Monday, January 30, 2012

Hayek and the Doom of Democratic Socialism

In my innocence I posted on Facebook a link to Zero Hedge's site where, alongside a reprint of Friedrich von Hayek's chapter from "The Road to Serfdom" entitled "The Great Utopia", mention is made in the short introduction of (bold font is mine):
“the most important election in the history of the United States, in which the US public will be promised nothing short of utopia by virtually every candidate except the one who really knows that fixing America would require pain and sacrifice
Why?

The coming election is extraordinarily important because the Obama administration is making a concerted attempt to change our form of government.  The change would be from its original form as a Democratic Republic that protects the Individual from the power of the State to a Democratic Socialist Republic in which the "greater good" is paramount, the State is supreme and the individual is meaningless.   Hayek explains the mechanics better than any other.

Regarding Hayek and Philosophy in General,  (with which I am much more familiar than lingerie):

Philosopy is nothing more than a philosopher's observations of humanity and other topics, assembled into a theory of how the World works.  Call any particular philosopher's observations his (or her) hypothesis.  Sort of like science but without the math. 

Over time, observation (known as history) confirms or invalidates the hypothesis which is then adjusted, destroyed (cast into the dust bin of history) or affirmed by the intellectual descendants of a particular philosophical line.

Seldom has a philosopher's work (or an entire school of philosopher's works), purported to support civilized life, commerce, civil society and uplift the downtrodden, so completely proven to produce the exact opposite result, as in the case of the "Isms" (socialism, communism, fascism, et al). In fact, the history of the "isms" indicates that while government is unable to create a "Utopia on Earth" it is more than capable of creating "Hell on Earth".