“Intellectuals and Socialism”: What We Need Now

In 1949, Hayek published his famous essay “The Intellectuals and Socialism.” It came five years after the publication of The Road to Serfdom, which first put the brakes on a world hurtling toward socialism. In that essay, he points out that this world is led in public opinion by mass intellectuals who serve as “secondhand dealers in ideas,” and that the ideal worldview and convictions constructed in their minds determine the content of the opinions that are conveyed to the public.

What characterizes liberals is the belief that the world changes only when the trend of public opinion changes. For such liberals, the task of the age—changing the minds of mass intellectuals—thus emerged as the urgent challenge. Mass intellectuals tend to evaluate and select new ideas on the basis of general principles and philosophy rather than detailed, on-the-ground knowledge. Accordingly, they are drawn to a broad vision of a better world and to core principles. For them, what carries greater influence is not the details of reality but what seems morally right, not detailed analysis but a philosophy that paints a grand ideal. The reason the public chooses vague policies and abstract ideas over its own concrete gains or losses, or over practical solutions, lies hidden in this disposition of mass intellectuals, who act as the filter through which ideas are transmitted.

In an age when mass intellectuals lead the world through public opinion, what should liberals do? Hayek urges us to have the courage to become dreamers. What we lack is a liberal utopia. What we lack is not politicians skilled in the art of compromise. What we need is a pure liberal radicalism that does not conform to power. We need intellectual leaders who hold fast to principles for the sake of a utopian ideal, even when its realization seems far off. Only then can they win the support of mass intellectuals and ultimately influence public opinion.

It has now been 74 years since that essay appeared. It has been 63 years since Hayek published The Constitution of Liberty to help liberals envision the form of an ideal liberal state. And it has been more than 30 years since, through the efforts of liberals of that era, world civilization experienced its resurgence in the 1980s and 1990s. Yet it is slowly being forgotten again. An era of staggering instability has returned, marked by the counterattack of totalitarianism, which had seemed on the verge of disappearing, and by the inflation brought on by governments that refuse to give up central planning.

Now we live in an age in which public opinion is shaped by social media influencers and YouTubers. What should we do? Has the age in which mass intellectuals determine overall public opinion come to an end? In an era when each person listens only to the voices of the mass intellectuals inside the echo chamber he or she has chosen, what is our task? Are those ideologically fragmented strongholds truly separate worlds with no connection to one another?

Nothing has changed. Things have only become more active and more visible. The only thing that has changed is that dreamers who envision a liberal utopia are no longer to be seen. What we lack is not prominent politicians or compromising alternatives. What we lack are intellectual leaders who dream of an ideal liberal society, intellectual leaders who carry ideals that do not conform. We must ask ourselves whether we have become incapable of stirring the passion of intellectuals any longer, talking only of stale slogans such as free trade or deregulation, or clutching only at the tattered, contaminated slogans of real-world politics, such as universal basic income. Public opinion cannot be moved by improvement and compromise alone. We need idealists who hold a larger vision capable of setting intellectual hearts racing. We need more courage to become such intellectual leaders ourselves, and more courage to inspire those around us so that such leaders may emerge. We must seek out and read the books that once produced the intellectual leaders of the past, the records left by predecessors who made people dream of a thrilling liberal ideal, and we must dream of the utopia our age needs. We must rescue humanity from the repeated errors into which it keeps falling.

We must not forget that the age of free trade, which was once nothing more than a dream, ultimately opened because there was an intellectual leader named Bastiat, a dreamer filled with conviction in his ideals, along with countless unnamed intellectual leaders who inspired those around them.

2023.3.20. Sangmin Nam

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Original title: '지식인과 사회주의'. 지금 우리에게 필요한 것은.

Author: Jayujuui Ipmun Dokseotoronmoim

Date: 2023-03-20

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=reading01&pn=4&idx=25471