HoltesThoughts: Hitler the Pirate

“I need not Nationalize Industry, I need only nationalize the industrialists.”

I was looking to verify a quote I'd read and saved a long time ago, where someone in a private conversation recollected that Hitler had said:

“I need not nationalize Industry, I need only nationalize the Industrialists.”

Why I can Use the Quote

I can no longer find that quote. Maybe a reader can find it. It came allegedly from a private conversation, and not directly from his open speeches. I have to assume that the fact checkers decided it was apocryphal. I couldn't find it in a google search, but google is picking up purely commercial garbage nowadays anyway. So it is possible that the information was erased in the hubbub over whether Hitler was right wing or a "socialist."

Business Serves the People

Still, I don't like sharing quotes that are apocryphal, and I believe in fact checking myself and the aphorism "know thy enemy." So I forced myself to wade through Mein Kampf, his speeches and other original sources I have on him. After doing that I can feel comfortable keeping that as a quote as it expresses his attitude towards Industry. You see Hitler was a Pirate. And Fascism is a privateering ideology. It adapts itself to the narcissism of its leaders and the fanaticism and authoritarianism of its followers.

Hitler's Third Way

In Hitler's time "socialism" was pitted against "capitalism." And the Fascists posed as a "third way" between socialism and capitalism. The modern argument that Fascists were "merely" socialists is anachronistic and deceptive. What Hitler actually was, was a fascist. If he never said the quote I quoted, its spirit is throughout his writings! Like all malevolent narcissists, he lied a lot but as Hannah Arendt noted, he was blunt in his statements of fundamental beliefs:

“Here all action must be governed by one law: the people does not live for business, and business does not exist for capital; but capital serves business, and business serves the people. In principle, the Government will not protect the economic interests of the German people by the circuitous method of an economic bureaucracy to be organized by the State, but by the utmost furtherance of private initiative and by the recognition of the rights of property....” [03-23-1933]

Capital is not the Master of the State, but its Servant

To Hitler, if businessmen are nationalist and "serve the people" then they deserve the fruits of their enterprise. He was blunt in his statements of fundamental beliefs.

“What we want is not a State of drones but a State which gives to everyone that to which on the basis of his own activity he has a right. He who refuses to do honest work shall not be a citizen of the State. The State is not a plantation where the interests of foreign capital are supreme. Capital is not the master of the State, but its servant. Therefore the State must not be brought into dependence on international loan capital. And if anyone believes that that cannot be avoided, then do not let him be surprised that no one is ready to give his life for this State. Further, that greatest injustice must be corrected which today still weighs heavily upon our people and upon almost all peoples. If in a State only he who does honest work is a citizen, then everyone has the right to demand that in his old age he shall be kept free from care and want. That would mean the realization of the greatest social achievement.” [Speech 04-24-1923]

Hitler's Fundamental Delusion

Hitler deludedly blamed "The Jews" for the state of International loan Capitalism. He didn't really care that non-Jews were far more invested in loan capital as Jews, but he did see the flaw in the gold standard and in the subservience of business and the people, to “Capital” He saw the ancient connection between labor and capital for what it was. As Lincoln said "Labor comes before capital." Capital are the tools and resources that are saved and reused to produce more and better things and services. Money Capital is either the credit value of that capital, or the debt owed to those who lend resources or collect rents from them.

Industrialists Hitched their Fate to Hitler

And the industrialists were only too happy to hitch their cars to his Locomotive:

“conflicts within German Industry and Agriculture led big business as a class to turn against the Weimar Republic and choose Hitler as their Surest Route to Economic Revival” [1933 Elections]

The Rewards of Nationalization, Privateering and Privatization

The industrialists indeed were "nationalized" and the German Government rewarded them with riches. The author Germa Bel, "Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in 1930s Germany:"

“Nationalization was particularly important in the early 1930s in Germany. The state took over a large industrial concern, large commercial banks, and other minor firms. In the mid-1930s, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in western capitalistic countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s. Privatization was used as a political tool to enhance support for the government and for the Nazi Party. In addition, growing financial restrictions because of the cost of the rearmament programme provided additional motivations for privatization.”

Privateering and Impunity

Privatization was also used to control the industrialists and keep them in line. Those who went along enjoyed riches. And in the end they enjoyed impunity:

“Consider the case of countless Nazi financiers and even Hitler’s personal banker, Hjalmar Schacht. What do they all have in common? Aside from (or perhaps due to) practically all having walked through the secretive corridors of the Bank of International Settlements, the one truly disturbing common theme is that virtually all avoided any significant prosecution for their participation in the Third Reich.” [Bankers]

Privatization as a Tool of Pirates

Privateers are legalized pirates.

Privatization is a tool of Privateers, Monopolists and other legalized Pirates. I've been writing about piracy and criminal mob behavior.

I traced privatization back further, to privateering, buccaneering, filibustering and the rule of much of European Colonies by Privateering companies such as the British East India Company or the Dutch East India Company, who amassed private power by privatizing targeted "colonial" governments for private rule. The Famous image of Clive Owen and Shah Alam is of him handing over Tax Collecting Powers to the East India Company. Something that began a corporate takeover of a region of the world as big as the United States. Indeed, what happened to India was part of why this country revolted from Britain. The original Tea Party was to stop the East India Company from taking over what would be the United States.

Of course the purpose of privatization in India was to loot India and steal the government from local rulers and the people. The purpose of Hitler's, Trump's, Putin's, privatization is to strengthen the power of the autarch and shift resources from possible adversaries to people with a feudal connection to the leadership. Privateering has two goals, to redistribute wealth to the pirate captains in charge AND to distribute public services and resources to private hands. As long as Industrialists served the State faithfully, they were encouraged to amass riches and build their industries, often with slave labor supplied by the state.