The Pokemon cartoon is not relevant, that’s the last i’ll say on the matter. You’re trying to change the subject.
As far as my knowledge goes Bismark was not a socialist. You’re trying to change the subject.
In my opinion the Nordic states are not socialist. You’re trying to change the subject.
Thank you for your straight answers.
Please read what i have written. Every form of equality needs an ideology behind it in order to interpret what equality is. That is why we cannot talk about ‘equality’ without reference to ideology.
For example, do you agree with the idea of equality in the protection of life inside and outside of the womb? Every form of equality has an ideology behind it. Yours too.
Are you saying that the pro-life movement is “socialist” because it proclaim in some form of “equality”, or that rhetoric of equality have no relevance to whether a specific ideology or political movement are “socialist”.
The 70% tax rate is a pretty obvious example. The Austrian lady speaks about this also how the tax taken was distributed to the less well off under state schemes.
I insist that my inquiries about Sweden and Bismarck have probative value.
So, according to you, Sweden is not “socialist”, and since Sweden has high marginal tax rates (and if it doesn’t, I don’t see any reason for much of the opposition by conservatives for Sweden’s social welfare state), then it is not an element of socialism. Sweden also has universal health care.
Moreover, Otto von Bismarck, whom you said was not a socialist, also adopted several social welfare policies.
Bismarck’s program centered squarely on insurance programs designed to increase productivity and focus the political attentions of German workers on supporting the Junker’s government. The program included Health insurance, accident insurance (workman’s compensation); disability insurance; and an old-age retirement Pension, none of which then in existence to any great degree. After Bismarck left office in 1890, further social legislation regulated working time and conditions and sought to protect more vulnerable workers (women and children), and establish a system to allow redress for employer abuse.
And just because it is called “socialist”
State Socialism (German: Staatssozialismus) was a term introduced to describe Otto von Bismarck’s social welfare policies. The term was actually coined by Bismarck’s liberal opposition but later accepted by Bismarck.[1] They refer to a set of social programs implemented in Germany that were initiated by Bismarck in 1883 as remedial measures to appease the working class and detract support for socialism and the Social Democratic Party of Germany following earlier attempts to achieve the same objective through Bismarck’s anti-socialist laws.
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According to William Harbutt Dawson, despite being labeled “socialist” by his opponents, Otto Von Bismarck’s social legislation sought to preserve the existing economic order and state in Germany. This was in stark contrast to socialists, who sought to subvert the power of the existing state and eventually replace the capitalist order with a socialist economy.[4]
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Socialism_%28Germany%29
The term “socialist” actually originated from classical liberal opposition in a derogatory context, but Bismarck was not a socialist because he did not embrace the revolutionary and anti-capitalist elements of socialism.
My point for bring up Bismarck, Sweden, and Pokemon Centers is to show that instituting social welfare programs does not necessarily constitute “socialism”. Therefore, most of the examples adduced by the Austrian woman are irrelevant to the question whether the Nazis were “socialist”.
To be sure, all taints of racism have been purged out of the message of socialists like Bernie Sanders. What remains is the classism, that was a very real thing in the rise of Fascism of eighty years ago.
The roots of Classism are to be found in Socialism.
I learned in this thread that classism is largely irrelevant to “socialism”. In order to be a “socialist”, you need not advocate the dispossession of the capitalists and aristocracy of their assets and the institution public ownership of the means of production. After all, that is what the “socialist” Goebbels said was the major error of the Soviets. As the famous far-left “socialist” dicator Mussolini said: “all within the state, nothing against the state, nothing outside the state.” “Socialism” has nothing to do with class warfare, as that is just an aberration (or “accident” in Aristotelian terms) from the Soviet style of socialism; instead “socialism” is about “state power”.
