MaxB
26th October 2002, 00:53
Hitler himself, perhaps, best expressed the similar spirit which underlies both Nazism and communism:
There is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it. There is, above all, genuine revolutionary feeling, which is alive everywhere in Russia.... I have always made allowance for this circumstance, and given orders that former Communists are to be admitted to the party at once. The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communist always will. 4
Hitler was, in fact, grateful to the Communists:
I have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit. The difference between them and myself is that I have really put into practice what these peddlers and pen-pushers have timidly begun.... I had only to develop logically what Social Democracy repeatedly failed in because of its attempt to realize its evolution within the framework of democracy. National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with a democratic order.5
The antagonism between the German Communists and the German Nazis was not a disagreement between basic philosophy or goals. Each group believed in the supremacy of the absolute state. The fighting between them was over the form which that absolute state was to take and which of their groups was to become the ruler of that state. For the individual citizens, there could be no significant difference in the nature of their lives under either type of totalitarian regime.
The capitalist democracy of the United States, however, was and is the antithesis of these principles. In this political system, the function of the government is the protection of individual rights and property. Citizens are free to work for any employer who will hire them; are free to live wherever their resources and desires take them; are free to manufacture what they want and to sell those products to whomever will purchase them and for whatever price those customers are willing to pay. Voluntary cooperation rather than governmental coercion describes the relationships among citizens. No one is to be deprived of his or her property without due process of law and then only for objectively defined reasons instead of arbitrary governmental decrees. In collectivist societies, the use of force against citizens or other nations is always an acceptable means of compelling them to follow a certain course of action. In this country, the use of force is to be avoided as much as possible and to be used only against those who initiate force against other citizens or the nation. Reasoned debate and persuasion is the preferred method of changing the direction of the country.
Even though the United States has strayed in some ways from its founding principles, it still stands in sharp contrast to the nations of the Far Right and the Far Left. The federal government of the United States has become much more powerful in the past two centuries. It often does pass laws restricting the private affairs of its citizens and issues regulations which interfere with the free exercise of its citizens' rights. These moves echo the actions of socialism of the fascist variety. Yet as long as there remains two-party rule, a ban on imprisonment or execution for political offenses, a respect for private property, and no governmental censorship, this political system remains free to alter its course and to adhere more closely to the principles of individual freedom and individual responsibility which made this nation the most free and most productive nation that this world has ever seen.
In essential principles then, the political spectrum runs not from Far Right to Far Left with democracies in the middle. Instead, a clearer, more accurate representation of this spectrum places on one end nations which respect individual rights and subordinate the nation and government to the individual citizens. On the other end of the spectrum are collectivist societies which hold to the fundamental principle that the individual must be subordinated to the collective or state and that any freedoms the citizens have are granted as favors rather than guaranteed as rights. The old view of political systems focused too much on surface details. This newer view recognizes that basic philosophies are much more important in revealing true similarities and differences among the governments of the world.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdoc...ht_vs_Left.html (http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/Right_vs_Left.html)
There is more that binds us to Bolshevism than separates us from it. There is, above all, genuine revolutionary feeling, which is alive everywhere in Russia.... I have always made allowance for this circumstance, and given orders that former Communists are to be admitted to the party at once. The petit bourgeois Social-Democrat and the trade-union boss will never make a National Socialist, but the Communist always will. 4
Hitler was, in fact, grateful to the Communists:
I have learned a great deal from Marxism, as I do not hesitate to admit. The difference between them and myself is that I have really put into practice what these peddlers and pen-pushers have timidly begun.... I had only to develop logically what Social Democracy repeatedly failed in because of its attempt to realize its evolution within the framework of democracy. National Socialism is what Marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with a democratic order.5
The antagonism between the German Communists and the German Nazis was not a disagreement between basic philosophy or goals. Each group believed in the supremacy of the absolute state. The fighting between them was over the form which that absolute state was to take and which of their groups was to become the ruler of that state. For the individual citizens, there could be no significant difference in the nature of their lives under either type of totalitarian regime.
The capitalist democracy of the United States, however, was and is the antithesis of these principles. In this political system, the function of the government is the protection of individual rights and property. Citizens are free to work for any employer who will hire them; are free to live wherever their resources and desires take them; are free to manufacture what they want and to sell those products to whomever will purchase them and for whatever price those customers are willing to pay. Voluntary cooperation rather than governmental coercion describes the relationships among citizens. No one is to be deprived of his or her property without due process of law and then only for objectively defined reasons instead of arbitrary governmental decrees. In collectivist societies, the use of force against citizens or other nations is always an acceptable means of compelling them to follow a certain course of action. In this country, the use of force is to be avoided as much as possible and to be used only against those who initiate force against other citizens or the nation. Reasoned debate and persuasion is the preferred method of changing the direction of the country.
Even though the United States has strayed in some ways from its founding principles, it still stands in sharp contrast to the nations of the Far Right and the Far Left. The federal government of the United States has become much more powerful in the past two centuries. It often does pass laws restricting the private affairs of its citizens and issues regulations which interfere with the free exercise of its citizens' rights. These moves echo the actions of socialism of the fascist variety. Yet as long as there remains two-party rule, a ban on imprisonment or execution for political offenses, a respect for private property, and no governmental censorship, this political system remains free to alter its course and to adhere more closely to the principles of individual freedom and individual responsibility which made this nation the most free and most productive nation that this world has ever seen.
In essential principles then, the political spectrum runs not from Far Right to Far Left with democracies in the middle. Instead, a clearer, more accurate representation of this spectrum places on one end nations which respect individual rights and subordinate the nation and government to the individual citizens. On the other end of the spectrum are collectivist societies which hold to the fundamental principle that the individual must be subordinated to the collective or state and that any freedoms the citizens have are granted as favors rather than guaranteed as rights. The old view of political systems focused too much on surface details. This newer view recognizes that basic philosophies are much more important in revealing true similarities and differences among the governments of the world.
http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdoc...ht_vs_Left.html (http://home.earthlink.net/~rdmadden/webdocs/Right_vs_Left.html)