 by Ken Bylund May 29, 2009
Mr. Hayek, born in Austria, watched with undistracted and obsessive fascination as Fascist or National Socialist movements captured, exploited, and moved up that hierarchal ladder of the more prosperous sections of the labor movement. Excerpts from The Road to Serfdom [published 1944], Chapter 8 - Who, Whom? [available new $10 on Amazon.com] "While the younger generation, out of that contempt for profit-making fostered by socialist teaching, spurned independent positions which involved risk and flocked in ever increasing numbers into salaried positions which promised security, they demanded a place yielding them the income and power to which in their opinion their training entitled them. While they believed in an organized society, they expected a place in that society very different from that which society ruled by labor seemed to offer. They were quite ready to take over the methods of older socialism but intended to employ them in the service of a different class." -- and; "Fascism and National Socialism - grew out of the experience of an increasingly regulated society's awakening to the fact that democratic and international socialism was aiming at incompatible ideals." - "They knew that the strongest group which rallied enough supporters in favor of a new hierarchal order of society, and which frankly promised privileges to the classes to which it appealed, was likely to obtain the support of those who were disappointed because they had been promised equality but found that they had merely furthered the interest of a particular class." Chapter 5 -- Planning and the Rule of Law; "By giving the government unlimited powers, the most arbitrary rule can be made legal; and in this way a democracy may set up the most complete despotism imaginable." vs. "The Rule of Law thus implies limits to the scope of legislation: it restricts it to the kind of general rules known as formal law and excludes legislation either directly aimed at particular people or at enabling anybody to use the coercive power of the state for the purpose of such discrimination." In these few [too many?] excerpts from Mr. Hayek's writing, his insights appear to explain and define the precarious balance of a liberal democracy, socialism, and totalitarianism... interesting where Mr. Hayek notes the meaning of words are being manipulated, obscured; see, 'Why I [Hayek] am Not a Conservative; "Until the rise of socialism - its opposite was liberalism". Please read on in Wikiquote - http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek - again, recommend to those readers willing to take a close look at the difficulties and peril of unlimited political power, in simple, beautiful, eloquent words; The Road to Serfdom, by F. A. Hayek, Edited by Bruce Caldwell. Shameless dishonesty and obfuscation -- or truth... truth is the proven method of achieving positive change expressing reason; -- If one has no affection for a person or a system, one should feel free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite violence -- Mahatma [The Great Soul] Gandhi. Ken Bylund
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