Saturday, April 4, 2020

Hayek and a Long-Term Plan versus the Smashing of Anthony Fauci

At the post, What You Don't Know About Dr. Tony Fauci, hayekian comments:
What really has us doomed, is that all of these problems "are indeed the result of human action, but not the execution of any human design" This is the inevitable result of massive economic ignorance. Not only is the libertarian world just focused on complaining about "the bad guys" and how they are oppressing us instead of focusing on the massive economic ignorance that makes such oppression inevitable. Without Hayek and like-minded people who showed that the market order is the result of an evolutionary process instead of our reason or design, we keep focusing on the wrong things...We cant solve a problem of economic ignorance by making it a moral one... MIses warned:

"The problems involved are purely intellectual and must be dealt with as such. It is disastrous to shift them to the moral sphere and to dispose of supporters of opposite ideologies by calling them villains. It is vain to insist that what we are aiming at is good and what our adversaries want is bad. The question to be solved is precisely what is to be considered as good and what as bad. The rigid dogmatism peculiar to religious groups and to Marxism results only in irreconcilable conflict. It condemns beforehand all dissenters as evildoers, it calls into question their good faith, it asks them to surrender unconditionally. No social cooperation is possible where such an attitude prevails."

However, for understandable reasons, the tradition, or ideology of looking at the world's problems as the result of evildoers or "the bad guys" still dominates so much thinking that keeps us away from viral economic education....
What hayekian is doing here is promoting what Lennist called the sectarian approach. Murray Rothbard wrote in his unpublished book on strategy:
The left sectarian, in brief, considers any transition demands, and the use of strategic intelligence to determine priorities for agitation, any appeal to one's audience without sacrificing ultimate principles, in themselves a "sellout" or betrayal of radical principles.
I am sympathetic to the Hayekian perspective for long-term conversion of a society to the PPS, but this has nothing to do with fighting in the trenches against an immediate threat. Objecting to firing back against an immediate threat is sectarian.

Rothbard again:
Throughout his career, Lenin, above all other Bolsheviks, understood the importance of adapting the tactics of his movement to the historical stages of conditions in which they found themselves. A tactic that might be effective in one historical context or period might be disastrous in another; and Lenin also realized that, particularly during revolutionary a crisis, such existing conditions can and do change overnight. Furthermore Lenin constantly fought against the tendency of other Bolsheviks to keep the tactics mired in a previous an obsolete historical concept. (During all these periods and changes, of course Lenin continued to uphold the ultimate banner of proletarian socialism.)...No "revolutionary" movement - - that is, no movement for radical social change--can be successful unless it has a clear picture in its own mind of who the good guys and the bad guys may be.
To apply this to the current situation of Dr. Fauci, it would be a mistake to spend all one's time simply attacking the weaknesses of totalitarian leaders---especially when most in a country understand a particular leader is evil. It is best at that time to focus on explaining the dangers of the central planning structure that has brought the tyrant into power.

However, in the present context, where Dr. Fauci and his totalitarian ways seem to be adored by almost all of the body politic---and where his policy leanings may lead to more, and some long-lasting, totalitarian measures---there is nothing wrong with attempting to destroy in the eyes of the public a very evil man who currently is viewed by the public as a saint. A man who is providing scientific advice but who in the past lied, deceived and distorted when it comes to science. Shouldn't the masses be made aware of this to perhaps limit the immediate totalitarian advance?

People need to reset their view of Dr. Fauci and this is a first step in getting some to rethink the entire totalitarian measures now being implemented. This is strategic agitation while under immediate fire.  

There are certainly other methods that can be simultaneously applied but there is nothing wrong with rattling the masses about their saint.

It has nothing to do with the ultimate advance toward the PPS but it may help in stopping the immediate authoritarian onslaught supported by the masses largely because of their adoring view of an evil man.

 -RW

1 comment:

  1. Just a parallel thought:
    This coronavirus is lethal to young people because their immune system essentially overreacts to the infection (not the same issue for the elderly). Possibly the same could be said for the government response.

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