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during war the market system is more or less abandoned, as many parts of the economy are placed under central control. Hayek’s fear was that socialists would want to continue such controls in peacetime.
the nearly universal sentiment among the intelligentsia in the 1930s that a planned system represented “the middle way” between a failed capitalism and totalitarianisms of the left and right
“socialism can be put into practice only by methods which most socialists disapprove.”
How many actually existing, real-world political systems have fully nationalized their means of production and preserved both some measure of economic efficiency and freedom of choice over goods and occupations?
fascism and communism are merely variants of the same totalitarianism which central control of all economic activity tends to produce,
socialism can be put into practice only by methods of which most socialists disapprove
Few are ready to recognize that the rise of fascism and naziism was not a reaction against the socialist trends of the preceding period but a necessary outcome of those tendencies.
The theory which is once again put forth, that the Germans as such are inherently vicious, is hardly tenable and not very creditable to those who hold it.
the conflict in existence between the National Socialist “Right” and the “Left” in Germany is the kind of conflict that will always arise between rival socialist factions.
Although we had been warned by some of the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism.3
As is so often true, the nature of our civilization has been seen more clearly by its enemies than by most of its friends: “the perennial Western malady, the revolt of the individual against the species,” as that nineteenth-century totalitarian, Auguste Comte, has described it, was indeed the force which built our civilization.9
The fundamental principle that in the ordering of our affairs we should make as much use as possible of the spontaneous forces of society, and resort as little as possible to coercion, is capable of an infinite variety of applications.
Probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rough rules of thumb, above all the principle of laissez faire.
Most English and American socialists are still unaware that the majority of the problems they begin to discover were thoroughly discussed by German socialists long ago.14
Democracy 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.”3
“Stalinism is socialism, in the sense of being an inevitable although unforeseen political accompaniment of the nationalization and collectivization which he had relied upon as part of his plan for erecting a classless society,”5
Many a university teacher during the 1930s has seen English and American students return from the Continent uncertain whether they were communists or Nazis and certain only that they hated Western liberal civilization.
In this sense socialism means the abolition of private enterprise, of private ownership of the means of production, and the creation of a system of “planned economy” in which the entrepreneur working for profit is replaced by a central planning body.
Many people, on the other hand, who value the ultimate ends of socialism no less than the socialists refuse to support socialism because of the dangers to other values they see in the methods proposed by the socialists.
Whether we should wish that more of the good things of this world should go to some racial élite, the Nordic men, or the members of a party or an aristocracy, the methods which we shall have to employ are the same as those which could insure an equalitarian distribution.
Nor can certain harmful effects of deforestation, of some methods of farming, or of the smoke and noise of factories be confined to the owner of the property in question or to those who are willing to submit to the damage for an agreed compensation. In such instances we must find some substitute for the regulation by the price mechanism.
the prevention of fraud and deception (including exploitation of ignorance), provides a great and by no means yet fully accomplished object of legislative activity.
planning and competition can be combined only by planning for competition but not by planning against competition.
It is of the utmost importance to the argument of this book for the reader to keep in mind that the planning against which all our criticism is directed is solely the planning against competition—the planning which is to be substituted for competition.
implied in a statement of Mussolini, that Italy had to abolish individual freedom before other European people because its civilization had marched so far in advance of the rest!
It is no exaggeration to say that if we had had to rely on conscious central planning for the growth of our industrial system, it would never have reached the degree of differentiation, complexity, and flexibility it has attained.
While it is true, of course, that inventions have given us tremendous power, it is absurd to suggest that we must use this power to destroy our most precious inheritance: liberty.
The magnificent motor roads in Germany and Italy are an instance often quoted—even though they do not represent a kind of planning not equally possible in a liberal society.
Anyone who has driven along the famous German motor roads and found the amount of traffic on them less than on many a secondary road in England can have little doubt that, so far as peace purposes are concerned, there was little justification for them.
The whole system will tend toward that plebiscitarian dictatorship in which the head of the government is from time to time confirmed in his position by popular vote, but where he has all the powers at his command to make certain that the vote will go in the direction he desires.
Democratic government has worked successfully where, and so long as, the functions of government were, by a widely accepted creed, restricted to fields where agreement among a majority could be achieved by free discussion; and it is the great merit of the liberal creed that it reduced the range of subjects on which agreement was necessary to one on which it was likely to exist in a society of free men.
under the government of a very homogeneous and doctrinaire majority democratic government might be as oppressive as the worst dictatorship.
A true “dictatorship of the proletariat,” even if democratic in form, if it undertook centrally to direct the economic system, would probably destroy personal freedom as completely as any autocracy has ever done.
the state “plans,” the more difficult planning becomes for the individual.
any policy aiming directly at a substantive ideal of distributive justice must lead to the destruction of the Rule of Law.
It is pathetic but characteristic of the muddle into which many of our intellectuals have been led by the conflicting ideals in which they believe that a leading advocate of the most comprehensive central planning like H. G. Wells should at the same time write an ardent defense of the rights of man.10
individual would more than ever become a mere means, to be used by the authority in the service of such abstractions as the “social welfare” or the “good of the community.”
What our generation has forgotten is that the system of private property is the most important guaranty of freedom, not only for those who own property, but scarcely less for those who do not. It is only because the control of the means of production is divided among many people acting independently that nobody has complete power over us, that we as individuals can decide what to do with ourselves.
the coercive power of the state
For many this is a feature not a bug.
As soon as the state takes upon itself the task of planning the whole economic life, the problem of the due station of the different individuals and groups must indeed inevitably become the central political problem.
Today's left have dramatically smaller ambitions.
was Lenin himself who introduced to Russia the famous phrase “who, whom?”
the problem of all government is “who gets what, when, and how.”
It is because successful planning requires the creation of a common view on the essential values that the restriction of our freedom with regard to material things touches so directly on our spiritual freedom.
Socialists, the cultivated parents of the barbarous offspring they have produced, traditionally hope to solve this problem by education.
It was not the Fascists but the socialists who began to collect children from the tenderest age into political organizations to make sure that they grew up as good proletarians.
no single economic factor has contributed more to help these movements than the envy of the unsuccessful professional man,
The old principle: who does not work shall not eat, has been replaced by a new one: who does not obey shall not eat. —Leon Trotsky (1937)2
Quotable.
Independence of mind or strength of character is rarely found among those who cannot be confident that they will make their way by their own effort.
there can be no doubt that some minimum of food, shelter, and clothing, sufficient to preserve health and the capacity to work, can be assured to everybody.
Only through private charity, not coercion.
Nor is there any reason why the state should not assist the individuals in providing for those common hazards of life against which, because of their uncertainty, few individuals can make adequate provision.
Yes there is. Coercion of the taxpayer.
