...because we can’t seem to learn from our grandparents’ past.
My father introduced me to Frederick Hayek decades ago when he gave me his copy of the book, The Road to Serfdom. I never gave it back. This book should be part of everyone’s education. Written in 1944, it portends what we are seeing today in America - from suppression of speech unpopular with the ruling class to the current craze for equity and social justice. Why is it that as historic horrors fade into history their dismal track record and the pain they cause to the human soul is forgotten so that the unthinkable (socialism) becomes thinkable?
With all we know about the terrible results of socialist movements, why do some Americans still want to be controlled by bureaucrats and lose their freedoms to think and act in their own best interests? Even those ignorant of history or conditions in other countries should understand the brilliance of a free markets, individual choice and dispersed power. My biggest fear isn’t losing material possessions - I have lived on a shoestring most of my life - but losing what freedoms we still have in America today and that once lost, it will be impossible to get them back.
Many of Hayek’s writings are available for download.
“In 1944 Hayek also attacked socialism from a very different angle. From his vantage point in Austria, Hayek had observed Germany very closely in the 1920s and early 1930s. After he moved to Britain, he noticed that many British socialists were advocating some of the same policies for government control of people’s lives that he had seen advocated in Germany in the 1920s. He had also seen that the Nazis really were National Socialists; that is, they were nationalists and socialists. So Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom to warn his fellow British citizens of the dangers of socialism. His basic argument was that government control of our economic lives amounts to totalitarianism. “Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest,” he wrote, “it is the control of the means for all our ends.”
“Everything which might cause doubt about the wisdom of the government or create discontent will be kept from the people. The basis of unfavorable comparisons with elsewhere, the knowledge of possible alternatives to the course actually taken, information which might suggest failure on the part of the government to live up to its promises or to take advantage of opportunities to improve conditions--all will be suppressed. There is consequently no field where the systematic control of information will not be practiced and uniformity of views not enforced.” ― The Road to Serfdom
On the contested vote for “Social Infrastructure “
“It is one of the saddest spectacles of our time to see a great democratic movement support a policy which must lead to the destruction of democracy and which meanwhile can benefit only a minority of the masses who support it. Yet it is this support from the Left of the tendencies toward monopoly which make them so irresistible and the prospects of the future so dark.” ― The Road to Serfdom
On the Sorrow of Utopia
I am certain, however, that nothing has done so much to destroy the juridical safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice.” ―
The Entity That Pays The Piper..
“Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that, if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are at his absolute mercy. And an authority directing the whole economic system of the country would be the most powerful monopolist conceivable…it would have complete power to decide what we are to be given and on what terms. It would not only decide what commodities and services were to be available and in what quantities; it would be able to direct their distributions between persons to any degree it liked.” ― The Road to Serfdom
On Planners and Planning
“The more the state "plans" the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.” ―
On Getting a High Quality Education
“If socialists understood economics they wouldn't be socialists.” ―
Equality vs Equity
“From the fact that people are very different it follows that, if we treat them equally, the result must be inequality in their actual position, and that the only way to place them in an equal position would be to treat them differently. Equality before the law and material equality are therefore not only different but are in conflict with each other; and we can achieve either one or the other, but not both at the same time”
― The Constitution Of Liberty
How to Enforce Redistribution of Wealth
“Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.” ―
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