Some excerpts from F.A. Hayek: _The Road to Serfdom_, 1944.
^^^^^^^
(please note the date)
...quoting from the latest edition, 1994...
pg. 31
In recent years, however, the old apprehensions of the unforeseen
consequences of socialism have once more been strongly voiced from
the most unexpected quarters. Observer after observer, in spite of
the contrary expectation with which he approached his subject, has
been impressed with the extraordinary similarity in many respects of
the conditions under "fascism" and "communism". While "progressives"
in England and elsewhere were still deluding themselves that
communism and fascism represented opposite poles, more and more
people began to ask themselves whether these new tyrannies were not
the outcome of the same tendencies. Even communists must have been
somewhat shaken by such testimonies as that of Max Eastman, Lenin's
old friend, who found himself compelled to admit that "instead of
being better, Stalinism is worse than fascism, more ruthless,
barbarous, unjust, immoral, anti-democratic, and unredeemed by any
hope or scruple," and that it is "better described as superfascist";
...
pg. 32
And Walter Lippman has arrived at the conviction that "the
generation to which we belong is now learning from experience what
happens when men retreat from freedom to a coercive organization of
their affairs. Though they promise themselves a more abundant life,
they must in practice renounce it; as the organized direction
increases, the variety of ends must give way to uniformity. That is
the nemisis of the planned society and the authoritarian principle
in human affairs." (Atlantic Monthly, November 1936, pg. 552)
...
pg. 34
It is true, of course that in Germany before 1933, and in Italy
before 1922, communists clashed more frequently with each other than
with other parties. They competed for the support of the same type
of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. But
their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the
real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common and whom
they could not hope to convince, is the liberal of the old type.
...
pg. 39
Planning owes its popularity largely to the fact that everybody
desires, of course, that we should handle our common problems as
rationally as possible and that, in so doing, we should use as much
foresight as we can command. In this sense everybody who is not a
complete fatalist is a planner, every political act is (or ought to
be) an act of planning, and there can be differences only between
good and bad, between wise and foresighted and foolish and
shortsighted planning. ... But it is not in this sense that our
enthusiasts for a planned society now employ this term. ... What our
planners demand is a central plan, laying down how the resources of
society should be "consciously directed" to serve particular ends in
a definite way.
The dispute between the modern planners and their opponents is *not*
a dispute on whether we ought to choose intelligently betwen the
various possible organizatons of society, *not* a dispute on whether
we out to employ foresight and systematic thinking in planning our
common affairs. It is a dispute about what is the best way of so
doing. The question is whether for this purpose it is better that
the holder of coercive power should confine himself in general to
creating conditions under which the knowledge and initiative of
individualsare given the best scope so that *they* can plan most
successfully; or whether a rational of our resources requires
*central* direction and organization of all of our activities
according to some consciously constructed "blueprint".
---"We were the first to assert that the more complicated the forms assumed by civilization, the more restricted the freedom of the individual must become." --Benito Mussolini
---
This old classic _The Road to Serfdom_ should be on everyone's bookshelf, IMO. It had more influence these last 10-30 years in former-Soviet union and eastern Europe than any other political treatise. (Ayn Rand's works never made it very far there.)
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. The Abandoned Road 2. The Great Utopia 3. Individualism and Collectivism 4. The "Inevitability" of Planning 5. Planning and Democracy 6. Planning and the Rule of Law 7. Economic Control and Totalitarianism 8. Who, Whom? 9. Security and Freedom 10. Why the Worst Get on Top 11. The End of Truth 12. The Socialist Roots of Nazism 13. The Totalitarians in Our Midst 14. Material Conditions and Ideal Ends 15. The Prospects of International Order 16. Conclusion
Amara
******************************************************************** Amara Graps email: amara@amara.com Computational Physics vita: finger agraps@shell5.ba.best.com Multiplex Answers URL: http://www.amara.com/ ******************************************************************** "Sometimes I think I understand everything. Then I regain consciousness." --Ashleigh Brilliant
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