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May 5, 2007
Many on the libertarian right-wing of Australian politics defend Hayek for taking a strong stand against socialism (social democracy) when socialism was at its peak in England during the 1940s. Road to Serfdom was a trenchant defense of laissez-faire in the face of planned economies, wherein Hayek argued that we should never have a naive trust in the good faith of people who happen to find themselves empowered by bureaucracies to start making decisions regarding how a society’s resources will be doled out. Socialism is a nursery for the growth of totalitarian policies.
However, I've never understood Hayek to be a libertarian; he is a combination of market libertarian and social conservative-in that his "free people" in a spontaneous order are always "submitting to the discipline" required by society's current moral conventions. How does this fit with democracy?
Alex Robson points out Knowledge, Demagoguery and Democracy in the CIS Policy magazine
Democracy is desirable only to the extent that it ensures freedom in the negative sense, and an unchecked democracy is just as undesirable as unchecked totalitarian rule. Democracy can only ever be only a means to an end—the end being freedom—and not an end itself.
Presumably democracy as an end in itself equates with “democratic despotism.” Since Hayek approves of democracy bounded by the "rule of law", and disapproves of "unlimited democracy", it depends what he means by a 'democracy bounded by a rule of law.'
Consider this passage from the 1956 Preface to Road to Serfdom:
Of course, six years of socialist government in England have not produced anything resembling a totalitarian state. But those who argue that this has disproved the thesis of The Road to Serfdom have really missed one of its main points: that "the most important change which extensive government control produces is a psychological change, an alteration in the character of the people." This is necessarily a slow affair... attitude[s] toward authority are as much the effect as the cause of... political institutions under which it lives.... [T]he change undergone... not merely under its Labour government but in the course of the much longer period during which it has been enjoying the blessings of a paternalistic welfare state, can hardly be mistaken.... Certainly German Social Democrats... never approached as closely to totalitarian planning as the British Labour government has done.... The most serious development is the growth of a measure of arbitrary administrative coercion and the progressive destruction of the cherished foundation of British liberty, the Rule of Law... [E]conomic planning under the Labour government [has] carried it to a point which makes it doubtful whether it can be said that the Rule of Law still prevails in Britain...
Hayek has an odd conception of 'democracy bounded by the rule of law. 'Britain under a Labor Government in the 1950s was an "unlimited democracy." This majoritarian legislative-law was lawless government. Presumably, 1950s Britain (or Australia) is a democratic despotism whose paternalism infantilizes people, increases poverty and constrains individual freedom.
The implication is that Hayek would countenance an abridgement of democracy to support the freedom of the spontaneous order. If democracy endangers free markets though regulation then it can legitimately be suppressed. What sits under this is the historical difference between classical liberal constitutionalism and democracy. Classical liberals have always had a healthy suspicion of democracy, fearing that it might amount to mob rule. if Kant called democracy despotism, then Hayek argued that arbitrary majoritarianism was no better than other methods of oppression.T he core principle is freedom from arbitrary (that is, "ruleless") coercion, whether emanating from the crown, the parliament, or the people.
This opens the possibility of a liberal authoritarianism that preserves freedom.
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