of concentrating on just a few key types); it wasted time and resources developing a plethora of prototypes that never saw combat (and which were in some cases conceptually dubious right from the start); it produced weapons which were far too fussy and exacting in their specifications, and thus which took a long time to build and which were difficult to maintain in the field; it cranked out a completely inadequate ratio of spare parts relative to completed units (thus making repairs even harder to carry out), and so forth.
I am kinda surprised no one has linked to one of these graphics yet, but I guess this is the nature of the argument here.
This what I would call the Ideological scale in showing what left and right mean:
This one gives the popular Political interpretation of left and right, which is accepted for the contemporary purpose it serves, but makes things confusing when you are trying to reconcile both interpretations (ignore the positioning of American political parties):
I also found this one which attempts to merge the two interpretations by wrapping the scale with some breaks at the anarchy point. Don’t really agree with it, but it tries:
@CWO:
I’m not sure that the left and the right can be defined simply in terms of whether they are in favour of big government or opposed to it. It could be argued that there are actually four possibilities: big-government societies of the left, small-government societies of the left, big-government societies of the right and small-government societies of the right.
Societies of the left are theoretically equalitarian: according to their doctrine, the ideal state of affairs is one in which everyone is on the same level, with nobody in a position of privilege over anyone else. Societies of the right are theoretically elitist: according to their doctrine, the ideal state of affairs is one in which everyone occupies a place within a vertically stratified society that corresponds to their personal degree of merit (or lack thereof) or luck (or lack thereof). Big-government societies tend to be what exist in the real world, particularly in large nation-states. Small-government societies tend to exist mostly on paper, in the writings of political and economic theorists; where they exist in the real world, it tends to be only in social entities that are much smaller than nation-states.
While I do agree with your interpretations, I would submit that the debate over definition here is over two different (but related) things. There are two different left vs right scales: Ideological scale and Political scale. Ideology being the ideas and theory of government and how it functions. Political being how that ideology is implemented. Neither scale is right or wrong, they just explain the same issue in a different manner.
In the second scale I linked to above (with the Nazis on the Right and Communists on the Left), I personally think that it should be altered to show anarchy in the center with the left-right ideologies extending from that common starting point. This could allow for the inclusion of smaller gov left and bigger gov left and smaller gov right and bigger gov right, as you were talking about Marc.
I am sorry but this argument that left = tyranny and right = liberty is absolutely ridiculous.
I guess I should just argue that the left = hates pizza and right = loves pizza.
I am sorry but this argument that left = tyranny and right = liberty is absolutely ridiculous.
I guess I should just argue that the left = hates pizza and right = loves pizza.
Depends if you are looking at the political or ideological (philosophy) scale. Politically that is not true, ideologically/philosophically it is.
You are missing my point.
Your “ideology” scale is just some conservative ideologues re-branding of the concept based on their biased interpretation of contemporary American politics.
It bears no relationship with where those terms originated (French revolution) or how the meaning evolved between then and now.
You are missing my point.
Your “ideology” scale is just some conservative ideologues re-branding of the concept based on their biased interpretation of contemporary American politics.
It bears no relationship with where those terms originated (French revolution) or how the meaning evolved between then and now.
No, I think you are missing mine. The scales reflect the current understanding of the terms or how they are used today… it is not supposed to show historical progression, that would be a timeline, not a scale.
The scales above are not limited to the interpretation of one nation. They are accurate representations of political and philosophical realities worldwide. Not sure how the graphical representations are biased… I did not create the above scales and I might not agree with all the pictures included, but in general they illustrate the concept.
From the link in Herr KaLeun’s earlier post:
"_During the French Revolution, the representatives who sat on the right side of the Legislative Assembly were supporters of the aristocracy and the monarchy. The people who sat of the left side of the Assembly chamber opposed the old order and supported the interests of the bourgeoisie or rising merchant class. The peasants did not vote and were not represented in the Assembly. Ironically, support for capitalism and free markets were considered to be Left-wing during this time period.
As time passed, the Left came to be identified with socialism and communism and was seen to support the concerns of the working class and the peasants. Capitalistic sympathies migrated to the Right. Those on the Left were no longer in support of laissez-faire capitalism. They supported social equality and felt that unregulated market places led to great inequality of income and wealth to the detriment of society._"
No, I think you are missing mine. The scales reflect the current understanding of the terms or how they are used today
I am only complaining about the top-chart.
It reflects a current understanding. I think that understanding is irrelevant to the OP because it is totally alien to the political climate of the 1930s and 1940s.
And it is biased because it calls the left tyranny. You don’t see how that is biased language?
No modern political ideology ever argued for “tyranny”.
