How and why Germans bought Hitler's pitch, what can we learn?

piloteer said:

It's worth noting that the far right in America and Europe and Russia are fiercely nationalistic, just like the nazis. The far left aren't nationalistic. 

piloteer said:

@CYDdharta

The only reason stalin turned out to be worse than hitler is because stalin had time to do his atrocities. If hitler had as much time as stalin, I think it would have been a pretty close competition between the two. Perhaps you can differentiate between communism and socialism, but I cannot. hitler was a socialist, which is no different from communism when you boil them down.

Socialism is totalitarianism, and totalitarianism comes in four forms.     The first is through a feudal royal kingship.    The second, clerical control of society.    Third, left wing socialism, which is usually initially supported by the public service bureaucrats and their unions, academia, minority groups, and those dependent upon government welfare.     Right wing socialism is usually initially supported by the aristocracy, upper, middle classes, often the clergy, and war veterans if they exist.      Both types of socialism try to appeal to the largest class in society, the working class, for support.

 Left wing socialism is supposedly both egalitarian and internationalist, but it is neither.   Left wing socialism is usually as nationalistic as right wing socialism.    Left wing socialism simply means that certain classes of elites get complete control, although they usually find themselves being controlled themselves by bloodthirsty despots.   What results is an almost feudal aristocracy of privileged people, and the rest of society below them.    Left wing economics is so laughably idealistic and out of touch with reality that it inevitably results in economic disaster for the entire nation, and technological stagnation. 

 Right wing socialism was a better idea because it put people into power who knew what they were doing instead of woolly headed, idealistic academics and self serving bureaucrats, who could not run a chook raffle at a country fete.  Right wing totalitarians are usually very successful at managing economies, something that Russia and China only in the last 40 years figured out.  Like left wing socialism, it usually results in a bloodthirsty despot taking over all control. 

 Unfortunately, even a right wing totalitarian political system combined with a free market does not do as well as a democracy coupled with a free market economy.     The Ivans are learning that a supposedly free market run by corrupt secret police political cronies does not work very well at all.    And the Chinese are learning that once they have stolen all of the west's technology without regard to intellectual property rights, their western competitors who are much more innovative in creating technology, will avoid doing business or transferring knowledge to them in future.

 But anyhoo, Hitler was an artist and a genuine member of the so called "intelligentsia".    Nazism and Fascism were just two derivations of socialism which were more acceptable to the some demographics than to others.     Like left wing socialism before it, Fascism was considered a progressive, even liberal idea by people who were desperate, and who clamoured for change.