Posted by
Rogue Historian on Friday, March 02, 2007 8:20:52 PM
"...By bringing the whole of life under the control of the State, Socialism necessarily gives power to an inner ring of bureaucrats, who in almost every case will be men who want power for its own sake and will stick at nothing in order to retain it. Britain, he says, is now going the same road as Germany, with the Left-Wing intelligentsia in the van and the Tory Party a good second. The only salvation lies in returning to an unplanned economy, free competition, and emphasis on liberty rather than on security.
In the negative part of Professor Hayek's thesis there is a great deal of truth. It cannot be said too often- at any rate, it is not being said nearly often enough- that collectivism is not inherently democratic*, but, on the contrary, gives to a tyrannical minority such powers as the Spanish Inquisitors never dreamed of."
Quoted by Christopher Hitchens, in Why Orwell Matters (2002, p82).
In response to Paul Greenburg's article, "In Defense of Orwell," on TH 3/02/07.
*It is interesting to note that Hayek would have taken exception with Orwell's conclusion and for much the same reason that Orwell derided political language. Hayek spent much of his energy battling against the drive for democracy for its own sake. Orwell seems yet willing to identify democracy as simply majority rule (notice he says "tyrannical minority") without pausing over the very real possiblity that majorities, no matter how empowered, could prove every bit as tyrannical as minorities.