Re: Commentary: Identifying, and then ignoring, internet trolls
I was surprised to see that the author wasn’t aware that communism is a form of socialism.
The author seems to confuse social democracy with socialism. Socialism is an economic system that is characterized by government ownership of businesses.
Social democracy is a philosophy that supports economic and social interventions to promote social justice within a democracy and a capitalist economy.
Mussolini led the maximalists, which governed the Italian socialist party and purged the more moderate members. During the First World War Mussolini favoured joining the war and violently overthrowing the monarchy.
Mussolini was ousted, and formed the fascist party to do this. The socialist party split into a new socialist party, a communist party, and the fascist party. The Italian fascist party has deep socialist roots.
The National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nazi) was a national socialist party, as opposed to an international socialist party, and as such had different goals than international socialists, that see all workers as brothers.
Hitler founded the Nazis on the 25-point program, which included racism, anti-Semitism, etc., as well as the right to employment, profit sharing, confiscation of war profits, nationalization of trusts, enhanced old age pensions, a national education system for all classes, an end to child labour, an end to big investment capital, and land reform.
Nazi Germany was the second country after Russia to grant paid vacations, and was an early adopter of free education for bright children.
Hitler achieved all or part of the above goals, though he repealed the land reform after agricultural failure. These are all actions expected from socialists or social democracy.
Whether you call Hitler a socialist or not doesn’t matter, but the people who voted for him felt he was a socialist.
The Alberta NDP is a socialist party. Tom Mulcair ended the federal NDP's claim to socialism, making it a social democratic party. Yet how many businesses did Notley nationalize?
Obviously political party claims are not worth much. Trudeau broke 64 campaign promises, and still got re-elected. Socialist countries include Cuba, Venezuela and Greece.
Many misinformed people think that the Scandinavian countries are socialist, but they confuse socialism with social democracy, which is a completely different thing.
The Scandinavian countries have never had a socialist majority in power. Social democracy and socialism are not mutually exclusive, and many socialists support social democracy, but many socialists are communists.
Bob Wilson,
Calgary
