Posted on 03/06/2008 8:00:03 PM PST by ScratInTheHat
There is, in a competitive society, nobody who can exercise even a fraction of the power which a socialist planning board would posses...Who can seriously doubt that the power which a millionaire, who may be my employer, has over me is very much less than that which the smallest bureaucrat possesses who wields the coercive power of the state and on whose discretion it depends how I am allowed to live and work? ... Our generation has forgotten that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves. When all the means of production are vested in a single hand, whether it be nominally that of 'society' as a whole or that of a dictator, whoever exercises this control has complete power over us.
To many who have watched the transition from socialism to fascism at close quarters the connection between the two systems has become increasingly obvious, but in the democracies the majority of people still believe that socialism and freedom can be combined. They do not realize that democratic socialism, the great utopia of the last few generations, is not only unachievable, but that to strive for it produces something utterly different - the very destruction of freedom itself. As has been aptly said: 'What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven. ... 'Conservative socialism' (todays liberal) was the slogan under which a large number of writers prepared the atmosphere in which National Socialism succeeded.
(Excerpt) Read more at btinternet.com ...
I forgot!
Did you see that cartoon with a bunch of Rhinos (RINOS) under a coat with an elephant head on it?
The sad state of the party just kills me right now!
Missed the cartoon, got the testosterone reference! lol
The most important chapter in R2S is the one called "Why the Worst Get on Top." It blows away the myth that if we just had the right people in charge, everything would run like clockwork in a nationalized economy.
Won't happen, because the Evil Ones invariably displace the do-gooders.
Rather than wasting precious time trying to put "good people" at the monster machine's controls, we need to disable the controls and/or destroy the machine. We need to do everything possible to make a U-turn once that fateful road Hayek describes is taken. Not go slower, not apply the brakes, but turn plumb around and head back.
Did you mean for that to be phrased the other way around, i.e., how many Republicans claim to be conservative?
Offhand, I'd guess there's more of them than there were a few years ago. Whether that means anything is open to debate, though, since "conservative" has come to mean "Bushbot" to much of the world at large.
Why read, we are there already.
Great post.
One of my favorite reads of all time.
My favorite three:
Bible
Road to Serfdom
Reagan: Role of a Lifetime
Globalism -Socialism in a business suit.
bookmark for later
Or create a new place where the machine doesn’t yet exist.
I don’t know if it’s possible anymore though. The planet has become much smaller.
You can lead a jackass to the water, but you can't make him drink.
5.56mm
bttt
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