IMG SOURCE [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau]
A Few Opening Thoughts
Hayek's writing is pretty grotesque, as he makes some bold claims. I can't help but imagine that he wrote this in a similar fashion that I write these reflections: with a drink in hand. However, unlike me, his claims are backed up pretty well, and his headings actually make sense. I liked that he took a very top-down approach at first; he laid everything out and gave us the basics of why things dwindled in Germany, and how the values of socialism effectively fail.
What I Believe
As much as I'd like to just paste the Westminster Catechism here and just call it a night, I cannot. That being said, I'm going to traverse some slippery ground in the religious sense, and that shouldn't come as a surprise. So much of what we discuss in this class, and so much of economic and societal philosophy is derived from spiritual beliefs. Hayek does a great job of mentioning this a few times, and with the appropriate amount of emphasis. You see, individuals are at the center of all of our chats, and what we seek to understand is what would give a great number of them the most utility. Unfortunately, a large group of individuals is just about incapable of having the same utility weighting for many different things. This is where religion comes into play. Because we are dealing with rather existential issues, the utilities that we really care about are also rather existential – things like happiness, fulfillment, human nature. So, while religion plays a big role, it isn't as much about "what name do you call your god," but more about "what has God named you?" The fact that I stated it like that is a big tell that I believe God crated us as extremely unique individuals, with countless emotions and driving motives. Being the Presbyterian I am, one of those driving motives is being the best I can, not just for my sake, but also to glorify my Creator.
What Does That Have to do with "The Road to Serfdom?"
Well, everything and nothing, I suppose. Everything in the sense that a socialist society heavily relies on an innate goodness within human nature. I do not believe that is true, nor do I believe there is any convincing empirical evidence to back up such a claim. I've said this before and I'll say it again: Humans are not good things. We are destructive, we are disrespectful, and the only thing we know how to do correctly is please ourselves. Now, you may be thinking that socialism is the perfect answer for a society hell-bent on ruining everything it touches, but its quite the opposite. In "why the worst get on top" explains this rather well. I touched on this briefly with Bastiat: Man will stop at nothing to stay in power. In Hayek's case, its forcing values upon individuals to the point that, objectively immoral actions are moral in the eyes of the state. This is done by indoctrinating the youth, hampering commerce of ideas, and even perverting language to completely alter its meaning and effects. How is this done? To the children of course! In public schools, where the only entity that has any power, is the sate (via money). Only individuals that cannot live amongst the serfs would go to such lengths to secure their seat on the throne. There is also a coercive Rousseau game of assurance here, where individuals are forced into cooperation instead of defecting. Now, in a classic game of assurance, the cooperative outcome would be the most efficient and the best for all parties – which is what socialism sells. But in reality, socialist states end up as corrupt heaps (mostly due to reasons stated above).
So What Do We Do?
What we do is use a system that relies on the innate broken of humans. Instead of selling the masses a fraudulent game of assurance, sell them the truth: you can work as hard as you want to get as much as you want, but so can everyone else. Capitalism is the only system I have come across that can effectively transform human greed into utility for others. Whats really cool about it is that in order to satisfy said greed, individuals must think about the needs of others. This interaction works both ways, too. Remember, we're really good at pleasing ourselves, so we go out and attain the things that please us. In order to be able to do that, other individuals must also be thinking about what pleases you. And in order for you to be able to attain what pleases you, you have to have something that pleases someone else. I guess thats just the whole idea of value-placing, but at least its laid out in a way that emphasizes focusing on others and giving them something they value. Goodnight.