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| "If you haven't read Atlas Shrugged, read this..." |
As measure of Hayek's contemporary place in our political discourse, the government-hating nutcase Glenn Beck is credited for ramping up Hayek's Amazon ratings to #1 simply by devoting several shows to some FOXified version of the dead Austrian's economic theories - although this factoid is hardly fair to Hayek himself in it's implications of raving anti-intellectualism and lack of even the most modest aspirations to analytical integrity.
But from recovering neo-conservative Francis Fukayama, who reviewed "The Constitution of Liberty," one of Hayek's major works, for the New York Times Book Review over the weekend, we get this footnote to Hayek's insistent case for the superiority of markets:
It may...surprise some of Hayek’s new followers to learn that “The Constitution of Liberty” argues that the government may need to provide health insurance and even make it compulsory .Surprise? My sense of the current aggressive ignorance and emotional discombobulation among the Tea Party, Hyper-Foxoid right-wing is that if Glenn Beck and his minions got wind of that rather stunning "caveat" to Hyek's anti-government case, he'd add Hayek to his list of folks out to destroy America!
So he's a commie, just like Bob Dole.
ReplyDeleteOn a more serious note, I think there is a lot of wisdom in this little irony. Some things, like roads and armies and possibly even health care, are just not right for the free-market. But, but socializing certain societal needs, you open the way to vastly more efficient innovation for most other endeavors that are supplied best by the free market. Like if someone has a great idea for a new product or service but they don;t act on their ambition because they can't drive to the patent office (government meddling) or they are nuked by Russians or they are afraid to quit their job for fear of losing their health insurance, so they might just stay home. Socialized medicine is a boon to the free market, particularly large over-head, unionized manufacturing like auto-makers. Only fascists in bed with the insurance companies actually support the current system.
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