Right, I’ve read Mises’ Socialism as well as Human Action. However, the NSDAP model of socialism is socialism precisely because it was not interventionist. By lacking a capital market, it ceases to be a market economy and just becomes a charade.
I think of socialism as a condition in which businesses don’t have control over their labor.
I think of socialism as a condition in which businesses don’t have control over their labor.
What does that even mean?
Anyways, however you want to define it, for Austrian purposes socialism is state ownership of capital. It is only this form of socialism which is socialism for the purposes of economic analysis. All other pseudo-socialisms, such as mutualism or leftist interventionism, are not socialistic so long as a capital market remains.
Socialists are all about freedom of the labor class from the bourgeoise. It doesn’t necessarily require state intervention. That, specifically, is state socialism. But not all socialists are state socialists. Gandhi was an anarcho-socialist.
Gandhi was an anarcho-socialist.
You mean, insane?
I mean: good at heart, weak at mind.
I mean: good at heart, weak at mind.
A well intentioned lunatic can be a thousand times more dangerous than a thug in possession of his rational faculties. A gangster can be deterred by threats, the lunatic is spurred on by them.
Having a flawed world-view is not the same as lunacy. And of course we all know how well-intentioned Hitler was. He wanted to advance humanity.
But the same thing can be said about any revolution. It can easily be diverted to something based not on its tenets, but the egos of its followers. As Eric Hoffer said, “A religious movement may develop into a social revolution or a nationalist movement; a social revolution, into militant nationalism or a religious movement; a nationalist movement into a social revolution or a religious movement.”