Hayek, The Road to Serfdom - 22nd session

Tuesday, December 8, 2020, 22nd session

The Road to Serfdom Reading Discussion, 22nd Online Meeting

Chapter 8: Who, Whom?

This 8th chapter is about why a planned state inevitably produces a dictator, why it becomes a society that mobilizes even children for politics, and how fascism emerges.

There are several questions we are often asked.

Why is competition desirable?

For people born with genes that make them lose in competition, isn’t a competitive society hell?

And can young men in their twenties who are exploited in society really become the foundation for defending liberalism?

This was a time to hear history’s answer to those questions.

Freedom and Property, p. 161

People say it is unsettling to leave everything to competition because competition is “blind.”

But it is precisely that unpredictability of concrete outcomes that makes competition fair.

Rewards and punishments are not distributed according to someone’s opinions, but are “blindly” determined by each person’s abilities and luck, and that is why they can be accepted.

And people are born with different abilities and dispositions, and even the environments in which they grow up are unequal. Doesn’t that make competition unfair from the outset, with the result already predetermined?

Yes. It is plainly true that opportunities in a competitive society are unequal. But unless diversity is eliminated even at the genetic level, can any society guarantee a completely identical starting point?

The outcome of competition depends not only on one’s abilities but also on unpredictable luck.

And what we must not forget is that the poor in a competitive society remain far freer than those who enjoy comfort in a totalitarian society.

“What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guarantee of freedom not only for those who possess property but scarcely less for those who do not.”

The power a millionaire has over me is far less than the power the lowest-ranking civil servant can exercise over me. We must not forget that a world in which the rich have power is still better than a world in which only those in power can acquire wealth.

And inequalities that cannot be completely eliminated are far more willingly tolerated, and affect a person’s dignity far less, when they are determined by impersonal forces than when they are the result of deliberate design.

And we are now witnessing what happens when the state tries to correct these conditions of inequality.

People no longer devote themselves primarily to predicting and preparing for the future; instead, they concentrate their efforts on influencing the authorities in order to improve their position.

Planning and Income Distribution, p. 169

In the end, under a planned economy everything is determined by whose views dominate the government, so every socioeconomic problem becomes a matter of political power struggle.

That is why our society is now experiencing excessive politicization.

Conflicts over Just Price, Fair Price, and Proper Status, p. 173

We often hear talk of guaranteeing a “proper wage.” But how is the level of that “proper” wage to be determined?

The rough standards we have for what constitutes a just price or a fair wage are derived from the competitive system. In other words, if the competitive system disappears, so too does the basis for setting those standards.

The more a society ceases to be competitive and becomes a planned society, the harder it becomes to determine a level of allocation that those receiving it will find acceptable.

In the end, an absolute authority becomes necessary.

John Stuart Mill:

“A fixed rule, like that of equality, may be acquiesced in, and so may chance, or an external necessity; but that a handful of human beings should weigh everybody in the balance, and give more to one and less to another at their sole pleasure and judgment, would not be borne unless they were believed to be more than men, and backed by supernatural terrors.”

That is why every socialist or totalitarian system ultimately ends in a theory of the supreme leader.

The Totalitarian Control Prepared by Socialism, p. 176

Why is it that a society that restricts freedom in the economic sphere, the material sphere, eventually interferes even with the spiritual freedom of its members?

Because the success of planning requires the creation of a common view regarding essential values.

Socialism tries to use education to create this common view, but it discovered that education alone cannot make people hold identical views on morality and ethics.

Accordingly, it moves not toward the rational spread of a shared view through education, but toward the unconditional acceptance of a creed for the sake of fulfilling the plan.

That is why socialists created tools of indoctrination.

They spread the creed: don’t watch Chosun, JoongAng, or Dong-A; believe only what we have declared to be right. Through these tools of indoctrination, they form a mass movement united under a single worldview.

All of these tools so favored by fascism were, in fact, invented by socialism.

And if this “unconditional acceptance of a creed” is to be more effective, people must be inserted into this political organizational system from childhood.

“Middle-Class” Socialism, p. 178

In any society, the key support base of socialist parties is industrial worker groups such as labor unions. Politically organized minority racial groups or gender groups can also serve as important support bases. Groups organized around something close to instinct display even stronger exclusivity and solidarity. They are dependable voting blocs.

But what happens to workers who are left out of those industrial groups, and to those who cannot belong to those particular racial or gender groups at all and so suffer reverse discrimination?

In Germany, a rival socialist movement arose out of the large propertyless class in reaction against the elite industrial worker groups that were able to influence and control national policy.

In other words, a rivalry emerged between the newly formed fascist (National Socialist) party and the existing socialist parties.

A planned society inevitably creates groups harmed by the plan. But that alone does not spontaneously produce a movement among them to stop the planned society.

“As the movement toward socialism steadily proceeds, one fact becomes increasingly obvious to all: that one’s income and general position are determined by the coercive machinery of the state, and that the only way to maintain or improve one’s position is to influence this machinery in one’s own interest and to become a member of some organized group able to control or influence the state.”

Conditions alone are not enough.

There must remain political parties alive that point out and fight against the fact that the planned society system itself is the problem.

As in Hillbilly Elegy, which shook American society, there are now people outside the walls in our society too, and the boundary is becoming clear.

Will they become a force for the restoration of freedom, or a force leading the way to the arrival of an even more powerful fascism? We stand at a perilous crossroads.

The Conflict Between Competing Socialisms, p. 181

The poor who cannot join the groups that wield influence over the state—the people outside the walls—are increasing. They perceive the thriving sectors of the labor movement not as the exploited class but as part of the exploiting class.

Young people pursue civil service jobs, where salaries are guaranteed by educational credentials.

That was what German society looked like when the Nazis were rising rapidly.

More than a hundred years later, where does our society stand now?

p. 182

“Fascism and National Socialism grew up in the social experience of increasing regulation, and as this regulated society developed, the realization spread that the aims could no longer be achieved by the traditional internationalist socialist program. Fascism and National Socialism were conceived and grew in the world created by socialist policy.”

Anyone who would like to join the online reading group every Tuesday evening is invited to the open chat room at the link below.

https://open.kakao.com/o/gX3OIqtb

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Original title: 하이에크 <노예의 길>-22차

Author: Jayujuui 입문 독서토론모임

Date: 2020-12-08

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=reading01&pn=7&idx=23344