“The Nazi Party leaders were savvy enough to realise that pure racial anti-semitism would not set the party apart from the pack of racist, anti-semitic, and ultranationalist groups that abounded in post-1918 Germany. Instead, I would suggest, the Nazi success can be attributed largely to the economic proposals found in the party’s programs, which in an uncanny fashion integrated elements of 18th and 19th century nationalist-etatist philosophy with Keynesian economics. Nationalist etatism is an ideology that rejects economic liberalism and promotes the right of the state to intervene in all spheres of life including the economy.”
Source: W Brustein: The Logic of Evil – The Social Origins of the Nazi Party 1925-33 (Yale UP, 1996), p.51

“In the long run, the Nazis aimed essentially at an economic system which would be an alternative to capitalism and communism, supporting neither a laissez-faire attitude nor total planning.” [ Hardach: The Political Economy of Germany in the Twentieth Century; University of California Press (1980), p 66 ] They introduced administrative controls over investment through licensing and direct allocation of raw materials. But their brand of socialism emphasised central control over economic activity rather than public ownership of firms. Instead of dispossessing private owners, the Nazis severely circumscribed the scope within which the nominal owners could make choices by currency controls, taxes on profits and direct allocation measures of the state.”
Source: Peter Temin: Lessons from the Great Depression – The Lionel Robbins Lectures for 1989 (MIT Press, 1989) p.117. The author was a professor at the MIT.

Therefore, everyone who builds roads in the UK is a Nazi.

Where I don’t think the NFR article helps is to go feet first in to ‘reductio ad hitlerum’. It’s not very constructive to go down the route: Nazism contained socialist elements, Nazis were evil therefore socialists are evil. I don’t think that helps anyone.

I really wish people would drop this over-simplified left-right view of politics and think about politics more in terms of both social and economic freedoms. The whole thing just makes so much more sense that way.

As for Hitler and socialism, it is better to think of NAzi Germany as forming a nationalism based dictatorship, which despite the name socialist, used as a cover for a while and never fully discarded, was more right wing than left. For example the restrictions on the rights of labour and the destruction of unions and leftists, the regimenting of the family and encouragement of births by people of the correct ‘race’.

It’s the Ann Coulter school of political debate, isn’t it? Irritate everyone in the world until they agree with you.

You could equally (and equally idiotically) argue that Shipman embodies the free-market approach to medicine, by ruthlessly pursuing his own interests to the exclusion of all other considerations. As for his patients, caveat emptor, dear boy.

http://www.nursesforreformblog.com/2010/01/27/now-lets-not-be-nhs-nazi-link-deniers-%e2%80%93-or-tories/

Dr Helen Evans reposts a couple of samples from the comments thread, which she describes as “so good I have decided to reproduce them here”.

These include the lovely quote “One last thought. Harold Shipman. Clearly, this was an extreme individual, but his attitude towards patients was entirely logical, once one accepted the notion that it is not the patient to control healthcare provision or objectives.”

I’m starting to wonder now whether Helen Evans is a kind of libertarian version of Anjem Choudhary, deliberately saying the most outrageous thing possible in order to court attention, or whether she actually believes this rubbish. Personally I’m not sure which is more pitiful.

I’d skipped over that first time around. Now that really is a good idea.

For national pay rates kills patients. Getting rid of them would be a good thing.

And you have not given one single argument against any of them. Which tends to make me suspect that you don’t have any such arguments.

You certainly have not mentioned any alternative ways of saving money.

For at least the next decade government in this country is going to consist almost entirely of tax rises and spending cuts, and the more I see of this site, the harder I find it to believe that anyone on the left cares about the consequences of that. They just want to be able to say that they care.

If they genuinely cared, they would want to find ways to SAVE MONEY.

Well… I’ll keep reading your blog. Perhaps one day I’ll understand the LC philosophy.

I must’ve seen about 10 different variations of this Downfall subtitling. It’s getting a little tedious. There must be other films to parody.

well done Zarathustra

” . . After the Whitsun recess in 1904 [Winston Churchill] crossed the floor to sit as a member of the Liberal Party. As a Liberal, he continued to campaign for free trade. . . ”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winston_Churchill

Churchill, as President of the Board of Trade, introduced the Trade Boards Act of 1909 – the Boards were constituted to fix minimum pay rates for timework and piecework in specific industries, hardly a prescription for unbridled “free markets”.

They are actively trying to destroy the state health systems in both Canada and the UK so that their masters can benefit from a sell off. But again it shows that call me Dave is a dangerous Right wing radical who is a liar.

All Brownshirts need an enemy.

The one and only meeting between the private-led reform group and the Conservative Party is a confirmation of suspicions, based on the inherent belief in the free-market throughout society, that runs through all Tory policies and politicians.

I hope it does create debate, I hope it reignites the whole ‘who runs the health service’ question, and I hope that the Tory party are honest about the upcoming election manifesto.

The one problem they have is convincing the public that they themselves believe in the NHS, if they manage that, the private health sector is going to be rubbing its hands with glee at the upcoming billions of freebies they will ‘become providers’ of.

Cameron has to lie about his true inclinations. He then has to lie about all the mini-privatizations we will no doubt start to see, and this reform group is just lobbying for sections to pick off.