What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

Debra's inflationary verbiage misses the point entirely - the previous discussion concerns the most successful privatizations of modern times....

ROFL. You, Ms "affirmative action baby" debralaw are now an expert on public-private-partnerships run by Hjalmar Schacht in the 1930's?

Do, pray, explain to us in as much detail as possible your qualifications, - quantitative, historical, economic, financial, political, of course all in German - in that particular realm, in addition of course to your previous inane interminable posts on Texas textbooks and segregationists, all wholly irrelevant btw, which you have recently posted on this thread, presumably in your delusional status as self-proclaimed legal eagle

Yes, and long since shown to be so heavily dependent on specific samples (non-random) as to be of doubtful practical utility - replicating results is fundamental to science, and that didn't happen here. Read e.g. the Supreme Court statistical analysis:
http://books.google.com/books?id=2GAgaV_htWQC&pg=PA152&lpg=PT151&ots=ezC_Dgs5oP&dq=integrative+complexity+cognitions&lr=#v=onepage&q=integrative%20complexity%20cognitions&f=false

Another great classic from a meltdown by a leftist! Is anyone here keeping track?!

okie wrote:

As ican points out, the actual practices of collectivism within the fascist idealogy I think clearly indicates it to be a leftist or socialistic brand of politics. Government nationalizing or controlling companies is a leftist philosophy

If you're interested in "actual practices of collectivism" and if you want to use the nationalisation and control of companies by the government as a yardstick to judge whether a particular government is right-wing or left-wing, you might be interested in reading this paper:

Quote:

AGAINST THE MAINSTREAM: NAZI PRIVATIZATION IN 1930S GERMANY

Abstract:
The Great Depression spurred State ownership in Western capitalist countries. Germany was no exception; the last governments of the Weimar Republic took over firms in diverse sectors. Later, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership and public services to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in the Western capitalist countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s. Privatization in Nazi Germany was also unique in transferring to private hands the delivery of public services previously provided by government. The firms and the services transferred to private ownership belonged to diverse sectors. Privatization was part of an intentional policy with multiple objectives and was not ideologically driven. As in many recent privatizations, particularly within the European Union, strong financial restrictions were a central motivation. In addition, privatization was used as a political tool to enhance support for the government and for the Nazi Party.

Oh sure, OE . . . try to ruin Okie's day with vile and unnecessary facts . . . sheesh . . .

I think you're fighting a losing battle here Okie. I know what you're suggesting, but our more liberal friends will never accept or even allow a discussion of it. I think some probably even mean well, but they seem to be unable to focus on or grasp a principle and discuss that at face value. They seem incapable of or at least unwilling to consider any form of abstract thought.

They will continue to insist on discussing vague historical principles apart from the concept or bring in unrelated interpretations or obfusicate with illustrations intended to negate any concept that they can't understand or that doesn't fit with their preconceived notions.

I find the subject you've introduced here interesting and instructive. But I also think it is sufficiently complicated in scope and concept that you are unlikely to find enough people here who understand it or want to understand it enough to discuss it at face value. The sheer complexity of it provides too many directions for the discussion to take.

old europe wrote:

okie wrote:

As ican points out, the actual practices of collectivism within the fascist idealogy............

If you're interested in "actual practices of collectivism" and if you want to use the nationalisation and control of companies by the government as a yardstick to judge whether a particular government is right-wing or left-wing, you might be interested in reading this paper:..............

OE - it is absolutely remarkable that you would expect all your readers to be too stupid to understand that the paper you cite, as well as all standard works on the subject of privatizations, reach the exact opposite conclusion than the one you claim. Here is an excerpt from the paper (p.17) that proves this very point:

Quote:

It seems clear that neither the Nazi Party nor Hitler had any ideological devotion to private
ownership. 34 In their theoretical work on the relationship between politicians and firms, Shleifer
and Vishny (1994, p. 1,015) stress that anti-market governments are compatible with
privatization, as long as they can retain control over the firms through strong regulation.

What gives, OE? You never read the paper, you read it and don't know enough about public finances to understand it, or none of the above, just an attempt to confuse and obfuscate in order to promote some leftist agenda?

The courtesy of a reply is requested.

P.S. another excerpt from the same paper, this time a direct quote by Hjalmar Schacht - and take my word for it, if he didn't know German finance in the 1930s, nobody else can be said to have known:
[quote]Schacht (1949, p. 78) recalled that “Inside the party there was a strong movement to bring more and more industries into the hands of the state…

S really does = K x Ln W

The overriding fact here - at least in my view - is that , apart form thew maintenance and expansion of its power and primacy, the Nazi state had very few consistent policies or doctrines. Up close the relations of Hitler to his key deputies were somewhat chaotic and uncoordinated - he presided over a collection of rival gangs as much as he did a well-ordered state with a coherent doctrine or set of guiding beliefs.

This, of course, is a fact that has no place in okie's simple-minded template for understanding.

"Template" is indeed Okie's weakest point right there with unfortunate phrasing. But it doesn't follow that his general drift is necessarily wrong - just his orders of magnitude:

Quote:

The Munich agreement with Hitler to eviscerate Czechoslovakia is one; the deportation of Cossacks and other anti-Soviet forces to certain death after the war in Operation Keelhaul is another. A third was decades of denial that the Katyn massacre was the work of the Soviets, not the Nazis ... Any such comparisons are fraught with difficulty, not least over how you measure wickedness. It does not come in convenient units (evils, giga-evils, tera-evils) that can be neatly added up to produce a balance sheet of murder and mayhem.

http://www.economist.com/daily/columns/europeview/displaystory.cfm?story_id=14246070#footnote1

The template was simple at the beginning. Is there a common denominator that can be identified when it comes to those people who become ruthless dictators. But because this is a more abstract concept that requires some actual thought to consider, the subject quickly became Okie and flaws that were being assigned to him. And, as these things go, rather than focus on the original (and difficult) thesis, the subject veered off into subtitles which were themselves abstract concepts and required more difficult thought than most are willing to participate in. That directed more derision and criticism toward Okie. These diversions included concepts of left and right ideology, how these are defined, how any particular member would define them, and how they are defined differently in different eras and in different parts of the world. This was WAY over the head of some including apparently our good, and usually sensible, friend George.

So yes, the template breaks down when 1) the subject begins branching out into sub-topics, and 2) when the focus is mostly to take shots at the messenger instead of the concept being discussed.

Personally, I think Okie has shown great grace and composure under the circumstances, and he does not take offense at those who simply disagree with his point of view. I haven't agreed with him on every point either, but then I haven't ever agreed with ANYBODY on every point about much of anything. But I note that numerous times he has asked various members to put their evidence where their mouth is or to answer specific related questions, and has been ignored. When members who oppose him can't articulate a rationale for their own point of view, I have to figure Okie has the better case.

Meanwhile the thread has run for some time now and has generated well over a thousand posts suggesting that the subject is not without interest.

However, if you want to defend okie's thesis that the NSDAP was a socialist party and the Third Reich was a communist regime, you're quite welcome to re-interpret the extensive framework of regulations and state control which was put into place while, at the same time, Germany saw a higher proportion of privatization proceeds compared to fiscal revenues than at any other point in its history as somehow following Marxist ideology of collective ownership of the means of production.

Pompous bitch.

In his opening post, Okie set forth several premises (alleging common attributes of ruthless dictators) and concluded that an extreme leftist mindset presented the most dangerous fertile ground to produce another ruthless dictator. Okie is attempting to rewrite history in order to serve his rightwing agenda. Okie is engaged in fear-mongering: The EVIL LEFT will produce a ruthless dictator! Be afraid!

The following 1963 speech sounds eerily familiar to okie's, foxy's, and ican's present day rants. I think okie was channeling Governor Wallace when he wrote his opening post: