“Socialism believes
in two absolutely different and perhaps contradictory ideas of ‘Freedom and
Organisation’ ”
While commenting and studying about totalitarian regimes, Hayek puts forth beneath all of them, the fundamental idea of collectivism. It is intriguing to see how he places socialism and henceforth communism before Nazism and perhaps Fascism as examples of authoritarian rule. This I say because Nazism in fact appears as the first disposition to one’s mind when made to think about any authoritarian rule.
He
concludes that collectivism lies at the heart of socialism, Nazism and Fascism
albeit their objectives are (maybe) different. They hence have a shared
antagonism towards individualism and liberalism.
He
pays a lot of importance to socialist ideas (indicting them for later getting matured
into totalitarian ideas) which were originated by German thinkers such as Marx
and Engels. The acceptance of socialist ideas of collectivism in Russia were owed
to the historical, natural and tradition collectivist spirit of their
peasantry. However their acceptance in the European landscape and especially in
Germany has been owed to their indigenous warrior spirit (that is direction of
economic activities towards strengthening military might) and related
organisational structure, as suggested by a certain Prof. Sombart. The latter was
an “old (staunch) socialist” who is credited for his extensive knowledge in
Marxian Socialism and its wide scale propagation in the German landscape. Prof.
Sombart is his several texts mentions his deep contempt for the English
commercial spirit. While he credits England as the nemesis of German spirit (and
their trade unions), he keeps their commercial spirit of mind, comfort and
sports as attributes of a nation already in decadence and also causing decay of
the heroic German culture. Germany on the contrary, as he described, was a more
organized society with all economic activity oriented to strengthen their military
might.
Sombart
believes that the feeling of universal striving for individual happiness was
the deepest contempt and to be acquisitive a commercial mind was the most
infamous maxim. The 1789 (FR) ideals of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity were
commercial ideas of certain individuals and on the contrary a life but sacrificed
for the state was a higher and more respected life.
Hayek
describes Democratic Socialism as a utopia. He says that prima facie socialism
may appear for social equality, equal opportunity and justice. However the
method to adopt these objectives are often ignored by its supporters. Moreover those
who do calculatingly wish for these objectives rather despise socialism for
they understand the dangerous methodology involved to achieve them. This methodology
is by and large the idea of organisation or “planning”. Economic Planning/Central
planning body is essentially one of the most important feature of a socialist
state (Also one of the 5 facets of a
totalitarian government. The other 4 being, An Ideology, A dominant Party, Censorship
of Information and Broadcasting or Media and Secret Police. – Hanna Ardent). The
catch lies in the fact that planning often takes the role of creating a
blueprint for the people to work according to the whims and fancies of the
state machinery rather than creating a plan for providing facilities for people
to adopt individual endeavours.
This
feature of planning also focuses at some level the idea of “social good” or “collective
welfare”. By this, it demands from the people (subjects) to adopt a uniform and
absolute value set oriented towards the state. This idea is but flawed in the
sense that all individuals develop their value set with individual reasoning
and experiences gained, which makes their values set a dynamic activity and often
changing with time. To believe that all people can have a common value set is
thus wrong and if at all forcibly imposed, it leaves everyone with huge gaps in
their moral and ethical value set.
He
concludes with asserting how Socialism gave rise to National Socialism. Socialism
(on a sentient note) had been endemic to Germany ever since and more so as a
defence against the capitalist spirit. However the German affinity towards
Marxian Socialism does not include its liberal facet, which involves internationalism
and democracy. While indicting the commercial English spirit (earlier in
article) for corrupting the heroic German warrior spirit, he later justifies
the war with England (WW-I 1914-‘18), as it reignited this heroic spirit and
aroused the Germans from their slumber. Moreover during the war period there
was a vehement movement against this commercial capitalistic spirit by a strategic
adjoining of Nationalistic Right and Socialist Left in Germany. This new
alliance was the National Socialists that threw out all the remaining liberal
aspect from Marxian Socialism, was completely against Bourgeoisie Individualism
and matured itself in the interwar period. This was rather exemplified again in
1933 when after being appointed as the Chancellor, Hitler ordered the arrest of
all traditional Socialists, Communists and Social Democrats, first thing even before
dismissing the Reichstag or getting the first Jew murdered. Soon after the end
of First World War it had established itself as the Nazi Ideology.
-YognikBaghel
