Well, first, I evoke Godwin's law, so we all loose.
After, I say that we can all settle that the Nazis were a nightmare, period. - can't we?
As for this aspect of debate, here is my take: as many said, the old, french revolution "girondinos" VS "jacobinos" (sp?) usage of the terms "left" and "right" has turned into something confusing and utterly useless, because now they exemplify two very wide non-connected spectres of ideology, which can co-exist.
IMHO, the spheres are as pointed before in this thread, and as well in the political compass, a cartesian quadrant:
economical:
collectivist (apoteosis: communism) <----------> individualism (apoteosis: objectivism), in the X axis;
Social:
libertarian (apoteosis: anarchy) <----------> authoritarian (apoteosis: fascism), in the y axis.
Hence, we have the USSR and the Nazi scoring diametrically opposed grades in the economical axis - the first being collectivist (or theoretically aimed at communal achievements), the second one being very individualist (aimed at individual sucess, even if not afraid to use the public machine to enable that sucess - see the "mein kampf" quotes I brought previously).
At the same time, their score is virtually identical in the social axis - both being highly authoritarian.
The issue of confusion is, than, simple: Everybody recognizes that the URSS was leftist, and that Nazi German was an evil regime. Than, liberals (who like to identify as "left"), places look on the economical aspect of the Nazis to realize it was not a collectivist regime, and add to that, they see how conservative their values were, identifying it, than, as a right-winger regime (IMHO, correctly).
On the other side, the conservatives (or "right" by their naming choice) like to lump this other world evil in the lap of liberals. For that, they put an emphasis on the social scale,
incorrectly assuming that every form of collectivism is necessarily dictatorial. So, in graphic terms, we have:
Y axis (+)
authoritarian
|
|
(1) X-, Y+ | X+, Y+ (2)
X axis (-) - collectivism ---------+-------- individualism - x axis (+)
(3) X-, Y- | X+, Y- (4)
|
|
libertarian
Y axis (-)
(1) - URSS, soviet block in general
(2) - Nazi Germany, south-america dictatorships
(3) - No Example - (Gandhi?), theoretical build of marxist communism
(4) - Modern Social Democracies
As a matter of fact, I've seen right wingers simply deny even the theoretical validity of the quadrant 3, what is cleraly an opinion based on misunderstanding of these theories and in political passion, and specially, a taste for the also undue linkage between economical freedom and social freedom, what is disproved by the tinest knowledge of world history.
Anyway, as for me there is no inherent link between collectivism and authoritarian regimes,
and because the defining trait of a leftist regime is it's alignement in the economical axis, it is quite clear that Nazi Germany was a rightist regime.
Nazi's interference in economy was very real, but it happened because of the nature of authoritarism, that preaches involvement of the authorities in everything. Clearly, though, they done it to incourage their supposed übbermensch to shine, and to help them excell, not to engage in redistribution, as a leftist doctrine would dictate.
In all fairness, it was not capitalist also. Luiz is very right to say that the Nazis hated it as much as communism. Their sense of values, in many aspects, remember a form of chivalry - they valued super-able and all achieving individuals who should rule, but who were willing to sacrifice for a cause - what is not the profile of a capitalist, which seeks profit, not ideology.
Hence, I can't do but laught when i see these naive debates in which each side wishes to place the blame of the nazis in the other side. If they knew what they are talking about, they'd know that their narrow qualification is non-applicable.
Regards
.
