The Intellectuals and Socialism

Via Happy Acres

The Intellectuals and Socialism

By 

F.A. Hayek

[Reprinted from The University of Chicago Law Review (Spring 1949), pp. 417-420, 421-423, 425-433,
by permission of the author and the publisher, The University of Chicago Press; George B. de Huszar ed.,
The Intellectuals: A Controversial Portrait (Glencoe, Illinois: the Free Press, 1960) pp. 371-84. The
pagination of this edition corresponds to the Huszar edited volume.]

In all democratic countries, in the United States even more than elsewhere, a
strong belief prevails that the influence of the intellectuals on politics is negligible. This
is no doubt true of the power of intellectuals to make their peculiar opinions of the
moment influence decisions, of the extent to which they can sway the popular vote on
questions on which they differ from the current views of the masses. Yet over
somewhat longer periods they have probably never exercised so great an influence as
they do today in those countries. This power they wield by shaping public opinion.
In the light of recent history it is somewhat curious that this decisive power of
the professional secondhand dealers in ideas should not yet be more generally
recognized. The political development of the Western World during the last hundred
years furnishes the clearest demonstration. Socialism has never and nowhere been at
first a working-class movement. It is by no means an obvious remedy for the obvious
evil which the interests of that class will necessarily demand. It is a construction of
theorists, deriving from certain tendencies of abstract thought with which for a long
time only the intellectuals were familiar; and it required long efforts by the intellectuals
before the working classes could be persuaded to adopt it as their program.

In every country that has moved toward socialism, the phase of the development
in which socialism becomes a determining influence on politics has been preceded for
many years by a period during which socialist ideals governed the thinking of the more
active intellectuals. In Germany this stage had been reached toward the end of the last
century; in England and France, about the time of the first World War. To the casual
observer it would seem as if the United States had reached this phase after World War II
and that the attractio n of a planned and directed economic system is now as strong
among the American intellectuals as it ever was among their German or English
fellows. Experience suggests that, once this phase has been reached, it is merely a
question of time until the views now held by the intellectuals become the governing
force of politics...

Read the whole thing!

Liberalism Is the Left's Religion...

Conservatives, especially social conservatives can be difficult to relate to at times.  However, on the whole, the real difference between Conservatives and Liberals is that many on the right have strong religious beliefs.  Liberals on the other hand, only have their political beliefs.
They have given up a belief in G-d an taken in its place...Liberalism-Leftism and it's inherent dogma.  Dennis Prager has written that,

You cannot understand the Left if you do not understand that leftism is a religion. It is not God-based (some left-wing Christians’ and Jews’ claims notwithstanding), but otherwise it has every characteristic of a religion. The most blatant of those characteristics is dogma. People who believe in leftism have as many dogmas as the most fundamentalist Christian.

...

The answer is dogma — a belief system that transcends reason. No rational person can deny that big governments have caused almost all the great evils of the last century, arguably the bloodiest in history. Who killed the 20 to 30 million Soviet citizens in the Gulag Archipelago — big government or big business? Hint: There were no private businesses in the Soviet Union. Who deliberately caused 75 million Chinese to starve to death — big government or big business? Hint: See previous hint. Did Coca-Cola kill 5 million Ukrainians? Did Big Oil slaughter a quarter of the Cambodian population? Would there have been a Holocaust without the huge Nazi state?

Whatever bad things big corporations have done is dwarfed by the monstrous crimes — the mass enslavement of people, the deprivation of the most basic human rights, not to mention the mass murder and torture and genocide — committed by big governments.

How can anyone who thinks rationally believe that big corporations rather than big governments pose the greatest threat to humanity? The answer is that it takes a mind distorted by leftist dogma. If there is another explanation, I do not know what it is.

But, man needs myths, legends and higher goals.  We have striven for that since conscious thought evolved within us.  We've always had gods.  but, as Jonah Goldberg wrote,

When man loses God he sets about to make new gods. Or as the philosopher Eric Voegelin puts it, “[ W] hen God is invisible behind the world, the contents of the world will become new gods; when the symbols of transcendent religiosity are banned, new symbols develop from the inner-worldly language of science to take their place.”

Likewise man creates dogmas because man needs dogmas. The light of reason illuminates the darkness and science provides us compasses to find our way. But it does not provide us with reasons to get out of bed in the first place. As John Dos Passos said, “The mind cannot support moral chaos for long. Men are under as strong a compulsion to invent an ethical setting for their behavior as spiders are to weave webs.”

Without dogmas, intellectual chaos ensues.  As recently as 2006, Lee Harris described French Marxist Georges Sorel (1847-1922),

 Sorel, for whom religion was important, drew a comparison between the Christian and the socialist revolutionary. The Christian’s life is transformed because he accepts the myth that Christ will one day return and usher in the end of time; the revolutionary socialist’s life is transformed because he accepts the myth that one day socialism will triumph, and justice for all will prevail. What mattered for Sorel, in both cases, is not the scientific truth or falsity of the myth believed in, but what believing in the myth does to the lives of those who have accepted it, and who refuse to be daunted by the repeated failure of their apocalyptic expectations. How many times have Christians in the last two thousand years been convinced that the Second Coming was at hand, only to be bitterly disappointed — yet none of these disappointments was ever enough to keep them from holding on to their great myth. So, too, Sorel argued, the myth of socialism will continue to have power, despite the various failures of socialist experiments, so long as there are revolutionaries who are unwilling to relinquish their great myth. That is why he rejected scientific socialism — if it was merely science, it lacked the power of a religion to change individual’s lives. Thus for Sorel there was “an…analogy between religion and the revolutionary Socialism which aims at the apprenticeship, preparation, and even the reconstruction of the individual — a gigantic task.” [emphasis is mine, ed.]

 We humans, need something larger than ourselves to clutch onto to explain what we're reaching for.  Liberals have taken political dogma as their religion.  That simple fact explains the avalanche of personal attacks when any Liberal strays from their accepted party line...after all, throughout history, heretics have been sacrificed for the greater good by the mass of the people.  That has continued through today. 

Just look at Larry Summers when he was president of Harvard University when he was figuratively crucified for, during a seminar in which you were supposed to put up arguments that would then be knocked down in intellectual discussion, posited that women's lack of representation in the hard sciences and mathematics was, perhaps, due to evolutionary factors.  That's just one example...there are hundreds of others. The one thing they have in common, is that the entire community harangues the offender until he comes to his moment of confession and apology... which MUST be made in public.  But I digress.

Conservatives have a tendency to forgive those who stray from the political corral.  We might call them RINO's but they're allowed to wander off and back with little regard to whether or not they closely adhere to conservative political principles.  John McCain...need I say more?

But, at the end of it all, Google's using Cesar Chavez as it's "saint" in place of Jesus ben Joseph on Easter is the perfect example of political dogma as religion.

What Liberals Believe...

Why We Suck: Bill Whittle's Fire Wall

The Intollerance of Diversity...

Here's another great video from Pat Condell

John Lennon: Imagine (rewritten)

Evidently, John Lennon, at the end of his life, was turning away from his former socolistic-communistic political beliefs.  PJM's Tattler that the Toronto Sun has reported that Fred Seaman says that JL was a big fan of Ronald Reagan. From the comments of PJM Tattler:

Imagine

—apologies to John Lennon

Imagine no derision
Towards religious belief
Tolerance for diverse visions
Bolstering joy and soothing grief
Letting each denomination
Find its separate way

Imagine patriotism
And genuine national pride
Helping to heal false schisms
We’re really all one side
Imagine recognition
Of what we have achieved
You may call me a turncoat
But I’m not the only one
I hope like me you’ll wake up
And undo the damage we’ve done

Imagine deregulation
I wonder if you can
No governmental meddling
In people’s private plans
Imagine what we could build
With less bureaucracy

You may call me a turncoat
But I’m not the only one
I hope like me you’ll wake up
And undo the damage we’ve done

Now, contrast this with U2's corporate move to the Netherlands to elude Ireland's much high tax rates...even while Bono lobby's governments to spend more and raise taxes to fight third world poverty.  As rockers become wealthier, they want to hid more of the wealth from the tax man.  But it's their hypocrisy in doing so, while mouthing that "government should do more..." that annoys me.

MultiCulturism Explained

Andrew Klavan "explains" Multiculturism...

NPR's Public Funding

While NPR consistently says that it doesn't receive "direct public funding."  It does receive 45% of it's operating capital from it's member stations.  Those stations receive some 65% of their funding from local, state and federal tax dollars...so when liberals claim, using talking points provided from the NPR website how it doesn't get money from Uncle Sugar, they're merely being disingenuous.

While I listen to NPR's local classical music affiliate, I've long since given up on listening to the political and liberal tripe offered up on any of the 3 other stations that peddle it's wares.  For most of 24 years, I regularly donated (albeit small) sums of my hard earned dollars to various NPR stations in the towns I've lived in, I stopped in 2003 after the rantings of the "News" division became so pronouncably biased against anything that might have even leaned to the right of the political spectrum. 

In an excellent article on Pajamasmedia.com, Benjamin Kerstein makes this rather astute observation, relating to WHY NPR's supporters are so vociferous in their defense of the network.

Of course, every subculture has its objects of affection. Punks and hip-hop fans have their music, Trekkies have their TV shows and movies, hipsters have mumblecore, etc. The difference, of course, is that unlike NPR, none of these are funded largely by coercive means. And this says something, I think, about the liberal mentality. Put simply, liberals constitute the one subculture in the United States that consistently and often willfully mistakes its specific and particular preferences for universal truths.


The simple truth that liking something does not give you the right to force others to buy it for you is lost on a subculture that sees its likes and dislikes as moral imperatives that impose benefits and obligations on society as a whole. NPR is only one, relatively minor, expression of this, but it is a telling one, if only because, for those outside the liberal subculture, it is so obvious and glaring. The blatant hypocrisy and bad faith with which NPR has acted in regard to Juan Williams is, in microcosm, the hypocrisy and bad faith with which it acts in regard to all American taxpayers. And it should be obvious to all, even those who lack the most rudimentary capacity for self-reflection, that to act in such a manner toward those who are, in fact, paying your salary, is neither a smart nor an informed thing to do.

The time has come to defund a whole raft of programs and end it's tax exempt status...simply because we as a nation can no longer afford to pay for them.  This is merely one of those programs.  If NPR's product is of sufficient popularity and viability, then in the commercial market place it will thrive...but it's it's not, then it too will end up on the dust bin of unprofitable business models.

Breibart Forces Liberal Demonstrators To Slink Away

Here's video of how to deal with liberals...who don't actually understand those ideals that they espouse. 

Why California Is A Failed State

Here's an excellent article on why the State of California is failing...

California Vs Arizona

A Modern Parable...on Progressive Thought Processes...

California
The Governor of California is jogging with his dog along a nature trail.

A coyote jumps out, bites the Governor and attacks his dog.
1. The Governor starts to intervene, but reflects upon the movie "Bambi" and then realizes he should stop; the coyote is only doing what is natural.
2. He calls animal control. Animal Control captures coyote and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases and $500 for relocating it.
3. He calls a veterinarian. The vet collects the dead dog and bills the State $200 testing it for diseases.
4. The Governor goes to hospital and spends $3,500 getting checked for diseases from the coyote and on getting his bite wound bandaged.
5. The running trail gets shut down for 6 months while Fish & Game conducts a $100,000 survey to make sure the area is free of dangerous animals.
6. The Governor spends $50,000 in state funds implementing a "coyote awareness" program for residents of the area.
7. The State Legislature spends $2 million to study how to better treat rabies and how to permanently eradicate the disease throughout the world.
8. The Governor's security agent is fired for not stopping the attack somehow and for letting the Governor attempt to intervene.
9. Additional cost to State of California : $75,000 to hire and train a new security agent with additional special training re: the nature of coyotes.
10. PETA protests the coyote's relocation and files suit against the State.

Arizona:
The Governor of Arizona is jogging with her dog along a nature trail. A Coyote jumps out and attacks her dog.
1. The Governor shoots the coyote with her State-issued pistol and keeps jogging. The Governor has spent $0.50 on a .45 ACP hollow point cartridge.
2. The Buzzards eat the dead coyote.

And that's why California is broke.

Enough said!

Journolist: Propogandizing The Leftist Agenda

The Daily Caller and FishbowlDC published emails by Dave Weigel, the WaPo's "journalist" assigned to cover the conservative movement here in the US.  He was presented as a "centre-right" journalist.  But with the publication of a number emails wherein he says some very hateful things about prominent conservatives, highlights just why he was terminated from that position. 

Much has been said on the matter, and I'll leave the deep thinking to others.  But, the simple fact is that Journolist operated just as it's critics claimed it would. It served as a place to secretly coordinate a left-leaning (I'm not being sarcastic) response or presentation of MSM news stories, or to propogandize the leftist agenda, which shows that infact it was what it’s critics charge: A Closed Echo Chamber used to refine what was later presented to the public via “news reporting”.


It will resurface in another form because those people who participated in it don't see that what they were doing was wrong.  So, it will return in another form just as “Townhouse” did as “Journolist”. Using a private forum to coordinate political/journalistic storylines is unethical and comes near to propogandizing.

Should American Flag Be Banned At Schools

Moveon.org and the SEIU are literally pounding the FoxNews poll on this issue. Here are the results as of 12:33 pm EST:

Should the American Flag be Banned -- in America?
No. This is a lame decision. Teach the kids what the flag means, instead of banning it. 31% (340,852 votes)

Yes. The safety of students comes first. 54% (588,611 votes)

Not sure, but of all things to ban, the American flag would seem the least 'incendiary.' 1% (2,398 votes)

Other (post a comment) 15% (164,161 votes)

Total Votes: 1,096,022
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PollDaddy.com

The fact that they have pushed at least 500k no votes is extraordinary. Go and vote! We have long since stopped teaching our children about what a great country this is, and this is merely another symptom of chipping away at the core values of what makes America a great country...