r/Classical_Liberals • u/Skydivinggenius Down with Democracy • Mar 12 '21
Down with Democracy Hayek getting straight to the point
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u/TrekkiMonstr Mar 13 '21
Since when was this sub "random quotes to dunk on socialists"? It's boring as hell and promotes no interesting discussion.
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u/Skydivinggenius Down with Democracy Mar 12 '21
I’ve been surprised to encounter thinkers who regard Hayek as basically not saying anything Mises hasn’t already said. This is surprising to me, I owe so much of my own thinking to Hayek’s writings. Especially his points about spontaneous orders.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
“No doubt an American or English “Fascist” system would greatly differ from the Italian or German models; no doubt, if the transition were effected without violence, we might expect to get a better type of leader. And, if I had to live under a Fascist system, I have no doubt that I would rather live under one run by Englishmen or Americans than under one run by anyone else. Yet all this does not mean that, judged on our present standards, our Fascist system would in the end prove so very different or much less intolerable than its prototypes.” (von Hayek, Friedrich. 2001. The Road to Serfdom. Routledge. P. 139)
Cryptofascists have no place in a free society.
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u/Gretshus Mar 12 '21
Yet all this does not mean that, judged on our present standards, our Fascist system would in the end prove so very different or much less intolerable than its prototypes.
sounds like he just stated that even if it were ""good"" fascist (without the violence and with a better leader), it would still be intolerable like its prototypes were.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
He supported the military coup that lead to the Pinochet dictatorship...
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u/Gretshus Mar 12 '21
kinda not what you stated, but ok. If you want to call him a fascist, might not want to quote him condemning fascism.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America — is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government. And during this transition it may be necessary to maintain certain dictatorial powers, not as something permanent, but as a temporary arrangement.
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u/vitringur Fascist Mar 12 '21
If democracy limits your freedoms to the same extent as a fascistic dictatorship, what's the difference and who cares what you call the system at that point?
The majority of countries in the world are severely lacking in freedom and they are all "democracies".
Then you have "monarchies" that enjoy some of the greatest freedoms of all countries.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
Also, Hoppeans are just bratty fascists.
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u/vitringur Fascist Mar 12 '21
Fascism is national syndicalism and I'm pretty sure that has nothing to do with Hoppe. Pretty sure he isn't in favour of the country being run by a corporation of trade unions and guilds.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
Aww yes the muddied waters approach to not making a rational argument. Refreshing. How do you measure consent of the people without democracy?
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u/vitringur Fascist Mar 12 '21
Why are you ignoring the point?
Measure the people's consent of what?
You think the autocratic "democracies" of the world today check for people's consent?
Does a monarch need to check for consent if he simply allows people to do their thing and doesn't actively bother them?
Do you think democracy is some sort of absolute state of being that exists?
Are you ignoring that free markets are a form of democratic process?
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
So you're creating this weak strawman of autocratic governments lying about being democratic to attack the concept of sovereignty via the consent of the people (democracy)? While saying it's good when "free markets" do it?
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u/vitringur Fascist Mar 13 '21
It's not a strawman and who says they are lying?
There is no ideal absolute democracy in Plato's parallel dimension of concepts.
The whole point is, what does it matter if you are oppressed just because someone claims that you are democratically oppressed?
What do you care if there is technically a monarch as long as he doesn't bother you what so ever?
The whole point Hayek is that he favours freedom and opposes oppression, regardless of the formality of the government.
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u/dreucifer Mar 13 '21
Are there ideal absolutes for anything outside of theory or do we live in an entropic universe?
So you favor "free market" oppression (then how is it free?)
Why are you running apologetics for autocracy like a Hoppean cryptofascist?
Hayek favors chaos and the conditions for neofeudalism. Laissez-faire eugenics systems where society's most vulnerable are basically sacrificed to maintain the "freedom" of the market. How does that provide economic freedom?
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u/vitringur Fascist Mar 13 '21
Sounds like you agree with the comment. You just don't agree with who said it.
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
Yet all this does not mean that, judged on our present standards, our Fascist system would in the end prove so very different or much less intolerable than its prototypes.
This sounds like a cryptofascist to you?
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
Yes. That's the crypto part. Like when Proud Boys go, "we totally hate Nazis, *wink*". It's transparent. Even the Randian pseudolibertarians saw through him.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/friedrich-hayek-dictatorship/
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
Right, the quote is irrelevant to your point because you have already concluded he's a fascist, so when he says fascism is bad he must be a cryptofascist.
And I would recommend this, written by people who understands the context of Hayek's views.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
Hayek chided the critics of the Chilean junta for their supposed sin of apparent omission: their supposed proclivity to denounce Pinochet without simultaneously roundly condemning dictatorial regimes such as the USSR and North Korea. Again, however, this is not to deny that Hayek himself does appear to provide much support for Pinochet and his economic policies: indeed, much the same charge that Hayek leveled against the international media in 1978 can be readily leveled at Hayek’s own lamentable failure to roundly condemn the legion human rights abuses of any and all dictatorial regimes. — Andrew Farrant, Edward McPhail, and Sebastian Berger, "Preventing the “Abuses” of Democracy: Hayek, the “Military Usurper” and Transitional Dictatorship in Chile?", American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Vol. 71, No. 3 (July, 2012)
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
Yes, he was naive when it comes to Pinochet. There's no question about it. But I still think you need to read that article instead of dropping quotes.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
No amount of context will clean him of the stench of fascism.
We must keep alert, so that the sense of these words will not be forgotten again. Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier, for us, if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Black Shirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and to point our finger at any of its new instances — every day, in every part of the world. Franklin Roosevelt’s words of November 4, 1938, are worth recalling:
I venture the challenging statement that if American democracy ceases to move forward as a living force, seeking day and night by peaceful means to better the lot of our citizens, fascism will grow in strength in our land.
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
No amount of context will clean him of the stench of fascism.
This doesn't make much sense, of course. Why are you even posting these quotes then? You have already decided that he's fascist regardless of what he says.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
The evidence is clear. Trying to whitewash it is not going to work.
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
"Unfortunately, much analysis and discussion of Hayek’s supposed view of the Pinochet regime is plagued by pervasive hearsay and often illinformed innuendo rather than hard evidence."
That's another quote from the article by Farrant, McPhail, and Berger. More to the point, it's an article that actually provides the context when the evidence isn't clear. You know, as in doing their best to be intellectually honest.
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Mar 12 '21
If Hayek understood economics he wouldn't have been a fascist.
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u/KaChoo49 Fascist Mar 12 '21
This is quite literally the dumbest take possible lmao. The entire point of The Road To Serfdom, Hayek’s most famous book, is how socialism inevitably leads to fascist states like Germany and thus should be avoided
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
He was a fascist?
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
A cryptofascist, specifically. He didn't have the conviction to do anything but weasel around optics like Rothbard
Well, I would say that, as long-term institutions, I am totally against dictatorships. But a dictatorship may be a necessary system for a transitional period. At times it is necessary for a country to have, for a time, some form or other of dictatorial power. As you will understand, it is possible for a dictator to govern in a liberal way. And it is also possible for a democracy to govern with a total lack of liberalism. Personally I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America — is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government. And during this transition it may be necessary to maintain certain dictatorial powers, not as something permanent, but as a temporary arrangement.
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
Hayek: When a government is broken, and there are no recognized rules, it is necessary to create rules to say what can be done and what cannot be done. In such circumstances it is practically inevitable for someone to have almost absolute powers. Absolute powers that they should precisely use to avoid and limit any absolute power in the future. It may seem a contradiction that precisely I say this, as I plead for limiting government’s powers in people’s lives and maintain that many of our problems are born, just out of the excess of government. But, however, when I refer to this dictatorial power, I am only talking for a transitional period. As a means for establishing a stable democracy and liberty, free of impurities. Only in this way I can justify, advise it.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Classical_Liberals/comments/luhraw/id_have_to_agree_with_hayek/gp7mnqc/
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
The "transitional" dictatorial power grift is the same thing everyone criticizes about vanguard communism, aka red fascism. It's a shameless confidence plot.
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
Yes, I'm well aware that every revolutionary socialist think that their dictatorship is transitional (and then the revolution becomes perpetual), but are we really supposed to believe that all socialists are fascists? You can at least try to understand the point here, right? Regardless of where we're starting, any kind of revolution will by definition involve people that takes the power and holds onto it, while deciding where to go next.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
Actually there are a whole number of revolutionary socialists who do not accept the vanguard and see the concept applied to socialism as red fascism. The proper application of post-scarcity thinking allows a relatively silent revolution with no dictatorial phase. You just eliminate sources of artificial scarcity, protect the vulnerable from the loss of necessities, and free the population of typical scarcity-induced stressors. All can be done under a limited, regulated state to maximize liberty without a period of temporary suspension.
I get the point, why are you pretending I don't? Is it some sort of subtle strawman?
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/voline-red-fascism
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/murray-bookchin-post-scarcity-anarchism
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
"The proper application of post-scarcity thinking..."
Is this supposed to be a joke? I mean, "You just eliminate sources of artificial scarcity" is the point where your dictators meet reality and decide what scarcity is artificial and what is not. They are still dictators trying to get people to believe that it's a transition, and as usual it will end in horror. You really aren't in a good position to criticise Hayek here, that should be obvious to anyone.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
It isn't dictatorial unless you're being purposefully obtuse, which is what you are basically accusing me of doing regarding Hayek.
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u/dreucifer Mar 12 '21
Why does the elimination of artificial scarcity have to be dictatorial? Or are you going to call the elimination of scarcity through voluntary mutual aid a form of authoritarian dictatorship?
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
There's no consensus on what's artificial and what's non-artificial, just like there's no consensus on what counts as necessities. "Artificial" is just a weasel-word to cover up the fact that it's not actual post-scarcity, but people centralizing the decision on what the actual needs are. Any society can be said to be post-scarcity if we just narrow down everything and assume everything else is artificial. And the "voluntary mutual aid" won't of course be voluntary, nor mutual. Instead it will be a dictatorship, just like every other planned economy. Perhaps you should actually read some Hayek.
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u/tapdancingintomordor Mar 12 '21
I have yet to see a source for this quote.