The Road to Serfdom: Chapters 11, 12, and 13

Meeting Name: Jagongbi (Let’s Study Liberalism and Soar)

Book Title: Why Nations Fail

Date and Time: December 4, 2024 (Wed), 6:30 PM

Location: A café in Jongno

Participants: mori, J, Mimi

Written by: mori

Chapter 11. The End of Truth p.289

It is significant that the nationalization of thought advanced everywhere side by side with the nationalization of industry.

-K-

The Role of Propaganda p.289

- Rather than forcing people to work, it makes society’s goals into each individual’s own goals, leading them to think of government policy as something they themselves want. As a result, they feel surprisingly little sense of oppression.

- If all sources of information are placed under a single control and people are isolated from alternative sources, someone gains the power to shape minds in any direction. Control of information sources goes beyond mere persuasion.

- As a result of totalitarian propaganda, sensitivity to and respect for truth—one of the foundations of all morality—are eroded, and all moral norms are destroyed.

- Propaganda cannot remain confined to questions of value; it inevitably expands into questions of factual truth.

- Control of information sources is the most powerful form of agitation.

If all the sources of information currently in circulation are effectively under one control, this is no longer merely a matter of persuading people of this or that. In that case, a skilled propagandist gains the power to shape individuals’ minds in any direction he chooses, and even the most intelligent and independent people, if isolated from other sources for a long time, can hardly escape that influence completely. (p.290)

(p.226 If all the sources of information available on the market are effectively under one control, this is no longer merely a matter of persuading people of this or that. In that case, a skilled propagandist gains the power to shape individuals’ minds in any direction he chooses, and even the most intelligent and independent people, if isolated from other sources for a long time, can hardly escape such influence completely.)

- Totalitarian propaganda erodes truth and destroys morality

Here we must not fail to note the moral consequences of totalitarian propaganda, for this is an even more serious issue. Its result is to erode the sense of and respect for truth, one of the foundations of all morality, and thereby ultimately to destroy all moral standards. (p.291-2)

(p.227 The moral consequences of totalitarian propaganda that we must consider here are, at any rate, a more profound kind of problem. Its result is to erode the sense of and respect for truth, one of the foundations of all morality, and thereby ultimately to destroy all moral standards.)

The Imposition of Facts That Form the Basis of the Plan p.292

- The planning authorities must continually justify their endless decisions to the people.

- To rationalize the preferences that guided the planners’ decisions, myths are created—beliefs in which even raising doubts is forbidden.

- Pseudo-scientific theories, to varying degrees, become part of the official creed that guides everyone’s conduct.

New Values Introduced in the Name of Old Values p.295

- By continuing to use old terms while changing their meanings, people are persuaded to accept the legitimacy of the values they will be made to serve.

- Among the features of a totalitarian system, the “complete perversion of words” is a representative characteristic of its overall intellectual climate.

- The greatest example of this abuse of language is the destruction of the meaning of the word “freedom”: instead of the old freedom, a new freedom—the collective freedom of the group, the freedom of those who seek to plan freedom.

- Collective freedom: the unlimited freedom of planners to impose on society what they like = power pursued to the extreme.

- The change in word meanings does not happen only once but continuously, obstructing communication and creating barriers to rational discussion. As this process continues, the whole language is plundered of meaning.

- Words come to mean their opposites, or are emptied of meaning and become hollow shells, used only for emotional association.

The Disappearance of Uncontrolled Fields of Scholarship p.298

- Open criticism or expressions of doubt weaken public support and are therefore suppressed. As a result, facts and theory become subjects of official doctrine—even in disciplines such as history, law, and economics.

- There is a hatred of abstract forms of thought and a condemnation of human activities carried on for their own sake without some grand purpose, because they might produce results that were not foreseen and therefore not provided for in the plan.

- Contempt for intellectual freedom is always found even among intellectual leaders and scholars who hold collectivist beliefs.

- Totalitarianism condemns activity without a larger purpose.

The condemnation of any human activity carried on for its own sake, without some overarching purpose, fits perfectly with the general spirit of totalitarianism. Science for science’s sake and art for art’s sake are equally unacceptable to Nazis, socialist intellectuals, and communists alike. “All” activity must derive its justification from a conscious social purpose. No spontaneous, unguided activity may be allowed, because it might produce consequences that were not foreseen and therefore not provided for in the plan.... This is not an accidental by-product. It is the direct result of the same desire to see everything directed by a “unitary conception of the whole.” (p.302-3)

- Contempt for intellectual freedom is not unique to totalitarianism.

Perhaps the most striking fact is that contempt for intellectual freedom did not first appear with the establishment of totalitarian regimes, but has always been found among intellectuals who embraced collectivist doctrine and yet continue to be welcomed as intellectual leaders even under a free system. Even the worst forms of repression, if committed in the name of socialism, are not only forgiven; those who claim to speak for the scientists of free countries in creating totalitarian regimes openly advocate such repression. Intolerance toward other things is likewise openly praised. (p.304)

Truth and Freedom of Thought p.305

- The claim that there is no genuine freedom of thought in our society leads to the mistaken conclusion that if the ideals and preferences of the majority are formed by circumstances, then deliberate control over circumstances should be used to direct people’s thinking in a desirable direction.

- It is true that the majority may lack the capacity for independent thought, so “freedom of thought” may matter only to a minority in society. But that does not mean someone should be allowed to choose who gets to enjoy that freedom.

- Intellectual freedom does not mean that everyone is equally capable of independent thought. It means that any criticism or idea may be freely raised by someone.

This interaction among diverse individuals possessing different knowledge and different opinions is the whole of what constitutes the life of thought. The growth of reason is a social process based on the fact that such differences exist. (p.307)

The growth of reason cannot have its concrete results predicted in advance. (p.307)

- By misapplying the idea that the human mind must “consciously” control its own development, people confuse the growth of reason in the individual with the process of the development of reason among individuals.

The tragedy of collectivist thought is that it begins by making reason supreme, but ends by destroying reason because it misunderstands the process on which the growth of reason depends. (p.307)

(The tragedy of collectivist thought is that it begins by making reason supreme, but ends by destroying reason because it misunderstands the process of the growth of reason.)

- Individualism is an attitude of humility before this social process and of tolerance toward other opinions, the exact opposite of the intellectual arrogance that demands comprehensive direction over the social process.

The idea that the human mind must “consciously” control its own development confuses the reason of the individual, which alone can uniquely and consciously control anything, with the “process among people” that brings about the growth of mind. By trying to control the growth of mind, we can only restrict that growth and will soon bring about a stagnation of thought and a decline of reason. (p.307)

(p.240 The idea that the human mind should “consciously” control its own development confuses individual reason with the process among individuals that produces the growth of mind. In fact, since only the individual can “consciously control” anything at all, the expression “man’s control over himself” is far too vague as to what it exactly means.)

Only the individualist approach to social phenomena enables us to recognize the supra-personal forces that guide the growth of reason, whereas collectivist doctrine inevitably leads to the demand that some one individual’s mind should rule supreme. This is indeed the paradox implicit in all collectivist doctrine and in its demand for “conscious” control or “conscious” planning. Thus individualism is an attitude of humility before this social process and tolerance toward other opinions, completely opposed to the intellectual arrogance underlying the demand for comprehensive direction over the social process. (p.307-8)

- Why does campaign culture develop in totalitarian societies?

- Why do people focus on blocking access to Chosun, JoongAng, Dong-A, and Ilbe?

- Why have debate programs recently become unpopular in our society? Because people fight based on different facts. Why do they claim the other side’s sources are fake news and let things turn from debate into a power struggle?

- Why do leftists on the Democratic Party side develop all kinds of symbols and slogans?

- Why does pure scholarship decline in totalitarian societies? Why is pure scholarship unable to develop in our society?

- Why do totalitarians pursue postmodernism?

- What are examples among us of contempt for intellectual freedom?

- Isn’t freedom of thought just an issue for a few scholars? Why is it a social issue?

- Since not everyone is intellectually mature, what is the point of allowing intellectual freedom socially? Wouldn’t the side effects be severe instead?

- Why must individualists necessarily be humble? p.240

Chapter 12. The Socialist Roots of Nazism p.311

All anti-liberal forces are uniting against everything that is free.

-Bruck-

Socialist Support That Brought About the Rise of National Socialist Forces p.241

- The common mistake of regarding National Socialism (Nazism, fascism) merely as a revolt against reason, that is, as an irrational movement without intellectual background.

- National Socialism kept reappearing over 150 years without changing.

- The repeatedly reemerging National Socialism was always despised, yet eventually seized power thanks to support from socialist circles and the absence of a strong bourgeoisie.

- When the liberal elements within Marxism—its internationalist and democratic elements—became obstacles to the realization of socialism, anti-capitalist forces on the left and right (radical socialism and conservative socialism) united to drive out the liberal elements.

It is a common mistake to regard National Socialism merely as a revolt against reason, an irrational movement without intellectual background. If that were true, the movement would be far less dangerous than it actually is. But nothing could be further from the truth or more misleading than such an idea. The doctrines of National Socialism are the culmination of a long evolution of thought, a process in which thinkers participated whose influence extended far beyond Germany. (p.311)

Many would like to believe that the cause was a capitalist reaction to the advance of socialism, but this is even harder to accept as the cause. On the contrary, the support that enabled these ideas to take power came precisely from the socialist camp. What helped these ideas gain power was clearly not the bourgeoisie, but rather the absence of a strong bourgeoisie. (p.313)

It was precisely the anti-capitalist forces of the left and right—the coalition of radical socialism and conservative socialism—that drove everything liberal out of Germany. (p.313)

Sombart p.314

- A radical Marxist socialist

- Spread socialist thought and various kinds of anti-capitalist resentment throughout Germany

- Analyzed the German war as a clash between English commercial civilization and German heroic culture; despised English commercialism and individualism

Plenge p.316

- For him, organization was the essence of socialism. The ideal of freedom vs. the ideal of organization

Lensch p.320

- Socialist politician

- More fully developed and spread existing ideas advocating the organization of every aspect of life through central planning

- Saw industrial concentration and the formation of cartel organizations as a higher stage of industrial development, and defined Germany, which had achieved this, as playing the role of revolutionary

Spengler and Moeller van den Bruck: Socialism as a Weapon Against the Liberal Western World p.325

- Equated Prussianism (which is statism) with socialism

- The Western liberalism that defeated Germany became the common idea that united socialists and conservatives into a common front

- Through the German youth movement, the fusion of socialism and nationalism was completed

Spengler: “The last three nations of the West [used here in contrast to Western England, and referring to a region including Germany, not the East as the term is now used] aimed at three forms of existence represented by the famous three slogans: freedom, equality, community. These forms appear under the political systems of liberal parliamentarianism, social democracy, and authoritarian socialism, respectively.... The German, or more precisely the Prussian instinct is that ‘power belongs to the whole.’ Everyone is assigned his place. People either command or obey. If one follows only what English liberalism and French democracy intended, this has been authoritarian socialism since the 18th century, and is essentially illiberal and anti-democratic.... In Germany there are many ideas hated or held in bad repute by the opposing side, but what is uniquely despised on German soil is liberalism. The English system is based on the distinction between rich and poor. But the system of the Prussian state is based on the distinction between command and obedience. Therefore the meaning of class distinction is fundamentally different in the two states.” (p.326)

(p.254 “The last three nations of the West [used here in contrast to Western England, and referring to a region including Germany, not the East as the term is now used] aimed at three forms of existence represented by the famous three slogans: freedom, equality, community. These forms appear under the political systems of liberal parliamentarianism, social democracy, and authoritarian socialism, respectively.... The German, or more precisely the Prussian instinct is that ‘power belongs to the whole.’ Everyone is assigned his place. People either command or obey. If one follows only what English liberalism and French democracy intended, this has been authoritarian socialism since the 18th century, and is essentially illiberal and anti-democratic.... In Germany many extremes are hated or held in bad repute, but uniquely liberalism alone is despised on German soil.

The English structure is based on the distinction between rich and poor. But the structure of the Prussian state is based on the distinction between command and obedience. Therefore the meaning of class distinction is fundamentally different in the two states.”)

Spengler: “The decisive question that Germany must solve not only for itself but for the whole world is this: in the future, shall industry rule the state or shall the state rule industry? Faced with this question, Prussianism and socialism are the same.... Prussianism and socialism fight the Englishness within us.” (p.327)

- When socialism and conservatism, or left-wing socialism and right-wing socialism, meet, liberalism is exterminated.

The struggle against every form of liberalism—the liberalism that defeated Germany—was the common idea that united socialists and conservatives into a common front..... As in Germany, so now in England one can see left-wing socialists and right-wing socialists drawing closer together and despising everything free in the old sense. “Conservative socialism” (and in other circles “religious socialism”) was the slogan by which most writers influenced by that idea prepared the atmosphere for the success of “National Socialism.” At present, “conservative socialism” is becoming the dominant tendency in this country, England. (p.329)

(p.257 The struggle against every form of liberalism was the common idea that united socialists and conservatives into a common front.

.... As in Germany, so now in England one can see left-wing socialists and right-wing socialists (Keynesians) drawing closer together and despising everything free in the old sense. “Conservative socialism” (and in other circles “religious socialism”) was the slogan by which most writers influenced by that idea prepared the atmosphere for the success of “National Socialism.” At present, “conservative socialism” is becoming the dominant tendency in this country, England.)

- Why must liberal forces continue to hold on to and persuade conservatives with socialist policy orientations? p.257; if they align with left-wing socialists, they will exterminate liberalism and head toward fascism.

Chapter 13

Totalitarianism Latent Within Us p.333

When the authorities put on the mask of organization,

they create an attraction sufficient to transform a community of free people into a totalitarian state.

--

The Spread of the German Ideal p.333

- The Nazi Germany of atrocities, which now seems like a completely different world, changed rapidly over just a few years. (15 years earlier, Germany was completely different from what it later became.)

- Early signs of the move toward Nazi Germany included the convergence of left and right in their economic views, their common opposition to liberalism, increasing praise of the state, admiration for great power itself, the organization of everything, and an attitude unwilling to leave anything to the simple force of spontaneous growth.

- Characteristics of Germany: the mobilized form of industrial activity even in peacetime, the end of individualism, the establishment of a regulatory regime, the strengthening of organized national unity for efficiency, suspicion toward industrial policies that view the whole world as one market, and a new regime of power that disregards profit.

- The similarity between British political writings and German Nazi works appears not in specific claims but in temperament in approaching problems: the desire to destroy all cultural connections with the past, and the impatient willingness to stake everything on the success of a particular experiment.

- Analysis of recent British writings containing German-style ideals

p.334

Germany’s experience: signs of moving from socialism to fascism.

1. Economic views on the left and right become similar; this is the most important feature.

2. A tendency for left and right to oppose liberalism in common.

3. Increasing praise of the state.

4. Glorification of power and collectivization.

5. A tendency to organize everything.

6. An unwillingness to leave anything to the simplicity of “organic spontaneous growth.”

The similarity appears not so much in specific claims as in the temperament with which problems are approached. The desire to destroy all cultural connections with the past, and the impatient willingness to stake everything on the success of a particular experiment, are precisely such similarities of temperament. (p.338)

A More German Historical Realism p.339

= E. H. Carr.

- An adherent of the realist school of history; made morality a function of politics and predicted the disappearance of traditional old morality

- Predicted the arrival of a future society based on a totalitarian model

- Asserted that “the distinction between ‘society’ and ‘state,’ a concept very familiar in 19th-century thought, no longer has much meaning for us,” which is a core totalitarian idea

- The view that the tendency against the classical laissez-faire economic system is a historical inevitability

- Contempt for all the ideas of liberal economists

- Consideration of the moral function of war: praising war as the strongest tool for social solidarity and for the vivid sense of meaning and purpose it creates

The Totalitarianism of Scientists p.345

- The phenomenon of scientists agitating for the scientific organization of society

- In Germany’s modern history, political professors played a major role in spreading the tendency to organize society from above.

- The “intolerance of reason” often found among scientific experts: an inability to tolerate the ordinary ways of ordinary people, and contempt for anything not consciously organized by superiors according to a scientific blueprint

- The consequences brought about when most of the educational system is thoroughly shifted from the “humanities” to the “practical fields”

- In Waddington’s The Scientific Attitude, a work that detests nearly every feature of European civilization since the Renaissance yet accepts the persecution of heretics, there is fervent support for comprehensive “planning,” coupled with the need to grant scientists greater political power

- Based on the proposition that science can render ethical judgments about human action, it argues that scientists are qualified to manage a totalitarian society

- Freedom is a very troublesome concept for scientists to discuss

- They hold a belief in “inevitable historical trends” and derive this necessary historical trend from the “profound scientific philosophy” of Marxism

p.269~270 Why do experts tend to acquire left-wing and totalitarian inclinations?

1. Scientific experts have a tendency toward “intolerance of reason.”

2. Experts generally find it difficult to accept the ordinary ways of ordinary people.

3. They tend to despise anything not consciously organized by superiors according to a scientific blueprint.

This becomes especially evident when the educational system is shifted from the “humanities” to the “practical fields.”

“The first person to argue that teaching the classics should be suppressed because it instills the dangerous spirit of liberty was Hobbes, the author of Leviathan.”

!!The Monopoly Path of Capital!! - Important chapter. Let’s read the whole thing carefully. p.351

- Various attempts to create middle-class socialism appeared in both Germany and Britain

- The driving force behind totalitarian tendencies comes mainly from two vested interests: organized capital and organized labor. It becomes dangerous when these two groups align in policy. (Their cooperation regarding the monopolistic organization of industry)

- If capitalists succeed in obtaining the support of other groups and, with their help, succeed in obtaining support from the state, it develops into a fatal situation

- A system in which large privileged groups benefit from monopoly gains is politically more dangerous than one in which profits go to a limited minority

- If monopoly is unavoidable, it is better to allow private monopoly than direct state management. And if even that is impossible, it would be better for the state to impose strict price controls through a “consistent” policy that leave no room for abnormal profits and keep prices under enough pressure that no surplus gains arise sufficient to attract other firms into the market.

- Control to the extent that no surplus gains arise sufficient to attract other firms into the market.

That is the case when the state enforces a stringent price control which leaves no room for extraordinary profits in which others than the monopolists can participate. (English edition p.203) (At this controlled price, the state would be planning to set prices so that even if firms other than the monopolists entered the industry, they could earn no extraordinary profits at all.) (p.356)

The Monopoly Path of Labor p.358

- Recent monopoly is the result of intentional cooperation between organized capital and labor. Labor’s privileged groups share monopoly with organized capital at the expense of less organized industries and the unemployed.

- The slogans used for this, such as “balanced economy” and “community consumption,” originate in German ideology.

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Original title: <노예의 길> 11장, 12장, 13장

Author: Jayujuui ipmun dokseo toron moim

Date: 2024-12-04

Source: https://www.cfe.org/bbs/bbsDetail.php?cid=reading01&pn=1&idx=27212