There is a quote commonly mis-attributed to August Bebel and indeed to Marx: “Antisemitismus ist der Sozialismus des dummen Kerls.” (“Antisemitism is the socialism of the stupid guy”, or perhaps colloquially, “Antisemitism is a dumb-ass version of socialism”) That is to say, politically naïve people were attracted to antisemitism because it offered them someone to blame for the problems they faced under capitalism, which — to the quoted speaker’s view, anyway — would be better remedied by changing the political-economic structure.
Does that make socialism the anti-semitism of the smart? Or perhaps of the ambitious—they’re attracted to it because it gives them an enemy big enough to justify taking over everything?
Does that make socialism the anti-semitism of the smart? Or perhaps of the ambitious—they’re attracted to it because it gives them an enemy big enough to justify taking over everything?