Rather that attempt to counter each erroneous assertion Zhukov made, I will take a step back and look at the bigger picture. As a general rule there are two available evolutionary strategies: individual, and group-oriented. Both strategies are seen in the insect world. Most insects pursue an individual evolutionary strategy, and are unwilling to make sacrifices for anyone other than their own offspring. Ants, wasps, bees, and other social insects pursue a group evolutionary strategy. The latter strategy is much more powerful than the former, which is why there are no “individual evolutionary strategy” insects competing for the niches filled by ants.
What is true of insects is also true of human beings. During the rise of the Roman Republic, Rome pursued a group evolutionary strategy. Romans were willing to make considerable personal sacrifices for the good of Rome. All that ended during the declining days of the Roman Empire. Government officials became much easier to bribe. Concepts such as honor were regarded with cynicism and derision. Roman men were no longer willing to fight for Rome. A large population of able bodied Romans was given bread and circuses, without being required to work. All of this was consistent with an individual evolutionary strategy, and inconsistent with a group evolutionary strategy. The group evolutionary strategy had been abandoned; and that abandonment was the primary cause of the fall of the Roman Empire.
In a typical Third World nation the majority of wealth will have been seized by a very small economic elite. That elite acts in ways which benefit itself, and acts without regard for the welfare of the nation as a whole. Those outside the elite pursue “selfish familialism”–which basically means to always act in one’s family’s own interests, and assume everyone else will do the same. This is a group evolutionary strategy–but on a family scale, not a nation scale. Such a strategy cannot build or maintain a nation, and cannot threaten the narcissistic elites’ stranglehold on power.
The United States and Europe are steadily transitioning toward Third World status. The main reason for that transition is that our economic elites are at least as badly behaved as theirs. The lies and political agendas of the elites have consistently pushed the West closer to Third World status. (That does not necessarily mean that Third World status for us is their ultimate objective. It does, however, mean that they are consistently “acting as if” driven by that motive.) The elites have increasingly embraced crony capitalism. They have chosen to import workers while exporting jobs. They are choosing to physically replace the people of Western nations with those from Third World nations. At least in the U.S., 51% of immigrants are on welfare. $24,000 was spent, per income tax paying American, to fund the Wall Street bailouts. The elites have accumulated enormous government debts in order to pay for their spending–spending never intended to benefit the American people or the American nation. These are the sort of actions which can push a First World nation into Third World status.
Several years ago, the Mexican government passed a law imposing stricter standards on vehicular emissions. Both the public and police regarded this law as an excuse for police to extract more bribes from the people. Neither group felt the law had anything to do with environmental protection. The law never resulted in reduced emissions, but only resulted in more bribes for police.
More generally, Third World nations are nearly helpless to enforce any sort of environmental standards. The enforcement of such standards would require a group evolutionary strategy. Selfish familialism cannot result in solid environmental protections. Nor can it result in a strong collective response to any other national or global threat. To the extent that humanity needs to resist group level threats, that resistance can be achieved only to the extent that we resist the elites’ (highly dedicated) efforts to convert Western nations into Third World nations.
The Nazi government passed clean air and clean water standards. Worker safety measures were significantly improved. The workweek was reduced to 40 hours. Employers were forced to give their workers long vacations. On the other hand, corporate profits significantly increased during the Nazi regime. If the Nazi government significantly improved environmental protections, the well-being of German workers, and the profits of employers, there is no reason to suppose that Nazi Germany was in transition to Third World status.
Western nations are called “democracies,” even though money matters more than votes. It would be more accurate to label such nations democratic plutocracies. 50 - 100 years ago, there was no overlap between the values of the plutocratic elite and those of the American people. The American people valued things like justice, fairness, human rights, idealism, etc. (At least up to the point.) The primary value of the plutocratic elite is “Antiracism”. Other names for that term include white guilt, or the destruction of the white race.
That the elites couldn’t have cared less about human rights, or the prevention of mass murder, was proved by their indifference to the Ukrainian famine (7 million victims), other acts of Soviet mass murder (about 20 million additional victims). It was also proved by their use of a food blockade during WWI (700,000 victims), their use of a food blockade during WWII (20 - 30 million victims), the postwar Morgenthau Plan (6 million victims), Operation Keelhaul (an unknown number of victims, probably in the millions), and their passive acceptance of Soviet sphere deportations (probably at least 2 million victims). So how do you convince a gullible American public that the elites’ value set overlaps the public’s value set, even though there is no overlap? First, they created an exaggerated picture of the Nazis’ human rights violations, while sweeping Soviet mass murders and Western plutocrats’ mass murders under the rug. Then they argued that Nazism and mass murder were inextricably linked, and that it was impossible to embrace the former without also embracing the latter. The next step was to con the public into believing that any view the Nazis had which disagreed with the plutocrats’ perspective would inevitably lead to mass murder. The final step in this process was to convince the public that Nazism was worse than communism, regardless of which side had been more brutal. The public had by this point absorbed enough of the plutocrats’ values to make this argument stick.