The articles reasoning is flawed: It does not recognize that the rise of the new far right is in answer to neoliberalism and globalism. The problems they are describing are caused by this old neo liberal anti-nationalist but still right wing agenda. I guess it is confusing to them that the current Italian government both is cracking down on immigration and for the first time is introducing long term unemployment insurance. Unrestricted immigration was also the weapon of choice for the elite in the US in the 19th century. You could pit Germans against Irish against former Slaves and it is still one of the reasons that today there are so little social benefits, because people think “those people” will take advantage of it.
I guess it is not surprising because the Zeit has been the mouthpiece for a globalist neo-liberal elitist agenda in Germany for a long time. Their editor in chief is a warmongering (has argued for a preemptive attack on Iran for example) Havard educated neo liberal.
It seems that the far right can never ever take responsibility for their own bigotry and I am sick of seeing the illogic of "it was the immigrants made me racist and caused me to make things worse for everyone. Obey us or else!"
If their petty bigotted spite is such that they would rather see no benefits when they are in need than benefits to all including "the other" the problem is clearly them. It certainly isn't some fiscal calculus involving actual resource constraints and yields.
It doesn't require some secret imaginary elite - they are perfectly capable of causing backwards ruination on their own. Even if they stumble upon an obvious truth (cooperation with outgroup would benefit us) they blame the outgroup's existence for the lack of cooperation instead of their moronic bigotry.
The truth is the problem has always been them and their bigotry. Deprived of an other they will other themselves and deploy divide and conquer tactics - on themselves. Set the dark brown hair against the black or A blood type against the Bs.
I suspect that there is a civil war going on between billionaires that filters down to a proxy war on the political stage.
A lot of capital has tied itself to economic efficiency, which has a strong tendency to dictate globalism, which also lent it political support from both classical liberals and modern liberals (note, I am not using the word 'liberal' in the broadest sense, commonly used in the USA), for whom the increase in on the ground freedom of labour and capital was mostly considered worth the cost of creating the ultra rich.
Now however, a block of the newly created ultra rich have the wealth of small nations and are asking themselves, 'What if everywhere was small nations, wouldn't it be nice if we could become sovereign and rule openly over a balkanised mass of city-states?'.
This appears at ground level in the spectacle of little old ladies who worship Thatcher, confusingly starting to parrot the talking points of late 1990's anti-capitalists. Boris Johnson saying 'fuck business' during the Brexit negotiations with the EU was no accident. And this transformation has been so fast that people paying close attention to political swings would be prone to whiplash.
Ultimately though, the real power is held by the already globalised Zaibatsus, as they have control of production, so I also suspect that the princelings-to-be may be sticking their neck out a bit far right now.
Here in Sweden the leader of the most furthest right wing party (Sweden Democratic Party) just recently stated that they are pushing the new ”social democratic” agenda.
This despite being self-proclaimed conservative, nationalist, and right wing during the election.
It’s a bit scary what happens when history is lost on a new generation.
Do you really need an explanation, how Hitler had nothing to with socialism, or are you just spewing far right talking points without regard for fact or reason?
What? My comment was meant as a warning to not fall for far-right, or any other extremist position, not as advertising for far-right positions of all things.
Well, it might've been a honest mistake of someone who believes in horseshoe fallacy, but calling Nazis and Hitler socialist or left-wingers is a very common far right tactic, designed to muddy the waters and distance themselves from a very problematic person, so that's why I was confused about the point you were making.
Social democracy isn't really socialist, it's just capitalism with some social concerns. Socialism is at its core the social ownership of the means of production; that's pretty incompatible with the private ownership of the means of production, which underpins capitalism.
This is a rewriting of history. Social democracy used to be really big on nationalizing whole industry sectors, to the point of being little different even from self-described "democratic socialists". This changed starting from the 1980s as it became clear that nationalized enterprises are almost always severely dysfunctional.
Today, social democracy mostly agrees with social liberals and neoliberals that nationalization should be used very rarely and sparingly - mostly wrt. inherently-monopolistic "platform"-like businesses such as railways, power grids or telco infrastructure. And even then, these "platforms" should be open for multiple private competitors to operate on, as opposed to providing monopolistic services of their own via vertical integration.
This is really oversimplifying things, in my opinion.
“Some social concerns” is really brushing over a lot of the things that make social democracy a form of socialism.
You’re missing for example that in a social democracy it’s common for private companies affiliated with what you could call “public service” to be in part owned by the state.
These companies most often used to be wholly state owned, but through the market liberal agenda many things have been sold out.
Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
A lot of what is considered welfare is also not necessarily privatized.
If you have researched the topic more, you would've found a that NSDAP was no stranger to nationalisations, and did that with, reportedly, huge popular support.
I guess it is not surprising because the Zeit has been the mouthpiece for a globalist neo-liberal elitist agenda in Germany for a long time. Their editor in chief is a warmongering (has argued for a preemptive attack on Iran for example) Havard educated neo liberal.