Saturday, June 7, 2014
Bill Black — GM’s Cartoon Version of von Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” – on the 70th Anniversary of D-Day
Libertarian takedown. Eisenhower's failure: he was a government employee and not a CEO. Democracy's failure: the majority rules.
New Economic Perspectives
GM’s Cartoon Version of von Hayek’s “Road to Serfdom” – on the 70th Anniversary of D-Day
William K. Black | Associate Professor of Economics and Law, UMKC
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One might think that Mr. Black has never read “The Road to Serfdom” and is unfamiliar with its theme even though that general theme is set forth in the cartoon version to which he links. The point of the book is that CENTRAL PLANNING of the Nazi and Russian variety is the cause of the associated horrors of those regimes. Even a democratic society that forges ahead with such central planning is likely to end up the same way. After WWII, western nations did not engage in the type of economic central planning of the type about which Hayek warned. No central planning, no totalitarian nightmare.
He has a newer post here:
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2014/06/worst-get-top-economics-ceos.html
Since Mr. Black has there included a long quote from Chapter 10 of “The Road to Serfdom, we must presume that his intent is merely to completely misrepresent the book. Preceding that long quote is this quote which demonstrates that the topic of the book is the problems caused by COMPULSORY SOCIALIST ECONOMIC CENTRAL PLANNING and not democracy per se:
We must here return for a moment to the position which precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime. In this stage it is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action's sake the goal. It is then the man or the party who seems strong and resolute enough "to get things done" who exercises the greatest appeal. "Strong" in this sense means not merely a numerical majority-it is the ineffectiveness of parliamentary majorities with which people are dissatisfied. What they will seek is somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants. It is here that the new type of party, organised on military lines, comes in.
In the Central European countries the socialist parties had familiarised the masses with political organisations of a semimilitary character designed to absorb as much as possible of the private life of the members. All that was wanted to give one group overwhelming power was to carry the same principle somewhat further, to seek strength not in the assured votes of huge numbers at occasional elections, but in the absolute and unreserved support of a smaller but more thoroughly organized body. The chance of imposing a totalitarian regime on a whole people depends on the leader first collecting round him a group which is prepared voluntarily to submit to that totalitarian discipline which they are to impose by force upon the rest. Although the socialist parties had the strength to get anything if they had cared to use force, they were reluctant to do so. They had, without knowing it, set themselves a task which only the ruthless, ready to disregard the barriers of accepted morals, can execute. That socialism can be put into practice only by methods which most socialists disapprove is, of course, a lesson learnt by many social reformers in the past.
The old socialist parties were inhibited by their democratic ideals, they did not possess the ruthlessness required for the performance of their chosen task. It is characteristic that both in Germany and Italy the success of Fascism was preceded by the refusal of the socialist parties to take over the responsibilities of government. They were unwilling wholeheartedly to employ the methods to which they had pointed the way. They still hoped for the miracle of a majority agreeing on a particular plan for the organisation of the whole of society; others had already learnt the lesson that in a planned society the question can no longer be on what a majority of the people agree, but what is the largest single group whose members agree sufficiently to make unified direction of all affairs possible; or, if no such group large enough to enforce its views exists, how it can be created and who will succeed in creating it.
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