petrea_mitchell (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
petrea_mitchell) wrote2024-06-03 05:38 pm
petrea_mitchell) wrote2024-06-03 05:38 pm
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Serfdom and Freedom, part 2
TL;DR: A few chapters into The Road to Serfdom, not much to change my initial impressions.
Chapter 1: Hayek opines that civilization, which here means whatever white people are up to, had been going great the last few centuries until people started listening to Germans too much and abandoning Enlightenment liberalism.
Chapter 2: Hayek notes that both socialist and fascists promise freedom but their definitions differs from his, and then proceeds to quote many people on how Germany under Hitler is not free. From this he expands to a general thesis that socialism cannot offer any kind of freedom.
Chapter 3: Definition time! Hayek clarifies that when he says "socialism", he specifically means attempts at centralized economic planning. He then goes to great lengths to emphasize that there are plenty of areas where some degree of government regulation is necessary, such as maintaining common infrastructure or limiting environmental externalities (he specifically calls out deforestation and pollution).
Also:
Chapter 4: Gigantic monopolies are presented as an inevitable part of technological progress, but Hayek says they come about because of specific governmental choices. Well, the specific governmental choice to grant monopolies as a part of a central planning process.
Chapter 5: Because comprehensive economic plans have to be adopted or rejected as-is, since legislative tinkering with one part could invalidate how the whole is supposed to work, this leads to a feeling that the government is doing nothing, which in turn leaves people wanting a strong dictatorial hand to get things done.
In a present-day nation with significant entrenched monopolies, lack of confidence in government, and a whole lot of people supporting a would-be strongman, this could seem awfully relevant if Hayek weren't insisting that Communist-style central planning is an essential part of how all of this happens.
Chapter 6: The pragmatic argument against centralized planning: people have different needs and wants, but a comprehensive national economic plan would have to impose one particular set of priorities on everyone. Much better to set up a framework in which people can pursue their own individual priorities.
Change the references to planning for an entire society to planning the lives of a particular segment of society, and this is basically all the current arguments for switching from highly specific welfare programs to UBI or other cash transfer systems.
Chapter 1: Hayek opines that civilization, which here means whatever white people are up to, had been going great the last few centuries until people started listening to Germans too much and abandoning Enlightenment liberalism.
Chapter 2: Hayek notes that both socialist and fascists promise freedom but their definitions differs from his, and then proceeds to quote many people on how Germany under Hitler is not free. From this he expands to a general thesis that socialism cannot offer any kind of freedom.
Chapter 3: Definition time! Hayek clarifies that when he says "socialism", he specifically means attempts at centralized economic planning. He then goes to great lengths to emphasize that there are plenty of areas where some degree of government regulation is necessary, such as maintaining common infrastructure or limiting environmental externalities (he specifically calls out deforestation and pollution).
Also:
In no system that could be rationally defended would the state just do nothing. An effective competitive system needs an intelligently designed and continuously adjusted legal framework as much as any other.
Chapter 4: Gigantic monopolies are presented as an inevitable part of technological progress, but Hayek says they come about because of specific governmental choices. Well, the specific governmental choice to grant monopolies as a part of a central planning process.
Chapter 5: Because comprehensive economic plans have to be adopted or rejected as-is, since legislative tinkering with one part could invalidate how the whole is supposed to work, this leads to a feeling that the government is doing nothing, which in turn leaves people wanting a strong dictatorial hand to get things done.
Hitler did not have to destroy democracy; he merely took advantage of the decay of democracy and at the critical moment obtained the support of many to whom, though they detested Hitler, he yet seemed the only man strong enough to get things done.
In a present-day nation with significant entrenched monopolies, lack of confidence in government, and a whole lot of people supporting a would-be strongman, this could seem awfully relevant if Hayek weren't insisting that Communist-style central planning is an essential part of how all of this happens.
Chapter 6: The pragmatic argument against centralized planning: people have different needs and wants, but a comprehensive national economic plan would have to impose one particular set of priorities on everyone. Much better to set up a framework in which people can pursue their own individual priorities.
Change the references to planning for an entire society to planning the lives of a particular segment of society, and this is basically all the current arguments for switching from highly specific welfare programs to UBI or other cash transfer systems.