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207 of 216 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Politicians should read this book, December 18, 2007
This review is from: The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek) (Paperback)
I first read The Fatal Conceit back in 1991, after reading Hayek's The Road to Serfdom. I reread the book in 2007 while commuting back and forth to California's state capital in my capacity as a state assemblyman. Needless to say, the book's profound critique of socialism means much more to me now as a 45-year-old lawmaker and front row eyewitness to daily attempts to incrementally enact socialism in the Golden State.
The Fatal Conceit's title captures the essence of the socialist/progressive/liberal impulse, born of a feeling of moral and intellectual superiority, to bring order to the free market, and in so ordering, destroy the very thing (capitalism), that allows modern civilization. Hayek writes of socialism in the introduction entitled "Was Socialism a Mistake?":
"...The dispute between the market order and socialism is no less than a matter of survival. To follow socialist morality would destroy much of present humankind and impoverish much of the rest.
"All of this raises an important point about which I wish to be explicit from the outset. Although I attack the presumption of reason on the part of socialists, my argument is in no way directed against reason properly used. By `reason properly used' I mean reason that recognizes its own limitations and, itself taught by reason, faces the implications of the astonishing fact, revealed by economics and biology, that order generated without design can far outstrip plans men consciously contrive..."
What a simple observation of the truth, "...order generated without design can far outstrip plans men consciously contrive..." Capitalism, spontaneously generated through centuries of human interaction, has proven the best way to conduct the economics of mankind. But socialists to try to "improve" upon something that no person invented, and, in so doing, ruin a healthy economy. Hayek admits that capitalism can look bleak to individuals who, through hard luck or laziness, can't make it - but he convincingly argues that helping the poor by enacting socialism out of a moral impulse "...would destroy much of present humankind and impoverish much of the rest."
This brings me to present day California with its burgeoning budget deficit brought on by chronic overspending on social programs twined with a tax regime regarded by The Tax Foundation as the 47th worst business tax climate in America. Very soon this system will collapse. The socialists/progressives/liberals who run the legislature are already proposing more taxes and more social welfare spending. Should California become America's tax dungeon by edging out Rhode Island to claim the worst business climate in the nation, the negative impact on the working class will dwarf all the combined intended good of every social welfare program enacted and yet conceived by the left as the paying jobs of the capitalists flee the state. Gazing at California, Hayek would surely shake his head sadly.
The Fatal Conceit should be required reading for every elected official in America, beginning with California.
Reviewer: Chuck DeVore is a candidate for U.S. Senate in 2010, a California State Assemblyman, he served as a Special Assistant for Foreign Affairs in the Department of Defense from 1986 to 1988, retired from the Army National Guard as a lieutenant colonel, and is the co-author of "China Attacks."
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53 of 58 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Lefty View of Hayek, August 4, 2010
This review is from: The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek) (Paperback)
Most of the reviews come from those who, I'd guess, were on the right of the political spectrum well before they encountered Hayek. I read Hayek in college, and then again 40 years later, after a lifetime on the left, and have another point of view.
The term 'socialism' as used in political discourse generally begs definition, and is used carelessly rather than precisely by both sides of the debate. Consider, for instance the conflation of the manifestly wildly disparate New Deal and Soviet Communism. Those supporting the New Deal, which preserved democracy and capitalism during economic catastrophe with government intervention, too often had a wistful, credulous view of the Soviet Union. The right extended a realistic view of Soviet tyranny to define even the mildly US left as not merely mistaken, but advocates of tyranny and treason. Hayek is more precise. He views socialism as any government interference in the free market, and argues that, at whatever level it is conducted and imposed, the results are for the worse. He states that the plight of those in need, while acknowledging its reality, is poorly, if at all, mitigated by dirigiste government action, if not worsened and perpetuated. His arguments are logical, historically informed and presented in clear prose that's a delight to read.
My differences with him begin with his acceptance of the necessity of government protection of private property and of citizens against violence. I'd argue that unregulated capitalism, much as unrestricted government, can result in appropriation of property by the strong at the expense of the weak, and that there are many forms of violence, many of which are characteristic of unrestricted business activity. The proper role of government in economic life, therefore, becomes a matter of debate, rather than an a priori rejection. He, too, doesn't consider the negative externalities consequent to many economic decisions in free-market environments, the costs of which are oft borne by others--too, perhaps, a form of theft--and that bringing those externalities into economic decision is not only a reasonable sphere of government activity, but even in service of a free market approach, in that the real costs of the decisions become part of them.
Hayek is essential reading for a lefty. He requires engagement on a level other than simple dismissal; he doesn't merely call names or indulge in superficial, supercilious rhetoric. Amongst other things, exposure to his thought tempered my youthful confidence in government dirigism as the only just and practical response to human need, and my prejudice that government always works more effectively and more to the good of the people than does capitalism. I don't go along with his entire corpus. But lefties, as well as those on the right, have much to learn from Hayek, and ignore him at their peril.
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25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hayek Philosophy, January 11, 2009
This review is from: The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism (The Collected Works of F. A. Hayek) (Paperback)
I was hesitant to purchase this book because the title led me to believe that this was just a rehash of The Road To Serfdom. Instead, it turns out to be a philosophical work that in my opinion would be more accurately titled The Extended Order as opposed to The Fatal Conceit.
The book mostly deals with the concept of the extended order, which is basically the idea that in addition to our genes, our morals and politics come from an evolutionary process which is much too complicated to be intentially created by the human mind. This is an epistemological view that argues against the idea of system building in both morals and politics (specifically socialism which seems to be broadly defined as any top-down political and moral construction).
I would have liked to see the concept of the extended order flushed out into a more concrete moral and political philosophy, but this has been done (at least the political) in his earlier writings (Constitution of Liberty among others). Because of this, I'm not sure this book has as broad an appeal as some of his earlier classics, but as a Hayek fan who likes philosophy, I thoroughly enjoyed the book.
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