Socialism (Moved from Grapes of Wrath)

If you don't want to have the benefits of community thats fine, it's easy to opt out.

Socialism became a reality because of right wing attitudes. Freedom of capitalism was a reality in Victorian england, it gave those who wished to impose their freedom to enslave others the freedom to do so.
Children working down mines or in the cotton mills, 14 hour shifts for minimal wages. Living in slums, while their masters had grand houses, full of servants. This is the reality of capitalism and if you think we should return to those days your greatly mistaken. We fought long and hard to have representation and the ability to fight for our rights. If you only respect the power of the individual then you should celebrate the fact that unions and socialist governments have gained and demanded this freedom. Its only because democratic socialism gives the capitalist certain freedoms that the rich are not taxed more than they are.

As for your pitiful attempt at turning the right wing nazis into a left wing sociaslist party, please dont insult others intelligence.Ive never heard so much nonsense.

So what if I am an island don't want to serve the community, and merely want it to leave me alone?



Thanks.



Would someone explain me how the Nazis were right wing.
Left wing means the government having great control, which specifically is the case for the Nazis.
Right wing means the government being denied great control, the exact opposite of National Socialism.
If you define right and left differently, please elaborate.

Communism is a different flavor of the same general thing, left wing extremism (where socialism is a less extreme leftism, so your last sentence is correct, Zetetic, even if it's a detail).As for example Islamo-fascism is too.
They are all utopian visions of a perfect totalitarian society - the muslim holy state, the master race or the workers paradise.
But they are basically the same thing, in contrast to the idea of the right, where the state is denied the power.

Fascism and Marxist-Leninism grew out of the rapid industrialization and modernization Central Europe, where communities living in tightly bonded families suddenly got shattered and the sons and fathers went off to the urban areas. Young men in particular lost a sense of identity, rootedness, and personal dignity that had been provided by traditional social structures. In that vacuum, along came Hitler and Lenin, who told these young men that they had an answer for their feelings of dislocation and humiliation: You may not be in the village or small town anymore, but you are still proud, dignified members of a larger community-the working class, or the Aryan nation.
Bin Laden offered the same sort of ideological response for young Arabs and Muslims.
(From: The World is Flat.)



What are those right wing attitudes? Don't large crowds chanting "Sieg Heil" seem collectivist to you? Doesn't dying for the fatherland serve the community?

The Nazis and communists did not fight each others in one of the bloodiest clashes in human history because they are political adversaries, but because that is the nature of left wing governments.

Actually, the justification was very much based on the political ideology of the fascists, who believed the communists had taken advantage of the condition caused by the 'injustice of liberal democracy'.

From wikipedia:

The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi Party) ruled Germany from 1933 until 1945. After Benito Mussolini's successful March on Rome in 1922, German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler grew to admire him, and soon the Nazis presented themselves as a German version of Italian Fascism.[214][215] Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's chief propagandist, credited Italian Fascism with starting a conflict against liberal democracy, saying,
[INDENT] The march on Rome was a signal, a sign of storm for liberal-democracy. It is the first attempt to destroy the world of the liberal-democratic spirit[...] which started in 1789 with the storm on the Bastille and conquered one country after another in violent revolutionary upheavals, to let... the nations go under in Marxism, democracy, anarchy and class warfare..."[216]
[/INDENT] Following the Italians' example, the Nazis attempted a "March on Berlin" to topple the Weimar Republic, which they characterised as "Marxist" (in reality, it was social democratic).[216] A month after Mussolini had risen to power, amid claims by the Nazis that they were equivalent to the Italian fascists, Hitler's popularity in Germany began to grow, and large crowds began to attend Nazi rallies. The newspaper Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger featured a front page article about Hitler, saying "There are a lot of people who believe him to be the German Mussolini".[214]


Now, in political science, it is often recognized that the political spectrum is in reality a continuum:



This is a bit crude, but it give the general idea. So right meets left where fascism meets communism. Fascist propaganda is often reminiscent of very strong social conservatism. A call for nationalist spirit often flows from a call for patriotism that turns rabid. The 'right' you speak of has become a hybrid of the social conservatism of the past and the current trend toward libertarian philosophy. These two facets are ultimately incompatible if one wants to make social issues part of policy. Social issues have to remain in the realm of opinion with no laws relating to them in a libertarian society.

Nero do you get your garbage collected?

Do you understand that Hitler and Stalin had the same ruthless intentions and that democratic socialism has no relationship to either of them.

Do you know the difference between left and right politics?

So what do we do with the deserted handicapped child ? What do we do with fool who has fallen in the river? What do we do with our heart when the floods takes the uninsured home.

I know as an individual with no faith to guide me, reach out my hand as far as it will stretch and give it to my neighbour.I in all honesty have no understanding of those who are so short sighted they can not see their own demise and have the need of their fellow man.

There are two problems: efficiency and individual freedom, that make the two sides incompatible. The first can be solved, we can decide what system appears to be the most efficient given a sufficiently solid definition of what we mean by efficiency, and what we hope to achieve.

Individual freedom/responsibility is problematic. When can the collective impose its will on the individual, and to what degree? Surely most would agree that laws against murder and rape are necessary; but what about drug use or prostitution, what about offensive or inflammatory speech or actions that dramatically increase the risk of negative consequences? Can preventative laws be justified on the basis of statistics alone? How does one avoid reaching the utilitarian ideal: The greatest good to the greatest number? Such an ideal can easily lead to unsavory outcomes.

What about the decision to use the government as a means of forced charity? Certainly most would agree that a safety net for those who legitimately fall on hard times is good, but why is this considered necessary? Obviously there is some doubt that many would give voluntarily to a nonprofit non mandatory safety net. So should we make them give, or should it be voluntary? What about a program that one can pay into voluntarily (a type of insurance) that will give one a sense of security? Well, this has of course been tried in Social Security and has shown itself to be defunct; or has it? Is it not the case that Social Security has been poorly run? Could it not be that it could be run better? What is needed is an efficiently run, reliable, safety net. Social Security was not voluntary, there was maximum payout, it was mismanaged. Some think that privatizing it would help, some think that a reworking could be feasible without privatization. The problem here boils down to efficiency; if we make the pay-in voluntary and the pay-out available only to those who pay in, in theory we should have a safety net for those who have worked hard but fallen on tough times.

But, what if they were not earning much? What if they could not afford to pay in the first place? Were they handicapped? There is much government support in place for the handicapped and mentally deficient. Could they not find a decent job? There are many vocational rehabilitation facilities out there. Surely the lazy will be left to rot, but if there are no others, we have achieved what we wanted; to allow those who have simply fallen on hard times a second chance or safety net. The question is; did we leave anyone out who might be in an unfair position? Are our rehabilitation facilities not sufficient? Are our fail safes for the severely handicapped not enough? Surely they can be made to be more efficient?

Well, I have provided the stimulus for further discussion. Take it or leave it.

Government is rarely efficient. The only reason for giving the elites more power is that the elites want more power.
Several techniques are used to doup the populace into accepting control.
Helping the downtrodden, efficiency, equality... all those are merely catchphrases to get the people to give up their freedom.
Once that is accomplished there is no reason for the elites to still provide the good services they promised.
For example a company does not keep the low prices after it drove it's competitors out of business by having low prices. Once it has a monopoly it can raise prices.

So your stance can be summarized as fundamentally mistrustful? And why should we trust strangers with power? You would restrict those who have power from taking advantage of those who don't.

Yes exactly.
That is in my view the definition of a right-winger. Someone who wants a political system that limits the abilities of the power hungry (not so much the politicians we see on TV, but the rich elites behind them), by a constitution for example.
And I see a left-winger as someone who will accept control over the rest of us for some reason or the other.
(For example promises of it working more efficiently, this or that group being helped, groups that are branded as having acquired their assets by unfair means being punished, etc.)
Of course the power hungry do all in their might to convince us that their rule will be beneficial. Socialism is a transition period in that direction.

That's why I say the Nazis were left-wing extremists. A tiny group of leaders was allowed to do what it wished, including the holocaust and a world war, only limited by what they didn't wish to do, not by a constitution.
Usually when we let the power hungry have their way it will have such horrific consequences.

You are distorting the facts to fit your opinions. The Nazis held a certain class of its population as superior to others,socialist dont. It employed slaves as its work force, socialist dont. Now dont refer to communist Russia as it does not represent socialism, just as Hitlers Germany does not represent capitalism.

Right wing politics puts corporate business and the elite of the country above the needs of the individual or the majority of society. When corporate companies can alter governments direction and its policies over the general benefit of its population, thats right wing politics.

The left/right dichotomy is a pointless herring.

The left/right dichotomy is a pointless herring.

No more so than any other distinction, and just as much as any other.

Somebody picks whether they are left or right and then uses the other term as a derogatory title, says "evil person/idealogy" was the other term, and so on.

EmperorNero would be very rightist.

My scale depends on just how much one wants to change the status quo, basically. The more one wishes for radical overhaul, the more one stands to the left, the more one favors tradition, the more one stands to the right.