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Note: this is my edit of the above post based on feedback after some reflection.
Hitler's Identity Politics
1. Introduction: Cargo-Cult Political Science
Of all the villains of the 20'th century, no one symbolizes evil in the Western consciousness like Adolf Hitler. This is a little odd, because Chinese communist leader Mao Zedong murdered more of his own people than Hitler did, and caused the deaths of tens of millions more through ideology-driven malfeasance. The number of Chinese citizens killed by Mao's regime is comparable to the total number of deaths in World War II and the Holocaust -- both civilian and military, on all sides, from all causes. Bolshevik revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin murdered about as many of his own people as Hitler did, and, unlike Hitler, founded a regime that transformed his country into Mordor for generations. Lenin's successor Stalin probably also murdered more of his own people than either Lenin or Hitler.
Yet Lenin, Stalin, and Mao are not seen as radioactively evil in the way that Hitler is. A statue of Vladimir Lenin, sans head, stood in the Mandalay Bay Hotel in Las Vegas for years. A statue of Lenin stands in Seattle at the corner of 35th St. and Fremont as of this writing, and that one has the head on -- and another statue of Lenin stands in San Antonio at the 300 block of West Commerce Street (also with head). It is not unusual to hear people quote the allegedly wise sayings of Lenin and Mao, even while being aware of their crimes. People say things like, As Mao Zedong said, women hold up half the sky. Joe Biden repeated that quote in 2021 in a commencement address at the US Coast Guard Academy, though he did not mention Mao and was probably not aware of the source of the quote (he may not have been aware he was at the Coast Guard Academy). For comparison -- in a case that should have been viewed similarly -- Donald Trump once unknowingly quoted Adolf Hitler. However, for some reason, corporate media amplified and attacked Trump's gaffe an order of magnitude more than Biden's. You can compare the news coverage of those two events by looking at the results of this google search in terms of news coverage compared to this one.
While I believe that Mao was a man consumed by evil, I also believe that when he said women hold up half the sky, he identified an important truth and put it in a memorable way. Is it OK to quote Mao on the merits of that saying, in spite of the fact that he also killed tens of millions of people? Some people think it is and some think it isn't, and I don't know -- but I do know that nobody, outside of a skinhead rally, begins a paragraph with As Adolf Hitler once noted.... This is even though Hitler was a more cogent writer and speaker than Lenin, Stalin, or Mao -- and, like any other tyrant, some of what Hitler said had merit. I also know that there aren't any statues of Hitler in Las Vegas, or Seattle, or San Antonio, with or without the head -- and that no one with any sense would put one up because it would make them a social and economic pariah.
So why is Hitler demonized in a way that Lenin, Stalin, and Mao are not? I submit it is part of a wider phenomenon: there is a great deal of what might be called "cargo-cult science" surrounding Hitler. The phrase cargo cult science comes from Richard Feynman's 1974 Caltech commencement address, where he related the following story:
The point of Feynman's story is that when you look at something to see what makes it tick, the features that matter are not always the ones that meet the eye most easily. For example, in broad strokes, Hitler was a right wing national socialist. Many people seem to hold that since Hitler was on the political right, the more right-wing you are, the more like Hitler you must be. And many hold that, since Hitler was a nationalist, the more nationalistic you are, the more like Hitler you must be. But for some reason, vanishingly few people hold that the more socialist you are, the more like Hitler you must be -- even though the National Socialist platform has about much for Bernie Sanders to love as it has for John Birch to love. At the end of the day, saying that Hitler was principally defined by his right-wingism, or his nationalism, or his socialism, just because he was a right wing national socialist, is no more logical per se than saying that what made Hitler "literally Hitler" was his distinctive style of moustache. Accepting any of these uncritically, from the nationalism to the socialism to the funny moustache, amounts to cargo cult (political) science.
Beyond the question of what made Hitler and his ideology so evil, there is widespread uncritical acceptance of the proposition that Hitler was evil in the first place -- and superlatively evil, in a way that even Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were supposedly not. As a kid growing up in America in the 70's and 80's, I unquestioningly accepted that Hitler was evil. It did not have to be explained to me what made Hitler count as being evil; duh, he started World War II and murdered six million Jews. Of course anyone who launches a war of conquest is evil. Like Hitler. Or James K. Polk. No, wait a minute; that can't be right. But of course anyone who orchestrates a genocide is evil. Like Hitler. Or Moses. No, wait a minute; that can't be right either. Weights and weights, measures and measures.
Branding Hitler as evil without being able to sensibly say why, or applying that label using standards that we don't apply when the shoe is on another foot, is dangerous for two reasons. First, it makes it more likely that we might be following in Hitler's footsteps without realizing it. Second, it increases the risk that our children will reject our assessment of Hitler when they see that we have made up our minds for no good reason. That could make them more vulnerable to jumping on the bandwagon if another Hitler comes along. For those reasons, it is important to understand what made Hitler Hitler in deeper than cargo-cult fashion -- so that we can better recognize whatever that thing is in other contexts, most importantly within our own hearts. Or do you believe that, whatever made Hitler Hitler, it can't happen here, or that you don't have any of it in you?
If a leader were to come along talking about racial genocide, that would be a dead giveaway that he is peddling a Hitler-style tyranny. But we can't count on that, first and foremost because Hitler himself did not come along talking about racial genocide. Hitler did, however, come along talking about the importance of racial identity, about certain races being historical class exploiters, and about the evils of capitalism. He did proclaim that groups should have different rights and obligations on the basis of race, and he did peddle victim identity politics rooted in flagrant double-standards. Moreover, Hitler and his followers were militant, authoritarian, and censorious, both "on the streets" before they took office, and under the auspices of legal authority after they were in office. I submit these are the most telling characteristics of the National Socialist ideology, from which it could have been (and was by some people) identified as a menace in its early stages. These characteristics are typical of racial supremacist movements generally, and are also present in the woke movement.
2. National Socialism and "Nazism"
The word 'Nazi' has an interesting history. Hitler and the members of his party never called themselves Nazis; they called themselves National Socialists. The term 'Nazi' was originally used as a slur against members of the National Socialist party by their ideological opponents -- much like American opponents of communism refer to its adherents disparagingly as commies. The National Socialists, in turn, called their ideological opponents reds. So the term Nazi -- like the terms red and commie -- all began as all slurs applied to members of certain ideologies by their opponents.
This slur Nazi was picked up by the Allied press and During World War II, and newspapers routinely referred to National Socialists as Nazis -- at the same time referring to the Japanese as Japs. Both Nazi and Jap carried a sense of enmity and contempt. After the war, the press dropped Jap but kept Nazi. This is understandable on the grounds that National Socialism was an ideology which had been defeated, while Japan was a nation that was still intact and no longer at war with us. But that may not be the whole explanation. Disparaging terms for communists, such as red and commie, have barely ever been used by the American press, even during the cold war, the Korean War, and Vietnam War, and even by authors (such as myself) who firmly believe that communism is evil. The slur Nazi has stuck in the mind of the intelligentsia like no other slur --just like Hitler has been demonized like no other tyrant.
Were National Socialists really socialists?
It is a delicate exercise to define socialism. Self-identifying "socialists" often differ on the matter, and sometimes differ fiercely. The term has been self-applied by people with views as diverse as Joseph Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Bernie Sanders, George Orwell, and David Ben-Gurion. So I ask the reader's forgiveness if I can't come up with a definition that makes everyone happy. The Wikipedia definition of socialism is social ownership of the means of production [capital], as opposed to private ownership,... which can take various forms including public, community, collective, cooperative, or employee. That is the definition I will use.
By that definition, Lenin, Stalin, and Mao were clearly socialists, in the sense that their regimes directly managed the allocation of capital in their respective countries in a thoroughgoing way. It is safe to say micromanaged planned economies such as those of Lenin and Mao have been uniformly disastrous -- leading to third-world economic output in the best cases and famine in the worst cases. Food shortages are a typical result of Marxist revolutions, and occurred on the heels of such revolutions, for example, in Albania, Yugoslavia, Russia, Romania, China, Cuba, Cambodia, Vietnam, North Korea, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Mongolia, Yugoslavia, Laos, and Angola. When you see children starving in an ad for charities engaged in famine relief, you are usually seeing the results of Marxism.
Under the National Socialist approach, by contrast, the government reserves the right to manage capital -- at will and without limit -- but only steps in when they feel it is necessary. Necessity typically arises when the business in question is deemed crucial to some national objective, and "word to the wise" from the regime fails to have the effect desired effect. This form of socialism is largely hands-off in practice, or at least appears to be -- because no one wants a visit from the secret police, and a raised eyebrow will do. This form of largely hands-off socialism, sometimes identified with Fascism, has typically dramatically better economic outcomes than socialism of Marxist, Leninist, or Maoist variety. In fact, Germany under National Socialism recovered from the Great Depression years before the rest of Europe and the United States. China has been moving toward a hands-off approach that might be fairly called "national socialism" (or fascism) since the reign of Deng Xiaoping (though they prefer to call it "socialism with Chinese characteristics), and China has gone from a third world country to an economic superpower as a consequence.
So under the Hitler-style economic model, whom does capital belong to? I submit an analogy that I believe is instructive. Suppose, for example, that there is a certain bicycle which is currently in your possession, but which you can only use in ways I approve of, and which I can take away from you at any moment I choose. Whose bicycle is it, really? It seems to be my bicycle, on roughly the same terms as if I had loaned it to you: do with it as you please, within limits set by me, unless and until I wish to repossess it. These are basically the same terms under which you manage capital under your possession in a National Socialist regime. Thus, I submit that if a borrowed bicycle still belongs to the man who loaned it, National Socialism is bona fide socialism per the Wikipedia definition.
It may clarify the issue further to consider the one form of communal ownership that is not considered to be socialism by most definitions: stockholder ownership. Stockholder ownership is as "communal" as employee ownership or municipal ownership -- and in fact stockholder ownership is often called "public ownership" in the United States -- but there is a key feature that separates stockholder-ownership from the other kinds of communal ownership that are admitted under the heading of socialism: under stockholder ownership, just as in private ownership, capital belongs to the people who paid for it.
This kind of ownership -- the ownership of capital by those who bought and paid for it in a free market -- is precisely what socialists of all kinds stand against. Hitler writes, for example,
The above passage is characteristic of Hitler in that he sees stockholder capitalism and Marxism as twin evils, both characterized by materialism, anti-nationalism, and Jewish conspiracy -- and both fiercely opposed by National Socialism.
For the rest of this essay, I will refer to Hitler's philosophy as National Socialism rather than Nazism -- first because that was how Hitler and his followers referred to themselves, second because the term National Socialist is accurate, and third because it is more fit for serious writing -- as opposed to terms that originated as slurs, like red, commie, Jap, and Nazi.
3. Hitler and Plato
In Vol 1, Chapter 10 of Mein Kampf, Hitler describes the moral and economic decay of Germany leading up to World War I. Echoing the narrative of Plato's Republic in its broad strokes and in several key details, Hitler describes a state which has regressed, in his view at least, from timarchy (military rule), to oligarchy (unrestrained greed and rule of the wealthy) to libertine, left-leaning populism. The parallels between Mein Kampf and Plato's Republic are too close to be ascribed to chance -- though Hitler doesn't mention Plato, and I do not know whether Hitler had read Plato's Republic, or whether he and Plato witnessed similar events two thousand years apart, or both.
Like Plato, Hitler views the transition from timarchy to oligarchy to be driven by moral decay, and in particular by a cultural shift in what is held in esteem. He writes,
Both Plato and Hitler write that after the transition from timarchy to oligarchy, the greedy predation of the oligarchs gives birth to a class of ruined men, who then form a cohort of non-working poor. As Plato puts it,
And Hitler tells a similar story of exploitation and inequality:
Both Plato and Hitler write that the oligarchic state soon degenerates into one of class division, moral relativism, anti-nationalism, anti-meritocracy, multiculturalism, and general half-heartedness in attempts to keep order. It then further degenerates toward leftist populism (communism for Hitler, and dimokratia for Plato).
Plato and Hitler part ways, however, on the underlying cause of this degeneration. For Plato it is all about values; for Hitler, it is all about race. In this respect, Hitler bears a stronger resemblance to another noted author in the Western Canon, as we will discuss next.
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