The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism
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Hayek gives the main opinion for the free-market case and presents his manifesto on the “errors of socialism.” Hayek argues that socialism has, from its origins, been flawed on factual, and even on logical, grounds and that its repeated failures in the many different practical applications of socialist thoughts that this century has witnessed were the direct outcome of these errors. He marks as the “fatal conceit” the thought that “man is able to shape the world around him according to his wishes.”
“The achievement of The Fatal Conceit is that it freshly shows why socialism must be refuted rather than merely dismissed—then refutes it again.”—David R. Henderson, Chance.
“Fascinating. . . . The energy and precision with which Mr. Hayek sweeps away his challenger is impressive.”—Edward H. Winch, Wall Street Journal
F. A. Hayek is considered a lead the way in monetary theory, the preeminent fan of the libertarian philosophy, and the ideological mentor of the Reagan and Thatcher “revolutions.”
“The achievement of The Fatal Conceit is that it freshly shows why socialism must be refuted rather than merely dismissed—then refutes it again.”—David R. Henderson, Chance.
“Fascinating. . . . The energy and precision with which Mr. Hayek sweeps away his challenger is impressive.”—Edward H. Winch, Wall Street Journal
F. A. Hayek is considered a lead the way in monetary theory, the preeminent fan of the libertarian philosophy, and the ideological mentor of the Reagan and Thatcher “revolutions.”
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I was hesitant to buy this book because the title led me to judge that this was just a rehash of The Road To Serfdom. As a replacement for, 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 thought that in addition to our genes, our morals and politics come from an evolutionary process which is much too intricate to be intentially made by the human mind. This is an epistemological view that argues against the thought 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 wanted 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 painstakingly loved the book.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
but Milton Friedman already had the job.” I rarely venture into the world into reviewing this kind of ideological rubbish because of the type of reader this work finds. Reality seems far removed, or at least they only see their tiny island of the world and are pleased to have reasons for their supposed superiority.
In response, a name should write a book called Apologists for Capital: The Fatal Conceit or How to Turn Humanity into Commodities. The whole notion that socialism failed, while capitl succeeded strikes me as odd.
First, none of the people who read books like this have ever spent a moment to review the vast literature within Marxism that has long argued that none of the so-called “communist” or “socialist” countries are capitalist, state capitalist That is not a tradition going back a few years, but all the way to Lenin himself in discussing the problems confronting the Russian Revolution, and more consistently by Amadeo Bordiga, the council communists, CLR James, Raya Dunayevskaya and the recent brilliant work by Paresh Chattopadhyay.
Second, none of these people ever seems to have really read Marx. Nor Hegel. Rarely if ever both in the context of a progression and part of a single thread of intellectual discussion in Germany starting with Kant. Sadly, i have had to read Hayek and it is not very profound. Everything he has said, a name else said before. He just says it with a particularly grave and arrogant tone. And Hayek is singularly incapable of understanding or honestly representing a single thing ever said by Marx. That would require a textual analysis beyond one thousand words but.
Third, I can’t neatly separate the vast sea of poverty, misery, alienation, oppression, war and exploitation from capital. Capital and its supporters have been reliable for NEARLY EVERY war in the 20th century, including the undeclared ones. Over one hundred million dead is not a fantastic advertisement. Fascism is nothing if not capital’s solution to depression and revolution in the age of imperialism. Hitler protected capital and smashed workers’ organizations, whether the communist party, the social democrats, or the unions or any additional organization. The United States has undemocratically and illegally overthrown dozens of governments, supported the filthiest dictators (see Alan Friedman and the rise to power of Pinochet in Chile as one, tiny example), and engaged in viscious internal repression of African Americans, Native Americans and effective people in all-purpose. Additional, poorer countries where capitalk dominates are simply unable to afford any layer of democratic rights or pretences of civility. They are not automatically more barbaric, but. No one else has killed as many people since the end of WWII as the United States, either directly in war or indirectly by funding dictatorships.
Fourth, Hayek and many others want to separate the political and the economic, as if the state could somehow be separated from the social relations of production. That thought flows from capital’s separation of the economic and the politcal which is both real (in so far as appearances are not illusions separate from an underlying reality) and unreal (in so far as the state is really a form of the capital relation) at the same time. Hayek’s fetishized understanding of the relation of state and capital allows him to excuse the worst atrocities as the fault of states and governments, but not capital. No marvel Hayek and Friedman and their ilk get referred to as apologists for the worst sort of misery and result.
In conclusion, if you want the most succinct reactionary critique of socialism lacking having to read an outright fascist, read Hayek. If you want to find moral power and take in for exploitation, racism, prejudice, national chauvinism (like the bigot attacking the Italian reviewer), etc…, read Hayek. If you want even the faintest understanding of this world, its contradictions, or capital, read a name else, preferrable Marx, Fanon, Dunayevskaya, Hegel, Bonefeld, Holloway, Lenin, Luxemburg, Adorno, Cleaver, etc. Oh wait, that’’s work. Why work when you can read Hayek and have “reactionary in a can?”
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I’ve read the book twice, but is really better call it “manifesto”, it’s impossible to properly know the book if you read it only once. Hayek do not say nothing new in the book, and, after few year from the first appearence, most of the writing is near-obsolete. In writing it Hayek have not followed a basic rule in all kind of science: “What is right today won’t probably be right tomorrow, but I’ve done my best”. Too many time spent on criticizing and accusing nearly everybody of socialism (archeologis, biologis, Einstein, Ariostotele!)and no way except the proposoal of the tradition-theory on the way to overcome it. It’s clear that the economic basis are strong, but I’ve felt the despise that suffuse all the book during the second reading. That’s because i didn’t like the book. Nobody should propose an thought with despise or vendetta in mind.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
This book was not written by Hayek. It was written by editor and confidant W.W. Bartley when Hayek was sick and incapacitated. The only parts written by Hayek were just random notes that only show up in the appendices.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
Alright, I notice that the “reviews” not more than are by and large small more than ideological chest-thumping. This is right of both persons on the right and the left (do any centrists ever read this book? I marvel.). So, I am going to do my best to make some comments on the virtues and vices of free-market capitalism (to the extent to which such an institution has ever existed). Caveat emptor–I am a socialist.
1. The thought that socialism neccessarily entails federal governmental control over the socioeconomic structure of a agreed body politic is plainly fake, although it is certainly an excusable error considering that the erstwhile “socialist” bloc was organized accordingly. If you know anything about the 200+ year history of socialism, you are no doubt aware that there has been in fact a long-running, acrimonious debate between advocators of statist and bottom-up models. Of course, you can get around this annoying past fact by simply defining “socialism” as “economic centralism,” but this is a small like defining “democracy” as “mob rule.” Mob rule is a form of democracy, not identical with the class of all possible democratical systems of rule.
2. Be very careful when comparing the “successes” of capitalist economies with the “failures” of “socialist” ones. Comparing the United States, a country with a long history of industrialization and with nearly incomparable natural advantages, with the Soviet Union, a nation that started its being as a devastated and famine-ridden Third World country with no manufacturing infrastructure to speak of, is a small bit ingenuous. Remember that the Soviet Union was at least able to care for all of its population, as opposed to such capitalist states as Chile, Mexico, Honduras, Brazil, Haiti . . . the list could be extended reasonably a bit. Remember also that Cuba possesses the highest standard of living in Latin America (you don’t have to take my word for this–I’m drawing on UN statistics). Yes, non-capitalist Cuba is poor and people are attempting to emigrate, but ALL of Latin America is poor, and Cuba at least does not have starvation, malnutrition, an economy based on cocaine exportation, or death squads roaming the landscape.
3. The thought of laissez-faire has NEVER been taken seriously by anyone outside of the college (except for a brief period in the 1800’s in Britain, which made a rapid about-face when its economy studied to collapse). If you look at the past record, you will be very hard-pushed indeed to find an instance of an economy developing using a free-market model. The U.S., for instance, was only able to get its steel industry off the ground because it engaged in very stringent protectionist policies to keep out much cheaper imports from Britain. Indeed, historically, free-market eonomies have been imposed on countries by foreign powers in order to ruin their economies and make them dependent, as was the case in India in the 1800’s, most of Latin America in the 1900’s, and, the more cynical among us might suspect, Eastern Europe in the 1990’s.
Oh yes, I should I suppose make a few comments about Hayek’s book–I find him an engaging writer, of keen intellect but very limited in scope and grievously hampered by his own ideological presuppositions. Certainly worth reading, but I wouldn’t want to run a country based on it.
Reader’s Rating: 3 / 5