Bogumil and I are convinced that Pan-Germanic Socialism did not begin with Hitlerism. Hitlerism, if anything, has been proven to be an aberration, a deviation from what Pan-Germanic Socialism was supposed to have been. These racialist and antisemitic tendencies associated with Hitlerism are in final analysis byproducts of an earlier historical epoch that predated Pan-Germanic Socialism and are actually in opposition to its own Weltanschauung. But the real question that has continued to remain elusive after all these years has been whether an accurate, reliable point of origin was established. Thanks to Bogumil, I was able to figure out the origins of the Weltanschauung behind Pan-Germanic Socialism.
At its core, Pan-Germanic Socialism consistently operates according to two pervading positions: The German-speaking world constitutes an entire nation and should be united as such and that Pure Socialism in the German-speaking world does not need to be Scientific (the Weltanschauung of Marx and Engels). The latter position is significant because it behooves oneself to ascertain how and why Pan-Germanic Socialism arrived at that conclusion. After all, the Artistic Socialist tendencies of Pan-Germanic Socialism are rooted in this belief that the “Alienation of the Arbeiter” extends to humanity’s relations with Nature and Technology, Modernity and Postmodernity. That the rural and urban communities should exist in harmony with each other as opposed to viewing each other within a parasitic relationship where one exploits the other for Kapital while the other reaps Schuld. That the German-speaking world should live according to what it is already available within their own lands, thereby yielding potential support for Environmentalist and Autarkic policies.
When the German-speaking world underwent its own industrialization and urbanization, the predecessors to Pan-Germanic Socialism recognized the emerging social ills that would come from those trends. The rise of a displaced, alienated populace who found themselves in cities that struggled to accompany them and others from outside the German-speaking world. The loss of a communal balance between Nature and Technology as Technology itself began to extract more of Nature’s wealth for the sake of discovering newer sources of Kapital and Schuld. With Economic Liberalization and Social Liberalization came a growing “Civilizational Disease of Affluence” that governs Political Liberalization in a Liberal Capitalist Parliamentary Democracy.
In a Liberal Capitalist regime, everyone’s place is determined by their willingness to pursue the greatest Quantity of Kapital for the least Quantity of Schuld. Whosoever has the most Kapital and the least Schuld is said to wield immense clout over the political process, ‘utilizing’ Parliament, Market and Civil Society in their favor. Having the most Kapital also enables one to live a life defined by unfettered Consumerism and Producerism, tolerance of environmental degradation and resource depletion, and an unsound rejection of older traditional techniques in favor newer ones provided by Technology.
A good example that frequently comes to mind is someone who lives in a major city somewhere and commutes to their office on a Monday morning. When that person arrives at their workspace, where their office is on the fourth floor of a seven-story building, will they take the stairs or ride the elevator? Also, when lunchtime comes, will they settle for healthier foods produced locally or processed foods that have to be brought in from outside the city?
These may seem like simple questions that one can find anywhere in a lifestyle magazine, but they were radical ideas among Pan-Germanic Socialism’s predecessors in the late 19th century. They feared that as the German-speaking world becomes more industrialized and urbanized, the more likely the German-speaking world will begin to witness diseases that are mostly caused by personal lifestyle choices. Alcoholism, Alzheimer’s, Asthma, Dementia, Breast, Lung and Liver Cancers, Obesity, Type-Two Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease, Heart Disease, and so forth. Increased consumption of processed, sugary, and fatty foods, coupled with a growing lack of physical activity both inside and outside the workspace, for one Self is bad enough. For a Totality, it becomes a social problem when it affects a sizeable number of the population.
The predecessors of Pan-Germanic Socialism came from various social movements that gravitated around the same set of issues. In the German-speaking world, the umbrella term to describe these movements in the late 19th century was called the “Lebensreformbewegung (Life-Reform Movement).” The Lebensreformbewegung were mostly people who advocated for communal lifestyle choices that favored healthier habits, subsistence on what is only provided by the land, and economic activities requiring exertion of the Self’s mind, body and soul.
What Pan-Germanic Socialism did differently from its predecessors was apply the same perspective on an interpersonal level that encompasses an entire nation. Consider for instance the dependency on Petroleum within contemporary Market/Mixed Economies in the Western world. Petroleum does not just provide gasoline and diesel for automobiles or fuel for aircraft and ships. It is also needed for food production and electricity generation.
If for whatever Intent no Petroleum is driving the Market/Mixed Economy and the Fractional-Reserve Banking Systems which finance them through Financial Markets and privatized commercial banks, Liberal Capitalist nations will suffer the same fate as the DPRK in the 1990s. There will be famine, turmoil, and upheaval because Neoliberalism is incapable of living within its own means of production. After all, most economic activities in Neoliberalism are driven by the desire for more Kapital than Schuld, especially when it involves eliminating Arbeit through technological means.
Thus, from Pan-Germanic Socialism’s perspective, when confronted with the choice of being dependent on Soviet or American Petroleum and relying on Germanic Petroleum, the latter choice is more sensible. The German-speaking world will still be able to live on the land, even if that means causing environmental damage to sustain its own energy needs. The long-term hope is that the German-speaking world will eventually devise less destructive Technology that enables the German-speaking world to sustain itself, to live within its own means of production. Its Hard Euroscepticism, which would already be backed by its own opposition to the competing claims of Pan-Europeanism, will also employ efforts to reevaluate humanity’s relation to Nature and Technology in policy areas such as trade, energy, agriculture and so on.
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