Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian Quotes

“Now I think that a fundamental fact that explains the all-round reign of terror found under socialism is the incredible dilemma in which a socialist state places itself in relation to the masses of its citizens. On the one hand, it assumes full responsibility for the individual’s economic well-being. Russian or Bolshevik-style socialism openly avows this responsibility—this is the main source of its popular appeal. On the other hand, in all of the ways one can imagine, a socialist state makes an unbelievable botch of the job. It makes the individual’s life a nightmare.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“the individual is the best judge of his own interests,”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“Literally everything the government does is ultimately a threat to point a gun at someone and use it if necessary.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“Socialism cannot be ruled for very long except by terror.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“freedom of press and speech. A socialist government totally annihilates these freedoms. It turns the press and every public forum into a vehicle of hysterical propaganda in its own behalf, and it engages in the relentless persecution of everyone who dares to deviate by so much as an inch from its official party line.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“the rulers of a socialist state must live in terror of the people.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“the requirements merely of enforcing price-control regulations is the adoption of essential features of a totalitarian state,”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“Shortages result in chaos throughout the economic system.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“what specifically established de facto socialism in Nazi Germany was the introduction of price and wage controls in 1936.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“Today, in the United States, government spending, federal, state, and local, amounts to almost half of the monetary incomes of the portion of the citizenry that does not work for the government. Fifteen federal cabinet departments, and a much larger number of federal regulatory agencies, together in most instances with counterparts at the state and local level, routinely intrude into virtually every area of the individual citizen’s life. In countless ways he is taxed, compelled, and prohibited. The effect of such massive government interference is unemployment, rising prices, falling real wages, a need to work longer and harder, and growing economic insecurity. The further effect is growing anger and resentment. Though the government’s policy of interventionism is their logical target, the anger and resentment people feel are typically directed at businessmen and the rich instead. This is a mistake which is fueled for the most part by an ignorant and envious intellectual establishment and media.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“The Communists were and are willing to apply such force, as evidenced in Soviet Russia. Their character is that of armed robbers prepared to commit murder if that is what is necessary to carry out their robbery. The character of the Social Democrats in contrast is more like that of pickpockets, who may talk of pulling the big job someday, but who in fact are unwilling to do the killing that would be required, and so give up at the slightest sign of serious resistance. As for the Nazis, they generally did not have to kill in order to seize property. This was because, as we have seen, they established socialism by stealth, through price controls, which served to maintain the outward guise and appearance of private ownership. The private owners were thus deprived of their property without realizing it and thus felt no need to defend it by force. In sum, I think I have shown that socialism—actual socialism—is totalitarian by its very nature.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“The reason that Social Democrats do not establish socialism when they come to power, is that they are unwilling to do what would be required. The establishment of socialism as an economic system requires a massive act of theft—the means of production must be seized from their owners and turned over to the state. Such seizure is virtually certain to provoke substantial resistance on the part of the owners, resistance which can be overcome only by use of massive force.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“Socialism cannot be ruled for very long except by terror. As soon as the terror is relaxed, resentment and hostility logically begin to well up against the rulers.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“It is because of their terror, and their desperate need to crush every breath even of potential opposition, that the rulers of socialism do not dare to allow even purely cultural activities that are not under the control of the state. For if people so much as assemble for an art show or poetry reading that is not controlled by the state, the rulers must fear the dissemination of dangerous ideas. Any unauthorized ideas are dangerous ideas, because they can lead people to begin thinking for themselves and thus to begin thinking about the nature of socialism and its rulers. The rulers must fear the spontaneous assembly of a handful of people in a room, and use the secret police and its apparatus of spies, informers, and terror either to stop such meetings or to make sure that their content is entirely innocuous from the point of view of the state.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“Nevertheless, apart from Mises and his readers, practically no one thinks of Nazi Germany as a socialist state. It is far more common to believe that it represented a form of capitalism, which is what the Communists and all other Marxists have claimed.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“The reason that Social Democrats do not establish socialism when they come to power, is that they are unwilling to do what would be required. The establishment of socialism as an economic system requires a massive act of theft—the means of production must be seized from their owners and turned over to the state. Such seizure is virtually certain to provoke substantial resistance on the part of the owners, resistance which can be overcome only by use of massive force. The Communists were and are willing to apply such force, as evidenced in Soviet Russia. Their character is that of armed robbers prepared to commit murder if that is what is necessary to carry out their robbery. The character of the Social Democrats in contrast is more like that of pickpockets, who may talk of pulling the big job someday, but who in fact are unwilling to do the killing that would be required, and so give up at the slightest sign of serious resistance. As for the Nazis, they generally did not have to kill in order to seize property. This was because, as we have seen, they established socialism by stealth, through price controls, which served to maintain the outward guise and appearance of private ownership. The private owners were thus deprived of their property without realizing it and thus felt no need to defend it by force.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian

“Of course, socialism does not end the chaos caused by the destruction of the price system. It perpetuates it. And if it is introduced without the prior existence of price controls, its effect is to inaugurate that very chaos. This is because socialism is not actually a positive economic system. It is merely the negation of capitalism and its price system. As such, the essential nature of socialism is one and the same as the economic chaos resulting from the destruction of the price system by price and wage controls. (I want to point out that Bolshevik-style socialism’s imposition of a system of production quotas, with incentives everywhere to exceed the quotas, is a sure formula for universal shortages, just as exist under all around price and wage controls.) At most, socialism merely changes the direction of the chaos. The government’s control over production may make possible a greater production of some goods of special importance to itself, but it does so only at the expense of wreaking havoc throughout the rest of the economic system. This is because the government has no way of knowing the effects on the rest of the economic system of its securing the production of the goods to which it attaches special importance.”
― George Reisman, Why Nazism Was Socialism and Why Socialism Is Totalitarian