I suppose all the Germans who admire Adolf Hitler and flock to the far-right AfD have got it all wrong.

@underlined: not according to that 5 hour video you shared. Practically argues that groups = socialism, which means that everything is actually socialism.

"Freest country" and "most capitalist" - how do you measure these things? 

By one very objective measure, the US is one of the least free. We have one of the highest per capita prison populations in the world.

How do you measure most capitalist? Most of the successful countries have mixed economies that mix private and public services. 

"is textbook insanity."

What was the best model, before capitalism? Would you have argued before that happened, that it would be textbook insanity to abandon - I don't know let's say feudalism? 

The horse has been the most effective model for transportation for literally thousands of years, it would be absolute insanity to even think about using anything else.  

Those early attempts at airplanes were such a disaster, why would we try anything else? 

Did I say for 'anything else'? I clearly meant socialism.

If you don't understand why America is the most free country in history, it means you don't actually understand the constitution and how American rights are actually protected.

What are you attempting to achieve with this post? The scope is pretty wide and all over the place. 

The original topic was about the connection between Socialism and Fascism. 

G.D.H Cole's sympathies to Guild Socialism are irrelevant, because in his five volumes he covers many other ideas of socialism, some directly opposed to what he believed in. Besides Guild Socialism was probably one of the more popular currents in the Anglosphere in the 1900's-1920's. 

The point of bringing up the fact that G.D.H Cole had to write five volumes, each hundreds of pages on the topic, was that -- that was necessary to cover the whole ideological breadth that fell under the "socialism" umbrella. That's why you are seeing many socialists disagree on what is "truly socialist." 

But one of the main themes of the book (and others that attempt to summarize the socialist movement as well) is that what connects them all is that all socialists aim to solve the social question and answer it with the transformation toward a classless society where wage-labor is not the principle relationship of production. The Nazis (and other fascist movements) rejected the social question, instead choosing to naturalize class and promote so-called "class collaboration." It is that which makes them non-socialists as the word was mutually understood between say 1840 and today. 

People who might have known me on here ten years ago, would know I was a hardcore heavily ideological anarcho-capitalist for about five years. Before then I was  more aligned with mainstream Republicanism. I voted for Ron Paul in 2012, as an example. I've read plenty of Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Karl Hess, etc and use to profess their views. 

For example, even today I still think Rothbard said a lot right in his Confiscation and the Homestead Principle.

And of course Karl Hess' essay he was responding to is even more on-point -- Where are the Specifics of [Libertarianism]?

So no, I am not in some ideological bubble here. I can appreciate right-wing thinkers who at least put in the work to educate themselves, and who have excelled much beyond that. I think they're wrong and disagree with them, but their arguments are a lot better than garbage YouTube Auth-Right propaganda. 

I genuinely cannot fathom how anyone can look at recent US events (let alone the country's history) and actually think this. 

Americans in this thread "We don't feel very free right now." 

People from Oceania, "The U.S is the freest country in the world!" 

Meanwhile, 

Hell even if we use the right-wing libertarian Cato's freedom index, the U.S was 17th in 2024, and probably will drop from there going forward. 

https://www.cato.org/human-freedom-index/2024

Using a graph that says I'm living in the freest country in the world. That tells me everything I need to know about your 'verified sources'.

Half our country doesn't even know what most of the streets are named. The media is a one-sided propaganda machine. Academia completely infiltrated. Mandatory language training and colonialist apology sessions. Now we can barely keep ourselves from slipping into third-world country status with the economy swirling the drain.

Dame Jacinda sure left some kind of revolution. Keep the revolutions in your head next time.

You mean the right-wing libertarian American think-tank Cato is wrong? Did they not read enough Mises? Do they not understand the U.S Constitution? What a joke. 

https://www.cato.org/blog/trumps-unimpeachable-reputation

https://www.cato.org/commentary/nationalist-threat-liberty#

What a shock.

Your obssession with 'academically approved' qualifications over what I have literally seen and experienced with my own eyes. And it's just more people with TDS.

This thread spending a whole week being unable to show the slightest bit of humanity after such a shocking event, yet constantly trying to preach how much they care about the struggles of social classes, is the real joke.

It's just discrimination re-branded with your new favourite coat of paint.

You have no idea how much this attitude has furthered the divide in Western society.

This thread isn't for serious people.