Human Action: dagarna 23, 24

Jag har nu läst ut femte delen av Human Action och börjat läsa den sjätte delen.

Den femte delen är bokens kortaste och handlar om varför socialismen inte kan fungera, någonsin: den kan inte räkna, för det finns inga priser. Diskussionen om hur socialister ytterst upphöjer sig själva till diktatorer och gudar var ny för mig:

No socialist author ever gave a thought to the possibility that the abstract entity which he wants to vest with unlimited power–whether it is called humanity, society, nation, state, or government–could act in a way of which he himself disapproves. A socialist advocates socialism because he is fully convinced that the supreme dictator of the socialist commonwealth will be reasonable from his–the individual socialist’s–point of view, that he will aim at those ends of which he–the individual socialist–fully approves, and that he will try to attain these ends by choosing means which he–the individual socialist–would also choose. Every socialist calls only that system a genuinely socialist system in which these conditions are completely fulfilled; all other brands claiming the name of socialism are counterfeit systems entirely different from true socialism. Every socialist is a disguised dictator. Woe to all dissenters! They have forfeited their right to live and must be ”liquidated.”
People frequently call socialism a religion. It is indeed the religion of self-deification. The State and Government of which the planners speak, the People of the nationalists, the Society of the Marxians and the Humanity of Comte’s positivism are name for the God of the new religions. But all these idols are merely aliases for the individual reformer’s own will. In ascribing to his idol all those attributes which the theologians ascribe to God. the inflated Ego glorifies itself. It is infinitely good, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient, eternal. It is the only perfect being in this imperfect world.

Jag gillade också Mises motargument mot ”trial and error”-argumentet: javisst, man kan försöka hitta lösningar till 4 gånger 5 genom att gissa, men hur ska man veta att 20 och inte 21 är korrekt om man inte kan verifiera det på något sätt?

Sjätte delen handlar om interventionism, eller den hämmade marknadsekonomin. .Ett citat som sammanfattar vad det handlar om ganska bra är:

All this passionate praise of the supereminence of government action is but a poor disguise for the individual interventionist’s self-deification. The great god State is a great god only because it is expected to do exclusively what the individual advocate of interventionism wants to see achieved. Only that plan is genuine which the individual planner fully approves. All other plans are simply counterfeit. In saying ”plan” what the author of a book on the benefits of planning has in mind is, of course, his own plan alone. He does not take into account the possibility that the plan which the government puts into practice may differ from his own plan. The various planners agree only with regard to their rejection of laissez faire, i.e., the individuals’ discretion to choose and to act. They entirely disagree with regard to the choice of the unique plan to be adopted. To every exposure of the manifest and incontestable defects of interventionist policies the champions of interventionism react in the same way. These faults, they say, were the results of spurious interventionism; what we are advocating is good interventionism, not bad interventionism. And, of course, good interventionism is the professor’s own brand.

Laissez faire means: Let the common man choose and act; do not force him to yield to a dictator.

Och här finns även Mises’ underbara argument mot narkotikalagar:

It is a fact, they say, that some people harm themselves and their innocent families by consuming narcotic drugs. Only doctrinaires could be so dogmatic as to object to the government’s regulation of the drug traffic. Its beneficent effects cannot be contested.

However, the case is not so simple as that. Opium and morphine are certainly dangerous, habit-forming drugs. But once the principle is admitted that it is the duty of government to protect the individual against his own foolishness, no serious objections can be advanced against further encroachments. A good case could be made out in favor of the prohibition of alcohol and nicotine. And why limit the government’s benevolent providence to the protection of the individual’s body only? Is not the harm a man can inflict on his mind and soul even more disastrous than any bodily evils? Why not prevent him from reading bad books and seeing bad plays, from looking at bad paintings and statues and from hearing bad music? The mischief done by bad ideologies, surely, is much more pernicious, both for the individual and for the whole society, than that done by narcotic drugs.