What do democracy and socialism have in common? difference?
"Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word: equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude. (hayek 29)
2 comments:
democracy and socialism share the ideal of 'equality' according to Hayek.
democracy seeks to be a governship which is run by the representatives of the citizens of the republic. all laws are to be created by the individuals, so as to better benifit themselves. but the corruptability of a democracy is inevitable. in a government in which its oficals are elected by means of their popularity, not necessarily their platform(which happens to be a political front, hiding their true feelings or objections), its understood that a well educated person who doesnt have hundreds of thousands to start campaigning for a small office or even millions to campaign for a national office wouldnt be elected merely because of their unknown status, only to be mentioned a few times on the new when he looses. where as his opponent campaigns with tv commercials and is constantly mentioned in the news is more likely to win simply because of his cash value and publicity(ex. Arnold Schwartz...). but if two candidates do happen to have similar ammounts of funding, and seemingly equal news coverage, what happens. they resort to defaming their opponent(i.e. Rick Perry vs. Tony Sanchez in 2002). since democracy is created with the individual's best self intention in mind, capitalism sets in, our most common form of corruption. once the inital equal people become wealthy, they have leverage over their poorer counterparts, further promoting captialism, which is quckly followed by accepting capitalism as common practice. the capitalists arguement is that capitalist is a liberty supported by the bill of rights, however capitalism intrudes on the rights of others, creating the need for 'checks and balances' in the system. completely voiding the original liberty to do as the capitalist originally intended, to follow his own right. so if in a democratic society, someone becomes very successful at what they are originaly allowed to do by their equal god given rights, then the capitalist officals feel that they arent getting enough as their liberators, their protection, the federal government, the u.s. military, and etc.
in a socialist society the aim of equality is to restrain, according to hayek. so as to prevent or rather inhibit the possibility of corruption, and to slow the spread of the infection of corruptions such as capitalism. socialism requires that the federal government severly retards the growth of society and its individuals, both intelectually, and materially. communism is a brach of socialism, the abolishment of religion is to prevent the desire to learn why something happens, such as greek mythology was created to provide a simple answer to seemingly impossible questions. a common propagandic answer is given in a public school, and infused into the brains of its victims. the federal government of a socialist society limits the freedoms and liberties of its individual citizens so as to create a 'uniform' image of each other, so as to eliminate envy, and a competetive spirit(an un-natural practice, considering it violates the primal instict to survive and dominate). with a submissive following of citizens, the idea of servitude is only viewed by an outsider, for the socialist is willing to do what he is told, it is what he knows, true obediance. but the human nature for more is the only thing that cancels out the ability to fully achieve that possibility.
so there for socialism and democracy share more than the word 'equality', they also share the possibility of ever being achieved completely.
Mr. Aldridge, You have many good ideas, BUT in order for everyone to be able to argue (in the good sense), their must be Hayek citations. We will get to an overall discussion of "everything", but for now we are attempting to learn Hayek's argument. At the very least, if we mention something from outside Hayek, it must be a citation of something (Constitution, D of I, Declaration of Rights of Man, Cave Allegory, etc).
In order for all of us to argue, we must have text to argue about.
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