Hick's in Explaining Postmodernism discusses in detail the philosophical arguments of Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Spengler, and others leading to socialism in Germany. You can read it here: http://www.stephenhicks.org/wp-conte...4-printing.pdf (.pdf) in the chapter "The Climate of Collectivism." Here let's jump to national socialism as rightwing collectivism under the subheading "The Rise of National Socialism: Who are the real socialists?"
...The rise of National Socialism to political prominence during the 1920s brought the abstract debate to particular focus, as the National Socialists, the Communists, and the Social Democrats all argued variations on the same themes and competed for the votes of the same constituencies.
The socialist Social Democrats and the Communists had split over whether socialism would be achieved by evolution or revolution...
...The National Socialists recognized that they were on the Right and that the Social Democrats and the Communists were on the Left. But they found little practical difficulty wooing voters away from both parties by emphasizing the socialist elements of National Socialism. And they did not find that the theoretical goals of the three parties were that far apart. Hitler, for example, declared that “basically National Socialism and Marxism are the same.”124 And Josef Goebbels, who had a Ph.D. in philology and perhaps a better claim to understand the theoretical issues, argued the same point.
...Goebbels had often been more than willing to make speeches and write conciliatory essays to the Communists, asking them to recognize that the National Socialists’ and Communists’ major goals of overthrowing capitalism and achieving socialism were the same—and that the only significant difference between the two was that the Communists believed that socialism could be achieved at the international level, while the National Socialists believed that it could and should occur at the national level. The differences between National Socialism and Communism boiled down to a choice between the dictatorship of the Volk and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
...Western liberal civilization, however, survived both the Great Depression and World War II, emerging stronger than it had been before. During the war and its aftermath, the National Socialists and the collectivist Right were wiped out physically and discredited morally and intellectually. The new battle lines were simplified and starkly clear: liberal capitalism versus Left socialism....
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
Peter1469 (02-25-2021)
Last edited by Chris; 02-25-2021 at 11:50 AM.
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler
Cotton1 (02-25-2021)
Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler