What's a National Socialist?

I'm a little confused about what polices make national socialism and about the terminology of the name.  In the USA it seems that political terminology is different than in other parts of the world.  A lot of people here say that left vs right=statism vs anarchism.  I thought that left vs right=radical change/progressivism vs status quo/traditional values.  The fact that the title national socialism includes the word "socialism" and that it was very statist, a lot of people in the US say that the Nazis were left wing.  This confuses me because they hated communists and trade unions, and because Mussolini described fascism as being when state interests were the same as corporate interests.  So much so that fascism could also be called corporatism.  That desn't sound left wing to me.  It also seems that left wing movements tend to be communal such as communists believing that national borders should be disssolved while right wing movements tend to me nationalistic.  This also does not fit the Nazis being left wing.  So are national socialists left or right wing?  If right, then where does the "socialist" in national socialist come from?

They are socialists very much like the American left, except they blame everything on jews instead of white males.

Believe it or not, socialists, corporatists and fascists can belong in any and every part of the political spectrum. Also, authoritarianism versus libertarianism, alternately statism versus anarchism, are like a separate axis from Left versus Right. The Left strives for equality of result, or fiscal egalitarianism (where every denizen has the same wealth or at least all needs satisfied), whereas the Right strives for survival of the fittest, so to speak, or fiscal darwinism (where every denizen keep what he/she earns and assists the less capable as he/she sees fit). Another component of Left versus Right is how the Left favors radicalism whereas the Right favors reactionism, while ideally they both equally favor conservatism to a degree.

What's meant by national is essentially non-interventionism, public money stays in the country and that kind of thing, not notions of master race fanaticism.

As for socialism, it's basically a difference between taxation and the role of government; the difference between left and right that is. The economically "left" believe that taxation should be high in order to pay for public services such as transportation, health care, scientific programmes, regulatory bodies, etc. The result is that no one has to think very much and if you fail, there's always other people's tax money to fall back on. The oppose of this is that those on the "right" support is low taxation to only pay for essential services such as policing, the military and law making. This is a system where people succeed on their own merit and face consequences for poor decisions, where you pay only for the services you use.

I'm sure someone will argue that but that's basically the idea.

>>2

Nazis disliked the Jews because they were the rich elite and easy scapegoats.  Much of the American left feels similarly about the richest in the US.  I see that connection, but the left in America does not hate communists and unions like te Nazis did.  So I have trouble seeing American socialists as national socialists.

>>3

Nazis obviously supported authoritarianism, but I'm still confused about where the stood in the left vs right axis according to modern views of left and right.  I've heard people say the Nazis were authoritarian right, but they still called themselves "socialists".  Does a national socialist want competition or do they want equality for everyone within the group that supports them?

>>4

So national socialists support high taxation for a powerful military, scientific research, and public services, but wants to keep that public money within their own country and not flowing into the hands of foreigners?  If thats correct then I don't think there's anything like nationl socialists in the US. Republicans want low taxes, low regulation, and have a variety of views on interventionism ranging from militarism to isolationism.  And Democrats want higher taxes for public programs and lots of regulations, but want to cut back on military spending.  They are also very weak on illegal immigration which I don't find very nationalistic. I guess we have nationalists and socialists, but no national socialists.

I'm curious to see what other people think about this since people are often called "fascist" and "communist" and compared to Nazis in less than freindly political debates. But I think these are used inappropriately lots of the time.

>>5
There are many more ways in which money flows out of the country that just military invention. People have different opinions on what kind of foreign aid America should be giving out to who and under what circumstances. An example, not specific to aid, would be whether or not America should help the European debt crisis through various fiscal means.

>>5

You're not realizing that socialists can be of the right wing. Under socialism, capital is publicly owned and operated, and the fruits of labor applied via this capital flows "from each according to his abilities, to each according to his deeds." How what does or doesn't constitute deeds of quantifiable merit is somewhat arbitrary, but one approach is to simply let each socialist worker bear the fruits of his/her labor, or the monetary equivalent in proportion to the worker's output.

The catch is that the private capital of undesirables was being seized and confiscated by the state (the federation), under the Third Reich. Availing this capital for public use with no intention of transferability is socialism; whereas auctioning it off to the highest private bidder, or selling it, in whole or in part (as stock), to private buyers is capitalistic if not capitalism. In so far as the NSDAP was socialistic, then the option former was favored over the option latter.

Understood?

>>5
This is true, as >>3 pointed out there are many different forms of fascism and communism.

This can be attributed to the purpose of these ideologies which is to justify corruption or outright tyranny, as such emotions and logical fallacies often compose the core of their political philosophy. When viewed from this perspective it does not matter if bigotry is aimed at a very small demographic or a very larger demographic, just a change in strategy.

>>6

Giving aid to foreign countries would normally be regarded as the opposite of nationalistic, but with the way that all the world's economies are interconnected it can still be in a nation's best interest to aid or bailout another country.  This may end up being the case for the US and EU.  I do see the overlap up nationism and socialism here since nationalism is "or the good of the nation", while socialism is "for the good of the people".  I guess this means that national socialism isn't necesarilly bad, even though its most famous form was the Nazis, which honestly was my view of it.

>>7

The idea that socialism isn't just a left wing convept is new to me. Are you from the US?  I'm curious because even though your explanaition makes sense, it would be regarded as complete blasphemy by much of the US population.  Many people refuse to accept something as capitalistic if the government is involved.  There would be a rejection of the "capitalistic if not capitalism" part.  And this is despite the fact that the supposedly communist China has a lot of state sponsored capitalism.  I understand what your saying that it is possible to be both nationalistic and socialistic as long as the socialistic part isn't taken near the extremes of Marxism which is antinationalistic. It also makes sense that an ideology doesn't have to follow cookie cutter left, right, or moderate molds, people are fully capable of using combinations of ideas from across the board to acomplish their goals.  But political parties do encourage people to simply jump into one of these preconceived molds and be against anything contrary to these fixed narrow set of idea.

>>8

I'm not an anarchist by any means or even a libertarian, but sometimes I feel like the ideologies of most governments is to justify corruption.  They don't start that way, but eventually corrupt people work their way into the system and manipulate it that way.  Thats why checks and balances are necessary but dificult to manage properly.

>>9

Americans don't follow the correct definitions of things. Take for example, liberalism. Their Liberals just about only support the liberty of an adult to consume narcotics and to have consensual sex with other adults, as he/she pleases however, whenever and nearly wherever he/she pleases. Their Liberals also seem to think that receiving economic, social or life "necessities" from a tax-funded agency (perhaps the state in general) is not only a liberty but also a "right," and they expect these entitlements to be awarded "for free," meaning on the house (provided or paid for by those other than the recipients). Hence in all of the confusion, Conservative, political commentators such as Sean Hannity wonder if Liberalism is form of insanity, given the political outlooks and behaviors of Liberals (social liberals and social democrats among other things). So, libertarians (the classical liberals) are better known for supporting all forms of liberty, including the fiscal and economic components.

That being said, the first aspects of public service that Americans tend to think of as socialistic are schools, libraries, open roads/bridges, fire departments and social welfare programs rather than almost or more correctly things like the postal service, the mint, civil courts, toll roads/bridges, special park/recreation areas and various other fee-based services. Yet usually none of these fee-based services subsist without tax-funding, so they're not quite socialistic, not to mention having little or nothing to do with means of production, in most of the cases aforementioned.

>Many people refuse to accept something as capitalistic if the government is involved. And this is despite the fact that the supposedly communist China has a lot of state sponsored capitalism.
Well, one of the core of attributes of capitalism is that capital can be and is bartered/sold/bought or even organized into stock shares to be bartered/sold/bought. While, a state (a government) isn't a valid private entity, financial transaction with a state is hardly unusual. When the state controls, freezes, seizes, confiscates or destroys a private party's capital, or when the state controls, obstructs, freezes or inhibits the free flow of capital; then a violation of capitalism has occurred, and the same applies when the state augments private capital or assists the already free flow thereof, beyond a compensatory end.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism_and_ideology

>>1
National Socialism employed themes from both left-wing and right-wing political stances. Academia generally refer to it as ``far-right'', because of the biological racism that the Nazis espoused, though the NSDAP involved more than just ``getting rid of Jews and other undesirables''.