Talk:I.G. Farben

I.G. Farben was a for-profit corporation, hence the Fascism category is more appropriate then Socialist Organization, which makes it sound like an activist volunteer group. Thanmks. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:08, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Fascism is a form of socialism. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Wednesday, 19:09, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Here's a simplistic definition of the difference between fascism and communism pre-WWII: the communists seized the means of production and lined up factory owners and managers against the wall and shot them; the fascists crawled in bed with the factory owners and managers and colluded with them (hence, somewhat nullifying class war theory. Thats why the fascists were more successful for a time - they didn't kill the specialists and professionals needed to run factories and the economy, whereas the Soviets, for example, didn't have the brains to operate an industrial economy after removing all the specialists and technicians that were essential to run a factory).RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:13, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

That's definitely true—unlike Marxist Communism, Italian Fascism kept the capitalists around. However, even if Fascism appeared to retain the "forms and trappings" of capitalism, it never retained its core principles. Fascism simply used the general concept of the market transaction process to fuel its own socialist ends. So at the end of the day, it's still socialist. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Wednesday, 19:17, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Fascism is more of a corporate and business concept, and less ideological.

Anybody can have an ideology (like socialism or anti-socialism), but not everybody has a specialized education in some particular area that's needed to keep the economy working properly. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:20, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

I.G. Farben is a classic example of a fascist operation. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:24, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

[EC] Yes, Fascism essentially can be considered "socialism for elites." But at the end of the day, all socialism leads to a few illuminated central planners at the top while all the "proletariat" are subjugated catechumen. So whether socialism at its beginning phases emphasizes populism or elitism, it all leads to elitism anyways.

Also, your argument on economic grounds to imply that I.G. Farben does not fit the criteria for being a socialist organization is still undermined by the elephant in the room: Marxist Communism = class socialism, National Socialism = race socialism. I.G. Farben perpetuated the Nazi agenda to create a racial socialist "utopia" by facilitating ethnically motivated mass murder. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Wednesday, 19:26, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

My point is, we already know fascism is socialism. I.G. Farben is not a volunteer movement like Black Lives Matter. Solution: just add back the Fascism category and add the Socialism category, too (not the "social organization" cat.) RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:30, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Alright, done. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Wednesday, 19:32, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

(ec) I.G. Farben is a classic example of a fascist operation. (So is Mitsubishi and Volkswagen from that era. One can even argue the Big Three auto makers in the US; there were dozens and dozens of automakers that were washed out in the Great Depression, and the Big Three emerged largely due to corporate cronyism, or fascism). RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:24, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Okay, I think I see your point better now. So I.G. Farben was the "business" component of a Nazi operation (Italian Fascism was a distinct ideology), not the at-large socialist organization itself. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Wednesday, 19:33, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Sort of; Mussolini & Lenin came to power at about the same time. Lenin killed the bourgeois factory owners and managers, causing chaos and shortages in the economy; Mussolini colluded with the factory owners and managers to keep the economy functioning smoothly, provided they followed the dictates of the government and did not challenge the government. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:40, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

[EC] Yeah, Fascism used elements of capitalism to serve a socialist order. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Wednesday, 19:42, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Mussolini's process was replicated a decade later by Hitler & FDR, while the Soviet Union under Stalin struggled due to a lack of expert qualified personnel to run the factories. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:44, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

It's a shame the U.S. history curriculum never taught classes and generations the full truth about the New Deal, it seems—the programs are often glorified and at least whitewashed, though apparently the AP United States History curriculum admits that the New Deal didn't fix the Great Depression, from what I recall hearing. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Wednesday, 19:47, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

(ec) Another way to look at it: Fascism values the expertise of technicians and technocrats, while Marxism-Leninism still was focused on class warfare and persecuted specialists with higher education. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:49, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

This explains why limousine liberals are fascists; to avoid the angry peasant mob with pitchforks, they come over to the socialist-fascst side. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:52, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

[EC] Interesting. That reminds me, I recall reading about "reactionary modernism" over at Wikipedia as it concerns Jeffrey Herf's thesis to describe the general mentality of the Nazis and Conservative Revolutionary movement. There is something about that description that appears eerily relevant to our current era. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Wednesday, 19:53, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

It was the Soviet Communists and Bolsheviks who made "Fascism" a dirty word in the English language - they were challenged more by the socialists (i.e. fascist) in their own ranks than anyone else ("capitalism" is not an ideology; capitalists will sell to and take anybody's money). RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:56, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

"capitalists" are guided by "market forces", not ideology. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 19:59, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

[EC] That indeed is how socialism works. When a dissident branch breaks off from the "main" movement, they are castigated by the orthodox stalwarts as "right-wing reactionary shills." That is because socialism despises competition, and therefore its individual movements, when vying for power, must eliminate intrasocialist rivals before feeling secure enough to take over a country in a glorious vangaurdist revolution. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Thursday, 20:00, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

More broadly speaking, a traitor within the group is always treated as enemy number 1. You saw this during the Islamic State. The Sunni rulers regarded Shia Muslims as the prime target. Christians and Jews were only secondary. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 20:04, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

I personally didn't catch up on the news about Islamic regimes. Another example would be the South during Reconstruction; Southern whites who supported Republicans were persecuted first, and then with the "scalawags" (and also "carpetbaggers") out of the way, then black people. I recall Eric Foner's book on Reconstruction stating that some/many Confederate-sympathizing Southern whites were open to supporting carpetbaggers but despised scalawags. —LT ^{Rev. 22:13} Thursday, 20:09, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel. - 1 Tim 5:9. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 20:11, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Now there is a debate about this passage, whether it means food and clothing or doctrinal teaching. Probably both. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 20:13, September 27, 2023 (EDT)

Solzhenitsyn has a story in The First Circle that goes on for several pages about a camp commander who order a bunch of camp workers to carry a heavy lathe up a flight of stairs cause he finally found a worker in the camp who knew how to operate it. By the time they got it there, it was cracked and broken cause they dropped it along the way. So a big investigation was made into "sabotage" cause the commander had to cover his own butt why the camp wasn't producing anything with the lathe assigned to the camp. So what was the prisoners defense? That the camp didn't feed them enough and that's why they were too weak to carry the big heavy lathe.

It's a boring story, but anybody who lived in the Soviet system certainly could relate. The fascists solved the problem by paying lathe operators a little more, "income inequality" as they call it, than common laborers. RobS^{Give Peace a Chance!} 20:26, September 27, 2023 (EDT)