From wikipedia:"The Nazis promoted a right-wing socialist economy.[16][17] The economic system rejected egalitarianism and instead supported a stratified economy with classes based on merit and talent, retaining private property, freedom of contract, and promoted the creation of national solidarity that would transcend class distinction.[18][19] This socialism promoted the creation of a community of common interest between managers and employees in industry where a factory leader would be selected to act in coordination with a council of factory members, though these members would have to obey the Führerprincip of the factory leader.[20] The economy was to be subordinate to the goals of the political leadership of the state.[21]"

In other words, titular control and some profit retention was allowed, but control of what was produced and how and when were in the control of the State. It actually sounds a bit like the sort of thing the Chinese are trying, don't you think?

"the number of deaths quoted are horrific until you compare them with the murder of unborn babies."

Posted by runner, Tuesday, 4 October 2011 11:04:34 AM

Yet, spontaneous miscarriage [aka spontaneous abortion] kills twice as many each year in Australia, and many times more around the world. God at work, runner??

Chris C

This debate shows the limitations of the traditional left-right labels to define political ideologies. There are real and important differences between Marxism and Nazism, but also real and important similarities. They are not so much polar opposites ideologically, as first cousins.

What the Nazis had in common with Marxism and in contrast with conventional conservative, libertarian and other “right wing” ideologies was an extreme collectivism which subordinated individual rights and autonomy to the collective interest - in the Nazis’ case the nation, in Marxists’ case the working class. They also share the identification of the collective interest with the state, and the control of the state by the party.

As Antiseptic points out, while they retained private property, Nazis subjected industry to intense state direction and regulation. They expropriated property when they held this to be in the national interest, or in order to harm ideological opponents. They were corporatist – controlling both business and trades unions – and certainly not supporters of free enterprise or property rights.

In contrast with many other authoritarian regimes, Nazism and Marxist shared a totalitarian ideology – seeking control not only of the economy, state and other elements of the public sphere but also of personal lives - thought and ideas, family and sexuality, social relationships etc.

They also share control of the media, brutality and oppression, the murder or imprisonment of opponents, disregard for the rule of law, subordination of academia (including science) to ideology, and a host of other characteristics. While these also feature in other repressive regimes, Marxism and Nazism are notable for presenting ideological justifications for such behaviour

imajulianutter,

Here, I've gone to the trouble of constructing some Venn diagrams for you:

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/585/venndiagram1.png/
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/189/venndiagram2.png/

Hopefully they're simple enough for even you to understand.

Dear Squeers,

There was no demonisation of Marx. Marxism is a we/they philosophy which encourages tne dehumanisation, demonisation and murder of people acccrding to their class identification. In that it mirrors Nazism which does the same to people according to their race and ethnicity. Marxism demonises people and then murders them en masse. The article identified passages in the Manifesto which encouraged the Marxist murder process. That is not demonisation. That is unfortunately the way it was. The corpses were no accident. Marx inspired mass murder.

David
Okay, good article, got all that, I reckon you got 'em right between the eyes.

Now please let us have your article on the ecological implications of language, sex and mathematics?

All
Talk of left and right wing is meaningless without defining these terms. Everyone is agreed in identifying left wing with socialism i.e. (attempts at) public ownership and control of the means of production.

But right wing is used to refer to completely different and opposed concepts: on the one hand the Hitlers of the world, totalitarian authoritarians completely opposed to personal and economic liberty except as entirely subject to an overriding power in the state to dictate any and every decision if it feels like. Obviously the whole point of a bipolar scale is to denote a *range* of difference; but if the extreme ends are the same, not much of a conceptual tool is it?

Then on the other hand, people also call anarcho-capitalists "right wing", which is pretty meaningless, because
a) they are as opposed to the Nazis as they are to the communists, and
b) unless the Hitlerites are lumped in with the far left central-planning authoritarian control freaks, which is where they belong, but no-one uses the term in that way.

In fact, a one-dimensional gamut is no good.

More clarifying is this 2-dimensional device in The World's Shortest Political Quiz
http://www.theadvocates.org/quiz
see also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World's_Smallest_Political_Quiz
I would be interested on where you identify yourselves.