Erin: Ch3

Q: What is a source of confusion within socialism?

A: There are many people who call themselves socialists, who fervently believe in those ultimate aims of socialism but neither care nor understand how the can be achieved, and who are merely certain that they must be achieved, whatever the cost. But to nearly all those to who, socialism is not merely a hope but an object of practical politics, the characteristic methods of modern socialism are as essential as the ends themselves. Many people, on the other hand, who value the ultimate ends of socialism no less than the socialists refuse to support socialism because of the dangers to other values they see in the methods proposed by the socialists. The dispute about socialism has thus become largely a dispute about means and not about ends[.] (Hayek: Definitive Edition pg 83)