(Socialism vs Free-market)

A great deal has been written of the freedom thought to be had by employing those powerful philosophies of either ‘Socialism or Fascism’ to govern a population. Famously a book was published in 1944 that is worthy of consideration regarding their consequences.

These were the views, at that time, of Frederich Hayek, an Austrian-British economist. He argues that there must be freedom in economic affairs. That centralised planning by government would inevitably lead to ‘totalitarianism’. His central argument of the time was that fascism was a capitalist reaction against the rise of socialism.

Equity can be assumed to be obtained by socialism. But this is by a restraint of natural or equal liberty. Planning controls are coercive and may be the will of a relatively small group of people. Even the extremely poor have more freedom in an open society than a centrally planned one.

Hayek’s belief was that the only chance to build a decent world is “to improve the general level of wealth” via the activities of ‘free’ markets. Government intervention in markets leads to a loss of freedom. These must, of course, be subject to a limited regulation. Such areas as the environment, poisonous substances and dangerous materials require controls. The government of a free market must still regulate against fraud and deception. It must also provide a ‘safety net’ against unethical practices.

Socialism controls the economy and Hayek is an antirationalist. The economy must be a collective agreement. The aggregate of input or localised knowledge is decentralised. Order emerges spontaneously, it is fragmental across society. Society needs to have the liberty to choose. The role of an economy is to choose the Rule of Law, not equality. Goals of a central plan is the ‘Road to Serfdom’. The worst people may get to the top of power – where they exploit their office. The tolerant and wise person may be overpowered. Totalitarianism in education – we as members of a family should live in parallel with others in society.

“What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven. F. Hoelderlin.

Socialism displaced liberalism as the doctrine held by a vast majority of progressives. They were persuaded of the very opposite of what had been predicted. It began as a reaction against the liberalism of the French Revolution. It has been forgotten how such socialism in its beginnings was substantially authoritarian. While Democracy extends the sphere of individual freedom – socialism restricts it. Democracy and Socialism have nothing in common other than a concept of equality. Democracy seeks equality in liberty, Socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.

It was anticipated that socialism was to be the leap from the realm of necessity to the realm of freedom. It was to bring “economic freedom” without which the political freedom was not worth having. The promise of greater freedom has become one of the most effective weapons of socialist propaganda. That it would bring freedom is genuine and sincere. But this would only heighten the tragedy of it should prove that the road to freedom was in fact the High Road to Servitude. Liberals may be carried to and along the socialist road. It was embraced by the greater part of the intelligentsia as the apparent heir of the liberal tradition.

Progressives in Britain and elsewhere deluded themselves that communism and fascism represented opposite poles, although more and more began to ask whether these new tyrannies were not the outcome of the same tendencies. All too often leading to dictatorship rather than socialism achieved by democratic income which would have definitely belonged to the world of utopia.

It seems that the only way in which a planned society differs from the nineteenth century is that more and more spheres of social life, and ultimately, each and all of them, are subjected to state control. But a few controls can be held in check by parliamentary sovereignty, so can many . . . . in a democratic state. Sovereignty can be boundlessly strengthened by plenary powers without removing democratic control. This belief overlooks a vital distinction. Parliament can, of course, control the execution of tasks whilst configuring definitive directions.

There is no justification for the belief that so long as power is conferred by democratic procedure, it cannot be arbitrary. Democratic control may prevent power from becoming arbitrary.

“The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself” Hilaire Belloc”.

The question raised by economic planning is, therefore, not merely whether we shall be able to satisfy what we regard as our more or less important need in the way we prefer. It is whether it shall be we who decide what is more, or less important for us, or whether this is to be decided by the planner. The authority directing all economic activity would be in control of the means to all our ends! Our freedom of choice in a competitive society rests on the fact that if one person refuses to satisfy our wishes, we can turn to another. But if we face a monopolist we are not at his mercy.

It is often repeated that political freedom is meaning less without economic freedom. This is true enough, being in a sense almost opposite from that in which the phrase is used by our planners.

To conclude, it may indeed be said that [control of wealth] is the paradox of all collective doctrine and its demand for the ‘conscious’ control or ‘conscious’ planning that they necessarily lead to the demand that the mind of some individual should rule supreme. While only the industrialist approach to social phenomena makes us recognise the super-individual forces which guide the growth of reason. Individualisation is thus an attitude of humility before the social process and of tolerance to other opinions, and is the exact opposite of that intellectual hubris which is at the root of the demand for comprehensive direction of the social process.