Display:
I don't know if the mistake coms from Pfaff or from Jerome, but it's not "Van Hayek", but "Hayek" (possibly a crossover with "von Mises"). Anyway, Metatone wants me to rebut this
He traces [the] origins  [of the current market ideology] to the [among others] influence of Van Hayek (rejection of totalitarism, associated with socialism and too powerful States)
Pfaff/Jerome are, of course, referring to Hayek's The Road to Serfdom [I recommend the "external links" to abridged versions at the bottom of the wikipedia article], whose main thesis is basically that socialism lays the groundwork for fascism. In other words, for Hayek economic planning not only cannot work economically, but it leads to certain habits being spread among the general population and the ruling political/technocratic class which make it easier for society to devolve into authoritarianism and ultimately totalitarianism.

Considering the historical context in which the book was written, namely the immediate aftermath of WWII, what Hayek is doing in it is explaining to himself and others how nazism happened, and how to avoid a repetition in the future. Another excellent contemporary book on the subject is Erich Fromm's Escape from Freedom.

I can't muster a refutation of Hayek's argument, and my own personal ideological evolution attests to this, for as I mature politically I move from socialism to anarchism, but that is another story. The only real argument I have "against" it is that, having a hammer, Hayek sees everything as a nail. Hayek being an economist, he looks for an economic culprit for fascism, namely economic planning. Fromm, who was a social psychologist, finds psychological culprits for fascism (a futile attempt at rolling back recently gained freedoms and so recovering recently lost securities).

As we know but free-market fundamentalists seem to have forgotten, maybe on purpose, economic planning is not the only way that the government can influence economic life, and good regulation is essential to a healthy market economy. In many ways, Hayek and especially his followers throw out the baby with the bath water. In the end, for Hayek the market is not the be-all and en-all, but just an efficient mechanism for price-setting.

Probably not the rebuttal that metatone wanted.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper

by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sat Apr 29th, 2006 at 04:48:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Damn, you've admitted the key point, Hayek throws babies out with bathwater...

[Puts the tar and feathers away, crosses Migeru off the list.]

by Metatone (metatone [a|t] gmail (dot) com) on Sat Apr 29th, 2006 at 05:23:09 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Hayek's name (see wikipedia article) was Friedrich August von Hayek.

Pfaff correctly refers to him once as von Hayek, again as Hayek, which is much more usual.

by afew (afew(a in a circle)eurotrib_dot_com) on Sun Apr 30th, 2006 at 04:27:22 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Oops, bigmouth me.

guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Sun Apr 30th, 2006 at 04:30:00 AM EST
[ Parent ]
"In the end, for Hayek the market is not the be-all and en-all, but just an efficient mechanism for price-setting. "

 Perhaps that's a little to over-simplified?

  But now I'm afraid to comment with a flat assertion since clearly some review and correction is in order for my faulty notions of F.A.v H.

  I better leave it at that for the moment.

"In such an environment it is not surprising that the ills of technology should seem curable only through the application of more technology..." John W Aldridge

by proximity1 on Tue May 2nd, 2006 at 01:52:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:
Login
. Make a new account
. Reset password
Occasional Series