Why Marxists and Nazis Were Ideological Bloodbrothers

“Both parties, Marxism and National Socialism [i.e., Nazism] agree in opposing [classical] Liberalism and rejecting the capitalist social order.  Both desire a socialist order of society.  The only difference in their programme lies in slight variations in their respective pictures of the future socialist state; non-essential variations, as we could easily show.  The foremost demands of the National Socialist agitation are different from those of the Marxists.  While the Marxists speak of abolishing the commodity character of labour, the National Socialists [Nazis] speak of breaking the slavery of interest.  While the Marxists hold the “capitalists” responsible for every evil, the National Socialists think to express themselves more concretely by shouting ‘Death to the Jews’ . . . . Marxism, National Socialism, and other anti-capitalist parties . . .all agree on the decisive problem of reshaping the social order: they reject private ownership in the means of production and desire a socialist order of society.”

— Ludwig von Mises, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, p. 451. (Published in German in 1922; first English edition published in 1936).

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