I would have thought most socialists are anticapitalists?
Uh, yes, sorry. Definitely most.
OK, but think I'm a little out of my depth here, this has to be getting to the fourth dimension of politics?
Well, let's say there are two planes. (As in levels, not aircraft). I'm pointing out where some of them cross over. It's not always like this, but only sometimes. The two levels are usually not dependent on one another.
An economic scale:
communism...socialism...centrism...conservatism...neoliberalism
And a social scale:
anarchism...libertarianism...balanced...authoritarianism...fascism
Sorry if it's confusing. I'm doing my best. But libertarians can be anywhere on the economic level. I'm fiercely libertarian, if not anarchist, and i'm somewhere in between communism and socialism. The libertarians you usually refer to are neoliberals. I find their ideology flawed because they only want more freedom for the capitalists. I fight for the freedom of the worker.
I can see Maragaret Thatcher as a capitalist and authoritarian at the same time, but not Blair, Brown, Hitler or Reagan.
MT was very capitalist. She's an extreme case.
Reagan was pretty authoritarian (he repressed communists in the US and threw them into prison, he was a huge obstacle to the gay rights movement and was an obstacle to Gorbachev's attempts at making peace, referring to the USSR as the "evil empire") Being a Republican, he was also very capitalist. The thing is, Democrats are capitalists, too. There aren't that many differences between the main parties.
Blair's "third way" pushed New Labour to a position of right-of-centre on the economic spectrum. New Labour is basically Old Tory, there's paper-thin difference between the three main parties in UK. Introduction of anti-terror laws were overbearingly authoritarian and completely inhumane. Ridiculous measures were taken.
Brown's crime is that he continued these policies.
Hitler was just right of centre. on the economic scale. At the same point as Blair, just more authoritarian. His abolition of trade unions, for one thing, let the capitalists loose on the poor workers. Another thing Hitler said, apart from claiming national socialism, was to say that capitalism is the only possible form of system. His blatant oppression of socialists and communists - also, blaming the fire in the Reichstag on them, proved his real position on economics, i'd say. And his authoritarianism.
Didn't Hitler say he was a national socialist?
I basically just answered this but to expand, Hitler said a lot of things. Note the "national" in that. He was a nationalist, which excludes him from socialism. Socialists believe in equality (whatever country you are from) and are internationalists.
