>>92544
Seriously, this fucking paper? Germà Bel said himself that formal privatization does not necessarily mean substantial privatization, either. Not sure he made it explicit, but I actually think that he did. In any case, it is heavily implied.
To quote him:
>It is a fact that the Nazi government sold off public ownership in several state-owned firms in the mid-1930s. These firms belonged to a wide range of sectors; for example, steel, mining, banking, shipyard, ship-lines, and railways. It must be pointed out that, whereas modern privatization has run parallel to liberalization policies, in Nazi Germany privatization was applied within a framework of increasing state control of the whole economy through regulation and political interference.
>On one hand, the intense growth of governmental regulation of markets, which heavily restricted economic freedom, suggests that the rights inherent to private property were destroyed. As a result, privatization would be of no practical consequence, since the state assumed full control of the economic system.77 […] Guillebaud stresses that the Nazi regime wanted to leave management and risk in business in the sphere of private enterprise, subject to the general direction of the government.Thus, ‘the State in fact divested itself of a great deal of its previous direct participation in industry… But at the same time state control, regulation and interference in the conduct of economic affairs was enormously extended’.79
>With respect to his position regarding private ownership, Hitler explained that ‘I want everyone to keep what he has earned subject to the principle that the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the state should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State… TheThird Reich will always retain the right to control property owners’. Another indication of Hitler’s position on state ownership of the means of production is found in Rauschning’s Voice of destruction, which reports the following answer by Hitler when questioned on socialization: ‘Why bother with such half-measures when I have far more important matters in hand, such as the people themselves?… Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings’.103
>It seems clear that neither the Nazi Party nor Hitler was ideologically devoted to private ownership. In fact, Nazis used nationalization when they considered it necessary.The case of the nationalization of two aircraft companies, the Arado and Junkers firms, is widely known.104 AsWengenroth explains, ‘uncooperative industrialists such as the aircraft manufacturer Hugo Junkers were removed from their positions and replaced with Nazi governors. This was not an explicit nationalization policy, but simply an attempt to control production and investment policies in the interest of rearmament’.105 In fact, as stated by Overy, Hugo Junkers ‘refused to produce warplanes for Göering and found his business nationalized’.106
And about the Reichsbahn in particular:
>The state remained as the most important shareholder in Deutsche Reichsbahn, and retained full control of the company.
Concerning the banks:
>The state was involved in the reorganization of the sector after the bank crash in 1931 with an investment of about 500 million Rm., and most of the big banks came under state control, as noted in the introduction.54 Estimates made before the Banking Inquiry Committee in 1934 by Hjalmar Schacht, president of the Reichsbank and Minister of Economy, stated that around 70 per cent of all German corporate banks were controlled by the Reich.55 Through the Reichsbank or the Golddiskontbank, the government owned significant stakes in the largest banks:56 38.5 per cent of Deutsche Bank und Disconto-Gesellschaft (Deutsche Bank henceforth), 71 per cent of the Commerz- und Privatbank (Commerz-Bank henceforth), and 97 per cent of the capital of the Dresdner Bank.
The fact of the matter is that Germà Bel does not have the last word on the subject. He would not agree with von Mises' assessment that the Nazis were avowed socialists, but he would be even more wary of seeing them as fans of the free market. Ultimately, his paper is one piece of the puzzle, and if you use it as something more, then you haven't read it properly.