The Nazi roots of privatization

As we all know, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columnist Patrick McIlheran believes that Democrats and Nazis are on a continuum because both believe in an activist government. Sure, one wants the state to provide affordable health care while the other used it to prosecute genocidal warfare. But both actions are fruit of the same poisoned tree.

In the same post and comment string in which he made that curious argument, and said (falsely) that the Nazis instituted a welfare state that would make any socialist proud, Patrick said this:

To the best of my observation, the more ideological someone is about his leftism, the more totalitarian and anti-American are his views.

The more ideological someone is about his rightism, the more likely he is to want to privatize the traffic lights and to carry a picture of Ayn Rand in his wallet. ...

Those on the right in America tend to favor a more limited government and prefer its role in society be subsidiary to voluntary institutions, such faith or families. Nazi ideals held nothing of the sort, instead seeing such voluntary institutions as utterly at the service to the nation itself as embodied in the state. There is no continuum as there is on the left.

Funny that Patrick should mention privatization. Because, as it happens, the Nazis were ahead of their time on that front. From a thesis by one Gema Bel titled "Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in the 1930s" (h/t Orcinus):

The Great Depression spurred State ownership in Western capitalist countries. Germany was no exception; the last governments of the Weimar Republic took over firms in diverse sectors. Later, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership and public services to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in the Western capitalist countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s. Privatization in Nazi Germany was also unique in transferring to private hands the delivery of public services previously provided by government. The firms and the services transferred to private ownership belonged to diverse sectors. Privatization was part of an intentional policy with multiple objectives and was not ideologically driven. As in many recent privatizations, particularly within the European Union, strong financial restrictions were a central motivation. In addition, privatization was used as a political tool to enhance support for the government and for the Nazi Party.

From the thesis:

It is a fact that the government of the Nazi Party sold off public ownership in several Stateowned firms in the mid-1930s. These firms belonged to a wide range of sectors: steel, mining, banking, local public utilities, shipyards, ship-lines, railways, etc. In addition, the delivery of some public services that were produced by government prior to the 1930s, especially social and labor-related services, was transferred to the private sector, mainly to organizations within the party.

Rather than being driven by ideology, Nazi privatization was driven by political considerations (striking alliances with industrialists) and practical considerations (Germany facing budget constraints as it revved up its war machine).

Of course, very little privatization in the U.S. is ideologically motivated, i.e., people suddenly deciding that street plowing is a function best handled by ACME Company instead of the government. Instead, privatizations usually are rewards to favored constituencies or to relieve pressure on strained budgets (not that necessarily happens). The Nazis favored privatization to fund rearmament. Republicans favor privatization to fund tax cuts for the rich.

By Patrick McIlheran's standard, these privatizations put Nazis quite squarely on a "continuum" with the modern American right.

That standard, as applied to the American left and right, is, of course, ludicrous.

The Brawler has returned to Patrick's "continuum" post a number of times because it fits into a nasty and uninformed line of attack on the left exemplified by Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism. In that tome, Goldberg includes a definition of fascism that's so broad that it can encompass everyone from Bob LaFollette to FDR (the itals are by lefty blogger Spencer Ackerman):

Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve that common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy.

Ackerman says:

What he offers isn't a very serviceable definition, but rather one that can offer about 40 feet of bridge to cross the 50 feet of chasm between liberalism and fascism, in an attempt to get the reader to continue on into a Wile E. Coyote-esque act of intellectual gravity-defiance. Fascist regimes do not impose their wills by force "or" through regulation and social pressure. They systematize violence. There isn't anything at all fascist about a neighborhood noise ordinance, and nothing at all fascist about scrunching up your noise in discomfort when someone lights a cigarette. But this is how distinctions between statism and fascism collapse, a necessary move when redefining fascism to include liberalism. (Brawler's emphasis)

One imagines McIlheran fluttering in space shouting "There is a continuum! There is!" Sadly, the canyon floor is a long way down.

Meep meep!

Comments

[capper]

Meep, meep? I thought it was more like "Squawk, squawk."

[kr]

It's time we take the gloves off. For the most part it has been tempting to compare the right wing to their historical brethren from the 1930's Germany because that would be too over the top. We restrained ourselves.

Well screw it. There seems to be no such restraint with the Cretin of State Street. Again we see demonstrated that politeness doesn't work with these people. I hate to say it but unless we show our teeth they will keep on doing it.

Let's cut the crap Paddy Mac. Any right thinking person can see the similarities -- black and white thinking, total surrender to the corporations and racist undertones. Just read Naomi Wolf's Ten Easy Steps to Fascism (http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2064157,00.html) or John Dean's book "Conservatives without Conscience." Naturally Paddy didn't dream this up himself and was influenced by Jonah Goldberg's book "The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning."

This won't be the send of it because Paddy has found his note and he is going to blow it for all its worth. Time to call this one out for the steaming pile it is.

[John Washburn]

provide affordable health

You do know that providing affordable, universal health care was considered one of the major ACCOMPLISHMENTS of the National Socialists?

You might want to read:
Racial Hygiene: Medicine Under the Nazis As By: Robert N. Proctor
(Harvard University Press, 1988)

As it decribes the affordable, universal health care of the national socialists from 1934 - 1945. and the health care was affordable (if you were not a Jew, Gypsy, homosexual, or political dissident)

So how is the comparison between national socialists (nazis) and Democrats unfair with recards to the topic of universal, single payer health care?