The Road To Serfdom, The Fatal Conceit

So, I mentioned a while back (here) that I was reading The Road To Serfdom by FA Hayek.

I haven't posted a review, or my impressions, because, frankly, it's so depressing. He is talking about Hitler and Mussolini (and occasionally the Soviet Union, but he wrote it during WWII, and they were allies, so he had to soft-pedal that), but I kept thinking "Anti-Redlining Legislation!" "Bank bailout!" "TARP!" "Socialized Health Care!" It's like he was looking in his crystal ball, saw Obama, and talked Hitler instead...

Anyway, the following paragraph caught my attention:

We must here return for a moment to the position which precedes the suppression of democratic institutions and the creation of a totalitarian regime. In this stage it is the general demand for quick and determined government action that is the dominating element in the situation, dissatisfaction with the slow and cumbersome course of democratic procedure which makes action for action's sake the goal. It is then the man or party who seems strong and resolute enough to "get things done" who exercises the greatest appeal. "Strong" in this sense means not merely a numerical majority--it is the ineffectiveness of parliamentary majorities with which people are dissatisfied. What they will seek is somebody with such solid support as to inspire confidence that he can carry out whatever he wants. It is here that the new type of party, organized on military lines, comes in.

Got everything but the "organized on military lines", so far, and who knows where that Obama Youth Homeland Defense Corps thing is heading...?

So, having finished The Road To Serfdom, I have started in on Hayek's The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism. (Which I mentioned here.) Not as depressing, although sometimes it can be a little slow going. Hayek's thesis here is that commerce, the free market and respect for private property* are the core of liberty as we understand it today, and that all the arguments in favor of socialism arise from attempts to explain away why these are Good Things.

The following paragraph caught my eye:

It appears (...) to have been the Greeks, and especially the Stoic philosophers, with their cosmopolitan outlook, who first formulated the moral tradition which the Romans later propagated throughout their Empire, That this tradition arouses great resistance we already know and will witness again repeatedly. In Greece it was of course chiefly the Spartans, the people who resisted the commercial revolution most strongly, who did not recognize individual property but allowed and even encouraged theft. To our time they have remained the prototype of savages who rejected civilization (for representative 18th Century views on them compare Dr. Samuel Johnson in Boswell's Life...). Yet already in Plato and Aristotle, however, we find a nostalgic longing for return to Spartan practice, and this longing persists to the present. It is a craving for a micro-order determined by the overview of omniscient authority.

So who do we quote on firearms rights?

Granted, the stand of the 300 (plus the oft-forgotten 1000-odd Thebans and Thespians) against the entire Persian empire was impressive, memorable, and almost certainly bought time for the rest of the Greek City-States to finalize plans for resistance. Great story. Great drama.

It changes not at all that the Spartans lived in a military dictatorship dedicated to oppressing those who "dwelt about"and their serfs/slaves. That the Spartans had no interest in any arts save the physical--which they practiced to the exclusion of any and all others, to ensure that they could go on oppressing the perioikoi and helots. (Actually, I have run across a record of one poet early in Sparta's history, a warrior poet, naturally enough. I figure he must have been a good solider, since they let him live...)

On top of being a brutal, oppressive slave-based militaristic culture, Sparta was also renowned for being the most deeply religious of all the Greek City-States. There are several instances--the Battle of Marathon, for example--of Sparta doing nothing when all other City-States were acting, due to a religious festival or taboo, or a dire omen.

It is often said that the Spartans had no money; no true, not exactly: They used iron, which, of course, besides being the metal they knew best, is pretty much useless as currency...

As Hayek observes, the Spartans had no private property; in fact, Spartan men ate in mess halls until they retired. (I almost said "unless they managed to live long enough to...") By the same token, Spartan women were very possibly the most "free" women in the world at the time. They controlled their own household (there being no men about...) They got to participate in athletics just like the men--including in the nude, just like the men. Their tendency to express an opinion in front of and to men was scandalous--especially to Athenians, who, after all, invented the burqa, and treated their women according to Sharia law centuries before Mohammud was born...

Whether the Spartans were as utterly humorless as often portrayed is unknown; one has to admit, that "We'll fight in the shade" line was pretty good. I also sometimes wonder whether the Spartans practiced the institutionalized pederasty they are often accused of.**

Certainly Spartans away from Lakonia gave the impression of being awkward, ignorant bumpkins. Anyone traveling away from home is disoriented, and considering how controlled their lives were at home, it's not surprising that they might be completely lost.*** And, yes, Lakonia gave us the word Laconic", for "closed mouthed" or "taciturn."

So, Ancient Sparta, admirable? I dunno. Certainly even the most ardent freedom-loving American would not willingly live under such a regime.

On the other hand, let's face it, "Molon Labe"****--"Come and take them"--is a pretty good answer when half the human race is demanding you turn over your weapons.

Sometimes Laconic is good.


*Hayek uses the term "several property." Discussed as Point Seven here.
**I laughed out loud while watching Frank Millers 300 when Leonidas called the Athenians "Boy lovers."
***At least they didn't have money to buy the Parthenon... Nor would they have understood the concept.
****Pronounced, I am told, "Moy-ohn Lavay".