Posted on 01/28/2007 9:29:00 AM PST by Jacquerie
A day or two after the Democrats swept the midterms, I made a promise to finally finish reading an incredible little book called “The Road to Serfdom.” (1944)
The following are direct quotes from the English author, F.A. Hayek. I offer excerpts from the first couple of chapters with the intention of motivating as many Freepers as possible to read it themselves so as to be fully armed when the Democrats and Rinos attempt to further socialize and ultimately destroy a once proud republic.
Foreward
Dedicated “To the Socialists of All Parties”
Fascism and Communism are merely variants of the same totalitarianism which central control of economic activity tends to produce.
I use throughout the term “liberal” in the original, nineteenth century sense in which it is still current in Britain. In current American usage it often means very nearly the opposite of this.
The most important change which extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people. This means, among other things, that even a strong tradition of political liberty is no safeguard if the danger is precisely that new institutions and policies will gradually undermine and destroy that spirit.
The inevitable consequence of socialist planning create a state of affairs in which, if the policy is to be pursued, totalitarian forces will get the upper hand.
From the point of view of fundamental human liberties there is little to choose between communism, socialism and national socialism. They all are examples of the collectivist or totalitarian state.
Preface
I am always told by my socialist colleagues that as an economist I should occupy a much more important position in the kind of society to which I am opposed - provided, of course, that I could bring myself to accept their views.
Introduction
The supreme tragedy is still not seen that in Germany it was largely people of good will, men who were admired and held up as models in the democratic countries, who prepared the way for, if they did not actually create, the forces which now stand for everything they detest.
Few are ready to recognize that the rise of fascism and nazism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies.
The Abandoned Road
For at least 25 years before the specter of totalitarianism became a real threat, we had progressively been moving away from the basic ideas on which Western civilization has been built.
We have progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past.
Wherever the barriers to the free exercise of human ingenuity were removed, man became rapidly able to satisfy ever widening ranges of desire.
By the beginning of the 20th century the workingman in the Western world had reached a degree of material comfort, security, and personal independence which a hundred years before had seem scarcely possible.
It might even be said that the very success of liberalism became the cause of its decline. Because of the success already achieved, man became increasingly unwilling to tolerate the evils still with him which now appeared both unbearable and unnecessary.
The change amounts to a complete reversal of the trend we have sketched, an entire abandonment of the individualist tradition which has created Western civilization.
The Great Utopia
What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven. F. Hoelderlin
The French writers who laid the foundations of modern socialism had no doubt that their ideas could be put into practice only by a strong dictatorial government.
While democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
To the great apostles of political freedom the word “freedom” meant freedom from coercion, freedom from the arbitrary power of other men, release from the ties which left the individual no choice but obedience to the order of a superior to whom he was attached. The new freedom promised, however, was to freedom from necessity, release from the compulsion of the circumstances which inevitably limit the range of choice of all of us. Freedom in this sense is, of course merely another name for power or wealth.
Stalinism is worse than fascism, more ruthless, barbarous, unjust, immoral, anti-democratic, unredeemed by any hope or scuple and is better described as superfascist.
Socialism achieved and maintained by democratic means seems definitely to belong to the world of utopias.
Many a university teacher during the 1930’s has seen English and American students return from the Continent uncertain whether they were communists or Nazis and certain only that they hated Western liberal civilization.
An exceptional book, though not exactly light reading.
This book is a must read IMHO. It puts the entire economic/class/welfare question into its true perspective.
Thank you for posting this. Unfortunately, it seems that we are going to learn of the grim consequences of socialist policy, the hard way.
If I recall correctly when you read this book keep in mind the terms liberal and conservative are flipped from their current meaning.
The liberal thought of the day was personal freedom and personal responsibility and the conservative (ie. traditional) thought was the class based system with government both taking care of the peasantry and defining their role in society.
I'd put it on the "must" reading list, not just on the the "recommended" list.
Worth repeating.
Perhaps someday it will sink in to the masses.
BTT I'll look for it. Thanks for posting.
Found this quote from the book in Wikipedia: "The principle that the end justifies the means is in individualist ethics regarded as the denial of all morals. In collectivist ethics it becomes necessarily the supreme rule."
I didn't know about this book until this post on FR . . . now I may have to find a copy and read it.
The unfortunate thing is that by the time we reach that point, we will already have gone past the point of no return.
The Road to Serfdom gives eyes to the oppressed. I'd have to read it again for signs that teach us freedom.
He was right when everyone said he was wrong, and ridiculed him (and worse) for it.
JMO
Austrian. He spent the duration of WWII in England. His background gave him a unique perspective on Germany. The British thought their enemy was inherently evil ie it was the German's genetic/cultural makeup.
Hayek primary thesis was that what happened in Nazi Germany could happen anywhere - it was just the end result of socialism. That is, while collectivism always results in loss of freedom, its greater danger was that it always leads to national socialism (Nazism) - no matter where it's puts into place.
Is there anything more disorienting than taking Economics 101? Skip it and read Von Mises and Hayek instead.
I have arrived at the conviction that the neglect by economists to discuss seriously what is really the crucial problem of our time is due to a certain timidity about soiling their hands by going from purely scientific questions into value questions. This is a belief deliberately maintained by the other side because if they admitted that the issue is not a scientific question, they would have to admit that their science is antiquated and that, in academic circles, it occupies the position of astrology and not one that has any justification for serious consideration in scientific discussion. It seems to me that socialists today can preserve their position in academic economics merely by the pretense that the differences are entirely moral questions about which science cannot decide. Conversation at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, Washington, D.C. (9 February 1978); published in A Conversation with Friedrich A. Von Hayek: Science and Socialism (1979)
A really great book. Hayek was from Austria, not England
see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek
One small point. Although Hayek taught for years at the London School of Economics, he was by birth Viennese.
Along with Ludwig von Mises, he was an early exponent of the Austrian school of economic thought. After important early work in economics, he broadened his field of work and wrote on politics and social policy as well.
His last great work, The Fatal Conceit, dates from 1988.
One small point. Although Hayek taught for years at the London School of Economics, he was by birth Viennese.
Along with Ludwig von Mises, he was an early exponent of the Austrian school of economic thought. After important early work in economics, he broadened his field of work and wrote on politics and social policy as well.
His last great work, The Fatal Conceit, dates from 1988.
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