[JohnGalt]

1943-45, there was complete state control of German industry by the state, but that is hardly the time period we are talking about.


So freedom is the right to vote for different people? Jacobist liberalism at a Conservative website? How humorous.

How were German anti-Jewish laws different then say Poland in the 1920-1936 period? Were they more or less restrictive? During Churchill's brief period as an over anti-Semite, was he advocating a position to the left or right of Nazi doctrine? Were anti-Semitic laws in Germany more restrictive or less restrictive than Jim Crow laws in the South? Was the German economy 'freerer' in 1938 or 1908?

Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor rather than invade Siberia to aid Germany?

No, Hitler and his gang of criminals were simply anti-Christian central-planners. Hitler handled the Danzig question so poorly, he started a world war when just a little more scheming would have averted the crisis and turned world attention towards the Eastern menace of Stalinism that had infiltrated just about every government, trade union, and intellectual circle in the Western World, save one, the fascists who had thrown them all in jail, murdered, or forced them to emigrate.

It was a complicated time period, bungled by the Conservative and liberal statesmen of the West, to the advantage of Stalin's Moscow centric criminal empire.

Hayek, using Enlightment Era definitions of liberty-- ones I cling too but apparently not you-- was correct but the central thesis was that the British and Americans were on a similar path.

When so called 'Conservatives' are arguing that freedom is the ability to vote, then we are certainly in end times.

[WOSG]

Hayek, using Enlightment Era definitions of liberty-- ones I cling too but apparently not you-- The rest of your post belies this ... It is not merely the right to vote, but that lack of basic political freedom is not unimportant. I pointed out that within a year of gaining power, Hitler had OUTLAWED all other parties and had put 150,000 political prisoners in concentration camps. And that is just the tip of the iceberg wrt their total control on the state, media, industry, etc. The simplest rejoinder to your various questions: Which other countries were doing *that*? NONE! Except for the Communist tyranny of Stalin.

Hayek himself was a classical Liberal, as are most modern US Conservatives. I guess that is why this site is "Free Republic" and not "Kingdom of God".

From a review of Hayek's Road to Serfdom: "Hayek's thesis, that Nazism and Communism are both off shoots of socialism and both immoral and inhumanly destructive systems, has been proven true with the passage of time. "

In comparing Communism and Nazism as twin ideologies, I was simply restating the Hayek thesis. You are free to argue against it, but dont be so foolish as to attack the very viewpoint you claim to support.

From another review: Most of Hayeks writing was in economics but it is for this political work that he is remembered. It was published in 1944 at a time when "scientific socialism" was very much the fashion. War time central planning was seen as extending into peacetime and the view was bolstered by the spectacular success of the communist centrally controlled U.S.S.R. in the defeat of Germany. Society was seen as a giant perfectly designed machine that had to resist loosness ( i.e. free enterprise) in its moving parts (people).

... Hayek was a lone voice opposing this view. ... He traces the fragile growth of personal liberty and democracy out of the ground of feudalism and draws a parallel between the new central planners and the old autocrats. They both desire all the power and are both fundamentally anti-democratic.

He quotes de Toqueville,"Domocracy and Socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude." In this respect he draws strong parallels between fascism and socialism. Their violent conflict was not seen as a war between rival ideologies but rather a fight for power between two anti-democratic systems. He quotes Eduard Heimann,"But one fact stands out with perfect clarity from all the fog:Hitler has never claimed to represent true liberalism. Liberalism has the distinction of being the doctrine most hated by Hitler", ... However, in a real life experiment from the 1940's onwards we have seen the superiority of free markets vs.central planning. Hayek is only following Adam Smith in pointing out that free competition is a superior method of coordinating individual effort. http://www1.dragonet.es/users/markbcki/hayek.htm

"Why did Japan attack Pearl Harbor rather than invade Siberia to aid Germany?" You claim to be knoweldgable about history and really are that clueless? Japan needed the Dutch East Indies oil; they needed the Phillipines to secure the supply line. They thought a knock-out blow in Pearl Harbor would set the US back so much we'd be unable to repond. The Axis powers had signed an alliance, which is why Germany declared war on the US once we declared war on Japan.