F.A. Hayek on totalitarianism of the Leftists

How should we conservatives think about race and critical theory, CRT; the misnamed gender affirmation or transgenderism; the climate change cult; abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy; free and open borders ; mandates that didn't reduce the toll of the pandemic and had never been tried before? F.A. Hayek had some thoughts.

" Incredible as some of these aberrations [spirit of totalitarianism] may appear, we must yet be on our guard not to dismiss them as mere accidental by-products which have nothing to do with the essential character of a planned or totalitarian system. They are not. THEY ARE A DIRECT RESULT OF THAT SAME DESIRE TO SEE EVERYTHING DIRECTED BY A "UNITARY CONCEPTION OF THE WHOLE," of the need to uphold at all costs the views in the service of which people are asked to make constant sacrifices, and of the general idea that the knowledge and beliefs of the people are an instrument to be used for a single purpose. Once science has to serve, not TRUTH, but the interests of a class, a community or a state, the sole task of argument and discussion is to vindicate and to spread still further the beliefs by which the whole life of the community is directed. As the Nazi minister of justice has explained, the question which every new scientific theory must ask itself is: "Do I serve National Socialism for the greatest benefit of all?"

The word TRUTH itself ceases to have its old meaning. . . it becomes something to be laid down by AUTHORITY, something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it. p. 178 "The Road to Serfdom; text and documents. F.A. Hayek, 1944, 2007. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/R/bo4138549.html

The Road to Serfdom, by F.A. Hayek

Road to Serfdom, written by F.A. Hayek for a British audience but not published until 1944,  has become a “classic,” and one I’d never heard of until Glenn Beck’s show on Fox. Beck probably did more to get people reading than Oprah Winfrey. Any mention of a title, and the warehouses were empties.  The left just hates the way it dismantles and warns about socialism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism.

I have vol. 2, the “The definitive edition,” with text and documents, edited by Bruce Caldwell (University of Chicago Press, 2007). There are 20 volumes in the provisional collected works by Mr. Caldwell.

Here’s something appropriate because of the lies with spin we’ve been subjected to lately.  From “my mother had no health insurance,” to “I never knew my Uncle Omar” to “You can keep your doctor, period,” this explains the thinking.

“The word “truth” itself ceases to have its old meaning.  It describes no longer something to be found, with the individual conscience as the sole arbiter of whether in any particular instance the evidence  . . . warrants a belief; it become something to be laid down by authority; something which has to be believed in the interest of the unity of the organized effort and which may have to be altered as the exigencies of this organized effort require it.” . . . produced cynicism, loss of the sense of even the meaning of truth, the disappearance of the spirit of independent inquiry and of the belief in the power of rational conviction. . . every branch of knowledge become political issues to be decided by authority. . . “ p. 178