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The Road to Serfdom by Friedrich Hayek: Summary and Analysis — Transcript

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  1. 0:00freedom it's one of these ideas that
  2. 0:03everyone loves that people are
  3. 0:04universally willing to die for to
  4. 0:07sacrifice for
  5. 0:08and it's different according to who you
  6. 0:10ask right because there are some people
  7. 0:12that say
  8. 0:13oh hey we might live in a dictatorship
  9. 0:16but it's our dictatorship right so
  10. 0:17there's no outside coercion going on
  11. 0:20it's our thing going on right you got to
  12. 0:22think fascist italians right there were
  13. 0:25a lot of people in that regime that were
  14. 0:27like you know what we might have a
  15. 0:29military dictatorship but we are
  16. 0:32fundamentally free it's ours
  17. 0:34and then you have people on the other
  18. 0:36side of the spectrum who say that you
  19. 0:38know people like the swiss right we want
  20. 0:40to have a vote and the government
  21. 0:42actually does it right so we are only
  22. 0:45free if we can tell the government what
  23. 0:47to do and they actually do it
  24. 0:50very different conceptions of freedom
  25. 0:52now one of the most compelling ideas of
  26. 0:55freedom comes from friedrich von hayek
  27. 0:58who was an austrian-born british
  28. 1:00economist hayak was alive during one of
  29. 1:03the worst times for freedom in history
  30. 1:06right there's the soviet union there's
  31. 1:08the fascist governments of italy and
  32. 1:10germany
  33. 1:11and even in the us and the uk it looks
  34. 1:14like they were abandoning freedom too so
  35. 1:17in this episode we are going to be
  36. 1:19exploring the road to serfdom that he
  37. 1:22wrote in response to the dying freedom
  38. 1:25of his age hello there my friends
  39. 1:28welcome back to history for thinkers a
  40. 1:30show that brings history to life
  41. 1:34before we get into it i want to give a
  42. 1:35massive thank you to everyone over on
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  44. 1:40glad history matters as much to you as
  45. 1:43it does me i also want to personally
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  50. 1:56head on over to patreon for more
  51. 1:58information
  52. 1:59now
  53. 2:00let's get into the episode so in this
  54. 2:02book friedrich van hayek is going to
  55. 2:04argue that freedom
  56. 2:06is dying out and not in places that you
  57. 2:09would expect like the soviet union or
  58. 2:11nazi germany but places like the us and
  59. 2:14the uk
  60. 2:15and he believes that it is
  61. 2:17all based on central planning right
  62. 2:20government control of the economy this
  63. 2:22is ultimately he argues going to lead to
  64. 2:26a totalitarian dictatorship more or less
  65. 2:29so he is very worried about that and
  66. 2:30he's you know this is kind of his way of
  67. 2:33screaming to the world hey
  68. 2:35you know totalitarian dictatorships are
  69. 2:37coming here right it's coming to the us
  70. 2:39it's coming to the uk if we don't stop
  71. 2:42this nonsense that we're doing
  72. 2:45now this was written during world war ii
  73. 2:47so
  74. 2:48you know some people have said that he
  75. 2:50was overly paranoid about it right some
  76. 2:52government interference in the economy
  77. 2:54isn't the end of the world right um so
  78. 2:57just understand that there are many
  79. 2:58criticisms of this work
  80. 3:01as well
  81. 3:02but you can ultimately view friedrich
  82. 3:04von hayek as a classical liberal
  83. 3:06so he wants to expand economic freedom
  84. 3:09and individual liberty as much as
  85. 3:11humanly possible right that is the most
  86. 3:13important thing not just for the
  87. 3:15government but for all of humanity right
  88. 3:18we need to be able to make our own
  89. 3:19choices to sink or swim on our own
  90. 3:23and that is really the basis for this
  91. 3:25book
  92. 3:27but we need to start with some
  93. 3:28definitions because the book is called
  94. 3:30the road to serfdom what the heck is
  95. 3:32serfdom right
  96. 3:34so serfdom
  97. 3:36is a political economic and social
  98. 3:38system most prevalent during medieval
  99. 3:41europe
  100. 3:43so here are a couple things that
  101. 3:44describe it now this is pretty much
  102. 3:46universally
  103. 3:47reviled by most people you know during
  104. 3:49the 1900s and especially today right we
  105. 3:52look back on
  106. 3:54serfdom as kind of backward regressive
  107. 3:56right it kind of sucks and here are a
  108. 3:59couple of reasons right so there's this
  109. 4:01rigid
  110. 4:02hierarchical system
  111. 4:04you are based you know if you're above
  112. 4:06someone you can tell them to do whatever
  113. 4:08the heck and they they kind of have to
  114. 4:10listen
  115. 4:11right so it's very rigid very
  116. 4:13hierarchical
  117. 4:14you know their every single relationship
  118. 4:17with every single person that you know
  119. 4:19is you know i'm above them or i'm below
  120. 4:22them and you know exactly
  121. 4:24you know by how much right
  122. 4:27so there's no social mobility so it
  123. 4:29doesn't matter how smart you are how
  124. 4:31hard you work what you do you know you
  125. 4:33can be the best person in the world or
  126. 4:35the worst
  127. 4:36right you are
  128. 4:37in your social status and that's it
  129. 4:41and that wouldn't be the end of the
  130. 4:43world except right you inherit your
  131. 4:46status so if you are
  132. 4:48this brilliant
  133. 4:50smart person you're you're a deep
  134. 4:52thinker or you're a great person
  135. 4:55if you are born a serf
  136. 4:57you are going to stay a surf right and
  137. 5:00that's very rough and that very much
  138. 5:03sucks right so understandably people
  139. 5:05were happy when this system collapsed
  140. 5:08and generally serfdom is organized
  141. 5:11around
  142. 5:12religion
  143. 5:14so when you look at you know a place
  144. 5:16like medieval europe it was around
  145. 5:18christianity but then there were also
  146. 5:20places like
  147. 5:21you know in south america there were
  148. 5:23certain places in it you know they were
  149. 5:25organized around those religions right
  150. 5:27the ancient incas and the mayas
  151. 5:29um
  152. 5:30in asia you know a lot of it was
  153. 5:32organized around the the folk religions
  154. 5:35right
  155. 5:37so generally there are three classes in
  156. 5:39any given
  157. 5:41surf society or feudal society right
  158. 5:43whatever word you want to use basically
  159. 5:45the same thing
  160. 5:47so there's the nobility right the kings
  161. 5:50the queens the people that basically
  162. 5:52control the whole show
  163. 5:54then there's the clergy right and this
  164. 5:56doesn't necessarily refer to the
  165. 5:58christian clergy but you know the
  166. 6:00priests right the people that are
  167. 6:02uh
  168. 6:03that control the the culture more or
  169. 6:05less
  170. 6:06and then there's everyone else and it's
  171. 6:08more or less you know the 99 percent is
  172. 6:11is serfs
  173. 6:12so the nobility in the clergy right
  174. 6:14again they were just the one percent
  175. 6:16then there's everyone else
  176. 6:18so the serfs were comparable
  177. 6:21to slaves right
  178. 6:24even when you look at uh other feudal
  179. 6:27societies like in south america for
  180. 6:28example part of the reason the spanish
  181. 6:31conquistadors had such an easy time of
  182. 6:33conquering those civilizations was
  183. 6:36because well the underclasses were
  184. 6:38really pissed off and they were they
  185. 6:41teamed up with the spanish conquistadors
  186. 6:44right like funnily enough there were a
  187. 6:46lot of
  188. 6:46um you know these people that were like
  189. 6:49yeah i'll i'll help overthrow the system
  190. 6:51if it means i don't have to be a feudal
  191. 6:52surf anymore right and you have to
  192. 6:55imagine
  193. 6:56probably the same dynamic would have
  194. 6:57played out if there were foreign
  195. 6:59invaders coming to europe or any other
  196. 7:02given civilization for that matter so
  197. 7:05it kind of ripe for plunder in that way
  198. 7:08now at least in medieval europe you were
  199. 7:10not seen as explicitly property but
  200. 7:14still you were more or less a slave in
  201. 7:16practice you had no control over your
  202. 7:18life you had to work and serve an entire
  203. 7:21class of other people
  204. 7:24and again like i said
  205. 7:25to an extent this existed everywhere
  206. 7:28right from
  207. 7:29uh
  208. 7:30from pre-european south america to asia
  209. 7:34you know all over the place even in
  210. 7:35africa so this is you know i i kind of
  211. 7:38think of it as
  212. 7:40almost like
  213. 7:41a form of uh of evolution right so
  214. 7:45governments evolve right we learn from
  215. 7:47other governments oh if we do things
  216. 7:49this way we'll get this result and then
  217. 7:51people inevitably follow the better
  218. 7:53result right so i just kind of view it
  219. 7:56as an early iteration
  220. 7:58of a way to structure society right you
  221. 8:01compare
  222. 8:02the old iphone right like maybe the
  223. 8:05first through the second iphone to the
  224. 8:06to the iphone today right very stark
  225. 8:10contrast there right the very early one
  226. 8:12kind of sucks
  227. 8:13so
  228. 8:14you know going back to serfdom is very
  229. 8:16much seen as like a backward evolution
  230. 8:19right things are all things are getting
  231. 8:21better why do you want to bring in
  232. 8:24central planning in the economy and go
  233. 8:26back to this right why do you want to go
  234. 8:28back to serfdom
  235. 8:30so that's ultimately
  236. 8:31the line of thought that von hayek is
  237. 8:34taking here
  238. 8:36so again he is a big proponent of
  239. 8:38classical liberalism right individual
  240. 8:40autonomy he wants economic freedom he
  241. 8:43wants people to be able to get rich to
  242. 8:45start businesses to do whatever the heck
  243. 8:47they want to do
  244. 8:50and he also advocates largely for
  245. 8:52civil liberties right so everyone's
  246. 8:54equal before the law
  247. 8:57now this philosophy the philosophy of
  248. 9:00classical liberalism largely developed
  249. 9:02in response to mercantilism
  250. 9:05now let's understand what mercantilism
  251. 9:08actually is right so mercantilism
  252. 9:10allowed for private ownership of
  253. 9:12business and economic activity as long
  254. 9:15as it helped the government right so the
  255. 9:17good example is the british empire
  256. 9:20because they were very mercantilist you
  257. 9:22were allowed to start a business you
  258. 9:24were allowed to own private property you
  259. 9:25were allowed to get rich as hell
  260. 9:27but you had to do so in a way that was
  261. 9:30good for the government that didn't
  262. 9:31undermine them you weren't allowed to
  263. 9:33trade with enemies
  264. 9:35so you compare the british empire to
  265. 9:38uh the spanish empire they stopped each
  266. 9:40other from trading right so there were a
  267. 9:42lot of business owners that could have
  268. 9:44like you know maybe they were british
  269. 9:46and they could have sold a whole bunch
  270. 9:47of tea to the spaniards right that would
  271. 9:50have been great for them would have made
  272. 9:51a lot of money but the british empire
  273. 9:53was like well that's going to be good
  274. 9:56for the for the spanish empire so we're
  275. 9:58not going to allow that
  276. 10:00and that is
  277. 10:01you know basically the history of uh
  278. 10:04of these different colonial empires
  279. 10:06right there right a bunch of trade wars
  280. 10:09you know so this modern stuff we see
  281. 10:10with the us and china and everyone else
  282. 10:12this is not new this has always been
  283. 10:14going on right you stop your uh business
  284. 10:17people from trading with them and it
  285. 10:19hurts them
  286. 10:20so even in some ways we're still
  287. 10:22mercantilistic now
  288. 10:25that's a topic for another time though
  289. 10:27so these colonies especially
  290. 10:29with uh
  291. 10:31with the british empire specifically
  292. 10:33they were actually not started by the
  293. 10:35military but by companies right so there
  294. 10:39was this
  295. 10:40private ownership this let's go get rich
  296. 10:43idea behind the british empire
  297. 10:45particularly in a lot of others right
  298. 10:48and one of the things that they did was
  299. 10:50forced specialization
  300. 10:52so
  301. 10:53you think about the 13 colonies here in
  302. 10:56the us
  303. 10:58well there were some that were more or
  304. 11:00less forced
  305. 11:01to
  306. 11:02you know like if i think georgia they
  307. 11:04had to only grow cotton so they were
  308. 11:06basically forced into specialization now
  309. 11:09that makes georgia
  310. 11:11very weak in a in independence so they
  311. 11:15can't grow their own food right or
  312. 11:17they're discouraged from growing their
  313. 11:18own food they are discouraged from doing
  314. 11:20a whole bunch of things that would make
  315. 11:22them more self-sufficient more
  316. 11:24independent but
  317. 11:26it helps the overall british economy so
  318. 11:29you've got one colony that does nothing
  319. 11:31but do cotton okay that's great and then
  320. 11:34you've got another colony that does
  321. 11:35nothing but uh make tea
  322. 11:38all right so we got pennsylvania over
  323. 11:40here they do nothing but make tea and
  324. 11:43that overall
  325. 11:45makes the
  326. 11:46economy
  327. 11:47better
  328. 11:48but again
  329. 11:49it limits your individual freedom if you
  330. 11:52live in you know this or that state
  331. 11:53you're not allowed to start a business
  332. 11:55on whether or not you want
  333. 11:57to you know maybe you're passionate
  334. 11:58about tea making but you live in georgia
  335. 12:01right
  336. 12:02you don't want to be a cotton guy so
  337. 12:04sucks to suck right
  338. 12:07and again this just hinders economic
  339. 12:09independence but made the overall empire
  340. 12:12wealthier
  341. 12:15so another thing that von hayek is going
  342. 12:17to be arguing against here is
  343. 12:20socialism
  344. 12:21now we need to understand what the heck
  345. 12:23socialism is so he is arguing against
  346. 12:26state
  347. 12:27socialism
  348. 12:29there are a whole bunch of different uh
  349. 12:31forms of socialism right i think state
  350. 12:34socialism is most accurately described
  351. 12:36as communism right we're going to have
  352. 12:39collective ownership of everything and
  353. 12:42it's all going to be through the
  354. 12:43government and theoretically we all have
  355. 12:45a say
  356. 12:46in the government
  357. 12:48if you guys are fans of history you know
  358. 12:50how well this system plays out right
  359. 12:53everyone's like yeah everything we're
  360. 12:55just gonna all be equal we're all gonna
  361. 12:57own everything equally and we all have
  362. 12:59to say in this government it's gonna
  363. 13:01work out great doesn't play out that way
  364. 13:03his history has shown time and time
  365. 13:05again
  366. 13:07but it's important to understand that
  367. 13:09there are
  368. 13:10other branches of socialism that you
  369. 13:12know they advocate for the social
  370. 13:13ownership of the means of production so
  371. 13:16another
  372. 13:17uh version could be
  373. 13:19that the people who work the factory
  374. 13:21should be the owners right so more or
  375. 13:24less an economy of small business owners
  376. 13:26right and that's only one other version
  377. 13:28there are lots of different kinds of
  378. 13:30socialism but understand that von hayek
  379. 13:32is attacking
  380. 13:34state socialism right communism as we
  381. 13:36understand it today not these other
  382. 13:38kinds
  383. 13:40so with all that out of the way i think
  384. 13:42we can finally start getting into
  385. 13:44the episode itself some of the meat and
  386. 13:46potatoes so the government
  387. 13:49had a lot of control
  388. 13:51in the 20th century at least compared to
  389. 13:53previous generations
  390. 13:55and it was expanding faster than ever
  391. 13:57before this was partly due to the
  392. 14:00catastrophes
  393. 14:01going on uh a lot of it was also from
  394. 14:06you know the technology expanding right
  395. 14:08people
  396. 14:09from the government could now you know
  397. 14:11mass communicate with everyone right we
  398. 14:13had the radios and and then even tvs and
  399. 14:15stuff like that right it was pretty
  400. 14:17crazy tech
  401. 14:19but of course this was also the century
  402. 14:21of fascism and communism which didn't
  403. 14:24play out so well
  404. 14:26so communism nationalized industries
  405. 14:29right basically just turned everything
  406. 14:31into government property and oh yeah the
  407. 14:34government's gonna run everything great
  408. 14:37but when you look at even fascist
  409. 14:40governments
  410. 14:41it's not necessarily a centrally planned
  411. 14:45economy at least in theory but in
  412. 14:47practice
  413. 14:48right what happened was the big
  414. 14:50businesses in germany and italy
  415. 14:52collaborated with the regimes
  416. 14:56so
  417. 14:56let's just understand that there is no
  418. 14:58consensus on what fascist economics
  419. 15:01actually is right maybe self-sufficiency
  420. 15:05but yeah that's about it right there and
  421. 15:08even then you know who knows you know
  422. 15:10there are all kinds of different fascist
  423. 15:12regimes across the world that have
  424. 15:14existed that to an extent did have free
  425. 15:16market uh free markets that did have
  426. 15:19private property and ownership and you
  427. 15:22could start a business
  428. 15:23but they were still fascist governments
  429. 15:25right you didn't have a vote right if
  430. 15:27the government wanted to kill you and
  431. 15:29take your stuff they could and there was
  432. 15:30no recourse
  433. 15:33but
  434. 15:34van hayek warns of the quote danger of
  435. 15:37tyranny that inevitably results from
  436. 15:39government control of economic
  437. 15:40decision-making through central planning
  438. 15:43so this is the big idea here
  439. 15:46there is an inevitable tyranny that
  440. 15:49comes from this central planning right
  441. 15:52whether that's communism where they
  442. 15:54nationalize everything or even with
  443. 15:57germany and italy where they more or
  444. 15:59less partner up with big business
  445. 16:02right where that where the big companies
  446. 16:05more or less entrenched in the
  447. 16:06government itself
  448. 16:09and his big fear is that it was coming
  449. 16:12to us it was coming to the u.s it was
  450. 16:15coming to the uk and yeah and then we're
  451. 16:17going to be dictatorships too
  452. 16:20so he saw in practice these bastions of
  453. 16:22freedom abandoning freedom as well
  454. 16:25von hayek noted western nations quote
  455. 16:27progressively abandon that freedom in
  456. 16:29economic affairs without which personal
  457. 16:32and political freedom has never existed
  458. 16:35in the past
  459. 16:36so we are really free right now
  460. 16:38don't mess this up don't go back to
  461. 16:41serfdom because that's essentially what
  462. 16:42these other people are doing
  463. 16:45and part of the reason that he had this
  464. 16:48fear was because the us and the uk had
  465. 16:50adopted some elements of central
  466. 16:52planning in the 1900s right ideas that
  467. 16:55you could call
  468. 16:56socialism
  469. 16:57right creeping socialism right threat
  470. 17:00scare
  471. 17:01um
  472. 17:02one example was fdr's new deal
  473. 17:04right so
  474. 17:06um
  475. 17:07you know you can have different opinions
  476. 17:08on that uh a lot of people largely do
  477. 17:11view it as a positive i actually live in
  478. 17:13tennessee and if it had not been for the
  479. 17:15new deal we would still be getting
  480. 17:17flooded to this day so tennesseans view
  481. 17:20the new deal particularly positively but
  482. 17:23again there were elements of socialism
  483. 17:26there were elements of you know a lot of
  484. 17:28government spending and having more and
  485. 17:31more influence on the economy
  486. 17:34now there was a common justification by
  487. 17:38fdr and people like him and they
  488. 17:40justified it by saying that giving
  489. 17:42people a little bit of socialism was
  490. 17:45going to stop them
  491. 17:46from asking for a lot
  492. 17:48so
  493. 17:49you know people on the far left right
  494. 17:51socialists communists whatever the
  495. 17:54reason
  496. 17:55that they are so angry and embittered is
  497. 17:57you know they've got these legitimate
  498. 17:58grievances so let's let's acknowledge
  499. 18:01some some of them let's you know give
  500. 18:03people some government benefits and
  501. 18:05whatnot right and that's kind of the way
  502. 18:08it went down
  503. 18:10but hayek believed that these were steps
  504. 18:13toward a centrally planned economy and
  505. 18:16again this inevitably leads to tyranny
  506. 18:19inevitably leads to you know having your
  507. 18:22own stalin or your own hitler or
  508. 18:24whatever right
  509. 18:27an economy that more or less resembled
  510. 18:29feudal europe right so you think about
  511. 18:33these
  512. 18:34statist religions right communism and
  513. 18:36fascism
  514. 18:38their economies were more or less
  515. 18:40stagnant right more or less
  516. 18:42um
  517. 18:43and it was extremely unequal
  518. 18:46right p you know especially in the
  519. 18:48communist regime it was like stalin was
  520. 18:51living like a king everyone else kind of
  521. 18:53lived like
  522. 18:55so it was just kind of a rough system
  523. 18:57and in many ways it is just kind of a
  524. 19:00modern version of serfdom
  525. 19:03so hayek believed that central planning
  526. 19:05inevitably leads to totalitarianism
  527. 19:08because it requires quote the will of a
  528. 19:11small minority be imposed upon the
  529. 19:14people
  530. 19:15and this is really the big idea behind
  531. 19:18his argument here
  532. 19:20the will of a small minority being
  533. 19:22thrusted upon millions and millions upon
  534. 19:25p of people right that's that is the
  535. 19:27reason that feudal europe sucked that is
  536. 19:30the reason that the serfs were you know
  537. 19:32more or less slaves and had to suffer
  538. 19:33all day and you know be born into
  539. 19:35slavery again oh your kids are slaves
  540. 19:37too like it sucked
  541. 19:39and what made it so bad
  542. 19:41is
  543. 19:43an idea that is present also
  544. 19:45in communism and fascism right the
  545. 19:48government says we're going to do things
  546. 19:49this way and well
  547. 19:51that's how we're going to have to do
  548. 19:53that
  549. 19:54right and even if it didn't
  550. 19:56uh
  551. 19:57even if it wasn't bad to begin with like
  552. 20:00let's say you start out with good
  553. 20:01intentions inevitably that small
  554. 20:03minority of people will go bad right
  555. 20:07let's understand
  556. 20:08uh absolute power corrupts absolutely
  557. 20:12so even if you have like one or two good
  558. 20:14kings
  559. 20:15right historically you look at monarchy
  560. 20:17right there were some good kings like
  561. 20:20that's a fact but sooner or later you
  562. 20:23get a bad one
  563. 20:24you get a bad one and it kind of cancels
  564. 20:26out any of the good that a good king
  565. 20:28could have done
  566. 20:30von hayek also argued that
  567. 20:32this reduced individual liberty because
  568. 20:35quote the individual would more than
  569. 20:37ever become a mere means to be used by
  570. 20:40the authority in the service of such
  571. 20:41abstractions as the social welfare or
  572. 20:44the good of the community
  573. 20:48so we more or less
  574. 20:49become cogs
  575. 20:51in a machine
  576. 20:52we are reduced
  577. 20:54to
  578. 20:55something that the government can use as
  579. 20:57a tool
  580. 20:58right and when you look at the way
  581. 21:00that these governments treated their
  582. 21:01people that is more or less how it
  583. 21:03played out
  584. 21:04uh joseph stalin did not worry about the
  585. 21:09soldiers in the red army they were tools
  586. 21:12there were some they were something that
  587. 21:14you know what we're gonna throw as many
  588. 21:16people as we can at those germans
  589. 21:19and they're yeah they're gonna die but
  590. 21:21you know we've got more people than
  591. 21:22they've got bullets and that's how he
  592. 21:24won the war and in practice that is
  593. 21:26exactly how it played out same with the
  594. 21:28fascist governments right their people
  595. 21:31were expendable they were a means to an
  596. 21:34end
  597. 21:35and what happens is your life becomes
  598. 21:37expendable to the government you are
  599. 21:39just a tool for them
  600. 21:40nothing more
  601. 21:42nothing less
  602. 21:43so he draws a stark comparison between
  603. 21:45democracy and socialism and he writes
  604. 21:47quote democracy and socialism have
  605. 21:50nothing in common but one word equality
  606. 21:52but notice the difference while
  607. 21:54democracy seeks equality and liberty
  608. 21:57socialism seeks equality in restraint
  609. 22:00and servitude
  610. 22:02so the socialist regimes
  611. 22:04they want everyone equally
  612. 22:07miserable
  613. 22:08right you got to think democratic
  614. 22:10governments right the u.s and the uk
  615. 22:13we want equality before the law not
  616. 22:16economic equality we don't want everyone
  617. 22:18to be equal but we want we want the
  618. 22:21government the laws the police system
  619. 22:23the justice system to treat everyone the
  620. 22:25same
  621. 22:26if you're rich you're gonna go to prison
  622. 22:28for killing a kid if you're poor you're
  623. 22:30gonna go to prison for killing a kid
  624. 22:32that's the way it should work but you
  625. 22:34should be allowed to be poor or be rich
  626. 22:36based on your own merits your
  627. 22:37relationship to the free market right
  628. 22:40von hayek does a really good job of
  629. 22:42expanding on this idea here that the
  630. 22:44idea that central planning always leads
  631. 22:47to violence that it's necessarily and
  632. 22:49inevitably going to happen and he writes
  633. 22:52quote
  634. 22:52while the last resort of a competitive
  635. 22:54economy is the bailiff the ultimate
  636. 22:56sanction of a planned economy is the
  637. 22:58hangman
  638. 23:00so in our competitive free market
  639. 23:03democratic governments right
  640. 23:05we
  641. 23:06have courts we can settle our
  642. 23:08disagreements like settle civilized
  643. 23:11people
  644. 23:12but in the socialist
  645. 23:14way of doing things well there's no room
  646. 23:17for disagreement
  647. 23:18if you disagree with what joseph stalin
  648. 23:20is doing he's going to kill you that's
  649. 23:23it there's there's no room for argument
  650. 23:25right
  651. 23:26and um
  652. 23:28so it kind of gets at this idea that
  653. 23:30violence is the only way
  654. 23:32of resolving conflict because every
  655. 23:34every society is going to have some kind
  656. 23:36of conflict right people are going to
  657. 23:38disagree people are going to hate each
  658. 23:39other and they're going to fight if they
  659. 23:41don't have a court
  660. 23:43to settle their disputes
  661. 23:46and if reality and history has shown us
  662. 23:50anything it's that this was worse than
  663. 23:53van gaal could have possibly known
  664. 23:55because you know he's living through
  665. 23:56this
  666. 23:57not everyone knew about what was going
  667. 23:58on in the soviet union and whatnot but
  668. 24:01you look at something like the moscow
  669. 24:03show trials
  670. 24:04it was a pretty rough time if you
  671. 24:07disagreed with the government or you
  672. 24:08know the government was even a little
  673. 24:10suspicious of you they were going to get
  674. 24:12you
  675. 24:13and they were going to make a public
  676. 24:14spectacle of you and you were they were
  677. 24:16going to psychologically torture you and
  678. 24:18force you to commit to crimes that you
  679. 24:20couldn't even have committed right some
  680. 24:22pretty crazy stuff so it was worse than
  681. 24:24von hayek even realized
  682. 24:27but he also argued against his other
  683. 24:30idea
  684. 24:31that fascism is not a capitalist
  685. 24:34response to socialism
  686. 24:37so let's understand let's start from
  687. 24:39point a so feudalism turned into
  688. 24:41mercantilism which turned into
  689. 24:43capitalism
  690. 24:45now capitalism had its flaws right early
  691. 24:47on right workers rights were really bad
  692. 24:50you know child labor
  693. 24:52people could make food and it could be
  694. 24:55basically poison they could take a
  695. 24:57in the in the soup
  696. 24:59and that was you know like you couldn't
  697. 25:00do anything about it right so we had we
  698. 25:02had to improve upon that
  699. 25:04um and the socialists were some of the
  700. 25:06early people to point out
  701. 25:08a lot of the flaws in capitalism
  702. 25:11and many marxists particularly they
  703. 25:14believe that fascism is capitalism's
  704. 25:17natural response to socialism this is a
  705. 25:20very prevalent idea among leftists and
  706. 25:23socialists even today and it goes back
  707. 25:25to this time period
  708. 25:28and
  709. 25:29there is a possibly false quote from
  710. 25:31benito mussolini there's no proof
  711. 25:34that he actually wrote this but i think
  712. 25:36because of its popularity and
  713. 25:39how much it does encapsulate a lot of
  714. 25:41his
  715. 25:42ideology i think it is worth
  716. 25:45acknowledging so this false quote goes
  717. 25:47like this quote
  718. 25:49fascism should more properly be called
  719. 25:51corporatism since it is the merger of
  720. 25:54state and corporate power
  721. 25:57and again you look at what went down in
  722. 26:00nazi germany in fascist italy big
  723. 26:02government big business they got in the
  724. 26:04cahoots
  725. 26:05that is how it happened
  726. 26:08and you know again mussolini probably
  727. 26:10did not say this right it has not been
  728. 26:12verified historically but i think it
  729. 26:14encapsulates
  730. 26:15the idea very well
  731. 26:18so
  732. 26:20that is kind of why people especially
  733. 26:22like the marxists right marxist
  734. 26:24socialist they believed that
  735. 26:26capitalism is just
  736. 26:28you know it doesn't want to give in to
  737. 26:30the socialist demands so what does it do
  738. 26:33it goes to
  739. 26:34fascism where the big governments
  740. 26:37partner with the big business and
  741. 26:39they're going to crush
  742. 26:40socialism right which is also why
  743. 26:44you know there were a lot of big
  744. 26:45industrialists that were bodybuddy with
  745. 26:47the nazi regime so let's just
  746. 26:49acknowledge that some of that did come
  747. 26:52true but
  748. 26:54uh let's also acknowledge von hayek's
  749. 26:57point and he would say something to the
  750. 26:58effect of well you look at the central
  751. 27:01planning in the soviet union you look at
  752. 27:03the central planning more or less going
  753. 27:05on in these fascist governments
  754. 27:07right there's a lot more similarities
  755. 27:10between
  756. 27:11socialism or communism and fascism than
  757. 27:14there is between fascism and capitalism
  758. 27:16right
  759. 27:17so that's more or less his rebuttal on
  760. 27:19the whole thing but let's also have a
  761. 27:22little disclaimer at the end here
  762. 27:24because von hayek you can interpret some
  763. 27:27of these
  764. 27:28ideas in a certain way you can you know
  765. 27:30call him a radical free market
  766. 27:32individualist or whatever else but he
  767. 27:34does not think that any government
  768. 27:36involvement is bad
  769. 27:38in fact that uh there's this common
  770. 27:40perception today that socialism is when
  771. 27:42the government does stuff right and
  772. 27:45honestly guys i lean right myself right
  773. 27:47i am
  774. 27:48fairly conservative in a lot of my views
  775. 27:51um
  776. 27:52but you know the idea that socialism is
  777. 27:54when the government does anything
  778. 27:56is kind of flawed right the government
  779. 27:58has to do some stuff and he acknowledged
  780. 28:01that the government needs to have some
  781. 28:03authority over the economy right it
  782. 28:04needs to protect people from fraud and
  783. 28:07scams and you know again you think about
  784. 28:10some of the early stuff that went on
  785. 28:12with capitalism in its early days right
  786. 28:14people would make food they would use
  787. 28:16rotten meat people would get sick
  788. 28:18right
  789. 28:19if it were not for
  790. 28:21you know government laws coming around
  791. 28:23and changing that you know there was
  792. 28:26maybe today we would still be eating
  793. 28:28food and sometimes it makes us sick and
  794. 28:30die because you know they didn't use
  795. 28:32clean uh cooking utensils or whatever so
  796. 28:35von hayek articulated this idea like
  797. 28:37this quote in no system that could be
  798. 28:40rationally defended with a state just do
  799. 28:42nothing so the government does have to
  800. 28:44do some stuff right
  801. 28:46and it's not socialism when it happens
  802. 28:48right it's not socialism if the
  803. 28:50government
  804. 28:51does something
  805. 28:53um
  806. 28:54you know it and again it still needs to
  807. 28:56protect against fraud and bad actors and
  808. 28:58monopolies and right there are ways that
  809. 29:00your freedom can be limited by
  810. 29:02corporations right and you know the free
  811. 29:05market is not the be-all end-all god of
  812. 29:07everything right it does have some
  813. 29:09limitations in one in what it can and
  814. 29:12cannot do
  815. 29:14and van hayek even believed for a strong
  816. 29:18safety net writing quote there is no
  817. 29:20reason why in a society which has
  818. 29:22reached the general level of wealth ours
  819. 29:25has the first kind of security should
  820. 29:27not be guaranteed to all without
  821. 29:29endangering general freedom that is some
  822. 29:32minimum of food shelter and clothing
  823. 29:34sufficient to preserve health
  824. 29:37and you can view this as you know kind
  825. 29:40of maybe social welfare maybe some
  826. 29:42version of universal basic income you
  827. 29:44can interpret this whatever way you want
  828. 29:46but he more or less argues that there
  829. 29:47needs to be a strong
  830. 29:49safety net for people we don't just let
  831. 29:52people die
  832. 29:53because
  833. 29:54you know they're hungry right we gotta
  834. 29:56feed people you know and and again
  835. 29:59that is
  836. 30:00uh
  837. 30:02a movement that is not so
  838. 30:04fond of people that like von hayek so
  839. 30:08again let's say let's acknowledge he
  840. 30:10does have some
  841. 30:11uh ideas here that are typically thought
  842. 30:14of as left wing or anti-free market or
  843. 30:16socialist or whatever
  844. 30:18but
  845. 30:19he does have these disclaimers he's a
  846. 30:20very nuanced guy all great thinkers are
  847. 30:23very nuanced right they don't just
  848. 30:25worship this for that idea
  849. 30:28the free market is not the be-all
  850. 30:29end-all but my friend that is going to
  851. 30:32be it for the episode thank you so much
  852. 30:34for watching all the way through make
  853. 30:36sure to check out the patreon page if
  854. 30:38you guys want more content or maybe to
  855. 30:40get a shout out the start of every
  856. 30:42episode i really appreciate you guys so
  857. 30:45much
  858. 30:46this has been michael from history for
  859. 30:48thinkers i'll see you in the next one
  860. 30:51peace out
  861. 30:56[Music]
  862. 31:16you

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