Gonna experiment with posting this here because the interface for inserting screenshots is better than on X, and I think this might be a more receptive audience anyway.
Now that Krugman has invoked the name of F.A. Hayek to defend Kamala Harris' policies, I must effortpost.
Unfortunately, it seems to me that this is once again a case of a progressive quote-mining Hayek to make a point he almost certainly wouldn't have agreed with.
First, let's look at the paragraph that follows. Krugman says Harris is not a full-on communist (true). She just wants to expand welfare, not fundamentally change the role of govt. Harris did support single-payer health care but now doesn't. But even if she did, says Krugman, it's not that radical or dangerous ("un-American")!
Hayek would disagree.
Hayek on "social insurance" from The Constitution of Liberty, more detailed than the The Road to Serfdom quote Krugman links: Progressives rarely mention the part in red, where he says that while the aim of govt providing a safety net is philosophically defensible, the actual methods are the problem, and as we'll see, a likely inescapable one in Hayek's telling.
He continues on to say that opposition to govt welfare is entirely defensible, just not purely on human freedom grounds. To understand this, you have to grok that Hayek defined freedom as the absence of coercion and placed a high value on prohibiting government monopolies.
He does not accept the "taxation is theft" maxim, which is why many libertarians dislike him. What he opposes is government action that prevents people from trying new experiments and competing with the state or state-connected actors to provide "essential" services.
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What Hayek is saying about "social insurance" is that in theoretical terms a state-supported welfare program could achieve its ends without threatening freedom.
The more sound reason to oppose it, he argues, is that the state apparatus that administers welfare in the modern world inevitably becomes a coercive and monopolistic one. There are strings attached to that money, always: Strings that serve the plans of the bureaucrats, not the individuals receiving the money.
It's fantasy ("illusion") to imagine a government machine powerful enough to administer welfare at nation-state scale while being kept in check against liberty violations. "Democratic control" ain't gonna cut it.
History shows the administrative state certainly never checks itself. This is why the recent Chevron reversal was so crucial. It allows courts, rather than "democracy," to exert more direct constitutional restraint on these agencies, likely to be more effective than Congress "doing something" (LOL).
THE GREATEST DANGER TO LIBERTY TODAY, writes Hayek, comes from the expert class running the bureaucracy for the "public good."
It is INEVITABLE, he says, that such an apparatus will become self-willed, uncontrollable and hegemonic.
Agree or disagree with Hayek's analysis, but does this sound like a guy who endorses anything close to resembling our modern welfare state? Or does it sound like a nuanced thinker conceding that the state could theoretically subsidize welfare in some non liberty-threatening way that he never quite specifies?
Hayek would almost certainly recognize massive problems with the way our current top-down welfare system distorts the market, coercively suppresses competition, and immiserates people. And to invoke him anywhere proximal to single-payer health care is a joke.
I get the criticism from libertarians that Hayek could've been more clear to avoid mischaracterization, or should've been more "hardcore" about opposing all taxation. I'm not arguing that he's that kind of libertarian. And that's OK.
But it's hard for me to see the way Krugman is quoting him here as anything other than a disingenuous way to normalize Harris' proposed expansion of social engineering and an intrusive welfare state.
First, let's look at the paragraph that follows. Krugman says Harris is not a full-on communist (true). She just wants to expand welfare, not fundamentally change the role of govt. Harris did support single-payer health care but now doesn't. But even if she did, says Krugman, it's not that radical or dangerous ("un-American")!
Hayek would disagree.
Hayek on "social insurance" from The Constitution of Liberty, more detailed than the The Road to Serfdom quote Krugman links: Progressives rarely mention the part in red, where he says that while the aim of govt providing a safety net is philosophically defensible, the actual methods are the problem, and as we'll see, a likely inescapable one in Hayek's telling.
He continues on to say that opposition to govt welfare is entirely defensible, just not purely on human freedom grounds. To understand this, you have to grok that Hayek defined freedom as the absence of coercion and placed a high value on prohibiting government monopolies.
He does not accept the "taxation is theft" maxim, which is why many libertarians dislike him. What he opposes is government action that prevents people from trying new experiments and competing with the state or state-connected actors to provide "essential" services.
Image
What Hayek is saying about "social insurance" is that in theoretical terms a state-supported welfare program could achieve its ends without threatening freedom.
The more sound reason to oppose it, he argues, is that the state apparatus that administers welfare in the modern world inevitably becomes a coercive and monopolistic one. There are strings attached to that money, always: Strings that serve the plans of the bureaucrats, not the individuals receiving the money.
It's fantasy ("illusion") to imagine a government machine powerful enough to administer welfare at nation-state scale while being kept in check against liberty violations. "Democratic control" ain't gonna cut it.
History shows the administrative state certainly never checks itself. This is why the recent Chevron reversal was so crucial. It allows courts, rather than "democracy," to exert more direct constitutional restraint on these agencies, likely to be more effective than Congress "doing something" (LOL).
THE GREATEST DANGER TO LIBERTY TODAY, writes Hayek, comes from the expert class running the bureaucracy for the "public good."
It is INEVITABLE, he says, that such an apparatus will become self-willed, uncontrollable and hegemonic.
Agree or disagree with Hayek's analysis, but does this sound like a guy who endorses anything close to resembling our modern welfare state? Or does it sound like a nuanced thinker conceding that the state could theoretically subsidize welfare in some non liberty-threatening way that he never quite specifies?
Hayek would almost certainly recognize massive problems with the way our current top-down welfare system distorts the market, coercively suppresses competition, and immiserates people. And to invoke him anywhere proximal to single-payer health care is a joke.
I get the criticism from libertarians that Hayek could've been more clear to avoid mischaracterization, or should've been more "hardcore" about opposing all taxation. I'm not arguing that he's that kind of libertarian. And that's OK.
But it's hard for me to see the way Krugman is quoting him here as anything other than a disingenuous way to normalize Harris' proposed expansion of social engineering and an intrusive welfare state.