A message for ancaps(also other capitalists)

Categorically I'm an AnCap at the moment (although I no longer identify as one). I'd never really considered Nazism to be socialism. Although there are some similarities between Nazism and Authoritarian Socialism (or State Capitalism if you prefer), I think there's some key differences which set them apart from each other.

  • In authoritarian states led by socialists, Private property rights were either largely absent or completely abolished. In Nazi Germany, Private Industry and Private property/business was allowed to continue insofar as it served the interests of the state or at least did not interfere with it.

  • Historical examples of both seemed to have a clear idea that there was an enemy to fight, although among people sympathetic to communism the enemy was seen as an oppressive force from above (the bourgeoisie, the elites), and with Nazism the enemy was seen as vermin coming from below (gypsies, the disabled), although I guess the Jews were considered an evil elite as well.

  • Historical examples of both seemed to diminish the importance of the individual in favour of something beyond the individual. For communists I guess it was the collective? (might need to be corrected on that), for Nazis it was the State.

I think also another thing that may get lost in translation between Caps and Socs is that for many of us who are proponents of capitalism we have a tendency to separate our social tastes/beliefs from economics, because usually when we talk about Capitalism we're usually only talking about economics, whereas for socialism there at least appears to be economic ideas as well as social ideas that get mixed in together that define socialism (eg. cultural and social oppression of minorities/women, etc.).

The reason I bring that up is because Nazism and Authoritarian States led by Socialists had some similarities in economic views, ie. anti-free market and anti-individualist. Because proponents of capitalism may be more used to speaking mostly in terms of economics when discussing Capitalism, some of us may look at Socialism and Nazism and conflate the 2 as being the same thing because we see only their similarities in economic ideas and don't take into consideration the stark differences in social philosophies.

There is room here for capitalists to stop conflating the two systems off hand without more in depth investigation, although there is also perhaps room for socialists to stop immediately conflating authoritarian socialism as State Capitalism.

/r/CapitalismVSocialism Thread