On May 14, 2:28 pm, FACE today.net> wrote:

The thing is, that "new brand of socialism" was fascism.

Mussolini foresaw that the path to power was to form an alliance with
industrialists, creating a merger between the interests of the state
and the interests of industry.

That's one of the main components of fascism, a merger between the
state in industry, and is one of the things (but not the only thing)
that makes it distinct from socialism.

Hitler took a similar path to power in Germany, and once the Nazis had
control he created a similar relationship between the state and
industry.

In Nazi Germany it was the states place to set national goals and
facilitate the need of industry. And, it was industry's place to
inform the government what it needed from government in the form of
legislation and international agreements so it could meet the goals
that the state had set.

Within their own spheres, each was supreme. Government had very
little power to dictate to industry.

You mentioned Speer in an earlier post. Go back and read what he says
about how little legal authority the German government had to compel
industry to do what it wanted. The relationship between the
government and industry was cooperative in nature.

In Socialistic states, it's quite the opposite, with governments
having a great deal of authority over industry.

Further, when one looks at what the Nazis did once they achieved
power, they created very few state programs that were socialistic in
nature and did away with many that were already in place.

Health care remained under they system that Bismark had created, tied
to the employer.

Workers were stripped of labor rights, and labor leaders who refused
to get with the Nazi program were sent to concentration camps.

The list goes on and on.

Even programs which on their face appear to be socialistic in nature,
weren't in reality. Many reference the "Milk for Mothers" program, in
which expectant women were given enhanced ration allowances to
encourage high fertility rates. It's would appear socialistic on the
surface, but in reality it was a program that was funded and operated
by the Nazi party, not by the German government which was a separate
and distinct entity from the Nazi party.

Others point to the Volkswagen factory that was built and believe that
it was a state venture. It wasn't. It was wholly owned by the Nazi
Party and was created in part to provide the Nazi party a source of
revenue that was independent from the industrialists. The labor camp
at Auschwitz was a similar venture for similar reasons that was owned
and operated by the SS, another organization that was separate and
distinct from the German government.

People who try and claim that Nazis were socialists typically have a
very poor understanding of the reality of the state/industry
relationship in Nazi Germany and latch onto what they believe are
similarities, no matter how superficial those similarities are.

As to Goldberg's book...

It's basically tripe that says socialism is responsible for all the
evils in the world, therefore Nazis must have been socialists because
Nazis were evil.

Either he has very little understanding of how Nazi Germany operated
in reality or he deliberately glosses over very real differences
between fascism and socialism.

Either way, it remains tripe and only rightards believe it.