You mean socialists (the nazis)
No, the Nazis were unironically liberals
>Erm, actually they are whatever I want to strawmen them to be because... JUST BECAUSE OKAY?!
Socialism requires the absence of commodity production and the law of value, which the Nazis had
Socialism in its simplest definition is when the government owns and controls the economy and businesses within the nation. There were civilians who worked for and managed these industries in Nazi Germany, but they were owned by the government and the government had the final say when they wanted. It's crazy how people need to go through so much mental gymnastics to deny National Socialism and Communism make up the near complete spectrum of how socialism can manifest itself. Perhaps you simply know more than the Nazis and Soviets did and they were all wrong.
Socialist how? Unless you're referring to Murray's retarded definition of socialism, which is literally just when the government does stuff.
No, when the government does something specific. If you want to boil everything down to "the government does something" than you can cover any form of government under that umbrella. When the government specifically takes control of the economy and industry, that is socialism. When Germany shifted into Nazi Germany, they took ownership of industry and manipulated their economy. Yes, Nazi Germany did "privatize" some features of its economy like its national banks, but no matter how you try to spin a national bank it will always be inherently not capitalistic. Calling Nazi Germany's "commercial" banks "private" is like saying the USA's federal reserve is capitalistic because "private" banks control it. Hitler did make laissez-faire statements early in his career as the country's leader, but in practice he was anything but. In a free market, the government can't shut down every factory, then force them to make Messerschmitt 262s as a desperate last-minute gamble. In a free market, the government can't give money to companies and take an intimate hand in their research and development. You can make the argument that this union between state and company is what allowed Germany to become the innovative powerhouse it was, but it was not a capitalistic economy. You can find little tidbits of Hitler doing things counter to socialism, but you can do the same with Konstantin Chernenko, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping and no one in their right minds would call them capitalists. Jiang Zemin made the capitalistic move as the leader of the CCP to let foreign nations build factories in his country because capitalism works unlike communism. But at the end of the day that's just a communist cherry-picking parts of capitalism to keep their degenerate economic systems from failing. China was still very much communist under Jiang Zemin and it was made clear by the socialist choices made surrounding those few capitalistic ones. The USSR took part in free trade outside of its borders when buying oil and so on, but that was only because it had to in order to survive. That buying and selling of goods did not reflect the USSR's internal economy. Yes, Nazi Germany did not redistribute wealth, but neither did the CCP or the USSR (hence why everyone was starving in the USSR and a large percentage of the Chinese are in slums). The redistribution of wealth is more of a requirement for socialism in the form of communism and is not necessary to the more general core socialist tenant of controlling the economy. On the microscale there were bread shop owners untouched by the machinations of the Nazi government, but so was the case in the USSR and you need to judge the economy by the macro scale to determine its identity at a national level. You could perhaps counter these points by claiming the USA has socialist elements now, has a national bank, and has had leaders who have made socialist moves and despite that the USA is still considered to have a capitalistic economy. While that would be a fair point to make, I would counter by saying the USA is inherently capitalistic with socialist and authoritarian corruptions. The socialist elements in the USA are generally surrounded by capitalistic elements, albeit I would not stop anyone from claiming the USA is socialist in 2024. While pointing out that the Nazi party was the "national socialist party" in itself may not be the end all be all on the nation's economics, there was still a reason for it. This political compass concept of "authoritarian free markets" is just as oxymoronic as "the libertarian left". It is agendas pushed in academia to separate socialism from fascism. If this diatribe hasn't at the very least opened you to reconsidering your point of view, then we can just leave this as we agree to disagree. I do not particularly enjoy talking about economics nor am knowledgeable enough to get into the basal minutia of it. I understand why people think Nazi Germany had a free market, but it's just not accurate to how the Nazi's themselves viewed their economy nor how it functioned on a macro scale.
You still haven't explained how under Nazi Germany, the community decided how to regulate and control the government. AKA the definition of socialism.
The community does not control the government in a socialist economy, the federal government does..."Community" is a flowery term used by people who base their definition of socialism on political compass readings and what their 101 polysci teacher told them. EVERY GOVERNMENT CLAIMS TO BE CONTROLLED BY THE "COMMUNITY". Free market republics are controlled by the community through voting for representatives. Democracies are controlled by officials who win popular votes. Socialists (which cannot function outside of more federal authoritarian governments because the libertarian left is an oxymoron) are controlled and regulated by either a bureaucrat who allegedly represents the community or is an "elected" official who represents the community. In both cases you have a strong central power that the "community" delegates the power of managing the economy to in contrast to the free market. Socialism is a system that theoretically is not tied to any one form of representation. How "the community" pretends to control and regulate the government is irrelevant. The end result is always a powerful federal government comprised of mostly bureaucrats because it is unreasonable to have people vote for 1000 different officials. Nazi Germany's government was a form of (National) socialism because the community voted for Adolf Hitler to control the economy. It was a unique form a socialism and it's probably most accurate to always differentiate it from other socialist governments with the "National" prefix, but it is still socialism.
Thats an interesting comparison... Albeit arguing about politics is 90% of how it works. It is important to debate all topics of government so that you can find the strongest and best ideas. Even when it comes to categorizing political beliefs, it is an important debate/argument to have because there are always multiple schools of thought. There is value in categorizing political systems. I agree national socialism and communism are very different forms of socialism, but both are even more different than free market capitalism. And all three of those systems are more similar to each other than anarchy (the lack of government). Also arguing on the internet over politics is keyed.
You're right.
