This is a draft of an essay I'm writing based on reading one of the founding books cited in histories of the neoconservative movement, The Road to Serfdom, by Friederich Hayek. The thesis of the essay is that -- surprise -- modern neoconservatives have misused and lied about this work to justify their antidemocratic and corporatist agenda.
It is something of a follow-on to the book, The Shock Doctrine, showing that there really is no basis in reason for neoconservative policies, which is why the lie about them so often.
This is not, of course, that important in the current, driven political climate. Except that should be some value in demonstrating again and again that conservative claims to any intellectual justifications for their viewpoint are bogus.
A consideration of Frederick Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom
My purpose in this essay is to find a sense of the roots of the neo-classical economists and neoconservative political operatives that have done so much damage over the last several decades. One of the godfathers of the philosophy of neoconservatism and perhaps even libertarianism is Friederich Hayek.
We can start with the simple note that this book – as was Karl Popper's The Open Society and It’s Enemies and many other noble tomes of the time – was a shout of objection to Nazism, communism, fascism, and socialism, and a warning of the dangers of all these ideologies. Like Popper, he treated all these forms of totalitarianism as variations on the same theme; as such, the book is proscriptive rather than prescriptive, with a fair share – today – of "Duh!" statements.
We can then realize that much of what Hayek wrote has been forgotten or misinterpreted by a conservative, or neoconservative, movement that is closer to the socialism and totalitarianism that Hayek warned against than would be possible were the followers of conservatism ever to be considered honest. It is fairly clear that not only would Hayek be screaming in outrage at the actions of the Bush administration and the neoconservatives that serve it, but sputter in consternation at the use of his name by Milton Friedman and the Chicago School ideologues who claim that the mystic mathematical certainties of their brand of economics gives them a privileged insight into the solutions to all our problems. Hayek would recognize along with the rest of us that Friedman’s economic shock doctrine is a prescription in service to the corporate agenda of those who would enslave us for the sake of profit, not a means of securing either prosperity or freedom. Hayek would pay attention to the evidence that, wherever and whenever Friedman’s economics has been tried, it has failed to secure either.
Here is an example of what I speak. It is a quote from the first chapter, page 21:
"There is nothing in the basic principles of liberalism to make it a stationary creed; there are no hard-and-fast rules fixed once and for all. The fundamental principle that in the ordering of our affairs we should make as much use as possible of the spontaneous forces of society, and resort as little as possible to coercion, is capable of an infinite variety of applications. There is, in particular, all the difference between deliberately creating a system within which competition will work as beneficially as possible, and passively accepting institutions as they are. Probably nothing has done so much harm to the liberal cause as the wooden insistence of some liberals on certain rough rules of thumb, above the principle of laissez faire. Yet, in a sense, this was necessary and unavoidable. Against the innumerable interests which could show that particular measures would confer immediate and obvious benefits on some, while the harm they caused was much more indirect and difficult to see, nothing short of some hard-and-fast rule would have been effective. And since a strong presumption in favor of industrial liberty had undoubtedly been established, the temptation to present it as a rule which knew no exceptions, was too strong always to be resisted." (all page citations are from the 1994 Fiftieth Anniversary paperback Edition, published by the University of Chicago Press.)
There can be no more clear indictment of the ideas of what we now call libertarianism. Why, then, do conservatives say that these ideas trace their heritage to Hayek?
We must consider that question as we continue through the book.
"The liberal argument is in favor of making the best possible use of the forces of competition as a means of coordinating human efforts, not an argument for leaving things just as they are. It is based on the conviction that, where effective competition can be created, it is a better way of guiding individual efforts than any other. It does not deny, but even emphasizes, that, in order that competition should work beneficially, a carefully thought-out legal framework is required and that neither the existing nor the past legal rules are free from grave defects. Nor does it deny that, where it is impossible to create the conditions necessary to make competition effective, we must resort to other methods of guiding economic activity. ...
"The successful use of competition as the principle of social organization precludes certain types of coercive interference with economic life, but it admits of others which sometimes may very considerably assist its work and even requires certain kinds of government action. ... ...it is essential that the entry into the different trades should be open to all on equal terms, and that the law should not tolerate any attempts by individuals or groups to restrict this entry by open or concealed force. ...
"This is not necessarily true, however, of measures merely restricting the allowed methods of production, so long as these restrictions affect all potential producers equally and are not used as an indirect way of controlling prices and quantities. ... To prohibit the use of certain poisonous substances or to require special precautions in their use, to limit working hours or to require certain sanitary arrangements, is fully compatible with the preservation of competition." Page 41
So much for the idea that Hayek did not believe in government regulation. So much, indeed, for the idea that government regulation is always and everywhere a bad thing. Certainly, the reasonable man (otherwise known as a liberal or a progressive) will be the first to say that there are bad regulations. The honest answer to this situation is to improve the regulations, not to do away with all regulations, at the cost of economic chaos, environmental damage, and individual risk or life and limb that we are seeing today. Here is yet more evidence of the dishonesty of the conservative ranks.
"The fact that we have to resort to the substitution of direct regulation by authority where the conditions for the proper working of competition cannot be created does not prove that we should suppress competition where it can be made to function." Page 44
"In no system that can be rationally defended would the state just do nothing." Page 45
Need we say more? Hayek’s point is that calls for doing nothing actually have results, actually benefit those with inherited wealth and power, which makes it easy to believe that serving the interests of corporations and the short-sighted rich may just be their purpose.
"Nothing, indeed, seems at first more plausible, or is more likely to appeal to reasonable people, than the idea that our goal must be neither the extreme decentralization of free competition nor the complete centralization of a single plan but some judicious mixture of the two methods." Page 47
In other words, Hayek is arguing for the mixed economy that Friedman believed to be unworkable (or at least said he did). Here is yet another statement of the truism that our choices are not binary. It is not a matter of choosing between complete license for corporations to do whatever they want, or communism. Those are not our only two choices. Anyone who says they are is not just stupid; he or she is dishonest. And wealthy.
"The fact that someone has full legal authority to act in the way he does gives no answer to the question whether the law gives him power to act arbitrarily or whether the law prescribes unequivocally how he has to act. ... If the law says that such a board or authority may do what it pleases, anything that board or authority does is legal – but its actions are certainly not subject to 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." Page 91
Here is a cogent argument against both the imaginary doctrine of the unitary executive that Bush operates under, and the unconstitutional arguments it uses to justify such illegal usurpations of authority as the Protect America Act.
"It will be well to contrast at the outset the two kinds of security: the limited one, which can be achieved for all, ... and absolute security, which in a free society cannot be achieved. ... 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, ... briefly, the security of minimum income and the security of the particular income a person is thought to deserve."
"There is no reason why in a society which has reached the general level of wealth which ours has attaned the first kind of security should not be guaranteed to all without endangering general freedom. Page 133.
We then wonder why conservatives use Hayek and others to justify their objections to Social Security, AIDC, and other welfare and income insurance programs. Clearly, the man they cite as their guru on all matters economic had no problem with any of these.
"The contrast between the "we" and the "they," the common fight against those outside the group, seems to be an essential ingredient in any creed which will solidly knit together a group for common action. It is consequently always employed by those who seek, not merely support of a policy, but the unreserved allegiance of huge masses. From their pont of view it has the great advantage of leaving them greater freedom of action than almost any positive program. The enemy, whether he be internal, like the "Jew" or the "kulak," or external, seem sto be an indispensable requisite in the armory of a totalitarian leader." Page 153
Here, if we substitute the words "Muslim," and "gay," is an exact description of the campaign and public relations strategy of the Republican Party and the Bush administration. It is a given, after all, that the greatest gift history granted Bush was the attack of 9/11. The mythical "War on Terror" has since allowed Bush to trample our rights, ignore our wishes, and win elections based on fear rather than reason.
"Few traits of totalitarian regimes are at the same time so confusing to the superficial observer and yet so characteristic of the whole intellectual climate as the complete perversion of language, the change of meaning of the words by which the ideals of the new regimes are expressed.
"The worst sufferer in this respect is, of course, the word "liberty." It is a word used as freely in totalitarian states as elsewhere. Indeed, it could almost be said – and it should serve as a warning to us to be on our guard against all the tempters who promise us New Liberties for Old – that wherever liberty as we understand it has been destroyed, this has almost always been done in the name of some new freedom promised to the people." Page 173
Thus we see that Bush, the neocons, and the so-called neoclassical economists use Hayek, not as a warning against, but as an instruction book for, achieving a totalitarian fascist state. In the Bush lexicon, "freedom" means obedience, "bipartisan" means strict adherence to the dictates of the leader, etc. Orwell’s perversion of language has become both a campaign strategy and a governing principle.
"It should never be forgotten that the one decisive factor in the rise of totalitarianism on the Continent, which is yet absent in England and America, is the existence of a large recently dispossessed middle class." Page 229
It would be hard to find a better description of Bush’s economic policies, as we are seeing in the current recession and home loan crisis. Years of neglecting the regulation and oversight of the banking, insurance, and investment industries, and of suppressing the wages and jobs of middle class Americans in order to falsely depress costs and inflate profits, have achieved their aim: a middle class in crisis. Now we are waiting for the neo-econs to announce that they have the answer to our problem: only what they have in mind is more of what created the problem in the first place.
Here is Hayek’s take on the so-called "realist" camp of foreign policy, and of the Bush unilateralism that has hijacked "realism" and turned it into unilateralism and the doctrine of unprovoked, unjustified, unproductive war:
"... we cannot hope for order or lasting peace after this war [WW II] if states, large or small, regain unfettered sovereignty in the economic sphere. But this does not mean that a new superstate must be given powers which we have not learned to use intelligently even on a national scale, that an international authority ought to be given power to direct individual nations how to use their resources. It means merely that there must be a power which can restrain the different nations from action harmful to their neighbors, a set of rules which defines what a state may do, and an authority capable of enforcing these rules." Page 254
To this writer, this sounds like a ringing endorsement of the United Nations and the rest of the structure of international law and restraint that was built after WW II, and has been further strengthened ever since, but which the neocons reject in their eagerness to avoid any and all restraints on their own exercise of power. Of course, the theory of international relations they express – as too, the theory of economic and political action of the government – depends on whether it is them in power or another. Powers, actions, and abilities that they reject when not in government are to them right and natural when they are able to take advantage of them in office.
There are certainly parts of the book that can be used in a superficial way to justify the anti-democratic doctrines of the neo-classicists and neoconservatives. Not only the quotations above, but also the general tenor and thrust of the book, however, make clear that Hayek saw danger in giving too much power to monopolist corporations and other institutions as much as he warned against giving too much power to a government stripped of oversight and legal restrictions on its actions. That conservatives now worship at both these altars demonstrates their dedication to the corporatist cause.
Using The Road to Serfdom to justify conservative, corporatist programs is an idea that Hayek would strenuously object to. It is also but one example of the falsehoods, deception, and the perversions of language that have characterized our public life for the past four decades.
Hayek wrote about the Republican War on Science and The War on Reason sixty years ago, calling it antidemocratic, which it is.
Any complex book on social, cultural, or philosophical issues will contain complex arguments, and there is no doubt that we can find plenty of quotations to support any position. Certainly, we can see that the neocons and neo-econs have done this, just as I have above. But that is not the same as the claim that this book is – entirely and completely – support for their point of view and their point only. What I hope to have demonstrated in the above is that, point after point, reasonable arguments by someone who they claim to be their progenitor give us reason after reason to reject the conservatives' doctrines on every issue of importance.
Because conservatives' main contribution to public discourse has been to simplify arguments to the point of meaninglessness, to characterize those who disagree with them in cartoonish style in order to win arguments, to grab power by whatever means possible, for the sake of power and wealth and greed alone. That is not honest; that is not service; that is not something that we should accept or even acknowledge.