Thursday, July 3, 2014

i don't think we can talk about hayek being wrong, because his predictions rely on the assumptions of ever increasing state ownership, and the new right stepped in right after he was done rambling and took steps to reduce state ownership, under fears of that serfdom developing (or, more realistically, just using it as an excuse to increase their own power).

when i have this argument, i don't tend to try and convince people that hayek was wrong, i try to point out that my opponents sound like they're stuck in 1973. it's ironic that the right-libertarians tend not to acknowledge that everything they want to see happen has been being put in motion, slowly, by the crony capitalists they're all after. then, when the result is more and more crony capitalism, they call for greater and greater privatization...

so, all you can do is look at the reality and say "well, we've been doing what you want for forty years and the results are exactly what you were trying to prevent. don't you think it's time to try something else, now?".

it creates a sort of irony. we are on the road to serfdom. by eliminating governance as anything but an organization that collects taxes and gives it to military, police and banks, we're recreating a two-class debt-based society that consists primarily of landowners and serfs. rather than push for universal education, we have student loans. rather than keep wages up at levels of inflation, we have a society of people with mortgages.

i'm not sure how hayek would correct the policies of the new right to be more in line with what he was saying.