One modern incarnation of this problem is the current 'fad' of labeling 'conservatives' as 'racist' in America. Ironically, it was that very political party that is now labeled 'conservative' that did the most to fight racism in America a mere generation or two ago. In fact, if you go back far enough, it was the early 'Republican' party that let many of their men die for the cause of freeing slaves in the South. [Even if it was not the primary reason for the Civil War.] And it was the Democrats who keep Segregation alive for generations after the Civil War. Any student of history can figure that out, even though, as a Liberty-minded writer, I will be the first to admit there were other issues at stake in the Civil War also.
But this blog post is about another, equally false, assumption that has crept into the American Political mindset without any apparent skepticism. If you listen to 99% of political commentators, especially on the Liberal side of the spectrum, you will here an often repeated assumption that the Nazi party is best described as a Ultra-right-Wing political movement.
So we must ask, is there any real historical evidence that supports this? And how would be go about determining which way to 'categorize' the ethos of the Nazi party and 1930's Germany?
The latter question is a good place to start. First we must define what is 'Left-wing' and what is 'Right-wing.' As I've posted previously in this blog, it is true that the overly simple, one dimensional, and artificial political spectrum of left-right ought to be enhanced to at least two dimensions. But for now, I am arguing with regard to the two dimensional left/right dichotomy that we in the USA are stuck with at present. Therefore, for our purposes here, I will define the Left as socialist and communist in ideology, and define the Right as the opposite of those two ideologies which can be referred to as Free-Market, and Individual Liberty oriented. The latter of which necessarily results in more individual freedom and less government power, relatively speaking. And the former results in greater controls over the population via Government power.
Some of the root to our problem about how to categorize Nazi thinking is that many people seem to think that 'Nationalism' itself is a 'Right-wing' notion, and that Left-wing people are less 'nationalistic.' However, that is a false understanding of 'Nationalism'. For example, even the most hard-core Leftist today that will loudly decry the idea of 'American Exceptionalism' and will adequately argue that the U.S. is not better than any number of equally wonderful countries and societies on the globe, is actually trying their best to change their own country to make it better. They have their own unique definition of what would make America 'better', but by their own passion, they show that they care deeply about making America 'good' by their own unique definition of 'good'. And that is the core of 'nationalism'.
So even hyper-nationalism in itself would not be a problem unless the radical-nationalist's unique version of 'good' necessitated that it destroy other countries and/or take away the rights of other people. Historically speaking, it's worth noting that communist regimes, who are basically just hyper-socialists, have done the most damage with destroying other countries and taking way basic rights of both their own people and of other people. So I define 'Left-wing' as the group of ideas that increase the power of Government to 'equalize' the end results of people's lives, in contrast to the set of ideas that increase the power of people to determine their own destiny without having to involve the government for anything other than protection from people who lie, cheat, steal, and murder other people.
So now we tackle the first question of whether there is historical evidence that points to the Nazi movement being more of a 'Right-wing', or a 'Left-wing style phenomenon. Thankfully, the 'Party Platform' of the 1920 group that Hitler came to 'rule over' is a matter of public record. It is not secret because Hitler himself proclaimed their 25-point Program on the 24th of February 1920. His political party was known as the National Socialist German Worker's Party, or NSDAP for short in the original German. But names do not make a party 'Left' or 'Right,' it is the content of their platform that is critical, so we will examine all 25 points one by one, and label them as 'Left leaning' or 'Right Leaning, and then we will add up which side can claim the majority of points.
However, for the sake of format limitations, the point-by-point analysis will have to wait until the next blog post....