Serfdom and Freedom, part 3
Jun. 6th, 2024 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petrea_mitchellSix more chapters of The Road to Serfdom down, five to go. Left-ish beliefs still intact.
Chapter 7: There is no such thing as doing something for non-economic reasons because everything is economics.
Chapter 8: Once everything is controlled, getting ahead is not about competing successfully but about working the system and knowing the right people.
In this chapter Hayek also gets around to explaining how he sees Nazis vs. Communists as two competing groups of socialists. The first wave of socialism in Germany, the Communists, was based in the trade unions. The second was rooted in a new middle-ish class of clerks, secretaries, teachers, etc. who felt they were losing out compared to the established unions.
Chapter 9: This one is called "Security and Freedom", but Hayek doesn't mean security in the modern stopping-terrorists sense:
Hayek thinks the first kind is good, the second kind is bad. In the next paragraph, the neoliberal icon endorses universal healthcare and a right to shelter.
Chapter 10: Sketching out a sort of Peter Principle of totalitarian states, in which the worst sorts of people inevitably rise to the top.
Chapter 11: A guide to how propaganda works in totalitarian states.
Chapter 12: Hayek acknowledges in passing that yes all right maybe the defeat and reparations from WWI had something to do with the rise of the Nazis, but he wants to talk about the philosophical roots o Nazism. A recurring theme is the notion of a proud, heroic Germany standing forth to do battle with the debased, commercial English.
If the safety razor were invented today, I'm sure half the US could easily find a way to start demonizing it as a symbol of anti-masculine wokeism.
Chapter 7: There is no such thing as doing something for non-economic reasons because everything is economics.
Chapter 8: Once everything is controlled, getting ahead is not about competing successfully but about working the system and knowing the right people.
In this chapter Hayek also gets around to explaining how he sees Nazis vs. Communists as two competing groups of socialists. The first wave of socialism in Germany, the Communists, was based in the trade unions. The second was rooted in a new middle-ish class of clerks, secretaries, teachers, etc. who felt they were losing out compared to the established unions.
Chapter 9: This one is called "Security and Freedom", but Hayek doesn't mean security in the modern stopping-terrorists sense:
These two kinds of security are, first, security against severe physical privation, the certainty of a given minimum of sustenance for all; and, second, the security of a given standard of life, or of the relative position which one person or group enjoys compared with the others; or, as we may put it briefly, the security of a minimum income and the security of the particular income a person is thought to deserve.
Hayek thinks the first kind is good, the second kind is bad. In the next paragraph, the neoliberal icon endorses universal healthcare and a right to shelter.
Chapter 10: Sketching out a sort of Peter Principle of totalitarian states, in which the worst sorts of people inevitably rise to the top.
Chapter 11: A guide to how propaganda works in totalitarian states.
Chapter 12: Hayek acknowledges in passing that yes all right maybe the defeat and reparations from WWI had something to do with the rise of the Nazis, but he wants to talk about the philosophical roots o Nazism. A recurring theme is the notion of a proud, heroic Germany standing forth to do battle with the debased, commercial English.
War is to Sombart the consummation of the heroic view of life, and the war against England is the war against the opposite ideal, the commercial ideal of individual freedom and of English comfort, which in his eyes finds its most contemptible expression in-- the safety razors found in the English trenches.
If the safety razor were invented today, I'm sure half the US could easily find a way to start demonizing it as a symbol of anti-masculine wokeism.
