yang_gang2020 t1_itrxwzj wrote on October 25, 2022 at 9:20 PM

Reply to comment by Meta_Digital in The philosophy of Martin Heidegger who argued that the Technological mindset has destroyed our relationship to the world so that Nature is seen as so many resources to exploit. He presents an alternative: a poetic relationship to the world by thelivingphilosophy

You have stated that 1. Capitalists funded Nazi Germany, 2. that the USSR was disappointed Germany did not have a Bolshevik revolution, and 3. that Nazi Germany was in practice a capitalist regime. While these premises all may be true, these do not lead to, and you have not proven, or even spoken to, the possibility (or impossibility) that there could be a critique of capitalism under the framework of Nazi ideology.

robothistorian t1_itsk26y wrote on October 26, 2022 at 12:03 AM

>the possibility (or impossibility) that there could be a critique of capitalism under the framework of Nazi ideology.

It could be argued that the Nazi concept (or at least the valorization by the Nazis of the concept) of "blood and soil", which formed the core of the Völkisch movement could be construed as a proto critique of Capitalism. It reinforced the connection between people and the land they cultivated and was marked by elements of organicism, racialism, agrarianism, and populism. Key Nazi officials like Walther Darré (Minister of Food & Agriculture) and Reichleiter for agricultural policy were strong proponents of this concept. Interestingly, even Heinrich Himmler was a proponent of this though in a highly fantasized (unrealistic) way. Himmler's ideas in this regard were supposed to be the foundations of how "the eastern territories" after the war were to be organised, which was also echoed by Hitler at one point in time (I don't have the reference to this off-hand, but I can dig it up). Edit: I wanted to add that Alfred Rosenberg (Reich Minister for the Eastern Territories) was another high-level Nazi official who was aligned to these kinds of views.

The point that I am trying to make is this: Nazi ideology to the extent that it existed as a coherent body did position itself against capitalism and communism. It did so by invoking a mythical condition involving what they referred to as "Blut und Boden" (the Blood and Soil concept), which attempted to establish an inextricable link between people and the land they occupy and cultivate. In many ways, this concept valorized "the peasantry", whose culture (ethos, one could say) would be - at least in Himmler's and Hitler's terms - warlike (this being the key "to keep the blood fresh and invigorated").

To this extent at the very least Nazi ideology could be considered to be contra the basic principles of capitalism (and communism).