@PurpleLibraryGuy

I may have been confusing liberalism vs. conservatism with left vs. right, then. After all, it is possible to be a left-leaning conservative. It is also possible to be a right-leaning liberal. This tends to make things too complicated for the polar thinkers out there.

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@Cato-the-younger

From the way others have written to you, I assume you are Russian? Or, live in one of the former Soviet satellite states? I cannot presume to understand every detail of what things were like for Soviet citizens. Yes, looking back at what I wrote, you are correct -- I was echoing Western propaganda and making assumptions about the how things were under Soviet rule. If you have firsthand experience, clearly your knowledge is greater than mine. Unbiased information is difficult to come by no matter where we reside.

I do not want to wade back into the "Fascism is a form of Socialism" debate, as clearly the views of what constitutes Socialism are too dogmatic here. I would like to make the point, however, that, under Fascism, while the means of production may have been privately owned, control was supposed to be in the hands of the state. Mussolini, generally considered to be one of the founders of Fascism, was reportedly hostile to private corporations and the free market economy. Whether this hostility appeared in practice, I haven't been able to discover yet. I also cannot speak as to whether all forms of Fascism from that era followed along the same lines. In seeming contradiction, modern definitions state that Fascism is the ultimate synthesis of state and corporate business. Perhaps this applies more to Neo-Fascism?

And, yes, I have been checking my facts.

I find it interesting, your statement that the means of production belonged to the worker. Is this truly the case -- using a single factory, as an example -- that the workers in that factory made all the decisions without any interference from the bureaucrats in the government above? This would be remarkably similar to an employee-owned business here in the West. If so, this is certainly not what Western propaganda has led us to believe.

Thanks for the polite correspondence. It is appreciated.

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@tuubi

you seem badly misinformed ...

Funny. I could have said the same thing about you. I just chose to be polite and end the conversation. I didn't see you backing up your claims either.

You are not going to convince me and I am not going to convince you. Let's just call it a day, shall we?

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@tuubi

You might want to check a dictionary for a definition of Socialism.

No offense, @tuubi, but you might want to check an encyclopedia yourself.

If workers don't own the means of production, it's not Socialism

You have defined Communism (or, perhaps, Marxism), not Socialism. Socialism comes in many variants. Karl Marx was not the originator of the idea of Socialism, as many have come to believe. In regards to Socialism, it is generally considered that the resources and means of production should be controlled by the state. Not the workers, the state (i.e., the government). And this does not necessarily imply ownership, either. Capitalism functions quite well with many forms of socialism.

As I was taught long ago, Fascism is typically placed on the right of the socialist spectrum, whereas Communism has been placed on the left of that spectrum. However, in terms of political systems, all socialist idealogies are considered to be left-leaning (i.e., more government intrusion). The true political right leans towards less government involvement in society, not more. The failure to distinguish the difference between the socialist spectrum and its place in the entire political spectrum has led to a great deal of confusion as to what is left or right.

Fascism was developed by two socialists, expanding on the ideas of Karl Marx. What we now know as Nazism was originally called National Socialism. Both put the socialist focus on the nation instead of the working class, as would have been advocated by Marx.

Contrary to the assertion of @Purple Library Guy, Hitler did not hate the Communists. He considered them brothers and said so publicly. Hitler did, however, silence anyone he believed opposed him.

FYI, my understanding of the political realities of the first half of the 20th century pre-dates YouTube. Please do not attempt to denigrate my opinions by suggesting they are influenced by social media.

This is the last I have to say on the matter.

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@Purple Library Guy

the difference in what kind of elite is screwing everything up makes big changes in how they screw everything up.

In this we can agree.

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@Purple Library Guy

Revisionism? I was taught this in high school in social/political studies in the mid 1980s. I would be more inclined to believe that your view represents the revisionism. I even remember the teacher putting up a spectrum of Socialism showing Fascism at one end and Communism at the other. Presumably, social democracy was somewhere in the middle.

I should point out that I was talking about Fascism not Nazism. IMO, Nazism was a perversion of Fascism by a group of madmen. Not that this makes Fascism any better an option. That could, I suppose, also be said about Communism as well. In that case, the utopian wet-dream of Marxism, when implemented, became the reality of Communism which was later twisted by the horror of Stalinism.

and Nazi ideology was extremely anti-socialist

Obviously they weren't coming for the socialists and trade unionists because they themselves were socialists.

It is kind of naive to think that it is not possible for socialists to hate other types of socialists. Quoting the (admittedly profound) poem of a former Nazi supporter is hardly proof that the Nazis were not socialist.

Correct me if I'm wrong (FYI, I'm not) but isn't the proper name of the Nazi Party actually the National Socialist German Workers' Party? Wouldn't that contradict your assertion in and of itself?

All I was trying to point out that there are different kinds of socialism, just as there are different kinds of democracy, different kinds of feudalism, and different kinds of totalitarianism. On a very simplistic level, the primary difference between Fascism and Communism is the ownership of the resources and assets. Of course, one can find other differences if one chooses to dig further into the details.

I am not trying to engage in an argument here. I suspect you are younger than I. Your views are formed by the idealogies that influenced your education, as are mine. As, I suspect, would be the views of my father and grandfather, both of whom lived through WW2, the former as a child and the latter actively supporting the resistance to German occupation.

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I'm not going to comment on the particulars for either Ukraine or Russia. I just wanted to point out that there is little difference between Communism and Fascism (of which Nazism is an extreme example). Both are Socialist idealogies. When you get down to basics, both are totalitarian and oppressive in nature. In Communism, the resources are controlled by the State elite. In Fascism, the resources are controlled by the Capitalist/Private elite. Neither is better or worse than the other - they are both forms of Socialism.

@Linas
The Nazis are not entirely gone - although, the more extreme element may be. Those that remain have just redefined themselves and now call themselves globalists. Some do not even try to hide their Nazi connections. They still seek to impose their Fascist idealogies on rest of us.

Any way, that's just my two cents ...

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Very good. Thanks for this.

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@R Daneel Olivaw

Thank you for replying. My wife is a professional bookkeeper. She will not use web-based services nor will she recommend them to her clients. The data cannot be secured and backed up locally by her or by her clients. Access to their data and its long-term security is entirely at the mercy of Intuit and it's cloud storage. Intuit's attempts to force clients to QBO has been losing them a lot of customers.

Her focus is on trying to get QuickBooks Desktop run on Linux.

I passed on your recommendation of Wave for her reference. It seems counterintuitive, however, as the promotional material basically advocates doing business without the need of a bookkeeper.

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My wife would like to switch. She hates Windows. The only thing holding her back is QuickBooks, which she needs for her bookkeeping business. I haven't been able to determine if it will run flawlessly under Wine.

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